Blood Marks by Bill Crider

Author:Bill Crider [Crider, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Crime
Publisher: Crossroad Press

Chapter 23

Howland wondered what had happened to him.

He woke up feeling better than he had in weeks, months probably. Surely it couldn't be the result of having spent five or six hours in the company of Alma Remington. Could it?

Maybe it could. He had found himself relaxing in her apartment even more than he had in the restaurant, found himself talking about things he hadn't talked to anyone about in years—the kind of movies he liked (he liked cop movies with lots of violence), the kind of music he listened to (country and western), the kind of TV shows he watched (he watched "Cops" and thought it was by turn realistic and fakey).

It turned out that Alma shared only one of his enthusiasms, country music, but it also turned out that it didn't matter. She listened to him tell about the movies he had seen, and he listened to her tell about Woody Allen pictures.

"I think he's very funny," she said. "Just looking at him makes me want to smile."

Howland didn't especially agree, but he had to admit that some of Allen's movies were pretty funny. He liked Radio Days a lot.

Both of them usually rented their films instead of watching them in the theater.

"I never really have time to go to a theater," Howland admitted. "I have pretty strange hours, and I'm always on call."

Alma rented for a different reason, but she didn't explain it. She had plenty of time on her hands, most every evening, in fact. The only company she ever entertained was Stinky, and he would not have minded if she left him there while she went to a movie.

But she never went. She didn't like the idea of going alone. There was something about being the only person in the theater who wasn't with someone else that bothered her. Seeing all the couples laughing and talking, sharing cold drinks and popcorn, holding hands, all those things made her feel out of place and even more lonely than she felt while sitting in front of her TV set at home. So she rented movies.

All she said was, "I like to rent because it's so convenient. You don't have to dress up or anything."

Howland even found that he didn't dislike Stinky. He didn't exactly like him, either, but he didn't hate him.

As for Stinky, he couldn't have cared less whether Howland was there or not. He ignored Howland completely, being satisfied to get a good head rub from Alma and then going out for his evening look at the flower beds.

Howland wasn't much of a wine drinker, being partial to beer, but he thought the zinfandel wasn't bad. It wasn't really a white wine, or at least it didn't look white. It definitely had a tinge of red in it, and Howland guessed that was why he liked it. He thought drinking white wine was a little bit effete for a cop, especially a homicide cop.

The evening had gone fast, and before he left he had discovered that Alma Remington wasn't as ordinary as he had thought.

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