After Leonard and Marvin left, I set the door back in place, but it was beyond fixing. I didn’t have any boards to nail over it, so I put a chair under the doorknob. A kitten with anger issues could probably have pushed it over, but it was something.
Me and Brett locked ourselves in the upstairs bedroom just in case our two cast-wearing vigilantes escaped the long arm of the law and came after us.
I said, “What you said about the father, Kincaid, that was solid thinking, baby. We’ve been so certain it was someone who just hated these people for their weirdness, or was one of them, that it didn’t occur to us. We should have considered it, but we didn’t, and that’s why Leonard and I do odd jobs and are not professors of physics.”
“That’s the truth,” Brett said.
“I give you a compliment, and you wound me? You are one mean woman.”
“What about Marvin?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m not saying you’re definitively right and he’s wrong, but he thinks of himself as a detective, and on some level, having been a cop, I think he wants to generally believe they know what they’re talking about. And usually, truth is, they do. But sometimes, a person standing back from it all can point out the obvious.”
She snuggled close. “What made me think of the father, Kincaid, really wasn’t obvious thinking.”
“No?”
“No. It was those two jackasses that broke into our house. Here are two guys that had their hand, a knee, and a rib broke. A couple of bully types, the sort they always tell you if you stand up to them they won’t fight back. But they did.”
“Most of those little schoolyard homilies prove to be false. Bullies are not always cowards, but they are always bullies,” I said. “And they had guns. That helps make you braver, just in case you’re lacking in the courage department.”
“They went to the trouble of figuring out who you two were, and coming here. They wanted revenge. I thought Kincaid might feel the same way. And it turns out he has the money to make it happen.”
“It was good thinking,” I said. “I was thinking the law got Godzilla, so what’s for Kincaid to do? It was taken care of. But it wasn’t my son. Had it been, I might not be so easily satisfied.”
“I’m going to change the subject.”
“Okay.”
She ran her hand down my side. “Want to make love?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’m no idiot.”
“No mouse ears and Leonard took his hat back.”
“We’ll just pretend.”
“I can squeak like a mouse.”
“Baby, you say the sweetest things.”
We made love and fell into an uneasy sleep. Or at least my sleep was uneasy. Within seconds, Brett was sawing logs. Me, I lay there for a while and wondered what would have happened had Leonard not been there with me tonight.
The answer was obvious.