Stranger in the Room: A Novel by Amanda Kyle Williams Page A

then walked to the carport door. Front doors are for strangers. I avoided the doorbell for the same reason. It goes off, the dogs go off, and what registers is: unfamiliar person. I was hoping for a nice, friendly feeling.
    I tapped on the door and waited, then cupped my hands against the glass-paned door and peeked inside—a lived-in kitchen, bags of chips on the island, a cutting board with traces of green and a couple of avocado shells, tomato seeds, lemons. A covered bowl with traces of dark green guacamole, some empty beer bottles. Beyond that, a den with heavy wood, very traditional décor, glass doors with the grill I’d smelled behind them, a few people in patio chairs with puffy cushions.
    I walked around the side of the house. The first thing I noticed on turning the corner was the big, square, black head lifting up off the wood deck, then the growl, then the bark. The rottweiler was down the steps in two seconds flat and loping straight at me. I heard a couple of people yelling at him through a rush of pure terror. Coarse black fur stood up in a ridge down his back and glistened in the sunlight. He had a head about the size of a mailbox.
    “Tank,
halt
!” A male voice broke through his frenzied charge. Tank stopped on a dime three feet away, licked his lips. His coffee-brown eyes rolled up at me. He started to pant.
    “Hi, Tank.” My voice had a little tremble in it, and it was three octaves higher. Tank’s little black nub tail made a couple of spins. “It’s okay, boy.” Voice coming back to normal. Tank’s tail started to spin like a propeller, then his entire body had started to wag. I stretched my arm out. “Good boy. Okay, come on.”
    He rushed me like some kind of heat-seeking missile, jammed his nose between my legs, and practically lifted me up off the ground. Hewas making snorting sounds. I heard laughing from the deck. “
Tank
. Back off,” commanded a middle-aged white guy in jeans and a T-shirt who was walking quickly toward me. He had a hard beer belly, like he’d swallowed a basketball, and bright blue eyes. Tank sat down, ogled me longingly.
    I tried to recover some dignity. “Mr. Huckaby?”
    “Yes, ma’am, I am. What can I do you for?”
    The deck was silent now, watching Huckaby greet the person who had just interrupted their cookout. “My name is Keye Street. I’m with the Sunset Journeys Urn Company out of Chattanooga.” I said it quietly, but I let all my southern run loose so everything sounded like it had a question mark on the end. I try to keep a handle on the accent most of the time, since
southern
equals
dumbshit
to most of the world. But I’d heard Huckaby’s accent, and I had the idea he’d trust me more readily. “I’m sorry to intrude, but I was in the area and I happened to see your address on a list of people who purchased one of our urns from your funeral-care provider. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
    “Could you get to the point, Miss Street? I’ve got rib eyes waiting.”
    “Well, this is awkward, sir. We’ve had some trouble with that particular style of urn flaking and contaminating the cremains.”
    Huckaby’s smile widened. He grabbed a quick look over his shoulder, lowered his voice. “My mother-in-law was mean as a water moccasin.
She’s
the only thing contaminating those ashes. I don’t give a rat’s behind what happens to her.”
    I tried a different approach. “What I’m trying to say, Mr. Huckaby, is that if the urn is dramatically eroding, then your mean-as-a-snake mother-in-law might end up in a pile on the carpet. Would Mrs. Huckaby give a rat’s behind about
that
?”
    Tank whined a little. I tried not to look at him for fear he’d see it as encouragement. He nuzzled Huckaby’s hand. “What exactly do you want?” Huckaby’s smile had disappeared, and so had a few of the good-old-boy layers.
    “A small sample of the ashes for our lab.” I held my index finger and thumb a quarter inch apart. “Tiny sample,