by Dan Taylor
I expect Grace to be listening in, and for her to put the phone back to her ear any second, but all I can hear are baby noises. So I say it louder.
Then, after a pause, Grace says, “Jesus, Jake, you scared the life out of her.”
“You didn’t hear me the first time.”
“I did. I thought you were saying that to her.”
“Why would I say ‘I’m done’ to my daughter?”
“I don’t know. But maybe you could be a little clearer when you’re done talking to her, like by saying ‘Over and out’?”
“Over and out?”
“Or something clearer. It was just a suggestion.”
“Do I need to salute her when I pass her in the corridor, too?”
My phone starts vibrating in my hand. I look at the number, and say to Grace, “I’ve got another call, honey. It might be another gig.”
“At this time?”
“Gotta go, honey. See you soon.”
I hang up, and stare at the vibrating phone a couple seconds, not knowing what to do. Could it be her just phoning me to confirm she’d phoned her brother?
I cross my fingers, accept the call, and put the phone to my ear. What Tracy Lucy says makes me put my knuckle in my mouth and bite down hard on it like I just woke up with a hangover and remembered slapping my boss’s ass at the office Christmas party.
6.
“Tracy, calm down,” I say. “It’s not that bad.”
“You think it’s funny, making someone who’s ill think they’re more ill than they actually are?”
Deep down, I knew it was a long shot that I’d nailed the Tracy Lucy problem—though I probably would have, if not for one fatal error. Right after I left, Tracy discovered she’d received a voicemail message, from the phone she didn’t receive the number to a week ago. That’s a huge error in and of itself, but it gets worse, as the owner of that phone, I, having claimed to be a delusion of her insane mind, had asked her in the aforementioned voicemail message what she’d told her brother. She’s also reminded me a few times that I called her a crazy bitch.
Of the seventeen holes in the story I’d come up with, this wasn’t one of them. And it’s a big hole. As she explains now: “How can you be a figment of my imagination if you left a voicemail message?”
“Would you believe me if I said hallucinations can leave voicemail messages?”
“You’re a pig.”
“Tracy…”
“What?”
“I admit, I should’ve come clean. But I will now. It’s better late than never. Isn’t that what people always say, for all circumstances?”
“You nearly had me back in Shady Acres; I was going out of my mind. Literally.”
I hate when people say literally, but I ignore it and say, “Are you ready for it, the reason why I said all that stuff?”
“As long as it’s not a crock, sure.”
It’s probably too late to go with the assassin story. She’s likely to lose her shit more than she already has, which would spell trouble for me. But then again, the truth is likely to land me in just as much trouble. It’s a pickle. So I say, “I’m coming back to your house,” and then decide to turn around at the next available opportunity.
“Don’t! I’ve taken some pills.”
“How many?”
“Enough.”
“Enough meaning the recommended dosage or…?”
“Enough so that my psychiatrist would freak.”
“Don’t do anything crazy, Tracy.”
“I already have.”
“Good point. Do exactly what I say: Go in the bathroom, lean over the toilet bowl, forget about no one being there to hold your hair, and then put your fingers down your throat. You don’t want to do this.”
“I do and already have.” She scoffs. Then she says, “I loved you, Jake. Do you know that? I actually loved you. Literally.”
I bite my tongue, and say, “Wow, what a huge compliment. Thanks!”
I think she might be vomiting, having followed my advice, as she’s making a sound that’s close to it, but then I realize she’s making an oinking sound.
“Tracy, this isn’t helping.” Figuring it’s an emergency, I don’t wait for the appropriate opportunity to turn around, and start doing so in the middle of the road.
“I tell you I love you, and you thank me for the compliment.”
“In my defense, you said loved, past tense; and also in my defense…” I think a second. “It was a nice thing to say to me. To thank you for the compliment seemed like the appropriate response.”
“The appropriate response would be to say it back, you worthless pig.”
I’m five maneuvers into doing a U-turn, and have only managed to turn around a net gain of ninety degrees. The three cars unable to make it past me are beeping their horns. I hold up my hand to placate them, and put on a worried face, hopefully letting them know it’s a medical emergency.
“Tracy, you’re not being fair. I’m not a worthless pig.”
“So you don’t love me back?”
“Past tense, Tracy. Why would I say I love you back if you use the past tense? That doesn’t seem fair. I could say I loved you back, but that seems like a really weird thing to say.”
“Don’t talk to me about fair, mister.”
We’re getting nowhere, so I say, “Have you made it to the toilet yet?”
“No. I’m at the opposite place to the toilet.”
“Your bed? The couch? I don’t get it.”
“The second one.”
“How’s that the opposite of toilet?”
“You wouldn’t want to throw up there, or go two.”
“Then get up, walk over to your toilet, and throw those pills up.”
“Nah. I’m good. It’s pretty cozy here on the couch. I think I’ll just chill out with some Netflix as the warm darkness envelopes me.”
“Have you at least phoned your brother yet?”
“I should’ve known it.”
“Known what?”
“Here I was thinking you cared about me, enough to drive back here, and all you care about is if I’ve told my brother yet we’re not romantically involved.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I totally did. “He could help you out of this mess.”
I’m finally turned around. When I glance in the rearview mirror, the driver behind me is shaking his head.
“That’s not what you meant.”
I’m sensing a lack of seriousness, which could mean one of two things: A) Tracy hasn’t actually took the pills, or if she has, she’s taken the recommended dosage, or B) Tracy really has snapped, to the point where her diseased mind thinks watching some shitty TV series on Netflix as she foams at the mouth is a good way to go.
Considering what I know about Tracy, I assume the latter, and decide to play hard ball. “Tracy, I’m going to hang up and phone an ambulance. If you’re kidding, this would be a good time to let me know, as shit’s about to get really serious, or embarrassing.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
“I’ll do it.”
“I’m waiting.”
A couple seconds later, I haven’t hung up, and Tracy says, “I might be mentally ill, but I fully understand this situation from your perspective. You’re worried about getting busted.”
“Busted for what? Being a good Samaritan, helping a friend out in a time of need?”
“No, you don’t want Hornet Grapevine to find out about us, do you?”
“I already told you she doesn’t exist. Literally.”
“One, you’re not using that right. And two, I was being facetious. When I said Hornet Grapevine, I meant the name of your real wife. The one that probably has Hancock as her second name.”
“Oh, you’re one messed-up puppy.”
“I’m not the guy who’s married, going around telling women he’s a hitman so he can get them into bed.”
“That was banter. I thought we were bantering. That would be a terrible way
to seduce women.”
I thump the steering wheel, as there’s a traffic jam ahead, and inadvertently hit the horn.
Enjoying the conversation now, Tracy says, “Have I struck a nerve? There are three by the way.”
“Three what?”
“Women with Hancock as their surname registered as living in Hollywood. Let me see.” There’s a pause, and then Tracy says, “There’s one called Pattie, a Ginny, and a Grace. I think I’ll start with Grace. Those other two sound like old lady names.”
Damn it. I take a drastic measure and speed around the queue, which I notice has only formed because the driver at the front is rubber-necking, looking at a kid who’s crying by the side of the road, the front wheel of his bike all bent out of shape.
When I’m past them, I say, “Feel free. You’re only going to sound like a lunatic asking them if they’re married to a Jake Hancock.”
“Until I say it to the one you’re married to. Then, not so much.”
I hang up, place my cell on the dashboard, and then increase my speed to ten miles per hour above the speed limit.
Five minutes later, I arrive at Tracy’s duplex. The neighbor, the jerk, watches me parking, and waves and smiles the same way I did, mocking me.
After I turn off the engine and am about to get out of my car, I glance over at Tracy’s side of the duplex, and realize something isn’t right.
7.
Her front door’s open. Ajar.
Weird, unless I left it that way.
I get out, close the driver-side door behind me, and press the button on the remote control key to lock it.
I walk over to her duplex and go through the front door. I close it behind me, and say, “Tracy?”
Having gotten no response, I go through to the living room, expecting to see her sitting on the couch, watching the ugliest show on Netflix, dabbing away tears with a handkerchief, but she isn’t there. She isn’t in her kitchen either, where I pick up a bread knife. I also turn off a stovetop, which is keeping an unsavory-looking stew at a rolling boil.
“Tracy? Are you home? Are you at least okay?”
No response.
“I’m freaking out, Tracy. And I’m definitely going to phone an ambulance this time.”
Again, no response.
Things start looking up when I find her in the toilet, her head in the bowl, which jars me. “Jesus, you scared the crap out of me.” She moves a little, slumping down farther into the toilet bowl. I say, “Did you manage to get all the pills up?”
I realize I’m standing behind her holding a knife, and put it behind my back. I place the knife down beside the washbasin, and go up to her. “Tracy?”
Then I realize why Tracy can’t respond.
She hasn’t fallen asleep, she’s not reading a magazine, and she hasn’t decided this would be a good time to do a deep clean of the U-bend in her toilet.
Tracy’s dead.
8.
I lift her head up by her hair just to make sure. There’s no need to take a pulse, as her face is twisted into a frightening grimace, and she has the complexion of one of those kids who always wears a sunhat with the mullet of material draping down the back of their neck.
I take her pulse anyway, and don’t feel a beat for ten seconds, and go ahead and make the huge leap she probably doesn’t have a ridiculously long heart murmur.
My head starts spinning, and for a moment I think I’ll have to move Tracy so I can vomit in the bowl myself.
I have to get out of there, so I do. I wait outside the bathroom, and take huge gulps of air, panicking.
I go back into the living room to look for her cell phone, but don’t find it on the coffee table, where I saw her put it before I left.
So I go back to the bathroom, preparing myself for a couple seconds before I go in by telling myself everything’s going to be okay. I even say a little a prayer, opening by telling God I’m sorry I haven’t checked in since Christmas Eve mass 1985, and then ask him to make Tracy okay again.
As he’s hopefully doing his magic, I go up to Tracy, apologize to her, and then check her pants for her cell phone, finding it in her pocket.
I take it out and find it locked. Damn it.
I put it in my pocket, and in my desperation I go upstairs to her bathroom—the one I remembered peeing in the morning I woke up in Tracy’s duplex. I search through her medicine cabinet, to look for the pills she’s overdosed on. Behind her toothbrush is a stash of anti-psychotics. I read the label, my hand shaking. I note what they are, and look at the date she got them, her latest prescription. Two days ago. I take off the cap and look inside. If there are some missing, she hasn’t taken enough to overdose. And that packet of gel to absorb any moisture is still there.
I frown, and then go back downstairs to Tracy. I lift her head up again, apologizing profusely, and check for signs of vomit. There’s some on her chin, and a main course of it in the toilet bowl. And there’s also blood.
There isn’t a single pill in the toilet bowl, not that I can see, though I refuse to put my hand in there to check.
I’m no doctor, but it looks like Tracy hasn’t succumbed to a drug overdose. It looks like she’s been poisoned.
9.
I should phone the police, maybe an ambulance, though the latter won’t be able to help Tracy. Their gig here would be purely logistical. I should’ve probably tried to resuscitate her. But I’m not doing any of those things. Instead, I’m sitting on her couch, staring at her phone, trying to work out what a woman I know almost nothing about would use as the code for her cell phone.
Then I realize what a dummy I am.
I hold my thumb on the button at the bottom of the phone, and after a second the screen shakes to and fro, informing me my thumb print wasn’t accepted, and I say, “Yes!” under my breath.
I then go back to Tracy, and, feeling like a bastard for doing it, I hold the thumb of her left hand on the button. The screen shakes again, so I try the right thumb and it works. I’ve gained access to her phone.
I go back to the living room, and navigate to recent calls she’s made. The last outgoing call was to me, ten minutes ago. I look down the list, hoping to see the contact list ‘Brother’ listed, or some other male name, and find a few. But none of those calls were made before I visited Tracy.
She didn’t make the call she said she was going to, which doesn’t come as a huge surprise.
My circumstances dawn on me. I’m sitting in the duplex of a lady who’s been poisoned, and who’s told her brother she’s romantically involved with me, and I’m a married man. I’m the last person she phoned, and the last person to visit her, excluding the killer. My prints are all over her bathroom, and probably my DNA too.
I haven’t killed Tracy, but it’s a slam dunk for the prosecution when this thing inevitably goes to trial. They have motive, they have evidence, and they have a message I left on her voicemail calling her a crazy bitch. If all that wasn’t bad enough, they also have a witness—an L.A.P.D detective, no less—who can and will testify to my denying knowing her.
All that’s a whole load of proverbial hitting a really large and fast moving fan. I’ll be locked up for life.
But all that isn’t what I’m worried about.
That would be Grace, who’ll find out I spent the night at Tracy Lucy’s duplex, and ran out with my shirt unbuttoned and flapping in the wind the next morning.
Would Grace think I’m the killer? She loves me, but if the situation were reversed, and Grace had spent the night at some crazy guy’s duplex, and they’d argued, and she was caught back at his duplex, he murdered, her talking some shit about some other person must’ve poisoned him, hell yeah I’d think Grace did it.
I wouldn’t tell her that to her face, or say it to family members and friends, but in the privacy of my home I would. I’d say it like a crazy guy, hair unwashed, as I stared into the bathroom mirror, cursing her name as I asked how she could destroy our simple life like this.
And n
o matter how much she pleaded, saying it wasn’t her, snot dribbling down her nose and tears flooding out her eyes, she’d never change my mind.
I also wouldn’t let her have anything to do with my baby daughter, which is a moot point, as the only opportunity she’d get is looking at her through a Plexiglas window at an all-female penitentiary.
After thinking about all this, I know what I need to do to make this all right.
I need to find Tracy’s killer. And I need to do it tonight.
10.
If I can do that, I can apprehend them, or even just provide irrefutable evidence to his having committed it, and all I become is the hero who found the guy—or gal. The papers don’t dig up dirt on the hero, investigating his relationship to the woman whom he gained justice for.
All I need to do is to delete any evidence of my relationship with Tracy. The first thing I do is delete the voicemail message I left. To do so, I have to listen to the whole message first. I cringe when I hear my own voice.
With that done, I go to delete the outgoing call Tracy made to me, but stop myself, thinking a second. If I have no relationship to Tracy, then what would I be doing here, catching her killer? And even if I delete the outgoing call record on her phone, her telecommunications provider will still have it on record that she phoned my cell phone the night she was killed. I decide against deleting it.
I put the figuring out of the details of my relationship to Tracy, how I came to be here tonight, and why I denied knowing her to her brother on the back burner, and start thinking about who or why Tracy was killed.
The vast majority of people who are murdered are killed by someone they know. I have no stats, but when you factor in that the victim was poisoned, and there was no forced signed of entry, or no sign of a struggle—which there isn’t, not if you don’t consider Tracy’s bunny rabbit slippers being set down askew by her couch a sign of struggle—then there’s pretty much zero chance that the murderer didn’t know Tracy.
