The Alchemy of Noise

by Lorraine Devon Wilke

  Chris leaned in. “So it’s your perspective that I don’t stand a chance?”

  “That’s not my perspective. But I’m not going to bullshit you either. This is the real world, this is the Chicago court system, and you are a black man accused of sustained criminal activity against a cadre of white people. On top of that, the judge in your case sometimes likes to ‘make a point,’ as he puts it. Make someone an example. Will he decide to do that with you? Decide you need a lesson about staying out of other people’s yards, about scaring nice white ladies, or taking quick peeks in their windows? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he’ll look at the flimsy evidence and throw the whole thing out. We don’t know.”

  “So it’s pretty much lose-lose either way?” Chris said morosely.

  “No, you have options. If you take their offer, you walk away, you do some probation, and you protect yourself civilly. If you don’t take the plea and stick with not guilty, you may be acquitted and walk away free and clear, or you may go to jail for a year, and lose your ass later in civil court.”

  Chris leaned back, rubbed his eyes hard.

  Philip looked at him, not unsympathetically. “Think about it, talk to your girlfriend, talk to Vanessa, to your mother. We’ve got until the trial to make the decision. Now, I must go.” He stood, patting down his irreparably wrinkled suit.

  Chris rose slowly from the table. “Sorry I’m being so uptight—”

  “It’s a lot to take in.”

  Chris reached out. “Thank you, Philip. Everything about this sucks, but I trust your opinion and will give it some thought.”

  Philip somberly shook his hand. “Good, thank you. I hope you can enjoy the holiday season even with all that’s going on. Cold as it is, I do love this time of year!”

  As Philip hustled through the room and out the door, Chris was struck by the fact that he hadn’t even realized it was the holiday season.

  SIXTY-THREE

  WHEN SIDONIE ARRIVED HOME LATER THAT NIGHT, SHE went immediately to the guestroom where Chris was ensconced in the lift chair dressed in sweats, a half-eaten bag of tortilla chips on his lap, and the TV tuned to an incredibly loud British car show.

  “Chris!”

  His head jerked up, startled. “Hey! I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “How could you? I’m surprised the screen hasn’t cracked.” She took the remote from his hand and lowered the volume, then sat on the edge of the bed with something approaching a pout. “Where were you this morning when I left for work? And why didn’t you answer my texts?”

  He had responded to her texts, but had purposely left out answers to “where are you?” “Sorry I left without saying goodbye. I had an early appointment and didn’t want to wake you.”

  “An appointment that required a suit? I saw it hanging in the bathroom last night. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a full-blown suit, which means this was either a breakfast wedding I wasn’t invited to, or something to do with the case.” There was a twinge; she continued to feel like an outsider in the proceedings.

  Frankly, he hadn’t wanted to tell her. He wanted to get through the arraignment without a lot of hoopla, without triggering predictable fears and frustrations. He knew the drip-drip-drip of the case was eroding their joy-and-happiness quotient, and he felt protective of that status. It was hard explaining that to her, particularly when there was ongoing competitiveness between the familial parties involved.

  “The arraignment was this morning. Philip said it would be quick and it was. I was literally in the courtroom for fifteen minutes. No one was there but me and Philip. It was not worth your time to come down.”

  She examined his face, trying to find clues in his expression. Nothing. Finally she just asked. “How did it go?”

  “As expected. I pleaded not guilty. The prosecutor seems okay, the judge is hard to read, but Philip says he’s usually a fair guy. The trial is set for December eighteenth. There was no discussion of fingerprints, and Philip said that with just eyewitness testimony, I stand a good chance.”

  “That’s . . . good, yes?” Something felt off, but she couldn’t identify it.

  “Yeah, I guess.” His attention went back to the TV. He had no intention of divulging the plea deal at this point.

  “Well, great then. Let go to dinner. Let’s do something normal. Remember when we used to do things like go to dinner and act like a couple?” She sounded like a sad wife.

  “I do.” He sighed deeply, “but I’m not in the mood to get dressed up and be around people.”

  “We’ll go someplace sloppy and dark. You can stay in your sweats. I’ll put on mine in solidarity.” She turned and ran up to the bedroom to do just that, yelling behind her, “You can’t call tortilla chips dinner and I’m hungry.”

  He groaned, but raised the chair until he was on his feet. “I will do this for you under heavy protest. But what you see is what you get, messy hair and all. I’m not changing a thing.”

  She came back to the room in blue sweatpants and an oversized cable knit, grinning. “There. Now we both look like slobs.” He rolled his eyes but couldn’t help laughing.

  DINNER WAS AN exercise in forced gaiety, with the sharing of a “naughty” martini, as Sidonie so anachronistically put it, and the perusal of a porn rag left behind at the cash register. They laughed louder than was necessary, indulged in burgers and fries like they used to, and pretended everything was just fine. Normal. At one point Chris leaned in to kiss her, reminding them both of just how lacking intimacy had been of late.

  When it was time to leave, Sidonie helped Chris into his wrinkled jean jacket and gingerly wrapped her arm through his. They made their way slowly down the sidewalk toward the car, and just as she made laughing comment that they could be mistaken for an old homeless couple, they heard a chirpy “Sid?” from behind.

  They turned. There was Theo with what might have been the most beautiful woman in the world. Chris and Sidonie stopped and stared. The two people in front of them were absolutely stunning. With their perfectly constructed outfits of lush scarves and faux fur, skin aglow, and poses of casual insouciance, one might assume a catalogue shoot was underway. Clearly life had improved for Theo since the amends of so many months ago.

  “Wow, Theo . . . hey . . . long time!” Sidonie said with strained enthusiasm.

  “Yeah,” he replied warmly, pulling away from the beautiful woman to offer Sidonie a hug, made clumsy by the fact that Chris still had his arm around her. “How are you? It’s been a while.”

  “Doing . . . great. We just came from dinner over . . . there.” She weakly indicated the down-market burger joint they’d just exited, feeling as unimpressive as she possibly could. In fact, if more divergent contrast could be drawn between two couples, it would be hard to imagine.

  “Looks like a good old greasy spoon. Haven’t been there—we don’t eat meat—but maybe we’ll check out their other items sometime, right, babe?” He turned toward his exquisite partner, who nodded gleefully.

  “If they have the good French fries, I’m all over it!” She smiled with a mouth full of perfect teeth. She had an accent: something Eastern European? “I live on the French fries. Did you ever try them with gravy?” She looked like a woman who hadn’t consumed a French fry since puberty, much less with gravy.

  “Um . . . no, can’t say I have,” Sidonie responded.

  Theo leapt to introductions. “This is Anika. Anika, my ex-wife and current good friend, Sidonie Frame.”

  Sidonie oddly appreciated the qualifier. Anika reached over to shake her hand, gushing:

  “Oh, I’ve heard so much things about you, Sidonie, and, trust me, it’s been all so good. Theo tells to me you were a saint to him, and he was a shit! All I know is, you make him better for me, so, believe me, I appreciate it. Thank you so much!”

  Everything about her declaration was bizarre. Sidonie didn’t have a response other than to smile and turn to Chris, who, she realized, had been silent throughout.

  “And this i
s Chris. He’s the . . . sound manager at The Church,” she said with the slightest tweak in her voice.

  Though Chris subtly cocked his head at the description, the other two were oblivious. Handshakes, smiles, and various inanities were exchanged. It became clear things were officially uncomfortable when the stunning couple started sidestepping gingerly down the sidewalk. The sloppy couple just stood there being sloppy. Giddy goodbyes were offered, some “maybe we should all get together” nonsense, then they were gone.

  Chris immediately turned to Sidonie, incredulous. “‘He’s the sound manager at The Church’? You couldn’t just say, ‘He’s my boyfriend’?”

  She blushed, but went for deflection. “Really, Chris? You’re hurt because I didn’t get personal enough about my personal life with my incredibly shallow ex-husband and his new arm candy?”

  “Maybe not hurt, but damn curious. Were you too embarrassed to introduce a grungy, criminally charged, meat-eating Negro in sweats as your boyfriend?”

  “Chris!” she snapped, honestly angry. “That’s ridiculous. In fact, it’s offensive!”

  “I was kidding—”

  “No, you weren’t! You meant it. There is nothing about you that embarrasses me. Theo may be pretty—hell, he made me feel like a bridge troll half the time and I was his wife—but you are so far beyond him, in every imaginable way, that you could be covered in filth and wrapped in garbage bags and I’d still rather have my arms around you!”

  He took a pause, then grabbed her hand and pulled her slowly into the parking lot. “Not exactly poetry, but I’ll take it.” They affectionately, gently, bumped shoulders and got on with the mechanics of getting his battered body into the car.

  But he was partially right: she had been embarrassed. Not because he was black, not because he wasn’t as good-looking, not even because he was dealing with a criminal case she wouldn’t have mentioned under any circumstances. It was because, for some insipid reason, she wanted Theo to know, to really see, that she’d traded up. And without the superficial trappings he most innately understood, he probably didn’t.

  It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t matter. But, dammit, she wished they’d looked better.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  A SIMPLE SOLUTION. A REPRIEVE. NO THREAT, NO TRIAL, NO panic or fear of outcome. Walk away and hope never to revisit. Fulfill obligations, sign required papers, then go quietly back to life with no further disruptions. It made sense. He owned his own business, so no concerns about criminal records creating obstacles against future employment, against hoped-for advancements and promotions. It was expeditious and predictable. The other option was not.

  But still.

  No contest might not be an admission of guilt, but, as Philip K. Lewis made clear, it confirmed the facts of the case. And there were no facts in this case. There were only miscalculations. Misremembered circumstances. There were presumptions, guessing, faulty identifications and implications. There was the revolting, mortifying accusation of standing at someone’s window peeking inside with lascivious and voyeuristic intent.

  It made him sick to even be seen in that light. To allow that specific charge to be affixed to his name was unacceptable. No future expungement or sealing would erase that stink.

  Still.

  A year in jail? A year?

  Lying in bed next to Sidonie’s warmth, thinking of iron doors and threatening inmates, clangorous locks and overlit cafeterias with bad food and arcane in-house politics, he knew he would not survive a year in jail. Particularly for the crime of standing at someone’s window and peeking inside with lascivious or voyeuristic intent . . . which he did not do. Would never do.

  The dangling rape case triggered a tsunami of dread; he could not even ponder the consequences if they moved forward with that.

  A plea would possibly knock that off the table too. A plea would keep him from jail, would keep guilt from impacting civil proceedings. A plea would make real the facts of the case that he was a trespasser. A peeker.

  Still.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  THERE WAS A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. WHICH WAS ODD. NO one knocked at the door. They either texted from feet away or rang the bell. No one knocked.

  Detectives from the Chicago Police Department knocked.

  “Miss Frame? Sidonie Frame?” The male component of the two-person team standing at the landing took the lead. “I’m Detective Joseph Lieu, this is Detective Marjorie Nunzi.” He was an unremarkable-looking midsize Asian fellow bearing a pleasant, unthreatening expression, likely arranged for the purpose of disarming witnesses. His female counterpart was an even smaller human, possibly not even five feet tall, with short, spiky blonde hair and the air of someone who liked being seen as sassy. Sidonie perversely wondered if they’d been paired because of their height, the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the department.

  “Yes. I’m Sidonie Frame.”

  “We’re investigating the Chris Hawkins case and would like to go over a few things with you, just to verify some items we’re wondering about. We understand you and Mr. Hawkins live here together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could we come in? We only need a few minutes—”

  “Actually, Mr. Hawkins is here at the moment, in the first-floor guest bedroom recovering from the broken bones and various other injuries inflicted the night he was mistakenly identified and your guys beat the living crap out of him.” Her gaze was defiant. She wasn’t sure this was the best way to go—she could hear Karen snapping to calm down and just answer their questions—but this was the first opportunity she’d had to make salient points to anyone from the police department, and she was compelled. “I don’t want to disturb him. Or have him wake up to find police in our living room.”

  Detective Nunzi came up a step; she was still a head shorter than Sidonie. “We understand. Is there somewhere in the neighborhood we could sit and talk, maybe grab a cup of coffee? If not, we’d be happy to get you to and from the station.”

  That had the intended effect. They were shortly seated at a small table in Sidonie’s least favorite coffee shop near Clark, tucked in the grubby section where patrons huddled with endless refills meant to justify table squatting. Sidonie purposely ordered nothing, intent on making clear this was not a visit. The two detectives stirred coffee.

  Detective Lieu led again. “Basically, we’re just trying to get an idea of what you might know related to the night and case in question. There seems to be some confusion about what actually happened, but since positive IDs have been made, we’d like to know what you believe happened.”

  “It’s not about what I believe happened. It’s about what did happen.”

  “Okay, what did happen . . . from your point of view?” Detective Nunzi asked, eyes attentive.

  “Chris is the head manager of the sound department at The Church. We had a very big event that night—the mayor and other city and state leaders were there.” She wanted that point known. “Chris was late getting to the club because his car, his Jeep, which has been having cooling problems, overheated on the street where he stopped. He called me at exactly five twenty—I know, because I looked at my watch when he called—and told me what was happening. He said there was a hose nearby that he would use. He got to the club about twenty minutes later.”

  “Do you know if he—”

  “No, wait—he didn’t tell me about the hose in that conversation. I think he mentioned that later.” Dammit. Now she sounded like she was hedging.

  Nunzi made some notes. “Okay, so he didn’t mention seeing the hose until a later conversation?”

  “That’s right. I think he mentioned it when he first came into the club after he handled the problem. Sorry. I just want to be exact about everything.”

  Lieu looked up with a smile. “That’s fine. We appreciate your clarity. So, do you know if Chris had ever been on that street before?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s not that far from the club, so it’s possible it was a route he’d driven in the past.”
<
br />   “But not walked?”

  “What?”

  “Do you know if he ever walked on that street before?”

  Sidonie was struck by an unnerving thought. Chris’s penchant for wandering around neighborhoods “enjoying the passing vignettes of life” was innocent and poetic in proper context. When faced with a charge of peeking, undeniable suspicion could be ascribed to the activity.

  Nunzi noted Sidonie’s pause. “Did you think of something?”

  “No . . . no. I was just trying to remember if he ever mentioned walking on that street. And he didn’t.”

  “He didn’t mention it or he didn’t walk on that street?”

  “He didn’t mention it.”

  “Would he normally tell you all the streets he might have walked on?”

  “He is someone who enjoys walking, but no. Unless he saw something remarkable, or had a reason to tell me he was on a specific street —like what happened when his car broke down—probably not. Not any more than I would . . . or you would.”

  “Okay.” Lieu nodded as if Sidonie was making perfect sense. “Does Chris ever go out at night without telling you where he’s going or what he’s doing?”

  “Not really. We work together most nights, so we usually come and go together.”

  “He never goes out to visit friends, or have dinner with his family, or just leave the house without telling you where he’s going? Circumstances where you might not know what he’s doing before or after he goes somewhere?”

  She shook her head, confused. This sounded like word salad meant to trip her up. “I don’t know what you’re implying—”

  “We’re not implying anything, Sidonie,” Nunzi chimed in. “We’re just trying to determine if it’s possible that Chris might have been out on certain nights when you didn’t know his whereabouts every minute of his time away.”