Cleanup on Aisle Six

by Daniel Stallings

  Li knew it was potentially explosive, but tested the waters anyway. “And I remind you of this cat?”

  Reuben’s cheeks reddened to that warm cinnamon shade. “You were starving and suffering when I met you. You are way too skinny, and I can see how badly you want to go home. You couldn’t even stop the tears at the slightest mention of your family. How could I not help you? How could I walk by and pretend that you didn’t need at least some kind of human compassion? But then you kept asking and asking and asking about Oscar.” Reuben’s eyes darkened. Li retreated an inch. “It started to feel like you were deliberately trying to hurt me. Maybe you were just trying to understand what I’m going through, but I want you to understand that I take things to heart really easily. What Oscar did was tantamount to murder. He hurt me with fear and panic and horror and … and all sorts of emotions I couldn’t control. I’m struggling to let it all go, so that I don’t end up destroying the most important relationships in my life.”

  Li saw Reuben’s eyes drift over to Noah in the kitchen. The look of agony and longing was almost too much to stomach. This secret was starting to tear them apart. And Reuben was at a loss over what to do to fix it.

  Li took one more hazardous dip. “You think you’re hurting Noah?”

  Reuben’s brown eyes swung to Li. In their gaze was a deep, dark abyss of misery and the tiniest flicker—maybe an appeal, a desperate cry for any kind of help. “The Rodriguez boys will never hurt the ones they love.”

  Noah’s voice, a dash hesitant, called out from the kitchen. “Everything okay over there?”

  Reuben sniffed abruptly and rubbed his eyes with his forearm. “Yeah, everything’s fine, babe. Better than fine.” He forced a weak, trembling, unconvincing smile.

  Three swift, soft knocks. A trio of faces turned to the apartment door. None of them moved, perhaps in a united worry about finding the police on the other side. The knocking came again, swifter, sharper. Noah crossed to the door.

  It wasn’t the police. It was a young, pale stick figure of a man with mousy hair, an oversized sweatshirt, and thin glasses. He wrung his long fingers together. “Is … Is there a Liam Johnson here?”

  Li craned his neck to get a better look. “Jason? What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”

  Noah glanced at him. “You know him, Li?”

  “He’s in my English class. He sits next to me. Jason, what’s going on?”

  Jason Lindstrom stuttered forward. “Li, my dad has been murdered, and I don’t know what do!”

  CHAPTER 12

  Unexpected Guests

  Noah, ever the host, invited their unexpected guest for dinner.

  The revelation that he was, in fact, Oscar Lindstrom’s son sat rather less comfortably with the others. Reuben seemed to curl in on himself, withdrawing from conversations and answering only in monosyllables. His eyes were dark. Noah played defense between his boyfriend and Jason, a few stripes of strain pulling at his usually easy smile.

  Li was silent, watching, thinking.

  Jason lifted a spoonful of soup and let the broth drizzle back into the bowl without tasting it. “This has to be extremely awkward for all of you.” His thin, high voice played out like a dirge from a reed flute. “I didn’t know what else to do. I … I remembered Li. He’s been a good listener when it comes to my problems at home with Dad. I needed help. I, um, I followed him here and spent most of the time in the hallway trying to muster the courage to knock.”

  Li remembered Jason talking to him from the adjacent desk, always couching his stories and anecdotes in “a friend of a friend has a problem.” When it was something really personal—and really painful—the relation to this person became more and more nebulous: “my stepmother’s uncle’s cousin’s dentist’s podiatrist’s daughter’s teacher’s dog walker.” Any wonder why Li started to believe the problems were Jason’s? He just never knew that Oscar was Jason’s father. Until now.

  Jason doled out more soup, sipped, poured the rest back in the bowl. “It feels like the police are crawling all over the place. They know I left the house. They … I think they suspect … They won’t leave me alone! I’m scared. I’ve been scared since before Dad died. I-I tried to talk to Li earlier. It … It was the night Dad … was murdered. You see …” He twisted his fingers together, forming bizarre Gordian knots. “… I had to escape from him. I’ve always had to. He kept me a prisoner. He wouldn’t let me go to college. I was to be his assistant, his slave. I’ve been his slave since I was a kid. I … I just had to get out!” His voice cracked.

  Li employed the same tone he used before on Jason in class—soothing, even, very gently probing. Force didn’t work here. Finesse was key. “So our class on Wednesdays was your ticket to freedom.”

  Jason nodded. “I snuck out of the house every Wednesday night and caught the bus to Shorewood Community College. I couldn’t stay trapped with Dad. He was depriving me of a future. My Dad’s second wife sent me to a private boarding school. It was amazing. Not necessarily the school itself, but being on my own, being away from him. I actually had friends! But then Dad got divorced and I was shipped back home. Back to prison.”

  “You typically snuck out of your house on Wednesdays. But your father died Sunday night. So why did you leave the house that night?” The question was mild—a nudge, not a shove.

  “I needed to talk to someone. I thought about you, Li. You were always willing to listen. So I snuck out and went to your apartment, but you weren’t home.”

  That’s because Li was working one deadly evening shift. “Why did you want to see me? Was everything okay?”

  “Things … Things at home were looking serious. Dad resigned from The Shorewood Gazette on Saturday. I never thought he would do something like that. He loved having an audience. He loved being in control. And when I’d sneak into his office to work on my English papers, I’d find all sorts of weird stuff. An application to the LA Times to be a food critic. House listings down there. Change of address forms. You see, my dad could be criminally vain and didn’t think twice about leaving all sorts of incriminating stuff around. He thought no one was as observant or clever as him. That’s how I learned about the dozens of mistresses he had. By him leaving receipts for flowers and jewelry or awful love letters around. So when I saw the stuff about LA, I knew Dad was planning something big. Only it hadn’t happened yet. He didn’t tell us about moving. In any way. It … It was like there was still one more step he had to do before we could know about his plans. Whatever they were.”

  So Oscar did resign from the newspaper. Just like the unknown Frank had said. Could it be …? “Did your father know anyone named Frank by any chance?”

  If Jason found the inquiry odd, it didn’t show. “I think just Frank Dixon, his former boss at The Gazette. He’s the editor-in-chief of the paper.” A shadow passed over his ghostly face. “Come to think of it, things at the paper were weird lately too. Dad … Dad treated it like a conquest. I mean, he treated the whole world like it was his personal property, but I got the feeling he had some sort of coup at The Gazette. He’d brag about it in vague terms, like ‘Frank is soon going to eat his words’ and ‘He should have thought twice before firing Juliana.’ Then he’d make these oblique references about the mayor and his wife, like ‘They won’t be on their high horse for long’ and ‘The Hendersons should watch their words.’ But he’d never come out and say anything definite. Just hints.”

  Sounds like he was holding something over their heads. Could this be the connection between Frank and Connie? Were they Frank Dixon and Constance Henderson? Did Oscar blackmail them? That would be a powerful motive for murder. “Who’s Juliana?”

  Jason’s bony shoulders jerked into a shrug, one of indifference rather than ignorance. “Used to be a reporter colleague of his. Juliana Esposito. I think she worked politics. Mostly front page stuff. Dad did have dinner with her a few times after she lost her job. But he entertained a lot of his colleagues. Luanne Clemmons from lifestyle, Tom Delancey fro
m sports, Paul Taggert and Jessie Molina from the front page, Keith Bryers from obits, Sheila Davenport from book reviews, and even Frank Dixon. We saw a lot of Frank.”

  Li took a few healthy slurps of his soup, keeping his face peaceful and his voice nonchalant. But he wanted this next bit of information badly. It was like Jason had started the ignition to Li’s machine of a brain, now incapable of shutting down until every last fact was absorbed, itemized, and stored. “Your dad didn’t have many friends, did he? He viewed these people as colleagues, right?”

  Jason snorted. “If you think my father viewed anybody as an equal, then you need to get an MRI on your skull. Oh sure, he’d make an effort to play along, just to keep some of them quiet. Some of his colleagues would stop by the house or they’d go out to dinner at a fancy place. I was never allowed to be seen, of course. But nobody was fooled. He had no friends. Not that he wanted any. He’d just criticize them, find everything that was wrong with them. The only one he thought was perfect was my latest stepmom, Kathryn.”

  Li lifted an eyebrow at the sourness that tinged Jason’s voice. Jealousy? Hatred? Before he could ask something else, Noah cut in. “Was he a perfectionist?”

  Everyone at the table stared at Noah, whose face matched the tomato sauce on the second course: spaghetti and meatballs.

  The calm Li had settled over the proceedings shattered. Jason snapped back to the reality of the dinner, the strangers around him. His pale, somber face flushed scarlet, and he tried to hide his sudden tears by staring into his untouched soup. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Agreed.” Reuben spoke up, his face hacked from the hardest stone, his eyes mutinous. “Let’s just eat and call it a night.”

  The next few minutes of slurping, chewing, and silence made Thanksgiving with your worst enemies look like a celebration.

  Jason didn’t eat. He continued to stare into the soup. It was some time before they realized he was salting it with his tears.

  “Jason?” Li asked, concern rising.

  Oscar’s son strangled the spoon handle in his fist. “He was a monster.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if—”

  “He was a cold, mean, heartless, abusive, lying, cruel son of a BITCH!”

  Jason’s shout, loud enough to set off a car alarm, made them all jump. Spoons clattered. Chairs squawked. Jason’s breathing deepened, and his magnified eyes glowed with venom. An emotional time bomb just exploded, and they were all going to feel its wrath.

  “He never loved me! He hated me! He thought I was stupid! He thought, because my mom died in labor, that I killed her! He blamed me! He tortured me! All my life! Perfectionist? HA! He was a LUNATIC! ‘Perfection can be perfected,’ he’d tell me! Over and over and over and OVER! I was going crazy! He was Satan to me! The worst human being ever created! He was a sadist! I constantly prayed that someone would kill him! But NO! All I got in return was THIS!”

  Jason yanked up the huge sleeve on his two-sizes-too-big sweatshirt and slammed his arm on the dining table, making the bowls and silverware bounce and soup flood the tabletop. His burn scars stood out sharply against his colorless skin. The other three gaped at them, triple looks of worry and fear in their eyes.

  Jason’s screeching voice withered into wet, ugly sobs. “He used to dump lye or bleach or whatever kind of chemicals into the tub and make me take a bath in it. It burned every inch of my body. And no one would stop it. He liked to say it was a cleansing experience for me. I think he just wanted to watch me burn, watch me suffer, listen to me howl and scream. He would just LAUGH at me!” Swift as a blink, Jason launched away from the table and his stunned companions, buried his face in his hands, and bawled.

  Li was the first to move. He tiptoed toward his classmate. His voice returned to the placid, placating tone he favored. “Jason? Come sit down. You’re with friends now. It’s all over. No one will hurt you like that ever again. I promise.”

  Jason’s sobs dissolved into hiccups.

  Li placed a light hand on Jason’s upper arm, not squeezing, just supporting. “Take deep, easy breaths. There you go. You’re safe here.”

  Reuben and Noah gawked at them, watching Li handle Jason with the competence of a well-trained nursemaid.

  “Easy does it. It’s okay. No one will hurt you.” Li maneuvered the calming man back to his seat.

  “He hurt me. My own father.”

  “And he won’t hurt you ever again. We’re here for you, Jason.”

  Jason hiccuped and wiped away his tears. “I-I-I’m sorry. I lost it. Dad … he … I …”

  “It’s okay. We understand. You needed this. Talk only when you want to.”

  Jason’s breathing settled, but there were two florid spots of color high on his cheekbones. His eyes looked like a violent sunset, burning amber amid blood red. “It’s been hell. For a long time. Probably ever since the crap that happened at Bauer.”

  Li heard a sharp intake of breath. An angry hiss. A strong reaction to that name. Who or what is Bauer?

  Jason plowed forward. “But even in death, my father had to make things difficult. I don’t know what’s going on, and it terrifies me. Things are so backwards and confused.” In stuttering words, Jason described the police findings in the office, especially what the neighbors knew and that silhouette of Oscar Lindstrom. “It doesn’t make any sense! What did Dad do? And who killed him?”

  Li looked Jason square in the face. “Do you have any ideas who did it?”

  Jason paused, then shook his head. “No, I don’t. I just know I didn’t do it. As much as I wanted to. He made so many people angry that it could be the entire city banded together to bump him off, for all I know. Do you have any ideas who did it, Li?”

  Li hesitated and sized up each word before he spoke. “Well … if I had to hazard a guess … I’d have to say his wife was involved somehow.”

  “Kathryn?” The reed flute in his throat shrieked, a pitch that was almost exclusive to dogs and bats. “Murder? No way! That’s not how she would hurt someone! Ever!”

  Li had to wonder how Kathryn would hurt someone. “It’s practically a cliché. Wives murdering husbands, husbands murdering wives. As his wife, Kathryn Lindstrom has an obvious motive. I’m sure his money would go to her, particularly if he was so disparaging toward you, Jason. Maybe she didn’t want to be married to an abusive man anymore. Also, there are ways of being involved other than just holding the weapon.”

  And Li’s ears caught, just barely, the sound of someone swallowing hard. A nervous gulp?

  Jason shook his head even harder than all the other times. “Never. Kathryn wouldn’t kill Dad. In any way. She adored him. She babied him. She acted more like his mother than his wife. And Dad could find no fault in her. She was the perfect everything, the textbook by which the rest of us mere mortals should live by. Kathryn was his queen.” His voice dropped as low as it could. “Maybe even more so than my mother.” He shoved himself away from the table, fingers locking together in weird knots again. He avoided all eye contact. “I-I’m so sorry. I-I’ve totally ruined the evening. I should go home. Kathryn will be … I should just get home right now.” As an afterthought: “Thanks.”

  Li jolted to his feet. “Jas—?”

  Jason bolted from the apartment, the door banging shut behind him.

  No one had any appetite after all that.

  “Quite a night, huh?”

  Reuben grunted, grabbed a book from the nightstand, and plopped into bed.

  Noah slid in next to him. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make that soup again for a while.” He glanced at his boyfriend, searching, waiting.

  Reuben said nothing. He stared at the open book, his mouth fixed in a firm line.

  Noah sighed and opened his own book.

  Five minutes passed.

  “I was thinking of trying out this recipe for a cobbler my grandmother sent me. Sound good?”

  No response.

  Three minutes passed.

  �
�Reuben, I think we should sell the apartment and start living on the streets.”

  Still no response.

  One minute later.

  Noah frowned. “Babe, I’m sleeping with your lesbian cousin, Julia.”

  Reuben’s eyes narrowed, showing only the thinnest slit of dark abyss.

  “Reuben!”

  “Why won’t he let it go?”

  Noah watched him, brow creased, eyes wide and wondering. It was the first time Reuben spoke all night. It was then he realized that Reuben hadn’t turned the pages of his book since he got in bed.

  Reuben’s words were raw and rough around the edges. Like unsanded stone. “He won’t stop. He won’t let it go. He just can’t help himself. He just keeps poking and prying, and I can’t take it anymore.”

  “Honey?”

  “Why won’t he stop? He promised. He said he wouldn’t. And he practically weaseled all that stuff out of that kid. What’s wrong with him? Why does he do this?”

  “Reuben, talk to me.”

  “Does he know? He can’t know. He just can’t. What would he do if he found out?”

  Noah touched his boyfriend’s hand. Reuben yelped, as if Noah’s fingertips carried an electric shock. He flung his book away from him. The stone mask chipped, cracked, and crumbled away, allowing the terror and misery to come fully alive on Reuben’s face. Reuben turned to Noah, eyes desperate and watering.

  Noah held his hand, squeezing it. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt an urgent sense of now-or-never. “Reuben, you have to tell me what’s wrong. Please don’t keep me out of this. I love you. I want to help you. Please.”

  A thick tear oozed down Reuben’s cheek. “I’m scared. I’m really scared. We didn’t do anything wrong. Fern and I were just angry. We weren’t going to hurt him. I swear.” His lip quivered, jarring another tear. “I can’t stop thinking about Desireé.”

  In the dream, Jason was seven years old. In the dream, the monster had acid-green skin, yellow snake eyes, oily remnants of hair, a forked tongue, and a smile glinting with bear trap teeth. The Monster he called “Dad.”