What You Want to See

by Kristen Lepionka

  “I’m sorry to show up here,” a voice said, low but feminine.

  “Leila?” I said. I fumbled for my phone with my other hand and turned on the flashlight.

  In the pale glow of the screen, I saw that she was sitting on the top step outside my door, knees to her chest. She had blood on her—a lot of blood. On her face, her neck, her arm, her shirt. She was clutching a wad of brown paper towels to her shoulder, blood running between her fingers.

  Catherine let out a choked cry.

  I rushed up the steps. “Jesus Christ, what happened?”

  “This is the one place he would not expect me to come,” she murmured.

  Catherine came up to the landing, bumping into me in the dark. “Leila, oh my God.” She dropped to a crouch next to Leila and moved her hands away from the paper towel. “Let me take a look at this.”

  “It’s bleeding less now,” Leila said. Her voice was weak, unsteady.

  “Oh, fuck,” Catherine said. Her hand gripped my ankle. “Roxane, I think she’s been shot. This is bad. She needs to go to a hospital—”

  “No.” Leila cleared her throat. “I can’t. No. The police.”

  I abandoned my efforts with the door and crouched down, shining my flashlight over her. “Let me see,” I said, knowing the instant I peeled away the paper towel that this was beyond any bathroom patch-up job I was capable of. There was a slick black hole in the hollow between her collarbone and shoulder joint, nearly spurting blood with each breath she took. “You need a doctor.”

  “Just get it out.”

  “I’m calling 911—”

  “No, no, you can’t. He’ll kill me.”

  “Who will?”

  “Nate,” Leila murmured. “Just get it out.”

  I was afraid she was going to pass out in my lobby. Clearly the rundown on what had happened would need to wait. “Leila, I can’t. You need to see a doctor.”

  Leila whimpered, her eyes closed, shaking her head. “I’ll just leave, sorry…”

  Catherine touched my shoulder. “I have an idea. Leila, would you let a doctor examine you if it’s somewhere safe, and private?”

  Leila didn’t answer at first, but then she nodded. “If it’s safe.”

  I looked at Catherine. “What?”

  “I’ll explain later. Let me make a phone call.”

  * * *

  Catherine had taken a cab over to Olde Towne, but since she’d barely touched her drink, she got behind the wheel of my rental car. I rode in the backseat with Leila, doing my best with a shirt to stanch the blood flow. For the second time in a week. Leila’s head was in my lap, her eyes narrowed and unfocused. “You were right,” she said. “About Nate. The car. He was there.”

  “He was where?”

  “At the print shop. I told Vincent. About the car. Then Derek came. He shot me.”

  “Derek did?”

  She went quiet, moaning slightly as her weight shifted when Catherine turned onto her street. At this hour, it was empty, no signs of life except for a silver car in her driveway, taillights gleaming. As we got closer, I saw that it was a Porsche.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  Catherine pulled in next to the sports car as a tall, ash-blond woman got out of it. She held a large nylon duffel bag at her hip. “Evelyn, thank you,” Catherine was saying as I helped Leila out of the vehicle too. “I know it’s late.”

  The woman, Evelyn, gave a terse smile. She was fiftyish and stern-looking. “I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again, Cat.”

  We helped Leila into the house. There was no natural place to put a bloody person with a gunshot wound in a nice house like this, but Catherine dashed into the bathroom and emerged in a hail of shower-curtain rings with a clear plastic liner, which she spread out on her sofa. Leila sank into the cushions, her eyes closed while Evelyn opened her bag and pulled out a pair of scissors, which she used to cut open Leila’s shirt. She peered at the wound, her mouth a flat line.

  “Get it out,” Leila mumbled.

  “Hon, it is out,” Evelyn said. “Through and through, a clean shot. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to give you a shot of Demerol to take the edge off, okay?”

  Leila nodded.

  The doctor dug through her bag for a few seconds, then looked up at us, a syringe in hand. “Cat, you need something too?”

  Catherine’s expression hardened and she shook her head. She took me by the arm and pulled me into the kitchen.

  I said, “Who in the hell is this woman?”

  Catherine went over to the sink and washed off her hands and arms. Her jeans, formerly white, were now various smeary shades of red and brown. “A neighbor,” she said, which did not satisfy my curiosity at all. “A friend, sort of. One of Wystan’s friends. She brings the adrenaline needle to the party, usually. For when things inevitably go too far.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re joking right now.”

  “Oh, I’m not.” She shook off her hands and dried them on a paper towel. “I’m trying to stay away from those parties. But Wystan, he’s probably at one right now. I don’t even know where he is, to be honest. But listen, that’s neither here nor there. I knew Evelyn could help and wouldn’t make a fuss.”

  She was speaking to the granite-tile floor. From the other room, a gasp of pain and a gagging sound. Catherine closed her eyes, her brow furrowing.

  I slipped my arm around her and she leaned into me. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t what either of us had in mind for tonight. But thank you, for your quick thinking.” I rested my cheek against her soft blond hair. “And I’m sorry. About your husband.”

  “Now it’s my turn to not want to talk about something,” she said. We stood like that for a while, not speaking. Then she said, “Tell me about this case. The whole thing.”

  Catherine always liked hearing about my cases, about the secrets that lurk between people. So we sat at her kitchen table while the doctor worked on Leila in the other room, and I told her about Marin and Arthur, Leila and Nate, Agnes and Sam, Herodias, the house, the case manager. “But why did Nate shoot the woman at the print shop?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why is Marin dead?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “Did Nate shoot his own mother?”

  “Maybe. This morning, or yesterday morning, I guess,” I amended, because it was closing in on 5 A.M now, “he was scary. Unpredictable. Leila seemed very uneasy when I suggested that Nate had shot Pomp’s daughter, so I guess she found out that he did and alerted Pomp, who sent his son Derek to, I don’t know, do something with Nate. But obviously that went awry.” I pulled up the Dispatch website on my phone, scanning through the recent articles for any details. “Oh, here we go. ‘Columbus police are investigating a shooting in the Short North Tuesday night.’ No kidding,” I muttered. “‘This is a developing story.’”

  I looked up as Evelyn walked into the kitchen, snapping off her bloody rubber gloves. “I’m leaving the Demerol,” she said. “A hundred milligrams, every three to four hours, sub-cu. You have needles in the house?”

  Catherine nodded, her jaw bunching.

  “The cuts on her face—some of them are deep. She’ll probably want to see somebody about that, if she doesn’t want them to scar. But she’ll be okay.” She tossed her gloves in the trash and stood next to the counter, drumming her nails on it.

  Catherine got up from the table, opened her freezer, and reached in for a frost-covered plastic bag. I looked away while she counted bills from a thick roll into a neat stack on the counter.

  “And make sure she changes the dressing once a day. She’ll be fine.”

  Then Evelyn took the cash and left.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I woke to the sound of hard rain on the window and a crick in my neck from sleeping in an armchair. The shower curtain had been removed from the couch across from me, the room more or less put back together. I checked my phone: eleven o’clock. I rubbed my eyes. From elsewhere
in the house I heard a television and smelled coffee. I unfolded myself from the chair and went into the kitchen, where Catherine was watching an infomercial about a blender.

  “Good morning,” she said. She had showered, her hair wet, her face free of makeup, wearing only a black kimono. “Tea?”

  “Please.” I leaned against the wall. “I didn’t peg you as an infomercial type.”

  She gave me a smile. “I’m so tired. I don’t even know what’s going on. Go ahead, put on the crime channel.”

  I picked up the remote and flipped to the midday news.

  “One man was shot last night at the corner of High and Prescott,” a reporter was saying, “and he remains in stable condition this afternoon at Grant Medical Center. Police are looking for these two individuals for questioning in connection with the incident.” The screen flipped to a fairly bad computer sketch of Leila and a decent one of Nate as the reporter rattled off instructions for what to do if you knew anything.

  “Leila is in the guest room. I gave her some toast. I don’t really know what you’re supposed to give someone who just got shot.”

  “Toast seems good.”

  Catherine turned on a burner under her teakettle and folded her arms over her chest, not looking at me. “I just keep remembering, like, that actually happened. Last night.”

  “Yeah. It did.” I went over to her and rested a hand on her hip, and she leaned backward against me. “I’m sorry. That I got you involved in this.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t know. And I’m glad I could help, to be honest. I haven’t been feeling particularly useful lately.”

  “Is that why—?” I started. But I changed my mind.

  Then Catherine finished it for me. “Why I’m acting like this? A crisis of self-esteem?” She turned around and pressed her face into my neck. “I’m never not missing you.”

  That didn’t answer the question, but I didn’t press it. The teakettle began to hiss and she pulled away.

  Cup of mint tea in hand, I went down the hall to the first-floor guest room. Leila was stretched out on the bed under a sheet, very still but awake, her eyes on the doorway.

  I said, “So there were witnesses.”

  “Many witnesses,” Leila said. Her voice was hoarse. “Many people out and about last night.”

  “So you want to tell me what happened?”

  She nodded.

  I dragged a stool over from the vanity table. “Okay, let’s have it. Nate shot Tessa and you told Pomp about it?”

  Another nod. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what you said.”

  “About his car.”

  “Yes. I confronted him. Then I was terrified of what he might do, so I called Vincent. He told me to keep Nate there. A while later, Derek showed up. I let him in and it went bad right away. Nate and Derek both shooting at each other.”

  “But you’re completely innocent in all of this.”

  “Innocent,” she said, closing her eyes for a second. “No, but I wasn’t going to hurt anyone last night. I don’t even have a gun. However, I don’t think Derek stopped to evaluate the scene before he started shooting. It was complete chaos. I went out the back of the building to get away from them. I don’t have my phone, my wallet, anything. But I had to get out of there.”

  “And Nate?”

  “I didn’t see where he went.”

  “Why would Nate shoot Tessa?”

  She closed her eyes again. “It’s unfortunate, that she was there. Nate came for Arthur. He believes Arthur shot his mother. It had nothing to do with Tessa. But Nate knew about what was going on at the print shop. I don’t know why he would bring such attention, except that he’s not thinking clearly. Paranoid.”

  I chewed my lip. If Nate thought Arthur killed Marin, that meant my theory that Nate had done so was useless. But then again, I had to consider the source.

  And the fact that schizophrenia did run in families.

  “Tell me about Agnes.”

  She sighed. “Marin and I became friends, before Nate got out of jail. She introduced him to me. He’s very charming, when he wants to be. But disturbed. And the relationship between them—odd. Obsessive, in some ways. He was fixated on getting her out of the situation with Arthur. He thought it was beneath her. That she was owed. That they both were. Do you know about Nate’s father?”

  I nodded.

  “It was a wrong that needed to be corrected, what had happened with the money. Nate spent a long time in jail, thinking about that. He knew that his aunt had been the one to dismantle the whole thing. So he wished to punish her. Rob her. But it all went too far. Everyone takes things too far—did you ever notice that?”

  “I did.”

  “Not just rob her, but rub it in her face. He watched her for a while, saw her feeding the alley cats. Then he and I, together, we befriended her. She didn’t recognize him. She hadn’t seen him since he was a child. So she didn’t even know who she was talking to.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “It was last December. She was a lonely old lady. I thought we were just going to strip the house of all those gorgeous antiques and sell them. Which we started to do, but Nate is impatient. It wasn’t enough. He wanted the house, too. He wanted to get the house and sell it for a million dollars, cash.”

  “Who buys a house with a million dollars in cash?”

  “No one, of course, it’s impossible. But Nate insisted. I helped him with the paperwork. The deed. He even got her to sign it, telling her it was just to ensure the cats would be taken care of.”

  I shook my head, disgusted. “Then what?”

  “Well, then she found out. I don’t know how. I wasn’t there when it happened. But Nate came to me, very upset. He said they argued and she fell. It was an accident, though. He didn’t mean to kill her.”

  I took a moment to process that. “He told you he killed her?”

  She nodded. “We avoided the house for a while, one month, maybe.”

  I watched her face for clues that she was lying. But she gave away nothing, and I wasn’t sure if she was lying, or if Nate had lied to her about Agnes. “What about the case manager?”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Your boyfriend didn’t tell you about the other person he murdered?”

  Her face hardened a little. “I am not proud of what happened. And I don’t know what murder you’re talking about. I forged some documents. I don’t know what all Nate did.”

  “You need to talk to the police.”

  She laughed, the first time I’d heard her laugh. Then she winced. “I can’t do that. You know I can’t. Not now.”

  “A lot of innocent people have gotten hurt here. Even if you don’t care about Agnes Harlow, I know you care about Tessa. I saw it in your face yesterday.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Vincent will take care of Nate.”

  “And what about Arthur? The police think he killed Marin too.”

  “Maybe he did.”

  “No, Nate’s the homicidal maniac in the family, remember.” I sipped my tea. “What happened the night Marin died? Were you with him?”

  Leila went quiet for a while before she continued. “She called. After she had dinner with Arthur.” She turned to look at me. “Ranting and raving about some private investigator tailing her—you. She took it hard. I think she had a soft spot for Arthur, I really do. He is a good guy.”

  “Everyone keeps saying that, while also screwing him over.”

  “Maybe that is a case against being good.”

  “Maybe it is. So she called after dinner.”

  She nodded. “Nate and I were at my place, and Marin came over to tell us about it, about how she hadn’t been to the house for a while because she thought someone had been following her for a few weeks and she was trying to lay low. So she was vindicated, you see. That she’d been right. Almost happy about it. Nate was angry though, wondering how much this investigator—you—knew about the house. They ar
gued about whether or not the house was safe. But when they’d argue, things could get ugly. Not violent, but nasty. Both of them, absolute pricks sometimes. So I told them to take it elsewhere, and they left.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “Nate came over later and said we should stay away from the house for a bit too, just in case. He said nothing to indicate Marin was dead. We heard about it together on the news, and he fell apart. Nate was crazy about her. He wouldn’t hurt her.”

  “But you just said, things could get nasty between them. And he left with her that night.”

  She didn’t say anything in reply.

  “Where do you think he went last night?”

  “Part of me thinks that he is smart, that he has no choice now. That he’ll try to run.” She paused for a second, swallowing thickly. “I don’t know how much money he has. He’s bad with money. Marin kept his share for him. Hopefully she had a good hiding place for it.”

  I thought about the Bitcoin receipts. “She did,” I said. “In her nightstand, along with her weed and her vibrator. What’s the other part of you think?”

  “That he is a vindictive person, and he will want to hurt me for telling Vincent what he did.”

  I scooted my chair backward. “The police,” I said. “You need to talk to them, now.” Although Tom hadn’t called me back last night, surely this could get his attention and usher me back into his good graces.

  But Leila shook her head. “I can’t. Not now. What would I even say? I can’t talk about Nate and Marin without talking about Vincent, and even you would not be able to save me from Vincent. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have any evidence. Of any of it. If I say I helped to do all these things, but can’t prove I had help, I am on the hook for it.”

  I got up and paced the length of the room. Evidence. She was right about that: there was precious little of it in this case. Just rumors and partial paper trails. “Why did you come to me yesterday? Did you think I could nurse you back to health and then let you disappear into the sunset?”

  She sighed. “You think so poorly of me.”

  I watched her, my hands spread wide in frustration.

  “I came to your house because I thought I would be safe. With you. Nate would never expect me to go to you. Not when you know so much already. I was just trying to survive, yesterday.”