by Gregg Bell
Strange. Very strange she said that. “Somebody did die.”
“Who?”
“George, my AA sponsor.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. There was a whistling sound and she looked over her shoulder. She turned back. “I’ve got a kettle on the stove. Come on.”
Denny followed her into the kitchen. Clean, stainless steel appliances. As immaculate as the rest of the condo. And he couldn’t help but notice a little wooden rack with three wine bottles in it.
“I was going to make tea. I know you don’t drink it but I can make you instant coffee instead.” She turned off the flame.
“No thanks.”
She hugged him. “Aw, I can see you feel bad. You really loved this guy, huh?”
Denny nodded. “But there’s more.”
She backed off the hug and checked her watch. She grimaced a touch. “Okay, what?”
He shook his head. “No, go ahead. You have to get ready.”
She walked him back to the living room and they settled on the sofa. She brushed the hair off his forehead. “No, that’s okay. I have a little time. Just tell me.”
The missing handcuffs. The cab company records showing he left Rashida’s the night of her murder. Could he trust her? He smiled sadly.
She kissed him. “Come on. Tell me.”
He breathed in deep. “It’s about Rashida.”
He felt her stiffen. Like a current hit her body. “What about her?”
“The police are starting to act as if I killed her.”
“What?!”
“Yeah.”
“Denny.” She kissed him again, assertively this time on the lips. “Forget about it. I can tell you right now I know for a fact you didn’t kill her.”
He shrugged. “How?”
“Just trust me.” She nuzzled her head into his neck. “And you need to forget about Rashida anyway. She’s gone. Gone.”
She smelled so good. He slid his hands up and down her smooth arms—her lovely body balm to his troubled soul. “They say whoever killed her used handcuffs.”
She sniggered. “It was probably a cop then.”
“Are you serious?” He thought of Detective Washington.
“Hell yeah. There are some totally kinky cops out there, let me tell you.”
Denny felt a stab of jealousy. Like she knew from experience? “And how would you know that?”
“Relax.” She pushed the hair off his forehead again. “Teddy told me about them.”
Teddy. The bad-boy undercover cop she’d moved in with. “Whatever.”
“Teddy didn’t do anything weird, Denny, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She touched his cheek. “He just knew a lot about what went on.”
All right. He breathed a little easier. Just a little. “This detective that’s been hounding me, Nemiah Washington—”
“Oh!” Summer scoffed. “The Prince of Darkness.”
“How do you know his nickname?”
“All the cops know him as that. Teddy told me.”
“He’s ambitious?”
“Oh, more than that, Denny. Honestly...” She took a few moments and looked at him. “...I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed Rashida.”
Denny frowned. He figured Washington for a trickster maybe but beyond that he seemed the All-American type. “Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.”
“Denny, please.” She kept looking at him. “Why do you think they call him the Prince of Darkness?”
“Yeah but—”
“Washington’s a dirty cop. As dirty as they come. Dirty cops do the deed and then frame somebody else for it. Teddy told me they do it all the time.”
“But that’s so far-fetched. I can’t believe that.”
“Yeah? Well, let me ask you this. If they have the evidence you killed her, why haven’t they arrested you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve been wondering that myself.”
“And let me ask you this. Has Washington been hounding you? Showing up unexpectedly? Trying to trick you into incriminating yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there you go. So he’s got nothing, evidence-wise, and his only hope is getting you so confused you incriminate yourself with your conflicting stories as to what happened. Yeah, Teddy told me they do that all the time.”
Hearing Teddy’s name again made Denny sigh.
“Oh, Denny.” She kissed him but then checked her watch. “I gotta go, baby.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Oh, don’t look so sad.” She kissed him again. “Just don’t tell the cops anything. Nothing at all. Got that?”
He nodded.
She gazed at him, grimaced and checked her watch one last time. “Oh, I can’t mess up this blouse.” She slipped out of it, folded it nicely, set it on the cocktail table, kissed him and pushed him back on the sofa.
Chapter Eighteen
The sex was always a relief. A little break, a reprieve, from the insanity his life had become. Denny lay in Summer’s bed and watched her getting dressed, quite the turn-on in its own right. So yeah, the sex was good but it was always confusing for him too. Confusing because it made him feel he loved the person. And he felt like he loved Summer. Now. But when the glow of the sex wore off, the feeling of love did as well. And that had been the case with all his lovers. All his lovers except Rashida. Her, he always loved. Her, he still loved.
Summer told him to lock up when he left. She kissed him and was gone.
Denny was tempted to stay there. Just pull the covers over his head and hope the world would go away. But reality started getting through to him even there. The cab company records. His missing handcuffs. And now the crazy stuff Summer told him about Detective Washington maybe being the killer.
The memory of George’s passing came back to him too and he pulled a pillow over his face and said, “Oh God.” Maybe it was a prayer, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, no one answered.
Denny dragged himself to sit up. The wine rack in the kitchen. He could see its image imprinted on his brain. Three bottles. He could have his own little party until Summer got back. Yeah. Sounded good. Sounded so good. But then it was as if he could hear his sponsor George’s voice. George’s calming voice. Denny, you’ve got to keep the plug in the jug. If you don’t stay sober, you’re going to have no chance.
Denny knew his only hope of staying sober was to get his butt to the Serenity Club as fast as he could. He dressed, ran down the stairs, climbed into the Camaro and let it warm up. Summer mystified him. There were times he felt she was all he ever wanted in a woman. Pretty. Sexy. Smart. Successful. But something always seemed missing somehow too. He frowned. Maybe the missing thing had been she wasn’t Rashida.
And what about all the trash she’d been talking lately, saying she knew Denny didn’t kill Rashida, the nonsense about Detective Washington being the killer. Denny was glad he hadn’t told her about his handcuffs being missing or the cab company records. Yeah, when all was said and done, there was a resistance to Summer deep in his spirit. Everything on the surface was just right about her, but deep down he didn’t trust her.
And unfortunately he didn’t trust himself either. As he drove to the Serenity Club the snow started coming down in cascading white sheets, the wind pushing it into the Camaro’s side windows, coating them, Denny having to buzz them down just to see, little piles of snow tumbling into the car every time he made a turn. Oh well. At least he had good tread on his tires.
He parked and dragged his weary bones up the stairs to the club. Now that George was gone the place would never be the same. The club was empty, only the custodian tidying things up, and even he went into a back room. For sure the snow was keeping people away but even empty the club was a refuge. Denny got a cup of coffee and sat at a table in the middle of the room. From there he could read all the slogans on the posters.
‘One Day at a Time.’ ‘Live and Let Live.’ ‘Just for Today.’ ‘Easy Does It.’ And ‘Let Go and Let God.’
Let go and let God, Denny thought, and he burned his lip on the coffee. That was either the most ridiculous or most brilliant thing he’d ever heard. Oh, there was no problem with the first part, letting go. But the second part, letting God? That was harder because, c’mon, who knew if God even existed, let alone would deliver?
The coffee cooled enough to drink and it warmed Denny’s chest as he watched the snow slapping the windows. Like white frosting it slid down, only to be replaced by the fresh batches that followed. There was something especially comforting about being in the club now. A spiritual oasis in the heart of the storm, the snowstorm and the storm raging in his spirit.
Who killed Rashida? Maybe only this God these AAers talked of knew. Maybe letting go and letting him take over was the only way to find out. Denny wasn’t afraid anymore. He knew if he killed her, he didn’t want to escape the consequences. But he felt the same for whoever else might’ve killed her. Cowardly handcuffing her and then strangling her. He didn’t even want to think about the likelihood she’d been raped. He gritted his teeth and thought about what he’d do to the guy if he caught him.
Rufus Tucker walked into the club. His parka hood still up, he shook the snow off it, before taking it down. He brushed the snow from his shoulders and stomped his boots on the welcome mat. Only then did he look over.
Denny nodded to him. What were the odds of this happening? Yes, of course, it was possible, but just the two of them alone in the club? Denny saw the shiner he’d given him had healed substantially, and he looked a little better, but still he seemed pretty beat up.
Tucker hung his coat on a rack. He went to get coffee.
Denny didn’t know what to make of the situation. Yeah, he was uncomfortable as hell, but didn’t he also have a responsibility? Wasn’t even he a bit of an old-timer himself, at least more so than Tucker, with an obligation to as they say ‘pass it on’ and make newcomers feel welcome? Tucker dawdled at the coffee table. Denny sensed his discomfort too. Ah, what the hell, when Tucker turned, Denny pulled out the chair next to him. “Come on, Tucker, and take a load off.”
Denny glanced at the poster of the 12 steps as Tucker walked over. ‘Step Eight. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.’ Well, Denny had made no list—he still hadn’t done the fourth step—but he certainly could admit decking Tucker at The Wild Bull constituted ‘harm.’ “Pretty nasty out there.”
Tucker set his coffee on the table and the liquid rocked a bit, seeping over the edge of the styrofoam cup. Denny handed him a napkin.
“Thanks.” Tucker dabbed up the spill. “They were saying it’s only going to be four inches but it looks like more than that already.”
“Yeah.” This was a joke. There was so much tension between them. And there was so much Denny wanted to get off his chest, and so much he wanted to ask Tucker, he could barely stay in his own skin. Yeah, true, Tucker was no angel. But either was he. “Look, Tucker, I should’ve apologized before but I just want to say I’m sorry about hitting you at The Wild Bull the other night.” Denny let his words hang in the air as he registered the surprise on Tucker’s face.
Tucker settled in his chair and slowly his surprise morphed into a more relaxed countenance. “Okay.”
“I was completely out of line. It was a cowardly sucker punch.”
Tucker’s shoulders rounded and he looked like he was relaxing even more. “Yeah, okay. Well, let’s forget about it.”
The two men sat in silence for a while, the only sound the snow slapping at the windows. Denny decided it was time to take a radical chance.
“Tucker, I gotta ask you something.”
Tucker shrugged.
“And it sounds absolutely crazy even to me,” Denny said with a nod, “but I’m going to ask anyway.”
“Well, go ahead already.”
Denny took a deep breath. “Someone said they overheard you congratulate Brig for killing Rashida.”
Tucker, squinting, looked at Denny as if he’d just spoken in a different language.
“I know, it’s pretty out there.”
Tucker seemed to recover himself a bit. “Who’s Rashida?”
Oh God. “You didn’t hear my ex-wife was murdered?”
Tucker shook his head.
Denny swallowed. “Well, like I said, it was absolutely crazy but I had to ask.”
“Well, who said I said that?”
Denny couldn’t go there. He wondered if it had been wise to even say as much as he did.
* * *
Denny hightailed it out of the Serenity Club. He should’ve worn his boots, he thought as he tramped through the snow on his way to his car. With Tucker denying he congratulated Brig for killing Rashida, the needle again pointed back at Orson. Or at least that’s what Denny was thinking. Orson. A liar over and over again. Denny’s anger was building.
It was barely noon. The snow was slowing, the heavy flakes thinning, the wind fading. Denny knew with only a couple of days to Orson’s scuba certification test, he would probably be training at the YMCA again and he was. This time in the weight room, doing some kind of an ab-pulley machine, while leaning way back on a bench. Denny didn’t even bother taking off his coat. “Let’s go, Orson. I gotta talk to you.”
“Yeah, okay,” Orson said with a sharp exhalation and he let the pulley go, the plate-weights clanging loudly. His one eye was still pink, red actually, as if filled with blood. “What’s up?”
Denny nodded him out of the room of grunting weightlifters, all men except for two brave but rather homely-looking chicks. They walked through a door and into a deserted corridor behind indoor racquetball courts, the muffled shouts of players and little booms of racquetballs being compressed could be heard faintly in the background. Denny looked all over. Nobody around. “Want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Orson shrugged. “What do you mean?”
Denny was right in his face. “I trusted you, man.”
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I trusted you and you lied.”
“What are you talking about, Denny? I lied about what?”
“About everything. When you left The Wild Bull the night of Rashida’s murder. About overhearing Rufus Tucker congratulating Brig for killing her.”
Orson shook his head. “I don’t know what to say.”
Denny grabbed him by his sweaty t-shirt. “You can tell me why!”
“But I didn’t lie.”
“Oh.” Denny pushed him away. “Are you really going to tell me that with a straight face?”
“Yeah, I didn’t.”
“And so everybody else is lying? Is that it?”
“I don’t know what everybody else is doing, but I didn’t lie.”
“Stop it, Orson. Stop it right now.”
“What do you want me to say? If I say I lied I’d be lying.”
“Yeah, okay.” Denny smirked. “Powell said you bugged him to take you along on one of his dates. And when you were alone with Powell’s girlfriend’s friend you asked her: ‘Want me to hurt you?’ Do you deny that too?”
“I was just curious what Powell did. Tell me you aren’t? Hey, every guy in the firehouse wishes they were him when it comes to that stuff.”
“I don’t think so, Orson.” Denny sneered. “So where were you when Rashida was murdered?”
Orson scowled. “I resent you even asking that.” He started to walk away but Denny grabbed his elbow and spun him around.
“You’re setting Brig up as the killer. Why?”
Orson batted Denny’s hand off. “Hey, look! You’re on the verge of crossing a line here, Denny. All I can say is I’ve had your back all these years, don’t turn yours on me now.”
“I just want the truth.”
Orson pursed his lips. “So hire a private investigator.”
“I already have.”
Orson glared at him. “You hired a private investigator to investigate me?”
“Yeah.”<
br />
Orson started nodding. “All right. Okay. What can I say then? Except that...it’s finally over. You’re on your own now, Denny.” He turned and walked away.
Denny trailed him. “You killed Rashida. You wanted to get off on hurting somebody so you raped and killed her.” He grabbed him again.
Orson stared him in the face with the one bloody eye. “Yeah, you’re on your own now, Denny,” he said again, and he shook free and walked out.
* * *
The sweat came up on Denny’s forehead. Standing alone in the corridor behind the racquetball courts he was overheating, like he was going to pass out. He ripped off his coat and took some deep breaths. Orson had rocked him. He seemed to be a totally different person. He seemed...evil.
Denny was so thrown, when he left the YMCA he had to concentrate on his driving. Orson. You’re on your own now, Denny, he’d said. That icy look in his eyes, the one eye so bloody. He was like a zombie. Denny didn’t know what to make of it. Didn’t know what to do. When he got to his apartment, he sat on the sofa in his living room and thought his head might explode. Should he call Detective Washington with what he’d discovered? He frowned. Washington who was always trying to trick him into implicating himself? No, he didn’t think so. Aunt Elizabeth? She seemed the only reasonable choice. There was a knock on the door.
Denny had a baseball bat in the front closet. He padded toward the door, hoping the floor wouldn’t creak, opened the closet and grabbed the bat. He wished the door had a peephole. He thought about not opening it. He figured he could just wait for the person to leave. He’d done that countless times on hangover mornings when he was too ashamed to face angry neighbors come to ream him a new one for blasting his music all night. But what if this was important? Orson was out there walking around—a danger. Denny opened the door. Brig.
“What’s with the bat?”
Denny sighed. “I thought it might be somebody else.”
“Well, I would hope so.” Brig walked by Denny into the apartment. “I’d hate to think you had that out for me.”
