Some People Talk with God

by John Enright

“Me, Morgan. What’s with the lock?”

  The door opened. “Forgot I locked it. There was a strange woman with a sword in the house last night. None of my business, of course, but now I know why every door here has a lock. Didn’t mean to lock you out of your own room. Sorry.”

  Morgan followed Nemo into the room. Amanda stayed in the hallway. She was quickly coming to a boil. She rarely got mad, but when she did she had a tendency to lose control. It was like a switch, a red fire alarm that someone had to break the glass to get to and throw, but once thrown it couldn’t turn itself off. She watched the door down the hall that Denise had entered. Obstruction of justice! She will have me charged? Harboring a fugitive! After the year I’ve sheltered her and her tribe of misfits that no one else would even think of renting to? That unmitigated bitch. This is it. The last straw, the final insult. Accusing my brother, using my brother! When the door opened Denise came out leading Susan by the upper arm. With them were Kathy and two of the other girls, a proper squad. They had to go past Amanda to get to the head of the stairs.

  “What is going on here?” Amanda demanded, scanning the group. Then she went for Denise, “How dare you drag my brother down to your level.” She got her hands onto Denise before the three other girls grabbed her and her arms. Susan broke free of Denise’s grasp and stumbled sideways. The girls pushed Amanda back toward the wall, but she managed to get a leg out and trip Denise as she headed for the top of the stairs. She went down with a satisfying thud. Amanda tossed the girl on her right arm aside. The one on the other side was pulling her hair.

  “Officer, officer!” Denise was yelling from the floor.

  Amanda got in another good kick, catching Denise in the kidneys. Then she was grabbed from behind by her brother—his long arms around her midriff lifting her off her feet—and pulled back into Morgan’s room. Morgan slammed the door behind them.

  “End of round one,” Nemo said, putting her down.

  “What was that all about?” Morgan asked.

  “I do not believe this. She is accusing my brother, who is nothing to her, of a felony to get at me? If I had a gun I would shoot the bitch. No jury would convict me. I’d be doing the world a favor. God damn it, Dominick, I am so sorry I got you involved in this.”

  He was still holding her. “Down, big fella.”

  She hadn’t been held in a very, very long time. God, his arms were big. They almost made her feel petite. Somehow he had turned off the switch. She could feel her rage seeping out. “Thanks,” she said, and she laid a hand on top of his arm. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “The Gaelic word for that state translates roughly as warp spasm,” Dominick said, and he let her go. “Was your father Irish by any chance?”

  “He was,” Amanda said. “Everyone called him Mick.”

  “Wait here,” Morgan said. “I’ll carry a white flag out there and see what’s happening.”

  ***

  Well, what could Dominick say? It was a new experience. The charges were so bogus and unprovable that there was no reason to get excited about it. Not that it wasn’t a pain in the ass being treated as a felony suspect, but it was different. That sure was one screwed-up household.

  The scene at the house had been a burlesque from the get-go. Deputy Dave was out-numbered. He had called for backup, but it took them a while to get there. Susan took off, and her sister and the other girls had to go find her and bring her back. Deputy Dave came up to Morgan’s room to check that Dominick and Amanda were there and told them to stay there. He told Amanda to stay away from Denise, who—uninjured—wanted Amanda arrested for assault. He couldn’t leave before backup arrived because he had to take both Dominick and Susan in—Dominick to be questioned and Susan to file a formal complaint and be rape-tested. Morgan had to point out that a test would be pretty pointless, seeing as the supposed attack had occurred more than a week before and who knew where Susan had been or what she had been up to since then. Deputy Dave didn’t want to take them both in together in his vehicle. That didn’t seem right—accuser and accused sharing the back seat of a squad car. Also, seeing as Denise claimed Susan had told her the attack took place in the back seat of Dominick’s car, the car would have to be brought in for crime scene tests, so he would need another officer to drive the Lexus. Morgan told Dominick that she could tell Deputy Dave didn’t know what he was going to do about Amanda, which probably meant nothing. There were just too many women and too many things going on. And the police radio in his vehicle kept squawking, and he kept running out there to answer it. Pretty soon his nice neat khaki uniform showed large sweat circles in the armpits and down the middle of his back.

  Deputy Dave’s help finally arrived: a regular squad car with two officers, a man and a woman, dressed in identical uniforms Dominick noted—one style fits all egos. Everyone was parceled out to separate vehicles. Dominick went with Deputy Dave; Susan—recaptured—went with the female officer in the squad car; and the male officer dove Dominick’s car. A regular little caravan headed down to the county road, with Morgan and Amanda in her old Chevy taking up the rear and trying to keep up. Deputy Dave and Dominick had nothing to say to one another. Dominick doubted Susan would be saying anything to her escort. The guy driving the Lexus was probably trying to find some AM station he liked. Only in the Chevy would there be a conversation going on.

  Having had plenty of time waiting, Dominick was as prepared as possible. He had washed and shaved and put on his most comfortable clothes. Morgan had changed the bandage on his brow, which was now a white patch in the middle of a spreading off-purple bruise. He had filled his pocket cigar case with Romeo y Julietas and slipped it into his windbreaker pocket along with his lighter. He had packed and zippered shut all his luggage, which was now stowed in Amanda’s trunk. He had swallowed the last two of Morgan’s big white pills. What he had forgotten to do was eat, and his stomach was now grumbling loudly in protest.

  “Officer Hezel, are you by any chance hungry, thirsty?”

  “What’s your problem?” Deputy Dave asked not turning around, which was good because he was speeding and the road here was a series of curves.

  “I was just wondering if you were as famished as I am,” Dominick said, bracing himself as the van leaned away from another turn.

  “Sure. What of it?”

  “Well, I recall a drive-thru fast-food place this side of Catskill. How about just pulling in there quickly so we can pick something up before getting to town? I haven’t eaten today, haven’t even had a cup of coffee. I’m sure you could use something yourself after that scene back there. I’ll buy.”

  Deputy Dave concentrated on his driving for a while. “Well, it is about time for my lunch break. But just the drive-thru. No getting out of the vehicle and no funny stuff.”

  The drive-thru at the McDonald’s was empty when their four-car caravan pulled in. Dominick got a fish fillet sandwich and a coffee. Deputy Dave got something that involved many wrappers and a large beverage with a straw. The three other cars behind them all stopped and ordered things. Then they all parked side by side in the front parking lot. No one got out of their cars. It was a strange sort of all-American picnic—seven people in four vehicles, sitting silently, watching the traffic pass on the highway in front of them, chewing, sipping, swallowing, lost in their own thoughts or lack thereof. The fish sandwich was fine if you ate it fast. The coffee was hot and satisfying. For some reason Dominick wondered what Susan had ordered. Wasn’t it strange how her coached accusation had somehow made them a couple? In all seven of their minds somewhere was the picture of Dominick and Susan having sex in the back seat of his car.

  Morgan insisted, as his attorney, on sitting in on Dominick’s questioning. He didn’t mind. She never really said anything, just sat there and scribbled some notes now and then. But Dominick was sure her presence did alter the tenor and content of the detective’s questioning. Deputy Dave had turned him over to a plain-clothes detective whose name was Dutch sounding and Dominick immedi
ately forgot. Dominick answered his questions, gave his version of his brief encounter with Susan, denied ever laying a hand on her or even contemplating it. He told about her spending the night on the floor of his room, but neglected to mention her smoking marijuana. Why complicate things? Morgan had reminded him earlier about not volunteering any information or voicing any opinions or speculations. Back to name, rank, and just the facts ma’am. The detective didn’t have Susan’s formal complaint yet, so he didn’t have that many specific questions to ask.

  “You say she took your car, but you never reported it stolen.” The detective was trying to fill in the time-line. “Why was that?’

  “Well, first of all I had no way of reporting it. Secondly, at the time I figured she had just taken it to try and get to the store to buy some supplies. And thirdly, the car wasn’t stolen. It was just stuck in the mud somewhere nearby.”

  “You didn’t know where it was stuck in the mud?”

  “No, hadn’t the slightest.”

  “You never visited the vehicle while it was stuck in the mud?”

  “I didn’t even know it was stuck in the mud at the time.”

  “What were you doing out there in the first place?”

  “I was visiting my sister, who owns the property.”

  “What goes on out there, anyway? Some sort of school or commune sort of thing or what?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” was all Dominick could honestly say. “I was just visiting my sister.”

  Someone came to the door of the small investigation room where the three of them were seated at a table and motioned to Detective Dutch to come out. When he came back in he said he would like to continue the conversation but after he’d had the chance to review the victim’s statement and the forensics from the car. It was Friday afternoon. He couldn’t keep Dominick until Tuesday or so when all that would be completed, so he would release him on his own recognizance with his and his counsel’s assurance that he would return for additional questioning.

  “My car?” Dominick asked.

  “Impounded. You are to have no contact with the complainant or other witnesses or parties to the complaint, which means you will have to find a place to reside other than your sister’s until this is resolved. I’ll need a number where you can be reached.”

  “But I don’t know where I will be,” Dominick said.

  “A cell phone number will suffice.”

  “But I don’t own one,” Dominick said, remembering the one he’d left on the counter in the Tavernier Key condo.

  “I’ll give you my number,” Morgan spoke up. “I’ll assure his return.”

  The detective was giving Dominick a suspicious look. “You do not own a cell phone?”

  Dominick shrugged. “I’ve never needed one before.”

  “Don’t leave the county,” was all he said. He made a note on his pad.

  In the parking lot outside the sheriff’s headquarters it was a fine warm summer afternoon. Dominick felt glad to be alive. He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself that he might again have had an anxiety attack of some sort if they had put him in a cell over night. Now he didn’t have to concern himself with suppressing that fear. He lit up a cigar. It tasted wonderful. “Where to?” he asked Morgan. “Let’s have a drink somewhere, and I could use a proper meal. Where’s Amanda?”

  “Beats me. Probably already having a drink somewhere herself. Hold on.” Morgan pulled her little gizmo out of her purse and touched a few buttons. Dominick walked off a ways; he always felt strange listening to other people’s conversations, even if they didn’t seem to mind. It was a privacy thing—his privacy. There were appropriate blue birds, well jays anyway, flitting through trees on the street below, a block of age-blackened brick warehouses with boarded-up windows, the geriatric rear end of the town sagging down to the edge of a deserted still waterway. Ah, history.

  “Amanda says she went shopping. She’ll come back to get us,” Morgan said, putting her phone thing back into her purse as she came over. “Well, I guess little Susie blew her interview. Good girl.”

  “Why do you say that?” Dominick asked, exhaling a thin contrail of smoke followed by a perfect smoke ring.

  “Because even county mounties know enough not to let a felony suspect loose if there is anything like a real case against him. I’ll bet Susie refused the physical exam and either purposefully forgot or inadvertently screwed-up the script Denise had cooked up for her.”

  “Oh,” Dominick said. “In which case what would be the appropriate present, chocolates or flowers?”

  “I think a couple of lottery tickets should do it, or a pack of rolling papers.”

  “She uses a pipe,” Dominick said.

  Morgan gave him a funny look. “Now how would you know that?”

  Dominick said nothing, just puffed on his cigar and watched the blue jays chasing off gray catbirds from their territory.

  Chapter 11

  It was still the same, that zone. The end zone she called it, where she could do her little victory dance all alone. It was a forbidden zone, but she had passed over into it again the other night with those Long Island Teas. It had been nineteen months since her last total transgression. Now Amanda sought it out again, the ethanol touchdown. For more than s year and a half she had spent every day consciously not drinking, until that first night at Marjorie’s house with Nemo. But since that taste the old desire had come back strong, and now here she was, sitting alone in a Catskill saloon, sipping a Wild Turkey and Coke on the rocks, trying to get to that zone again where nothing else mattered besides being there. The first thought to shed was that it was a mistake going there. She ordered another drink. Another good thing about the zone was that the voice could rarely reach her there.

  But a jingle version of “Für Elise” was coming from deep inside her purse, and she dug out her cell phone. It was Morgan. She and Nemo were through with the police and they were wondering where she was. Where was she? Shopping, she said, but she didn’t say for what. For a comfy cocoon, for a world of just private thoughts. “I’ll come get you,” she said. It seemed like a very long sentence. She didn’t rush her new drink. She took her time. They could wait a bit longer. She needed more time alone. She was thankful that the bartender and the few other patrons in the bar—all male on a summer afternoon, watching a baseball game—had left her alone. She guessed she was broadcasting that the only companionship she wanted was her glass. But when she went to pay the bartender for her last drink, he said it was already paid for. The gents down the bar had told him put it on their tab.

  “Thank them for me, would you?” she said. It was time to go. Amanda liked Catskill. It was a real town. Sure, on its outskirts there was the usual modern American automobile ghetto of neon lights and parking lots, chain stores and fast-food drive-ins; but the riverfront town itself, Main Street and the steep, irregular residential streets above it, had retained a dignified, working-class charm. It was clean; it was neat; it had its pride in tact. It was the county seat. Everyone seemed to know one another. One problem the town did have was no bars. Amanda may have been on the wagon as long as she’d lived here, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t scoped-out every place she could fall off of it. There really were just the country club—please—and this place, Mickey J’s, also on the edge of town.

  Amanda had always thought that she was a better driver drunk than sober, up to a certain point of inebriation. Other people agreed that sober she wasn’t a very good driver—simultaneously impulsive and absent-minded. But after a few drinks she enjoyed the game of it more and so paid more attention. She thought of it as dancing with the traffic, with the added attention incentive of avoiding the cops. She had never gotten a DUI, and god knew that back in the day she did D while UI. She thought it funny that she was driving to the police station. Maybe she should turn herself in when she got there. Morgan had said it was still possible that she could be charged with assaulting Denise, even if the deputy had chosen to ignore the witch’s whining.


  The one chunk of downtown Catskill that had been yanked into the late previous century from the one before it was the block-square Greene County government office building on Main St. At least it was brick and simple and not much taller than the other Main Street facades, but its century—the twentieth—was out of sync with all its neighbors. Around the back was the sheriff’s office parking lot and entrance, like the emergency room entrance of a hospital. Morgan was there, waiting for her at the curb, but no Nemo. “Where’s Nemo?” Amanda asked as she pulled up.

  “Yonder,” Morgan said, indicating with her eyes the far end of the parking lot, where Nemo stood, cigar in mouth, hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the old buildings along Catskill Creek. “We got to drop him somewhere. I want to get back to the house. I don’t trust Denise there alone.”

  Amanda gave two long honks on her horn to get Nemo’s attention.

  “What are you doing? Stop that!” Morgan said.

  “Just getting him over here so we can leave.”

  “Laying on the horn in front of the sheriff’s office? Shit, woman. Have you been drinking?”

  “Just trying to get his attention.”

  Nemo had turned and waved and was strolling in their direction.

  A deputy came out to the sidewalk to see what the honking was about.

  “Get out of the driver’s seat,” Morgan said. “Scoot over.”

  “What? Why? You can’t drive.”

  “Just move, now.”

  The deputy came over to the car. “Ladies?”

  “Just trying to get our driver’s attention, officer. He walked off to smoke a cigar. Here he comes now.”

  “Smoke a cigar? He can’t do that here. This is county property, smoke free.”

  “I believe that’s why he moved away,” Morgan said.

  “It’s still county land,” the deputy said.

  Nemo walked up to the car. The cigar had somehow disappeared.

  “Oh, it’s that rapist guy,” the deputy said. “You can’t park here, Mac.”