Still, thinking about what was going to happen made my stomach turn. It was a necessary evil, but it felt evil nonetheless. I closed the cell.
Maybe later, I thought.
Instead, I gave Deuce a call. Something had occurred to me. "Get ready. I need your help with the Brickmeyers," I said, getting behind the wheel of the Olds.
"No can do, hoss," he replied. "Meet me at my office. Big things are going down, and they involve you, my friend."
"What things?"
"You're not in public are you?"
"About to ride down the road."
"Get your ass here, and come to the back door. Don't let anybody see you." He hung up. I sat there for a few minutes and then did exactly what he said.
I parked across the street and snuck down the alley to Deuce's office. He was waiting with the door cracked. "Come on in," he said.
Deuce locked the front door and flipped the hanging sign to CLOSED. I fished in my pocket for the picture of Emmitt and Jeffrey. "I've got proof that Jeffrey knew Emmitt Laveau. I think they might have been lovers."
"You've got bigger shit to worry about now," Deuce replied, not even glancing at the photograph.
We sat down and Deuce explained. When he was finished, I tried to put the pieces together. I was incensed. "I don't understand why an APB would be put out for H.W. and me. I went to find him to convince him to disclose what he knew."
"Or to tell you what he knew, right?"
"Right."
"Nevertheless," Deuce said, "a picture of you two chatting it up outside Laina Donaldson's trailer surfaced with the police. He's wanted on a pretty heinous assault beef - and they're definitely going to question him about the murder, if they catch up with him - so you're getting dragged into the quicksand with him."
"That's ridiculous."
"You've created a stir. The men you’ve pissed off are in positions to put you away."
"I'd put money on the fact-"
"Hey, watch it with the gambling stuff."
"Sorry. But Ricky Walton is under Leland's thumb, so I wouldn't be surprised if he's the one orchestrating this. He's got more than one reason to. All he'd need to do is produce some physical evidence of H.W. from Laina's place and find it at the Boogie House. Then Leland could stand up and call for retribution-"
"And swift justice wins out," Deuce said. "A kick in the ass for the both of you."
"Yep. Damn. All in the name of protecting his son. I should have never confronted Jeff. That's what put this line of defense into action."
"But you can't pin Jeffrey's nuts to a wall based on this. A picture of them together isn't any sort of evidence of guilt. It's what, evidence that he lied? If you show him that, all he has to do is make up an elaborate story."
"It's going to be published in the paper."
"If it doesn't get censored somehow. Did you even ask Janita if that would be okay? I think she'd have a problem with you dragging her dead son out of the closet."
I thought about that for a minute. “I hope to have this all zipped up pretty soon."
"That doesn't change the fact that her son would be outed on the cover of the local newspaper."
"I have to take the chance that she'll understand. If the Brickmeyers aren't shaken up, they won't ever become accountable to their lies and hypocrisy."
"Well, good luck with that, Rol," he said. "I can't be a part of what you're doing."
"Why not?"
He sat forward, moving his keyboard aside and placing his elbows on the desk. "You're risking alienating everyone around you to catch Leland Brickmeyer or his son in something illegal. It has become your white whale, and you're going to end up hurting more than just yourself if you don't slow down and take a look at the motivations for your actions. Jesus, you’re starting to get obsessed."
"Okay," I said. "I can respect that. You can't go down the rabbit hole with me. But tell me one thing: How did you find all of this out?"
"Ron Bullen called and told me to warn you. He's looking for his brother, but the guy's probably already blown town. Good luck getting anything else out of him. He’s probably in the Midwest somewhere by now."
* * *
Leaving Deuce's office, I kept my head down. I flicked the phone open and made an emergency call. For the first time, the detective picked up on the first ring. "Hunter," I said, "someone besides the ref is calling the game."
He grunted. "Something strange is going on. Don't know why you're an interesting party to the locals, but you are. Lord knows it's all getting mucked up."
"Can you keep them off my back?" I reached the car, unlocking the door. It was a long shot, but I was working entirely in long shots right now.
“Not much I can do directly, but it looks like they just want to make sure you stop pestering everybody. If they bring you in, they can make you look like a suspect and discredit you so that anything you say will look laughable."
I got in, slipped on my seatbelt, and stuck the key in the ignition. "You have got to believe I had nothing to do with any of this."
"I'm beginning to," he said. “I had my doubts at first, but-”
“Bag full of snakes.”
“Bag full of snakes,” he repeated.
I turned the key and put car into drive, easing out of the spot and riding away, all while checking my mirrors for police cruisers. I didn't see any. "Janita Laveau gave me a picture of her son and Jeffrey Brickmeyer in a more or less loving embrace. I think this is all a defensive maneuver, but I'm afraid if I contact him, they're going to lock me away and forget about me as long as possible, and the picture will most certainly disappear."
"I want to see that picture," he said. "ASAP."
"Doris Allworth over at the paper has one. If you want the original, you'll have to come find me. I'm not going to stick my head too far out of the ground, if I can help it."
"All right," he said. "I'm going to make sure Jeffrey Brickmeyer is brought in for questioning. Until then, keep yourself out of trouble."
"I'll try," I said, and when I hung up, I punched the gas pedal to the floor.
* * *
When I got home, the house was all lit up. Again. I threw the car into park and went inside, finding Vanessa bundled up on the couch, knees to her chest, chin on her knees.
She looked up at me with wide eyes. She’d been crying recently. "Sorry about the lights. Thought I heard something outside a little while ago," she said. "And I think I heard gunshots some time ago."
I didn't want to entertain the idea that somebody who was looking for me might have shown up when only Vanessa was around. That thought shook me in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
She smiled and added, "I guess this couch has become my security blanket. I don't think I've left it all day."
"It's all right now," I said. "I'll go flip them off."
"Can't we leave them on? I'm still shaking."
I went into the kitchen. Somehow, looking through the window made me shiver, even with the curtain drawn. I felt eyes all over me. It was an abject lesson. I couldn't make the mistake of assuming that my territory was off-limits. Attacking a member of Brickmeyer's crew had obviously opened up the playing field.
I made Vanessa's favorite meal for the second time since she’d arrived. I boiled some rice and then tossed in two cans of stewed tomatoes and a couple spoonfuls of pickled jalapenos. Without some pork to throw in the pot it would be somewhat flavorless, but I let it slide. I had more on my mind than comfort food.
"Did the cops show up today?" I asked.
"No. They supposed to?"
"Maybe."
"Well, today nobody did. I got nothing out here but that creepy noise a while back."
"What did it sound like?"
"A guitar," she said. "Well, it was more like two cats mating, but I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be somebody playing guitar."
"Huh," I said, trying to gloss it over. “That is weird.”
"You think you gonna catch the people doin' all this?" V
anessa said from the living room, as I sneaked a glance outside at the dark outline of trees.
"Hope so." But I wasn't feeling too optimistic.
"I mean, really. This past week’s paper was real negative, Rolson, saying it'd be a long investigation."
"Right," I said. "It might drag on, but I doubt it'll be an investigation at all from here on out. I just have to find a way to nail Brickmeyer."
"He doesn't have his head completely up his ass, though you think so.”
“He’s an abomination. I just haven’t found the right thing yet.”
“He's been a politician for long enough now, and even if you're right, even if you found him standing over the body, before it was all over, you'd be the one with all the suspicion, not him. He'll find a way to slither out from under the tin roof, and it'll ruin you."
I actually managed a smile at that. "Not much left to do there."
On the stove, the frothing red mixture gurgled and popped, sending a spray of red droplets across the counter. I pulled it from heat and slid the pan over to a cold eye. I went over to the cabinet and found the two least dirty bowls.
One slipped from my grasp and clattered on the stove, sending flecks of red all over the counter. I cursed, and Vanessa said, "Without bad luck..."
* * *
When she noticed me watching her, she said, “You want one?”
I shook my head. I was locking up the house. “Haven’t had the desire the past few days.”
She seemed to question it but only took a long drag on her cigarette in response.
She wore a modest skirt, red chemise, and her hair was pulled half-up and half-down, the way I liked it. She was finally healing, and the weight she’d put back on looked good on her. Before, she had been hauntingly thin, and it was like looking into a coffin, but now the future was brightening somewhat.
She finished the cigarette and returned to her former place on the couch, feet tucked underneath her, one elbow on her knee, the other on the couch's headrest. The air around her was pungent with smoke and yet was sweet with her natural scent and fruity body wash.
“You should probably stay with your folks for a few days,” I said. “Until I’ve got everything sorted out.”
“Where are you going to go?”
I shrugged.
“Rolson, you can’t just disappear. What’re you going to do, sleep in the Boogie House?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer, mostly because I didn’t have one. I’d thought about where I might hide out, and I’d find somewhere, but the exact location was a mere question mark.
I had packed up a suitcase for her, tossed some clothes and toiletries into a duffel bag for myself. I felt the clock tightening on me, but for some reason I couldn’t tear myself away. Here I was, locking the doors and tightening up a place that might be worth burning down more than breaking into.
I was sitting on the couch, trying to think of some final words to say before we departed, when she did something shocking. The hand on her knee reached across and clasped my own. She slid her fingers between my thumb and forefinger, and I tightened my grip. A high-speed sledgehammer thrummed against my chest.
In a time in my life when nothing was clear or easy, when every day presented itself as an even more torturous digression from the previous one, somehow the warm, soft feel of her skin on mine made sense. Even as an addict, she had soft skin.
I allowed myself to give in to momentary weakness, recognizing nothing was under my control. The jurisdiction I had over my own life had grown smaller each day, and lingering just outside the circle were the old feelings I harbored against her.
She slid closer to me, shifting her weight so she could drape her legs over my knees, and I felt the swell of her breasts against me as her head drooped and then rested on my shoulder. I let go of her hand and placed one arm behind her, pulling her closer.
I leaned in and nestled my lips between her jaw and shoulder. Her hair covered her face, and I placed a gentle, timid kiss on the spot above her collarbone. She tensed, her neck and shoulder going rigid, but eventually she loosened so that I might kiss her again.
She was quivering, too, but what I had taken to be sexual excitement turned out to be quiet sobs working their way through her. She lost her breath and sucked in a harsh, tortured breath.
“I thought this is what you wanted,” I said, still unsure of how to proceed. I was confused, paranoid. I wanted her but didn’t know if it was something I’d regret later or not.
She didn’t answer, so I whispered to her, “Isn’t this what is supposed to happen now?”
She shrugged, but there was little uncertainty in the gesture. I sensed her pulling away from me, pulling away from this. Even if I didn’t know how much regret I felt, she was becoming more certain of hers.
She stopped crying but pulled her fingers loose from mine. I wanted to hold on, at least until I figured out what should happen next, whether I should make the speech now or not, but everything was moving too fast for me, now, so I just let it happen.
“Are you thinking about someone else?” I said, sort of blurting it out before my mind could deal with the jealousy.
Again, her shoulders raised in that most indifferent of gestures. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. Her head was tilted so that her hair hid her face. She was staring down in the direction of the source of my confused embarrassment.
"Choice is all we really have in this world,” I said. “The guy you were with, he set in motion his own trap, and there's nothing you could have done to stop it - just sort of holding him down - and you weren't in the shape to do that."
She started to shiver again, and though she ignored me, I kept going. "Plus, that isn't any way to live life, forcing people to do what's right for them. If they can't see that their shortcomings might be causing some pain, then you can't make 'em see it.”
There was a cold, still silence in the room. I reached out and brushed her hair aside, but she caught the motion and pushed my hand away. She then used the middle to fingers of her right hand to tuck her hair behind her ear.
Since there was nothing left but embarrassing things to say, I guess I thought it was time to say them. “There's days - and this might be something you don't want to hear - but there's days I wished I'd held you down so you couldn't run off and leave me. It would have been better for you to stay and work through your problems. I’d have helped you. But I could no more force you to do that than to make you keep on loving me. I let you go, and that was stupid, but hell, choice is what gives life meaning."
Speaking into my shirt, she said, "I don't even know that this is even about him."
I asked the obvious question.
She shook her head, pulling away just long enough to catch my gaze before returning her face to my shoulder, where the wetness of her tears soak through my shirt.
"Do you feel like you want to get high?" I asked, once she had mostly stopped crying. She began to shake her head no, to deny herself an honest answer. Thankfully, she stopped herself, nodding balefully.
The process of crying started all over again, but she caught herself before her feelings became uncontrollable. I said, "This isn't easy for me, either. My stomach has been prickly over the subject since you got here." I nearly said home but was grateful I didn't.
"It comes and goes," she replied. "Honestly, I've been keeping too busy these last few days to think about it." She paused, measuring my reaction. "But I can't lie: you've got me thinking about it right now."
"Have you thought about treatment?" Even as my mouth formed the words, I wished I could have grasped them with both hands and shoved them back in.
But there they were, hanging out there, just as I'd intended them, even if they were hastily thrown together.
"I may be plenty fucked-up,” she said. “That shit dug its heels in against me and led me so far off-track that I may never find my way back. But how fucking dare you tell me I'm the one with a problem."
"Listen, Vanessa."
>
"DUIs. Missed court dates. I may be running from something, but I know what the hell I'm running from. You don't even know that you're running right beside me, lost as you ever were."
"I'm not judging you."
"That's why we made such a good team. We were both lost, stomping around in woods so confusing we could never find the right path. But at least it made sense to us."
"I haven't had a drink in days."
"Now doesn't that sound like denial? Don't pretend like you have something you can hold over my head, Rol. This isn't about us. That what you were going to say? This isn't about us, this is about getting better, blah, blah, blah. How many times do you think I've heard this shit from my dad?"
"You came to me. I thought you trusted me."
"I came to you because I thought you would understand. I know I'm an emotional money pit, but I've come to terms with that."
I'd had enough. "Then how can you hold me hostage? You walked right into my house, cleaned yourself up, at least temporarily, and you settle into domestic life just like you had only just returned from a business trip. Then this happens, and you tell me you've come to terms with who you are? I don't buy that."
She glared.
I said, "I don't. I don't believe you. You're still looking for something, and people might not know what they're getting into with you, but they continue to because they see something still there. I still see something there, Vanessa."
With that, I reached out for her, but she flinched away like I had threatened to hit her.
She stood up, her fists balled, and went to yank open the door.
It was then I saw the flashing lights.
The cops had shown up, but at least they had given me time to destroy my tentative relationship with my ex-wife before doing so.
“Come on out, McKane,” said a familiar voice. It sounded like Ricky Walton, but the bullhorn distorted it so that I couldn’t tell.
I knelt down and scooted around to one side of the couch. “Close the door,” I whispered to Vanessa, who had frozen in the doorway.
Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery Page 27
