Soul Siren

by Aisha Duquesne

  A car’s headlights swung in an arc across the ceiling, and then I heard the engine stop. Shit. The sound of doors opening and then closing with a metal crunch, low conversation, and, Jesus, there was only the freight elevator as my way out.

  Calm down. I peeked outside the window. Carefully. Whoever they were, they hadn’t come to see Morgan.

  Their arrival reminded me of one additional problem. I knew I’d be an unlikely suspect in Morgan’s murder, but after my close call over Steven, I thought I’d better give myself an alibi. How? I had to think fast. I went over to Morgan’s computer and started up his broadband connection. After a few seconds, I typed in the link for a sound effects archive website—Luther used it, that’s how I’d discovered it. They had what I needed, and Real Audio Player waited only for a touch of the mouse. Perfect.

  I pulled my mobile phone out of my handbag and impulsively called Jill Chandler. Who better, I thought. Let her be the one.

  “Michelle?”

  “Hi, what are you up to?”

  “Kind of…finishing up a date,” she said sheepishly.

  Oh.

  “Listen, Mish, I should have talked to you about—”

  “No, hey, I’m sorry! I just wondered if you wanted to take in a movie with me, but if you’re with someone…” And behind me, the computer speakers played the ambient noise of a Cineplex crowd.

  “No, no, he’s got to go early,” said Jill. “We can still do it. What do you want to go see?”

  And on her side of the line, I heard footsteps approaching and a deep murmur of “Call you tomorrow, ’kay?” The smack of lips pecking a cheek. Luther? Interesting. I thought it was over between them.

  “Michelle?”

  “Yeah. I’m…Well, we don’t have to see what’s here. I just got the idea by passing this theatre. Loews in Midtown is showing that British thing.”

  “The one with Hugh Grant in it?”

  “They all have Hugh Grant in them, Jill.”

  “Sure, sure,” she laughed. “Give me about an hour, forty-five minutes if I can catch a fast train. We can always get coffee first if we’re in between the shows.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “See you then.”

  And I’m covered, I thought as I clicked off my phone. Plenty of time to jump on a train and link up with Jill.

  But I still had to find Morgan’s incriminating material.

  Hurry up. The desk. Maybe he had whatever he’d need stashed away in the desk, and I took a deep breath as I checked the drawers. Locked. Before panic set in, I pulled out the long drawer under the green blotter, and sure enough, a key sat squarely in the middle in plain view. Makes you wonder why one would bother, but people are creatures of habit. It was the bottom drawer that held the goldmine. More and more padded envelopes, each and every one addressed to the loft in Morgan’s own handwriting.

  I opened them all.

  And looked at the charts for “Drum,” for “Pariah,” for “Hurt Me Again” and others. Some, of course, weren’t what Erica called them, they had different names, but I could read music well enough to recognise the songs. “Son-of-a-bitch,” I whispered softly to myself. He had told me the truth.

  She is bigger than this, I told myself. She simply doesn’t know it. After all, she didn’t need Morgan to write “Late Night Promises.” She certainly didn’t steal anything from him for “It Was a Pleasure to Burn” because we took the Ray Bradbury book together in Grade Eleven back in MacDonald High, and I was there when she was fooling around on the piano and hit on the tune. Maybe they had collaborated on a few of the other songs, and they had a spat over who did what and should get the credit. Morgan writing things down shouldn’t prove anything.

  But it would damage her.

  She is bigger than this. No one has to know. No one will ever know.

  I stripped each envelope of the charts, notes and little cassettes and sifted the contents carefully. It would look ridiculous if his files were completely empty, and I would have to leave some behind. I was very careful. All this time I worked in the latex gloves, and though they were beginning to feel uncomfortable, I kept my discipline and left them on. It wouldn’t matter if my fingerprints were on the freight elevator or a couple of items of furniture—Erica and I were both regular visitors. But I had to be sure his desk wouldn’t betray me.

  I couldn’t know Morgan’s music, but I knew practically every nuance of Erica’s, and it didn’t take me long to divide what was hers and what was his. I went over to Morgan’s gas stove, lit up a burner and pushed the chart for one of her minor tunes on the Drum album into the blue flame. As the page blackened and curled, and a tiny orange fire started, I realised my mistake. It was too late for this one, and I left the ashes in the little gutter around the element, but the others…The others I would save. I would save all the other charts.

  She would need proof if she ever worried and was sleepless that it would come out. People will always tell a star what she wants to hear, but I could show her. And I could say I did this for you.

  Michelle is loyal. She had told people this plenty of times herself: Michelle’s always loyal.

  I would need her loyalty in return.

  I couldn’t burn the envelopes with their shallow bubble padding. Too messy, the plastic wouldn’t burn properly, and all that would take too long. I shoved them with the charts into my handbag, and though the contents gave it an improbable bulge, I forced the clasp to shut.

  That only left the tapes. By themselves, the demos didn’t prove anything. Drum had already gone double platinum, and for all anyone would know or care, Morgan could have recorded the songs as covers to get singing gigs. I shoved a couple of the cassettes into my pockets and considered the rest. Then I impulsively began to tug loops of tape out of the spools and shred them.

  I checked my watch. I had time. I carried the vandalised tangles, noisy like a pile of crackling cellophane, over to the fireplace and lit a match. The flame sputtered and died. I shoved in a section of The Times, but newspaper never burns as well as you expect, and I had to throw in a couple of pieces of kindling from Morgan’s antique coal bucket.

  The fire warmed me a little, but it wouldn’t reach Morgan’s body, cooling by the minute, its presence on the floor starting to tug at my nerves.

  I could leave the fire. It had destroyed enough of the tape spools that they were beyond saving, and with the odds and ends I had tossed in, it would look like a regular small fire. Time to go. As I got into the freight elevator, I carefully peeled off the latex gloves and shoved them into my pocket. I had watched enough cop shows from CSI to the one Morgan had tried to write for, Easy Death in Queens, to be paranoid about the chance of fingerprints on the inside of gloves.

  The freight elevator might as well have been a freight train for all the noise its steady grennnrrrrr made on the way down. If somebody had arrived even then I would have been sunk. Paranoia was making me shudder and itch. I was perspiring too much. I had been a cool customer with Steven, running on hate and adrenaline, but I had had to think too much about killing Morgan, especially when I was forced to do it so soon after the last murder. And now I was standing just inside the front door to his place, watching the street anxiously through the glass so that no one, no one, would see Michelle Brown or even Young Black Girl exiting victim’s place.

  Long exhalation of breath as I turned the corner.

  By the time I reached the subway station, I thought I was safe. I even felt secure enough to stand on the platform, and though you know all these places are getting CCTV’d nowadays, I was curious about the cassette tapes I had preserved from Morgan’s desk. I wasn’t too worried about cameras, because, hell, I was entitled like anybody else to be at that subway station. If I happened to check a tape in my pocket, so what, but that’s what fear and guilt does, it makes you hesitate over every banal thing you do, thinking it implicates you. When I reached down into my pocket, however, that wasn’t what made me shudder, the idea of being watched. It was because I f
elt the glove.

  There was only one.

  One glove. My fingers checked again patiently, feeling two tapes, feeling the texture of the latex and counting the fingers, digging around.

  There was only one glove.

  I looked around me. It hadn’t dropped anywhere on the platform with my rummaging. It wasn’t over by the steps coming down. Shit.

  It could have fallen anywhere from the doorstep to the entrance of the subway, but the horrifying notion was what if I had left it in his place? Which meant I had to go back. And I could be late for Jill. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  And so I trudged back, almost in tears for being such a fool. Again I checked the street for precious minutes on end, praying not to be seen. God, how I waited in agony. And when I couldn’t take it anymore, I jogged for the door and then remembered that he had buzzed me in. Panic was switching my reason off. How was I going to get back inside? Please, please, please. Think. Then I smartened up and remembered that I had brought along the spare set of Erica’s keys, which included the key to his place, and with a great sigh of relief, I unlocked the door and rushed inside.

  The freight elevator was another slow torture.

  And when it came to a stop and I slid back the wooden guard with the same old squeak and rattle, there was a silence to the place that was almost unbearable. Finality of death, cutting off sound as much as life. He was still there, of course, just as I had left him. I couldn’t stand this, and I tore my eyes away. I had come here with a purpose, and—

  There. Thank God. In the dimness of the room close to where the floor dropped off into the elevator shaft. The glove had fallen in the darkness when I had left the first time. I picked it up in ecstatic relief. It might as well have been a diamond ring saved before it rolled into a gutter. One glove that made the difference between scandal averted and finishing my life in prison. This time I shoved it well down into my pocket and held the pocket closed. I took one last look around, telling myself this better be it, you damn fool.

  I went through the same drills of watching the street. And then it was the subway and down to Midtown and Jill. When I showed up at the theatre, she was late. We still had time before the show, so we went for a quick one in an Irish pub across the street. To distract her from any questions about where I’d been earlier, I chose this moment to be the attentive new friend. Who was this new man who sounded so familiar in the background? Teasing her until she gave it up.

  “You okay us talking about this?” She took my hand under the table and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “I know we haven’t got together, but I’d still like to sometime, and if you’re open-minded, there’s no reason why we can’t. Tonight was just a date.”

  “Jill, we’re fine, honestly,” I said. “How was it? What was he like? Who is the guy?”

  “Okay, okay, it’s Luther,” she laughed. “Happy now?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked in a gossipy voice. “I thought he was finished with you.”

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t with him,” she said, taking a swig of her bottled beer. Arching her eyebrows, she told me, “The man knows how to scratch an itch.” Then she quickly patted my arm. “So do you, sweetie, I just felt in the mood for him—”

  I waved away any affront to my vanity. “I’m not offended. God, we’re an incestuous bunch, aren’t we?”

  “You were right: he gets in his moods,” she complained, barely hearing me. “I think in his head, he’s actually cheating on her even if she won’t give him the time of day! I know girls who wouldn’t believe a guy could have that kind of devotion. He’s great company, a fantastic lover, got loads of talent, and then he beats himself up over his relationship with her. I told him, ‘Babe, you’re a lot of fun until you get like this.’ ”

  “He’s in love with her,” I said with a shrug.

  “Yeah, Mish, I know, but after a while, the boy’s got to take a hint. There are thousands of things you can’t have in this world, and thousands of people you can’t have. Get over it. Move on.”

  “Jill, we’re in the pop music business!” I laughed. “If we listened to you, everybody would be mentally healthy, and all we’d have is songs from The Lion King.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t ‘get’ passion or love,” she countered. “But I don’t believe in extremes.”

  “Aw, you got no poetry in your soul, girl.”

  “Some people have too much.”

  We talked about Luther for a few minutes more and never did get around to what I had been up to in the day. We walked into the theatre, got our seats and made fun of the previews for the latest Ben Stiller comedy, a cop feature with Denzel Washington and a picture with a bunch of anonymous French actors in a Nazi-occupied town. The only thing you learned about that one was The Times called it “A Triumph!” By the time Hugh Grant was doing his stammering charm bit, I knew I had nothing to worry about. It was over. I was safe. Erica was safe.

  It took until four the next afternoon before word of Morgan’s death reached me. The manager of Stanford’s Jazz Emporium had stopped by his loft to return a borrowed book, an old friend who had his own key and who spontaneously admitted he wanted to help himself to another volume if his pal was out. He was the one who called the cops. The news would take a while to circulate to Morgan’s friends, and I was ready for it. I had rescheduled the more important appointments but left a couple of chores I hated to be cancelled on the spot when Erica made the call. And she would make the call. I could be certain of it.

  I had finished my business with Morgan by ten o’clock that morning. In my office at Brown Skin Beats, I had opened a drawer in my desk and pulled out a FedEx pack. I shoved in Morgan’s charts, now stacked and organised in my own sealed manila envelope. There was only one place to keep these goods safe. “Dear Karen,” I wrote, “I’ve sent this to you because you’re the one person I can trust. Nothing terribly interesting, just legal documents, but I don’t have much privacy at the apartment. Just stash these away for me, will you? I love you. M.”

  I knew Karen wouldn’t open the pack. Like many people who guard their privacy, Karen wouldn’t dream of invading the privacy of others, even an old flame. And I could collect the package if and when I needed it.

  FedEx came by, I signed on the proper line on the delivery guy’s clipboard, and I stored the pink customer receipt in my desk so I could call the next afternoon to ensure it arrived okay. Simple as that. It was done. No more Morgan, and now no more Morgan’s threat. I got on with my day. And by 4:17, I was sitting at my desk in my office with my feet up and let the phone ring three times before answering.

  “Mish…” Pitiful sobs.

  “Erica? Jesus, Erica, what’s wrong? Tell me…”

  Confession

  Morgan made a reference once to how he had grandchildren. It turned out he had an estranged mixed-race daughter in her thirties who lived in Queens, married to a Systems Analyst, with two little girls of her own. She graciously accepted Erica’s help to pay for and arrange the funeral. She was pleasant to us all, but you could tell she felt alienated. At the reception, she listened politely to stories we told about Morgan in the studio or jazz clubs or simply jamming in the apartment. She volunteered none of her own.

  “God, it’s kind of like looking through a cracked mirror,” Erica whispered to me in the reception hall. I didn’t understand what she meant until she added, “I phoned my Dad this morning to let him know. He gave me a list of songs we ought to play. Morgan’s favourites.”

  It sunk in about the cracked mirror. Erica had been watching our friend’s daughter, how the woman’s mouth betrayed no smile, no quiver for tears about to come, her eyes full of regrets and bittersweet emotions about what Morgan’s life was all about and if he had left any legacy at all. Memories perhaps of when Daddy couldn’t help with rent, when Daddy was away on tour with a band or was out that night playing. When it was so much easier to leave during an argument with Mom because smoky clubs were becoming branches of a second home. I could se
e from Luther’s expression that the bell was tolling for him, too, thinking of his little boy. He said he visited Trey as often as possible.

  Only a few minutes later, I made another circuit around the huddles of mourners and found Erica to see how she was holding up. And she said the strangest thing.

  Staring at a wall, she remarked, “He could be a major prick. Morgan. He could lie to you shamelessly and tell you not to come over because he had people, and you’d drive past his place and know he’d be up there alone. He could be so selfish. He played piano like a god, and we got solid arrangements out of him on Drum. I loved that whiskey laugh of his. And when he made love to you, he took his sweet time…What do you do with a man like that? What are you supposed to think of him after he’s done?”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  She turned and poured the last of her drink into a potted plant. “Maybe if he got out of that apartment once in a while, this wouldn’t have happened. He was one selfish son-of-a-bitch up there with his books and his Scotch.”

  “Erica…”

  “I’m okay, Mish. I just wish I knew what to think of him when I add it all up.”

  Erica sang “Late Night Promises” at the funeral. She said it was one of Morgan’s favourites. I was the only one there who felt a disturbing irony, remembering how Morgan claimed to me once he had written this, too, but “let Erica have it.” With Drum, he’d said, he had to put his foot down.

  It should have been my time now. I hadn’t killed Morgan to be closer to her, but I would have thought it just compensation if it happened. Luther disillusioned and distanced, Steven a memory, and her circle of friends available for condolences but not affection. Not love. I lived with her, worked for her. I was available practically around the clock, only a phone call away. Turn to me now. I confess part of me was selflessly moved by her pain, wanted to caress her away from this misery for her sake. It tore her up inside far worse than Steven’s murder. I grieved, too. I walked around the apartment in a stupor of self-pitying shock, like a conscripted soldier who has killed his first man. In mourning, Erica didn’t play jazz or the Drum album, reminders of her loss, she put a lot of Brahms and Chopin on the stereo. For the first time in ages, she talked about booking a flight to go home and visit her family. I told myself I had to give her space. Wait for this heaviness to pass.