Falls the Shadow

by William Lashner

  “Why did you marry her?”

  “Why else? I loved her.”

  “So what happened to the marriage?”

  “It is hard to say.”

  “Try.”

  “Things change with a child. Amber was a beautiful baby, yes, but things changed. It was a difficult delivery, and Leesa was in quite a bit of pain for a long time afterward. The baby was crying, shrieking, always seemed hungry, and Leesa was depressed. The doctor said it was a normal thing, the depression, but that did not make it easier. And I had my new restaurant. I was obsessed with starting it right and so could not be around as much as maybe I should have been. With Leesa’s pain and the depression getting worse, the doctor finally prescribed some medicine.”

  “What medication?” I said.

  “Something about an ox, I do not know. It fixed the pain, yes, but it had a bad effect on Leesa. She became moody, manic, or depressed, depending on the hour. She did not seem to bond with the baby. And we began to fight. She said she felt smothered, chained, and abandoned all at once. And it was not only her, I was feeling a little trapped, too. After a while we were like strangers. And then she accused me of cheating.”

  “Did you?”

  “Is that important?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe then I did, yes. Nothing extraordinary.”

  “With whom?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Believe me when we tell you this, François, everything in your life has become our business. Whom?”

  “There was a customer. There was a girl on a bicycle. What do you want, Victor? I’m French.”

  “I’ll need names,” I said.

  “Who can remember? Katherine? Lorraine? Yes, Lorraine.” A smile followed by a dismissive wave. “And then there was someone from work. Darcy. Darcy DeAngelo. That was maybe a bit more serious. But it was not the affairs that caused the end of us. They were just…affairs.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “We were both unhappy. That was it. We began to make each other miserable. Therefore, I left. I thought that was best, but Leesa evidently disagreed.”

  “The divorce proceeding wasn’t amicable, I presume.”

  He gave a French snort of derision. “I wanted it to be. I was worried about Leesa and concerned about Amber, but Leesa decided nothing would be easy. She went crazy with revenge, she showed no concern for Amber. It was the drug still, I thought. I tried to get her off the pills, but the only way to talk to her now was through the judge. So that is what I did. For some reason, me bringing the drugs into the court case only made the situation worse.”

  “Funny how that works,” I said. “Where were you the night of the murder?”

  “In my apartment. I had worked lunch and then the dinner shift also. We had a drink or two after closing, but I was too tired to stay long. I was exhausted. I still had my chef’s coat on as I walked home. I collapsed into the bed. I was asleep when the police woke me up with the news. I let them search my apartment. I had nothing to hide. That is when they found the gun and the blood.”

  “How did it get there?”

  “I do not know. I still do not know. It was the fat detective that found it.”

  “Torricelli?”

  “Yes. Maybe he brought it over in his briefcase to frame me. It is always the husband, right? He wanted to be sure.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “He did not seem to me, that detective, to be so bright.”

  “Bright enough to put you in here. Did he arrest you right then?”

  “Yes, of course. That very morning. I have not been out of jail since. I would have had another drink that night if I had known.”

  “What happened to all the stuff in the apartment?”

  “I stopped paying the rent when I was in jail. I do not know where everything is. My clothes, my books and pans. Who knows? Who cares? I have not lately had much use for a copper salmon poacher.”

  I had been pacing back and forth, sucking on my wound, as I asked my questions. Now I sat down right across from him, looked at him carefully as I said, “Why is Velma Takahashi paying for your defense?”

  “I do not know.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “But you must, Victor. I do not know. Truly. She came to visit me. I knew her, she was a friend of Leesa’s from her days at Marrakech, and we maybe played a bit, if you understand, but we were never really friends. In fact, I always thought she resented me.”

  “Why?”

  “I broke up the team. They were quite the team, and a team after our separation, too, if you listened to the rumors. So I was surprised that she came to visit. She said she only wanted to see how I was getting along. I lied to her and said I was fine. But I was not fine. Who is fine in this place? And I think she could see that. And somehow it affected her, I do not know. She looked at me, I had a bruise on my face from something that happened in the shower, and I could see tears in her eyes. Like somehow the bruise, it was her fault. And then she told me she would help me any way she could, that she would pay for a new lawyer if I needed.”

  “How did you light on us?”

  “I saw your name in the paper, Victor. I asked around. When I thought you were the one, I decided to write. I have done some fishing in my life. You catch nothing with an empty hook. From what I heard about you, I knew what I needed to get your interest. I called Velma and asked for a check.”

  “As bait?”

  “Yes, of course. Dangling on a hook. And here I am with another chance at life.” He grinned, like a cat with a fish tail sticking out of its teeth. “And it worked, did it not?”

  “I guess it did.”

  “Anything else?”

  I thought a bit. “There is one thing more that has been bothering me. Why do you chef guys always undercook my steak?”

  “You must be careful with the meat,” said François. “There is a point where the taste and texture are perfect. You go beyond that point, the muscle it clenches and everything is ruined. It is like eating leather.”

  “But what if I like it well done?”

  “Then you, Victor, are a barbarian.”

  At least he wasn’t lying about that.

  “He’ll make an awesome witness,” said Beth after they had taken François Dubé back to his cell. We were still in the room, both of us standing now, waiting for someone to lead us out.

  “Sure he will,” I said.

  “The jury will eat him up like a crème brûlée.”

  “Maybe, if they go for that French thing. Personally, I find it annoying, like a cat in the corner coughing up hair balls and meowing orders.”

  “A cat?”

  “Don’t the French remind you of cats? Insufferably superior, willfully independent. And they lick themselves clean after they eat.”

  “Stop it.”

  “No, I’ve seen it, really.”

  “He’ll do great,” said Beth. “If he’s telling the truth.”

  “The big if.”

  “He admitted the affairs,” she said.

  “With a great amount of pride, I might add.”

  “And if he had really used the gun, why would he bring it back to his apartment, and why would he consent to the search?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe he is telling the truth. What do you think, Victor?”

  I felt the scab in my mouth with my tongue. I had worried it so hard during the interview the edges had come loose. I had been playing with my scab because the whole interview had made me itch all over. Every answer only raised more questions. Like his alibi on the night of the murder, which was no alibi at all. Like his story about how he met his wife, and his relationship with Velma Takahashi, both of which seemed to contradict what Mrs. Cullen had told me outside the courtroom. And his side of the separation seemed a little too pat, didn’t it? But then again the strange sadness he had seen in Velma’s eyes matched what I had seen there, too.

 
; “He’s lying,” I said. “He’s hiding something, I just don’t know what.”

  “Always the skeptic.”

  “Come on, Beth. You’ve heard it enough from me. What’s the first precept of the legal profession?”

  “Clients lie.”

  “Very good. There are some things I’m going to want to check out.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the records of the divorce proceeding. And I’ll need to visit that club he talked about, Marrakech.”

  “You think you might find something there?”

  “No,” I said, “but it sounded like a pretty good place to pick up women.”

  Beth laughed as I fiddled with the scab.

  “But first,” I said, “what we need to do is to talk to Mia Dalton about…arrgh.”

  “Victor? What is it, Victor?”

  I gagged on something and searched around futilely for a tissue. In desperation, I spit whatever had come loose into my hand. I couldn’t help but give it a look.

  An uneven circle of blotchy scab, about the size of a tooth.

  “Victor, are you okay?”

  I gagged again before gaining enough control to say, “I think so.” I took a deep breath and a pure, scorching pain buckled my knees.

  “Victor,” said Beth, rushing over to me. “What is it?”

  I grabbed hold of her arm and felt the blood rush from my head as a great white wooziness overtook me.

  Next thing I knew, there was music, lush and ethereal, and a white light lay an arm’s length before me, like a vision of another and better world.

  And strangest of all, it shone into my mouth.

  26

  “A dry socket,” said Dr. Bob. “See, the clot is gone, and now the bone of the jaw is exposed, with all its jangling nerves. I warned you, Victor. Didn’t I warn you? But apparently you were too bullheaded to listen. Now we have a problem. You were worrying the clot with your tongue, weren’t you?”

  “Arrghighahoo.”

  “Of course you tried not to, everyone tries not to, but some are too weak to resist. You had a soda pop, I’d wager, or a beer. Didn’t I give you explicit instructions? Even with my best efforts, the failures of others sometimes get in the way and the unexpected happens. It is hard to describe how frustrating that can be. Yet this, too, can be solved, have no fear.”

  Telling me to have no fear while in a dentist chair was like telling Marley’s ghost to look alive.

  “Any changes in your medical or personal situation since last we met?”

  “Ayyaaw,” I said.

  “Other than the pain in your jaw, of course. No? Good. So I assume that means you still are not in a fulfilling sexual relationship. I know, these things take time, but maybe I can help. Open wider. We’ll need to clean the hole before I apply the dressing. The water might tingle a bit. Yes, yes, very good. Why is your leg shaking like that? That didn’t hurt too much, did it? Stop nodding your head, please, you’re making it hard for me to see. Now, let me just dry it with a quick burst of air.”

  He reached in with his air nozzle and blew dry the hole. My shoe flew against the wall.

  Dr. Bob turned his head to inspect the scuff mark. “Second time that happened this week.”

  He opened a small, squat jar, and the smell of cloves wafted through the room. He took a long piece of gauze off his tray with a metal forceps, dipped the whole thing in the jar. It came out smeared thickly with a brown ooze.

  “Now open wide, this is sometimes a bit tricky. Yes, I’ve managed to help many of my patients find more than just a bright, shiny smile. Hold on, now, I have to pack this tightly in, section by section. The smell is rather nice, but the ointment tastes suspiciously of earwax. Tense your neck as I push down. Excellent. I’ll wipe away the tears from your cheek. It will be over very soon.”

  He turned toward his tray, fiddled.

  “I’ve had some success in matching up my patients. It is not something I do as a matter of course, I am not a busybody, heavens, but I do like to help. And I must admit, from my chair has dropped more than one acorn that has grown into the mighty oak of marriage.”

  He leaned over me, brushing my chest as he adjusted the light. “Open up now, let me get a good look. Ah, yes. Now tense that neck.” As he worked, all ahs and ohs, my head bobbed up and down like a baseball giveaway.

  “I had a patient in Baltimore with a rather unfortunate overbite who was, as one would expect with such a mouth, a rabid Republican. Whenever we talked, as I worked like an overmatched jockey to rein in his teeth, it was all politics politics politics, and always mindlessly doctrinaire. It was like having the Fox News Channel in my chair. Except for his bite, he wasn’t a bad-looking man, but needless to say he didn’t date much.”

  He took out his hands, adjusted the light again, peered so closely into my mouth I could count his nose hairs.

  “Nice. Okay, almost finished. Tilda,” he called, “can you come in, please?”

  The hulking figure of the hygienist appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Doctor.”

  “I’m almost through here. Get Mrs. Winterhurst ready, please.”

  “Very good, Doctor.”

  “Make sure her entire dress is covered with toweling. She’s a bleeder, and we don’t want to ruin another Givenchy. And, Tilda, I think we’ll need to paint that wall again.”

  She leaned inside, observed the scuff on the wall, my shoe on the floor. She sneered at my weakness before she left.

  “Open wide,” said Dr. Bob. “At the same time, I had a patient with two impacted wisdom teeth. A small woman, always angry. She, too, would constantly discuss politics, but she was a raging liberal, a bleeding-heart Democrat to the core, and incensed at everything the Republican Party had perpetrated—her word—upon the country. And she seemed very anxiety-struck about the deficit for some reason. Her calendar, too, was pathetically empty.”

  “Ayaheeay,” I said.

  “Absolutely. I’m not much one for politics, it all seems so grubbily self-interested. And it tends to take on the reflexive quality of rooting for a sports team, don’t you think? Democrats hate the Republican Party the way Phillies fans hate the Mets. Not much considered thought in that, is there? Although how a mere political party could be more loathsome than the Mets is beyond me.”

  “Ayahee.”

  “And don’t get me started on Don Young.”

  “Ooh?”

  “I said don’t get me started. One person’s miracle is another person’s disaster. I could hear the groaning from my backyard. But both Baltimore patients had answered question sixteen much as you did, Victor, and I could see in each, along with the loneliness, a certain overwrought sensitivity. They were, perhaps, made for each other. But how to get them together, how to get them past the blindness of their politics?”

  Another press into my jaw that sent my neck into spasm.

  “I think we’re pretty much done,” said Dr. Bob. “How does that feel, Victor?”

  I rubbed my neck, took a deep breath, gently rested my tongue against the now dressed wound, pressed harder. “It feels fine,” I said, slightly shocked that it actually did. “The pain is gone.”

  “That’s the point. It’s rather simple, really. Now, try not to disturb the dressing, though I know it might be hard for someone such as you. And under no circumstances should you eat lamb’s bladder.”

  “Why? Will that hurt the wound?”

  “No, but it’s disgusting, don’t you think?” He laughed, I winced. “And now, Victor, it’s time to decide how to handle the missing tooth on a more permanent basis. What I’d like to do,” said Dr. Bob, “is to drill into your jaw.”

  “Oh, I bet you would,” I said.

  “I would drill a hole and screw in an implant. If all goes well, the implant will graft solidly into your bone, something called osseointegration. After about three to six months, depending on the success of the integration, atop the abutment I would attach a restoration, which is that part of the implant that looks
like a tooth. It is the most permanent solution. It’s also the most painful and most expensive.”

  “Why am I not surprised? And it takes six months?”

  “Some dentists will put the restoration on right away, but the chances of failure are higher that way.”

  “What about option two?”

  “A fixed bridge. It’s easier, less painful, less expensive.”

  “That sounds right by me.”

  “But its long-term prognosis is not quite as good.”

  “Still, I find myself strangely attracted to easier, less painful, and less expensive. Am I alone in seeking in dental reconstruction the same traits I look for in a woman?”

  “I noticed you don’t have dental insurance.”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Still, you mustn’t think of dental work the way you think of suits, Victor. Cheaper is not always better. But okay, then. We’ll go with the bridge. Next time we’ll get started with the grinding.”

  “Grinding?”

  “Don’t worry, Victor, it’s relatively pain-free.”

  “Relatively?”

  “I’d like to take another set of X-rays to see how the bone looks without the tooth. Tilda,” he called.

  She appeared quick as a ghost in the doorway, her huge hands dangling like boiled hams at her side.

  “A set of bite wings and a periapical X-ray, please, Tilda. Make sure to get a good shot of the lower right.”

  “Of course, Doctor,” she said. “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s it, thank you,” he said, standing. He ripped off his gloves, tossed them into the container, took up my chart, and started scribbling his notes. “Victor, I’ll see you in another week.”

  “Thanks for taking me on such short notice.”

  “We all must do our part,” he said.

  “What happened to them, the Baltimore people?”

  “Married,” he said. “Two children. They’re as happy as mussels. Don’t you find the mussel a far more cheerful bivalve than the clam?”