The Stories You Tell

by Kristen Lepionka

  * * *

  I left feeling bad about the world, or at least the social media–era world. Would any of these problems have existed before? It was easy to blame technology, but really, people have always battled shitty impulses—BusPass just gave men like Brock a convenient way to act upon them without even leaving the house. I navigated the winding streets of Blacklick in the dark and tried to make sense of everything I’d learned so far. Corbin Janney—whoever he was—existed as an outlier on one end of the spectrum, and Mickey Dillman was on the opposite end. Both had interacted with Addison via the app through unusual but very different circumstances. Corbin was a made-up name that had carried on a relationship of some significance with Addison, while Mickey’s contact with her was still a big old question mark. He’d showed up at her house, showed up at her job at least once, had some kind of tense interaction with her there, and then? Then Addison ran out into the street without a coat, and Mickey somehow got himself to the icy Scioto River.

  Or someone wanted it to appear that way.

  Everything here was different than it appeared.

  I tried to imagine Mickey Dillman posing as an emo twentysomething to talk to Addison from his crummy little motel room. It could happen, but why? And if he had done so, why also interact with Addison’s second account using his real name?

  And while I was at it, why did Addison pack a bag and leave home but didn’t take her recording equipment? She didn’t plan to be gone that long, or she was done being DJ Raddish?

  My thoughts skipped back to my suicide pact idea. It seemed insane, but was it crazier than any of the other prospects?

  I found myself avoiding the freeway and driving straight down Main, past the East Side Motor Lodge and eventually into Bexley, toward Catherine’s house.

  There was a car in the driveway that I didn’t recognize, something boxy and grey in the dark.

  I slowed to a crawl and thought about driving past, just going home, but decided not to. Instead I parked and knocked on the door, my key to it burning hot against my palm. Through the tall windows that flanked the door I saw Catherine walk toward me, hesitate, then commit. “Hi,” she said, holding the door open a few inches. “I thought you didn’t want to come over.”

  “I didn’t,” I said, “not yesterday. But can we talk now?”

  “You hung up on me.”

  “I was upset.”

  “Was?”

  “Am? I don’t know, Catherine, can I come in? It’s cold.”

  “Wystan is here.”

  I stared at her.

  “So this probably isn’t a good time.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Well, it’s his house,” she said. “Technically.”

  In the past eight months, her estranged ex-husband had been keeping a profile so low that I almost forgot he existed. He wasn’t even living in Columbus, to hear her tell it, and as far as I knew, they hadn’t been in contact at all. I supposed the operative words were as far as I knew. Maybe that wasn’t really very far.

  Some detective I was.

  “Did you tell him about Rhode Island?” I said.

  Catherine nodded.

  “I mean before you told me.”

  She took a beat to answer that one. “I may have mentioned it. Because of the house.”

  I bit off a laugh. “No,” I said.

  “No what?”

  “Do you really not see how unfair all of this is? To me?”

  She made a face, the one that meant she was about to say something with the sole purpose of hurting me. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a narcissist?” she said. “Because I think you are. Even if most of your thoughts are about how you’re garbage, that still means most of your thoughts are about you.”

  I felt my mouth hanging open. The cold air made my teeth ache. Catherine folded her arms over her chest and just blinked at me the way she always did in the aftermath of something like this, both bewildered and satisfied.

  I held out the house key to her, but she didn’t take it. She acted like she was just standing in an open doorway for no reason, like I wasn’t there at all. I turned and dropped the key on the steps as I went back to my car.

  It made a sound like glass breaking as it plinked down onto the concrete, almost musical.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I practically threw my driver’s license at the clerk manning the visitation process at FCCC1. My head hurt and my chest hurt and I suspected that I might scream at anyone who looked at me funny, but no one did. When Andrew sat down across from me he said, “You look like a person with some bad news.”

  My hands were still shaking. “Not news, no.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I studied my brother through the smeary glass. He looked like shit, with puffy dark circles under his eyes, a slick of perspiration across his forehead. “I don’t want to talk about me. Are you doing okay in here?”

  He closed his eyes. “Not really,” he said. “Seven days without a drop of booze under these circumstances? It’s bullshit.”

  “Seven days.”

  “But who’s counting.” He opened his eyes; they were bloodshot, shiny. “I’ve been thinking about Dad,” he said. “The booze. I was thinking, no way he could’ve gone seven days without a drink. I’m nothing like him, that’s what I’m telling myself. Look at me, I went seven days without drinking. Yeah, because I’m fucking in jail.” He banged his hand on the metal ledge below the window. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, no.”

  “If I’m still in here on the eighth, promise me you won’t let Matt—I don’t know—be Matt.”

  “I promise. You won’t be, though. Has Jules made any inroads on the search warrant?”

  “Fuck if I know. Are you any closer to figuring out where Addison is?”

  “Ditto,” I said. “Listen, humor me a second, okay? Tell me exactly what happened the night Addison came over.”

  “I already told you everything.”

  “I know. But tell me again. Start before she got there. What were you doing?”

  “Reading.”

  “Reading?”

  “I do know how to read, Roxane.”

  “What were you reading? Come on, tell me a story here.”

  Andrew rested his elbows on the metal ledge. “Okay. I was reading Slaughterhouse-Five. Rereading.”

  I nodded for him to go on.

  “I was like two-thirds of the way done with it. Debating whether I wanted to keep reading or go to bed. But then Addison showed up—”

  I interrupted, “No, tell me exactly what happened. Did she ring the buzzer, did you talk to her through the little speaker, what?”

  My brother sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll play this tedious little game with you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The buzzer buzzed. I put my book down on the arm of the sofa. I stood up.” He looked at me. “Is this minutiae minute enough?”

  “It’s perfect. Just talk.”

  “I said yeah or something. She said—she said, ‘Andrew, please, this is an emergency, let me in, I need to use a phone.’ And I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t realize who it was, but she sounded scared. Actually, she sounded relieved, like relieved that I was home or something. But anyway, I said, ‘Who is this?’ She said, ‘It’s me from the Sheraton, please please open the door.’”

  “Two pleases?”

  “Two pleases. I buzzed her in. Then I went out into the hall, like, to see if she was actually coming up, or if she just wanted to get into the building. But she came up. Stairs, not elevator. She didn’t even really look at me, she just kind of bumped by me to get inside. Is this helping?”

  “I don’t know yet. Just keep going.”

  “She went into the kitchen. To the sink. She kind of leaned over the sink, almost hyperventilating. I said, ‘What’s wrong, what happened, what do I do?’ She was trying to calm down, but she was also shivering. So I grabbed a sweatshirt from the closet and gave it to
her. She put it on. The sleeves were crazy long. I asked if she was hurt, if someone had hurt her, I offered to call the police. She said, ‘Please, no, I just need your phone.’ I asked again, ‘Are you okay? Please, let me help,’ and she said, ‘No, I’m fine, I need to make a phone call.’ So I unlocked my phone and gave it to her. Then she made her call—”

  “Where were you? Where was she?”

  “God, you’re annoying. She was still in the kitchen, at the sink. She kind of turned away and faced the refrigerator while she was talking. I was—I don’t know where I was.”

  “Yes you do. I assume she put her back to you, when she turned towards the refrigerator?”

  Andrew nodded.

  “So you were somewhere between the sink and the hallway.”

  “I—yeah. I went over to the couch, I picked up my book again. She hung up the phone and kind of sighed and took a few deep breaths. So I thought, okay, she’s calming down now—it was a really awkward situation. I wasn’t sure what to do, I thought maybe I’d just sit there and read until she wants to talk or something. But I didn’t sit down,” he said, and paused. “Instead of sitting down I went over to the window, because I heard sirens. Shit, I totally forgot about that. I heard sirens.”

  “See, I wasn’t just doing this for fun. What kind of sirens?”

  “There was an ambulance going by, when I looked out. On Fourth.” His blue-grey eyes widened. “That’s what spooked her. The siren. When I turned back to her, she was fumbling with the dead bolt on the door, trying to leave. I ran over to the door to stop her, saying, ‘Hey, no, you’re not in good shape right now, let me drive you somewhere if you need to leave.’ I grabbed her elbow, or tried to, I just got a handful of sweatshirt and she kind of jerked away, but I was still holding the sweatshirt, so she was kind of stuck for a second, and she slapped at me with her other hand, I guess, and that was when she scratched me. And I let go. She left, I grabbed my shoes, and by the time I had them on and made it out the door, she was gone. Why would a siren have scared her like that?”

  Because she’d just had an ugly altercation with a cop, that was why.

  It made a lot of sense, actually. She didn’t want Andrew to call the police in the first place, but then she heard the sirens and thought—what—that they were there for her?

  Because Mickey needed backup?

  Because Mickey needed medical attention?

  I rubbed my forehead, wishing like hell the security cameras had been placed more strategically.

  “Do you think I’m a narcissist?” I said after a minute.

  “Um, where is this coming from?”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “No, Roxane, you aren’t a narcissist. Do you even know what a narcissist is?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “Then why are you asking? If there’s anyone I know who is capable of empathy, it’s you. Too much, even. And the last time I checked, you hate being the center of attention.”

  I kept quiet. I was picturing the flinty look in Catherine’s eyes when she’d said it.

  Andrew placed his palm against the glass. I guessed it wasn’t too much like a Lifetime movie after all. I followed suit. “Do you need to talk?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Catherine,” I said, but I wasn’t sure what else to add to that.

  Apparently nothing was required. “Now there’s a narcissist.”

  I sighed and stared at our hands lined up on the glass.

  Andrew said, “Fucking February.”

  * * *

  In the car, I pushed play on the stereo, hoping for something loud and ballsy. Instead I heard the strange music stylings of DJ Raddish. Anger stabbed at my brain and I turned it off. I had a piercing desire to break the CD in half, but couldn’t figure out how to eject it.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said to the shadowy darkness of Mound Street.

  But as I sat there, something was needling my psyche, hanging in the air like an unresolved chord. My entire relationship with Catherine was a bit of an unresolved chord, and it had been for almost twenty years. I didn’t like thinking about it in those terms, in that amount of wasted time. But there it was. Andrew was stuck in limbo—that was a textbook definition of an unresolved chord. I turned the stereo back on in case the thing bothering me was an actual unresolved chord, but the meandering beat and layers of audio didn’t have much in the way of an identifiable melody.

  Just the crackling sound effect, and Billie Holiday’s lonesome, broken-hearted voice.

  I smacked the steering wheel.

  Rick Dillman’s big red headphones, the song I’d heard escaping from them while we were in line at the wings restaurant. Billie Holiday.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  A woman with dyed reddish-orange hair in rollers answered the door of Rick Dillman’s house the next morning. The hosebeast, I presumed. “Hi there, is Rick at home?”

  She gave me the eye. “And you are…?”

  I waggled a bottle of Shelby’s hot sauce. “I just want to talk capsaicin. I’m a friend.”

  The hosebeast pursed her lips. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

  She closed the door partway and yelled, “Richard, You Have A Visitor.”

  Rick appeared a moment later, pushing up his glasses.

  “I come bearing gifts,” I said as I handed him the bottle.

  Rick was very into the hot sauce. We ate it on Saltine crackers while sitting in his basement, which had a separate bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room. Most of the sitting room was taken up by a wooden entertainment stand, a turntable, and a complex system of speakers.

  I said, “It looks like you have a whole deejay setup here.”

  He shook his head rapidly. “It’s for listening only. I built this whole thing around this one part—let me show you.” He crawled over to the entertainment stand and opened the cabinet door on the bottom. Instead of concealing his record collection, it revealed a metal beam.

  “What on earth is that?”

  He pointed to the turntable in the center. “It’s completely parallel to the foundation of the house. It’s actually sitting on this thing that goes into the foundation. Because when there is play”—here he held up a hand and tipped it back and forth—“it can affect the audio. I wanted to create the optimal listening experience. It’s so stable that nothing is going to mess up the sound. There could be a tornado and this thing isn’t going anywhere.”

  “So you’re a bit of an audiophile.”

  He nodded. “Well, expert. It’s why I can sell so many sound systems even though people say I’m strange. I tell them, neurodivergent, that’s the word. So I know you’re here to put on the hard sell but I told you. The vault.”

  “I know. But I was hoping we could make a trade.”

  “A trade?”

  “Hot sauce recipe for the whole story?”

  “You made this?”

  “A friend did.”

  Rick didn’t say anything, just studied the hairs on his arm and smoothed them down.

  “I want to talk about Addy Marie,” I continued. I showed him her profile on my phone. “I know you know who this is. I know your cousin went to see her, didn’t he? At the club where she worked? That night, after bowling?”

  Rick leaned back against the couch and stared at the ceiling.

  I added, “I know you promised not to tell anyone. But I think this woman might know something about what happened to him, and I really think Mickey would want the truth about what happened that night to come out.”

  “The truth.”

  We sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Rick dipped a fingertip into the hot sauce and smeared it around the plate a little.

  “He said she was bad and he was gonna get the money back,” he said eventually. “Even though I told him, it was okay, it wasn’t about the money.”

  “What money?”

  “That I sent her. It was for her car. Well, first it was for
her car. Then she needed a new controller for her act and she asked me which one to get, and I told her the Pioneer DDJ-RX is without a doubt the best you can get, but it’s like three grand, and she said she couldn’t afford it, and that she was probably going to get this other one that was like ninety bucks, and I just—no, don’t buy that piece of crap. I wanted to get it for her.”

  “When was this?”

  “Right after New Year’s.”

  So, well over a month ago.

  “She said she didn’t get anything good for Christmas. So I told her, no, you got the Pioneer controller for Christmas and I sent her the money on PayPal.”

  “Three thousand dollars.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “Actually, it is. That’s a lot of money.”

  “I told you, I’m really good at selling sound systems. I just wanted to help her, to do something nice for my girlfriend. But Mickey said she wasn’t my girlfriend. He said girlfriends don’t take money from men they haven’t even met and I said that I was the one who didn’t want to meet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m better online, is all.”

  “But she wanted to meet?”

  “No. I said at the beginning, ‘Addy, I like you a lot but we can’t meet for a long time, because I have autism and meeting people is not so good for me, can we just get to know each other.’ And she said of course, she said she got nervous meeting new people too, but that she liked me back because we could talk about anything.”

  “What kinds of things did you talk about?”

  “Sound. Like what it means to actually listen to something. I told her about this, here,” he said, pointing to the stereo stand. “And feeling different and how people have these ideas of what you are.”

  “Was it romantic?”

  “Duh, she said she wanted to be my girlfriend. She sent me pictures. Sexy.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his photo album.

  “Whoa,” I said.

  He wasn’t kidding. The pictures Addison had sent went a bit beyond sexy.