The Girl on the Edge of Summer

by J. M. Redmann

  Over twenty-four hours of rest should be enough, right?

  I kept telling my aching bones that.

  My hands shook when I thought how close it had been. Half a second? How much can you split seconds and have them mean anything? My hand had hit the barrel, deflecting it just as he fired. If I had run into that barrage…my funeral would be closed casket.

  But the days didn’t stop coming, and I was still here.

  Janice had been hit in the leg, also from a bullet that was flying around, but unlike me, it had hit her square. She would be okay. Physically.

  She had gotten entangled in the mess, too. We’d ended up rooming together for a few hours until they let me go. She had dated Eddie a few times, only because she was intrigued by an older guy being interested in her. He managed to get his hand up her skirt and down her blouse—and get a picture of it. She thought she could get him to stop by telling him her uncle was a cop. She’d agreed to meet him one more time. Foolishly, out at the drug garage. They’d started arguing, then the door buzzer rang, three short, one long, like a code. Eddie stuffed her in an office, told her to not say anything. She saw him letting someone in but could only see Eddie, not the other person. He started yelling at whoever it was. Then gunshots. Silence. She waited for over an hour before finally peeking out. Eddie was dead, his crotch area a bloody mess.

  She ran away and said nothing, too scared. Thought it might have been someone else like her, someone he’d blackmailed with pictures.

  Eddie had showed her the tape of Brandon, showed her the pictures of Tiffany. She was scared of him and his friends and didn’t know who had killed him. So she, conveniently, didn’t think she needed to go to the police.

  Brandon had taken over Eddie’s phone and attempted to do what Eddie did, coerce sexual favors by threatening to send out pics. A few days after Eddie was killed, Janice got another threatening text from him. Or his phone.

  But Brandon was not Eddie, not even the foul, rough version of the manly man he was. When Janice finally gave in, agreed to meet behind the football stadium and found Brandon there, she laughed.

  Then told him she’d seen the video of him. Eddie had emailed her a copy. If he sent her pictures out, she’d send that out.

  She walked away, thinking that would be that, but mad enough that she showed Sophia the video. And Sophia told Alan.

  And nobody told their parents, a teacher, an adult. They wanted to be grown-ups who could handle the world.

  Brandon begged her to destroy it, not tell anyone. Oh, and she should go to the prom with him to make it all okay. She again blew him off, throwing in his face that she’d shown it to Sophia and Alan, and no way was she going to the prom with him.

  The fuse was lit.

  No, that’s not true—that fuse was lit a long time ago, when Brandon was born into a family with rigid, rancid ideas of men and women. It was just Janice’s bad luck—with a few less-than-perfect choices—that she stumbled into his burning rage.

  We all make bad choices at times. Mostly not too bad and mostly that don’t spiral out of control into this madness.

  I made a pot of coffee. Yes, it was the afternoon, but I needed the caffeine. Just to get up the stairs, let alone the meeting with Douglas Townson. But I wanted it over with and him out of my life.

  None of us saw the boiling rage and insecurity. Alan, Sophia, and Janice had easily agreed to meet him, went along with his claim that he was playing a big joke on Kevin to make it look like they were hostages. What was truly happening was too bizarre to contemplate. Until it happened.

  Alan said he wasn’t being all that heroic by yelling at Brandon. He was behind three engine blocks. “If anything could stop bullets, it was that much metal.” Sophia had crawled under a Jeep that was behind two other cars, but with so many bullets, they were lucky only Janice got hit in the leg.

  Brandon’s family was already on TV saying he was a good boy and they couldn’t believe he’d done anything like that. In one clip I glimpsed the woman I’d dated—Brenda?—in the background. A scowl on her face—no one was smiling—but she seemed to not want to be there, to help excuse what he had done.

  Joanne had called me last evening to check on me. And update me. The building had two security cameras inside. Some of the tools were expensive and they’d had problems with them wandering. One had been shot out, but the one over the door behind Brandon had been working. It was damning enough with all four of us as witnesses, but video sealed his case. They’d found his, formerly Eddie’s phone, and that also showed Brandon had been using the pictures Eddie had taken the same way Eddie was using them. They’d even found the baggie with my missing bullet in it.

  “That should clear me, right?” I’d said.

  “All of this should clear you. Plus add a few more charges to the long list against him.”

  She’d offered to come over, but I said I was okay and only interesting in sleeping. Half-true. I was only interested in sleeping.

  Mr. Townson, of course, was not on time. He kept me waiting until three thirty.

  When he finally arrived, he started the meeting with, “So, what’s my money bought me?” No greeting, let alone noticing my bruised face and hands.

  “I found who murdered your grandfather.”

  He looked taken aback.

  I laid out my case, piece of evidence by piece of evidence, damning bit by damning bit.

  Uncharacteristically, he said nothing, the frown on his face deepening with each piece of paper.

  Finally, when I showed him the last piece, Samuel Braud’s diary, he said, “Well, this is not what I expected.”

  “That I’d solve it? Or what kind of man your grandfather was?”

  “Great-grandfather,” he amended, a subtle hint I’d proven my case. “Both, frankly.”

  I handed him the invoice. “This is the time and effort it took me to uncover all this information.” I didn’t expect him to pay it. I’d put every hour I’d spent on the case, even the ones I really didn’t need to. I’d probably only get the advance.

  He looked at it longer than he needed to.

  “What happened to you?” he finally said.

  He didn’t care; he was stalling for time.

  I told him, “A teenage boy was taught to look down at women. That resentment grew into rage and a sense of entitlement. He thought he was very smart, smart enough to get away with murder. He wasn’t.”

  “You stopped him all by yourself?”

  “No, I’m not that kind of hero. We stopped him, two young women and a young gay man. If you want to know more, you can read about it in the paper.”

  “You don’t like me, do you?”

  “I think you’re going to weasel out of paying your bill because you don’t like the results.”

  He stared at me. He was rich enough that people spoke softly to him. He wasn’t expecting me to be any different.

  “I don’t much like the result. Finding out my great-grandfather was an alleged killer.”

  “An alleged sexually deviant serial killer.”

  “You can’t expect me to pay full price for that.”

  “My expectations of you are pretty low,” I agreed.

  Another deep frown. “You’ll keep this quiet, won’t you? I don’t want this public.”

  “Full price buys discretion.”

  He sighed. Twice.

  I’m a woman, I’m supposed to play nice, not make it too hard. As with Brandon, there was a script running in his head of how women were supposed to be.

  “Just think of me like a man,” I said. “It’ll make it much easier.”

  “You think I’m sexist?”

  “You tell me. If I were a male private detective, would you be expecting me to lower your bill because even though I found everything you asked for, the information wasn’t to your liking?”

  “No one has more respect for women than I do.”

  We don’t want respect, asshole, just equality. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a
pedestal or a pit, we’re still not human the way men are.

  “Then respect my time and pay my bill,” was all I managed to say. I looked at my watch, making sure he saw.

  He sighed again, then looked at his watch, making sure I noticed it was much more expensive than mine. Then he slowly took out his checkbook, as if giving me a chance to change my mind, and finally wrote a check.

  I remained silent.

  He handed it to me. It was for the full amount.

  I held out the case file, copies of the information to share with him.

  “Shred it,” he said and got up. He looked at his watch as if he had so many important things to do and left without saying good-bye.

  I gave him fifteen minutes, then after a quick rinse of my coffeepot, locked up and headed out. Much as I wanted to go home and put my aching feet up, instead I went to the bank to deposit the check. I didn’t want to give Mr. Townson much time to change his mind.

  Then home, blessed home, empty, lonely home. But I was okay with solitude.

  I was okay.

  Two fingers of Scotch would make me even more okay.

  I changed, sweatpants, T-shirt, bra off.

  Just as I was taking a highball glass down, there was a knock at my door, followed by another insistent knock.

  The initials WTF were crossing my brain as I crossed to the door.

  Joanne stood outside, balancing a pizza box in one hand while about to knock again with the other. Behind her on the steps was a six-pack of the latest Abita seasonal beer. She had to put it down to knock.

  “Thought you might need to eat,” Joanne said. “Can I come in, or should we picnic on the steps?”

  “Um…come in. Can’t promise it’s a clean house.”

  “I’m used to your dirt.” She picked up the beer and followed me in.

  The pizza smelled good.

  I’m starving, I realized. I hadn’t eaten much in the last few days, since I was too lazy to defrost anything—as well as be healthy—so all I had in the house was the tail end of a loaf of bread and some peanut butter. One meal a day, yeah, but it was a bridge too far for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

  She opened two beers and handed one to me.

  I took a sip. “Did you really think I might have killed him?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” she answered. “I have to follow the evidence. But no, much as I could understand killing that scumbag, it didn’t seem like a Micky Knight crime. If you’d done it, you would have been much smarter about it.”

  “Thanks, I think.” I took another sip. Then busied myself with grabbing plates and putting a slice of pizza each on them. At least this was from a much better place than the one I’d met Brandon in.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said as we sat at the kitchen table.

  “This part of the investigation?”

  “No, the investigation is over. At least as far as you’re concerned. Maybe testifying, but he’ll probably plea bargain, use his youth to get a shorter sentence. I don’t interview suspects over pizza and beer.”

  I told as best I could, Tiffany and how it led to finding Fast Eddie, ending with the shootout in the warehouse.

  We were silent when I finished.

  I held up my hand. A slight tremble. Softly, I said, “I’m okay, but my hand still shakes, I can still feel the recoil of the barrel. Half a second…”

  “But that half a second didn’t happen,” Joanne said. “You’re here. You need to be here.”

  “I’m doing okay,” I said. I knew what she meant. I needed to be here living a life, not hiding in work, avoiding the hard questions, to keep building friendships instead of leaving them to lie fallow. That derelict house that had once been Frederick Townson’s. Was that what I was letting my life become?

  “That’s what you tell yourself?” Joanne said. “You drink yourself to sleep with booze and get through the day on a stream of coffee. You call that okay?”

  I took a sip of beer, then a bite of pizza. “I call it okay. Not great. Not where I’d like to be. Okay for today. That’s the best I’ve got.” But I didn’t want to talk about myself. I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me she was back in town? Why did you lie?”

  Joanne followed my example, delaying answering with drinking and eating. “How did you know?”

  “Answer my questions first.”

  She sighed. “Because it was someone else’s job. I thought Torbin should tell you, but he thought Alex would be better, and Alex thought Danny should do it. So no one did it. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure she was really coming back or if it was just temporary, and used that as an excuse to tell myself I only needed to tell you if she was moving back here to stay.”

  “So, is she?”

  “Nope. Your turn. How did you know?”

  “I’m not stupid. Every one of you was busy at the same time, and no one would tell me what was going on.”

  “That was all?”

  “Okay, I followed Torbin to the party.”

  She snorted into her beer. “Fuck. Of course. You’re a goddamn good private eye. What were we thinking, we could hide it from you?” She started laughing, then shook her head. “You shouldn’t have done that.” But she couldn’t help laughing. She took another sip of beer to stop it, then said, “What did you see?”

  “You on the porch. Now answer my question.”

  “Yes, she’s staying. She took what she called her dream job as the chief medical officer at a new community health care center, one that is working to become a leader in health care for the LGBTQ community.”

  “Is she happy?”

  Joanne didn’t answer immediately. Another sip of beer. “She seems happy and engaged in her work. We learned more than we wanted to know about scheduling, all the things that go into coordinating labs and insurance before the provider—they’re all called providers now—can see a patient. She’s happy to be back here.” She paused long enough to open another beer. “As for the rest, I don’t know.”

  “What’s the new girlfriend like? Or are they married now? Since that’s possible.”

  “You have to ask the difficult questions, don’t you?”

  “You don’t have to choose sides,” I said. “I’m not going to be—try not to be—the asshole who bitches because you include her. If it feels disloyal, you don’t have to answer.” I took a second piece of pizza—yeah, I was hungry—to indicate we could move on.

  She took another sip, then said, “If you quote me on this I will deny it. Boring. Not someone I’d be friends with if she wasn’t attached to someone I am friends with. Not bad, nice enough, but…boring. Suburbs, safe and comfortable.”

  “Everything I’m not.”

  “You are certainly not boring. And that’s it, that’s all you’re going to get out of me.”

  I opened a second beer, I wasn’t driving anywhere. Then I asked, “Why are you here? You thought I might have murdered someone, and now you’re the one friend braving my closed door?”

  “You’ve been a major jerk and an asshole—”

  “Thanks, I appreciate the compliment.”

  “Shut up, I’m talking. Major jerk and asshole. You’re also one of the brightest, funniest, and most compassionate people I know. You put yourself out for those kids; he probably would have killed them if you hadn’t done what you’d done. It pisses me off when you do something that brave and kind, then throw it away with cheap alcohol.”

  “It’s not cheap.”

  “Whatever. No, we’re not perfect either, myself very much included.”

  “You’ve been a jerk and asshole, too.”

  “Yeah, guilty. Can we stop? Can we be friends?”

  “We are friends. Not perfect ones, but friends. Beer and pizza. No, good beer and pizza, that’s enough.”

  “You almost got yourself killed. You shouldn’t be alone. You’re just too pigheaded to realize that.”

  “I did realize that. I just didn’t know who to call.”

  “Fucking
call me. If you almost get killed, call me. Beer and pizza anytime that happens.”

  “Noted. Is it all right if I call you even if I wasn’t almost killed?”

  “Yeah, but you might have to split for the beer and pizza.”

  We finished the beer and the pizza. Joanne took a cab home.

  As I lay down in bed, I noticed my hands weren’t trembling. They were steady and calm. It might come back. What had Samuel Braud said in his diary? “Every day becomes part of who we are.” It would be part of who I am.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Joanne was right. Brandon—and his mother—were working as hard as they could for a plea bargain. He could be out in as little as ten years with good behavior. And significant mental health counseling.

  I saw Alan frequently at Riley & Finnegan. He was helping Mary Buchanan with her two rescue kitties, Sammy and Ms. M, taking them when Mary was out of town. He reported that his mother was doing as well as could be expected. She had lost a daughter. As annoyed as I was at how she treated me, she lived in a hell I could not comprehend.

  Sophia was smart enough to not apply to any colleges below the Mason-Dixon Line. She’d be heading to NYU in the fall, getting as far away as she could from her toxic parents. Janice was going to LSU and wanted to be involved with the rape prevention group on campus.

  And me? I was cooking up a storm for a dinner party tonight. Torbin, Andy, Danny, Elly, Alex, and Joanne were all coming. Torbin had offered to bring the good champagne if I would tell them all about my adventure. He had seen the news stories but had yet to hear my version. I had not said no.

  Spring was becoming summer, not yet the oppressive heat of July and August, but sweaty days that were harbingers. Of course, now we had the modern conveniences, air-conditioning, to deal with them in a way Augustine Lamoureaux and her girls on the edge of summer did not. As much as things had changed—and they had—it was still bitter how close so many women lived to the edge. One jealous boyfriend, walking down the wrong street, saying the wrong thing, not being “feminine” enough, bad luck, combined with a few wrong choices—we all make them—and like Tiffany, we would fall forever over the edge.