by Dan O'Shea
She’s the perfect partner for me. I may be an emotional cripple, but her abusive junkie ex-husband had left her so damaged she responds to my meagre ministrations like a lost man offered water in the desert.
The second story window light in the block of flats is on. She opens the door dressed in a floral kaftan, Fleetwood Mac, her favourite band, on the CD player. In her left hand a glass with something clear in it. I could tell from her slightly dopey smile she’s already half cut.
Without a word, I step in, drop the sports bag on the floor next to the couch, put my arms around her. I plant my mouth hard on hers, angle for the deepest position as I kick the door shut behind me.
Marina’s about the same height as me, much leaner, the alcohol having burned away any fat. I run my fingers across the fabric of her kaftan. No underwear.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hi yourself.’
She’s looks at me with her large brown eyes, lets the glass fall on the shag pile so she can use both hands to undo my belt buckle and unzip my jeans, slips a hand around my erection and starts massaging the shaft. I almost come right then, but manage to hold on.
Afterwards we lie in silence in her bedroom. Neither of us is much for small talk, it would only reveal just how little we have in common. I play with her face, aware of the tangy smell of her cunt on my fingers.
I hear a noise above the wail of Stevie Nicks and sit up. ‘What was that?’
She wheels her legs over edge of the bed, stretches. ‘Probably Louis, the next-door neighbours’ kid,’ she slurs contently. ‘His mum works night shift, he often comes over when he’s had a bad dream.’
The front door is unlocked. Immediately I think about the sports bag, what would happen if I lost it. I move to get up.
‘He’s too young to see you in this condition.’ She smiles, places a hand on my chest, slides it down, caresses my groin. I’m still semi-erect. ‘Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.’
She puts on a pair of panties, picks up my filthy white T-shirt from where I left it on the floor, slips it over her head and shoulders, goes down the hallway to the lounge. ‘Louis sweetie, is that you?’
A violently loud noise comes from the lounge room that can only be one thing – a gunshot.
‘Marina,’ I say feebly. There’s no reply, only the sound of someone moving around in the rest of the flat. I’m scared of what’s happened to Marina, but more scared what will happen if I lose the sports bag.
I put on my jeans, push myself down the hallway, glance around the doorframe into the lounge room.
Marina is lying on the ground. Her wide open eyes stare blankly at the ceiling, the light reflecting off them like an oil slick on a puddle of water. My T shirt, the shag pile around her are stained with her blood. A dishevelled figure is rooting around among the cupboards in the kitchenette, back turned, unaware of my presence. The stench of cordite mixed with the vanilla incense Marina had burning is almost overpowering.
Angus catches sight of me, turns, leering under the strands of greasy hair. He withdraws something from the waistband of his pants, a pistol. I grab the nearest object, a cheap looking cut glass ashtray, throw it.
It glances off Angus’s shoulder. He yelps in pain, drops the gun. I launch myself across the lounge room, knocking the old man hard into the plaster wall. We both fall to the ground, winded. Simultaneously, our eyes lock on the pistol several metres away.
He starts to crawl towards it, but I beat him. The gun is old and scared like its owner, the grip wrapped in greasy white tape. I fire, hit Angus in the chest. The shot sounds like a cannon. The impact throws the old man against the wall. He slides down, comes to a halt slumped against the skirting board.
I drop the smoking gun as if the metal’s white-hot, glance at Marina. She hasn’t moved. Angus’s coughs, thin strands of bloody saliva dribble from his mouth.
The maroon Holden, I realise where I’d last seen it, in the car park behind the pub. It’s Angus’s car.
‘You followed me?’
Angus smiles, looks at me, his eyelids heavy.
‘For a fucking professor you’re a stupid prick.’ The words come out slowly, interspersed with shallow breaths.
‘Why?’ My voice is an indignant whisper.
‘Why the fuck not.’ He coughs, more blood bubbles form his mouth. ‘Stuck up bastard, acting like you’re better than everyone else.’
I kneel, unzip the sports bag, put a hand inside and withdraw a pair of underpants, dirty singlets and T-shirts, a mud splattered pair of track suit pants.
Angus lifts his head emits a moist cackle.
I pick up the sports bag, open the front door.
A roar of insects, like an unruly crowd, greets me as I step into the night.
COLD READ
Joe Myers
You wanna know why I quit the medium gig, kid? I’ll tell you – it’s not because I was worried about people finding out I was wrong. Hell no. I quit because of the times I was right.
So I’m spending the night in Montgomery, right? The Deep South’s ripe with superstitious people. Tell them a ghost’s in the room and they’ll eat that shit right up. This sort of thing wouldn’t work in a place like New York or Chicago. They’re big city folks, smart people. They’re looking for a scam. I don’t know why, but you put on a good suit and find a place with mood lighting and those good ol’ boys will eat out of your hand.
I got a little something worked out at Easy’s down on 8th, a hole-in-the-wall type of dinner joint but hey, it’s got a stage. Five bucks a head in a place with sitting room for one hundred and the place is packed. The MC reads off all the news programs I’ve been on, the special events I’ve hosted in Vegas and LA. By the time I get on stage, they’re already giving me a standing ovation.
I’m up there for an hour, hour and a half maybe, working the crowd like a hand mixer. Old ladies hear that their husband’s up in Heaven with the choir. Old men get all trembly when I tell them their war buddies are restless on the battlefield. I tell the young people that their great-grandparents were pioneers or hangers-on for famous people. It’s bullshit, every word, but every smile, every tear, every gasp of awe just reeks of money. Things are going so well I throw open my hands and start in for a cold read.
“I’m sensing someone’s in turmoil,” I whisper in my most dramatic voice, feeling the crowd for a good pick. “Someone’s having issues.” Nothing. “Someone’s having problems with someone in their family.”
Most of them just sit there and fidget. It’s a broad enough statement, they’re thinking, something that could apply to anybody. I dig a little deeper.
“Someone in this room has something bothering them, something that happened to a family member.”
That does it. Five or six ladies shriek – one even raises her hand – but only one girl stands up. I point at her and stare.
“You! What’s your name?”
The girl swallows hard. “My name’s Erica.”
“Erica,” I coo. “Someone’s trying to speak to you, but I can’t hear them very well. This person really wants to talk to you, but I’m just a vessel here. I need you to help me, okay?”
Erica nods vigorously and Mike, the guy working the lights, shines a spotlight on her. She’s nothing special to look at, but I can tell she’s a weeper. Black tank top, blue jeans – a tight little package for the guy sitting with her. From the looks of him, I bet he unwraps that package every chance he gets. His left hand glimmers. Husband. The crowd gives her a big round of applause and I hold my finger to my lips. Silence.
“I hear something, Erica,” I murmur, “someone died terribly. A woman. She says her name is…” I start shotgunning. “It’s Mary…or Mol…” She twitches, but I lather it in a little more. “Mabel…?”
“Molly,” she gasps. “Molly, that’s my sister.”
“Molly! She says she’s your sister!” The crowd goes wild. It’s not like she didn’t just say it, but they’re too busy staring at me shimmy and sha
ke that they’re not even paying attention. “She’s trying to tell you how she died. She wants you to know the truth.” An excited buzzing skitters across the room. Erica wrings her hands together and stares. “She was…she was-”
“She was murdered. She was murdered last year.” Erica’s voice cracks on the last word and I feel a pang in my chest. I should’ve stopped right there. I should’ve said I lost the connection or something. But goddamn, you throw in a good murder story and next thing you know these people start hanging on your every word. Her husband just gapes and stares at me, then her, then back at me. It’s too good to pass up.
I wiggle my fingers. “She was murdered somewhere familiar…I see a room. There’s a bed…maybe a hotel room?” Her face twitches with disappointment. “A bedroom?” I suggest. She lights up again.
“We found her in her bedroom,” she cries, eyes moistening at the edges. “She was…she was stabbed.”
“She was stabbed multiple times,” I growl, watching her face. “A knife. A big knife. A kitchen knife!”
It looks like the girl’s going to faint. I can almost hear the crowd drooling. Even the husband is looking a little pale.
“There was a butcher knife missing from our knife block,” she whispers. “The police said there were no signs of forced entry. The windows, the doors, they were all locked.”
I grip my forehead and screw my face up tight as it’ll go. “She says…she says it was someone close to her…Someone she trusted.”
Thing is kid, the people that come to these things? They act like they’re the only people in the world who watch 48 Hours Mystery. They don’t stop to think that this is basic shit, freshman-level criminology. They think they’re in on something special.
The husband starts sweating, starts tugging at his shirt collar like it’s strangling him. A ripe target. I point at him. “You! You knew her, didn’t you?”
The crowd starts clapping again and a couple of old ladies take him by the shoulders and stand him up. When the other spotlight hits him, it looks like he’s melting.
“Well, er…” he mumbles, “I knew Molly, yeah.”
“And you knew something was wrong.”
Oohs and ahhhs. Mike even dims the house lights a little, casting a shadow so tight you’d think it’d hum. Erica looks at him, bewildered. He shakes his head and tries to say something, but I cut him off.
“Was Molly close to anyone?”
“She didn’t have many friends, no, not really,” he says. “Look man, I’m just here with her-“
“Friendless! She didn’t get along well with other people,” I say. “She was anti-social? Shy?”
He nods, gulping. “Yeah. She was really shy. She only spent time with Erica or whoever she was dating.”
“She didn’t date very often…yes, she’s telling me that she didn’t open up very easily.”
Erica claps her hands to her face. The levee’s open at this point and the tears are billowing down her cheeks. That’s when I feel another pang, harder this time. My gut’s writhing, throbbing, but I can’t stop. Cash register sounds are going off in my skull. All I can think about is the book deals, a spot on the Today show. This is the career maker, my milk jug escape.
“Erica, tell me, was she seeing someone at the time?”
“Yeah, but she never told me who.”
The husband blinks furiously. I point at him again. “But you know, don’t you?”
“No…” he gasps. “There’s no fucking way.”
That’s when the penny drops. Everyone goes silent. Erica’s face goes from shock to anger so smoothly it’s like someone was turning a dial.
“Curtis…you were the one…”
“Fuck this guy, I’m out of here!” Curtis yells. He knocks over his chair, shaking his head. The sweat’s literally pouring off of him now, staining his shirt. “You don’t know what you’re fucking talking about, man! He’s a fraud, don’t you get it! This is like that Criss Angel shit on the teevee.”
“You told me you were out of town…” Erica whispers, circling him. “You said you were at your mom’s…but I called your mom. She said she hadn’t heard from you. My parents tried to call you, but you never answered your phone.”
He looks back at me, eyes so wide they could rip. “Call her off, man! Tell her you’re just making this shit up!”
But the people in the crowd, their faces are granite. One by one they stand up, the men in the audience cracking their knuckles while the women jab him with thumbscrew glares. I try to speak, but my throat’s gone dry. They believe in ghosts, I remember myself thinking. They’re the superstitious type. They’ll believe you.
“You cheating bastard,” Erica says. “How long were you seeing her? Was it before we were married? Was it after?”
“Look, baby, she was gonna say something. I had to stop her! For our sake! For the kids!”
Before anybody can move, she’s grabbed the steak knife and planted it in his chest. He drops. Guy’s dead long before the ambulance arrives.
So there you have it – the reason I quit. This road you’re on, kid? Trust me, you don’t want anything to do with it. Thing is, some of these people? They’ll believe you and if you’re not careful, all you’re gonna do is add another ghost to the mix.
TAPDANCING FOR IDIOTS
Frank Wheeler, Jr.
“Cuz,” Eddie, my deputy and cousin-once-removed, says, “she’s already been gone half a day.” He’s rubbing his metal and plastic prosthetic arm against the interior of the Charger’s door. Probably having phantom pains now. Told me once it feels like the missing arm’s somehow still connected, and a feller’s pulling out the fingernails.
“We don’t got a choice,” I say. “He tapped me for it.”
“Feds should do it. All I’m saying. Call them in and report to him. A sheriff can get in a lotta trouble with something like this.”
“And the mayor wants me to handle it. We need the money for the next election, so we’re stuck tapdancing for this idiot.”
“You can get the money elsewhere. Easily.”
“But I need money that can be accounted for. So we do need him.”
Eddie clears his throat. Says, “Creates for us a no-win situation.”
“Surely. Girl like that in her prime childbearing years. Missing under these circumstances. She’s in a shallow grave, likely. But we don’t take Mayor Karnes up on this, say we do take it to the Feds, he’ll have my job next election. Probably have me fired before then.”
“But he’ll blame you even if you do find her. He’ll point to you for her dying.”
“Can’t. He wants it done quiet. Won’t even let us talk to her parents cause they don’t know yet. Nor his wife cause she’s so upset. Said he was just barely able to keep her from calling the feds. Don’t matter. He’s a fucker, so what? Ain’t he in politics? I need to hold onto this job for a while.”
“So you’ll take matters into your own hands if it comes to that?”
“We’ll see. It may not come to that.”
• • • •
I drive the fifty-two miles to Lincoln. Pull over at the gas station Brian said to meet him at in his text. He’s in his regular patrol uniform. I recognize his face. Can’t place where, though. He’s not from Linden.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, kid,” I say, sitting down across from him in the booth, “but you gotta go home and change.”
“Shit,” he says. “Sorry, I thought it might help get answers more quickly.”
I shake his hand. He’s still a mess from getting the call. That’s how we know about this whole thing. Brian got a voicemail. His sister screaming for him to come help her. Brian didn’t know what to do, so he broke protocol and called his uncle right away. Figured he’d know what to do.
“Not with who we’re gonna go and see. Nice to meet you, Brian.”
“Likewise. My uncle says you’re the man for this job if there ever was one, Sheriff.”
“Just call me Junior. And I’m g
lad you’re with me to help smooth things over with the locals. They ain’t too well acquainted in the big city with us farmers and ranchers out in Linden County.”
I’m not glad he’s here. His uncle, Linden’s mayor, just wanted a set of eyes to keep watch on me. Report back every little bit. This 23-year-old kid just out of diapers will slow me down like nothing else. If she was alive, he’d help ensure her being in the ground on finding her. But I’m not worried about that. No way she’s alive.
It’s the other matter that worries me.
• • • •
“Okay, so the last person saw Cindy was her roommate, Sheila, here on campus,” I say, turning tight onto 14th St. Brian’s in street-clothes now, riding shotgun. “Which dorm is she in?” I ask.
“Selleck,” he says, pointing. “You’ll wanna turn here.”
“I know where Selleck is. Dated a girl lived there when I took my CJ classes at the community college.”
I park my truck and we get out, take the elevator up to third floor.
“I called earlier. Sheila’s got a morning class that’s over at nine-twenty, then doesn’t have another till two.”
We luck out, and she’s in, just getting ready to head down to the cafeteria for an early lunch. She’s short, scrawny, pale, with short, black hair. Exact opposite from Cindy, who’s tall, tan, blonde, and has curves that get boys’ attention. Sheila smells like menthols. Won’t look me in the eye. Looks around her room, maybe trying to guess where we’d look first if we were looking for her pot.
“Why are we here, Sheila?” I ask. She shakes her head like she doesn’t know.
I look over at Brian. Nod to the door. He squints, walks over and shuts the door.
“We’re here cause of Cindy,” I say.
“You guys are cops?”
“We’re police, yes,” I say, “but here unofficially. Hopefully, we can clear this up before any official presence is needed.”
“I haven’t seen Cindy for days,” she says.
