Choke on Your Lies

by Anthony Neil Smith

  It was instinct to wrap my arms around him. The officer stared down at his notepad, off into the woods, anywhere but at us.

  I wished I had some scalpel-sharp insight for Ashton, something to make it all better. But I was speechless. Not one word. We’d both lost the same women. If anyone else in the world understood how I felt at that moment, it was Ashton.

  I bet he didn’t think so. I was sure that if I had said to him that I knew how he felt, he would well up with anger and say that no one on Earth could know how I feel, without the slightest thought of how ironic and cruel it would be to say that.

  And yet, I could think of nothing else to say. But I didn’t say it. I moved my lips along with the words in my head, but I held back the air to say them.

  He finally was able to stop long enough to stand, let go of me, and rub the heel of his hand deep into one eye. Saying over and over, not so much to me as to himself, “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” A few more deep breaths, then he said, “She called me, you know. But my phone battery had died and I’d lost my charger. I was talking to Stephanie on hotel phones and pay phones…and then the police found me…I finally charged my phone and there it was. Missed calls, and then the message. Oh god. I didn’t get it until after I saw you. I never would’ve…Jesus, Mick. It had to have been right before she did it. She told me everything. Oh god, I had no idea.”

  Two more men, slacks and white shirts, loose ties, joined the uniformed officer who had been questioning Ashton. They wore guns and shields clipped to the their belts, so I assumed they were detectives. They asked the officer a quiet question before turning to me. Along with them was a woman I thought might be from the park itself. No gun.

  “Mr. Thooft, we’re very sorry about this. We tried to reach you earlier…” He trailed off.

  The second cop, wearing stained blue latex gloves, held them away from his body to be extra sure his shirt stayed white. “We’ve been in touch with the officers handling your case in the Cities. It’s been a grave misunderstanding. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  I nodded. Not even a thanks. I finally managed to get out, “We were going through a divorce.”

  The cop in latex forgot himself for a moment, placed his glove on my shoulder. “I know, and I’m sorry. Goddamn. I’m sure that this is hard for you.”

  He lifted his hand, remembered too late, and I saw a muddy wet spot on my shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to…if you could identify her…but everything in her room indicates…”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s okay. I already know.”

  It set Ashton howling again, throwing himself on the grass while I looked on, stunned and out of words. Not one useful word after years of depending on them for everything.

  The cops kept explaining, Ashton howled louder than coyotes, and I felt like a sponge—taking it all in without feeling anything. At least not yet.

  THIRTEEN

  The police kept me another few hours, asking questions as we sat over coffee in the Douglas Lodge restaurant, looking out at the water, the forest. I don’t know where they took Ashton, but I’m sure he was in an equally scenic location getting the same questions. Most of the time, however, I found we were talking not about the case, but about our marriages, the failed ones, and how the good can sometimes fade into the background when the bad starts. I talked about our time in the park, and how we’d been back several times, always staying in the same room, sometimes spending a night in the tent under the stars, even though I had a difficult time with the insects.

  Once the cop in the gloves pulled those off, I discovered he was close to my age, was on his second marriage, and had four kids—two from the first who avoided him, and two with his current wife who made every day a blessing. The other cop had been married twenty-one years, and just never imagined life without her.

  A sad, pathetic lot we were. Several refills of coffee later, Detectives Fitzgerald and Labat stepped into the entryway, and I waved them on back. The looks on their faces and the handshakes they greeted me with were far different than from earlier that morning at Carl’s office. If that was as close to an apology as I was going to get, I could live with it.

  They didn’t pull up a chair. Some small shop talk with the local detectives, and then the gloved one answered a squawk on his radio, then pushed his chair out and stood.

  “Mick, if you’re ready, they’ve got her prepped for your identification now. Think you can do it?”

  I nodded, rose from my chair, surrounded by cops who felt empathy for me that they never would’ve admitted to yesterday. I said, “Let’s do it. But can my friend Ashton come along? They were pretty close, you know.”

  They agreed, called on the radio to have him meet me so we could all drive to the morgue in Bemidji together. On the way out the front door, I took a good look and wondered if I would ever be able to come back to the park and enjoy the peace I used to feel here. But as the mosquitoes and the insect noise and the humidity hit me outside as hard as a haunting would, I knew it was off-limits. Another cruel twist of suicide. Oh, I’ll remember you plenty, you bitch. I’ll remember all you’ve stolen from me just to make yourself feel justified in the end.

  *

  Later, back in Minneapolis, I tried to shake the image of Frances’s swollen, back and blue face from my memory, as well as the wails from Ashton when they led us to the steel slab where she was laid out, covered by a paper sheet. The water hadn’t been good to her. The only possible good news was that she had apparently taken a lot of Vicodin before heading for the lake, and was probably in a profound stupor when she dove in.

  I didn’t handle it as badly as Ashton. Instead, I couldn’t stop shaking. I was freezing. And by the time they let me go that night, I felt like frostbite was coming on. It wasn’t of course, but my chattering teeth and aching fingers said otherwise. I ran the heater on the drive home, and it was eighty degrees outside.

  They’d left me a note on Harriet’s door telling me I could return to Octavia’s house. Pamela had finally showed up with a piece of paper telling the Feds to cease for the day while we were allowed to gather some things, make arrangements, and at least have a good night’s sleep. After all, these were alleged violations, not proven ones.

  I shivered and drove, shivered and drove. Even passed by my house, the one I’d handed over to Frances, dark with police tape on the door. I supposed it was mine again, unless she’d changed her will. In any case, the thought of living there filled me with dread. After all the fighting over this stupid house, it wasn’t worth the breath.

  The trucks were still in Octavia’s driveway, dark and abandoned for the time being. I locked the car and made my way up the steps, through the front door, and didn’t announce myself. The walls were bare, and some paintings had been left on the floor, leaning against the wall, partially wrapped. The air conditioner whooshed all around me, and I was colder still. Octavia was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Jennings or Harriet. I heard footsteps coming from the kitchen, though, and I supposed they might be planning tomorrow’s breakfast menu or something high class like that.

  Upstairs to my room. I couldn’t find my phone anywhere. I didn’t even remember the last time I had used it, even. It wasn’t in my discarded pants from the past week, nor tangled in my sheets, nor on my bedside table. It was possible it fell out in the yard on the morning of my arrest, but I don’t believe I was even wearing something with pockets that morning.

  So back downstairs, I walked into the study, all the books and furniture untouched, but devoid of the barbaric weaponry, now all bubble-wrapped out in the trucks. I grabbed the cordless phone from the hook and dialed my own number. I started out of the room, headed towards mine as a starting place. I would use the thing like a sonar device. But before I could reach the door, I heard the ringing.

  Had I lost it in my chair at some point? No, the rings were not coming from that area, but rather the desk. Inside the desk.

  “No, Octavia.”

  I stepped beh
ind the desk just as the ringing stopped at my voice mail picked up. I clicked off and hit redial, and the ringing began all over again. I opened the side drawer. There was my phone.

  If there had been a message from Frances on there, it had been erased. I had no proof either way. I checked my missed calls. Nothing. But nothing for the past two days. Not one call. Well, one earlier today from Fitzgerald to tell me they’d found Frances. So it seemed fishy. Maybe Octavia had missed that one.

  I went back several days on my received calls, found one from Frances. Yes, we’d had another conversation after I turned my back on her that night. Only a day or two after, both of us having calmed down a bit, able to talk about a real ending point for our relationship. As painful as it was, I thought we had both been able to accept a no-fault divorce and move on, but I remember that it was still cold comfort, both of us spewing a little venom now and then, but the other deflecting it, absorbing it. At one point in the conversation, the call was dropped. We tried to dial each other back at the same time. Mine got through, just as hers was, so it registered on my phone as a missed call.

  But Octavia didn’t know we had spoken. She was probably in a rush. So she must have wiped the record of that missed call, imagining I hadn’t known about it.

  I let out a deep breath and went back to my room. I would never get to hear what the last words my wife had intended for me. Maybe they would’ve chilled me, angered me, or guilted me, but goddamn it, Octavia robbed me of my right to even hear them.

  While on the stairs, I heard the three of them wandering back through towards the front door, Octavia shouting instructions to Harriet: “Three dozen eggs, as fresh as possible. And if they don’t have that particular cheese—”

  She happened to catch sight of me, turned her head. She‘d made up her face, dressed like she was going out on the town, and was no longer the fragile doll we had to help get off Harriet’s couch. “Mick? You made it.”

  I held up my cell phone for a moment, made sure she saw it. Then shook my head and kept on up the stairs.

  Behind me, she continued calling out ingredients to Harriet.

  *

  Even my rage couldn’t keep me awake, but my sleep was not easy. I tossed and turned and could not shake the shivers and broken glass churning in my guts. Frances’s face—cheeks slimy. Her hair thin and clumped. Dark lips. At least I would never have to see Stephanie when she was freshly murdered. At least I was spared that. But Frances would be there to haunt me, our love/hate relationship continuing into the grave.

  Every barely-waking thought designed to keep me from seeing her again somehow came around and pulled me back to that table. I thought about a new book, maybe an entire book of poems on the cuckold. I thought about trading in my car for something more fuel-efficient, something fresher. I thought about looking for a new apartment, or maybe applying for new teaching jobs. Maybe even high school.

  But each one led me back to the park, back to the morgue, back to Frances’s face. She looked uncomfortable, mouth gaping a bit, chin pressed down on her collarbone. And then her eyes popped open and she croaked out, “You made me do this, Mick.”

  I shouted and sat straight up in bed, my eyes not adjusting quickly enough, but I heard someone in the room. There was a dull gray glow of dawn filtering in through the curtains, and I finally was able to see Octavia sitting in the far corner of the room, the chair too small for her bulk, but there she was, mushed in there, hands on her lap. She’d probably been there all night.

  We stared at each other for a long moment as I caught my breath, grabbed the sheet and held it over my chest.

  Octavia finally said, “I’m sorry.”

  Which might have been a great way to start the healing, but she had to keep talking and ruin it.

  “You didn’t need to know. You needed to wait. I’m sorry you don’t see it that way, but I had to make a decision that best suited—”

  “Shut up.”

  She did.

  “Just…shut the fuck up.”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. I laid back in bed, covers pulled right up to my nose. She didn’t leave then. Even though I hated what she did—despised her at that moment, and would never fully forgive her—I was glad she stayed. I needed her to stay as I finally fell into a deep non-haunted sleep.

  When I awoke right before two in the afternoon, she was gone.

  FOURTEEN

  Jennings, Octavia, and I met with Pamela at her office the next day, where I was formally cleared of murder and kidnapping charges. The relief didn’t put me at ease as much as I had hoped. Perhaps because I still had the strain ahead of dealing with all of our things, plus Frances’s funeral. I wouldn’t dare go to Stephanie’s, of course, but Ashton had called to ask if he could attend Frances’s and give a eulogy.

  My answer: “Sure, whatever helps.”

  And I hung up on him.

  The detectives told Pamela they had wanted me for one more round of questions, to help fill in a few holes, and I was fine with that. They even put it in writing, just so we all knew there were no handkerchiefs or doves up anyone’s sleeve.

  And so there we were. I was a free man. Octavia had helped keep me from tripping over myself and landing in deeper trouble, although I was still highly pissed. I agreed to come with her today, but I had barely said two words.

  Pamela’s office was sleek, contemporary. All stainless and glass. The complete opposite of Octavia’s medieval digs. We sat in hip new leather chairs designed to look like they were from the Sixties. Jennings had brought a leather portfolio case along, and Octavia had used her cane to hobble into the office, although she’d been walking fine that morning.

  The view was another glass-façade building across the way, eleven stories up, in downtown Minneapolis. She wouldn’t have this office without Octavia’s business, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell. Of all the pictures of friends and clients on the walls, not one was of Octavia.

  Her desk was remarkably clear considering we were supposed to now talk about a strategy for Octavia’s upcoming hearings on allegations of unethical business and trading practices. The marijuana charge, however, would go away quietly if Octavia agreed to a three-year probation, a hefty fine, and five hundred hours of community service.

  “That would mean I have to plead guilty?”

  “Or no contest.”

  “To peddling my weed? No way.”

  “Listen, they won’t let it go on possession alone.”

  “They might.”

  Pamela leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “I think we should probably postpone this meeting anyway. Being so busy with Mick’s case, I haven’t had time to really go through all of the allegations. But my early hunch is that we’re going to have to agree to a blanket settlement, lots of apologies.”

  Octavia steepled her fingers together, placed them against her lips. “Again, for something I didn’t do.”

  Pamela shrugged. “Hate to break it to you, but I’d say you might want to rethink that. Maybe you didn’t realize what you’d done was wrong, or at least not illegal—”

  “I know how I do business. Everything’s legal, crossed, dotted, and see-through.”

  A huff from Pamela, as if she was dealing with a child. “Then do you have a better idea?”

  It felt like the moment Octavia was going to reveal who had put her in this situation. I was dying to know. Who would have a grudge that deep? What insult have been so grievous that this sort of response was warranted?

  Octavia said, “You could call them all back and tell them you didn’t mean it.”

  What? I blinked. Who was she talking to?”

  Pamela said, “Excuse me?”

  “Call all of the people you coerced into filing these allegations and tell them that you were mistaken. There’s not much you can do about reeling back the raid on my greenhouse, but you can call the dogs off before I have to expose you for breaking privilege.”

  I scooted to the edge of my seat. �
��Wait, hold up. You’re saying Pamela did this to you? She turned you in?”

  Octavia never broke eye contact with her attorney. “Absolutely. She was the only one who could have.”

  Whatever was going on in Pamela’s head, it wasn’t showing on her face. A plaster smile, wrinkles breaking her make-up. She rolled back towards the desk and spread her elbows wide, hands meeting at the midpoint, overlapping. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I do, Pam, and it’s a story of you using a proxy to spread lies about me. Not the pot, of course. That was the dead on truth. An anonymous caller, though? Really? Nothing’s anonymous in this day and age. You used a throwaway cell phone, but you bought it with your bank card.”

  I was watching an Old West showdown, sans guns, right in front of me. Jennings didn’t seem surprised, so I supposed he was in on this. In fact, he reached down for his leather portfolio case, unzipped it and brought out some papers.

  “Well, goddamned, sweetie,” Pamela said. “Have you got a bug in here? Have you been stalking me? How would you know something like that? My phone calls are private. You don’t understand everything I do for you.”

  “Apparently, you don’t understand what I do for you.”

  “Oh, believe me, I know.”

  After a deep breath, Octavia motioned at the papers in Jennings’s lap. “Sworn statements. The police have already talked to these people. We’ve spoken to the paralegal who was making the calls as a favor for you. Telling all of the companies I have interests in that you can help take me down a few pegs. Anything questionable, even a little bit, your guy told them should be filed. Even if later those charges were found to be false, all of these guys could deny everything.”

  Pamela’s cheek grew brighter through the war paint. Sounded like her teeth were grinding. “I’m. Your. Lawyer.”

  “Not anymore. You’re fired. I’ve requested new counsel from your boss as soon as he’s dismissed you.”