by Julie Smith
“If you don’t disappear on me.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said, so sincerely that she was pretty sure another chase was about to ensue. But to her surprise, he was a perfect little gentleman on the way over, during which no one spoke a word. Talba was actually dying to question the two miscreants, but she wanted them in a properly sober mood when they got to the office.
But when they entered, wild laughter was spewing from Eddie’s office. She raised an eyebrow at Eileen Fisher, the receptionist, who only shrugged. “Angie’s in there.”
Eddie was wiping tears. “Come in, come in. How ya doin’, honey?” he said to Janessa, after which he shook hands with Rashad, as if he hadn’t been the cause of nearly a week’s worth of grief. Rashad hugged his aunt, who wiped away tears.
“Angela’s just been tellin’ me about Hunt Montjoy getting his ass kicked.”
Rashad looked concerned. “What happened?”
Eddie was suddenly serious. “Tell you what, young man—we’ll ax the questions for a while, all right? Ms. Wallis, get us a couple of chairs, will ya?”
“I’ll do it,” Rashad said, and Talba didn’t protest.
“Hello, Ms. Dufresne,” she said, and Dufresne gave her the first smile she had since Talba had first said Rashad’s name to her.
“Felicia. I apologize for the other day.”
“Actually, I think these two had better do the apologizing.”
Janessa took one of the chairs Rashad had brought in, started to say something, then thought better of it. Rashad gave the other chair to Talba, and stood beside it. “Not Janessa. Me. I’ve only been at her house a day or two. Before that, she didn’t know where I was any more than anybody else did.”
“Well?” said his aunt. “Where were you?”
“You didn’t know either?” Angie asked.
Dufresne shook her head. “He called once to let me know he was all right. That was all till today. I left a million messages, but he never called back.”
Rashad cleared his throat. “Look, y’all, I went a little crazy, all right? Aunt Felicia knows why. I got somethin’ real bad on my juvenile record. And by the way, I’m black, in case ya haven’t noticed. And I was staying with Miz Allyson for free—like I was a drifter or somethin’. So I come home, find her floatin’ like that, think I don’t know how it’s gon’ look?”
Talba noticed that, under pressure, he’d lapsed into the vernacular. Dufresne frowned at him, and Talba had a glimpse of what it must have been like, growing up in her house—something like living with Miz Clara, who couldn’t have used standard English if you’d told her the winning lottery numbers, but who knew it when she heard it.
Rashad caught the frown, too. “Sorry, Aunt Felicia.”
Eddie said, “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
He shrugged. “You know most of it, from Janessa. Austin left, she left, Miz Allyson and I talked for a while, then I told her I was going out.”
“Why?” asked Eddie.
“I just had to get out of there. Be by myself. Think. I was real disappointed, you know? I just walked down, got on the streetcar, and rode to River Bend. Found a bar and went in. Had a drink and went to another one. Then I came home and found her.”
Eddie said, “So you went to two bars. Thought you weren’t twenty-one yet.”
“I haven’t been carded in two years.”
“Okay. What two bars?”
“I don’t know. How the hell am I supposed to remember that?”
Eddie made the pipe-down sign. “Would you recognize them again?”
“Maybe. Who the hell knows?”
“Talk to anyone?” Eddie was firing questions like bullets.
“No.”
“See anybody who might remember you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe the bartender at the first one. It was a white chick. Flirted with me a little. I was the only brother in there; same at the second, now that I think of it.”
Eddie made a note. “Go on.”
“So when I found Allyson, I freaked, that’s all. Picked up my backpack, went to Celeste. But you know about that.”
“The wharf.”
“Yeah. I had some pot with me, and I stayed there two nights, smoking and writing poems, reading. Had a little money, went out in the daytime. That’s how I found out about Cassie. Nearly killed me, man. I loved that girl.”
Janessa gave him an anxious look, but he didn’t respond. Talba got the feeling the relationship—if it was one—was as one-sided as Montjoy apparently thought it was.
“Then somebody shot at me, and I had to get out of there. I was running out of money, too. So I went to this place where I used to go to find Monica.”
Janessa interrupted. “That’s the girl he calls ‘Celeste’ in the book.”
“Oh.” Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Crack house?”
“Sort of. Crash pad, more or less. But you had to pay to stay there. That’s how come I went out to get work—when you saw me.” He pointed with his chin at Talba.
“But I didn’t get any work that day on account of having to leave in a hurry.” He shot a wry look at Talba. “I was just about at the end of my rope, so I called Janessa, asked if I could stay with her a day or two.”
No one said anything for a moment. “Wanted to think about things for a while.”
Angie said, “Seemed to me you’d had more than adequate time to think about things.”
“I was stoned a lot of that time.”
“Well, that’s just great,” Felicia said.
“Aunt Felicia, I’m sorry. It’s just—” He stopped in midsentence. “I was sad. Real sad. And I was real scared. Still am.”
Talba was thinking the story more or less hung together. In his situation, given his background, she might have done something similar herself. It wasn’t smart, but it made a kind of hopeless sense. Except for one thing. “What about the Hardy Boys action?”
Eddie, Angela, and Felicia stared at her. “What are you talking about?” Felicia said.
“Well.” He took a breath. “I got a theory. Kind of half a one, anyhow. I started thinking about it while I was at Celeste, after I heard about Cassie. It just… wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Eddie said, “We’re listening.”
“See, I had to read this.” He struggled with his backpack, finally pulled out the copy of The Great Gatsby Talba had seen at Janessa’s apartment—the thing he’d stuffed in his pack at the last minute. “You know how everyone always said Allyson reminded them of Gatsby? They even used to call her The Girl Gatsby at the literary festival office. Well, Hunt used to laugh about it—he said he was Daisy to Allyson’s Gatsby.”
Talba looked at Eddie to see if he was following, and saw that he was nodding. “Gotcha so far. Where ya going with it?”
“Well, then he laughed and said if anything ever happened to Cassie, Allyson would have to take the rap for it. I didn’t understand, see, because I hadn’t read the book. Then when something did happen, I got curious.”
Janessa said, “What the hell ya talkin’ about?” And Felicia shot her a grateful look.
Rashad turned to her. “See, Gatsby’s this character that’s kind of like Allyson, and he’s in love with Daisy, who’s married to Tom. But Tom’s got a mistress named, uh…”
“Myrtle Wilson,” Eddie supplied.
“Yeah, Myrtle. Well, see, Daisy accidentally kills Myrtle and Gatsby takes the rap for it—”
Janessa interrupted. “Why he do that?”
“To protect Daisy—because he’s in love with her. But then Myrtle’s husband kills Gatsby for killing his wife. Ya understand?”
Eddie said, “I’m sure they’d be real proud of ya for that over at UNO. But would ya mind explainin’ what it’s got to do with real life?”
“I think Hunt did it,” Rashad said.
Janessa looked utterly mystified. “Why ya think that?”
“Well, he said it. Maybe he set it up.”
“Because I’m Nick.”
“Wait a minute,” Janessa said. “Who’s Nick?”
“He’s Gatsby’s friend—and also Daisy’s cousin—but the main thing is, he’s the guy who tells the story. See, Hunt knows I know what he said. I could tell the story. Somebody took a shot at me, so it must have been Hunt. ’Cause I know too much. Y’all get what I’m sayin’? Allyson’s been after Hunt for years, which makes him Daisy, like he said. But the main idea is that Gatsby takes the rap—that’s the idea I think he gave himself with that stupid joke of his. He was involved with Cassie, so if he kills her, then Allyson’s got to get blamed. So he frames her for killing Cassie, then takes her out and makes it look like she got remorseful and killed herself.”
Rashad wore the earnest expression of a student trying to make himself understood to a professor who wanted to flunk him.
“Son,” Eddie said seriously, “didn’t you mention you were smokin’ a lot of pot while you were workin’ this thing out?”
Rashad’s shoulders went down, and he bowed his head slightly, taking the news of his “F” as much like a man as he could. “All I know is, somebody shot at me. Has to mean something.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Eddie said. “It was Janessa’s prints on that glass over at Cassie’s house. Not Hunt’s.”
“Well, if he was setting it up, he’d have wiped the glass.”
“So how’d it get Janessa’s prints on it?”
“I’ve been thinkin’ about that,” Janessa said. “I washed the glasses before I went home that night. I don’t know, force of habit.”
Rashad nodded. “That’s right. She came and got my glass and Allyson’s. I remember that.”
“Still don’t explain the prints—if ya washed ’em, they’d be clean.”
“I didn’t just wash ’em. I put ’em away.”
The room went silent for a minute.
Finally, Eddie said, “Well, why didn’t ya say so, honey?”
“I forgot.”
Rashad was getting excited again. “So Hunt kills Cassie—”
“Why’d he do that?”
“Lover’s quarrel.” Rashad shrugged. “You know that had to be what it was.”
“Yeah, well,” Eddie said. “The police think you’re the lover.”
“I wasn’t! Cassie and I were nothing but friends. I’d take a polygraph on it.”
No one said anything, so he continued. “He kills Cassie, then he goes over to Allyson’s and has a drink with her—he was the one person she’d always open the door to. She was crazy about him. So he gets her to drink, shoots her to make it look like suicide, and then goes back to plant the glass, just to sew things up.”
“Doesn’t explain why it didn’t have his prints on it.”
“Maybe he wiped the glass, but he missed Janessa’s prints.”
“Thin,” Eddie said. “Thin. Downright anorexic. Besides which, I just don’t think that’s enough reason to kill somebody.”
“What? To save yourself? Best reason there is.”
Eddie was shaking his head. “I don’t buy it. That takes some real meanness. Sure, he might have killed Cassie in a fight. But why not just clean up the scene? Why go and frame somebody else for it?”
Talba wasn’t exactly on Rashad’s side so far as logic went, but one thing seemed obvious: “Well, if anybody’s that mean, it’s Hunt Montjoy.”
Eddie’s head was still moving. “Nice try, son, but I don’t think the state board’s gonna be issuin’ ya PI license any time soon.” He shrugged, showing his palms to the heavens. “Just don’t make no sense. That’s all. And it makes me wonder, young man—cock-and-bull story like this just makes me wonder.”
Felicia Dufresne looked alarmed. Talba could see she’d been thinking of Eddie as an ally, and she was starting to have doubts.
“Let’s try out another theory.” Talba could have sworn his eye bags actually jiggled. “You say you weren’t Cassie’s boyfriend, but maybe you were.”
“No! I swear.”
“Or maybe you just hated to see Montjoy treat her so bad. Either case, you fight with her, you kill her—”
Felicia screamed, “Rashad wouldn’t hurt anybody!”
Eddie looked dead-on into her eyes. “We know he’s got a bad juvenile record, Ms. Dufresne. So maybe he stabs her, and then he remembers this stupid joke of Montjoy’s. Or maybe he made it up himself.”
Rashad reached for his backpack, which he had placed on the floor. “I don’t have to listen to this shit.”
“Now hold ya horses, son. Tell me somethin’—did Montjoy ever say this to anybody else—this Daisy and Tom thing?”
Rashad, now halfway to the door, stopped in his tracks and pivoted. “Yeah. Sure he did. Said it to Wayne. You can check it out—Wayne knows about this. He thinks I’m right.”
“Ya been in contact with Taylor?”
“Sure I have. He’s my best friend.”
“This is just great,” Talba said. “Wayne’s Hunt’s best friend. Why would he accuse him of murder?”
“Well, things have been a little tense lately—ever since Hunt started dating Cassie.”
“Why’s that?” Eddie asked.
“What do you mean, why’s that?”
“Last I looked ya understood English.”
Rashad walked back into the room and put his backpack down again, slowly and carefully. “There’s something funny going on here. Are you telling me none of you know Wayne and Cassie were together for two years?”
A shocked silence ricocheted off the walls. How could that be? Talba thought. I’d have found out about it.
“Some detectives,” Rashad said. “How come you don’t know this? Allyson and Cassie fought about it all the time.”
“Allyson’s ghost didn’t mention it.”
Rashad considered. “Wait a minute. Austin didn’t know—Cassie never talked about her boyfriends with him. I mean, he knew she dated married men, but… well, you know Austin. She sure wasn’t going to name names. And she wasn’t close to Arnelle. I don’t know who else knew. Maybe no one.”
Talba was kicking herself. Cassie must have had a best girlfriend—maybe if she’d tried to find out who that was…
Rashad was still talking. “I think I was her best friend. She didn’t hang with women much. Maybe no one else did know,” he said again.
Talba thought, These people, these people.
Eddie looked at her slyly. “Mamas, don’t let ya babies grow up to be writers.”
Angie smiled, but Felicia and Janessa just looked blank.
Janessa said, “This don’t make no sense. Hunt and Wayne still friends. Why’s that?”
“Money,” Rashad said. “They’re writing a screenplay together.”
Eddie looked weary. “Sheds a whole new light on ya theory, doesn’t it?”
Rashad only looked confused.
“I want ya to think about that. Look, Rashad, you’re gon’ have to talk to the cops tomorrow. Meanwhile, tell ya what we’re gonna do. First of all, we’re all going home. Rashad, ya stayin’ at Janessa’s again. Janessa, he leaves, ya call me immediately. Is that clear? Immediately. Or this firm is outta this so fast ya gon’ feel the breeze. Ms. Wallis, ya gon’ pick him up tomorrow, see if you can find those bars he says he went to that night. Even streetcar conductors. Let’s see if we can prove even part of his story before we go in and talk to Crockett. Lot goin’ against ya, son. A whole lot.”
Felicia said, “I want to say one thing before we leave.” She stood up, as if about to give a speech.
Eddie looked up at her, and must have hated it, Talba thought. But he only said, “Yes?” in the same weary tone he’d been using ever since he found out about Taylor.
“I want to tell you what’s on Rashad’s juvenile record.”
Rashad said, “Aunt Felicia, don’t!”
Looking straight at Eddie, she
said, “It says he stabbed his mother with a kitchen knife.”
Janessa looked at him in horror.
“He didn’t,” Felicia said. "He’s Gatsby. He took the blame for me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Talba’s head felt as if somebody had squeezed it. Aspirin, she thought. And Darryl. Fortunately, the latter was already on the program—they were going to have one of their short dates. But much as she wanted to tell him everything, she wanted even more just to let her mind hang loose and sway in the wind, rocked by any gentle breezes she could summon.
She called him. “You up for a movie?”
He hesitated, but not for long. “Sure. What do you want to see?”
“I don’t care. As long as it’s really, really silly. I absolutely cannot handle anything resembling thought.”
“I’m looking at the paper now—Daddy Day Care?”
“Ideal. I’ll meet you there.”
And so they had sat happily at the Palace on the West Bank for almost two hours, holding hands, laughing, and, in Talba’s case, unwrinkling her head. Afterward, he said, “Asian?”
“You read my mind. Nine Roses.”
Actually, reading her mind hadn’t been too hard. The best food on the West Bank was Asian and Nine Roses was their personal favorite. She was drinking beer and munching on spring rolls before she felt ready to talk about the case. “The good news is, we finally found Rashad.”
“Uh-oh. What’s the bad?”
“He was staying with Janessa.”
“No! Why, that little—”
“Go ahead and say it.”
“—bitch.”
Talba raised her beer. “I’ll drink to that.” She managed to tell the story more or less coherently, something she didn’t think she could have done, without a little cinematic help. She finished with Felicia’s story. “According to her, Rashad’s mother was a raging bitch and also a drunk, which his poems more or less indicate. Says the two of them were drinking quite a bit in those days, and they got in a fight over a man and…” She shrugged.
“Felicia just happened to stab her?”
“Could have happened that way. In a crazy way, it makes more sense than the kid doing it. He was upstairs, came running down when he heard his mother’s screams, and held her while Felicia called nine-one-one. They both say it was her idea for the kid to take the rap.”
