by Greg Herren
“Anybody want something to drink?” Paige flawlessly slipped into hostess mode, with a note in her voice I’d never heard before.
“We’re fine.” Ian answered for both of them. They both sat on the couch. “Now what the hell is going on with our boy?”
I looked at Paige, who gave me a weak smile. “Um, we’re trying to find him.”
“That’s just not like Paul.” Fee said, her jaw set. “That’s why we decided to come out here after that nice policewoman called, Paige. Paul just doesn’t run off without telling anyone where he’s going.”
Paige sat down in the reclining chair. “I’m not really sure there’s anything you can do here.”
Fee reached out and patted Paige with a small plump hand. The only ring on her hand was her wedding ring. Her nails were short and rough, like she’d been biting them. “Of course not, dear, we didn’t think that, but we figured we needed to be here if something was going on with our son. When we talked, I could tell in your voice you were worried, honey.”
Paige swallowed, and looked over at me. I shrugged and nodded. She cleared her throat. “What I’m going to tell you isn’t going to be easy to hear.”
Fee affected an Irish brogue. “Ah, that’s all right, lassie, we Irish have been enduring whatever the Good Lord’s thrown at us for centuries now.” She smiled, but her lips were white. She reached up, clasping the medal of St. Mary hanging around her neck, and her other hand snaked into Ian’s, and he squeezed it. They leaned into each other, an almost imperceptable shift in how they were sitting, as Paige started to talk.
What must it have been like to have them for parents? I thought as Paige talked, unable to take my eyes off them. Paul adored them, called them every other day without fail. I knew they owned an Irish pub in Albuquerque, which Ian ran and Fee kept the books. All of their kids had helped out around the pub growing up, earning spending money by moving cases of liquor and carting kegs. “It was hard work, but it was fun,” Paul told me one night when we were lying in bed, curled around each other. “Mom and Dad were the best bosses. All their employees loved them and stayed with them for years, were like a part of the family.” I imagined what it was like growing up a loving household of parents who worked and played hard, with three other boys and a sister very close in age, caring, loving, and enjoying life.
It hadn’t been like that in my house growing up. The loose Catholicism Paul followed was patterned on his parents’ faith. In my family, the Bible was the law, the words that came out of the preacher’s mouth on Sunday jewels of faith to live by. My dad’s mother was a fanatic who quoted Bible verses to prove her point, and always tried to affect the image of the righteous woman who was saved. But my dad’s temper came down from her. She would switch from a laughing relaxed woman into a raving lunatic with the bat of an eye. She frequently berated my mother for letting my sister wear make-up and skirts shorter than those approved of by the Church of Christ. “You let her dress like a whore and she’ll become one,” she would say. My mother would just smile and say nothing, which was the safest course with Grandma. My sister would flush red—it had to suck having your grandmother say you looked like a whore. She would lecture me on the sin of pride as well as the loose morality of non-Church of Christ high school harlots who would try to lure me into the sins of the flesh. There were times I wanted to tell her the girls were the last thing she needed to worry about.
Fee said something to me I didn’t hear. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, we’d checked with his brothers and his sister, and they haven’t heard from him either.” She sounded confused. “Paul wouldn’t just go run off like that and not tell us, he wouldn’t do that. I don’t understand why he didn’t call me when he got home from that jail.”
“With all due respect, Fee, it couldn’t have been easy to call to tell you he’d been arrested for murder.” Paige said.
“If one of my children thought they couldn’t call and tell me anything, then I’ve failed as a mother.” Fee replied, her jaw jutting out just a bit. “And believe you me, I told that nice policewoman a thing or two when she called me.”
I couldn’t help but grin.. “Like what?”
“Like Paul wouldn’t have killed Mark. That’s just ridiculous.”
She mentioned him casually, as though she knew him. “Did you know Mark Williams?”
She turned to me with a smile. “Of course we did, Chanse. Paul brought him home for Christmas one year. The poor thing had no family. Paul was very fond of Mark, and Mark of Paul. We liked him—he was very nice.”
“Paul always brought his friends home to meet us.” Ian said. “We didn’t like all of them, of course, but they were nice boys for the most part.”
“Did you know about the—“ I hesitated.
Fee sighed. “About the videos? Yes, we did. We didn’t approve—he was our baby, of course—but it was his life to live as he saw it, not ours. I thought he’d regret it one day, and I was right. After he met you, he was sorry he’d made them.”
“He was?”
“When he met you, dear. He didn’t know how to tell you about them—he agonized over it, I can tell you that.” Fee shook her head. “I kept telling him—Chanse loves you, it won’t matter. But he worried and worried. I told him you’d find out sooner or later, and the later it was the worse it would be.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, well. Is anyone thirsty?” No one was, so I excused myself and walked into the kitchen for a Dr. Pepper. Paul was right to be worried about telling me, I thought as I popped the tab and took a drink. And she was right; the later it was the harder and rougher it had been for both of us.
I walked back into the living room just as Fee and Ian stood up. “We’d best be getting back to the hotel. We’re staying at the Pontchartrain if you need us for anything.”
They hugged us both at the door, and Fee whispered in my ear, “Everything will be all right, dear. You’ll see.” And then I shut the door behind them.
Paige was already reaching for the pipe. “Nice people.”
“Yeah, well, they raised a good son.” My voice cracked a bit, and I turned away from her. I sat back down in front of my computer. It was time to face facts. I took a deep breath. “Paige, you don’t think Paul’s dead, do you?”
She was holding in smoke, and starting waving at me. She blew the smoke out, coughed and choked, and said, “Jesus, don’t say shit to me like that!” She reached for my Dr. Pepper, and downed at least half of the can before rubbing her eyes. “Whoo. Okay. We can’t rule out the possibility he is.”
“Yeah. “ I looked down at my hands. “But wouldn’t I—“ I stopped. It would sound stupid.
“What?”
“Never mind, it was stupid.” My entire body seemed to relax, letting go of a tension I hadn’t even been aware of until it was gone. It was like every muscle in my body had been coiled, ready to pounce. I took a deep, cleansing breath, and then another.
“Chanse, I won’t think you’re stupid, okay?”
“Wouldn’t I sense it?” I said it in a low voice, refusing to meet her eyes. There was a very interesting spot on the hardwood floor holding my attention. “I mean, if you love someone, don’t you know when they’re dead?”
“Oh, Chanse.” Her voice broke. “You—you—“ she got up and walked over to me, sliding her arms around my shoulders, tears starting to fall. “You hopeless romantic!”
After a moment, I put my arms around her. Paige was soft and warm, and comforting, and human. My body continued to relax even more, and when mine started welling up in my eyes I let them come. I’d never really experienced what it was like to let go. Crying only made my dad angrier and increased the beating. I learned at an early age that men don’t cry. I hadn’t cried when I read Ryan’s letter. I hadn’t cried when I graduated from high school. I hadn’t cried for anything in my life. But now, I let myself go and cried for Paul. I cried for the look on his face the last time I saw him. I cried for the empty bed I’d woken up in that morn
ing. I cried for the things I’d said, the things I’d thought, the way I’d messed everything up.
And then, finally, they stopped. I wiped my cheeks dry.
Paige leaned back away from me. “It helps sometimes, doesn’t it?” She wiped away her own tears. “I never understood why men won’t cry.”
“It’s not manly.” I said, wiping my nose, and laughed. After a moment, she started laughing, too. Finally I took a hit off the pipe and blew out smoke. “All right, let’s get to work, okay?”
“Okay.” She kissed the top of my head. “We’re going to find him, honey.”
“We have to operate on the assumption he’s alive, until we know otherwise.” I reasoned. “We’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t do everything we could to find him and he was somewhere out there needing help.”
“Damned right.” Paige reached past me to the keyboard and pulled up Paul’s internet server. “Let’s start by checking his email.”
“How? We don’t know his password.”
She gave me a look. “I bet you I can get it the first try.”
“I’ll take that bet.” She moved the curser to the sign in window, and typed in Paul’s account number. She went down to the password line and typed six letters quickly and hit enter. The WELCOME screen popped up.
“I should have bet money.” Paige grumbled.
“How did you do that?”
She laughed. “Do you know him at all? His password is ‘chanse.’”
Apparently, I don’t know him at all, I thought, fighting back the tears threatening to start again. Paige pulled up his mail folder. There were over a hundred new mail messages, and she moved the cursor down, scrolling through them. “Do you recognize any of these return addresses?”
“That’s Jude,” I said as she highlighted an email with the header YOU SLY PUSS. “Judewrestle.”
“Doesn’t look promising. Should we read them?”
“No.” I said. I didn’t see any new ones from Chris Fowler, or anything that looked like it could be threatening. There was a lot of spam, but that was nothing new.
“So, who do you think killed Mark?” Paige asked. “Zane or Ricky?”
“I don’t care.” I said, logging out of the system. “All I want to do is find Paul.” I logged into my own Internet account. “Okay, Zane, let’s see what we can find out about you.” I went to the reverse directory and typed in Zane’s name and phone number.RATHBURN, ZANE 1206 Dauphine Street 70116.
“What are you doing?” Paige asked, passing me the pipe.
“Getting some information.” I moved to a search engine that brought up past addresses, and put in Zane’s name and address. It was expensive—ten dollars charged to my credit card per search—but it was worth it. This site also gave you the social security number. Once you have that, you can find out anything about anyone. Credit reports, financial records, military history, criminal records, marriage history—pretty much everything except sexual history.
“If you don’t care about the killer, why look up all this stuff?”
“Just curious.” I said, staring at the screen and waiting for the report to come back.
“Didn’t you say he was just a kid.”
The report scrolled onto the screen. I started writing down Zane’s social security number when Paige said, “That’s weird. I thought you said he was a kid.”
I looked back at the screen. She was pointing at the line above the Dauphine Street address. I stared. That didn’t make any sense. According to the report, Zane’s last known address prior to Dauphine Street was on Robert E. Lee—but it showed he’d stopped living there five years earlier. He’d told me he was Houma, but that address nowhere in the report. Besides all the addresses being in New Orleans they went back 53 years. “I swear to God, Paige, he couldn’t be more than 23, tops.”
“The site must have made a mistake. There must be another Zane Rathburn.”
I pointed to the social security numbers next to the addresses. “With the same social security number?”
I went to another site that searched for death certificates and entered Zane’s social security number. Sure enough, one popped up for a Zane Rathburn who’d been 74 when he died five years ago. I then went to a credit report site, plugged in the social security number, and brought up a credit report that showed no activity for five years. A Visa, a MasterCard, and a Discover card had all been issued to Zane Rathburn during the past summer.
“Identity theft of a dead man.” Paige whistled. “I’m calling Venus.”
“Don’t!” I was surfing to another site. “Not yet—let me check one more thing.” The directory for Houma came up. I typed in RATHBURN. No matches found.
“Why not?” Paige went back and sat on the couch, her phone still in her hand. “Come on. You’d still think she was in charge of the investigation, right? Who else would you call? Let her decide what to do with the information.”
“”The priority is finding Paul, Paige.” I went to another site.
“Chanse, listen to me.”
Her tone was strange, so I turned to look at her. She licked her top lip. “Don’t you think it’s weird that Zane doesn’t exist anywhere until he turned up in New Orleans last spring?”
“Yes.” I spun around in my chair. “It doesn’t look good for him. And he was the only person to see Ricky the day of the murder. Yes, we need to tell Venus all this—if she doesn’t already know. But my priority is Paul.”
“What does Zane have to do with finding Paul?”
I took a deep breath. “What if Paul knew something, or saw something, not realizing it? You know, like Venus’ theory about the mob hit? The only person he’d be a threat to is the killer….that’s why I want to find Zane.”
“So you think Zane has him somewhere?”
“Maybe!”
“Chanse.” Her eyes were wet, and I looked away from her. “You aren’t facing reality. Look at me.” I turned my head back. “Unless Paul went away on his own, he’s dead. If Zane killed Ricky and Mark, then he killed Paul. If it was a mob hit, the same thing.”
“No, Paige.” Even as I said it, the reality was settling in over my mind. I was finding it hard to breathe. The room swam in my vision, and I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
Paul was dead. I knew it. I’d known the moment Venus had told me about the Feds taking the case away from her. I’d just refused to accept it.
My computer dinged.
WRESTLEJUDE: Hey stud, how you doing?
I stared at the computer. The cursor blinked at me. I wiped at my eyes.
WRESTLEJUDE: You there?
I swallowed and typed. Hey there.
WRESTLEJUDE: Dude, can I call you?
CHANSEMAC: Now’s not a really good time.
The last thing I wanted to do was have another phone sex come on. I swallowed again. Paige came up behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. I reached up with my left hand and squeezed it, not saying anything.
WRESTLEJUDE: Dude, I don’t want to have phone sex. Is everything ok with Paul?
“Who’s that?” Paige asked. “You’ve had phone sex with this guy?”
“No, he’s a friend of Paul’s—the one who told me about Chris Fowler.”
CHANSEMAC: I told you he’s out of town. I haven’t heard from him. Why?
WRESTLEJUDE: I got this weird email from him today. Can I call you?
Hope dawned. “Paige, do you see that? He got an email from Paul today!”
CHANSEMAC: Yes, call me. Do you need the number again?
WRESTLEJUDE: LOL. No, I made sure I kept your number, hot stuff!
“Hot stuff?” Paige asked.
“I’ll tell you later.” The phone was ringing. I answered. “Hello?”
“Hey stud.” Maybe it was just the way he always talked, but he seemed to just purr. “You haven’t talked to Paul?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Well, he sent me this weird email. Hang on a second.” I heard him rattling p
apers, moving stuff around. “I went ahead and printed it out. Here it is.” He started reading. “Hey Jude, hope all is well. I had to get away from New Orleans for a while. Chanse was kind of being a jerk, so I left, you know, to get my head together—like that time I left Jeff, remember? So the next time you talk to Chanse, tell him I’m okay but don’t tell him where I am. Love, Paul.”
“How did he know we’d talked?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, despite the fact my heart was soaring. Paul was alive!
“Well—I know I promised you I wouldn’t say anything to him, but I emailed him after we talked.” Jude rushed on. “Don’t be mad, but I wanted to let him know we’d talked and things were cool, and to apologize for any trouble I might have caused, you know, when I sent the earlier email about seeing your listing on the site?”
“What time was the email sent?”
“Two o’clock this afternoon.”
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs: He’s alive! “Cool.”
“But Chanse—you don’t get it. There has to be something wrong.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Okay, give me a minute, okay?” He took a deep breath. “Paul never left Jeff that I know of.” Jeff had been the doctor Paul had lived with for five years. “They never fought, man—it was sickening. I mean, they just didn’t fight, and Paul never left Jeff until they broke up, you know? And their breakup was amicable. They both just moved on.”
“Well, it’s possible he just thought you knew about it, right?”
“Paul also never signs his emails love. He just doesn’t do that. He signs with little x’s and o’s, you know, hugs and kisses?”
That was true. On the rare occasions when Paul emailed me, he always signed with a row of them across the bottom before his name. “I’m sure everything’s okay, Jude. But would you mind forwarding the email to me?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He sighed. “You’re probably right, it’s nothing, but still, man, it’s fucking weird.” He hung up.
Paige sat back on the couch. “So, Paul’s alive? He sent this guy an email?”
“Yeah.” I was grinning from ear to ear. “He’s alive and he’s safe, and he just went away on his own.”
