by Greg Herren
I didn’t answer. The house was still and quiet. I could hear my own heart beating, my breathing uneven and ragged. It was like being a little boy again and listening to my grandmother, who’d been a member of the Church of Christ back in Cottonwood Falls, lecturing me about sin and salvation.
“I told Margot about him, you know,” she went on. “Before they got married, and she just smiled and told me that all it took was the love of a good woman, and she was going to love him enough so he’d forget all about that. I prayed for her. She was such a good woman.”
“But if Michael liked, um, liked men, why did he marry her?”
“My brother was a terrible sinner, Mr. MacLeod. He married Margot for her money, of course.” She sighed. “I just pray he’s repented of his sinful ways, wherever he is, but I rather doubt it, don’t you? I mean, what kind of man would run off with another man, and never see his wife or his own children again?”
“Michael ran away with another man?” I repeated, thinking maybe I hadn’t heard her correctly.
She nodded. “Margot told me herself. The night before he left, he told her he was leaving her and going off with some man. It crushed her…I’ll never forget how she looked when she told me about it. The look on her face, well, it would have broke your heart right in two to see a woman look like that. I know it broke my heart.”
“It’s the first I’ve heard of this.” I stared at her.
She laughed. “Do you think Margot went around bragging about it? She didn’t tell anyone, besides me…I guess she didn’t want me to worry about Michael since he was gone.” She shook her head again. “Poor, poor Margot. She never married again, you know—and she was never the same after he left. How a man could do that to a woman, the mother of his children, is beyond me.” She gave Jesus another look. “I pray for him, you know. Every morning and every night, I pray that he’s repented and asked God for forgiveness for what he did to his wife and children.”
“Thank you.” I stood up. “For the tea, and for talking to me.”
“Well, if you ever do find Michael,” she said, getting to her feet to the squawk of plastic, “let him know I’ve forgiven him, but he needs to make his peace with God.”
I forced a smile onto my face, said, “I’ll do that,” and walked out to my car. My cell phone went off before I could put the keys in the ignition. I checked the caller ID; it was Venus.
“I’ve been trying to get you for hours,” she snapped as soon I answered.
“I’m in Mississippi, about to head home now…probably couldn’t get a signal,” I said, starting the car. “What’s so important?”
“Joshua Verlaine is dead.”
Chapter Thirteen
It usually takes about three hours, give or take, to drive from Jackson to New Orleans. After getting Venus’s call, I made it in just over two hours by breaking every speed law under the sun. I was able to maintain a good ninety-mile-per-hour pace once I got outside Jackson. There was little to no traffic, other than the occasional moving truck or eighteen-wheeler. I was able to weave around the slower-moving traffic without problems or having to even slow down. I kept an eye out for the big green pickup truck—I couldn’t help but feel there was a connection between the hit-and-run and everything that was going on. I may not be the sharpest private eye around, but I don’t believe in coincidences.
Venus hadn’t been willing to share a lot of information about Joshua Verlaine’s death; she merely told me he’d apparently fallen to his death from the roof of the Verlaine house sometime during the night. He’d been found in the morning when the housekeeper had gone outside to shake out a kitchen rug, and saw his broken body lying there. She didn’t answer any of the questions I’d asked, and I finally gave up. She’d agreed to meet me back at my apartment later on that evening, and she’d also stopped me from telling her anything I’d learned. “We can discuss that when you get back to town,” she’d said in a tone I’d been used to before, but hadn’t heard since I’d returned. In fact, she’d sounded like the pre-Katrina Venus throughout the entire phone call—which made me feel better about things. She’d always been one of the best cops on the NOPD; the shell of her former self she’d been since I’d gotten back was unsettling for me.
*
I was just making the long swooping turn from the I-55 off-ramp to I-10 when my cell phone rang again. I grabbed it off the passenger seat and looked at the little screen. The caller ID read BODYTECH. Allen. I reached down and turned down the car stereo before flipping it open. “Hello?”
“Chanse?” His voice was tentative. “Hey.”
“Hey, Allen, what’s going on?” I tried to put some warmth into my voice.
“Um, I was wondering—” he paused. After a few moments, he said, “You didn’t come by the gym yesterday or today. Um, I—” Again he stopped.
“Allen, I’m on I-10 heading back into the city,” I said, slowing down behind a U-Haul before swinging out past it into the left lane. “I, uh…” I didn’t know what to say, and I cursed at myself inwardly. I’ve never been good in these situations. “I went out of town today, and yesterday I had some stuff to take care of, so…” I ran out of words and racked my brain for something, anything, to say.
“Oh.” There was more silence. “Chanse, about the other night…” His voice trailed off.
“Allen—”
“I don’t want things to be weird.” He interrupted me, and now that he’d gotten past the awkwardness, the words came out in a rush. “I mean, it was great, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want you to feel like I think you owe me something or anything, it just kind of happened, I didn’t mean for it to happen, you know, that wasn’t what I was thinking when I invited you out for dinner and I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to push myself on you or anything…oh, hell.” His voice cracked in despair. “I’ve been in a relationship for eighteen goddamned years, Chanse. I don’t know how to deal with this kind of thing anymore! I’m out of practice!”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. “Allen, Allen, please— just slow down a minute.” I took a deep breath. “I seriously wasn’t avoiding you. I just didn’t have time to come by yesterday or today, and I really am on I-10, out over the lake marsh”—I swerved around an eighteen wheeler—“and no, I never for one minute thought you were just trying to get laid the other night. We’ve known each other for a long time—I think I know you better than that. I mean, things just kind of happened, you know?”
“I’m just confused,” he replied in a low voice. “I mean, with everything that’s going on with me and Greg—you know, I’ve never ever done that, in all the years we’ve been together.”
“Really?” I was startled. I’d always believed all the sanctimonious preaching about gay monogamy was pretty much a big load of crap. It always seemed that the guys in long-term relationships, who always talked about love and commitment and how monogamous relationships were the only real ones, were always the ones who tried to put their hands down my pants after a drink or two—or once their other half was out of sight. “Now I feel like a real shit.” And I did. How could I have been so stupid?
“Don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. If anyone was at fault, it was me.” He sighed. “Look, I don’t want to talk about this with you in your car. Do you mind if I stop by later so we can talk a bit?”
“Well—” I thought for a moment. “No, not tonight. I’ve got an appointment later and I don’t know how long it’ll take, and it’s important. I’ll come by the gym in the morning and we can talk then, okay?”
“Okay.” He breathed out a sigh of relief. “You’ll definitely come by?”
“Yes. I’ll see you in the morning. Night, Allen.” I closed my phone and tossed it into the passenger seat just as I passed the airport exit. Christ, this was all I needed, but despite my initial instinct—which was to just blow it off and find another gym—I knew that I couldn’t just do the usual Chanse MacLeod patented avoidance routine. Allen was a friend and I’d known h
im for too long to blow him off. He was hurting, he was confused, and what kind of person would I be to just walk away from the whole thing? Besides, I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, and who knew what his future with Greg would be? I found it hard to believe they’d just walk away from eighteen years together. All we had to do was keep our mouths shut, and everything would be fine. There was no need for Greg to know anything about it. I didn’t know him that well, but we’d always gotten along fine. Back when Blaine and I were doing our “hey its just sex and no one is going to get hurt” thing, I’d always felt incredibly uncomfortable around his partner, no matter how much Blaine insisted they had an open relationship and everything was just fine. His partner was always distantly polite to me— still was, to this day—and while it was just possible it was my own guilt fueling that feeling, it bothered me.
And I didn’t want to be uncomfortable around Greg Buchmaier.
*
It was just after six when I pulled into driveway leading to the parking area alongside my house. The gate was open, and I clicked the remote to see if it would close after I passed through. Nothing. I sighed. I turned off the car and went inside, kicked off my shoes inside the back door, and walked into the kitchen. I got a soda out of the refrigerator, popped the tab—and that was when I noticed the living room.
“Jesus.” I breathed out, walking to the big double pocket doors that separated the living room from the rest of the apartment. I stood there for a moment, the can of soda in my hand, surveying the disaster area that was my living room. Every one of my desk drawers had been dumped out on the floor. My filing cabinet drawers were also hanging open, and had been emptied out. There was paper scattered everywhere, empty manila file folders tossed around, and even the couch cushions had been tossed aside. I set my soda down on the counter and took a deep breath.
I could feel my mind starting to race, and my hands started to shake.
I felt violated, unsafe.
Anger started to build inside me. My home had made it through a fucking Category 3 hurricane intact. The city had flooded when the levees failed, but my house was on high ground, so no water had destroyed it. My apartment survived all of that and now some miserable son of a bitch had broken in and trashed it? “Mother fuck!” I shouted and my entire body began shaking from the massive adrenaline rush. I wanted to smash something, get my hands on someone, and throttle him to death. I wanted to kill. The fury was white-hot and swept through my consciousness, and as my eyes began to tint everything slightly red, I was aware in a small corner of my mind that I was overreacting. I needed to stay calm, to relax; this didn’t matter as much as I was making it matter. My breathing was coming faster and faster. Calm down, that tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered, but that voice of reason was being swallowed by rage. Uncontrollable rage. I picked up my soda can and threw it against the kitchen wall, where foaming soda exploded out of the sides and splattered all over the wall, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to destroy things. I was furious and I couldn’t control it, and as the rage continued to build I realized I was out of control but could do nothing about it. I couldn’t stop. I was giving in to the fury.
I couldn’t control myself.
My breaths were coming so fast now that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I knew it, but couldn’t control my breathing.
Just as quickly as it had come, the anger was gone.
And my mind began to spiral down into a horrible depression.
It’s pointless. It’s all pointless. New Orleans will never come back. The city is gone, gone forever and no one cares. Look at this! My home isn’t safe, nothing here is safe. What if another storm comes? The season isn’t over yet. Best to just pack what I can and get the hell out of here, find another place to live in that’s safe. Safe. It’s not safe here. It’s never going to be safe here. This city reeks of death and destruction. Maybe they’re right. Maybe we should abandon the city.
And the most horrible part was I knew I was thinking crazy thoughts. I knew the depression was chemical in nature, not what I really felt or believed. But I couldn’t stop it.
I couldn’t stop myself.
I couldn’t control my mind.
I’d learned early in life that out-of-control emotion was a bad thing. My father had been prone to sudden blinding rages—rages that terrified all of us. We never knew what would trigger one. Something innocuous, something that just the day before had meant nothing, would one day fire a synapse in his brain and he would rage out of control. In the grips of his raging fury, he became violent. He would destroy things, beat me or my brother or my sister or my mother. He would throw things. He would scream horribly vile and hurtful things at us, things that stuck in my mind, that no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t forget. Ever, no matter how hard I tried. My earliest memories of my father were of his rages. And I hated him—how I’d hated him, and hate him still. It was genetic, too—his brothers were the same way, as was his horrible mother. It was why my mother drank, and why I couldn’t get away from Cottonwood Wells fast enough when I got my scholarship to LSU. It was why I never went back there after I did get away. It was why I never called. It was why my parents didn’t have my address or phone number. I had always sworn I would never be like my father, that I would rather die than be like that, be that kind of person. And even though my entire life, I knew the rage was there, buried deep inside my head, I was always able when it tried to emerge to fight it down, take deep breaths, get control of myself.
And his rages were always followed by a horrible depression he also couldn’t control.
And that was what I was going through.
I couldn’t get control of myself.
I need a Xanax, I thought as my legs became rubbery as the horrible depression washed over me, as my carefully constructed mental defenses against emotion crumbled beneath the weight of the depression.
They were in the medicine cabinet.
I had to get there. I had to get there fast.
My hands were shaking so badly by the time I got to the bathroom I could barely hold the small pill bottle containing the Xanax that Paige had given me. I finally managed to get the cap off and shook one out, threw it in my mouth, and gulped down a handful of water. I sat down on the toilet and took some deep breaths. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, my entire body was shaking, and my breath was coming in horrible gasps. Spots danced before my eyes. Get a grip, Chanse, get a hold of yourself, don’t go into that dark place. I got to my feet and staggered back into the kitchen. I was able to breathe somewhat normally, but still too fast. Focus, Chanse, focus. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and called Venus.
“Hey, Chanse,” she said. “Blaine and I are about two seconds from your front door… We just turned onto Camp Street.”
“Someone broke into my apartment,” I said. “You need to call the lab and get a team over here. The whole place has been tossed.” My voice didn’t shake, and I closed my eyes. Stay calm, stay calm, don’t go there, Chanse, don’t go there…
“Jesus!” she hissed. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Get out of there, don’t touch anything, and meet us out front on the sidewalk.” She hung up.
*
I walked out the back door and around the side of the house. The Xanax kicked in just as I got to the gate to the front walk, and once again, it was like a curtain of calm coming down over me. I was definitely going to get my own prescription. Blaine and Venus drove up and parked right in front of me. I lit a cigarette as they got out of the car. “Lab on the way?” I asked.
“Things aren’t like they were before, bud.” Blaine shook his head. “We called, but there’s no telling when they’ll be here—and they’re just as short-staffed as the rest of the force. But at least they don’t have as much work—crime’s pretty much a thing of the past here now.” He shrugged. He looked tired. The circles under his eyes were more pronounced, his eyes more bloodshot than I’d ever seen them. There was bluish black
stubble all over his chin, neck, and cheeks. Even his curly black hair didn’t look as shiny and alive as it usually did, and he looked pale beneath his tan. His voice had a lackluster, lifeless tone to it.
“Did you touch anything?” Venus asked as we walked up the front steps.
“I went in through the back like I always do,” I replied, suppressing the sarcastic urge to remind her I’d been a cop and wasn’t some stupid moron—apparently the drug hadn’t completely kicked in. “I took my shoes off in the bedroom, walked into the kitchen for a soda, and that’s when I noticed the living room, and called you right away”—there was certainly no need to tell them about the Xanax and the near-breakdown I was still fighting off—“so, no, I didn’t really touch anything.” I pulled my keys out, and then groaned. Whoever had broken in had done so by simply removing the deadbolt. The deadbolt was lying on the porch in pieces, carefully lined up together and ready to be reassembled. Nice, I thought, a thoughtful burglar. I suppressed a rueful laugh. In the pre-Katrina world, someone with a screwdriver wouldn’t have been able to just walk up on a porch and remove a deadbolt. But in the ghost town New Orleans had turned into…I shook my head again. Better not go there right now—at least until I was sure my mood had stabilized. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Blaine took out his cell phone and took a picture of the door, then another of the dismantled deadbolt. He put on a pair of gloves and placed the deadbolt into an evidence bag, which he labeled. “Doesn’t look like it’ll be safe to stay here till you can get another deadbolt, buddy.” He gave me a little smile. “You can always stay with us, if you want. Still plenty of habitable rooms in the big house.” He looked at his watch.
