Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets

by Miles, Matthew

  He’s hiding from Jaime because he has to figure out how to deal with this mess if it catches back up to him. At least, that’s part of the reason. Of course, he was there using Dodge’s identity - so maybe it can’t come back to him. But he has to get rid of the passport and the credit card - or better, get them back to Dodge. If Dodge doesn’t have them, he can report them stolen. And Chuck was at Dodge’s house. It’s all traceable. He has to get this stuff back in Dodge’s house pronto. But that’s easier said than done - he can’t just walk in there with Dodge or Siobhan around - the last time was a total fluke - he’s not even sure how he got away with it - except that Dodge seemed a little preoccupied with Jaime in the pool house.

  He sits down at his desk to think. He feels safest here - at work, amongst the mail. It’s more private than at home, with his mother. But he can’t think about passports and credit cards, all he can think about are the two girls - and not what he should be thinking about - how he left them dead in a cheap hotel in the red light district in Amsterdam. No, he’s thinking about their bodies – against him - even as they were writhing to death - and how incredible he felt.

  And how he wants to feel that again.

  Even as he leans back in his chair, thinking about the girls, the door suddenly slams open, causing him to lurch back upright in his chair, pulling himself closer to the desk.

  Jaime bursts in - to his surprise, and delight, despite his trepidation. She looks so beautiful, even when she’s mad - maybe especially because she’s angry.

  He knows she wants something and he’s not going to make it easy for her.

  “Chuck,” she orders, getting right to the point. “Give me Dodge’s passport.”

  There’s not much he can say at this point, sitting here in his stupid I love Amsterdam shirt.

  She knows he has it.

  So he plays tough. “What if I don’t?”

  “It’s a federal crime,” she snaps, like he’s an idiot, like there’s nothing else to consider.

  She has a point.

  “And what if I do?” he asks, enjoying the game.

  But she just marches around the desk, like she owns the place and kicks his chair back from the desk.

  Chuck feels suddenly exposed, sitting there, her towering over him, seeing the look in her eyes.

  “Chuck,” she commands him. “I don’t have time for your games, or for you to sit there and be weird. And if you want to keep your perverted eyes in your head, so you can ever stare at me again, you’re going to hand that passport over right now.”

  “Desk drawer,” he mumbles.

  Point taken.

  She snatches the passport out of the drawer and is out of the room in a second, the door slamming behind her.

  She forgets the credit card, though Chuck doesn’t notice right away, preoccupying himself with the memory of her towering over him.

  And the feeling he felt.

  And how he wants to feel it again.

  *****

  It’s Saturday evening before the police come. It’s Sheriff Broonzy and a state trooper.

  Perfect.

  These guys are gunning for him.

  Dodge has to play this cool.

  He’s sick with the thought that Siobhan may have laid there a whole day before she was found. He couldn’t call, though, couldn’t report a missing person, or tip off the police he knows his wife is dead. It’s better to go about his normal routine - or the normal routine of a man just back from Amsterdam.

  Jaime’s plan sketches him out, but it’s hard to ignore an opportunity likes this.

  It’s either too good to be true or too good to be ignored.

  He will find out.

  Dodge is scared shitless. He’s guilty, but then again, he’s not sure he did anything wrong - exactly. He didn’t mean for what happened to happen. He’s not the one who had an affair, or whatever Siobhan was doing at Dressler’s. He doesn’t know what was going on there - why Dressler was in a kimono, or had a sword, or how Dressler ended up killing Siobhan. He barely understands how he killed Dressler, but that is the one thing he knows for sure. He doesn’t want to go down for that, though.

  He opens the door, trying to look casual, tired - jetlagged – hung over - when Broonzy knocks. It’s not hard to look beat, frazzled as his nerves are.

  “Dodge,” Broonzy announces as the door opens.

  “Yeah?” Dodge asks, looking surprised that Broonzy is at the door.

  The trooper doesn’t speak, just hovers slightly behind the sheriff, looking very stoic.

  This is Broonzy’s gig.

  “Mind telling me where you were last night?” he asks.

  “On a red-eye home,” Dodge answers, sounding baffled. “Why?”

  Dodge figures they must know this already - they would have checked on his whereabouts. He contemplates, again, just telling the truth, and taking his chances with the law. He doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. But Jaime’s convinced they’ll railroad him, considering his poisonous relationship with Broonzy. And Dodge has to admit she’s probably right.

  So she brings him the passport this morning, tells him about Chuck, tells him he has an alibi. Tells him he needs to use it. She doesn’t believe in fate, or put much stock in pure, blind luck, but you have to know when you’re staring a gift in the face, she says.

  Dodge doesn’t buy into that stuff either, but he believes in series of coincidences. He believes that series of coincidences that can lead to fortuitous circumstances. He believes in recognizing those opportunities and acting on them.

  Some people call it luck.

  Dodge calls it action.

  “You know where your wife is?” Broonzy asks, not bothering to answer Dodge’s question.

  “Ahh,” Dodge pauses. “She’s out of town, I’m guessing - I haven’t seen her since I got back.”

  He makes sure to look disoriented, skeptical.

  “You’re guessing?” Broonzy asks, smelling blood. “You don’t know where your wife is?”

  “Shit, Broonzy,” Dodge snaps. “We’ve had some problems lately, alright? Why don’t you tell me where she is?”

  Broonzy stares hard into his eyes. “What kinds of problems?”

  Dodge looks incredulous.

  “Normal problems. Jobs. Money. You know I don’t have a job, Broonzy. How would you feel about that if you were married to me?”

  The sheriff brushes off Dodge’s questions. “Any fights lately?”

  Dodge just stares him back in the eye. “We don’t fight. We just stop talking to each other. What’s this all about, Broonzy? What’s going on?”

  There’s worry in his tone – sincere worry, which Dodge doesn’t mind that he can’t hide. Being calm would betray him even more.

  Broonzy doesn’t acknowledge his questions. “What were you doing in Amsterdam? Why the red eye?”

  “You know what I write about, Broonzy,” he says flatly. “I went to Montreal a few days. Then Amsterdam. What do you think I’m writing about?”

  Broonzy takes the bait this time. “Sounds like an excuse to jet set around, spend your wife’s money and get high.”

  Dodge holds his gaze for a minute, before just nodding his head slightly. “So maybe now you know why Siobhan isn’t so happy with me.”

  Broonzy just nods.

  Dodge knows he’s hit the bull’s eye.

  Admitting he’s a worthless slacker plays right into Broonzy’s image of him – makes him believable.

  But Broonzy doesn’t give up quite yet. “So why the red eye?” he asks, narrowing his eyes.

  Dodge just gives him a smirk. “I wasn’t about to fall asleep anyway - and I couldn’t exactly keep doing what I was doing much longer if I wanted to live to write about it.”

  Dodge watches the trooper fidgeting behind Broonzy. He can tell he’s answered their questions. They know he wasn’t around last night - but they want to know why. He’s got plausibility on his side. He’s pulling the act off.

  “So wha
t the hell is going on here, Broonzy?” he snaps.

  Broonzy doesn’t speak, just stares at Dodge out of the corner of his eye, but the trooper is getting restless. He let Broonzy play his game, but now he can’t sit quiet.

  “Mr. Dodge,” he says hesitantly. “I’m really sorry, but your wife’s dead. She was killed last night.”

  This is their last chance to get him, but it’s not going to happen. Dodge’s charade crumbles, and he lets himself collapse into the shock and sadness he’s been holding back. He doesn’t need to fake this; it’s sincere - and hearing someone say it - someone say Siobhan is dead - crushes him, just like if he didn’t know already.

  But he pulls himself together to ask what happened.

  Dressler’s. Rod Dressler’s they tell him. Stabbed.

  Broonzy watches Dodge closely at the news, with a certain relish almost.

  Broonzy has no love lost for Dressler either, obviously.

  Dressler was under investigation for drug running by Broonzy when Dressler hired Siobhan to manage his public relations, to make sure the number of good stories in the paper outnumbered the bad ones – to keep the family name out of the mud.

  That was the legitimate service.

  The more lurid part was drumming up the dirt on Broonzy to blackmail him to back off.

  Which is where Dodge came in, of course.

  Turns out, the sheriff has some issues abusing his power with younger female violators of the law.

  “I knew it,” Dodge gasps. “I knew there was something going on with him.”

  “They were both attacked,” Broonzy adds. “She was stabbed, he was decapitated.”

  “Stabbed … what do you mean, stabbed?” he asks, pulling himself together.

  The truth is, he doesn’t understand what happened when he was there, how Siobhan ended up dead – it happened already by the time he hit the door.

  “Samurai sword,” Broonzy says, totally matter of fact. “It’s either you, or it’s over drugs, or some kind of kinky sex thing. He was wearing a woman’s robe. Lot of cocaine around.”

  Dodge feels like a bastard, betraying Siobhan like this, letting the police think this kind of weird shit about her, but what they’re thinking about him is worse.

  “Something’s not right here, Dodge,” Broonzy tells him. “I know you were out of the country last night. Passports don’t lie. But that don’t mean you didn’t have this done.”

  The gauntlet is thrown.

  “Yeah, Broonzy,” Dodge snaps at him, at the absurdity of the accusation, given the facts Broonzy has. “I sent my ninjas after them.”

  End of conversation.

  There’s not much left for anyone to say after that.

  *****

  “You were amazing,” Jaime assures him, caressing his hair and cradling him in her arms on the sofa in his office. “You totally did it.”

  Dodge just shudders, unable to believe what he’s gotten himself into.

  But Jaime is determined to keep those thoughts banished, and holds him against her and kisses him lightly on his neck and strokes his arms and his head.

  Dodge in jail does her no good right now.

  This is her life too.

  “I just can’t believe I killed Siobhan,” Dodge moans, holding his head in his hands, forcing Jaime to stroke his stomach instead.

  “You didn’t kill her,” she reminds him softly.

  If anyone did, it’s herself, she thinks, a wave of guilt making her ill.

  “You killed the man who killed her – what anybody would do.”

  Or she hopes. She doesn’t know what really happened, only what Dodge told her. She doesn’t think Dodge would kill Siobhan; she knows - better than anyone - how much he loved her - thinking of all the times she tried to steal him away. And what that labor has now produced.

  Shame.

  A deep and horrible shame.

  “Maybe I should just turn myself in,” he contemplates. “Temporary insanity. Justifiable homicide.”

  “There’s no such thing as justifiable homicide,” she snaps gently. “It’s called revenge killing. And that’s what this is going to look like. You shouldn’t go to jail for what that asshole Dressler did.”

  “I know,” he groans. “But this is only going to be worse if the truth comes out.”

  “You have an alibi,” she assures him.

  She doesn’t deserve his trust; she has betrayed him in the worst way. She prays he never figures out what she did, she can only try to protect him now.

  “They can’t place you at the crime scene.”

  “You shouldn’t be helping me,” he tells her. “I don’t want you to end up in trouble too. None of this is your fault.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” she promises, squeezing him tighter. “You’re in my hands now.”

  Her words, and the soft touch of her hands on his head, calm him, reassure him this can work. He doesn’t know what he would do without her, thanks God she is there to get him through this. He’s never treated her right, he realizes. She loves him, he knows that for sure - he would never even have known Siobhan was having an affair without her - and all he ever did was take advantage of her love. In a moment of weakness - one drunk, impulsive moment, he betrayed Jaime’s love, Siobhan’s trust, and himself. And after going ahead and taking advantage of her that one time, just because he could, he continues to use her, to lean on her, to take from her, and give nothing back.

  He doesn’t deserve her, he realizes. He loves her, now more than ever, but it’s just a selfish, unfair love.

  But still, her hands caressing him, he knows how she feels too.

  Sees their future together written in the stucco patterns on the ceiling.

  And starts to wonder why not now.

  She must see the look in his eyes, the sudden change, the idea. Holding his head between her hands, she stops him.

  “Dodge,” she whispers. “Not now. Not for this reason.”

  “I love you, Jaime,” he tells her, not insistently, not pleading.

  Just sincerely. Just so she knows.

  “I know,” she says. “I love you too. There’ll be a time for us.”

  “I know,” he tells her, some happiness penetrating his grief.

  She leans toward him and kisses him lightly on his lips.

  For a moment, she thinks maybe they should just get on with this.

  But no, she has to think longer term.

  *****

  Chuck sits at the computer at Siobhan’s office. He’s still hiding out at work for the most part, not exclusively, but feels the safest there. Between fits of paranoia and anguish, trying to get a mental grip on what went down in Amsterdam, he gets bored, though, and kills time rifling through Jaime’s desk and Siobhan’s office.

  Opening the Internet browser on Siobhan’s computer, hanging out in her chair like he owns it, Chuck googles Jaime’s name, clicks on links that mention her, finds a face shot photo in an article from her high school years. He saves the image to his jump drive.

  Since she walked into his office the other day, he can’t stop thinking about her. The way he bosses her around. With all his newfound confidence, even after his rendezvous in Amsterdam, he still can’t show her the way he feels. He doesn’t want to just follow her around forever. And as much as he wants to forget her last visit, he doesn’t want to forget her. He doesn’t even really want to forget her last visit; he still pictures her in his little mail room, wishes he’d kept her there.

  He tries to access her Facebook page, to find more photos, but she keeps it private. He wonders if he makes a page if she’ll let him friend her. Some people just accept every friend request, he hears. He quickly sets up a profile, not even having a picture to post. Even he has to admit it looks like a little creepy when he sends it, and immediately regrets it.

  He laughs at himself that he’s now freaked out about cyber stalking her, when he stalks her in real life all the time.

  Somehow, it fe
els creepier online.

  Frustrated, unable to find any good photos of her, he goes instead to Craigslist. He hears things about Craigslist. About things people can find on there. They say you can find anything on there. He surfs around in the adult personals, wondering if he can find someone, anyone, who even looks remotely like her.