by Julia Derek
“Let’s go sit down somewhere,” Ricki said. “Far away from this bar. You won’t be able to handle another drink.”
“Whatever you want,” I said and kept laughing. I was feeling better now, that crushing pain in my stomach gone for good at last, it seemed. The DJ was playing a song I loved and I began to dance, trying to shake off Ricki’s hand that held onto me with the determination of a tick.
Somehow, we got through the masses of people on the dark dance floor and ended up on one of the many low couches that surrounded tables scattered around the massive dance floor. Walking over there, I had felt like I was on a stormy boat, the floor underneath my feet rocking back and forth. Now, as I sat on the couch, my eyes on all the people moving to the music, I felt as though I was sitting on a moving couch. Maybe if I ate something, I could stop all the alcohol I had consumed from completely overtaking me. At this pace, I didn’t think I would be able to keep my eyes opened much longer. I turned to Ricki,
“I need to eat something,” I screamed over the loud music. “Do you think they’re still serving hors d’oeuvres? I haven’t seen any of the waiters in a while.”
“Yeah, I did see one of them as we were walking over here. Do you want me to see if I can get you some food?”
“Yeah. If not, I’m pretty sure I’ll pass out any second.”
“Let me go check. Stay here.” Ricki got to her feet and disappeared into the crowds before I could say anything else.
Feeling how the couch underneath me moved with increasing pace, every undulation deeper than the previous, I kept staring at all the people on the dance floor. It seemed there were several more people before me than only seconds earlier, most of them twins. They kept floating in and out of each other, becoming one person again, then two. I stood up, determined not to let the alcohol get to me. I was finally having a good time. Some fresh air would do me good. Where was the exit? I started walking in the direction I thought it was. That’s when I bumped into the blond woman Dylan had embraced.
Dylan
“Damn, man,” Ryan said only seconds after Emma disappeared into the crowds. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Me neither,” I said. I threw a glance in the direction where I had spotted Nina staring at me and Emma. Nina was no longer there. The expression she had worn was etched into my brain, still making me shiver despite that several minutes must have passed since we locked eyes. I didn’t think I had ever seen so much anger in a person. Why had she looked so furious? Because my arms had been around another woman? Didn’t make much sense. Not after she had almost pushed me off a fucking cliff. Did it have something to do with Emma? No, that made even less sense. So why then? Well, the answer to that question was simple. The chick was stark raving mad. People like that never made sense.
Irrational jealousy or not, after spotting Nina, I’d soon let go off Emma, feeling guilty for holding onto her like that. I told Emma I was sorry things weren’t going well with Hugo and that I could be her friend, but no more than that. Quite honestly, I wasn’t sure I could be even that to Emma, not caring much about her at all actually, but when I saw how upset my previous statement made her I realized that spelling this out was not wise. I spent the next few minutes consoling her, drying her tears. When she finally stopped crying, I told her she should go home and go to bed, try to get some rest. I added that I would have taken her home myself if I hadn’t already had at least three strong drinks. She told me her friend—a sour-looking brunette who happened to stand beside us, I discovered—would take her home, but only after I had promised I would call her to see how she was doing later in the evening.
“Are you sure you don’t want to patch things up with her?” Ryan said. “I thought you said you were gonna marry that chick. She’s fucking hot.”
“I did think I was gonna marry her. But I don’t think so any more. She may be hot, but that’s it. I need a hot woman with some character. This one ain’t it.”
“Women are all the same. Just accept it, man.”
I wasn’t in the mood to banter with my cynical friend. I needed to process this unexpected chain of events on my own first, try to make sense of what had made Emma practically beg me to take her back and Nina to stare at us like that. So I went over to one of the hostesses, who called me a cab. Since I’d drunk more than I’d planned on, I needed one. A few minutes later, I was on my way home.
Nina
I was still drunk when I woke up the following day and stumbled toward the bathroom. I managed to bang my leg into the coffee table in the living room on my way over. I rubbed the sore spot and discovered Lorna sitting cross-legged on the couch, reading the paper, glasses halfway down her long nose. A gasp escaped from between my lips and I almost succeeded in banging my leg a second time
“I’m sorry, hun,” Lorna said, lowering the paper onto her lap. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” She leaned forward and, pushing up her glasses all the way, peered at me. “Rough night?”
My hand flew up to my face, which I touched. “Why? Do I look that bad?”
“Um… you could use a hairbrush. And some makeup remover.”
I continued into the bathroom and switched on the light there. At the sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I let out a terrified, “Oh, my God!” My hair was standing out in every direction, as though I’d stuck my finger into an electric socket. There were huge black circles under my eyes, mostly because I hadn’t bothered to remove my eye makeup when I got home yesterday. I turned on the faucet to wash my face, wondering exactly how I had gotten home anyway. The last thing I remembered was bumping into that tall, skinny, blond chick that Dylan had been embracing. After that, I couldn’t remember a thing. I ran my fingers through my bird nest hair. I must have been completely wasted. Ricki must have seen to it that I got home eventually.
I finished up in the bathroom and returned to the living room where Lorna was reading the paper again. The sun was high up in the sky outside, suggesting the day must be well on its way already, probably close to noon. My phone sounded from somewhere, telling me I had received either a text or a voicemail. I stumbled back to my adjacent bedroom that was still in the dark due to my effective IKEA shade. Soon, my phone was in my hand and I had pulled up the message, a text from Ricki.
Are you alive?
I called my friend, who soon answered.
“I am, and I’m still drunk,” I said.
“No wonder. I had to get my friend to help carry you to my car you were so gone.”
A vision of the black-clad, neckless doorman appeared in my mind. “Did he help you get me to my place, too?”
“No, I had to drag you there all by myself. Took a while, but eventually I got you into your bed.”
“Wow, thanks. Sorry about that. Must have been a workout.”
“Yeah, but that’s okay. You did the same for me once, remember?”
I thought back to the incident Ricki referred to. “That’s true. Except you weren’t half as drunk as I must’ve been. I hope I didn’t throw up on you or something!”
Ricki giggled. “No, you didn’t. Thank God!”
“I barely remember anything after we left that bar. Did I do anything I should be embarrassed about?”
“Not as far as I know. You were kind of loud—very mad at Dylan for flirting with all the girls. Other than that, you were fine. So you don’t remember leaving then?”
“Leave to where? Oh, you mean when I decided I had to have some fresh air and tried to find the exit?”
“Not sure what you decided, but I guess that makes sense. It took me forever to find you.”
“Where did you find me?”
“Curled up in a dark corner halfway to the bathrooms, in the corridor. You’re lucky you weren’t stomped to death with all the people—” Ricki got silent.
I waited a couple of seconds before I opened my mouth. “Ricki? Are you still there?”
“Yeah… I’m watching the local news. They’re announcing there was a murder at the Blue
Moon yesterday.”
“What? Really? Who died? Oh God, please don’t tell me it was Dylan…” As annoyed as I had been with him, I didn’t want to see him dead. Definitely didn’t want to see him dead.
“It wasn’t Dylan. But I think it was that blond, pretty girl he was talking to.”
“You’re kidding! Is it on the news right now?”
“Yeah. Channel one.”
I rushed back into the living room and turned on the television to that channel. An attractive female anchor was talking about a murder at the Blue Moon. The broadcast cut to a couple of photos of a gorgeous blond girl. She looked suspiciously like the girl Dylan had held and who I later bumped into. The female anchor reported the victim had died between eleven-fifteen and eleven-thirty p.m. from asphyxiation by a narrow strap. It didn’t seem like the murder was premeditated, nor that it had been due to robbery since all of the victim’s cash and credit cards remained in her wallet. As of yet, the police had no suspects, but the murder was under investigation.
“She must have died while we were still there,” Ricki said. “Actually, while I was searching the club like crazy to find you. Imagine I’d run into the murder scene. Or you’d run into it for that matter, drunk like a skunk. Maybe we’d be on the news too… The police believe the murder took place somewhere inside club.”
“Wow. I’m telling you, there were too many people in that friggin’ place. Someone probably got claustrophobic and snapped.” No sooner had I uttered those words when my eyes found my hands. They looked a bit chafed. “Did they say where exactly her body was found?”
“I don’t think so… No, wait. They did. Oh, my God, how could I forget that? They found her a few yards away from the corner where I found you.”
Dylan
I was staring at the photos of Emma on the TV, listening intently to what the female anchor was saying on the midday newscast. So Emma, the girl I had once thought would become my wife and whom I’d held in my arms only hours ago, was dead, strangled by a thin strap? I sunk down on the couch in my living room. I felt a tightness in my chest and my throat ached. I buried my face in my hands. Oh, my God. If only I had seen to it that she was put in a car and driven home last night, maybe she would’ve still been alive! Clearly, her friend—that mousy brunette girl with the puss on her face whom I had never before met—hadn’t been someone to count on. According to the police, a girl named Jackie Rhodes who’d spent the night at the club with Emma, had lost track of Emma sometime after eleven and gone home on her own. I snorted. How the hell had she managed to lose track of Emma? Maybe she had been drunker than she’d looked. I thought about what time I’d left the club yesterday and concluded it must have been sometime around eleven. I began watching a movie that started at eleven-thirty at my house and I eventually passed out during it.
I thought about how devastating the news must be for Emma’s parents, whom I’d gotten to know. Their only daughter, at twenty-five, had been much too young to die. I shook my head. How could this have happened? Who must have wanted to see her dead? As far as I knew, Emma had no enemies. Then again, apparently the authorities believed the murder wasn’t premeditated, but a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, so it was probably not someone Emma had known anyway. Because she’d still had all her valuables on her when they found her, it didn’t seem motivated by robbery, however.
So why had someone felt like killing her then?
Nina’s furious glare suddenly materialized inside my head. Once more, I could almost sense the daggers shooting at me and Emma from her black eyes. I turned cold.
Nina must have killed Emma.
Oh, God, it had to have been Nina… Who else would want to see Emma dead? I couldn’t imagine her getting into a fight, pissing off someone at the club to the point that the person strangled her. Surely Nina had stalked Emma and strangled her with her handbag strap or something. A picture of the chain that had crossed Nina’s body flashed through my mind then, and I remembered the distinct, glittery, heart-shaped bag attached to it on Nina’s hip. Fuck. Nina must have strangled Emma with that chain strap… It was easy enough for her to get away with such an act given the masses of people inside the club and the dark surroundings. Not that I thought someone like Nina had considered the fact there were repercussions to killing another human being. If I remembered the way she had looked at me and Emma correctly, like a crazed animal, she had probably just acted out of pure jealousy, letting her basest human instincts take over. I had no clue whether Nina had been jealous of me acting lovingly with another girl and therefore wanted to kill that girl, or if it was a matter of Nina being jealous of Emma’s beauty. Emma had after all been a model, whose looks most women envied. Not that Nina couldn’t hold her own in the looks department… Well, it didn’t really matter. I found my smartphone and searched for the number to the local police.
When I got to the right person after a couple of transfers, I let the detective know I had some information about the case. The detective told me to come down to the station as soon as I had a free moment.
Thirty minutes later, I sat before a squat man with a wide nose and rough skin. The man was dressed in a cheap-looking suit over an open-necked shirt and a loosened tie. After introducing himself as Detective Brando, no relation to Marlon Brando, he leaned forward and steepled his hands, elbows supported on his desk.
“What information do you have for me?” the detective said.
“You guys have no idea who killed Emma Patterson, correct?”
Detective Brando gazed at me for a long moment, apparently sizing me up. “You knew the victim?”
“Yes. She used to be my girlfriend.”
Brando’s head jerked almost imperceptibly, like he hadn’t expected that. Then he nodded, his lips disappearing in what must be an effort to look sympathetic. “I see. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. But it’s okay. It was over a while ago.”
“Did the relationship end on an amicable note?”
I stared at the graying detective, who was contemplating me with penetrating eyes now. Did he actually think I had something to do with her death? Well, I’d set him straight alright.
“Not exactly,” I said, “but I have an alibi in case you were interested. My buddy saw me walk over to a hostess at the club, who called a cab for me. She was with me until the cab came a few minutes later, and then the doormen—who I know—saw me climb into the cab. Feel free to ask them to verify.”
Brando nodded. “Good to know. So you think you know who might have killed her? Someone you know?”
“Uh… Kind of.”
The detective’s small eyes narrowed into slits. “Kind of? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Maybe. Anyway, I had a few dates with this woman—the person I think strangled Emma. She was at the club yesterday. She’s nuts.”
“Okay. And why do you think she strangled the victim?”
“Because she got jealous that I was comforting Emma.”
“I see.” Again, the detective contemplated me in that appreciative way, as though sizing me up. “Does this… other ex of yours have a history of violence?”
“She’s not my ex! We only went on a few dates. But to answer your question, yes, she does. She tried pushing me down a steep cliff.”
“Is she a big woman? Athletic? Strong?”
I instantly saw what the detective was getting at—I was not exactly a small man. Few women would succeed taking me down. That is, unless they took me completely by surprise like Nina had done. Tried to push me while I was in the throes of ecstasy, about to come hard, expecting to fly off to heaven, not a cliff to my almost certain death. How would I explain such a situation to this discerning detective without sounding like a complete goofball? Suddenly, I regretted having come down here. But I couldn’t back down now. I had to come up with some kind of explanation or risk coming off like a fool. I quickly decided th
at the truth, without specific details, was the best approach.
“No, she’s not very big. Five foot five tops. But we were making out and she took me by complete surprise. The last thing I expected was for her to all of a sudden shove me of a friggin’ cliff! She knew I was totally unprepared for such a move.”
Brando nodded, poker-faced. “I see. What’s her name?”
I gave the detective all the contact information I had for Nina. We spoke for a few more minutes and then I left the station.
Nina
“Are you okay?” Lorna’s words shook me out of my frozen state. “You’ve been standing there, staring at the TV for the last twenty minutes.” I turned toward my roommate, who was standing right beside me instead of sitting on the couch, reading the paper.
“Um, yeah. I was just a little shocked to learn about that murder.” I nodded toward the TV that was now showing a commercial.
“Oh. Did you know the girl that was killed?”
“Uh, no. I knew of her though.” I realized I was still holding onto my cell, but I couldn’t remember having said good-bye to Ricki, nor when I’d hung up. I made myself smile a little as I looked at Lorna. Even now, in a state of horror, I didn’t fail to register how starkly black and thick my roommate’s long hair was. Lorna, being closer to fifty than forty, insisted the color was completely natural, but I knew better. I’d seen the hair color boxes in the trash more than once. “I think I’m just horrified to hear that she’s dead. And I was at that club yesterday, too.”
“Oh, really? Thank God you’re still alive… Well, if you’re okay, I’ll return to my paper.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
I walked back to my room, an intense sense of discomfort flowing through my veins. I needed to sit down and go over yesterday’s events in my head, try to figure out if there was a chance I might have anything to do with Emma’s death. I plopped down on my rumpled bed and stared with unseeing eyes at the shade that covered my bedroom window still. Images of Dylan embracing, stroking the hair of that blond girl appeared in my mind, and again that wave of jealousy ran over me, though not with as much potency. I remembered that, at the time, I’d felt like strangling the girl in Dylan’s arms, I had hated what I saw that much. But I had been drunk—very drunk—not thinking clearly. I couldn’t remember feeling anything when I bumped into Emma a little later. Then again, I couldn’t remember much of anything at that point, certainly not what had happened the moment after the encounter. I rubbed my fingertips into my temples, hoping this action would spur my memory.
