Death by the Riverside

by J. M. Redmann; Jean M. Redmann

  I washed my face, but I still looked like shit.

  Danny took me to her office and left me in an empty room to await my fate.

  Ranson appeared about an hour later, nonchalantly chewing on a roast beef po-boy. Seeing her made me realize how hungry I was. She and Danny continued their conversation. Ranson pretended to ignore me.

  “Definitely the asylum,” Ranson was saying, “Either that or the women’s penitentiary.”

  “Naw,” Danny played along, “she’d be too disruptive an influence there.”

  Enough of this.

  “Nice to see you, too, Detective Sergeant Ranson,” I said, breaking into their reverie of what to do with me.

  “Oh, Micky, I didn’t see you back there in the shadows,” she commented, taking another bite of her sandwich.

  Two can play this game. “I must have heard the rumor wrong,” I said. “I heard that you were as pissed as a water moccasin on a trawling line. But I knew you could control your temper better than that. That you wouldn’t get madder than an eel on a fishhook,” I repeated Danny’s words, imitating her.

  Ranson shot Danny a killer glance.

  “You two.” Danny burst out laughing. “Here, lunch.” She put a sack in front of me. My very own po-boy. I stopped plotting a sneak attack on Ranson’s. “I’ve got to do some work around here. Get along, girls, or I’ll call the fire department to hose you down,” Danny said and then left.

  “Polite of you to reappear, Ms. Knight,” Ranson said, coolly appraising me. I ignored her and started eating. “Where did you go yesterday?”

  “I took a walk,” I said between mouthfuls.

  “A walk?”

  “A long walk.”

  “Where?”

  “East, I think.”

  “Mick,” Ranson said, leaning across the table at me, “if Milo doesn’t kill you, I will.”

  “Joanne, after all I’ve done for you.” I feigned chagrin.

  “To me. You are a major pain in the butt, as I’m sure you’re aware.” She started pacing the room again.

  “I’ve not had a fun-filled time these past few weeks, you know,” I shot back, feeling sorry for myself.

  “I do know that. I’m very sorry about yesterday,” Ranson replied in all seriousness. “I wish…I’m sorry. Do you want to talk?”

  “No, I’m okay. I want you to spend your time chasing the bad guys, not nursemaiding me. I have to get out of ‘protective custody’ sometime soon and earn my rent.”

  “Right. Hutch will be by later to pick you up. He’ll drop you off at my place after dark.”

  “What a glamorous life,” I commented.

  “Right. Mick? You won’t like this, but the gun Beaugez used was the gun that killed Elmo Turner.”

  “What? That doesn’t make sense. That’s not…”

  “Calm down,” Ranson ordered. “It’s probably an odd coincidence. Milo throws it away or pawns it, and Ben gets it through some perverse fluke. I doubt that it means anything..”

  “Then why the hell tell me?”

  “Should I let you read about it in the paper?”

  I shook my head. Ranson had to be right, it couldn’t mean anything.

  When I didn’t reply, she said, “See you later,” and left. I sat around and read law books out of sheer boredom and to keep myself occupied. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Aunt Greta had always said. Aunt Greta could go to hell, I decided. I didn’t want to think about her anymore. That was easy. The hard part was not thinking about having made love to Cordelia last night.

  Hutch came and got me a little after six. By the time we got up to Ranson’s, she was already there. She hurried me in, then talked briefly to Hutch.

  “Make yourself at home,” she said as she came back in. “You know how, I’m sure.”

  “As if I had any choice,” I replied.

  “I’ve got to work on some reports,” she said, and she went into her study.

  I didn’t see her until eleven when the phone rang. From what I heard, I gathered it was Alex. They talked for a while. After she hung up, Ranson suggested that it was time for bed. “I’m very tired,” she added, with a yawn to prove her point.

  “Yeah, me, too,” I agreed, though I didn’t really want to go to sleep. There would be no one to hold away my fears tonight.

  Ranson disappeared into her bedroom after helping me unfold the couch and make it up.

  I turned out all the lights, save the one next to me. As tired as I was, I still didn’t want to sleep. Waiting is always the hardest part. That’s what I was reduced to these days. Just waiting. And remembering.

  If Ranson had had headphones, I would have listened to music, even the sixties rock and roll she seemed so fond of. Instead I found my bottle of Scotch and took a swig. Another couple of shots and I would be able to sleep.

  A light from the bedroom door fell across me. Ranson stood watching me.

  “I forgot to brush my teeth,” she said, a tight anger in her voice. She couldn’t miss seeing the bottle.

  “I thought you were asleep,” I mumbled.

  “You’ll get yourself into trouble with that. Drinking alone.”

  “I am in trouble,” I replied. “Remember?”

  “That’s the solution? Drinking cheap Scotch by yourself?” she said contemptuously.

  “Oblivion’s better than pain.”

  “Pain will still be here in the morning.”

  She came over to me and put her hand on the Scotch bottle to take it away. I tightened my grasp and wouldn’t let her have it.

  She suddenly let go. “Do as you like,” she said. Then she turned and left, going back into her bedroom and shutting the door.

  I sat still, not moving. Then I defiantly took a large swallow of the Scotch. It burned all the way down. I took another one. Finally, I put the bottle down. Then I fell asleep.

  I shuddered awake. I had been having a dream. A nightmare. My father was there. No, not my father, but what death had made him. Blackened and burned, almost beyond recognition. He led a parade of the dead and dying. Barbara Selby, with blood dripping out of her head, dyeing her hair a harsh crimson. Frankie, with his guts hanging out, dragging behind him like a ghastly tail. And Ben with half his head gone. They were coming after me. Telling me that they would never leave me alone. The final horror hit me when I realized that I was awake and that I knew it to be true. They would never leave me. I would carry their memories until the day I died.

  I sat shaking, holding myself. I thought of waking Joanne, telling her that tonight was the night I needed her to hold me. But I was afraid of her anger and that she would dismiss my dream as a result of my drinking.

  I got up and paced the living room, trying to get the bloody and burned images out of my head, but I couldn’t walk away from my memories. I stood staring out the window, watching and waiting for the gray dawn to come.

  When Ranson came out of her bedroom in the morning, she found me dressed, with coffee already made. “What are you doing up?” she growled, still groggy.

  “It’s a free country. I can wake up when I feel like it.”

  “You look like shit. But cheap Scotch will do that to you.”

  “It’s hard to get decent Scotch when you’re under arrest,” I retorted.

  Ranson’s jaw tensed, but she didn’t say anything. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  I sat drinking coffee.

  Ranson came back out of the bathroom. “You can stay with Danny,” she said. “I don’t want you here.”

  “I don’t want to be here.”

  “I’m not watching you drink your life into the gutter. You want to be a fuck-up, be a fuck-up somewhere else.”

  “Can I leave now?”

  “No, I’ll have Hutch come and move you. That’s my cup.”

  “They’re all your cups.”

  “I always drink my coffee out of that one.”

  I got up, dumped out the coffee I had just poured myself, then washed and d
ried the cup. I filled it with coffee and sat it in front of Ranson. She already had another cup of coffee in front of her.

  I sat back down, turning my chair so I couldn’t see her.

  “Don’t sulk,” she reprimanded me. “I’m not in the mood for your shit this morning.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I mean it. No more shit.”

  Both Ranson and I were raw and angry this morning. I wanted something, anything, to break the tension too much to avoid the fight that was brewing.

  I got up, left the kitchen, and found my Scotch bottle. I sat on the couch and started drinking again. If I couldn’t drink coffee, I might as well drink whiskey.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ranson demanded from the kitchen door.

  “I’m real good at retaining shit when I’m drunk.”

  “It’s seven o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake. Will you ever grow up?”

  “Leave me the fuck alone. You sound like my Aunt Greta.”

  “Give me the bottle,” she demanded, coming over to me and holding out her hand for it.

  I looked at her. There was about an inch left in the bottle.

  I downed it. Then I handed the bottle to Ranson.

  Her anger was palpable, but she said nothing. She took the bottle without a word and went back into the kitchen. I heard her throw it across the room, glass shattering and hitting the floor.

  She didn’t speak the whole time she was getting dressed.

  “Joanne, I’m sorry,” I said as she was about to leave.

  “No, you’re not,” she replied, slamming the door on her way out.

  “Fuck yourself,” I said to the closed door.

  I sat staring at it a long time after she was gone, wondering what the hell to do next. A cloud of failure seemed to be hovering over me. I hadn’t saved Barbara, or Frankie, or Ben. Or my father. Maybe that was why Ben killed himself; he couldn’t stand the ghosts anymore, their constant companionship. And if I kept messing up with my friends, I would soon be left with only the company of my ghosts. I got a glimpse of how Ben could have put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  I stood up, somewhat unsteadily. The Scotch was affecting me.

  I cleaned up the glass from the broken bottle. I cut myself doing it, because I was drunk. I swept the floor over and over again to make sure I got all the glass. Then I scrubbed it several times to make sure no whiskey smell remained.

  I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the whole apartment, including changing the paper on the kitchen shelves and defrosting the freezer. In the afternoon I washed and sanded her back porch steps. She had wanted them painted, had even bought the paint for the project, but had never gotten around to it. I had heard her mention to Alex that she liked the dark blue, but the light blue would go better with the apartment. Alex had suggested compromising and using both colors, making a design. Ranson had laughed, saying she couldn’t draw a straight line, let alone a design.

  Well, I could. My dad had put a paint brush in my hand when I was five and had me out there helping paint the boats. I painted the risers light blue with the steps dark blue. By the time I had made sure I’d cleaned up everything, it was dark.

  Hutch arrived and told me that he was going to baby-sit me because Danny had to go to Baton Rouge and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow or the next day.

  I nodded and got my duffel bag. “Wait,” I said as we got to the door. “I have to leave a note for Ranson.” I went back to her kitchen and got a pad, trying desperately to think of something to say. “I’m sorry,” I wrote, “Someday I will grow up.”

  Then I left, following Hutch out the door.

  Chapter 23

  Time passes like the evolution of the brain when you can’t do anything but wait and wait some more. Hutch and Millie are very nice people. Really. Some of my best friends are straight. But two days spent in someone else’s domestic bliss can be quite boring to someone of my temperament. By the second evening, I was getting quite restless.

  Millie and I were watching television, mostly for lack of anything else to do. Hutch was reading the paper. When the phone rang, he answered it. He came back with a puzzled expression. “Ranson wants you moved to Slidell,” he said.

  “My favorite place on the planet,” I commented. The women’s penitentiary was beginning to look better and better.

  “But that wasn’t her on the phone,” he continued.

  “Who would know I’m here?”

  “No one besides us, I thought. But it was our boss on the phone.”

  “Who’s her boss?”

  “Lt. Raul Lafitte. He says Captain Renaud ordered it.”

  “Does Renaud like jazz?” I asked.

  “I think so. Why?”

  “Something Frankie told me.” Hutch and I looked at each other. “I’m not going to Slidell.”

  “Let me try to get hold of Ranson,” he said. He picked up the phone.

  “Any chance your phone is bugged?” I asked.

  “Shit.” He slammed the phone down.

  “Something the matter?” Millie asked.

  “They know I’m here now,” I said.

  “They may know,” Hutch added.

  “You willing to risk leaving me here?” I said, looking at Millie but talking to Hutch.

  “No,” he answered. “You got any suggestions? I need to find Ranson, but it won’t be safe for you to come along.”

  “She can stay here,” Millie interjected.

  “No,” both Hutch and I said at the same time.

  “I have an idea,” I continued. “Milo isn’t an equal opportunity employer. Only male goons need apply.”

  “Yeah?” Hutch prompted.

  “Drop me off at a women’s bar. Even Milo’s boys couldn’t get past the bouncers at some of them. Besides, it will be so much fun to watch Ranson, in the line of duty, come into a lesbian bar and get me.” Actually, it would gain me another hundred years on her shit list, but it was the safest place I could think of. I doubted she was very far out of the closet at work.

  “Let’s go,” Hutch agreed.

  I grabbed my jacket and we hurried out to his car.

  “I think we’re being followed,” he said after several blocks.

  “Can you lose them?”

  “Maybe.” He gave me a little-boy-with-toys grin, then turned on the siren and put his flashing light on the roof. We took off.

  After running two red lights and making three illegal left turns, he pulled over, turning off the light and siren. We watched the passing cars.

  “I think we’ve lost them,” he said.

  “Let’s hope so,” I agreed.

  I gave him directions to my bar of choice, The Cunning Linguist. It used to get raided every few years, whenever someone figured out what the name really referred to. Rosie and Mae, two of the bouncers, were in my karate class. With their help, I had a chance against Milo’s goons.

  Hutch dropped me off, watching while I entered.

  Rosie was on duty. She waved me through. “It’s your birthday tomorrow,” she gave as the reason for not charging me cover.

  “Sort of. Thanks, Rosie.” Not paying the cover meant that I could drink Scotch and not beer. Not too much, Mick, this could be a long night, I told myself.

  The Cunning Linguist was the way I remembered it. Dark, smelling of beer, with sawdust on the floor and a fight about to break out at one of the pool tables. I nodded to a few acquaintances. Some woman I didn’t recognize smiled and waved at me. I had probably slept with her a few years back. Sometimes it’s hard to look at a woman’s face when you’re busy looking at her body.

  I went to the bar and got a Johnny Walker. The fewer I had, the better the quality. I wandered around, sipping my drink, enjoying being surrounded by women. Who would I pick up if I could, I wondered. Maybe Ranson will show up and tell me she caught them and it’s okay for me to go home to my own bed, I thought as I appraised the women on the dance floor. Then I rememb
ered that Ranson might not want to talk to me and that there was only one woman that I wanted to sleep with and it wasn’t likely that she would show up here tonight or any other night. At least Johnny Walker still made good Scotch.

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my favorite girl detective.”

  “Nice to see you too, Karen,” I replied.

  “You’ve cost me a lot of money. All I have now is my trust fund.”

  “Shouldn’t have bounced that check on me. Evil deeds have a way of coming back to you.”

  “It shouldn’t have bounced. The bank messed it up,” she lied.

  “Aww, that’s a shame. All this trouble for nothing,” I commiserated. “Just view it as an act of generosity to the Confederate Daughters.”

  “They didn’t get the estate.”

  “Who did?”

  “Cordelia. That bastard changed his will again. She got everything. House, money, the whole lot. And she’s the queerest one of us all.”

  “I guess decency counts for something these days. When did he change his will?”

  “Two weeks before he died. I was beginning to get back on his good side when he kicked off.”

  “What’s Cordelia going to do with the plantation?” I asked. She was out of my league before, now she was way out.

  “She could sell it and earn lots of money, but she’ll probably do something stupid like turn it into an orphanage or some charity dump.”

  “Has she mentioned anything?” I didn’t really want to talk to Karen, but I did want to know about Cordelia, what was happening to her. I wasn’t sure she would call anytime soon and tell me.

  “What are all these questions? I’m tired of questions. If I don’t get the money, I don’t want to talk about it. Like I told Mr. Korby this afternoon, since Cordelia’s healthy as an ox, the likelihood of my getting any of it in time to do me any good isn’t likely.”

  “Mr. Korby?” I asked, surprised.

  “Yes, Alphonse Korby. He was a friend of Grandpa’s. He took me to lunch today. If I had gotten the plantation, I would have sold it to him. He really wants it, he seems to think that if he buys Holloway land he can get our social standing. I doubt that Cordelia will sell it to him.”

  “But you inherit if something happens to her?”