Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “I just miss her so much,” she whispered. “And I’m angry and I’m sad.” She blew her nose into a napkin. “Jules tried to get over a lot of things she didn’t like. Except for that damned house. Both of them drove each other crazy over that house.”

  She plucked the neglected cigarette from the ashtray and took a long drag, holding in the smoke as long as she could. Nicotine relaxed the tight muscles in her face, and she released the smoke into the air with a sigh. “Stress was startin’ to change her, you know? She was losin’ weight, always in pain.” Fighting anxiety, Adeline hugged herself and started rocking on the couch. “She was throwin’ up and crampin’. I forced her to get checked out.”

  “When did you talk to her last?”

  “Friday.” She twisted her mouth, then forced the Parliament between her lips.

  “Did she ever talk about getting a divorce?” I asked.

  She killed that cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed another from the gold case. “Uh-huh, but she wouldn’t get one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Raised Catholic. No divorce. I told her that she’d get paid—they’d been together for, what? Twenty years? And she’d get child support. That’s one thing he had goin’ for him: he worked his little hobbit ass off.”

  “So: he adored her.” I held up one finger and then held up another. “He provided for her and the kids. He worked hard. Why was she so unhappy?”

  The woman stared at the burning end of the long brown cigarette.

  “Was she was in love with someone else?” I asked.

  St. Lawrence didn’t speak.

  “Did Christopher abuse her?” I asked, my stomach twisting.

  “Physically? No.”

  “He abused her psychologically?”

  She bit her lip. “Yes.”

  “He have something on her?”

  She didn’t nod, nor did she shake her head.

  “What is it, Addy?” I pled. “If I know, then I’ll be able to figure out what happened in that house, and then arrest whoever is responsible. Juliet and Cody and Chloe: they need you to speak for them. No one else can do that right now. No one.”

  The cigarette shook between her fingers. “One of the last things Jules said to me on Friday…” She squeezed shut her eyes. “She said, ‘I chose wrong, Addy. I chose wrong.’ ”

  Sadness gripped my heart and swept through my body like damp fog.

  Adeline covered her mouth with her hand and forced her breathing to slow.

  I leaned forward and whispered, “What if I told you that we found suitcases in the trunk of her SUV? Suitcases filled with clothes for her and the kids. But no suitcase for him.”

  Adeline kept rocking, kept smoking, kept fighting tears.

  “What if I told you,” I said, leaning forward so much that I was almost on my knees, “that we also found a gun in Juliet’s hand? A gun that she’d just purchased for protection?”

  Smoke wafted from Adeline’s mouth.

  “You have nothing to say?” I asked.

  She tapped the cigarette against the ashtray. “Is Christopher Chatman still alive?”

  “Yes, he is.”

  She drew on the cig, then let smoke curl from her nostrils. “If Christopher Chatman is still alive, then somethin’ happened before Juliet could blow his fuckin’ brains out.”

  27

  WAS JULIET CHATMAN PLANNING TO KILL HER HUSBAND?

  As we stood on the front porch of her house, Adeline St. Lawrence had hinted at the possibility—blow his fuckin’ brains out, quote, unquote—but had ended our interview without answering my very direct question. “Take me to court, then,” she had sassed, hand on her hip. “It look like I give a fuck?”

  “It does not look like you give a fuck.”

  She crossed her arms.

  “Addy,” I said, “please. Was she planning to kill him? If you don’t care, why should anyone else?”

  She glared at me, but that hard look softened. “Yes, she was planning… what you said.”

  Back behind the wheel of the car, I took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. I smelled like an AA meeting. Away from nicotine-laced air for only a minute, I was shaky from withdrawal. With a trembling hand, I pulled my phone from my bag and checked for messages.

  While I had been nibbling stale Lorna Doones with Adeline St. Lawrence, Dixie Shipman (Adeline’s sista from another mista) had left me a voice mail. Once you get back from Narnia or Wherever-the-Hell you are, gimme a call. I’ve been diggin’ around some, and all I can say is, ‘Mr. Chatman, Mr. Chatman, Lawd have mercy, Mr. Chatman.’ I’ll be at TCK for a mani-pedi. My treat, if you come down.

  I considered my fingernails. Working the Chatman case with all its soot and ashes made my hands look like I, too, had been digging around—in bogs and lumberyards for splinters and grubs. And since I had the cuticles of a hobo, I decided to take Dixie’s offer for free nail help as well as her offer to share information about the case. Of course.

  An overturned tomato truck on the 10 freeway west and the subsequent single available lane meant that it took almost two hours to drive back to Los Angeles. Five minutes before three o’clock, I found myself at the spa, melting into a massage chair with my slacks rolled up, one hand soaking in soapy water and one foot being massaged by Jun.

  Dixie sat at the next booth with one foot hidden in a tub of bubbles and the other foot propped on a stool before Patsy, her regular aesthetician. “You cut ’em down too low last time,” she shouted to Patsy over the Luther Vandross song blasting from the spa’s speakers. “Don’t do that or I’m a get somebody else.” The ex-cop turned back to me. “Like I said, his people weren’t the Gettys. Far from.”

  “So how did the Chatmans get their money?” I asked.

  “So Virginia Oliver is tellin’ me this, okay? And she says Ava and Henry Chatman were stingy as hell, that’s how. They were born right before the Depression began.”

  “Chatman had old-people parents,” I said.

  “Yep. She was forty-three when she had him. Anyway, she and Henry grew up squeezin’ pennies ’til they bled. They left Cleveland in fifty-two, came to California and bought the house on Don Mateo in fifty-three. They didn’t open a bank account until sixty-three.”

  “When Christopher was born,” I noted. “Guess the sunshine and oranges helped Henry’s little swimmers.”

  “Guess so,” Dixie said. “Henry Chatman put his paychecks into some tiny savings and loan. They bought the house on Don Mateo and installed a wall safe in the master bedroom. I don’t know how much they stashed in there at first, but Mrs. Oliver said it was several thousand.”

  “Okay. Nothing sounds wacky yet, Dix.”

  Dixie switched feet to let Patsy scrub calluses on the other heel. “Be patient, damn. In ninety-eight, Momma Chatman started speakin’ in tongues, started callin’ Christopher ‘Jimmy,’ and couldn’t remember which channel showed Oprah. So, after gettin’ lost in the mall, and vacuumin’ the house in the middle of the night, and not remembering her birth date, Ava was diagnosed with dementia and put into Ocean Breeze Estates in Camarillo by her beloved son, Jimmy aka Christopher.”

  “Sad.” Then, I told Jun to paint my toenails a sassy toreador red. A wasteful act since I’d be slipping on boots again. Like dressing Naomi Campbell in a burqa.

  “Ava goes bye-bye,” Dixie continued, “and the next month, Henry slips on the porch and breaks his hip. He comes down with pneumonia and dies three days after Memorial Day. When he died, they had $237,000 cash in the bank. They also had pensions, a couple of savings bonds, and three insurance policies with MG Standard.”

  “So how much money is that?”

  “A little over two mil,” Dixie said, eyebrow cocked.

  I admired my manicured hand with its smooth, buffed nails. “Lucky boy. All that money and the house is empty.”

  “Not for long, though,” Dixie said. “Christopher and Juliet move in with baby Cody in 2001 and life’s swell. Since Ava is still alive, th
ey go up and visit her sometimes. But in 2002, during one of those visits, Ava died.”

  I shrugged.

  Dixie smirked. “When the staff at the convalescent home asked Christopher what had happened, he told them, ‘All of a sudden, she stopped breathing.’ What did he mean, ‘she stopped breathing’? And ‘all of a sudden’? Ava hadn’t been sick, not beyond the regular symptoms that come with dementia. So everybody at the home was kinda surprised. And they couldn’t revive her cuz she had a DNR in place—and nobody remembers when she got that.”

  “Was there an autopsy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did someone see Christopher or Juliet do anything inappropriate that afternoon?”

  “No.”

  “Feh.”

  “Girl, you trippin’.”

  “Ava Chatman was in her nineties, Dixie. She had dementia. She was old as hell. Eventually, she was supposed to stop breathing.”

  Dixie rolled her eyes. “C’mon now, Detective Elouise Norton. Christopher Chatman inherited almost three million dollars that afternoon.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “That’s all I got.”

  Two dead parents. Three million dollars.

  Yeah. Very interesting.

  28

  FOUR O’CLOCK, AND I SAUNTERED INTO THE SQUAD ROOM, WHERE THE LIVING was easy. I had avoided the station all day, and not much had changed. One person had killed another person. A dick had made an arrest. The alleged murderer, dull-eyed, high, blood crusted beneath his fingernails, protested. Dick rolled his eyes, wrote his report, produced a pair of steel bracelets. Another name written in red on the board. Another case to solve.

  Colin sat at his desk with the Chatman murder book before him. His eyes darted back and forth between two pages. He didn’t look up when I plopped into my seat.

  “Miss me?” I asked, hanging my jacket on the back of the chair.

  “Like I miss crabs and cold sores,” he said, his attention still directed to the book.

  I logged on to my computer. “Are they ever gone long enough for you to miss them?”

  He flicked me a look. “Didn’t think I’d see you today.”

  “Been busy, my friend. The Princess was in another castle.” And I caught him up on my conversation with Adeline St. Lawrence and Dixie Shipman.

  “Juliet Chatman was no vestal virgin, was she?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  I shrugged. “And what are you working on, sir?”

  “The warrants came in, so Luke’s working on the phones, and I’m pulling pictures off the cameras.”

  I sang, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”

  “You’re in a mood.”

  “Driving way the hell out to the Inland Empire on a Thursday will do that.”

  My iPhone rang, and a picture of python stilettos lit up the display.

  I squinted at the phone, then answered. “Hey, Lena.”

  “Look,” she said. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I know.”

  “This is a weird time in my life, no excuses, but… Sorry, okay?”

  “It’s cool,” I said, then told her about breakfast with my mother and the memorial service for Tori. “Could you arrange the catering?”

  “Of course,” she trilled. “Ooh! The chef over at Budino’s owes me a favor.” And then she went on and on about crostini, truffles, and Viognier from Sonoma.

  I thanked her, and we told each other, “I love you.”

  Colin dabbed at fake tears. “Wind beneath my wings.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What were we discussing?”

  “Pictures from the Chatmans’ camera.” He rolled his chair to my desk with a stack of shots.

  Chatmans at Disneyland… Chloe in a pink soccer uniform… Cody and Christopher in Dodgers caps at a game… Family picture in front of a church… No one smiling… Smile but forced… Monkey face… Photo bomb…

  “How many pics are there?” I asked.

  “On this card, three hundred and thirty-eight.” Colin placed his elbows on my desk. “So what do you see?”

  I picked up one contact sheet. “I see… a sad family.”

  Christopher and Juliet were sitting in the backyard, on opposite sides of the swing… Strained smiles… Crossed arms…

  “I see two adults going through the motions.” Sadness pulled at my limbs and slowed my sifting. “These pictures are killing my vibe.”

  Colin studied the shot of the couple on the swing. “I hate this invention.”

  I furrowed my brows. “You hate swings?”

  He shook his head. “Digital cameras. They cheapen the moment. You can take as many pictures as you want. Awesome, right? Woo-freakin’-hoo. But unlimited pictures means, what? Lots of throwaway pieces of crap, one after the other. Fingers in shots, people blinking… How many cat pictures do you need?” He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Old-school snapshots—the ones we grew up taking? Twelve shots. Twenty-four, if your folks had dough. Those pictures worked cuz the photographer chose that specific moment for one of twelve takes.”

  I glanced at him and then glanced back at the swing shot. “But then we’d never get to see pictures like this. Shots of people totally over it. People so dissatisfied that you’re convinced that somebody’s about to get pushed off this swing and bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer.”

  “We live for those moments, don’t we?” he asked.

  I fluttered my eyelids. “Oh, Colin Taggert. You’re so deep.”

  He rolled back to his desk. “Got somethin’ else for you. Video from the Chatmans’ security system. No sound. E-mailing you the file right now.”

  I logged in to my e-mail account and double-clicked on the file.

  10:53 P.M., 12/10: The Chatmans’ front porch.

  10:57 P.M., 12/10: The same porch shot with the top of a man’s head now visible. He turns away from the front door and strolls down the walkway.

  “That Christopher Chatman?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Colin said. “Leaving for work just like he said he did.”

  10:59 P.M., 12/10: A Jaguar backs out of the driveway, disappears from the frame.

  11:00 P.M., 12/10: The Chatmans’ front porch. No one standing there.

  “Skip ahead to almost four o’clock,” Colin instructed. “Nothin’ happens until then.”

  3:51 A.M., 12/11: The responding officer runs onto the porch, bangs the door, looks up at the sky, bangs some more, yells into his shoulder mic.

  4:00 A.M., 12/11: A fireman shouts and bangs on the front door. Another fireman with a blowtorch kneels before the iron door. Sparks fly. The recording blinks. Blank screen.

  “And the rest is history,” Colin said.

  “So Chatman left the house,” I said, eyes still on the monitor. “And he didn’t return until well after the fire’s start.”

  He nodded. “And I looked at the tape from the second camera bolted to the side of the house. Nobody’s lurking around that side until the firemen come and knock it down.”

  “What about before this?”

  Colin blinked. “Before what?”

  “Any recordings before eleven?” I asked. “Say nine o’clock? Or during dinner?”

  Colin scrolled through the recordings. “Cameras were off, I guess. They probably disarm them when they’re up and walking around. I don’t know.”

  “What if the evildoer was lurking around during dinner?” I asked. “Peeping through windows while the family watched A Christmas Story? When everybody was passed out in a Valium haze?”

  He cocked his head. “You’re still saying that the threat could’ve been from the outside?”

  “I’m saying…” I twisted in my chair. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  No Christopher Chatman at the house.

  No black dude wearing an orange hockey jersey at the house.

  The fire had started inside the house.

  And the only adult inside the house was the only individual with the Valium scrip, a newl
y purchased handgun, and a handwritten note threatening to end it all. An adult who’d had both suicidal and homicidal tendencies.

  And that adult was Juliet Chatman.

  29

  COLIN AND I SIFTED THROUGH ALL 338 PHOTOS PULLED FROM THE CHATMANS’ digital camera. With each depressing or staged shot, my shoulders slumped and my torso caved. By the time Lieutenant Rodriguez charged into the squad room holding a pink box filled with Mexican pastries, my forehead hung just an inch from my desktop.

  “Time for an update on the Chatman case,” our boss said, dropping the box on Luke’s desk. He grabbed a cuernito for him and another for me so that I wouldn’t have to beat up the three men now swarming around the desserts. He handed me the coiled, sweet bread, then leaned against my desk.

  Luke, Pepe, and Colin, each double-fisting pastries, sat back in their chairs.

  I licked sugar and cinnamon from the tips of my fingers, then said, “I’m sorry to say that after working this for two days now, I have no suspect. I don’t know who done it.”

  The men looked at me with tense smiles, waiting for the punch line.

  I took a bite of cuernito.

  Their smiles dropped.

  “Stop jerking off, Lou,” Lieutenant Rodriguez growled, his face dark.

  “I’m not, sir.”

  “Well,” Colin said, “we keep bein’ pointed in Juliet’s direction but…”

  “But what?” Lieutenant Rodriguez snapped.

  I squinted at Colin. “But I’m hoping to find more hard evidence before making statements like my partner just did.”

  To Pepe and Luke, Lieutenant Rodriguez said, “So what can you guys give Lou that ain’t just supposition and circumstantial?”

  “We talked to Baby Ted Bundy,” Luke said.

  “AKA Parker McMann, Cody’s BFF.” Pepe nodded to our wall of “Most Wanted.” “He’ll be up there in about six years.”

  “So,” Luke said, flipping through his notepad, “Parker says, ‘Hell yeah, Cody hated his dad, kinda hated his sister, but was a momma’s boy through and through.’ ”

  “He was plannin’ to do something to the house,” Pepe said, “but nothing like what happened. Just enough so they would have to move.”