Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Uh-huh, but I like men who…” She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  He smiled but didn’t blush.

  She backed away from him with a Cheshire grin.

  “So why are they trying to get rid of him?” Colin asked.

  Stacy shrugged. “I’ve heard so many rumors. All I know is they took his keys and he can’t go back into his office anymore and that I should call security if he gets rowdy.”

  “And why can’t he go back into his office?” he asked.

  The tip of her tongue licked the side of her mouth. “You’re gonna have to pound that answer out of me, Detective Friendly.”

  * * *

  Back in the oak-paneled austerity of the elevator car, I gaped at my partner.

  “What?” he asked. “You use your alleged hotness all the time to advance the cause.”

  “Dude, my hotness has been confirmed by popular vote and papal conclave.”

  “Well, you sucked today.” He dumped Tic Tacs into his mouth and crunched.

  “What did she whisper to you?”

  “Let’s just say that I’ve done more than that at Sunday school.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “You didn’t look impressed. So I want Chatman’s work computer. And also: he’s sick? Juliet wrote a line about him being sick, but, other than that, anybody else mention him being sick?”

  “Nope,” Colin said. “And if he can no longer go into his office, where was he really on the morning of the fire? He couldn’t have been getting ready for that conference call with Chicago.”

  We stopped at the security office and found Titus Otter, a short old black man wearing Lennon glasses and a cheap black suit two sizes too big. He sat behind a console and peered at nine security-surveillance monitors. In another life, Titus Otter had wandered the sandy beaches of the Galápagos Islands.

  I told him that I needed his help in unraveling a great big mystery, then mentioned that my favorite uncle’s name was Titus, and, finally, played up the connection between security guards and the police force.

  The old man’s chest inflated like a zeppelin’s, and he nodded his tapered head. “Who do you wanna know about?” Although he resembled the tortoise, his light, springy voice belonged to the hare. “I’ve been at this desk now for ten years. Seen people come. Helped people go.”

  “Christopher Chatman,” Colin said. “Works on the sixth floor.”

  “The brother?” Titus asked me, his eyebrows raised. “Of course I know him. Nice fella. Fancy dresser. Brings me coffee every morning. Talks to me like I’m somebody. Ain’t but a handful of us around here, but he ain’t one of them…” He glanced at Colin, then back at me.

  Uncle Toms. That’s what Titus wanted to say.

  I nodded.

  “We need to confirm something Christopher told us,” I said.

  Titus’s smooth brow furrowed. “He gives me advice about my retirement and all that, and he don’t charge me a nickel. Hope that ain’t caused him no trouble.”

  “We hope not, either,” I said. “You heard anything about him recently? Him getting into trouble with his bosses or being blackballed by his coworkers?”

  “Nope,” Titus said. “But he tendin’ to go off by himself more and more. He don’t seem troubled, though. He comes back smiling, just like he was going.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” I asked.

  Titus’s rheumy eyes looked up to the ceiling, and his bottom lip folded beneath the top. “I say… two weeks ago. A Friday, it was.”

  “He say anything to you that day?” I asked.

  “He mentioned bein’ sick,” Titus said. “But he didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. I tol’ him that I’d pray for him and encouraged him to stay strong. That we need him here. He smiled, shook my hand, and went on upstairs. He’s a good boy. Hope they ain’t tryna run him out of there.” He nodded to the floors above us.

  “We need to see some old tape,” I said. “From this past Monday, December tenth, around eleven thirty P.M. to Tuesday, December eleventh, around four A.M. From the ground floor and up to the firm’s lobby.”

  Titus pushed a button, and the main monitor scrambled. He rewound and fast-forwarded until a white time stamp on the bottom right-hand corner said 12/10, 11:37 P.M.

  Christopher Chatman, dressed in the blue Adidas tracksuit, entered the ground-floor lobby with a postal-style bag slung over his shoulder and a coffee cup in his hand.

  My heart pounded—I hadn’t expected him to be telling the truth.

  Chatman walked to the elevator bank and stepped into the third car.

  Titus hit another button.

  We were now looking at the stylish and empty lobby of Vandervelde, Lansing & Gray. The elevator door opened, and at 11:41 P.M., Chatman stepped out of the car. He approached the glass doors of the firm and looked in—but he didn’t reach for the handle. Instead, he looked at his watch, then sat on the couch.

  “What’s he doing?” Colin asked.

  “Waiting for somebody?” I wondered.

  Chatman pulled out a stack of magazines and a newspaper from his bag.

  “Fast-forward,” Colin told Titus.

  In quick time, we watched Chatman sit, sip, sit, read, and sit some more. Sometimes, he did not read, and instead he just sat there, staring at his knees.

  At ten minutes after four o’clock, Chatman looked at his watch again. Then, he stuffed his reading materials back into his satchel. He walked back to the elevator and stepped into the waiting car. Seconds later, he stepped out from that car and into the ground-floor lobby. He strolled to the exit of the building. Thirty minutes later, he would witness his house burning and his wife and children and life as he knew it gone forever.

  40

  SO HE LIED. THERE WAS NO EARLY-MORNING CONFERENCE CALL WITH CHICAGO. HE had no office. He barely had a job. Still, he had not used his cell phone as he sat in the firm’s lobby.

  Damn that man.

  “So what now?” Colin asked as he pulled into the airport’s short-term parking lot.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “He lies, though. And he lies big. At least we know that’s true.”

  Neither Colin nor I had packed a bag—we wouldn’t stay overnight in Sin City. Personally? I didn’t want to stay long—staying long meant taking that soggy trip down Memory Lane with its “remember the time when” weeds and its “we used to” cracks.

  Remember the time when Greg and I stayed at the Luxor for our third anniversary?

  Remember the time when we hit the jackpot at a Caesars Palace slot machine right before the Cher concert?

  We used to stumble up and down Las Vegas Boulevard, beautiful and free.

  We used to be in love and so happy. So very, very happy.

  Nope. Today’s trip would be a sterile in-and-out visit.

  Reminiscence-free.

  Memories were for suckas.

  Colin and I didn’t talk much during the fifty-four-minute flight. Too much brain hurt and not enough sleep. He netted two bags of roasted peanuts, though, and I caught a catnap in which I dreamed vividly of making out with Ben Oliver in a Ferris-wheel car spinning over the Atlantic Ocean.

  My limbs stayed limp, and my strange dream lingered as Colin and I wove past passengers in McCarran Airport and hopped on the monorail that whisked us to the airport’s main terminal. By the time we reached the Hertz rental counter, I had regained strength in my weakened knees and had shaken off most of that fantasy of Ben and me. And as Colin tried to persuade the pug-faced rental diva behind the counter, my spine had stiffened again and all sexy thoughts involving that insurance attorney, what’s-his-name, were tucked away for the flight back home.

  “Got any Mustangs or Camaros or something sporty left?” Colin asked the woman.

  “You should’ve upgraded when you called,” she sniffed.

  He did the squinty-eyed trick that had worked so well with Stacy just a couple of hours before. “Wanna check your little computer again?”

  She
blinked at him and her head swiveled on her neck. “No, I do not.”

  A minute later, Colin and I reached slot 7 and the red Kia Spectra.

  “Guess you’re fresh out of pimp juice,” I said.

  “Maybe you should drive,” he said.

  “Sorry, I’m dead.” I slipped into the passenger seat, troll-big in the tiny Korean car.

  “This sucks major ass,” Colin muttered, his knees to the windshield. “Where we goin’?”

  “Head north on the fifteen.”

  It was a little after three and the sun still sat high in the sky. Vegas vamps lined the interstate highway.

  COMEDIAN GEORGE WALLACE VOTED THE BEST 10:00 P.M. SHOW!

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  The devil was busy.

  I kept my eyes trained north to the Sheep Range Mountains and the tract homes and the towering construction cranes now paused indefinitely over half-built high-rise condos that no one had the ends to buy.

  Seven miles north from the Strip, Colin exited the freeway. He made a left turn here, a right turn there, traffic light, stop sign, and we reached Desert Sun Villas.

  “Damn,” I said, peering at the security gate. “Looks like we need a key code to enter.”

  We parked a half block away, rolled down the car windows, and waited. We didn’t listen to the radio and didn’t talk on the phone. Just sat in the quiet for about five minutes until…

  “What did you do last night?” I asked.

  His right leg bounced up and down, then stopped. “Dakota drove up from the O.C.”

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  An old woman behind the wheel of a Corolla pulled up to the entrance of Desert Sun Villas.

  The entry gates slowly creaked open.

  Colin followed the car.

  “We’re looking for 4821 Wisp o’ Willow Way,” I said.

  And we found it: a two-story, adobe-colored house with Christmas lights on the eaves and a wicker snowman on the stony, succulent-filled front yard.

  “Ain’t she Jewish?” Colin asked.

  “News flash,” I said. “We took the ‘Christ’ out of ‘Christmas.’ ”

  Colin busted a U-turn and parked in the direction of the exit.

  “From Orange County,” I said. “That’s a helluva drive. She stay overnight?”

  “She did.”

  I grabbed the case file from the backseat. “You two reconcile?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Then, why?”

  “Biology.”

  “Gets you every time. Ready?”

  “Always.”

  41

  WE MARCHED UP THE WALKWAY OF 4821 WISP O’ WILLOW WAY, TO THE LITTLE patio area beside the front door. A potted fern sat between two white plastic chairs that needed to be washed. A pair of ancient flip-flops sat at the foot of one of those chairs. The Willkommen mat’s borders were edged with wiener dogs and marionettes wearing lederhosen.

  Colin rang the doorbell.

  A small dog yapped.

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “But it’s a tiny dog,” I said, shifting the file to my left arm.

  Somewhere in the house, a woman shouted, “Down, Snowy. Bad girl. Bad.”

  The door opened, and a swift current of tobacco, dog and lunch-meat smells washed over us.

  Melissa Kemper had not aged since she’d posed in that Los Angeles Confidential picture. In fact, less skin sagged around her cheeks—a postdivorce nip and tuck. A few gray strands stuck out from her natural red hair, demanding to be Clairoled. Her eyes, though… They were the color of mint and the Arctic Sea. The Dachshund in her arms licked her jowls and left behind patches of pink skin in a sea of toast-colored foundation.

  The Chanel T-shirt (and the G cups straining against it), the Chanel signature sandals, and the tight Juicy Couture sweats told me that she had done well dropping the two hundred pounds of man.

  “Yeah?” Melissa Kemper’s lovely green eyes drilled into me.

  We showed her our badges, and I made the introductions.

  Flared nostrils, rapid blinking, cocked chin, flared nostrils again, and, finally, closed eyes—all in two seconds—flashed across Melissa’s face. “What chutzpah you have, showing up here,” she spat. “I don’t have to talk to you. This is America. I have rights.”

  “You do have rights,” Colin said with an easy smile. “But stonewalling us will look bad to the jury deciding who to fry for the deaths of Juliet, Cody, and Chloe Chatman.”

  Those words—“deaths” and “fry”—made Melissa let out a long sigh. “Fine.”

  We were led into a small living room with dog-paw-printed cream carpet and tall stacks of unopened boxes from Louis Vuitton, Target, and Walmart. Game controllers and DVD cases lay scattered on the floor alongside socks, Diet Coke cans, and rubber dog toys. Used paper plates, crumpled napkins, and filled ashtrays covered the coffee table. Divorce Court played on the big-screen television that sat right next to another big-screen television that still wore its SALE! tag.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Melissa said, plopping onto a dingy-white love seat.

  “Yes. Let’s.” My muscles tightened as I sat on the filthy couch, two butt prints away from a worrisome stain that reeked of old urine.

  Colin took a long moment before sitting in the matching armchair.

  Pictures hung all around us, the used-to-be Melissa Kemper giving good face and showing off her liposuctioned ass. Boudoir shots that you’d see in a man’s boudoir and not in his living room.

  I pulled a notepad and pen from my bag. “We’re here because of your relationship with Christopher Chatman.”

  Melissa tugged at a chin hair and kept her hypnotic eyes on me.

  “But first,” I said, “how did you hear about the fires?”

  “My ex called me,” Melissa said, crossing her arms. “I had nothing to do with the fire. You ask anyone. Anyone! And they’ll tell you, all of them, that Melissa Kemper is a mensch. She would never hurt a fly.”

  Colin opened his mouth to respond.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Melissa continued, “but it wasn’t like I was in love with Christopher. I never pulled any of that ‘if I can’t have him, you can’t have him either’ bullshit. My hands are clean.” And she washed her hands with imaginary soap and showed them to us. Clean, except for the schmutz on her left thumb.

  “Ms. Kemper,” I said, “we—”

  “You gotta understand,” she continued, “I had just moved here with my kid. I didn’t know my neighbors. I didn’t know anybody. I was lonely and a little depressed and not thinking right. And I thought Christopher could introduce me to some important people here so that—”

  “How would he be able to do that?” I asked. “Introduce you to people, I mean.”

  “Because of his position at the university.”

  “His position?” Colin asked.

  “Over at UNLV. He’s a visiting economics professor. I thought by being with him, I’d get to schmooze with some nice bankers or attorneys.”

  Melissa searched my expression for some judgmental gesture, like a smirk or a cocked eyebrow. But she only found a poker-faced pro. “It was nothing,” she explained. “I’m talking about the relationship with Christopher and me. There wasn’t anything romantic. I wanted something more, and he knew better, and… I took care of him. Bought him suits and shoes. It was nice taking care of a man again, even if he didn’t want me in that way. I didn’t need another future ex-husband. And Christopher knew that. Besides, he loved Juliet.”

  She shook her head. “And Juliet. Talk about difficult, and I’m being very nice when I say that. Very nice. She was incredibly demanding and stuck up and… She acted like she wasn’t from Mississippi.”

  “If you weren’t having an affair, why did you send her this?” I handed her the PDF of her note to Juliet. Dear Juliet, you need t
o know some things. I don’t want to bring it up in a letter—you’ve ignored my other ones so far—so please stop ignoring me and pick up the phone and CALL ME. It’s a matter of life and death!!!

  “That?” Melissa said. “Acting like a yenta. But she never called me back.”

  “What were you planning to do if she’d called back?”

  She shrugged. “Yank her out of the freakin’ Matrix.”

  “The neighbors say that Juliet and Christopher were happy together,” Colin said.

  “And Mr. Chatman has only spoken positively of his wife,” I added.

  Melissa rolled her eyes. “He’s saying good things now because she’s dead. Everybody’s a saint when they’re dead. The woman was cheating on him, but now she’s Mother Teresa? Are you kidding me?”

  “Who was Juliet cheating with?” Colin asked with more calm than I could’ve mustered.

  Melissa waggled her head. “What’s-his-face, her personal trainer, the guido with the Jersey Shore eyebrows. And if I’m called on the stand, I’ll prove that Saint Juliet was boppin’ everybody except her husband, even when said husband was undergoing chemo.”

  “Chemo?” I said.

  “Oh, so your little investigation hasn’t turned that up?” Melissa scoffed. “Christopher was diagnosed with cancer back in August and just finished treatment a few weeks ago.”

  On my notepad, I scribbled, “cancer, wtf?” next to “professor at unlv, wtf?” And was this the reason his bosses at the firm couldn’t fire him? “Did he say where he got treatment?” I asked.

  “I think he said…” She narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember. “He said MSK. Don’t know what that means, though.”

  I recalled hospitals in Southern California. None were abbreviated MSK, and I jotted, “What is MSK?” on my to-do list.

  “She was planning to leave him,” Melissa claimed. “But he got sick, and so she couldn’t.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Are you saying that Juliet was planning to leave Christopher so she could be with Jersey Shore Eyebrows?”

  “I don’t know what she was planning to do,” Melissa said. “She stopped talking to me and started confiding in Ben, who is such a dog, and I hope his dick falls off. And I hope you’re questioning him like this.”