Black Leather

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  She turned off the kitchen light and wandered into the den. She sat at her desk, turned on the desk lamp, and shuffled papers for a moment, but her heart wasn’t in it, her mind wasn’t on it, it wasn’t what she wanted to do.

  She scratched her nails around in her hair, scalp still itchy from wearing the wig, and wandered back into the bedroom.

  There, on the chair, were Miss Lillian’s clothes. Irene picked up the shorts. They were still damp. She picked up the bustier and folded it carefully. The wig should be on a stand, or it would be ruined.

  She thought about taking it all back to the 2020 apartment, but she didn’t want to go there this time of night.

  And the 2020 apartment itself... would she be giving that up? If she was going to choose Joseph, she might have to give Miss Lillian up.

  Or maybe she could tell Joseph about Miss Lillian and maybe they could play—

  No, that would change everything. That would turn it into some sort of a freakish perversion. One of those stupid sex games old married people played when they couldn’t find satisfaction with each other any more.... That wasn’t what Miss Lillian was about, not at all.

  Not at all.

  Not at all.

  Then what exactly was Miss Lillian all about?

  Maybe in Irene’s squeaky-clean, antiseptic, barren life, Miss Lillian gave her the only creative, passionate outlet. Maybe Miss Lillian was Irene’s best friend. Maybe Irene just needed a little “girl time” with Miss Lillian.

  Irene looked around for a place to put Miss Lillian’s wig. She didn’t have a wig stand in the apartment. After an indecisive moment, Irene pulled it onto her own head, and a moment later, she was in the bathroom, straightening it and pulling the bangs down just right.

  Then she began to apply makeup. She wasn’t sure where she was going or what she was going to do, she just knew that she had the celebration itch and it hadn’t been scratched yet. Not by the bar, not by the dance, not by Joseph. She needed something else, and she didn’t know what it was, but she was going to find out.

  It was time.

  It was time to plumb the depth of her weaknesses and find out what was at the bottom. If she was ever going to be worthy of someone such as Joseph, she had to know what she had to offer, and she had to know what the pitfalls were. She had to know and she had to know now. First, she had to know and then Joseph had to know.

  She had to know what Miss Lillian meant to her, and what it might mean to give her up. If she could.

  Eyebrows penciled into arched black slashes, eyes outlined in black, purple eyeshadow to the eyebrow, pale cheeks and dark purple lipstick made Miss Lillian jump back to life.

  She shimmied into the damp leather clothes, feeling her nipples knot up as she did so.

  What would Joseph think if he saw her like this?

  What would Owen think?

  What would Judge Colburn think?

  The thought gave her a twinge, so she put it out of her mind. Maybe she’d go back to The Serpent’s Tooth. Maybe she’d go somewhere else. Maybe she’d just wander around town. Maybe she’d search out a new place, maybe she’d find some new people. Maybe she’d just go to some coffee shop and have a cup. Maybe she’d wait until she got into a taxi to decide.

  She slipped on the black thigh-high boots and grabbed her keys out of the bowl by the door.

  She paused, looking around as if she had forgotten something. She felt like something was incomplete, or not quite right. She took a mental check around the apartment, and though something seemed amiss, something small, she couldn’t put her finger on it. She walked out into the hallway and locked the apartment door behind her.

  Chapter 47

  Owen sat in his car while the police crawled all over the crime scene like army ants. The music had stopped and all the weirdos swarmed out of the bar, thirsty for a hint of grue. It was a circus, as these things usually were, made all the more so by the extreme side-show freaks in attendance. The press would arrive momentarily, and that would make things worse, with their on-the-scene, first-to-break-the-story satellite linkups and camera spotlights. They’d each want a piece of him, and he had no pieces to spare. Not tonight. Not any more.

  Owen’s heart felt heavy. All along he had known it was Irene, but he didn’t want it to be true. Yes, he was envious; yes, he was overly ambitious; yes, he was attracted to her; yes, he was afraid now for his own standards of judgment. But the bottom line was that he liked Irene. He liked her grit, her professionalism, her looks, her drive. He’d always liked everything about Irene. He didn’t want to see all of that rot behind bars.

  He tried to imagine Irene surviving in a women’s penitentiary, and the mental picture was not a pretty one.

  He wanted to go home and drink straight from a bottle of bourbon.

  And then there was his responsibility in this matter. His politics. His sneaking around, trying to play both halves against the middle. He put Joseph Schneider in jeopardy, he put his case against Cynthia Schneider in jeopardy, he put Bobby Milner in fatal jeopardy, and now he had probably hosed up his entire career.

  He had been stupid to try to stake out Irene like this. If he had been trained in police procedures, or if he had taken a detective with him, they could have caught Irene instead of waiting for her to screwdriver this poor guy. Owen was absolutely certain that he caused this murder, he and Joseph Schneider.

  No, Joseph dangled from Owen’s puppet strings. Joseph wasn’t at fault here, Owen was. He had to take responsibility, second only to Irene’s responsibility.

  What price ambition, Owen? Which side of the debate team are you on now?

  He wanted to go home and drink straight from a bottle of scotch.

  But not yet. He had business to take care of first.

  The police photographer was just finishing up inside Bobby Milner’s van. Everybody kept busy, milling about smartly, keeping the crowds back, preserving the crime scene, while waiting for Detective Matthias to show up. As soon as he gave the place a once-over, the coroner’s men could take Bobby’s body to the morgue. And Owen and Matthias could go arrest the murderer. Owen was not looking forward to that.

  Right on cue, Detective Matthias’ car cruised smoothly into the parking lot, parting the crowd of onlookers.

  Owen took a deep breath, then got out of his car.

  It was time.

  He would find no pleasure in seeing Irene arrested.

  Chapter 48

  Joseph hung his toothbrush up in the holder, closed the medicine cabinet and took a long look at himself in the mirror.

  Dark rounds hung under his eyes to his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot. He was exhausted.

  Something had to change. He couldn’t go on this way any more. He needed to come clean with Cynthia and get the weight of his affair with Irene off his back. And that meant honesty with Cynthia. Perhaps brutal honesty. He wouldn’t be able to see Irene clearly until he was straight with Cynthia. He couldn’t tell if there was attraction in the deception. The playing field was too cluttered. He had to clean it all up and see what remained. Love for Irene? Fading lust? Loyalty transferred from his failed marriage to her sister?

  But then again, what he saw of Irene in that bar... he wasn’t all that sure he wanted to see her clearly. The fuzzy vision was just fine as it was.

  He clicked out the light, slipped between smooth, clean, cool sheets and turned out the bedside lamp. Bed felt wonderful.

  Exhausted though he was, his muscles were twitching and rigid. He willed them to relax.

  He thought again about Irene.

  He felt like a cliché. Attracted to the woman of mystery. The woman with a past. He felt as though he better get some clarity on his situation before everybody got into big trouble. Especially him.

  First things first.

  First thing tomorrow, he’d visit Cynthia and clear that mess up. Then he’d deal with Irene. One way or another, he was going to get his mind right about Irene. Tomorrow. The sun would not set on another d
ay of this anxiety. He couldn’t take it. He had to know if they were working toward something or if he was merely a toy for her. He had to find out exactly how he felt. He had to know before he invested too much more of himself in her.

  Irene.

  He punched up his pillow and gave out an exhausted groan. That woman was going to wear him out.

  And he still needed to know what happened to Warren and Sam Begay. That was a cancer that ate at the back of his consciousness, but he didn’t want to think about it. He wouldn’t think about it. He couldn’t think about it. He’d already done all the thinking there was to do about it. Without more information, he was just tumbling his thoughts like clothes in a dryer. Maybe he needed another talk with Owen Crowell. Maybe he ought to bare his soul, bare his shoulder and see if the whole damned situation couldn’t be put to rest.

  When Joseph’s mind was satisfied, his body responded. It relaxed and sank into the bed.

  He barely had time to be glad that he was at home, alone, in his own bed, where he could sleep the night through.

  Within three deep breaths, he was asleep.

  He didn’t hear the front door open and close quietly. He didn’t hear the footsteps muffled by deep carpeting as they moved confidently through his living room. He didn’t see the slatted streetlights glint off silver studs in black leather, or the blue-black gleam of fake hair.

  He didn’t hear the footfalls as they detoured through the kitchen.

  He didn’t see the figure lean against his open bedroom doorway, silent and observing.

  She watched him sleep, the glint of a razor-sharp knife hanging from a slack hand.

  Chapter 49

  “So,” Detective Matthias said to Owen as they pulled away from The Serpent’s Tooth, “you think Irene Nottingham screwdrivered that guy?”

  “I saw her.”

  Matthias shook his head slowly. “How come you didn’t stop her?”

  “You’re the police. How come you didn’t stop her?”

  “What were you doing here anyway?” Matthias said.

  “Don’t ask.”

  “It’s my job to ask.”

  “Right now,” Owen said, “your job is to drive faster.”

  Matthias leisurely hit the turn signal and changed lanes. “You stick to attorneying,” he said.

  “You know,” Owen said, “she might not be finished. I don’t get that she got a whole lot of satisfaction out of what she did to him. They had a history. He was her ex-husband.”

  Matthias pulled onto the bridge. “You seem to know a whole lot about this. Why is that?”

  “Long story that I’ll tell you some day,” Owen said, then regretted it. He sounded like a smartass.

  “She’d already left a mark on him,” Matthias said.

  “Really?”

  “There was a heart shaped scar on his arm.”

  “Scar? Recent?”

  “No.”

  “See?” Owen said. “That’s what I mean. She might not be finished tonight. She likes to take her souvenir. Usually, she likes to skin them. Slowly.”

  “Yeah, I remember the pictures.”

  “You didn’t see half of them.”

  “Yeah?” Matthias looked over at Owen with a salivating interest that disgusted him.

  But Matthias was just being honest. This peculiar quirk of Irene’s whipped up a little salivating interest in Owen, too. And Joseph Schneider. It whipped up a little saliva in everyfuckingbody. “Will you just drive?”

  “I am.”

  “Faster.” Owen felt himself click onto an angle. He knew how to absolve himself. He knew that the blame ultimately lay with Irene Nottingham, and it would be simple to take the heat off himself. Arrest her. That would cause all the buzz necessary to put him into the background until it came time to try her. There needn’t be any spotlight on him at all. There was no need for him to feel guilty; he hadn’t done anything. No, they needed to get to Irene, they needed to put her twisted ass behind bars and that would save his political butt.

  As that realization sunk in, his agitation grew. He couldn’t blow this arrest, or the interrogation spotlight would be burning into his eyes. And Matthias would captain that team, asking searing questions that Owen didn’t want to answer.

  “I don’t drive fast,” Matthias said. “I drive slow. It’s how I do it. I take my time with everything. Driving, eating, making love. We’re going to catch her nice and slow, too.”

  “You’re a goddamned pervert. Turn on your siren.”

  “Relax.”

  “I’m not kidding. If we miss her, if she gets away this time...”

  “She won’t.”

  Owen was feeling more and more agitated. It was guilt and remorse and desperation and Matthias’ maddeningly slow approach, all mixed into one highly jangled bundle of nerves. He was also afraid that she was going to kill somebody else before he got to her, doubling his responsibility. Doubling his guilt. They were headed for her apartment, but of course, there was no guarantee that she had gone home. She might be slicing and dicing somebody as he and the damned cop had their relaxing little Sunday drive and chat.

  Up ahead, a stalled car blocked the street.

  “Get it off the road!” Owen yelled at the driver, but the windows in Matthias’ car were rolled up, and all he did was irritate himself. He turned to the detective. “Turn on your red light. Does this car have a red light?”

  Matthias turned those eerily pale, calm eyes on Owen. “If you don’t relax, I’m going to throw you out and make you take a taxi. And I don’t think you’re going to find one at this time of night. In this area of town.”

  Matthias was serious, Owen could see it. He would do it. He would stop the car and not move again until Owen got out. Then Owen wouldn’t be in on the arrest, and he wanted that. Boy, did he want that. That was very important. He wanted the governor to know he had a personal hand in distancing this scandal from his administration.

  He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d sit here, and he’d keep his mouth shut, but that didn’t mean he liked the way Matthias was taking this whole thing. Owen clenched his fists against his powerlessness and felt his blood pressure rise as the detective navigated the streets in a methodical, precise manner.

  “You remind me a lot of who I used to be,” Matthias said. “Ain’t worth it, Owen.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Owen said. “I bet we’ve missed her. I bet she’s gone.”

  “Ulcers, divorce, alcoholism, suicide. That’s the progression. Did you know that blood pressure medication makes your dick limp?”

  “Can we just get there, do you think?”

  “Shut up,” the detective said. “This is police business, and I know a hell of a lot more about it than you do.” He slowed, turned, and cruised to a stop in front of Irene’s building.

  Owen knew he ought to feel grateful, he knew he ought to be a little bit more humble, he knew that the older cop knew what he was doing and Owen ought to keep his nose out of this part of it, but he just couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He was too involved, too personally involved. Way too personally involved.

  Matthias rolled down his window and stuck a magnetic flashing red light to the top of the car.

  “Now you turn the light on?”

  Matthias gave him a look, but Owen pretended not to notice. He was disgusted with himself. He was sick to his stomach. He ate antacids by the case, his blood pressure was already high, and drinking straight from a bottle of vodka sounded like a fine idea.

  Chapter 50

  Miss Lillian moved from Joseph’s bedroom doorway back to the living room, where she stood next to his big, black leather recliner. It reminded her of Myron’s big, red leather chair, dotted with leather-covered buttons.

  Myron used to sit in his big leather chair to read, and there was room in his lap for a little girl to snuggle and play with his fingers, poke around in his mysterious little black bag, hear stories and giggle. He was a large man, larger than life. He was a hero,
and a saint and a savior of two little girls and their fragile mother.

  There was an empty place inside her where Myron used to live, but even his memory had faded. Now he was reduced to bright flashes of recollection, and those were even becoming fuzzy around the edges.

  She could no longer remember exactly what he looked like.

  She ran her hands over the fine grained black leather chair and conjured up the way Myron used to smell. A thick masculine smell. A wonderful smell.

  When he died, there was nothing left of him. Nothing left for her to hold, to keep, to say, “This was Myron’s.”

  She’d give anything to turn back the clock to pay attention to a little of his wisdom, to talk to him about dying one more time. What was it Irene once said? “To take a little piece of him so she could hold it forever.” Maybe if she had a part of him, he would stop fading.

  Memory wasn’t enough.

  Memory was fickle and unreliable and didn’t last.

  She looked back toward the bedroom door. Joseph gave a long snore, and it brought a smile to her darkly painted lips.

  Was she wasting her time pining after Myron? Were other important people walking through her life making tracks in sand that was continually washed clean by her grief over Myron?

  She sat down in Joseph’s recliner and remembered the feel of Myron’s muscled legs underneath her as she slithered up and into his lap as he read.

  “Hi, sweetie,” he said. “Homework all done?”

  “Um-hmm.” She loved his deep voice and the little pet names he had for her.

  “Daddy?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Um-hummm.” A he gave her a little squeeze.

  “More than you love Mommy?”

  “Different than I love Mommy.”

  “How different?”

  His large, soft black hands closed the book, took off his glasses and set them on the side table. Warm, brown eyes looked down on her as a big hand covered her head and smoothed her blonde hair. “Mommy is my wife, my partner, my mate. You girls are my daughters. It’s a different kind of love. Not better or more, just different.”