That Old Devil Sin

by W E DeVore

“Anybody besides your staff know that lock is broken?” Sanger asked.

  Ben thought for a second. “I told the Q and the boys in the band so they wouldn’t put anything valuable in there. Q kept her bag in my office. And I told the caterer it wasn’t really locked, in case she ran out of napkins or needed quick access to extra supplies.”

  Sanger took a note. “You close up every year on Lundi gras night?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re too far uptown for any Mardi gras traffic and the team’s usually pretty beat, so I give everyone a week off before the Festival season kicks in.” He suddenly remembered the envelope he held in his hand. “That reminds me…”

  He reached into the envelope and handed Josh and Joe each a thousand dollars. Right on cue, Beth walked over and he handed her the remaining thousand.

  “You always tip out your employees so generously?” Sanger looked hard at Ben.

  Ben looked back at him and explained, “Just a little profit sharing…nobody tips at an open bar. We run a tight crew around here.”

  Ernst finally exited Ben’s office with the rest of the Beasts. As soon as Ernst approached them, Tom winked at Q and JJ gave her a thumbs up. Q kept her face tranquil as her godfather approached Detective Sanger.

  “You get a guest list?” Ernst asked the junior detective.

  “Yes, sir. The vic is on it.” Sanger handed the list to Ernst, pointing to Veronica Denton’s name clear as day and with a green highlight through it.

  Ernst called to Pete where he sat at the bar. “Did Ms. Denton ever mention knowing the Multers, Peter?”

  Pete shook his head slowly. “No. She danced sometimes for private parties at rich folks’ houses. Maybe she met them there.”

  Q finally spoke up, “Marianne Multer invited me to a private after-party at their estate. Could be she was going there?”

  Ernst raised his eyebrows. “Exotic dancing isn’t quite what I’d expect at a party hosted by the Multers.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Pete said. “Ronnie had some stories. TV Preachers in the VIP room, that kind of thing.

  “You sure you didn’t see her here tonight?” Detective Sanger asked critically. Pete shook his head.

  Three strikes.

  Q began to feel very nervous. Pete had lied three times to the police and she had helped him do it. She looked at Detective Sanger and was fairly certain that he knew Pete wasn’t being entirely forthcoming.

  Ernst and the other detectives conferred for a few minutes. Detective Sanger came back to the center of the crowd and said, “Alright, we know it’s late and y’all are tired. We’ve got your statements and we’ll be in touch later in the week for some follow-up questions. Y’all can go home. I’m afraid you musicians will need to leave your equipment here while the forensics team finishes up.” He turned to the caterer, “You too, ma’am.”

  “You got a spare set of keys, Mr. Bordelon?” Ernst asked. Ben nodded and went into his office to retrieve them.

  Tom put his arm around Pete. “Come on. You’re staying with me and Camilla tonight.”

  Ben returned and handed Ernst the keys.

  “We’ll drop them off at your house later on this week,” Ernst said to him.

  “No rush,” Ben said. “You ready to go, darlin’?” he asked Q.

  She nodded and kissed Ernst on the cheek.

  “Find whoever did this,” she whispered.

  Ernst kissed her forehead. “Always do, Clementine. Always do.”

  Q and Ben left the Cove as the Mardi gras morning sun began to creep up over Tchoupitoulas. In the distance, they could hear brass bands warming up, blending with the last few nightingales singing in the oaks.

  You’ve Got Some ‘Splaining To Do

  As soon as they got to his house, Ben stalked into the kitchen and started slamming open cupboards and drawers, determined to make them breakfast before the sun had finished rising. Q stared out the window.

  This was going to be such a great Mardi gras.

  “You fucking lied to the police. And made me lie too. And just sat there, letting Pete lie his ass off. What the fuck? And not just the police. Your uncle. You lied to your own family.” Ben had repeated pretty much the same script on a skip-loop since the police had let them go.

  “You don’t understand. Pete and I go back. Way back,” Q said. “I don’t know why he lied, honest I don’t. I had to at least buy him some time to find out what he was so afraid of that he wouldn’t tell the truth. I mean, really, Ben, you didn’t tell them about Multer, and you didn’t leave that out because I made you.”

  Ben snapped, “Q, I am not about to accuse a United States Senator of something that’s probably nothing and most definitely not my damned business!”

  “Not your damned business? The ass hat got a blowjob from a girl who ended up dead three hours later,” Q shot back.

  Ben glared at her. “You outright lied to cover for Pete!”

  “You outright lied to cover for Senator Ass Hat!” Q retorted, meeting his glare. They stared each other down until Ben finally threw up in hands in abject frustration.

  “Just tell me why. Why would you let him get away with it? Why wouldn’t you say something, even to your uncle?”

  She replied loudly, “I owe him. Ok? I fucking owe him and then some, you don’t understand.”

  “That’s right I don’t understand, but you’re going to help me understand, right the hell now, or I’m calling your uncle and telling him about Pete seeing her, arguing with her, you being with me during the break, you and Pete’s little dealings with Urian, all of it,” Ben finally demanded, finishing his rant for the first time since they'd got into his car.

  He leaned against the stove and crossed his arms, the muscles in his jaw tensed, waiting.

  No getting out of this, now.

  Q looked down at the table, playing with a few grains of sugar, slowly moving them around on the glossy oak surface, trying to think of a way to explain her behavior that wouldn’t involve the complete breakdown of the Arabi Incident.

  “Pete and I grew up together. I think you know that, already." She spoke slowly trying to buy herself a few more minutes. "He’s a couple years older than me. His mama and mine were good friends. So, one night, when I was four and Pete was six, they go out for a girl’s night in the Quarter. On the way home, their cab was t-boned by a drunk in a truck. Everyone was killed. Pete’s mother, the cab driver, the drunk. My mama hung on for maybe a day, before she died, too. She made my dad promise to look out for Pete. Pete’s parents were divorced and his dad was kind of a nightmare. So, we did. We took care of Pete. He lived on and off with us growing up. Daddy paid for him to go to Tulane. He got his degree and became an English teacher.”

  She stopped and looked at Ben. His face softened only slightly. “So what is it that you owe him?”

  She exhaled before continuing, carefully avoiding eye contact. “I was playing bass and keys in this band about ten years ago when I was in college. Some industrial Rob Zombie wannabe thing. And we had a gig with some other bands at this biker bar in Arabi a week or so before Halloween. Pete came out to watch. Trying to support me, I guess. This guy was harassing me all night. He was attractive and charming, but drunk, and I was just not interested. Something just felt kind of off about him. So, I decided not to stay for the other bands and leave with Pete early.”

  Q paused and thought for a minute before deciding how much to tell Ben. “Anyway, I was right about that creep because he grabbed this girl in the parking lot; wrapped a damned jumper cable around her neck and dragged her to his SUV. He shoved her into the back seat and was raping her when Pete came out looking for me. Pete heard the girl screaming and he dragged the bastard off her. Hit him once. Hit him again. I don’t really know what happened next, but somehow the guy hit his head wrong. Pete killed him. Uncle Ernst and my dad helped to make sure no charges were brought. They weren’t too broken up about a rapist getting killed. Pete was a hero, really, but he just wasn’t right after that. He starte
d using pills. Started gambling. Quit his job as a teacher, then we started QT and the Beasts.”

  Ben was silent.

  “Don’t you understand?" she implored him. "Pete’s killed somebody before. He had a fight with that dead girl tonight. He’s a junkie. He knew her. She had exactly enough money on her to pay off Urian. He had access to the hardware case. That instrument cable around her neck was his. They will pin it on him just to put the case to rest! Uncle Ernst got a lot of heat for protecting Pete the last time, but my dad was around to help. He won’t have that this time. I have help to protect him if I can.”

  Ben cleared his throat and asked, “Who was the girl?”

  She suddenly felt very sick to her stomach. One word. One stupid word and he’d never look at her the same. Her heart pounded in her ears. She looked down at her hands and whispered, “Does it matter?”

  “It does to me. Who was it?” Ben stared at her. She held his gaze for several minutes, unable to speak.

  “Me.”

  She wasn’t sure that any actual sound had come from her mouth. She looked at Ben to make sure he'd heard her. Tears were forming in his eyes and he let them fall, ignoring them. Suddenly she couldn’t stop talking. She decided she had to tell someone, anyone, all of it, after ten years of trying to pretend like it didn’t happen. Ten years of trying to feel normal while this cancer ate away at her.

  Fuck it.

  “Pete gave me the keys to his car so I could load my stuff into it while he paid his tab. I came outside, there was a broken bottle on the ground and I kicked it out of the way. Then I felt him behind me. I started to turn around, but he looped that thing around my neck. I somehow managed to grab it, but it was so tight. I couldn’t let go without it strangling me. I could barely scream…it was so tight. He dragged me across the parking lot to this SUV in the corner. There was a big tree there and it was dark. The streetlight was out. The door to the back seat was already open. He shoved me down and covered my mouth with his hand…I could barely breathe. He would have killed me. I know it. This asshole lieutenant, he had it in for Ernst and my dad, but mostly, he was just a douche…”

  Q paused before continuing, “I was wearing a short skirt, bondage shirt, showing all that skin, just asking for it, he said. Probably wasn’t in any danger, maybe even wanted it. Pete over-reacted, got jealous, and maybe I was just covering for Pete. Maybe I was fucking Pete, too, and cheating on him. Maybe I wasn’t even raped,” she said bitterly.

  Ben was trembling, his jaw locked tight again. When he finally spoke, his voice was shaky. “But Ernst, your father, they didn’t…”

  Q shook her head. “No, of course not. Ernst and Daddy knew what really happened. Forensics knew what really happened. That lieutenant had been accused in a corruption case that fell apart. He was trying to embarrass or punish my dad, maybe Ernst too, who knows? But Daddy wanted to protect me and he knew where to find a sympathetic judge for Pete. My grandma’s brother, Uncle Jasper. They sealed the court case so it would stay out of the press. ‘ADA’s Daughter Raped at Local Biker Bar…story at eleven,’” she said, then looked at her reflection in the darkened kitchen window, watching Ben behind her.

  “You know, it’s a funny thing, when something bad like that happens, it changes you so fundamentally, it’s hard to recognize the person you were before. I remember that girl. I do. She loved Halloween – I fucking hate October. And she liked to flirt and loved short skirts because she had great legs, no tits to speak of, but great fucking legs. She was fearless, so fucking fearless. She studied criminology and was going to get into the family business. ‘Justice is the Toledano family business,’” she said, imitating her father’s voice. “And that stupid fucking girl actually believed in justice. But there’s no such thing. What that man did can’t be undone. What Pete did can’t be undone. Where’s the justice in any of it?”

  Q paused, watching the silhouettes of the branches outside the window through the early morning light.

  “I think a part of me always wondered if it wasn’t a little bit my fault. Isn’t that funny? How could it be my fault? I played a gig in a mini skirt and combat boots. I flirted with someone I wasn’t interested in just so he’d go away. And he rapes me. How could that be my fault? How could I be blamed? But still, I do. I blame myself. I went some place alone that I had no business going to alone. I showed too much skin and smiled too damned much…And I’ve been so ashamed because I should have been smarter. We don’t even talk about it…None of us…It’s just the ‘Arabi Incident’, like some sort of shameful family secret.” Q pointed her finger and mock lectured the empty chair across from her, “Never kill a man raping a woman, Pete. What will the neighbors think?? And don’t you ever wear skirts to a gig, Q. They’re too easy to get out of.”

  “Oh god, Q." He knelt in front of her, covering his face in shame. "What did I do? The dress…I didn’t know…What I did tonight in the office…. Oh, Christ."

  She leaned over and took his face between her hands, looking directly into his eyes. “What we did in the office tonight was spectacular. Don’t you dare make it out to be anything else.”

  She kissed him forcefully, but he pulled away and wrapped his arms around her waist instead, burying his face in her lap. Q stroked his hair and looked at her own reflection in the window again.

  “I’ve never told anyone any of that. Not even my therapists. Note the plural there.” She rested her forehead on the back of his head and breathed him in. “You always smell so good. I think it might be my favorite thing about you.”

  Ben stayed silent. Q said quietly, “You kept trying to tell me something tonight. Back at the Cove. What was it?”

  He looked up at her and simply said, “I love you.”

  She smiled down at him then rested her forehead against his. “Finally, some good news.”

  “Do you think you could…? You don’t have to…I just…I had to tell you,” he asked hesitantly.

  “I could and I do.”

  Ben sighed with relief and rested his head in her lap. Q relaxed into the sudden lightness that settled into her. Closing her eyes, she reveled in the weightlessness she felt from unburdening her secret.

  No more lies. No more secrets.

  She sat up and stretched her arms above her head before wrapping them lightly around his neck. “You know what I’d like more than anything right now? I’d like you to take me upstairs and get naked in that big old bed yours…. Let’s lose ourselves in each other for a little while. What do you say?”

  Ben stood up, too quickly, wiping his eyes. “Maybe later, darlin’. I need to think through some things. Why don’t you take a bath while I make us something to eat?”

  He turned away and moved to the refrigerator. Disappointment washed over her like an ice storm.

  You’re a fucking idiot…Why did you tell him?

  She rose slowly from the chair and leaned on the kitchen doorway, staring out through the living room windows at the shadows of the ferns in the early light. Mourning doves cooed softly in the branches of the sweet olive tree outside the kitchen window. She heard Ben walk over to her.

  He kissed the back of her neck and stroked her shoulders saying quietly, “Pete protected you. We’ll protect him too. That’s all that matters.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, not looking back at him.

  She hastily wiped a tear away before going upstairs and running a hot bath. As soon as she was submerged, she lay back and tried to pretend that the night had ended after she sang ‘Handy man.’ She closed her eyes, listening to Ben moving around in the kitchen below still doggedly determined to fix them a healthy breakfast. A few hours ago, she had been dreaming of five uninterrupted days with Ben. She fell asleep dreaming of the same thing.

  ~~~

  Q was floating, weightless. The world around her was snowy white and warmth surrounded her like an August afternoon. A soft voice murmured, “I love you.”

  She woke up with a start and found she was sitting up in Ben’s
bed. The mid-day sun shone spectacularly through the thick leaves of the live oak outside. She was wrapped in a towel under the cool sheets but didn’t remember getting into bed. Drowsily realizing she must have fallen asleep in the bath, she blinked her eyes and looked at Ben lying next to her on his back. Q stretched and yawned, feeling blissful, until all the events of Lundi gras evening began replaying in her brain like a mind control video. Slipping silently out of bed, she crossed the room to Ben’s closet to find a shirt.

  He stirred behind her, yawning, “Mornin’, darlin’.”

  She turned around, clutching the towel to her. Ben propped himself up on his elbows and looked at her.

  “You goin’ somewhere?” He glanced at his watch. “Think it’s too late to catch any of the good parades.”

  “No…yes.” Q suddenly decided. She grabbed a random Ben-sized t-shirt off a hanger and quickly put it on. “I should go home.”

  “How you gonna get home? Streetcars aren’t running.” Ben gave her a sleepy grin.

  She returned to the bed and sat down next to him. “I should leave. I’ll go. Things will be different now. I shouldn’t have told you all that this morning. I can’t expect you to deal with all…this.” She anxiously scratched her head, looking away from him. “I’m sorry. I just…once I started…I just couldn’t stop…talking.”

  He wiped his face with his hands and shook his head trying to wake up. “Clementine Toledano, what are you talking about?”

  “Everything is different now. I saw it, last night,” she mumbled.

  Ben sat up. “You saw what last night?”

  “You could barely look at me, let alone touch me. You don’t want me like this and I don’t blame you. Who wants someone who’s this damaged? And it’s ok, really. I knew this would never work out anyway. I suck at this…at being close… to anyone. Some people are just bad at relationships and are just better off being alone. And that would be me.”

  “You're going to have to catch me up, darlin’. It’s too damn early.”

  “I was raped. You think I’m fragile, or broken, whatever. You can’t be with me like you were before.”