Father of the Deceased

by Egon Grimes

  I’d cheat if I was him, but he is a better man than I am and you are an ungrateful bitch. I hope he doesn’t kill this guy…Christ, I hope I don’t kill this woman.

  Rhoda scoffed. “Whatever you say, Lou. You’re his partner. Think I don’t know about you? I heard all about that little college girly you had. I’m not surprised you wife went out and got some too.”

  Lou bit the inside of his cheek.

  “You don’t know anything about me and Denise.”

  “Don’t I? Maurice told me lots of dirty little secrets.”

  “I’d be careful, Rhoda, you can ride the fucking bus home,” Lou said. “Don’t think I won’t, I’ve had just about enough of your lip.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “No thanks. See you around I guess.”

  After a few seconds, “What is wrong with you?” Rhoda asked herself as she shot out of the motel room to catch Lou.

  Upon seeing her, Lou threw the car in reverse, flinging gravel. He rolled down his window and waited for Rhoda to approach.

  “Lou,” Rhoda said, looking down to her legs, “I’m sorry that was a low blow.”

  Lou pulled the car forward and parked. “Forgiven, but cool it, all right?”

  Rhoda nodded.

  They gathered the luggage, the sun threatened to rise above the horizon outside the windows and they felt lost. Sitting on the bed Lou noticed how tired he’d become; long day, long night.

  “Maybe we should catch a few hours of sleep, at least until you find something on the bank account to go off of,” Lou said, stretching back.

  Rhoda was in the washroom looking everything over. She drew the curtain back of the little bathtub and noticed the blood. “Lou!” she shouted.

  He opened his sleepy eyes and followed the sound of the voice. Rhoda just stood pointing into the bathtub. Pink streaks lined every crack and seam. The soap bar speckled in blood sat atop the little shelf on the wall.

  “Blood,” Lou said, going into cop mode. “That’s a lot of blood.”

  “She was on her period, but… Do you think he’s hurt?”

  “Could be from whoever left the bikini in the trash, couldn’t it?”

  “I thought at first…too…but that’s too much. No woman bleeds that much from menstruation. Maybe Maurice is shot. You said there was a mass shooting, right?”

  Lou looked at Rhoda and immediately felt sorry for her. “We don’t know anything for sure. We should wait, catch a nap, and see if he comes back.”

  His eyelids bounced eagerly and when Rhoda agreed, he jumped into the bed like an excited child. He nestled into the blanket, seeing nothing wrong with sleeping in a room rented to Maurice.

  Rhoda did the same as Lou, but didn’t go under the covers, just in case Maurice had a woman in the bed.

  Lou’s eyes bobbed a heavy blink. “Dammit,” he said and rolled over.

  With a clumsy shot, Rhoda sat up, her hair already taking on the shape of the pillow. “What?”

  “Work, I have to call the captain.”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the contact marked Slave Driver.

  “Captain D’Souza.”

  “Are you at work already?” Lou asked.

  “No, home. This Lou?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What the hell you want?”

  “Sir, did you see that video about the fairground slaughter up in Ontario last night?”

  “I heard, but I didn’t see. Shit, it wasn’t Genner, was it? Holy shit Lou, don’t tell me.”

  “No, sir, but he was there and now Rhoda Genner and I are holed up in some motel Moe stayed in, hoping he’ll come back. I don’t know how he did it, but it was the perp who stole the tongue shooting up the place and Moe found him.”

  “You’re in Canada?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Maurice found the guy. Did he kill him?”

  “It doesn’t look like it. Rhoda and I came up here to talk some sense into him.”

  “I see. So you’re not coming into work today, I suppose.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Cut the scolded child shit. You sound like an asshole when you call me sir, like I’m about to give you the belt. Call me if you get him.”

  “All ri—,” Lou said, but the phone clicked.

  Lou fell against the stiff pillow, thought about his wife, and quietly rolled into a light sleep.

  It didn’t last long.

  39

  Parked just down the street from the motel where Lou and Rhoda slept, Neil Crane sat waiting, waiting, waiting. He took a few shots, but caught very little of what was happening. As always, he had an eight-pack—now down to a three-pack—of Red Bull sitting in his back seat. The phone in his pocket rang.

  “Neil.”

  “Chester. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

  “Sleep? Now what is that again?

  “You know that thing you do under your desk all day.”

  “Right, ha-ha-ha. What do you have for me? Tell me it’s good,” Chester said, impatient as always.

  “I missed the Maurice Genner, he left when I was gathering the stuff from my room. But, when I went back to the Genners, the wife was off like a rocket: whoosh, zoom, vroom,” he said, sounds during play-by-play pissed of Chester royally.

  “Christ sakes, fucking Orson Welles here…what’s going on?”

  Neil laughed. “Okay. So wifey Genner drove over to the partner, Lou’s something, and from there, the pair took the Go-Go Gadget Mobile north.”

  “What in the hell are you babbling about?”

  “I’m in Ontario, London, Ontario. Looking at Genner’s partner and Genner’s wife shacked up in some room. This story is about as good as it gets. The world loves a grieving mother, but they prefer a cheating skank. Genner’s partner drives a car that looks just like Inspector Gadget’s car.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, just like Inspector.”

  “Fuck off, I mean you’re really in Canada?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmm. London. That’s near Chatham right?”

  “I passed signs for a Chatham.”

  “Did you see what happened in Chatham last night?”

  Neil was already Googling Chatham into his computer and quickly found a video. “Checking out now.”

  “Jesus man, weren’t you listening to the radio? It was a big mess, worldwide kind of big. Maybe you should drop this and cover the other story, could be a good one.”

  “Holy kitten mittens Batman,” Neil said as he watched the clip on YouTube. “It’s the same guy, sure of it.”

  “The guy from the cemetery.”

  “And holy shit, Genner himself. This story is that story, Chester old boy. I am in the middle of something huge. I’m going to fuck around and win a Pulitzer.”

  “Not before you get the whole story and not until you send me that story. If Raw Daily has anything to do with a Pulitzer, I’ll shit in my hat on national television,” Chester said.

  “You don’t wear a hat.”

  “Fine, I’ll shit in your hat.”

  “Thanks. Are you sure you don’t want me to come back and cover something else?”

  “Get fucked. Get this story and I’ll send you on an all-expenses paid vacation. How does that sound? All the hookers you ever wanted.”

  “I can use the company card on hookers? How does that work?”

  “Not yet you can’t, but if you get this story and get it before anyone catches on, you’ll have more hookers than suicide bombers have virgins in the sky.”

  “I guess you just slide the card between their cheeks. Maybe a receipt prints out of their asses.”

  “Okay, enough, wise-ass. Focus.”

  “I am, the pair is in the room. Guessing that they’ll lead me right to the action. I’m gonna swim in pussy.”

  “Don’t count your hooker chickens before they hatch.”

  Neil was giddy. It had been years since he’d focused on real news. In college he was
wide-eyed, hopeful, scratching at anything that looked like it might have a juicy story hiding. Typically, he found only hard old scabs. The Raw Daily put out an ad, Neil thought himself a higher class than what that trashy paper had, but on the same day the ad came out, the crooked pricks Conrad Black and David Radler decided it was time to downsize. The little Illinois weekly Neil had been scooping for, gave him the axe.

  No severance for greenhorns their first year out of school.

  He applied to Raw Daily that night and after three interviews, found he liked Chester and liked the freedom he saw. It was mostly smoke floating over the bullshit. Neil went from journalist to a writer of plausible fiction with most of his sources being of the anonymous variety—more succinctly, of the imaginary variety. It didn’t sit well at first, but his paycheck was nearly twice the size, his equipment was about a thousand times better, and he never had to worry about getting the facts all the way right. Almost news.

  He thought again of a Pulitzer and laughed.

  The Red Bull fizzed and splashed a little onto his fingers, as they always did, when he opened a can and sucked it back greedily. “Hookers galore,” he said with a smile wiping his lips.

  40

  The sounds throughout the Jeep were almost unbearable, as if a tortured child rode alongside, just beyond the reach of her father. Maurice couldn’t help the woman, not beyond driving. They had gone for an hour and found the pain lessening by only a bit. With each stretch of highway, there was a promise to find relief. It wasn’t the same. This next step seemed different, as if someone just played with Alice, putting her through pain without reason.

  “Is this part of a plan?” Maurice asked nobody, Alice continued to moan.

  The sun over the horizon added to Maurice’s discomfort, but was a welcome momentary distraction from Alice, who still looked to Maurice like the man who’d stolen his daughter’s tongue. Her body blinked every so often into others, staying as Alice for a while, and then as they continued east, the man’s presence re-fixed over the girl.

  Maurice once again questioned his sanity, but assumed since he questioned it, then it must have been intact—crazies never wonder if they’re crazy. He had to believe it. It would have been much easier of course to drop the issue, let the screwed up world beyond his reality run its course. But Rosalind. Poor Rosalind was somehow, her soul, her being, her whatever, held away from peace.

  After passing the exits into Mississauga and then to Brampton and then into Toronto, the wailing suddenly stopped. Alice looked at Maurice, tears streaming.

  “I can feel him.” Her voice croaked and gasped.

  “How in the hell are we going to find the guy in Toronto?”

  Alice shifted instantly. Rosalind sat next to Maurice wearing the same little blue dress she wore on her fourth birthday.

  “Rosalind?” Maurice choked and had to jerk his hands quickly to avoid the cement divider.

  The girl smiled, Alice had no more control, fighting it exhausted her and she gave in. She nodded.

  “Rosalind, honey, where do I go?”

  The girl just pointed straight ahead, wordlessly.

  “Can’t you just tell me?” No tongue, remember? He looked back to his passenger, once again taking the form of the man. “What have you done with Rosalind?”

  “Who is Rosalind,” Alice replied emotionlessly with a deep voice.

  “My daughter. You stole her fucking tongue.”

  Alice began to twitch and shake. She slammed her face on the dash of the Jeep with strong violent blows. Blood spurted and gushed once she hit her nose.

  What kind of illusion is this? Maurice thought as he watched blood miraculously land, but the source didn’t appear to be bleeding. The fat drops were everywhere, but the face he saw was free from stain.

  “I am going to kill you,” Maurice seethed.

  Alice once again took the form of Rosalind, she pointed frantically toward an exit: 400-N. Maurice wheeled across five lanes, horns blared and the heavy bumper of a big rig clipped a chunk from the Jeep’s plastic bumper cover. The rig sounded its outrageous air horn, but kept east while Maurice took the exit. Rosalind’s figure was pointing again, getting her entire tiny body into the act, Barrie. It became obvious from there. They were to head north. One highway, no other options.

  —

  What is this thing? Maurice thought as he pumped, a line of cars formed behind his Jeep, ridding any chance of checking on Alice in the washroom before he finished filling the large tank.

  41

  His nap cut short, Lou pulled the phone from his pocket. “Hello,” he said dryly.

  “Hill, this is D’Souza.”

  “Okay.”

  “You find Genner yet?”

  “No, Rhoda and I are in London, he used his card here, but there’s no sign of him.”

  “Keep him out of shit when you find him. Not answering his phone?”

  Lou looked over at Rhoda who’d awakened and was listening in, “Nope. Straight to voicemail. And yes, I’ve left messages.”

  “He didn’t answer when I called him either. Keep trying and get him back here. Guessing the Canadians won’t be their pleasant selves if he is running around with handguns.”

  Before Lou could respond, he recognized the sudden emptiness, the slight crackle was gone. He looked at Rhoda as he pocketed the phone. “Anything new on the credit card?”

  Rhoda refreshed the page and then shook her head.

  “You check the bank account? Maybe he’s used the bankcard.”

  Rhoda signed into an app she rarely used and there it was, only minutes earlier, a transaction in a city called Vaughan. “Vaughan, Vaughan!”

  “What?”

  “He got gas just now in some place called Vaughan.”

  “Keep calling him.”

  Rhoda shook her head and dialed. It rang beyond the first ring signaling that the phone was indeed on. About goddamn time.

  “Rhoda?” Maurice said.

  “My God, where have you been? You can’t just run around all over doing whatever in the hell you like. What about Ruby and me?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “I don’t want to be a widow. We just lost a daughter. I need you. Ruby needs you.”

  “I’ll come home when I’m finished,” Maurice said with infuriating calmness.

  “No, we’re coming to get you.”

  “We who?”

  “Lou and I. We drove to London because it said on our bank account that you rented a room. Are you having an affair? I swear to God.”

  “An affair? Are you nuts? I told you everything!”

  “We saw you on YouTube, some kid shot video of the shootout at the fair and you were on it and so was the suspect. We thought you might kill him for what he did.”

  “Put Lou on the phone.”

  “No, you talk to me.”

  Maurice knew this game and played it well.

  “Maurice?”

  One, two, three, four, five seconds.

  “Maurice?” she repeated more heated than the first time.

  One, two, three, four seconds.

  “Asshole.”

  One, two, three seconds.

  “Maurice!”

  One, two seconds.

  “Fine!” She held her phone across the little walkway between beds. “He wants to talk to you.”

  Lou took the phone. “Moe?”

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  “Saw you on the internet and decided if you caught the guy you’d kill him, so we followed your bank transactions. You saw him and didn’t kill him, good for you.”

  “I missed him, like he knew it was coming. Something strange is going down, like shape shifting or perception screwing or something.”

  “Moe?”

  “Hear me out. Explain the border guard. The disappeared fortune-teller. It’s all there. I have proof, the girl I’m with changes every few minutes, all based on what I’m thinking, she keeps changing.”

  “Moe?”

 
; “I can’t explain, you’d have to see it. The border guard did see a woman. He thought the man was a woman. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I saw a woman turn from herself to Rosalind to the grave robber and back, she’s sick in the toilet now.”

  “I think you need to see a doctor, or at least your wife.” Lou added the last part as he could feel Rhoda’s eyes boring a hole into his skull.

  “Don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Would you believe it?”

  Maurice sighed. “I know it sounds absurd, but if you went through what I have in the last couple days you’d believe me and you’d help me.”

  “The best way I can see to help you is to get you some help. I don’t think your stuff is aligned.”

  “Let me talk to him!” Rhoda snatched the phone from Lou.

  On the nightstand, Lou’s phone rang again.

  “Maurice we’re going home, all three of us. I am taking you home.”

  Lou answered his phone, the caller I.D. read HOME. “Denise?”

  Denise exhaled heavily and Lou crossed the room, into the bathroom. “I’m just calling to tell you I have packed your stuff. I’ve been doing some thinking and this isn’t going to work. I’d already had my lawyer draw up the paperwork. We think it will be best for everyone if you move out and you can see the boys on a weekly basis.”

  “Wait. What?” The bathroom wasn’t private enough and he charged outside, gaining the anonymity of the parking lot.

  “Lou, we are done. I wanted to tell you last night but you left before I could.”

  “Last night you told me you loved me and we kissed.”

  “I was sleeping when I said that and you kissed me. I haven’t felt like kissing you in months, especially after where your mouth’s been.”

  “Hey, you cheated too.”

  “To get back at you! Stupid. I want to be with someone else.”

  “Who? You’ve been having an affair?”

  “No, but I’d like to be with just about anyone but you. You’re a liar and you can’t keep your dick in your pants.”

  “Denise, we can work this out.”

  “No, we can’t, because I don’t want to. I don’t love you and I don’t want to think about what you might be out doing on your nights out; the nights you say you’re out with the boys. Those very nights you dip your dirty dick into some teeny slut who just wants it from a cop.” Denise was on a roll. “You’re not worth my time and you’re a bad father to the boys. They don’t need a father who doesn’t care enough about them to keep his pecker to himself. You’re a slut and I want your shit out of here and you gone from the house as soon as possible so the boys can get used to things. Then they can move onto a new daddy. Maybe I’ll go ask Chuck Nagel out, he’s always had a thing for me.”