by TG Wolff
Clean, warm, and dry, he fell onto his couch, propping himself against pillows to wait for Aurora. He picked up the copy of the book he’d bought from Jonathan Fisher, the one that would be the subject at tomorrow’s book discussion. He opened the book, the black letters swirled on the creamy page. Round and round and, well, round. Dumb ass letters. How was he supposed to read the words when they wouldn’t hold still?
And it was quiet. How did people live with all this silence?
Against his will, he went under.
From the depths of nowhere, laughter invited him to surface. He fought it, enticed to stay in the sweet oblivion, but the happiness pulled him like steel to a magnet. His eyes fluttered open.
“Zeus!” His six-year-old spider monkey of a niece sprinted across the room and went airborne. An instinctive shift of his leg saved his future children.
Curly hair poking out in all directions, Rhianna scrambled up until she looked down into his eyes. “You’ve been asleep forever.”
“Hmm, not forever, just a few hours. Had to go to work early. But I’m awake now and that means…” He let the words hang, Rhianna never suspecting a thing. Then she howled in delight as his fingers found her ribs. “Tickle monster is awake!”
“No! Bad monster.” She squirmed and laughed, kicked and giggled, but she didn’t try to get away. “Ba-ad monster.” This time her wiggling landed her butt on the floor. Her little mouth wide with insult, a perfect imitation of his sister. “Zeus! That hurt.”
Laughter bubbled in from the doorway. “Good morning, brother dear.”
“It’s evening, Mariana.” He climbed to his feet, stretching away the last of the exhaustion as he searched for the reason his sister was there. He came up empty. “Sorry, I forgot you were coming over.”
“No, you didn’t. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Tony went with this brother to Cincinnati so I figured we’d invade your house. I brought chicken and veggies. Thought I could talk you into making a stir-fry or something.”
Cruz picked Rhia up by her hips, flipped her upside down, then put her back on her feet. “Go find Aurora. Tell her I’m starting dinner. What’s in Cincinnati?”
“An equipment auction. The thing he has for digging isn’t big enough, I guess. Tony gets giddy when he starts talking about his equipment.” Mari giggled, realizing how it sounded. “I guess that’s a man thing.”
He laughed with his sister. “Us men are all about equipment.” Wild horses thundered down the stairs. Cruz glanced over his shoulder as Rhianna landed in a crouch in the hallway then bounded into the kitchen. Gabriela came next in her checkered uniform skirt, a broad smile on her face. Cruz swept his quieter, undemanding niece into a spin, hugging her to him. “There she is, sweet as honey.”
Gabi hugged him tight around the waist. “Zeus, Tiaurora did my eyes. Aren’t they pretty?” She batted her pink-shaded lids.
“Yes, you are. What did you do with Aurora?”
“I’m here.” His green-eyed lady rounded the corner. “Sorry we woke you. We were having some girl time.”
He held his arms wide and she filled them. “What man in his right mind wants to sleep when there are four beautiful women in his house?” He kissed his woman, keeping it G rated with the little eyes watching.
“I’m a hungry woman,” Rhia said, tugging on his arm.
Aurora smiled up at him. “Now that she mentioned it…”
“I get it. A man’s place is in the kitchen, is it? All right. Clear out and let me work.” He wasn’t kidding. His kitchen was so small, he had to step outside to think. When he bought the house, all that mattered was it having a place of his own. With his family, with Aurora, the house was now a home with a kitchen two sizes too small.
Aurora took the girls away. Surprise, Mari went with her. Whenever they were together and food was involved, they worked side by side. Today, Mari was the first out the kitchen door. His sister was welcome, all the time, every day, and dropping by with an armful of groceries was not unusual. Still…
As he diced the chicken and vegetables for a quick stir-fry, he listened to the happy sounds of family. There was satisfaction in the laughter and even in the spats between sisters. He felt pride in building a home where joy came first, then guilt washed over him as he realized he wished he and Mari had grown up with the same.
He didn’t remember much of his father. The memories were more impressions. Big hands. Lightning flash temper. Cruz had inherited both, worked on taming the latter. His father wasn’t home a lot but when he was, they all deferred to him. Cruz couldn’t picture his mother conceding to anyone. Not the woman she was now. It was the day after Mari’s twelfth birthday when a police officer came to the door to tell his mother she was a widow.
For months, their house was about grief. His mother wore black every day, crying each night when she thought her children were asleep. She had never worked, going from her father’s house to her husband’s. He remembered the summer morning when his mother came into the kitchen in her best Sunday dress. It was the blue of the sky and the first time she’d worn it since his father’s death. She held her chin high and announced she was going to get work. His job was to look after Mari.
Their lives shifted. The hospital took advantage of the single mother who needed the money, often working her sixty hours a week. Cruz and Mari took on the responsibilities of the house. At an age where other boys were figuring out how to attract girls, he was figuring out the stove. He made it his job to have dinner on the table when their mother came through the door. Mari did the laundry and they both cleaned the house. Quickly, they learned a neat house was faster to clean. A new normal emerged where there was satisfaction and pride, there was love and dedication, but there wasn’t the kind of unbridled happiness now echoing through his home.
“Dinner is ready, ladies.” As he transferred the stir-fry and rice noodles to serving dishes, his family cut through the kitchen. Rhia first, as always, in a sprint. Gabi next, pretty as a—“Gabi, you cut your hair.”
The hair that was to her shoulders minutes ago was now a mass of crazy curls close to her head. The cut favored her face, making her large brown eyes sit almost doll like on her smooth skin. “Do you like it? Mom did me after Tiaurora.”
And that put his attention firmly on the woman walking into the kitchen, where the hair he loved to play in was inches shorter. A lot of inches. “What the hell?”
Aurora recoiled, hands conspicuously going to her hair.
“Zeus.” Mari snapped his name as sharply as the scissors she’d used on his girlfriend’s hair. “Don’t use that tone.” The lecture started in English, switching to Spanish when she got on a roll. “Her hair is thick and heavy and if she wants some of the weight taken off, it’s your job to be supportive. Period.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” It was a demand. In English. “Don’t I have a say?”
“No,” Mari said decisively. “You don’t have to spend hours washing it and taming it and trying to get it to behave. This will be much easier to care for and it looks great.”
Aurora hadn’t spoken in her own defense, moving quickly to the dining room table. Her cheeks were high with color, her gaze downcast to the floor. As they sat, he studied the woman looking anywhere but at him. Okay, her hair was only short compared to this morning. It still hung to her shoulders.
He leaned over and kissed her temple. He didn’t apologize because, really, what the hell were they thinking? She didn’t apologize either, telling him he better get used to the new look.
“I didn’t want my hair cut,” Rhia announced. “I like the way it flies when I twirl.” She leapt out of her chair to an open spot of floor and spun until her hair reached out in a circle around her. She whirled and twirled, sidestepped, spun again, backstepped, then fell onto her butt. She flopped onto her back, hands holding her head. “Oh, the floor won’t stop moving.”
Cruz pulled Aurora’s hand to him. “Yeah, it’s the floor that w
on’t stop moving.” He kissed the fingers he held. “Come sit, Wonder Woman. I slaved for you, you eat for me.”
After the dishes were done, board games were played, desserts were made and eaten. It was a perfect evening. The girls didn’t argue (much). Then hugs and kisses were generously given, and Cruz closed the door behind Mari and her daughters.
“Nice evening,” Aurora said, leaning against the kitchen doorway, glass of water in hand. “I know it wasn’t what you had planned…”
“I had planned?”
“This morning. You were thinking about sex when you said to conserve my energy.”
“I’m always thinking about sex.” He was a man, thinking about sex was second only to breathing. But as far as her needing energy… “Oh, wait. That wasn’t me, it was Yablonski.”
“Matt wants to have sex with me?” Her voice was too high.
“The fucker better not. I meant, he had my phone when you texted and wouldn’t give it back.”
“I see.” She set the water on the counter behind her. “I hate when my friends make promises I can’t live up to.”
“What do you mean? He didn’t make promises—”
“I mean, telling me to save my energy certainly implied a night of…” A coy smile paired with an innocent shrug of her shoulders. “But, really, you can’t let your friends bully into things, even if they are hot, steamy, X-rated. Guys talk. I get it. If you can’t do…”
The bait taken, she ran as he gave chase. Around the small circle of the first floor, Aurora called out his manhood, his stamina, his—with a shrill scream of surprise, she ran into his arms. He tumbled then onto the couch and put her busy mouth to work.
The next morning, Cruz jogged down the stairs to his kitchen, whistling because life was just that damn good. His first cup of coffee waited for him as did the breakfast sandwich in the toaster oven Aurora had bought on her overloaded credit card. She said she loved him in little ways, like heating a premade breakfast, making his favorite coffee, and leaving little notes. He picked up this morning’s note.
You may have lived up to the promises made but I think we broke the end table. I know you are working late tonight so I’m going to beg off my parents. Be home by ten. Happy hunting, Detective. Love, A.
In the living room, the end table impersonated the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Grinning, he made a note to look up the jeweler Yablonski used. He wanted something unique for Aurora, a ring made by an artist, for an artist.
At the dining table, he ate his breakfast while reading his daily mediation. Today’s was on self-awareness. If anyone asked, he didn’t buy into the philosophical enlightenment bullshit. But as he legitimately considered the concept of self-awareness, he couldn’t dismiss it as he’d like. He hadn’t dived into a bottle expecting to be trapped. It was a coping mechanism, one he used when he was doing important work in a crappy situation. He didn’t have a life of his own undercover. Twenty-four seven, he was living in someone else’s skin. Someone he didn’t like or respect. If he had realized the drink was what it was, would it have changed anything?
There are worse things than coping.
Hip hop belted out from his cell. The R-rated song was as explicit and unapologetic as the woman it represented. “Hey, baby. Is something wrong?” Aurora seldom called once she’d arrived at school. He could count the times on one hand.
“No, I mean not with me. Today’s edition of The Real News was in the teacher’s lounge and the front page caught my eye. It’s an article about Oscar’s Sophie.”
The Real News was based on facts the way astrology was based on science. The “paper” was a pain in the collective ass of the Cleveland police, printing half-truths, half-lies, and full lies. One reporter in particular was a burr under homicide’s saddle. Edward Lutz. “Did that fucker write it?”
“Yeah, he did.”
The litany of four-letter words showed just how pissed he’d gotten in the last two-point-three seconds and that was without knowing what was in the article. “What does it say?” he asked, jaw clenched tight.
“She was depressed and tried to kill herself. Zeus, it reads like she was crushed when Andrew Posey didn’t leave his wife for her. There’s a long section from Posey.”
Cruz stopped at a gas station on the way downtown for his own copy, and now paced Montoya’s office, ignoring his coffee and reading the article to Montoya and Yablonski.
“‘I wish I could say I’m surprised,’ said Posey when reached at his office for comment. ‘But this is exactly what I have been telling my wife, Cleveland police, and the public since December. Sophie DeMusa is not mentally stable. In hindsight, maybe her accusations against me were a cry for help, a cry that went unanswered. I don’t know why she targeted me. Perhaps she saw me as an authority figure who could make everything better. We may never know.’ The article goes on with quotes corroborating her tenuous mental state. One was Margot Hennessy.”
“And his shit smells like roses.” Yablonski sneered as though he’d gotten a nose full.
The pissed off in his friend voice lightened his own mood. “Posey’s behind the article.”
“You know this or suspect it?” Montoya asked.
“Deduced. This has so much spin on it, it’s tie-dyed. You see how he cheated it, transferring the blame to DeMusa. ‘Accusations were a cry for help’ and ‘She targeted me.’ He’s trying to change the narrative and Lutz is the scribe in his pocket.”
“The fucker. Sorry, Commander,” Yablonski said, but looked as though he had a few more fuckers in him.
“Put it away, Detective. That’s an order. I want you to pay a call on Posey, make it a follow-up. He played to you yesterday, he’ll do it again. You work him. I want to know what he’s up to.”
Yablonski rubbed his hands together, eager for the game. “Yes, sir.”
“Cruz, you’re on the suspect list. I agree, it’s a long shot Posey went after this woman, but somebody did. We need to look at those closest to her. Follow up with the witness on the pills.” The commander popped the top on a super-sized bottle of painkillers and took two. “Damn things didn’t walk from North Royalton.”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison and left the office.
“Montoya okay?” Yablonski asked.
“His kids are down with the stomach flu, but he’s fine.” Cruz doubted his own words. The commander had a green tint under his olive complexion.
“Stomach flu, huh? I’m gonna get a sleeve of those vitamin C pills and power up. You want me to do anything besides pay a visit to our neighborhood chief of staff?”
Running through his list of interviews, Cruz realized there was more to do than could be done in the day. Nothing unusual about that but if Yablonski had the time, who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth. “How you feel about interviewing Teresa Addison? She’s on the opposite side of town from the rest of these guys.”
“Consider it done. I’ll catch you later. I have a few things of my own to do before I visit city hall.”
“Remember to keep your cool,” he said to Yablonski’s back.
The smug SOB turned around, arms wide. “I’m so cool…I’m ice.”
At his desk, Cruz dug through the database for addresses of his suspects. He knew where Jakob Pressman lived, who needed to explain the differences between his story and his neighbor’s. He didn’t think Christa Moseby was lying, which meant Pressman had. Why? Jackson Furth and Joshua Harding were the rejected Romeos. The former called Erie, Pennsylvania home; the latter California. Peter John Mayfield claimed he hadn’t been rejected. If it was true, why hide under the back stairs? Furth lived near the Three Witches, while Harding lived in a fraternity. There was no record of Mayfield. He wasn’t a current or former student.
He’d start with Pressman.
The snow had been pushed to the side, letting traffic resume its normal pace, which meant Cruz arrived at The Atlas before most of its residents were awake. He had to lean on the doorbe
ll three times before a voice came over the tinny speaker.
“What do you want?”
He couldn’t tell if it was Pressman or Evan Zayer. “Detective De La Cruz. I need to talk to Jakob Pressman.”
“Jake! Get your ass up.” The sound cut out and the lock snapped open.
The door to the apartment was open wide when he reached the landing. With no shades on the windows, the living room was bright as the street outside. Muffled shouts came from the hallway. Cruz followed them to a bedroom where Evan beat his roommate with a pillow.
“Get up. One of the cops is looking for you.”
Pressman ripped the pillow from Evan’s grip and threw it back at him. “Why is he looking for me?”
“Because you lied.” Both young men froze, identical expression on their faces—two kids caught with their daddy’s Playboys. “Thank you, Mr. Zayer.” Cruz stepped back to let Evan out the bedroom door. “You want to do this here or the living room.”
Pressman watched his roommate leave him. “Living room. I’m, uh, not wearing anything and I have to take a piss.”
Cruz nodded his permission. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
The kid earned points by coming out in under three minutes. His hair hadn’t been touched but he wore sweatpants and a T-shirt. “What do you want to talk to me about?”
“You told me the story of going down to the laundry room, of meeting P.J., you remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Your story didn’t match Christa Moseby’s. That bothers me.”
Pressman’s brows pushed down. He scratched his disheveled hair. “How could it not match? We were together.”
“My question exactly. Tell it to me again.”