Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  “Debbie,” I swallowed again. “Please show this woman your badge. And please do it very carefully”.

  A finger on the trigger, Debbie worked her free hand rapidly, digging at her belt, and bringing the badge up in the air. The old woman squinted and took a step forward, the empty eye socket changing shape and pinching shut as she leaned over her toes. “Oh,” she muttered and lowered the shotgun at once. Debbie knocked it out of her hands, a wild look jumping in her eyes, and went for the woman, going all primitive, wind-milling her fists to get at her. I stepped in with a body block, and grabbed Debbie by the collar with both hands. “Hey,” I gave her a hard shake. “Knock it off. Everything’s okay.” She twisted against me breathing hard, the wild animal still caught somewhere inside, trying to jerk free of my grasp, the adrenaline still kicking. I pulled her closer, gritting my teeth, not blinking. “Reel it in detective. Right now.” And I didn’t blink until she keeled over, grabbed her knees and was left gasping for air.

  I turned to Eddie’s mother and realized my own body was vibrating. “Ma’am, we need to come in and talk, it’s about your son.”

  Her shoulders dropped, and she turned, motioning us in. We took a seat at a modest table, vinyl placemats resting in front of four chairs. She slid a beanbag ashtray in front of her elbows, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, hands shaking, blowing blue smoke to the side. “He been locked up again?”

  Debbie didn’t say a word. She was traumatized, exhausted and almost absent, staring blankly at the wall where a poster in a cracked frame hung with a rainbow that said Praise Jesus. “No Mrs. Braywood.” I hesitated for the words. “He hasn’t been arrested for anything. We…well, he had a real problem tonight.”

  Eddie’s mother got to shaking, the spare eye socket quivering as she set upon the trembling effort to bring the cigarette to her mouth for a puff. “I knowed what y’all was here for when you come up those steps.” She pointed toward the front. “I was already up, waiting.”

  Debbie raised her voice. “If you knew it was us coming then why’d you pull a gun on us for Chrissake?”

  “Debbie,” I gave her a scowl. “Please.” She froze, then slumped into a blank stare again. Praise rainbow Jesus.

  “Go on,” I nodded at the old woman.

  “I didn’t know it was y’all, but I knew it was in regards Eddie.” Her good eye welled with tears. “I thought if I could chase y’all away, that maybe it weren’t true.” She leaned forward, hand trembling over an ashtray, the cigarette smoke going choppy. “So say it now. Say what you got to say.”

  “We found Eddie in a nearby apartment.” I said it calmly, voice neutral, no emotion. “Eddie has been shot to death. We found him in the kitchen where he was living.”

  The old woman’s shoulders sank and she wailed at the ceiling, like an old one-eyed wolf crying at the moon, the cigarette letting loose, rolling across the table in a trail of smoke and hitting the tile floor. She cried into her wrist. “It’s a goddamned curse,” she wept, her body convulsing with sobs. “That was my last boy.”

  Debbie snuffed the smoke out with her boot, and I caught her eye, giving a head tilt toward Mrs. Braywood, like go on. She stirred in her seat, worked her jaw at me, then finally pulled out a pencil and a pocket notebook and leaned into the crying woman. “Mrs. Braywood, were you two close?”

  The old woman shook her head yes a few times, then changed it no, and cried harder. After a moment or two she caught her breath, swiping at the tears, and answered. “He’d stop once every few Mother’s Days.”

  “Okay,” Debbie nodded, scribbling it into the pad.

  “You say he got shot?” The old woman whispered, the eye socket giving up some slack as she went limp.

  Debbie stopped writing. “Yes Mrs. Braywood. In his kitchen.”

  “Like Ricky Stopher a couple days back?”

  Debbie and I exchanged glances. “Yes, shot like Ricky. Different weapon, different circumstances, but yes. Eddie and Ricky were friends?”

  She nodded. “Since they was little.” She paused, and stared down into the table. “You all knowed who done it?”

  “We can only speculate.” Debbie scribbled. “But we have no proof. That’s why we’re hoping you can help us.”

  “I told him to stop keeping company with those boys,” soft sobs resurfacing. “That they’d chosen the devil’s ways. Ricky and Tadpole was nothing but trouble more recent.”

  “Tadpole?” Debbie’s eyebrows jumped.

  “Yeah,” she frowned. “I warned Eddie that Tadpole was changin’, really taking on the darkness. But the hard-head wouldn’t hear nothin’ of it.”

  “Mrs. Braywood,” I leaned forward, almost whispering. “Why would someone want to murder your son?”

  She sat silently, waited, and finally shrugged. “Why people kill each other?”

  “Mama,” a voice broke in the front room. “Mama, you okay in there?”

  On edge, Debbie darted her arm under the table, but I shook my head no and she stopped. “That’s my daughter Connie,” the woman reached for her cigarettes but drew her hand back. “Connie is Eddie’s half-sister.”

  The woman came lugging in, clopping each foot down, pushing against the extraordinary weight of massive obesity, panting for breath. She put her things down and fell into the spare seat at the table, eyes watery. The mother and daughter clasped hands, and Mrs. Braywood went to pieces again. “Connie, these are the police.” Then she gave off a low, soft moan. “Eddie’s dead.”

  But Connie was less moved, coming off more perturbed than devastated. “Mama, I already seen it,” she waved her hand at the air, the flesh on her cheeks and arms wobbling. “On the way over from my shift. I seen it all. The police out front, and that boy reporter from Channel 7. Honestly mama, part of me feels relieved.”

  “Oh don’t say that,” Bonnie Braywood cried, breaking into tears again.

  “Relieved?” Debbie scratched at the pad, ear’s perked. “Why’s that?”

  “Who are you?”

  Debbie stood and announced herself, and put out her hand but Connie only grunted and looked away. Debbie sat back down, jaws going ruddy-red, but managed to keep her tone flat and even. “So why exactly are you relieved your brother’s dead again?”

  “Eddie was no good,” Connie coughed. She spun her finger in the air, the arm flesh wobbling. “He come around every couple years shaking us down for money.

  “Connie,” the old woman begged gently. “Enough.”

  “No Mama,” she glared at her mother. “These people got to know.” Then tossing her head at Debbie. “Three years ago, he tried that shit one more time, showin’ his face, sniffin’ for money, so I dragged him out front by his ear. I told him never to come back.”

  “Did he?” Debbie said, eyes starting to glaze over, tired of this place and of these people, but hanging on.

  “What?”

  “Did your brother ever come back after your last run-in with him Connie?”

  “Nope,” Connie twitched her head with pride, like she’d scored a point. “He never did.”

  “Connie,” Debbie began slowly this time. “Do you have any information you can share, any information at all, that might help us catch his killer?”

  Connie tapped her fingers on the table, thinking hard, her face taking on total concentration. “Honestly,” she shifted in her seat, the chair legs straining and flexing to hold the weight. “When it come to killin’ Eddie. It could be anyone. Or everyone. He had enemies stretching back to grade school. Who didn’t want to kill Eddie?”

  The mother began wailing again, the empty eye pinching with light spasms.

  “No idea then?” Debbie tried again, the frustration growing on her face.

  “None at all,” Connie shrugged.

  Debbie circled again. “Can you think of any reason Tadpole would want to kill your brother or Ricky
Stopher?”

  “Those three were tight.” She shook her head. “ I just can’t see that. Unless somebody stole something from the other. Or money was owed.”

  “Money?” Debbie tilted her head. “Really? They’d kill over money?”

  “Sure- they was all broke,” she nodded. “They argued over money time to time. Give each other stitches and stuff. But this was back in the day. Like I said, we didn’t keep up with none of them no more.”

  We were tapped out. There was nothing Fast Eddie had here beyond broken relationships. I slapped the table and stood to my feet. “Ladies, before we leave,” I brought out my phone. “I’d like to show you a photo. Here. Do you guys recognize anyone?” The mother nodded no, and fell back into quiet sobs. But Connie brightened a bit, nodding yes.

  “Pressing her finger into the screen, swiping it open, pinching it shut, zooming in and out. “Let’s see, that there’s Eddie, there’s Ricky, that’s Tadpole. And that there’s Dr. Carlina Malhotra, a gynecologist.”

  I stiffened in my shoes and Debbie shot me a look like oh shit. “Go on.” I said.

  “She’s married to some plastic surgeon, who works on all the fancy ladies in town.”

  “What about this silver-haired man here,” I pointed. “With the sharp eyes?”

  She looked at me and laughed. “Mister, everybody knows who that is,” she laughed. “That’s Charles Greymore. He owns Story Mount. This whole place is his backyard. Richest fella’ around. He throws big, private parties out on his estate.”

  “Why would he be in this photo?” I asked, thinking of the deep pockets required to pull off the professional clean-out job at the Harmony trailer.

  “Don’t know,” she leaned forward, lit a cigarette and handed it to her mother who nodded affectionately.

  “Any idea why either of these two would be in the photo with the boys?”

  “Nope.” Connie gave an exaggerated yawn, stretching her arms sideways, like time for us to go.

  “I think that will be all,” I said tucking the phone away. “If you hear anything, here’s my card. We’re sorry for your loss Mrs. Braywood, Connie. You have our condolences.”

  Out front in the truck, I asked my assistant detective point-blank. “So now what?”

  Debbie tilted her head at me, thinking. “The people in the photo? Greymore and Dr. Carlina Malhotra?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I smell rats,” she started the truck. “We need everything we can find on them. Tax returns, business interests, vehicles they drive, anything that might explain any connection they have with our white-trash trio.”

  “What else?”

  “We have to find Tadpole. If he’s our killer, what’s his motive? What was he searching for at Fast Eddie’s place? And why everyone is dropping dead around him?”

  “Debbie,” I said, “look at me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You did really well in there,” I nodded. “You hung tough and you came back from the brink. You’re getting it. Just stay level-headed.”

  “Thanks,” she put the truck into gear.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Boss?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  20

  Damn, Girl

  One minute I was ordering lunch at the daffodil Tea Room, Scott hurrying to get my order, and oh yes, the bathroom stall, a needle in my arm. Now I was entering a world of pain, body rigid and freezing. I opened my eyes staring at a waterline. Home. In my bathtub. Alone. Lights out. The room taking on darker shadows. How did I get here? Chilled to the bone, shivering in champagne-pink water. The center of my neck stung. The same sensation when mother burned me with cigarettes. A deep itch, and a hard scratch with my sharp fingernail, instant pain flared at my throat. A warm rivulet of blood trickled down and plopped into the water, dispersing like an ink plume. The pink water making more sense now. Muscles trembling rubberband-tight against the cold, I twisted over the lip of the porcelain basin, and flopped onto the floor. Pain leaped inside my skull. I crawled on all fours, pulled a dry towel off the rack, the weight of it soft-thumping my head. Was Svidi here? I scanned the bathroom and my heart jumped. A needle and rubber tourniquet rested on the tile adjacent to the commode. Now I remembered shooting up. I’d injected too much. The hit slapped the shit out of me. A real orgasm ripping the brain. Grasping the drawer handles, I climbed them like the rungs of a ladder to my feet, and peered into the mirror. Who are you? A drop of blood bloomed at my throat, and I pushed my finger against it, fumbling into the drawer for a bandage. I washed and dressed the puncture, finishing it off with a circular band-aid the size of a dime. Beneath the skylight in the walk-in closet, I pulled on a tight black dress, slipped on some high-heels and my diamond tennis bracelet. My mind swerved to the chains locked on the clinic doors. I pushed it away. Back in the mirror I tussled my hair, letting my longer bangs fall over the edges of my face, a lipstick kiss and yes. Sexy. I checked my phone. Greymore would be there by now, waiting. Now it was time to get fucked up all over again.

  Downstairs on the way out, I strolled through the kitchen island and froze. A butcher knife rested on the countertop, the tip covered in blood. I touched my neck. My heart jumped. I grabbed the blade and studied it closely. Did you do this to yourself? There had always been a part of me, that unreachable all-alone part, that wanted to die. But kill myself in a drug stupor? There’s just no way. I loved getting stoned too much. I rinsed the knife off and dismissed the whole incident as some pathetic plea for attention. I double-checked my purse for my injection kit, felt a wave of fear, and pushed it away. You can control this.

  At Chumley’s, I pulled around back to the covered parking area in the alley where I caught the valet checking out my ass as I walked off. He frowned. I smiled. Then he smiled. Inside, the air gave off the sweet aroma of expensive cigars and high-end brandy, light jazz played in the background and I slid up to the far-end bar. In the vast mirror behind the bar, I caught the reflection of the bitch wives of the locally rich and famous sitting in a throng together in a large circular booth. Cynthia Greymore, Meredith Addington, Adrianna Silk, Pretty Olmstead and Sherry Whitten brought their hands together to serve what looked to be the third or fourth bottle of champagne. The women were adorned with extravagant jewelry, exchanging surgical smiles, flashing huge breasts, covered in rare perfumes, and laughing, always laughing. Life was just grand. All the facelifts, pulled eyes, collagen injections, liposuction and chin-tucks, the fake beauty made me money. They were each top-paying clients of my husband. I clenched my jaw. I still couldn’t believe Svidi had locked the bank accounts. Forcing me here with Greymore and the boys. To do whatever they had planned for me tonight. From my vantage point on the stool, I could see each of those bitches perfectly. But they didn’t notice me. And they didn’t know I could hear every word.

  “Oh she is such a lush,” Cynthia Greymore whispered. All the women fell in on cue, laughing, nodding heads at each other. “The crazy part is? We don’t really know who the hell she is. We’ve all heard the rumors. Genuine trailer trash. A whore born to a whore.”

  “Well it’s pathetic, marrying a foreigner,” Adrianna Silk said, tipping back some champagne.

  “He is such a pervert,” Meredith Addington jumped in. “When you hug him he won’t let go.”

  “You hug him?” Cynthia cackled. “Ewwww!”

  “Yes,” Meredith said. “Yeah and he feels sticky to the touch, like a garden slug.”

  “He kissed the top of my head once,” Sherry Whitten chimed in.

  Adrianna stuck out her tongue with revulsion. “Disgusting.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Sherry Whitten shrugged. “She’s just trailer-trash from Kensington Holler. That place is a left-over coal miner’s camp. Sure she married some greaseball from India. I mean, what other choice did she have? No real
man would have her.”

  The ladies fell into more laughter, toasting champagne, Cynthia purring, until her eyes flicked up to find me standing over her. She coughed into her glass and muttered, “Oh shit.” The silence was sudden and pressed in from all sides. Cynthia’s eyes were unblinking and cold. The air between us contracted. I took a moment to gaze around the table. They all gawked at me, no one making a move, not even daring to swallow. The gravity in the room seemed to plunge, as if the entire table had driven off a cliff and we all found ourselves in freefall.

  “I’m so sorry Carlina,” Meredith Addington suddenly blurted out, writhing in her seat in some kind of pain. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m really so sorry.”

  “Stop Meredith,” Cynthia Greymore held up her index finger, her eyes turning into flat-black buttons like a shark turning in the water. “Just hang. What exactly do we owe her an apology for?” All the women at the table began nodding slowly in agreement and Meredith Addington finally began nodding too.

  “You filthy bitches,” I whispered. Hot tears burned my eyes, and my hands tightened into fists.

  Cynthia Greymore stood up with the champagne glass in her hand, getting into the power of the moment, a real bully stepping forward. “Just maybe we don’t owe you a damn thing. Maybe you are a perverted, nasty, excuse of a woman. Owe you an apology? For what? It’s not our fault you turned out this-”

  Before she could finish, I swatted the champagne glass out of her hand and it shattered against the wall. The table gasped. Cynthia grabbed my arm, digging in with manicured claws. “How dare you?” She hissed. “You stay away from my husband. We all saw the chains on your clinic. You failed. You and your weedy little, perverted husband from India. You don’t belong here Carlina. Your membership just expired. You’re finished.”

  My arm began to bleed and I reacted. I reared my fist and swung hard. Cynthia’s head snapped back and she cried out as blood flowed from her nose. The women shrieked. Meredith Addington bolted from the table. Still tangled together, I worked Cynthia’s face with all my might, hitting, punching and clawing her. The other women dove in, trying to pull us apart. “Charles is my husband you stupid whore!” Cynthia shrieked, face scratched and bloodied, arms swinging. A pair of muscular brown arms reached in quietly between us and yanked us apart like nothing. Cynthia collapsed onto the booth where two wives grabbed her cheeks, murmuring into her face, throwing me looks of pure hate, shielding her from me.