Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  I gassed the Taurus over rolling hills of pastureland, the fields dotted with slow-chewing cows, where a horizon full of Bluegrass ran sideways in the hot wind. By the time we pushed into the door of Erma’s Kitchen Buffet, Debbie’s appetite had rebounded and a pitcher of iced sweet tea arrived with a plate of flakey golden-fried chicken speckled with cracked-black pepper, mashed potatoes lathered in brown gravy, pressure-cooked turnip greens and a loaf of skillet-fried cornbread drizzled in butter. Debbie devoured it. My concern for the newest case found me nibbling on a biscuit. When we finished, Debbie wiped her lips with a greasy paper napkin, her eyes softening. “How you doing Shade?”

  “The chicken looks good, I’m just not hungry.”

  “I’m not talking about lunch,” she hesitated, thinking how to put it. “We’ve never really talked about…you.”

  “Ah,” I said and slid low into the vinyl booth. “Me.”

  Debbie looked on with intense interest but also mild concern, maybe not so much for what I would say, but rather, what I might leave out. My initial reaction to the world asking me for answers to questions was always no. I’m the detective. I’m the one who asks the fucking questions. Yet in sobriety, my therapist Kathleen explained the reflex of ‘no’ was an outdated defense mechanism- apparently stretching all the way back to my fucked-up childhood. And ‘no’ led to isolation. Which led back to drinking. Which would invariably lead to misery, morbidity and death. Debbie shifted in her seat, going stiff, waiting for the rejection. All she’d done since I’d moved down here is embrace me like a brother. Now her outsider was reaching in for mine. What Kathleen said. If love is the answer, then what is the question? I took a deep breath and nodded like okay, you’re worth it to me. I’ll do this. “When you ask how I’m doing,” I pulled the straw out of my drink and tied it in a knot.. “Are you asking about my circumstances?”

  She sat up a little, her discouragement fading off. “Sure, why not?”

  “Things like my wife dying, and me moving here to raise the kids?” I gave her a faint grin. “And taking a job with Chief Wadsworth?”

  “Yeah,” her voice faltered. “I guess. I mean no, not if you don’t want to share.”

  I wondered if my smile masked my panic inside. But this was Debbie. The woman was my friend. She was worth the risk to me. So I stepped forward into my own fear. “When Emily was killed,” I tore my paper napkin into long strands thoughtfully. “It was like life was still there, but along the way I’d tripped and stumbled out of it. I was a stranger lurking outside of myself. I searched so hard to find a way to climb back in. But there was no opening. So, I just sort of, vanished.” I looked up and our eyes met.

  “Vanished?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded a light smile, like it didn’t hurt. “Into thin air. Shade is here but now’s he’s gone.”

  Debbie sat engrossed, her black eyes catching a sunbeam that found a golden ring around each pupil. I felt like I was seeing her for the first time. “So you were humming along,” she lifted her hands. “A career Chicago detective and everything around you just…blew up?”

  Sipping my tea, I choked.. “That’s one way of putting it.” I coughed, thinking it over and changed my mind. “No. That’s the only way of putting it. That’s exactly what happened. Everything blew up”

  “What do you mean, a stranger lurking outside yourself?” she shifted, the vinyl seat popping against her thighs.

  “I just became a sudden alien in my own world,” I gathered the straw and tied it into a second knot. “Not very specific huh? Emily used to accuse me of talking in code.”

  Debbie shifted again, a light grin coming on. “Keep going.”

  “Alright,” I took a quick breath, trying again. “When Emily died, truth peeled away from the fiction. For instance, I realized during her funeral that our friends were not our friends. They were hers. Sure, I showed up at all the social gatherings all those years, smiling, nodding, drinking, posing for pictures, but I never really knew anyone. During parties, I’d go down to the basement and make calls on current investigations.”

  “Ah,” Debbie said rocking her head.

  “See,” I drummed my fingers on the table. “It wasn’t just our social life. See, while I flew around the country investigating exotic crimes, Emily was the anchor that grounded us to everything real. School plays, volunteering, holidays at church, cooking, errands, birthdays, cards, gifts, family functions, making the kids school lunches. She did everything. It wasn’t until after she died that I realized it. She’d shouldered all the family responsibilities by herself. When she was gone, I realized I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know how. A single parent with two young kids? Alone. Incapable.”

  “Was anyone around to help?”

  I shook my head no. “No one stepped in to save us.” My eyebrows lifted thinking of her. “I did reach out to an old friend, a former colleague with whom I shared a real connection. She said she was unhappily married. But me, the widower with two kids, I couldn’t even compete with her bad marriage. So she walked away, waved her arm without looking back. So long. That’s all folks. And then the entire fucking world turned away. I was discarded from life.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried to kill myself,” I burst out laughing and slapped the table. “A few times.” But Debbie didn’t laugh. She just stared at me, eyes full of concern. Her silence made me second-guess my amusement toward my own demise. Maybe my laughter was an expression of something entirely else. Maybe it just hurt really, really bad. Maybe I had no one to share this with. And so I laughed, and mocked myself. No, I would never drink again. But maybe when the kids were old enough, I could finish this job of dying.

  “Boss?” Debbie snapped her fingers.

  I came back, exasperation climbing all over me now but keeping my voice low. “Debbie, what if we are all just ghosts anyway?”

  Debbie’s eyes went wide.

  “So the booze,” I changed the subject. “It made the loneliness bearable. For a little while anyway. But get this. One day the shit just stopped working. It became some sort of poison, as if all the pain and fear I’d been tucking away suddenly doubled up on me every time I took a sip. The problem compounded itself when I discovered I couldn’t stop. I lost all control. Then I got help. And then I left Chicago forever. That town held nothing for me but the dead past. No one thought I would actually leave. Then one day they woke up, and I was gone. Erased.”

  Debbie reached forward and grabbed my forearm, like I might slip from the table and plummet into the abyss below. “What now?”

  “Now?” I came back with easy smiles. “It’s all about Lilly and Brant. And sobriety. Life is good enough for now. Okay?” Outside of those two, I would always be alone. At least that’s the only way I could think about the future. I didn’t have enough room for anything else. Emily’s death. These kids. I was all used up. “Your turn.”

  She brought her fingers to her chest, and drummed them, a little surprise lifting in her eyes. “Me?”

  “Please,” I nodded. “Share.”

  Her eyes searched mine, like she was pushing something out of the way to come near, like her heart might be making a path for the soul. She took a huge breath.

  “This is all between us?”

  “Yes.”

  “You swear to God?”

  “Yes.”

  “I grew up between the cracks boss,” Debbie exhaled hard. “There ain’t too much girly about me. My parents tried to put me in a dress. It never worked. Dad just treated me like one of the boys. My mother was uncomfortable though. Real disappointed. Like I’d been born with something wrong with me.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  She nodded yes. “The kids at school,” she clenched her jaw and let off. “All the fat jokes you know. I mean, at least you had an idea who you were in the beginning. Me? My boat was sunk from the start. I neve
r could find my place. Growing up a tidy town where everyone is into each other’s shit and you look like me? You don’t fit in…it made me rootless.”

  “Rootless,” I echoed. “You have your feet now?”

  “Yeah,” she smiled. “But I had to build my own place in the world. Hammer it out myself. That’s why I got my horses. They’re my real family.”

  “You have horses?”

  “Yep,” she grinned. “And not one of them has ever judged me. And this job? I have that. My sense of justice, you know, to help others.” Then she paused, twiddling her thumbs, going bashful. “And now I have you, boss.”

  I paused, letting that part sink in. “Debbie, I’m grateful for you.” Then I leaned in. “And I need you to be you. Your authentic self. Your strengths. Your weaknesses. I need all of it. In fact, to be selfish for you, I demand it.”

  Face puzzled, trying to take on the abstractions. “Why?”

  “Because without the true you present, you’ll never be a successful detective.”

  My phone buzzed on my belt. Wadsworth spoke with tension in his voice. He said to get our asses to the precinct right away. That William Silk had identified his wife’s body in the morgue downstairs the night before in the Pathology department and that he was back. That his second visit wasn’t going well at all. To be precise, he’d gone apeshit

  We sped over and stepped through the elevator doors within minutes. Wadsworth spotted us through the interior glass window of his office and jabbed his finger toward the conference room. We skipped over and Officer Tawny Miller met us just outside the door, pale beneath a mop of auburn curls and her top lip naturally short, always giving her the look of a perpetual slight smile. But she wasn’t smiling now, giving us the head nudge at the door. “He’s in there,” she stepped back like you can go in but I’m not, then added. “His personal physician doctor left. Gave him a couple of pills, begged him to go home, but the guy refused. He insisted on talking with you guys.”

  I looked at Debbie. She took a deep breath, stepped forward and swung the door open. Entering, a man with male pattern baldness lay slumped over the table with his head cradled in his arms, the way a drunk might pass out on a bar. When the door smacked shut his eyes popped open, bloodshot and not so human, looking like something wild that might bolt from the desk and run right through the wall. He seemed to recognize where he was and with it came a new but tattered calm. Lifting his head slowly like it might be the greatest weight in the world, he wiped drool from his face with his sleeve, staring at us in a pharmacological haze. He was medium build, thick in the limbs, maybe in his late-forties, perhaps looking younger thanks to his dark complexion. One look at my face and he began wailing in complete silence, mouth stretched open, not making a sound. I took the seat beside him, put my hand on his shoulder and simply squeezed. His voice took on broken whispers.

  “Who did this to Adrianna?” His ribcage expanded and heaved, the voice getting louder, the emotion rising. “Why?” He choked. “She’s ripped to shreds. Somebody ripped her to shreds man.” My hand still on his shoulder, I squeezed harder with something approaching a death grip, trying to keep the pain of his dead wife from colliding with the pain of my dead wife. Mr. Silk suddenly rolled forward from his seat, grabbing my blazer by the lapels, his knees sinking to the floor, trying to pull me down with him, liquid oozing from his face as he gave off a long, soft screams. My mind raced. I watched Emily step into truck’s path, her body, all that beauty sucked under the roaring wheels, a mangled bloody monster discharged on the other end. I strained against the man, trying to pull away…trying to escape. “Come on now Bill,” I barked, my heart drumming now. “Let’s get to your feet. Everything’s going to be okay.” In reality, I knew nothing in this man’s life would ever resemble “okay” again. I tried to scrape him off with increasing force, the effort bordering violence, but he only held on tighter.

  “Sir,” I demanded, my hair standing on end. “Stop,” I pleaded, my voice going whiney.

  Debbie saw my desperation and leaped forward, her face filling with alarm as she wedged her arms between us, hacking and elbowing to break Silk’s grasp. But he would not let go. “What fucking bastard did this to my precious wife?” he howled in my face. “Motherfucking motherfucker!” His face became mine, and I watched myself taking that call and collapsing on the municipal boat dock. The room spun around me and I toppled over, a low-tone in my ears grew into a deafening screech. Icy panic seeped into my bloodstream, then blossomed inside my chest. My limbs went floppy and my mind snapped open with brilliant terror. I couldn’t breathe inside the terror. I couldn’t blink inside the terror. All the depth and texture of the world drained away, where I lay impaled on some cold spike of dread. I was dying. The sensation of leaving my body spread through my limbs. My soul unpeeled at the edges as it delaminated from the body. I felt like I was dying. Vanishing. Going. Going. Then nothing.

  Officer Tawny Miller heard the commotion and cracked the door open without stepping in. “Debbie is everything okay in there?”

  “No,” I yelped. “Get in here.”

  Together we tried to pull the victim’s husband off of our detective. Tawny took one look at Shade’s face, white as a sheet, his eyes rolling back in his head, his breathing rapid and uneven, and bolted into the hallway for help. She returned right away with a few other cops and a couple of people from administration, everyone tugging at the men, and finally peeling Bill Silk off Shade, and dragging him off, half out of his mind, blubbering and shouting. Wadsworth was instantly at my side, looking at Shade with mixed horror. “Debbie what the hell happened here?” Before I could answer, he signaled to Tawny. “Call an ambulance right now!”

  I awoke flat on my back. Electronic machines pulsed and beeped all around. I opened my eyes and watched my heartbeat make a jagged wave across a wall-mounted monitor. I was numb. Floating. My head hurt. A nurse came in, stuck a thermometer on my forehead, smiling but not making eye contact. “Welcome back detective.” She jotted some notes with her pen, still not making eye contact.

  “Where am I?”

  “Exodus County Hospital,” she said eyes glued to the monitor, more scribbling. “The ER department.” Still not seeing me, she turned on her heel, calling behind her shoulder as she exited. “The doctor will be right in.”

  I felt my chest, where several leads were stickered to my chest. I shifted, the paper gown I was wearing crinkling, scratchy against my skin. Coming up to my elbows, someone was sitting in the chair across the room, reading a newspaper.

  Chief Wadsworth dropped the paper into his lap, his eyes peering at me above his readers, rising with curiosity. “Do you have any psychiatric conditions we should know about detective?”

  My head fell on the pillow. “I’ve been told I have a panic disorder.” I rolled my head toward the window, then back at Wadsworth. “But I don’t believe it.”

  He flipped the newspaper back into his face, and gave it a hard shake. “Well you should now.”

  I was released shortly afterward and ambled outside onto the hospital sidewalk where Debbie waited by a trashcan. The heat outside warmed my airconditioned skin, and it felt good to be alive. She watched me, grinning as I walked up. We exchanged a light hug.

  She motioned at my hand. “What’s that?”

  I looked at my palm. “Apparently a prescription for anxiety medication.”

  “Boss,” her eyes went a little glassy. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Well, it could happen.” I said. “I read an article once that claimed statistically ten out of ten people die.”

  She thought about it for a second and punched me in the arm.

  “Debbie, our man Bill Silk, did you get a chance to question him?” I rubbed my face, trying to get comfortable in my own flesh again.

  “Yep.”

  “You get anything?”

  “I peppered him questions about pe
ople at his private club. Anyone he might have problems with. Like Greymore, who runs the place. Or the Malhotras- who as you know are also members.” She was head-checking me, making sure I was really back.

  “And?”

  Debbie began to speak, stopped and pondered it for a moment, then spoke up. “It’s weird Shade. When I asked him why anyone might want to do this to his wife, something was off about his reaction.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was so small,” she sighed. “So subtle. Like subconscious almost. But I swear it was there.”

  “It?”

  “He hesitated.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “When I asked why someone might want to hurt his wife, it was almost imperceptible- but he froze for a second. Just for a blink. Like I almost caught him thinking it.”

  “Thinking what?”

  “Whatever he was hiding.” She gave a dry laugh and shook her head, kind of marveling over it. “Just for a moment, I’m telling you, the guy wasn’t fucking right.”

  “Do you figure him for it?” I asked, the pinpoint headache in the back of my skull thankfully fading off to a dull throb. “For the murder of his wife?”

  “Negative,” she quipped. “There’s no motive. All his alibis check out. He has all the money he could ever want. She didn’t even have a life insurance policy. But I tell you boss, William Silk is not giving us the full story. Something’s sitting right there in front of him and he won’t say what it is.”

  “Hang onto that,” I said. “You’re on to something. That photo with Carlina Malhotra, Greymore and the motorcycle trio? This private club called Chumley’s? Svidi Malhotra not knowing where his wife is half the time. All these fuckers are connected somehow. I can feel it in my bones.”