by Dan Taylor
The primary function of the microphone wasn’t to keep me there—at least not initially. I believe it was put there so he could know precisely when she succumbed to the poison he’d tainted her food with. It would’ve been impossible for him to listen in to what she was doing all the time, so he must’ve restricted it to meal times. He knew when she tended to eat dinner, as they’d lived together, shared a life together. Or maybe it’s fitted with a motion detector that activates it when there’s movement in the room.
My phone beeps. I take it out of my pocket. I’ve received a text message from Georgina Bernstein. It reads, “Come to think of it, Hancock, you did mention what dishes you’d order from the Chinese takeout. P.S., send dick pics.”
I put it away, having not replied to her. So there’s the last piece of the puzzle.
Detective Lucy, having heard me come here after Tracy’s death, sensed a second opportunity to frame someone for her murder. Why have one fall guy when you can have two? Or, sensing my causing problems for the investigation, he had to come and deal with me. He phoned the Chinese takeout, and used recordings of my voice to make the order. Keeping me here.
The mud cake’s a curiosity, as is Eric knowing Detective Lucy was the culprit.
Purely out of interest, as it doesn’t mean a damn thing, I go to the kitchen and ask him about it. With a shrug, he says, “Call it a hunch. I knew straightaway when you came to my door that something had happened to Tracy. I told you she’d left to gauge your reaction, and confirmed what I suspected. Tracy was in there, dead. In the true crime shows I watch, nine times out of ten it’s the husband who’s done it. When he came knocking not too long after you, asking the same shit you asked, I put two and two together. I baked that cake last week. I was going to eat it tomorrow night, right after I’d finished watching my favorite series of Stargate. The guilt had gotten too much.” What he says next he says with great sadness: “I guess I had Aunt Tracy pegged as someone who wouldn’t live a long life.”
All that’s left is to phone the cops, but I need to do one thing first. I go up to the attic, look through Eric’s collection, and find the one I’m looking for.
I’ve also worked out what the car key collection is, or at least I’m pretty sure I have, and I have a use for them. I take those, too. I also collect the listening device Detective Lucy placed in the kitchen.
I go back down the ladder, go downstairs, and then put the VHS cassette, listening device, and car keys in the trunk of my car, hiding them underneath the spare tire.
With that done, I go back into the house.
I try to imagine it through the eyes of the detective who’ll take a look at the crime scene.
I also think about what I’m going to tell them my involvement is in this mess.
I figured I’d feel like a hero at the end of this shit, but I feel a long way from that, and if the rest of the night goes to plan I’ll feel even less of a hero.
To polish the crime scene up to fit my narrative, I go into the bathroom, and find the knife I’d held when I first came back to Tracy’s lying next to her sink. I pick it up, wipe off my prints, and then, gripping it with my shirt cuff over my fingers, take it back to the kitchen and place it back in the drawer.
Eric watches me while I do it, and says, “I guess you’re going to phone the police now.”
“Was thinking about it.” I smile. “It’s getting late.”
With worry in his eyes, he asks, “What are you going to tell them?”
“I was wondering about that, too.”
53.
“The body’s in the bathroom,” I say to the police officer after he’s wiped his feet on the welcome mat. When I phoned, I told the dispatcher she could go ahead and send a couple homicide detectives. But it looks like she ignored my instructions, maybe figuring I was a nut, as the guy who’s arrived looks like a rookie.
He has his gun drawn, and is walking through the living room with careful steps, like he’s conscious of I.E.D.s installed under the carpet. He stops when he gets to the bathroom door, which I left ajar for him, and he looks down at the tiled floor inside. Without looking back at me, he says, “Is this the bathroom?”
“That’s the one.”
He goes inside and I follow, watching the scene play out. He sees the body, and says, almost inaudibly, “Jesus,” and then gets straight on the radio. Asks for those homicide detectives they should’ve sent in the first place.
When he’s finished, he ushers me into the living room and asks where the perpetrator is. He whispers it, like he’s telling me a secret, and I tell him he’s in the kitchen, and he’s sitting tied up next to another guy, who’s also tied up. I also tell him I’m a private detective, foreshadowing for the story of my involvement.
We go to the living room. He nods at Detective Lucy, and asks, “Is this the perpetrator?”
“No. It’s the other guy. The heavier one.”
He looks at them a couple seconds, no expression on his face. Then he says, “Who’s this other guy?”
“That would be Detective Lucy, of the LAPD. He’s also the victim’s husband.”
“Why’s he tied up?”
“He wanted to kill the other one, on account of him having killed his wife. As far as I know, they’re separated, but he took it personally nonetheless. He shot the perpetrator, and that’s where I came in.”
The cop sighs, his gun now holstered, his hands on his hips, and says, “I should probably cuff them.”
“I think that would be a good idea.”
Someone had to get arrested for Tracy’s murder tonight. In a perfect world, that would be Detective Lucy, the guy who did it. The way I figure it, only in a fairytale land would the LAPD put their own away for this crime, based on the evidence that will be available to them. And if they didn’t put their own away, it’s either me or Eric who would take the rap. Between some piece of shit who filmed his own aunt going to the bathroom and some piece of shit, yours truly, who slept at her house one night despite being married, the choice was a simple one. But then again, that’s easy coming from me, seeing as though I’m one of the pieces of shit.
Call it selfishness, definitely call it unethical, but there’s no way my wife deserves to be a single parent because of the mess these two fuck-heads have created.
My heart bleeds for Eric. And not in that cynical way people usually use that phrase. I feel bad for the guy. All he ever wanted was a family beyond the insular one his mom had created for him. And in a sick way, all he wanted was romance in his life; he was just never given the tools to get it without being a twisted fuck.
Now he’s going to spend his life in prison. I guess in some messed-up way I’ve saved his life.
Hear me out.
The guy would’ve killed himself anyway, if he had the balls to do it. If I hadn’t come along, he would’ve been found with mud cake around his mouth, the same expression Buddy the cat has on hers, which reminds me.
The real victims in all this are said cat and Tracy. Jesus, Tracy. Lied-to, shat-upon, perved-on Tracy.
But I have a plan to try and get some vengeance for her, though I can’t get complete justice.
The officer interrupts my thinking by saying, “What the hell type of knot have you tied these guys up with?”
54.
I’m in an interview room at Hollywood Community Police Station, waiting for Georgina Steinberger to arrive. It’s too late for coffee, or too early, so when asked, I told the detective who’s handling the case—a one Detective Polskich—I’d go for a bottle of water.
The sparkly kind.
Thirty minutes after phoning her, she arrives, being followed in by Detective Polskich. She’s showered and looks presentable, but she’s also got the glassy eyes of a lady who’s been hitting the wine all night. And the mood, too: Before Detective Polskich even has a chance to leave the room, she shoots him a look like he forgot to clean the toilet bowl with a brush after having gone two, and says, “You know the drill, Detective. Get
out and give me ten minutes with my client.”
He shows her his palms and backs out, a little smirk on his face, before closing the door after himself.
Georgina takes the seat next to mine, puts down her briefcase, and then looks at me. “Tell me one thing, Hancock: You didn’t kill that poor young lady.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Good. Now tell me the story of how you came to find her.”
I do, giving her the version of events I gave the detective. Tracy was a client of mine, and she requested we meet up, to discuss her investigation. When I got there, Eric Holloway was standing there with the smoking gun, so to speak, and I arrested him. Just visiting, Detective Lucy showed up not too long afterwards, and went apeshit. Shot the guy. I apprehended the both of them, and then I called it in.
I tell her I admitted to Polskich that I lied to another detective earlier in the evening, that I denied knowing her, as I didn’t want to disclose our professional relationship, as he was a family member.
My reason? I wanted to be discreet, like my ad says.
Georgina nods a few times, and says, “How long did it take you to ‘call it in,’ Hancock?”
I sigh. “It’s a problem, isn’t it?”
“It’s a huge gaping hole in the timeline, is what it is. Tell me, how many times did you fuck her?”
I think a second. “Either half a time, or none.”
She raises a questioning eyebrow.
So I say, “I don’t remember anything of it, so by that logic, Tracy and I didn’t go all the way to the circus and back.”
“Then that’s what we’ll tell Polskich.”
“As my attorney, are you telling me we have to be completely transparent about what happened tonight?”
“Absolutely not. We’re just going to gain at least some credibility by peeling back the curtain a little.”
After a second’s pause, I say, “I can’t do it. I have a wife and kid at home.”
“Relax, we’ll threaten them with a defamation-of-character lawsuit if any of the details of this interview make it into the morning papers. Captain Horse balks at using taxpayers’ money to pay his men overtime, let alone paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars just so he could snitch on a P.I. to his wife. As much as he’d like to do it, our lawsuit, which we’d never file in a million years anyway, will ensure you won’t have to pay a hundred dollars a bowl for Froot Loops for your kid.”
“How will my saying we had a sexual relationship explain away the hours in between making a citizen’s arrest and phoning the cops?”
She thinks a second. “You were beside yourself over her death, and you were thinking about dishing out vigilante justice before you came to your senses and called in the pros.”
Half to myself, I say, “This is really going to damage my reputation with the LAPD.”
“You’re a P.I., Hancock. You don’t have a relationship with the LAPD. As far as they’re concerned, you’re the nail fungus on the big toe of this great city.” She pauses. Then says, “What about the other guy? What’s he going to tell Polskich? Do we need to worry?”
I think about that a second. If Detective Lucy’s willing to take the rap for shooting Eric so he can corroborate my story, which gets him off the hook. “I think we’re golden.”
“We’re only golden when Eric Holloway’s convicted. Maybe not even then, as there’ll be a lengthy appeals process, during which appellate lawyers will almost certainly look into your involvement. And during that process you’re going to need me. To file motions to suppress certain bits of information being leaked.” She squeezes my knee, and says, “And other things.”
I remove her hand, and say, “So we’re talking years before I can sleep well at night?”
She shrugs. “It’s the price you have to pay for being unfaithful to your wife. I’d say you’ve gotten off lightly.”
I look at Georgina Steinberger a couple seconds, taking in her appearance, imagining the astronomical bills she’ll be sending me, and the text messages I’ll receive that’ll make me throw up in my mouth a little bit. And then I come to a decision.
I say, “Okay, I’ll reveal my sexual relationship with the victim to the detective, but this shit… This stops here. After tonight, I’m getting a new attorney.”
Georgina Steinberger straightens her back and pushes back her shoulders, and says, “Have it your way, Hancock.”
55.
How long does the interview take, during which I tell the same story I told Georgina that took only a couple minutes? Three and a half hours. I tell that thing fifty times, and each time Detective Polskich has a look on his face like he doesn’t believe me, or that he’s really bad at following stories. He says things like, “Explain it to me like I’m stupid, Hancock. Like I need a relative to wipe spittle off my chin with a paper napkin,” which is precisely the way I tried to explain it to him in the first place.
Of course, my story has to be a little bit different than the one I’d planned, as mid-interview, I realize that I have to explain away the tainted mud cake to Detective Polskich, as the poison the coroner will find in Tracy’s stomach upon autopsying her will likely be different to that found in the cake. I explain it away by saying maybe Eric thought Tracy would want dessert.
Okay, so I’m a little bit cranky and tired at this point.
Despite my flippancy, Georgina Steinberger assures me I did a decent job in the interview room, and I get the impression from Detective Polskich that Detective Lucy’s telling the same story I am. It’s a huge surprise he’d save his own skin and at the same time put away the pervert who’d filmed his ex-wife going potty.
Even though our professional relationship was to all intents and purposes over during the interview, Georgina’s true to her word about threatening them with a defamation-of-character lawsuit if they decided to make some cash from tomorrow’s headlines. And she makes it sound good, like it’d stick.
Upon leaving the police station, Georgina and I shake hands and go our separate ways. Call me old-fashioned, call me a social justice warrior, but I don’t think it’s cool that my attorney asks me now and again to photograph my genitalia and send it to her. Staying on the right side of the law in this business is messy enough as it is.
It’s a little before two o’clock when I’m hailing a cab to take me to the LAPD impound lot, where I’ll inform the night watchman I left my wallet in the trunk of my rental, underneath the spare tire.
Before we get there, I phone ahead, contacting my old friend Detective Dukes, to get him to square it with the jumped-up prick I’m likely to encounter at the lot. I tell him I don’t have time to go into the details, but that it’s definitely important. My marriage could depend on it. With a sigh he tells me he’ll see what he can do.
I manage to get the video tape from the trunk of my rental, along with the car keys. I flash my wallet to the security guy as I leave, who turned out to be quite amiable and attentive to my needs. Maybe I should stop being so judgmental.
You can probably count on one hand the number of people in L.A. who own equipment to play VHS cassettes, and one of those is in lockup at the police station. Luckily for me, I’m acquainted with one of the other four people: My old boss, Andre, the head honcho of rival private investigation firm The Agency, who’s rumored to have never repurchased his collection of Monty Python movies in modern formats. He owes me a favor or two. So instead of taking the cab straight to my place, I inform the taxi driver of his address. Andre’s less than pleased to see me turn up at his door before dawn, but he agrees to be a good sport and let me watch the tape I’ve brought with me.
The tape in question is the one titled “Jerk Falls Asleep as Tracy Looks Bored,” and after reading the title on Eric’s side of the attic, I experienced a glimmer of hope that jerk was me.
After we’ve watched in fast forward a video tape of me sleeping by who would the next week fall victim to murder, Andre turns to me and asks, “What on God’s green earth have
we watched, Mr. Hancock?”
I smile. “We’ve just watched my conscience, Andre. And it’s squeaky clean.”
56.
The cab drive home is a long one. Despite the revelation that I didn’t have sex with Tracy, or even cuddle her in the night, my conscience is still weighing heavily on me. Even if it weren’t, I knew after speaking to Georgina in the interview that I had to come clean.
I look down at the ring on my finger during the cab drive, barely able to pull my gaze away from it as I twist it on my finger. This whole experience has made the plot of Lord of the Rings way more relatable.
A sad song comes on the radio, and instead of asking the driver to switch radio stations, I ask him to turn it up. The song’s Dolly Parton’s slit-your-wrist ballad that was later covered by didn’t-age-well pop singer Whitney Houston. Right now it’s the saddest song I’ve ever heard.
Before Dolly’s even started wailing the first chorus, tears stream down my eyes. The cab driver, a Lithuanian-looking first-generation-immigrant fifty-something, asks me, “What’s wrong, buddy, there are no onions being chopped in my cab!” in an accent that could mature Philadelphia cheese.
We pull up to the curb and I pay the guy. When I go inside, Grace is breastfeeding Ellie, and she shushes me when I try to greet them in a voice barely over a whisper.
I’m not sure if she’s pissed I was out all night. Hell, since we’ve had a kid, I’m not sure when she’s pissed.
I go to the living room and wait for her there. She comes in ten minutes later, and communicates to me in a whisper that A) she’s just put Ellie down, and B) she needs to phone the police back, as she phoned and told them I was missing.
She does that, comes back, and takes the seat next to mine. She must know something’s up, as she makes sure to not make bodily contact with me. How many times can the same man get stuck in a traffic jam severe enough to keep him away all night?