Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2)

by Noel J. Hadley

  “You raise a tantalizing point.” I stared at the ceiling from the top bunk.

  “Hey, you planning to watch David Letterman later tonight?”

  “Actually, I think I had my eyes set on Jay Leno.”

  “Leno? Jesus.”

  “I don’t think Jay Leno’s the Son of God, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No, Letterman. Set your TiVo, man, before they erase the transmission and pretend like it never happened. Dave’s interviewing this journalist from The New York Times, a total babe. I think her name is Jane something. Jane Mayer.”

  “Jane Mayer? Sounds like a babe.”

  “You bet your bologna pony. She just wrote a new book chronicling the Bush Administrations use of torture in Guantanamo. And she’s gonna stick it to Dave, man. You watch. The world will know!”

  “I can’t wait. I just hope they don’t erase the transmission afterwards.”

  “That’s why they’ve got me locked up in here.”

  “Because of Jane Mayer?”

  “No, because I know the truth, man.”

  “You know what else is a prison?” I said.

  “What?”

  “The Internet.”

  “Hell yeah. WWW is the Mark of the Beast. They’re never going to log me on.”

  “And Google is BIG BROTHER.”

  “Hell yeah,” he said.

  “Let’s go, Chamberlain.” I heard Mello’s voice. When I turned to look, despite a painful kink in my neck, the Jolly Green Giant was standing in the hall with Danny Devito's lookalike stuntman. A row of bars opened, making the exact same clanking sound that I'd heard so many times in television and the movies. I climbed down from the upper bunk and gazed at my cellmate.

  “Stay off the Internet, my friend,” I said.

  “Hey, they can’t lock you up if you’re free in here.” He pointed an index finger towards his temporal lobe.

  “True that.”

  10

  “IS THERE A REASON you’ve got me holed up in here without due process?” I asked Officers Bert and Ernie as they led me through the hall.

  A fellow prisoner sporting a lavender Mohawk, a relic from my childhood, had bumped into me while passing in opposite directions. I told him to be careful on his time traveling adventure from the eighties, that he could have poked someone’s eye out with that thing, and was he enjoying his time in the future. He said he’d shove his eighties hair-do up my ass, or something to that effect. The jailhouse wasn’t exactly a fan club for the likes of Miss Manners.

  “You don’t know shit about due process, do you?” Hurley opened a door and forcefully ushered me towards the rectangular table that dominated the otherwise barren floor space. I’d never been in an interrogation cell before, but I’d seen enough movies to know when I was being shoved into one.

  “I read about it on Wikipedia.” I studied my reflection in the one-way mirror that dominated an entire wall and pressed my face up against it, making sure to create a little puddle of fog. “Wait a minute. Is this really a mirror? I’ve seen something like this once on LAW & ORDER.”

  “Sit down.” Mello said.

  “And just look at me, hair messed up and everything.” I fixed my hair.

  “I’m glad you noticed. I didn’t want to be rude and say anything earlier at your apartment, but then you tried to kill me with that cup of coffee. So much for gentlemanly courtesy.”

  “Sit down.” Mello again.

  I pulled out a chair and did as he commanded.

  “No, the other one, dumb-ass.” Hurley. “Those two are for us. You get the high chair with the safety bar and the dunce cap. I imagine a guy like you has always wanted his fifteen minutes of fame. The taxpayers are thrilled to finally give it to you.”

  I did as Hurley asked.

  “Hey look, as much as I’d love to see you perform another big screen sequel to your 1988 hit, I know my first amendment rights, and I’m not telling you guys anything.” I adjusted an aching back into the metal chair, and that knot in the side of my neck wasn't going away on its own. I tried adjusting that too with no avail.

  “That’s the right to bear arms,” said Mello. He’d settled now into one of the two chairs while his short stubby and somewhat red-skinned partner paced uneasily behind me.

  “The what?” I leaned in.

  “The First Amendment is the right to bear arms.”

  “I’ve already got a left and right arm, but thanks.”

  “My God, you are dumber than the Real Housewives of Orange County. Try sitting on that other butt cheek of yours once in a while,” added Hurley. “That way you can rotate between the smart-ass and the dumb.”

  “We’ve got you on Accessory to Murder and Unlawful Flight. Keep pushing us and we’ll add Obstruction of Justice. And if you’re not especially careful, you may just end up assaulting my partner here again.”

  “I get assaulted by dumb-asses like you all the time.” Hurley let a fist fall into his other hand. “How many dumb-asses have assaulted me in this here interrogation room over the last month, Mello?” He looked to his partner.

  “The statistics are sobering.”

  “I’m not talking to you guys until I have my lawyer present. And besides, I’d never trip a midget. It just isn’t right.”

  Hurley slapped the back of my head.

  “What is it that you do for a living?” Mello said.

  “I’m a wedding photographer.”

  “Say that again?” Hurley spoke into my ear. His breath reeked of mustard and sauerkraut.

  “Wed-ding Fo-tog-ra-fer.” I said it slowly, carefully pronouncing each syllable. “People fall in love, get married, that sort of thing, and hire me to shoot their wedding.”

  “What is that, some sort of sick confession” Hurley turned to Mello. “I think we got ourselves a confession.”

  “You shoot with a .22 or 9 millimeter?” Mello said. “I got a lot of unanswered cases that says it’s a 9.”

  “Are you on drugs or something?” I looked past Mello to the one-sided mirror. “Somebody bake something into your doughnuts back there?”

  “Nobody’s back there,” Mello said.

  “You think you’re so important that we’d have our Captain give up his lunch break to hear you blab your mouth? Stop wasting taxpayer money and start talking about that rub-a-dub-dub buddy of yours.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Not much to say.”

  “How about why he killed his wife, for starters.”

  “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  “The man’s a gambler. He’s a criminal. He’s thick as thieves with the Mancini family and that malnourished son of his.” I think there may have been a slight hint of garlic salt in Hurley’s lunch too. “And we have reason to believe he’s been doubling his salary with Parisi.”

  It was the first time that I’d heard the name Parisi.

  “I take it he’s not anymore,” I said.

  “So you do know about it, then.” His taller partner shrugged. “The games over, give it up.”

  “You guys need to lay off the abstract. Unless we’re talking about a Steven King novel, then I haven’t a clue as to what IT could possibly refer to. I know nothing. Alex and I, we went on a few adventures together, that’s all.”

  “Side adventures, as in wedding photography?” Mello.

  I nodded.

  “And you make a living at that?” The short fat one said.

  I told them I could.

  “How much they pay you for something like that?”

  I told them.

  Hurley whistled at the absurdity. “Looks like I'm in the wrong profession. With all that traveling, you getting a little ass on the side? Is that why your wife moved out on you?”

  “Wait, I don’t get it. Which one of you two is the good cop and which is the bad cop? Because Detective Hurley, for a while there I totally thought you were the good cop.”

  “Stop being a dumb-ass,” said Mello.

  “No, I wouldn’
t dream of it. Alex is the dumb-ass.”

  “Then why won’t you start answering our questions?”

  “I don’t like the way your partner Ernie asks them.”

  Mello shifted through a stack of papers in a manila envelope. It might have been his tax return for all I knew. “We have you flying to Hawaii, New York, and Boston together, and most recently driving up to San Francisco in your own confession. Were these errands? Whom did you and Parker meet with?”

  “Brides. Grooms. Sometimes both of them at the same time, which reminds me, I’ve got somewhere important to be in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.” Sauerkraut-breath.

  “I’ve got two contracts and two potentially angry brides that say differently, so unless you’ve got reason to hold me, there's an empty seat heading to JFK in the morning, and its got my ticketed name on it.”

  “I’m confused.” Mello flipped to another tax return, or maybe it was his personal To-Do list. “Are you Miller or Chamberlain?”

  “Miller’s my father’s name. Chamberlain started as my professional name. My wife and I made the full conversion when we married, just for the hell of it.”

  “Oh, I get it. Your mother’s daddy was that famous war photographer.” Mustard and sauerkraut. “You think naming yourself after him is gonna take that shitty work of yours and give it an edge?”

  “Is that an invitation to photograph your daughter’s wedding? Because I can totally circle calendar dates if you have one or two in mind.”

  His hand met the back of my skull again. “How about we dress up that three-hundred pound pedophile sitting alone in one of our cells with something from David’s Bridal, leave the two of you alone for the night, and say we did?”

  “Why did Gracie Mancini die, and why did you feel the need to help your buddy flee the country?” Mello looked comfortably at home sitting in his chair.

  I said: “Last I checked Gracie was married to Alex, which makes her a Parker.”

  “It’s not easy slipping into Mancini’s inside circle, and she’s his daughter. In our books that makes her a lifetime member.”

  “Everyone keeps talking about this Mancini fellow. What does he even do?” I was outright curious to know.

  Hurley snorted at his partner. “What does Mancini do?” He repeated my words, more as a sarcastic statement than a question, and paced the floor again. “Who let the hammer fall?”

  “Oh, I get it. I’m a hit man for the mob now, because I shoot weddings. I get jokes.”

  “Hey, nobody said anything about the mob.” Mello held two hands up.

  “Just when I think I’m close to figuring out what that guy does for a living. Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me anything?”

  “Why don’t you let us ask all the questions?” Mello said. “How long have you known Parker?”

  “A long time.”

  “How long is a long time?”

  “College, we were roommates at UCLA.”

  “Is that when Giorgio reeled him in?”

  “Who the hell is Giorgio?”

  Nobody answered me.

  “Alex didn’t even know the Mancini family then,” I continued. “So far as my knowledge goes, they weren’t associated until after he met his daughter. That was back when he was touring with Dumb Angel.”

  “Dumb Angel?” More hints of sauerkraut in my ear.

  “It’s a small time rock band. I was long out of the picture by then. They cut a record, but never really took off, and finally disbanded a couple of years ago. There are still a couple of low-budget videos of theirs available on YouTube, if you're interested.”

  “Is that what he told you?”

  “Look guys, when Alex and I crossed paths again, it was in Vegas, two months ago. My wife had just moved out and I was there for another wedding gig. Long story short, the groom and his guys got caught up in a bar fight. Don’t even get me started on it. I recognized Alex jumping into the pile of fists right around the time a beer bottle was smashed over the back of my head. We saved each other’s asses and had a few laughs about it at PANCAKE HOUSE afterwards.”

  “Pancake House?” Hurley.

  “Yeah, it’s this nationwide twenty-four hour franchise. The pancakes are terrible but the coffee’s good. Guys like you would love it.”

  “How come I never heard of it?”

  “They haven’t expanded the franchise here in sunny Southern California yet. You must not travel much.”

  “I took my wife on a cruise to frickin Cabo for my forty-fifth birthday.”

  “Same one where she bought you that shirt?”

  “Get on with it.”

  “He mentioned something about this fight down at the docks and how there was some sort of court order for anger management.”

  “Tell us something we don’t know.” Mello.

  “And he wanted out.”

  Hurley repeated my words again.

  “That’s what I said. He wanted out. And that’s it. He expressed interest in photography as an exit procedure. It made sense, therapeutic for the anger. Gracie thought so too. Alex is an expressive guy. I thought I could help an old college buddy out, get him on his feet, show him the ropes, maybe even conform and sanctify him and all that into something respectable.”

  “He ever say anything to you about his interactions with the Mancini family?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You ever ask him? Weren’t you curious?”

  “All the time.”

  “And he didn’t mention anything?”

  “What can I say; the man was a giraffe with a zipper across the lips and a combination lock for good measure. You know, I’m no interior decorator, but a little natural lighting would do this room some good. Maybe some drapes.”

  “Tell us what we want to know, Chamberlain, and you can be eating from that crusty pizza box around your apartment Jacuzzi in an hour.”

  “Alex is innocent.”

  “Then who killed the girl?” Mello.

  “Several theories abound. Some say it was Jimmy Hoffa, but I’m more preferable towards Khrushchev or Castro. Of course, if you ask Estelle, she thinks one of the Kennedy’s had Monroe killed.”

  “Did Gracie visit you last night?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?” Mello stared at me for a time and then produced several photographs from his manila folder. He laid them across the table, one at a time. They were of the forensic nature, and depicted Gracie in the trashcan, skull cracked open, all taken from various angles, and so vulnerably exposed. Her nakedness was the worst thing about them. “Fresh from the lab.”

  I suddenly felt the need to vomit, and so looked away. I might have said Oh my God. It was a ghastly series of holocaust like images that would probably never leave the playback button in my head. This wasn't how I wanted to remember her.

  Mello turned to his partner. “How much you want to bet, Hurley, once her autopsy report comes through, that we’ll find our little farmer friend here has been planting some seeds of his DNA into her flower bed?”

  I said: “Don't be vulgar.”

  “Nah. This guys a boy scout, Mello. I figure he’s into the sailor patch; all smooth with the clean-up and shit. I’d put my money on the fact that he disposed of the evidence in the bathroom trashcan.”

  “Or the toilet.” Mello.

  “Nah, I know Chamberlain’s type, too environmentally conscious to flush rubber down the drain. Didn't you see those pictures of his? But one things for certain, he hasn't followed the advice of the Savior. He likes his neighbor’s wife best with their legs spread. And now look what's happened, this one’s dead.”

  “I've seen enough,” I held my head away from Gracie's last portraits on this side of the cosmic curtain.

  The door to my interrogation room opened up again, an answer to the prayer I'd never taken the time to make. When Officers Bert and Ernie turned their heads it was my lawyer standing there, and Mello, the tall one, he si
ghed in a miserable tone that spoke of intimate history. I sighed too, relieved to see her. But in the same token I actually felt sorry for them.

  11

  JOSEPHINE WAS FLAWLESSLY DRESSED in a white blouse with broad triangular collars that dipped down over a slim two-button blazer and a pinstripe skirt finished off the ensemble. The smell of lavender and rose petals filled the room. I’d probably throw some sort of spices into the perfume stew too. But I recognized the scent. It was the enticing fragrance that attracted you to Josephine before she revealed her vampire fangs and clamped down into a vital artery.

  “Bibeau,” Mello's groan once more acknowledged that there had been a long and frustrated history between them, but I gathered this wasn't the best time to squeeze the juice box for details.

  “I’m a Fox now.” She lifted her wedding ring in case there were any questions. It was studded with too many diamonds to count and glimmered in the dimly lit interrogation room. I guess even the most cutthroat of businesswomen like to work a heaping of jewelry into the conversation if the opportunity presents itself.

  “Because she married this guy named Charlie about a week ago, and he’s a total fox.” I thought I should clarify the name change, just in case there were any questions.

  “Shut up.” She pointed the barrel of an erected index finger at me. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you already penned a deal to have these Detectives write your memoirs.” Despite the slick suit and ring that probably cost more than my entire years’ salary, she looked pissed. Or maybe it was just the usual day-to-day order of business when dressing up as a lawyer. She took note of Gracie's morbid photo-session and turned to them. “Is my client being charged with anything?”

  “Not yet.” Mello did all the talking. His partner looked suddenly shorter and fatter and redder in the face, and more of a Muppet, like his Ernie counterpart.

  “Then get out. And take that pornographic filth with you. I want to speak with my client alone.”

  “She’s your lawyer?” Mello looked to me as he stood, casually sweeping each photograph back into his manila envelope.

  “You can imagine my pain then, since she’s also my sister-in-law.”