by Greg Herren
But no, she hadn’t wanted him dead then. No, not even then, she was still fine to be his wife, to take care of his correspondence and proofread his manuscripts and be the good little faculty wife he wanted—thought he deserved.
No, it wasn’t until Dylan was actually dead that her way of thinking shifted.
It was during the after-funeral reception or get-together or whatever you want to call it, when everyone was in the big house the most concentrated efforts of Lupe couldn’t quite keep clean, aware of dust bunnies and cobwebs where the sharp-eyed faculty wives and the neighbors could see them, everyone murmuring and whispering and gathering around the Great One on his throne, paying obeisance and giving him their sympathy, like he hadn’t found Dylan’s existence—and his death—an enormous inconvenience.
Without Dylan, the years ahead of her as the Great Man’s wife stretched endlessly ahead of her.
Sipping at a glass of white wine, ignored in a corner as everyone flocked to the side of the father who should be grieving but was actually reveling in the attention he was getting as Bereft Father, she thought again about what her life would be like without him.
And just like that night in the hospital waiting room, it looked wonderful.
The question was how?
She looked out the back window yet again, listening to the voices from the front sitting room. It did sound like they were winding down at last, maybe the students were finally going home. She saw the flare of a red ember out in the yard, just inside the gate. Alejandro, smoking a cigarette. She wished he would quit, but you couldn’t tell a twentysomething anything, she’d heard the Great Man say that enough times.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The cliché would send the Great Man screaming into the night.
She walked back over to the doorway. The girl was leaving, pulling on a jacket, the boys still seated on the floor. The Great Man was still sitting in his throne, thumping the floor with his cane for emphasis. She hated when he did that, had always hated that cane.
Had she ever loved him?
I must have, she thought as she leaned against the doorframe. I must have loved him once. When I was young and foolish and still could dream about my future. The question should be, did he ever love me?
The boys were also getting up now, heading for the door, shrugging their jackets onto their shoulders in that fluid way all young boys seemed to possess, thanking her on their way out the door. Philip of course stayed in his throne, not moving, not seeing them to the front door—the Great Man never would stoop to that, of course.
One of those three, she thought, the ones who stayed behind, it will be one of those three.
He always chose one of his seminar students to be his teaching assistant, with all that brought with it—hours of unpaid labor for one of them, but introductions to agents and editors, the possibility of breaking through into actual print with a real publishing contract…
It was no wonder so many of them were willing to do anything to get—and keep—the gig.
Philip didn’t discriminate between male and female students, either.
She didn’t care until Dylan died. That was when she realized, with startling clarity, that her marriage had been over for years. She’d just been too busy with Dylan to notice.
And once Dylan was gone, and she wasn’t busy being mom anymore, when she wasn’t rushing to doctors and hospitals and treatments, wasn’t keeping track of medications and times to take them and when they needed refilling, then she finally had the time to realize just how much she hated Philip Blackburn.
“Which one of them?” she asked, walking over to the front door and locking it, slipping the dead bolt into place.
“Ashleigh, I think.” His hands were folded over his bulky stomach, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.
She walked over, picking up the empty wineglasses. A joint was smoldering in one of the ashtrays. He had a medicinal marijuana prescription, of course; as soon as it was legal in California he’d gotten one from his doctor. “Always smarter to have a girl,” she said, pinching out the joint with her forefinger and thumb, tossing it into the glass jar with the others.
It had been a boy who’d gotten them run out of Baton Rouge.
He didn’t open his eyes, but waved one of his pudgy hands dismissively. “That won’t happen again,” he muttered. “Can you get me some more wine?”
“Of course,” she said brightly, refilling the glass on the table next to his throne. “Empty,” she announced. “Shall I open another one?”
He sounded drowsy. “No, ’sgood.”
She walked back into the kitchen and rinsed out the bottle, placing it carefully into the recycling bin for glass. She eased the back door open. Light pierced through the darkness. The enormous old trees along the back fence rustled in the cold night breeze. Something out there moved—had she imagined that? No, it was him. He stepped into the pyramid of light, smiling at her.
Alejandro.
He smiled at her, taking off the black ski mask and shaking out his thick, shoulder-length bluish-black hair.
So, so beautiful.
After they’d moved here, to Aptos, whenever she had the time she’d taken Dylan with her and driven up the Cabrillo Highway, going down to the beach and taking long walks, breathing in the salty sea air, watching the surfers. The beach, those walks, had always centered her, took her to a place in her mind that calmed her. She didn’t care about which of the Great Man’s students he was sleeping with when she was walking along the shoreline. As Dylan got older, as he looked for starfish and shells, played in the sand, it was a time that was just for them. Sometimes she didn’t have the time to drive all the way in to the boardwalk beach in Santa Cruz, and they went to the beach down in Aptos instead. But she didn’t like it there—there was always the chance that one of the neighborhood women she couldn’t stand would be there. She couldn’t even bear the thought of having to make idle chitchat with any of those women. She liked the boardwalk, that area of Santa Cruz—she never stopped wishing Philip had bought one of the old Victorians instead of choosing a character-less 1970s development in what was basically just a suburb.
The morning after the funeral, after her only son was buried in a cemetery in goddamned California instead of back home with her family in Louisiana, she had to get out of the house. As he waddled into the kitchen for coffee, his worn old velvet bathrobe hanging open, “You should write about Dylan’s death,” he’d said. Standing at the counter filling his cup with coffee, as she literally shook with anger and rage at what he’d had the callous disregard to say to her the morning after she’d buried her son, he went on, “You do still want to write, don’t you? I just assumed he kept you too busy.”
“Yes, yes, he did,” she mumbled, before walking away from him and out the front door. Blindly she walked down the sloping streets and around corners, feeling the irresistible pull of the sea, the fishy smell of the air, the need for sunshine on her face and sand beneath her feet. You need to leave him, you need to leave him, there’s no need to stay anymore, you need to leave him playing over and over again in her head in a litany, like a Gregorian chant. But when she crossed the road, kicked off her sandals, and felt the bare sand beneath her feet, the sea breeze on her face, the gulls squawking and flying overhead, another, darker thought came to her.
You could always just kill him.
She dismissed the thought, crossed herself, said a quick Hail Mary, plopping down on the sand, wishing she had her rosary beads with her.
But she’d thrown them away when Dylan died. She’d come home from the hospital and put them inside the little box she’d always kept them in, and put them in the trash.
It was just superstition anyway, wasn’t it? Philip had always mocked her for the beads. “You haven’t been in a church in years,” he’d say, and he was right.
Alejandro rose from the sea as she sat there shaking with anger and hurt and rage and pain. She hadn’t noticed him out
there in the water, but she couldn’t miss him now, in his wetsuit, water streaming off him, the thick black hair plastered to the side of a face speckled with drops from the sea. He planted his surfboard into the sand not three feet from her and started unzipping himself out of the rubber, peeling it away from tight, lean muscles spiderwebbed with bulging veins, an enormous tattoo of a fire-breathing dragon stretching from his left shoulder blade over the shoulder, the neck coiled around his pectoral muscle, the head punctuated by his nipple with a breath of flame shooting across his abdomen. He was young, the same age as Philip’s students.
Something long buried awoke inside her as she watched him, as his round face broke into a smile when he realized she was watching, admiring him. “Alejandro Aquino,” he said simply, holding his dripping hand out to her, the fingertips wrinkled from water.
He was first-generation Filipino American, his parents fleeing the uncertainty and unrest of their native islands before he was born. They owned a mom-and-pop grocery somewhere—she was never sure where. There wasn’t much money. He had his own dreams, working in their store and nights as a bartender in some tourist trap near the boardwalk.
It was maybe the seventh or eighth time they were together that she dared broach the subject of killing Philip.
And the money that would be hers.
She let the curtain drop back into place, made sure the door was unlocked, walked back into the living room.
She smiled as she sat down on the couch, crossed her legs, raised her own wineglass to her lips, and watched her husband.
Did I ever love you?
She couldn’t remember.
It didn’t matter anymore, really.
The plan was simple. A home invasion, several robbers with ski masks over their faces so she couldn’t identify them. She’d already gotten rid of the things they would steal; her jewelry, the money Philip kept in the safe, his big stash of marijuana. She’d set out enough for the night, of course, before the students arrived, making sure he wouldn’t notice anything amiss. Philip would struggle with the robbers, of course, and wind up dead for his trouble.
Just a few moments more, Philip, and you’re a dead man.
The house would have to be trashed, of course; it didn’t matter because she would sell the place, never set foot in it again afterward. People would understand, would feel sorry for her, whisper to each other, first her son, then her husband, right before her eyes, poor thing, can’t blame her for going away.
The kitchen door swung open silently.
Alejandro stood there, and she closed her eyes.
She flinched at the sound of the gunshot.
She opened her eyes.
Alejandro was standing over Philip. Blood—so much blood. Running down the front of his shirt, his eyes goggling as he somehow turned his head to look at her, and she could see it, there, in his eyes.
He knows.
“Suh-suh-ceee—” he gargled, but his eyes went glassy before he could finish saying her name, and his entire body sagged in his chair.
Celia took a few deep breaths, trying to quell her stomach, the wine and finger sandwiches turning to acid and vinegar, a strange numbness spreading through her body—
Alejandro was smiling at her.
“Hit me,” she finally managed to say.
The blow was harder than she’d expected, harder than she’d told him to hit her, the side of her face stinging, the taste of blood in her mouth. He reached over and tore her blouse, that strange smile on his face as he slugged her again, sending her backward onto the couch and as her ears rang and stars pinwheeled in front of her eyes she thought he’s enjoying this and then he was on top of her again, slapping her across the face and out of the corner of her eye she saw the gun on the coffee table and she reached for it—
And pressed it to his forehead.
There was just enough time for him to realize what she was doing as she pulled the trigger.
She pushed him off and threw the gun aside and the contents of her stomach came up, wine and sandwiches and other things she didn’t recognize, and she heaved, gasping for breath, that horrid sour taste in her mouth, her teeth feeling raw against her tongue as she staggered to her feet…
Alejandro’s eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, the bullet hole in the center of his forehead—
She gagged again for a moment, struggled to get ahold of herself, putting her hand against the back of the couch for balance.
She didn’t look at the Great Man, dead on his throne.
“Thanks,” she whispered to Alejandro and staggered over to the front door. She got it open and started screaming for help.
Maybe I’ll write about this, she thought as she screamed, as front lights on neighboring houses came on and curtains were pulled back. That was great advice, Philip. I’ll write about it and that will help.
In the distance, she could hear a police siren.
They would believe her story.
She kept screaming.
Spin Cycle
My alarm woke me from the dreamless sleep of the truly content.
I smacked my hand down on it—it was a reflex. I opened my eyes and sat up in my bed. I could smell brewing coffee from downstairs. I yawned and stretched—I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so deeply, so peacefully. I reached for my glasses from the little table next to the bed and slipped them on. Everything swam into focus, and my heart started sinking the way it did every morning when I started coming to full consciousness.
Still in the goddamned carriage house, I thought, getting out of bed with a moan, and no commutation of the sentence in sight. Stupid fucking Katrina.
But there was silence outside, other than birds chirping in the crepe myrtles.
No hammering or sawing. No drilling.
I smiled.
I slipped on the rubber-soled shoes I had to wear upstairs. I avoided the carpet nails jutting up from the wooden floor on my way to the bathroom. The floor slanted at about a thirty-degree angle to the left. It used to disorient me but I’d gotten used to it in the nine months I’d been sentenced to live in this pit. I looked at the bags under my eyes while brushing my teeth and washing my face. No need to shave, I decided. I wasn’t going anywhere or seeing anyone today.
In fact, I’d finished a job and didn’t have to start the next for a few days.
I was at loose ends.
I pulled on purple LSU sweatpants and a matching hooded sweatshirt before heading downstairs to get some coffee.
I was on my second cup, surveying the stacks of boxes piled in practically every available space. It was the same routine every morning. Drink some coffee, look around and try to figure out if there was some way to make this fucking place more comfortable, more livable. I had yet to find one, without renting a storage space and getting everything out.
And every morning I came to the conclusion there wasn’t a way.
I closed my eyes and took deep, calming breaths.
Maybe I should just rent the storage unit and be done with it, I said to myself. You don’t know how long you’re going to be stuck in here before the work on the house is done. Imagine not having all these towering stacks of boxes collecting dust in here. Imagine not having this soul-deadening reminder everywhere you look—
A knock on the front door jolted me back into the present. I crossed the room and opened the door. “Yes?”
The tall black woman in a gray business suit standing there flashed a badge at me. “I’m Venus Casanova with the NOPD. I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few moments?”
“Sure, come on in.” I stepped aside to let her in. “Have a seat. Would you like some coffee? I just made some.”
She flashed me a brief smile as she sat down on my rust-colored love seat. “No, thank you. I’ve had more than enough this morning already.” She slipped a small notebook and pen out of her jacket pocket. “The label on the buzzer out by the front gate said J. Spencer. Is that yo
ur name?”
“Joe Spencer, yes,” I replied. “What’s going on?” I sat down in a green plastic chair. There were two of them on either side of a matching table. They were patio furniture, meant for the outdoors. Before the flood, I would have never had such things inside my house.
But as I kept telling myself, it was only temporary.
If you could call nine months and counting temporary.
“How long have you known Mr. and Mrs. Lafour?”
“Bill and Maureen?” I thought for a moment. “Just a few months—he started working on the house back in March. Nice couple, a little odd. I thought Bill was a little old to still be doing this kind of work by himself, but then I’m not paying them.” I laughed, to take the sting out of the words. “So, what’s going on? Why are you here, Detective?”
“I’m afraid I have to tell you Mrs. Lafour is dead.” Her voice was calm, her face without expression.
“Oh, no! Bill must be—oh, how awful. How absolutely awful.” I shook my head. “I assume it was her heart?”
She tilted her head slightly to one side. “Why would you assume that? Did she have a bad heart?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I replied. “But she was pretty old. Older than Bill, but I’m not for sure how old he is, to be honest. But she told me she was in her late seventies…and since he’s doing construction work, I figured he couldn’t be much older than sixty-five. But I do know she’s his fourth wife.”
Her right eyebrow went up. “His fourth wife?”
I shrugged. “Yes, he told me once he’d buried three wives and would probably bury Maureen too. He laughed about it—which I thought was kind of creepy, frankly. I mean, I guess when you’ve had three wives die on you—I don’t know. It’s just not something I’d think you would laugh about.”
“So, did you know them well?”