Second Skin

by Michael Wiley

  I gave my version of the smile to Tom. ‘You mean he could hurt you.’

  His face hardened. ‘I mean he could hurt us. I’m not the one he pulled a knife on. I’m not the one whose bedroom wall he shot holes in.’

  ‘Hole. One in the wall.’

  ‘Come stay with me awhile.’

  ‘At your house?’

  ‘You’ll be safe.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll do anything for you.’

  That was probably true, but spending even a few nights at his house would involve being with a man who seemed to consist mostly of the first layers of skin, beautiful as that skin was, and lacked the muscle, organs, and blood – ugly, raw, pulsing – that I knew at home. If Johnny would stay – if he would let me stay with him – I would remain with him.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Someone knocked on the door – one of the kids whose appointment times I was ignoring.

  ‘I have to teach in a few minutes,’ I said.

  ‘Screw teaching.’

  I got Tom out of my office. I screwed nothing. I talked with my students. I taught my classes. We finished the last class with ‘The Broken Tower,’ which Hart Crane wrote just before killing himself by leaping from a ship and right after he ended an affair with the wife of a close friend. He wrote about how the ideas of good and evil that religion teaches are insufficient. When we love – when our love is full and muscular – no act or thought is evil. It’s all good, all heavenly. I wondered if Hart Crane’s knowledge that his own extraordinary loves – adulterous and homosexual – broke the stony rules of religion led him to the stern of his ship and pushed him like a wind into the blue-green water of the Caribbean Sea.

  I packed my books and papers and left at three-thirty, taking a far hall to avoid passing Tom’s office. As part of a campaign to make the campus inviting, the university had installed fountains and planted gardens between the buildings, but the sun remained high and hot. And so it was I entered the broken world, Hart Crane wrote. And so it was that I did.

  As I passed the library, a woman called my name.

  She was barefoot and weather-tanned and wore dirty pink shorts and a yellow tourist T-shirt with a picture of a blue manatee. Her brown hair needed washing. I’d never seen her before, but, with her slate-gray eyes, I recognized her. ‘Laura Greene?’

  She gave me a crooked smile. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I see Sheneel in you.’

  Her eyes were bright and hungry. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My husband says he met you yesterday.’

  ‘Interesting man, your husband.’

  I nodded. ‘He is.’

  ‘But you treat him like dirt?’

  ‘Who says that?’

  ‘In my opinion, he probably deserves it.’

  ‘You know what, let’s find some place to sit down.’

  Between the library and the Fine Arts Center, there was a garden with four outdoor tables. Students were studying at two of them. I sat across from Laura Greene at another.

  She said, ‘Guys like your husband, they hold a woman down and keep her down.’

  ‘Who says I treat him like dirt?’

  ‘No one needed to. I could tell.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You were sleeping with my daughter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said.

  ‘Why would I—’

  ‘Alex told me on the phone before I came back.’

  ‘I never—’

  ‘He said Sheneel went on and on about you.’

  ‘I never touched her,’ I said. ‘I never would.’

  She put a hand on my arm. ‘Now that,’ she said, ‘is a lie.’

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  Her voice dropped and she said, almost as if asking a question, ‘I want my daughter and my son back.’

  ‘I know. I wish I could help.’

  She squared her eyes on me. ‘You could talk to your brother.’

  Again I stared at her.

  She said, ‘He can’t bring them back, but he can stop the Phelpses.’

  ‘How do you know so much about me and my family?’

  There was sadness in her crooked smile. ‘This is a small enough town. If you open your ears, you hear. Besides, I’ve known Daniel a long time. He goes way back with the Greenes and Phelpses.’

  She seemed to sense my hesitation.

  She said, ‘Did your husband tell you what happened between Stephen Phelps and me? Did he tell you that Stephen is Sheneel’s father?’

  I nodded.

  ‘When Stephen was done with me, he said I could call the police if I wanted. It didn’t matter to him. Well, I didn’t want to call them. I didn’t want to drag myself through that. But around that time, I’d gotten friendly with a cop who patrolled our neighborhood. Alex was about three years old and loved the lights and noise of the squad car, so we would talk to this cop when we were out in the street. He was a good-looking young guy, new to the police department, and I was single since Alex’s daddy left, so that made our conversations interesting. We talked about his job and eventually got around to talking about family – about Alex’s daddy being gone, my connections to the Phelpses, this guy’s sister who was smart and spent all her time reading … You hearing this?’

  ‘You knew Daniel?’

  She said, ‘Everyone in the neighborhood did. He was real friendly. A great model for kids like Alex. So, I wasn’t going to call the police, but I thought I could talk to my friend, the cop – confide in him, you know, see what advice he could give me. I told him, and he seemed concerned and said he would see what he could do. I guess he went to talk to the Phelpses, though he was just a patrolman. Three days after I told him, I was in the front yard with Alex, and he showed up at my house in his squad car. He had Stephen with him in the front seat. They got out together, and Daniel asked Stephen if he had anything to say to me. Stephen said, I’m sorry, ma’am. Like that. He called me ma’am, like Daniel had rehearsed it with him. Then Daniel told me I could pursue charges against Stephen, but he was a minor and all that, and so he didn’t recommend it. Instead, he said I should take the apology and try to forget what had happened. He asked, was I OK with that? I sure as hell wasn’t OK, but I said I was and thank you very much for coming, because I knew then that the Phelpses had bought your brother, just as they bought everyone else they thought was worth buying instead of crushing or killing.’

  I wanted to laugh at Laura Greene’s story, but I couldn’t. I had always trusted Daniel. I knew he had been ignoring evidence and I had heard the rumors about him over the years, but, after growing up and living a life close to him, I depended on him as one depends on a physical force – gravity or inertia or friction. I said, ‘It’s a pretty ridiculous coincidence that Daniel would be there after you got raped and then would be the detective assigned to Sheneel’s death twenty years later.’

  She shook her head. ‘I thought you would be smarter than that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It wasn’t a coincidence. He gets himself put on anything that relates to the Phelpses. He’s their clean-up boy.’

  I laughed, but it was an empty laugh. ‘Fine,’ I said, and I pulled out my cell phone.

  I called Daniel’s desk at the Sheriff’s Office. He wasn’t there. I called his cell phone. He didn’t answer. I called his home number. His wife Patty said he was at work and I should try him at his desk or on his cell. I called his cell again and left a voicemail message. I said, ‘How did you get put on the Sheneel Greene case? Was it just luck, or did you hear that Sheneel was dead and volunteer for the job? Or did someone call your commander and suggest you for the job? Maybe the Phelpses?’ I hung up and stared at Laura Greene. ‘There. We’ll see what he says. But if he’s really involved in this, my calling him on it won’t make a difference.’

  ‘It won’t hurt.’

&n
bsp; ‘Or maybe it will.’

  ‘How hard are you willing to push him?’

  I thought about that. I said, ‘He’s my brother.’

  ‘And he’ll hold you down and keep you down too.’

  I wondered if her eyes had always looked pained or if they’d become that way only when her children died. She had the same narrow shoulders as Sheneel and the same thin body, though age had widened her hips. Her bare feet were weathered almost brown. ‘Do you mind if I ask … You were born a Phelps. There’s got to be money. But you live like this?’

  She gave me the crooked smile. ‘I’m one of the poor Phelpses. Sure, there’s some money, but I’ve never wanted it. You touch that money, and your fingers come away bloody and hot.’

  I drove home.

  Traffic was light and the air conditioning created a bubble safe from the outside heat, but my head spun with all Laura Greene had said and insinuated – and also with Tom Corfield’s invitation to move in with him for a while, as if a few nights would affect my life for less than forever. I wondered if Johnny would be home when I got there. What would I say to him? He would expect me to say something.

  And what would I say to Daniel when he returned my call? Laura Green wanted to know how hard I would push him. Had I already pushed too far? My words were easy to say – How did you get put on the Sheneel Greene case? – but now that I’d said them, they were no longer easy. They existed in the world and couldn’t be unsaid.

  My confession to Johnny about Tom couldn’t be unsaid either. It existed too, and it would always exist.

  I rounded the corner leading to our house, and a crow, perched at the top of a magnolia in front of the corner house, spread its wings and dropped toward the ground, flapped once, and rose toward the sky, its shadow crossing over the windshield. A blue Pontiac was parked on the street, a man sitting in the driver’s seat. I stopped before approaching. I knew that Pontiac. It was an unmarked police car. Daniel drove it on most of his shifts and usually took it home for weekends. Damn, I said, and I pulled behind his car, got out of mine, and climbed in on his passenger side.

  His face looked hard and unfamiliar. ‘I’m sorry for the call,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘Johnny doesn’t either.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing,’ I said.

  He pushed his thinning hair from his forehead, as if it irritated his skin. ‘It’s not just me. It’s my lieutenant. It’s the Sheriff. It’s city councilmen.’

  I didn’t want to push him. He sat in the driver’s seat, a big man – almost impossibly big – and I wanted to believe he had acted only in the name of what was right, whether or not I understood what that was. I said, ‘They’re telling you to cover up Sheneel and Alex Greene’s death?’

  He shook his head. ‘They’re telling me that the Phelpses pump money into the city, that the Phelpses contribute to the mayor’s election campaigns, that the Phelpses go to their parties and they go to the Phelpses’ parties. They don’t need to tell me more than that. They know who the Phelpses are and they make sure guys like me know it too.’

  ‘How much have the Phelpses given you?’

  ‘Christ, Lillian.’

  ‘It can’t be worth it.’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. You either do what’s right or you don’t.’

  His face looked hot. ‘You’re goddamned stupid.’ His words were harsh, but his voice gentle. ‘You understand nothing.’

  ‘I understand you’re in trouble,’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  I asked, ‘Why did you come here? To tell me I’m stupid? Because of my call?’

  ‘I was already here when you left your message. I was inside talking with Johnny. I wanted to know where he was this morning.’

  I made myself ask, ‘What happened this morning?’

  His voice softened again. ‘Someone shot at Stephen Phelps. Came within a couple of inches of getting him.’ He gave me a look that told me more than his words did.

  ‘Not Johnny,’ I said, as if saying would make it so.

  ‘I don’t know. For a lot of reasons, Stephen Phelps isn’t officially reporting the shooting. We won’t pursue it, but I think I know what happened.’

  I shook my head.

  Daniel said, ‘Phelps was with a woman. She’s in the hospital.’

  ‘Johnny shot her?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Christ. But you confiscated his gun.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be hard to get another.’

  ‘No way.’ I reached for the car door handle.

  ‘Don’t go inside,’ Daniel said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t go in your house. I talked with Johnny. He denies he shot the woman, of course. But if you go in, no one can protect you.’

  ‘You think I need to be protected from Johnny? You think he would hurt me?’

  Daniel leveled his eyes with mine. ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘You know what? You need help as much as he does.’ I pushed the car door open and got out. I fumbled with my car keys and they fell to the pavement. I picked them up and dropped them again. I screamed at Daniel’s car, ‘Get the hell out of here!’

  He sat in the driver’s seat, the engine silent.

  I got in my car, started it, hit the accelerator, and cut around the Pontiac and into the driveway. I sat. I breathed. I tried to think straight. I shifted into reverse, backed out of the driveway, and hit the gas. Daniel stared without expression as I passed.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into Tom Corfield’s driveway. ‘I need a place to stay,’ I said, when he answered his door. ‘For a while.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Johnny

  I buried Papa Crowe’s .22 in the backyard, wrapping it in a lawn bag, tucking in the box of Remington cartridges and the gun oil, dropping in the spent shell, and sealing the bundle with duct tape – a single tidy package of my latest guilt. But as soon as I finished tamping the dirt with the back of the shovel, Percy started digging the hole again. I dragged him inside and distracted him with a package of sliced ham from the refrigerator.

  When Lillian’s brother knocked and asked where I’d been when Stephen Phelps’s friend got shot – friend was Daniel’s word – Percy retched and spat up a piece of ham, so I put him back outside, and as we talked in the sunroom, he dug into the ground again. ‘I was here,’ I said. ‘All morning. All day.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘After the strippers left.’

  ‘This is serious,’ he said.

  ‘Twins. G-strings. Handcuffs. Don’t tell Lillian. Not that she would have grounds for objecting.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Strippers.’

  Daniel frowned. ‘Stephen Phelps could have been killed.’

  ‘How badly hurt is the friend?’

  ‘She’ll survive. Single shot. Small caliber. Missed the arteries.’

  ‘Are you sure Phelps didn’t shoot her?’

  Outside, Percy stuck his head into the hole.

  ‘If you did this,’ Daniel said, ‘you should run. Officially, Phelps is denying he was present when his friend got shot. His friend is denying it too. She’s saying the wound was an accident. But Phelps will come after you. He’ll—’

  I said, ‘Are you sure she really wasn’t shot in an accident?’

  ‘Someone shot at Phelps. The shot hit his friend. If you call that an accident, fine. I call it attempted murder.’

  Percy was pulling the package up to the lip of the hole, tugging at it as if it was a dead animal. ‘I hope you catch the person who did it,’ I said, and I tried to guide Daniel back into the kitchen.

  He didn’t move. ‘I don’t really care if you kill Phelps.’ His voice was quiet. ‘I don’t care if you kill the whole family. I don’t care if you die trying. But I care about Lillian. I don’t want her to get hurt. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. That includes
hurting you.’

  ‘I love her,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t hurt her.’

  ‘If you think that’s true, you have no idea what you’ve been doing,’ he said.

  He left. I watched through the front window as he sat in his car at the curbside. He checked his cell phone. He talked on his radio. When he finished talking, he continued to sit. I left him at his post, went to the backyard, and retrieved the rifle. Percy had ripped through the plastic bag and was charging around the yard with the bottle of gun oil in his mouth. I raised the .22 and sighted on him as he ran wide looping figure eights from one end of the yard to the other. ‘I would never hurt her,’ I said as Percy raced past. ‘Never.’ I brought the rifle inside and wiped off the dirt with paper towels. I checked the front window. Daniel remained at the curb. I went to the bedroom and took my meds, then carried the rifle into the sunroom, lay on the floor, and did my deep breathing.

  When I checked the front window a half-hour later, Daniel was gone and I brought the rifle outside and put it in the trunk of my car. Daniel had said he didn’t care if I killed the whole Phelps family. That was an idea, but it would need to wait. I hadn’t eaten since early morning, so I drove to my office on Philips Highway and walked the hundred yards to the Sahara Sandwiches Shop. Farouk stood behind the counter, wearing one of the white paper hats that he’d bought by the case from a catalog. He was all smiles. Against the odds, he had developed a steady business over the past couple of months, mostly selling sandwiches to men and women who did drugs, drifted, pimped, or hooked along the highway. As I went in, a man dressed in black jeans and a yellow silk shirt was leaving with a strung-out woman in a dirty plaid skirt and a V-neck that exposed most of her breasts.

  I sat at the counter and asked for a falafel sandwich. When Farouk turned to the grill, I considered how to bring up Felicity. But he beat me to it. He poured me a cup of coffee, leaned on the counter, and said, ‘You hear what happened to the whore?’

  I shook my head and drank.

  ‘A guy picked her up just down from here this morning. Nice car – Lincoln Continental, something like that, they say. He took her to Georgia and shot her.’

  ‘Christ,’ I said.