Pipe: (A Romance & Suspense Mystery) (Red Doors of New Orleans Mystery Series Book 1)

by Wade Lake

  The pipes take off swinging wildly.

  Mack hunches a little closer to the phone, hoping none of the them break away and conk him in the head. Their rectangular shadows slide over the tabletop—thinning and thickening, widening at one end, narrowing at the other, now reversing—over the plates, the glasses, the legless chicken carcass. Mack can feel the shadows as they move across his hands. Feels like ice cubes sliding across his knuckles.

  Mack keeps swiping.

  The next snapshot reveals the photographer: reflected on the window pane—transparent, barely visible, like a ghost flattened against glass—Mack can just make out the round face and over-sized earrings: it's Chase's girlfriend, Angel.

  As distorted as Chase's face is in this snapshot, Angel's in the reflection is worse.

  It's not a motion blur.

  It's a snapshot of pure anger.

  Mack has never seen anything like it.

  Her anger is so visible, Mack can feel it radiating from the screen.

  She barely looks human.

  Above the table, the pipes swing faster.

  Collide harder.

  The hollow bangs and quivering vibrato drown out the music from the record player.

  Mack finally gets it.

  Chase's tall tale about Angel makes sense now.

  All of his ridiculous stories make sense now.

  If one just applies what Angel has been saying all month.

  He lies.

  Angel didn't cheat on Chase.

  Chase cheated on Angel.

  She either found out accidentally or had strong enough suspicions to stake out his bedroom window and snap pictures.

  His window?

  Did Chase live here with Angel?

  Maybe she left for work at the usual time that afternoon, but something happened. Maybe she got off work early. Maybe she decided to surprise Chase. But when she arrived back home, her regular parking spot by the curb was taken. So she parked further up the street. She walked in the dark from her car to the house. A light drew her eyes to the bedroom window.

  Or maybe she walked into the house without announcing her entrance. Maybe she always did that. Maybe she didn't have a clue until she heard voices in the bedroom.

  Or maybe she had already planned to leave him. Maybe tonight was the final straw. No second chances. How many chances had she given him already?

  Maybe she grabbed the wrong phone. Maybe she grabbed Chase's phone on purpose. Maybe she knew his passcodes. Maybe she checked his recent calls. Maybe she wanted to record her evidence on his phone and leave it for him to discover on his own.

  Maybe what Mack is imagining is exactly how it happened.

  Maybe Mack is the real empath in the family.

  Maybe the cold air he feels corkscrewing into his ear … maybe that's Angel's breath.

  She made up her mind to leave silently.

  Without a confrontation.

  Disappear.

  Sometimes people disappear in New Orleans.

  But first.

  She needed to confirm what she had known all along … what she knew but couldn't believe without approaching closer.

  She stood on the other side of the bedroom door for a long moment.

  Her hand was on the knob.

  Her face burned.

  She felt a rush of tears coming on.

  She knew that once her eyes began leaking, she wouldn't be able to keep herself silent for long. And If she walked in on Chase now, he'd see her face, he'd see her crying.

  She couldn't let him see her crying.

  She backed away from the bedroom door.

  That's when she decided to grab his phone and creep outside. She would conceal herself in the shadow of the Mardi Gras oak. From there, she could spy in through the bedroom window. Chase wouldn't see her. Chase wouldn't hear her. Chase wouldn't know what she knew until he discovered she was gone.

  The air outside was steamy. It smelled like a gymnasium. She could barely breathe. Moonlight falling through the arms of the oak looked like a waterfall. Her shoes left deep prints in the earth. The side of the house was a shadow. Light from the bedroom window lay across the short yard like a drawbridge. She tried to calm herself. I know what I'm going to see, she said.

  She knew what she was going to see.

  She had gay friends. She was open-minded. Maybe she could support Chase … if this was his new thing.

  Maybe they could still be friends.

  If this was a new thing.

  She knew what she was going to see.

  And then she saw.

  Her man.

  With a man.

  Kissing.

  Savagely.

  Like this was no new thing.

  She knew what she was seeing.

  A lie.

  She held up the phone. She double-pressed the home button to quick-launch the camera app. She whispered the liar's name, and the camera snapped a picture before she could press the button. "Chase," sounds enough like "Cheese," that the voice-control function took over. Sometimes what we say is different from what the world around us hears. Sometimes what the world around us says is different from what we tell ourselves.

  Angel's reality was called into court. Her eyes dropped to the picture on the phone's screen. That one piece of evidence proved false everything she had believed about her relationship. For the first time in a long time, she could see clearly. Wisdom is a kind of clairvoyance. Suddenly, Angel's interpretation of the facts was far more accurate than the image on the phone. This wasn't a picture of two men kissing. Not really. It was a picture of one man lying.

  That lie felt like a knife in Angel's gut.

  The sting was sharper than she had expected. The pain of it made her angrier than she had expected … angrier than she had ever believed she could be.

  She said the liar's name. Again. Again. And each time she said it, she lost more of whatever glue was keeping her together.

  Repeating his name over and over, she stormed right up to the window.

  She wanted him to know he'd been caught.

  Mack is suddenly aware that the wind chime has stopped ringing. He glances up from the phone. The whole chime is rotating. Slowly. Counter-clockwise. Gaining speed. As if caught in a backward breeze.

  Mack keeps swiping.

  The images on the screen now appear at different, seemingly random angles: a shot of Angel's shoes, a shot of the side of her purse, the window once again. Angel must have been yelling and swinging her arms with the phone snapping a photo every time she shouted Chase's name.

  Another shoe shot.

  Another side-of-the-house shot.

  Another off-centered window shot: In this one, Chase's motion-blurred body is turning away. His naked back is showing. Looks like he's preparing to take off running.

  Mack keeps swiping.

  Above the table, the wind chime is spinning so fast it resembles a carnival ride.

  Mack keeps swiping.

  Another blurry shoe shot.

  Another blurry shoe shot.

  Another blurry shoe shot—but this one is different. Mack recognizes the spot where she's standing. Angel must have run around to the front of the house. She's standing on the front stoop now.

  Mack keeps swiping.

  The front door is partway open. Chase's shirtless hookup is slipping out, squeezing past Angel’s big curves. The wind chime is above his head. Chase is behind the door, one arm outstretched as if to block Angel from coming any closer.

  Mack clenches his jaw. Watching this feels wrong. Suddenly—as if grabbed by an invisible hand—the largest pipe comes to an immediate stop above Mack’s head, and the smaller pipes crash into it from behind, each hollow bang rising in pitch. Sounds like a chorus of wounded screams. Metallic and cold. The shrieks pinball off the walls, the table, the china cabinet, around the entire room. Mack can feel the vibrations pulsing and wiggling over his skin. They scrape down and up the back of his neck, the backs of his hands. And as the
ringing slows, the tone lowers to a deep, guttural moan ... followed by a shiver. Mack's skin cobbles with goosebumps. Suddenly, the dining room feels colder. Much colder.

  Mack can see his breath.

  He swipes to the next picture.

  Angel is just inside the front door now. It opens right into the living room, and Mack recognizes the old flooring. Chase's hand seems to be pushing her back out or at least attempting to. She's fighting it.

  Above Mack's head, the deep-toned moan repeats—louder this time. It tickles the air. The wineglasses on the table begin to dance nervously.

  Mack swipes to the next picture.

  Chase has pushed Angel back out to the stoop. His body fills the doorway. He's reaching for the phone in Angel's upraised hand … or maybe he's reaching for … something else? Something above Angel’s head?

  Above Mack's head, the wide-mouthed steel pipe whispers: "Soon, Sooon, Soooooon."

  Mack knows what he's going to see next.

  He thinks he's ready.

  He swipes to the next picture.

  He almost drops the phone.

  He wants to drop the phone.

  He would, except that his hand is so cold, his fingers are stuck to it.

  The image is horrific.

  Worse than the voice whirling around him.

  Worse than the cold whisper in his ear.

  He wasn't ready to see this.

  He doesn't want to know the details … and yet, he already does.

  Reluctantly, as if reeled in on a line, he leans in closer to the screen.

  In the foreground: Angel's pink, manicured nails. Her fingers are slightly curled as if she has just now let go of the phone and called out her lover's name. When she said his name this time, it was a plea for help.

  Through the spaces between her fingers: The old living room floorboards retreating out of focus toward the bedroom.

  At the far end of the screen: Chase. He is standing upright. Just a blur. Almost out of frame.

  And something else: gripped in his right hand, partially hidden by his knee: a bold line reaching all the way to his ankle: the longest, thickest pipe from the wind chime: blurred and silvery and dark at the tip. The rest of the chime, still attached by an invisible fishing line, lies on the floor at his feet. Blood everywhere.

  Mack tries to swipe to the next picture, but the image on the screen doesn't retreat.

  No more pictures in the album.

  As Mack stares at this final image, the phone begins to warm his frozen hand.

  He can't help but imagine the hollow pipe in Chase’s cold grip. It’s dripping Angel's hot blood onto the rough, heart-of-pine floorboards. The sound of it. Dot, dot, dot. The hot puddle forming quickly around Chase's right foot. Mack imagines Chase pulling Angel along the wide-planks, towards the bedroom … across the bedroom … into the bathroom. He imagines Chase filling the tub and dropping Angel's body into the hot, soapy water. But she's still breathing. So he holds her head under until she stops. Mack imagines Chase washing out the steel pipe with a garden hose. Imagines a Mardi Gras parade snaking down their street, krewe members flinging beads and prizes to the crowd lined up seven people thick on either side of the road, some perched on ladders, some in lawn chairs, all with arms outstretched, reaching upward and outward, fingers wide open, and the massive oak catching all party favors they miss. Year after year for a hundred years. Thousands of charms in its branches. And he imagines Chase in the middle of the night, tossing the wind chime as high up as he can throw it—just another piece of trashy yard art on a trashy street, too high for most to notice, too tangled to pull down, too pretty to be bothered.

  The phone is so hot now, Mack drops it onto his plate.

  Above the table, the wind chime explodes into chaos.

  The pipes strike one another as if in combat.

  They fill the room with reverberating clangs.

  The walls seem to spin.

  The pipes shriek in earsplitting unison:

  A polyphonic howl:

  "Soooon!"

  Mack covers his ears.

  But not his eyes.

  It's dizzying.

  The pipes appear to bend and dimple. They quiver like flesh. Their skins are wet and loose. The hollow ends swell and pucker and drizzle purple, green, and gold Mardi Gras beads onto the tabletop.

  Beads bounce off the plates.

  They fill the wine glasses.

  Roll off the rounded edges of the oak table.

  They fill Mack's lap.

  They cover the floor like a shiny plastic carpet.

  Mack grabs up the hot phone to keep it from getting buried or broken. Too late. The screen is cracked. The image flickers. Angel's curled fingers appear to straighten and elongate. Mack jams the phone into his shirt pocket—it burns his chest through the fabric.

  Above the table, the wind chime is flinging itself in all directions.

  The whirling howl from its sinuous mouths wraps Mack's head like a bandage.

  Like a tourniquet.

  Tightening.

  The anger is trying to kill him.

  He can't breathe.

  His head is pounding from the inside out.

  If he doesn't fight back, it's going to kill him.

  He stands up in his chair and reaches for the wind chime—

  The pipes strike his hands, pushing him back. He lunges for them again. The largest pipe strikes at his head—one swift whack makes his ears ring. The space inside his head echoes, and the whole room bends inward. The shrieks knot themselves around his neck and cinch beneath his Adam's apple. Mack's tongue is swelling. His eyes feel too big for their sockets. With a final effort, he throws his arms wide open and leaps from his chair—

  In mid-air, he captures the whole chime in a bear hug and pulls it to his chest—

  The chime snaps from its ceiling hook—

  With a thunderous boom, Mack and the chime crash onto the tabletop.

  The impact feels like a sledgehammer.

  Plates and glasses fly.

  Mack's knee is in the green beans bowl, his elbow in the mashed potatoes.

  It takes him a few seconds to realize that he can breathe again …

  His heartbeat is slowing.

  The record player slows to a stop.

  The box fan slows to a stop.

  On all four walls, the sconce lights flicker and go out.

  Mack uncurls. Pulls himself up into a sitting position.

  The wind chime in his lap is still humming. Weakly. Just enough to tickle his balls. Softer than a whisper: Soon?

  Mack chooses a pipe.

  The longest pipe.

  The thickest pipe.

  The one with the deepest tone.

  He grips it.

  The metal is so cold. His hand freezes to it.

  With a single pull, he snaps the fishing lines that fasten it to the rest of the wind chime.

  He climbs off the tabletop.

  Pipe in hand, he walks toward the master bedroom.

  25

  Mack turns the knob.

  It's locked.

  Barely moving his lips, he whispers, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me in."

  He lifts the heavy pipe and softly taps—

  One tap.

  Two taps.

  He kicks the door inward, and steps through.

  Jim is on the bed. On top of Chase.

  Chase is on the bed. On top of Jeremy.

  Jeremy is on the bed. On all fours.

  They're all in a stack facing the headboard.

  And not one of them turns to look at Mack.

  After his grand and noisy entrance, this seems strange. Mack lifts the pipe high above his head. All three seem oblivious to his presence. They appear frozen with their chins raised, all of them staring at the window above the headboard. Because of his position directly across from it, Mack decides they must be staring at his reflection, too frightened to unplug, too ashamed to turn around. His own eyes go to the windo
w expecting to admire himself. His imposing figure. His enormous pipe.

  But the figure in the window is not Mack.

  It's not even a man.

  It's Angel in her over-sized earrings peering in from the opposite side of the glass. Her eyes bulging. Her face locked in a cadaveric spasm: bleached and translucent and stretched like a balloon about to pop.

  Suddenly, her mouth stretches wide open, peeling back her entire face.

  Her ear-piercing howl fogs the window and rattles the glass.

  Jim rolls off Chase's back, rolls off the bed, and runs for the door without giving Mack as much as a glance. In the same seconds, Jeremy claws himself out from under Chase's weight and throws himself over the side of the bed. His erection bobs up and down as he runs after Jim.

  Mack can hear their quick sprint across the living room.

  The front door opens.

  It doesn't close.

  Chase hasn’t moved. He’s still frozen in his pose, eyes fixed on the window above the headboard.

  Mack is still holding the pipe high over his head. He's holding it the way he imagines Chase held it when Angel tried to push her way in off the stoop, and he reached over her head, and she was yelling, and he was yelling, and his large hand squeezed the pipe, and it seemed to bend in his grip—

  But she never saw it.

  She was looking into his eyes when it happened.

  She's looking into his eyes now.

  For both, time has slowed, stopped, rewound.

  And now the pipe is coming down.

  It seems to fall for hours.

  When it strikes the back of Chase's head, the whole house vibrates.

  Mack steps up, onto the bed, over Chase, and continues up the center toward the window behind the headboard. Beneath the bottoms of his bare feet, the mattress is damp. Blood in the memory foam squeezes up between his toes and pools in his footprints. When he reaches the headboard, he crouches, leans forward and presses his face to the window. His nose flattens against the glass. "I did this for you," he tells the young woman on the other side, and the young woman's lips form the same shapes at the same time as his lips. He reaches his free hand toward the glass, and in the same motion, the young woman reaches forward. When their palms press together with only the thin glass between them, their hands are the same size, and Mack is afraid he's done something he can't take back.