“Okay,” Vera said at last. She left the room with an uneasy feeling in her gut. She walked to the kitchen in a daze. The keys were lying on the table, just as Stacy had said. Vera picked up the keys and stared at them momentarily. Next, she went to the living room and got her bag. She dropped the keys in the side pocket, but felt wary about leaving the apartment. She decided that she would leave her number with Stacy. She got out a business card and wrote her cell phone number on the back. When she was finished, she walked back down the hallway, to the bedroom. Stacy was sitting on the bed, her face drawn, her body seeming depleted of energy. Her face brightened when she saw Vera again.
“I wanted to leave my cell phone number with you,” Vera said, “…in case anything happens.” She stepped into the room and handed the card to Stacy. She took it and held it in both hands, looking at it as if grateful. Vera continued, “Are you okay, Stacy?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Maybe you should get some rest.”
Stacy was staring up at her: “Will you come back tonight—even if it’s late?”
Vera sighed. “I’ll try.”
Stacy smiled—a strange, sweet smile.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Vera said, leaving the room. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” Stacy said, still smiling.
Vera walked back down the hallway and out of the apartment, feeling suddenly anxious. What the hell was going on with Stacy? What was that all about? …She shook her head. She did not want to think about that now. It was Saturday night and she wanted to have a good time. She wanted to laugh at silly jokes and forget the last two days. She had a flashback of all the things that had happened: all the death and desperation she had seen and experienced. Of course, there had been good times with Stacy; they had had their laughs, but Vera had used more energy in the last two days than she would have typically used in a week. Maybe that was good; maybe that was bad. Stacy had showed her things—wondrous things—and she was grateful for that. Still, she needed some time away, in order to think and digest everything that had happened. Maybe all she needed was to forget for a little while—to go back to the old ways, and give her mind a break from all the impossible things Stacy had shown her. Tomorrow, she would again ponder those impossibilities; but for now, she wanted to be carefree and silly. She needed it, in fact.
The police detective was double-parked on the street. He got out of the car as she exited the building. He walked around to the passenger side door, to open it for her. She smiled, saying:
“First you bring flowers, and now you’re opening doors? I didn’t take you for an old gentleman.”
“Watch that ‘old’ stuff!” he said as he guided her into the car.
She was smiling as she sat down in the car. However, looking through the windshield, she saw Rique Johnson—AKA Oldschool—coming down the block, still in his linen suit. “Oh shit!” she said, ducking down in the seat and holding her huge handbag over her face.
When the police detective entered the car, he frowned at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m hiding from someone.”
He looked out of the windscreen, at Oldschool. “Who’s that—an old boyfriend?”
“Hardly!” she said with a laugh.
He chuckled and started up the car. “I assume there’s an interesting story behind that.”
“You can put money on it, Holmes, but you’ll never hear it from me.”
He put the car in gear and started down the block. He looked over at her suspiciously: “What’s this ‘Holmes’ business? You don’t know what my name is, do you?”
She laughed uneasily. “Don’t be angry—I think I was in shock when you told me the first time.”
He laughed at her. “That’s going to cost you, Vera.”
“So, now you’re going to charge an arm and a leg, too?”
“Damn straight! All’s fair in love and war.”
“Which one is this: love or war?”
He laughed loudly; and then, with a smile on his face: “The night will tell.” They drove along in silence for a few seconds.
She looked over at him with mock exasperation: “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”
“Huh?”
“Are you going to tell me what your name is—or should I keep calling you Holmes?”
“Oh,” he said, before laughing at himself. “Jonathan Luckett—Jon to my friends.”
She groaned. “I think I prefer Holmes.”
They both laughed.
“By the way,” the detective began, “Eleanor’s funeral is on Wednesday.”
“Who?”
“Eleanor—the huge woman who tumbled down the stairs and broke her neck last night.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t know what her name was either?”
“Of course not—the first time I met her was when she tried to kill me. Besides, she didn’t strike me as an Eleanor.”
“What did she strike you as?” he said with a smile.
“I don’t know—a Bertha maybe.”
“I think that was one of her porn names,” he said, chuckling again: “Big Bertha.”
“Were you one of her fans?”
He laughed out. “Nah—I looked it up on the Internet. She had several aliases. Supposedly she was very skilled.”
“Skilled with what? An axe?” After their laughter died down, she looked at the detective suspiciously: “So, is viewing porn an official police duty now?”
“Sometimes I have to go above and beyond to satisfy my duties,” he said, chuckling.
“I can imagine—especially when you come across three hundred pound dead porn queens.” While they were laughing, Vera remembered the woman was dead. The entire conversation suddenly seemed sacrilegious—or at least in bad taste.
They drove along in silence for a few seconds, but it was comfortable silence. “…So,” she began again, “tell me about yourself, Holmes.”
“You forgot my name already?”
“No, like I told you, Holmes suits you better.”
He laughed again, then shook his head. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
“We can start with the polite stuff first: where you were born, how long you’ve been a police officer, if you were married…?”
“Oh, I see how it is now,” he said with a smile. “This is your chance to interrogate me.”
“It is indeed. Why should you have all the fun?”
“Okay. …Let me see: I’m a lifelong New Yorker; I’ve been a cop for twelve years. I used to be married.”
“Used to be?”
“My wife died in a car accident.”—Vera looked up at him sharply; he continued to stare ahead blankly, as if seeing the scene unfolding before his eyes—“…A drunk driver drove across the highway median and crashed into her car. My daughter was in the back seat. They were killed instantly—or at least, that’s what the coroner said.”
“Oh my God, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”
“No problem.”
“How long ago did all this happen, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Five years.”
“How old was your daughter?”
“She was two.”
“God! …How’d you get through it all?”
“I’m not saying I didn’t go mad for a while. I had my moments when I wanted to take my gun and go down to where they were holding the drunk driver, and put two bullets in his head. …When things like that happen, you want to believe in evil and evil people.”
“Why do you say that?”
“When someone takes everything from you like that, you want to think that they are evil, and that they deserve your revenge. Evil makes revenge easy; when you allow yourself to believe that others are evil, the evil behind your own actions begins to look like righteousness. Evil people see evil people everywhere. It’s crooks that spend the most time worrying about crime. That’s the nature of the world. …The fact of the matter is that
my wife was only on that highway because we had gotten into an argument earlier. She said I was working too much—that being a cop was all that mattered to me, and that I was neglecting her and my daughter. It was all true, but I yelled at her—called her a bitch and other things. She was driving to her mother’s house to cool out. …So, you see, I wanted to believe the drunk driver was evil, so I could overlook my own part in it. In my mind, I saw him as a monster—as subhuman. …When I finally got a look at the guy, it was a scared kid: a trembling nineteen-year-old. That’s when I knew that I had to give it all up.”
“You forgave him?”
“It wasn’t a matter of forgiveness—just of acceptance: acknowledging things as they were, instead of creating a fantasy in my mind. People create fantasies for themselves all the time, so they can feel good about themselves. No matter what, my wife was not going to come back. My daughter wasn’t coming back. I couldn’t take away the hurtful things I had said to my wife; I couldn’t pretend that I had been a loving father. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life grieving for a fantasy. All I could do was acknowledge what I had done, and take that knowledge with me into the future. …Live life with those lessons in mind, and try to be better.”
Vera mused, “I guess that you’ve seen lots of bad things as a cop?”
“Yeah…”
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?” As soon as she said it, she grimaced, and then smiled.
He raised an eyebrow at her reaction. “What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know where that question came from. …It’s the kind of question Stacy would ask.”
“Do you usually go around with other people’s questions in your head?”
“Stacy has a way of talking and asking questions,” she said vaguely.
The detective laughed at the bewildered expression on her face. Then, remembering her question, “Do you really want to know the worst thing I’ve seen as a cop?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, embarrassed.
“Okay. …When I was on the force for about six months, my partner and I got a domestic violence call: a husband beating up on his wife. You see that practically every day when you’re a cop: families falling apart. …When we got there, the door was locked; there was no response, but my partner, who had been a cop for over ten years, had this look on his face. …I don’t know how to describe it. He was listening closely at the door; and then, as if hearing or sensing something, he reared back and broke down the door. …There was blood everywhere…so much blood. The man’s wife, his two little kids…all butchered. The neighbors had heard screaming for over an hour. The man had tied his family up, like cows for slaughter, and hacked…” The detective stopped himself and took a deep breath. “…Stuff like that stays with you. …We found the man in the bathroom. He had chopped off his hand so that he could bleed to death. He had this smile on his face—this look of peace. All I wanted to do was bust up his face, so that that smile could be wiped from the world…from my memory. …That’s the worst thing I’ve seen,” he said, looking over at her pointedly. “At least I didn’t see my family dead. I wasn’t at the scene: I only saw them later, in the sterility of the coroner’s office. I didn’t see all the blood…”
“That is a pretty bad memory,” Vera admitted, feeling guilty about having brought up the topic.
The detective nodded, staring out of the windscreen. “It’s been a while since I talked to anyone about my family.”
She was looking at him closely now; despite what he had said about accepting the deaths of his loved ones, she could see the pain reflected in his eyes. There was an immense well of sadness there. She suddenly remembered the boyfriend: how Stacy had made him forget all the horrible things that had happened. Vera ventured, “If you could forget everything that had happened to your family, would you?”
“What do you mean?”
“If, somehow, you could wipe it all from your memory—get rid of all the pain—would you?”
He shook his head confusedly: “There’s no way to forget.”
“Never mind that. Just pretend for a moment that there was a way you could wipe it all away. Would you do it?”
He shook his head again. “If we could magically forget everything that was hurtful to us, then there’d be no incentive to try to be better human beings. A man who doesn’t have regrets is a soul-less man: an evil man. If you have no regrets that’s either because you’re too stupid to know better or because you’re so evil that you think everything you do is good.”
Vera smiled. “Is that some kind of Buddhist, New Age sort of thing?” she teased him.
He smiled. “Nah, merely common sense.”
“What’s the difference?”
He sighed thoughtfully. “…I think most religions started out as common sense. Over time the common sense got bureaucratized and watered down, until, instead of following what our insides told us was right, we found ourselves following bureaucrats.”
She smiled wider.
He looked over at her curiously: “What’s that smile about?”
“Somehow, you reminded me of Stacy just then.”
“Is that good?”
“I think so. I’ve had the strangest conversations since I met you two. …Strange, but good. …Stuff you’d probably never talk to another living person about.”
“Do you realize that that’s the second time you’ve brought up Stacy? If she were a man, I’d be jealous.”
Vera laughed. “Stacy’s an interesting person.”
“Yeah, and mysterious.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is Stacy her real name?”
Vera frowned. “…I guess. …What are you saying?”
He sighed, trying to decide how he would explain it. “She has records like everyone else—school, driver’s license…but they’re all a little off.”
“You mean fake?”
“Possibly…I don’t know. They’re not right. That’s all I’m saying.” He noticed the expression on her face. “—I’m sorry. I’m upsetting you.”
“No, actually, she told me about that—you’re not telling me anything new.”
“What did she say?”
“Her family sent her to live with an aunt when she was a baby. Her father had been a drifter who raped her mother. Her mother killed him.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Her mother killed him and buried the body, and then her mother committed suicide some time after Stacy was born.”
“Goddamn.”
“With all that, the family sent her to live with her aunt. Supposedly, her aunt had fake documents made.”
“Oh, I see. That would explain it.”
“You’re not going to pursue this further, I hope?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes the past should stay buried.”
He glanced over at her, but did not say anything. There was an uncomfortable silence. It lasted about a minute.
“Holmes?” Vera said at last.
“Yeah,” he said eagerly, glad that she was talking to him again.
“Tell me about the happiest moment in your life—your greatest accomplishment…anything.”
He sniggered. “Is that another Stacy question?”
“No, it’s a Vera question. Tell me something that’ll convince me the world isn’t insane.”
He smiled widely. “Charmaine Parker.”
Vera grimaced. “Please tell me you’re not about to tell me how you lost your virginity to this woman.”
He laughed. “Hardly—she was eighty years old.”
“So what? I don’t know what your tastes are,” she teased him. “Anyway, go on with your story.”
He nodded, gathering his thoughts. “Actually, this happened a few hours after the thing I just told you about—with the butchered family. My partner and I got off duty about eight p.m. My partner went to get drunk, but I wanted to be alone. That’s what I told myself anyway. Charmaine Parker was an
old lady in my neighborhood. My first apartment was only about a mile from where I grew up. I had known Mrs. Parker since I was a kid. She always seemed to have a fresh-baked cake or pie. She was always expecting guests, I suppose. People in the neighborhood always knew that that was somewhere to go to talk, I guess. The cake was only an excuse. You’d say you were going because you were hungry, but then you’d find yourself talking. I guess she was the neighborhood therapist,” he said with a laugh. “Anyway, I was so restless after I got off duty that I walked about the neighborhood. After I passed her house the second time, she called me in. With that piece of pie in front of me I found myself spilling my guts about everything—telling her things I had not even acknowledged to myself. We talked for about two or three hours, but the strange thing is that we probably only spent about ten minutes talking about the butchered family. I came away from that conversation feeling older somehow—as if I had settled the direction of my life: who I was going to be, what I was going to do…. For that one moment, everything seemed clearer. I left her house feeling optimistic about things. Talking to her saved me somehow. I can’t explain it. Sometimes, I find myself thinking that if I hadn’t talked to her that night, I’d be a totally different person.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Nah, she died about a year later. Her funeral was standing room only.”
“So, you haven’t had a therapist in all these years?” she pointed out. There was a smile on her face. He laughed when he saw what she was insinuating.
“No, I guess not,” he said.
“Maybe this date is just an elaborate ruse to get free therapy from me.” He laughed harder. “Anything is possible.”
“Then that will be one hundred fifty dollars,” Vera announced. When he looked at her confusedly, she said, “My hourly fee as a therapist.”
“For what?”
“Obviously talking to me has allowed you reach a state of self-awareness, so now you owe me.”
“Damn, you really do charge an arm and a leg!”
“Sometimes two arms.”
They both laughed.
“So, what’s your story, Dr. Vera? How come you never hatched any eggs?”
How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Page 16