That got chuckles from the students so he hopped from the desk and smiled at them tightly, “Besides, you paid me to be here so it’s not fair to you. Any questions?”
A hand shut up from the center and Anderson nodded, “yes, Jacob.”
“I know,” the student began. “That we’re all thinking it so I’m just going to say it. We are really sorry for what happened. I’m not saying that I know how you feel but, you know?”
Anderson nodded, “Thanks guys.” When no other hands went up, Anderson walked around his desk to his notes. He turned back to face the class, “All right, so we’ll pick up where we left off last lecture but do not forget that your paper is due next class. So if you have any questions about that, ask them now…”
Normally, the class would fly by. But this day the class dragged on and on. The students were on their best behavior and he knew that it was because of his father. At certain points in the lecture he would have to stop, clear his throat and continue. He tossed himself into the lesson for it was something he was passionate about. Over and over Anderson had to push his father from his mind and focus with all his might on his students. He used every ounce of strength he had in him to take in each answer the class gave to his questions. He even managed a few jokes.
“Homer also described the Trojan War, including Greek characters such as Agamemnon, Menelaos, Achilles, Calchas, Clytaemnestra, Odysseus, Ajax,” Anderson Williams walked amongst the two hundred students he taught Classical Literature to. Can anyone think of an easy way to remember this?”
“Think Homer Simpson!” a student shouted and Anderson laughed.
“Don’t know how effective that would be,” he grinned. “But whatever floats your boat.”
The lecture hall erupted in laughter.
The regular shuffling of students began and Anderson knew it was time for the lecture to end. The students seemed to enjoy the class but three hours was a lot for a bunch of young people to sit listening to things about dead authors that they’d probably never use. When the shuffling began, Anderson knew time was up.
“Don’t forget!” He shouted above the ruffling of chairs, zippers, papers and the like. “Your paper on Homer’s Odyssey is due next lecture. Therefore if you haven’t started it yet, now may be a good time.” A few nervous chuckles erupted from the departing students and Anderson had to laugh and shake his head. He watched the students all leave, waiting to see if any of the regulars would have any questions or comments on the day’s topic. When no one stuck around, he exhaled and slipped back into his darkened, fatherless world. Yesterday and today it had become increasingly harder to get out of bed since his father’s murder, but he did it. He would shove his feet from the bed, shower, laced his coffee with Jamaican white rum then walked the block to campus from his home. By the time he got there, he would have sweat out the alcohol and was left blissfully numb. The numbness didn’t last and by the time his second lecture of the day rolled around, he could feel everything, twice as much.
Anderson glanced at the clock.
“Fuck!” he swore. “I am so late!”
Quickly, he shoved his copy of The Iliad into his bag, followed by the surprise quiz he had dropped on the students that day. Yanking his jacket off the back of a chair, he tossed the bag over his shoulder and breezed out the door. He was late for pretending to be straight and completely in love with some model or another for his best friend’s latest music video. He hated it but if Byung Ho Fung had asked Anderson to move the earth Anderson would have found some way to do it.
Anderson had no ill feelings for women. He thought they were beautiful creatures but they never did anything sexually for him. Give him a sexy, intelligent, independent man and Anderson would be in heaven. Being one of Byung’s video actors was supposed to be a one-time deal after the original model had gotten hurt. How someone could injure himself during sex escaped Anderson but he wouldn’t judge. After that video, the directors were so impressed with Anderson that they were absolutely gushing.
“Taxi!” Anderson flailed a hand above his head.
The yellow machine skidded to a stop before him and Anderson hopped in, gave his destination and slipped back into the seat. Then, he released his control and let memories of his father flood his mind completely. Judge Jazmon Williams spent his life putting away the bad guys. He always told Anderson, “Andy, I’m doing this for you and your mother. I have to make the world safer for both of you.”
Anderson pressed his eyes shut. Pain vibrated through him causing tears to sting his eyes.
“Easy Andy,” he whispered huskily.
“You sayin’ somethin’, brotha?” the cap driver tossed over his shoulder.
“Nah, man,” Anderson sat forward and inhaled deeply. When the car finally stopped, Anderson wasn’t ready to face what was ahead. But he was doing it for a friend, a brother. He paid the cab fare and watched the cab drive away until it was a tiny yellow dot intermixed with other cars all running in the same direction.
“You’re late,” Byung Ho Fung’s voice interrupted Anderson’s daze. The literature professor spun around and was instantly in the arms of the Chinese actor/singer.
“You’re preaching to the choir, Bro,” Anderson managed a smile while returning the hug. He knew the madness that was to begin and was not looking forward to it.
“Make up!” A shrill voice rang out over a bullhorn.
Anderson flinched.
Soon he was shirtless, in a white pair of satin pajama pants, laying in a bed with white sheets and had a rather pretty Chinese brunette writhing against his body to the music of Byung singing Tell Me Lies. The song was something Anderson knew all too well with the last two men he had dated. It was about a man who knew his lover was lying about her love and her loyalty to him, but chose not to face the lies in return for keeping what he thought was pure love. The men that Anderson dated all told him what they thought he wanted to hear. They all whispered sweet nothings to him and a part of him loved the fact that they were saying those tender words of love. They were the lies he was willing to tolerate, to take in but soon he realized that they were no good for him. They were slowly tearing him apart and he couldn’t allow that to happen. They were stealing his control and Anderson would rather die than give that up.
“Oh, to be in willing denial,” he thought to himself.
By the time the day had finally ended, Anderson invited Byung to spend the night. They charged through the front door of Anderson’s house and plopped down onto a sofa. Together they exhaled through their mouths causing a loud whoosh sound.
“What a day,” Byung moaned.
“I feel you,” Anderson jargoned softly. “I thought about him today.”
“Have you spoken to anyone down at the precinct about the murder?” Byung wanted to know.
Anderson inhaled deeply then pushed forward to brace his elbows against his knees, “Not today. I stopped by yesterday but they said that the detective in charge of the case wasn’t there. I know they’re giving me the fucking runaround. I just wanna…”he trailed off.
“I could pull some strings,” Byung offered.
Anderson shook his head. He rose and entered the kitchen. Pulling frozen lasagna from the freezer, he prepped it and placed it in the oven. As he set the timer and turned the oven on he spoke, “I’ll deal with them tomorrow,” growling like a bear that had been poked one too many times. “I’m going to let them know that I wanna be kept informed of any progress on the case. I am not some disinterested relative of their latest murder victim. This victim was my father and I am very interested in justice!”.”
Chapter Three
The next morning, Sam put on a fresh pot of coffee and sat down with his partner.
“Have the crime scene photos come up from the lab yet?” he asked Roger.
“No, but they should be here any moment. Anything new on this case since we left our victim’s son?”
“Only that the homicide pictures from the 14th precinct have come over an
d they’re just as brutal as ours.”
The moment Anderson pushed his legs out of the car, he felt as though he was walking into his doom. It was a paranoid, horrible feeling that he wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy—with the exception of the bastard that butchered his father. Frowning, he stopped at the front desk. “I’m here to speak with the detective in charge of the Judge Jazmon Williams case.”
The man nodded his head, “one moment,” and disappeared through a door that said “Police personnel only” on it. Anderson wrapped his arms around himself and stared at the door for so long that he thought he lost track of time. Soon the door swung open again and he was led into a room—a room that felt sterile and cold. He didn’t sit down but paced the room. He still felt a little ill but Byung was right: he had to face this head on for it to go away and stay gone. His cell phone began vibrating and when he pulled it out he saw Byung’s number on the display.
“You checking in on me?” he smiled.
“Excuse me Detective Morgan, there’s an Anderson Williams here to see you,” announced the public service aid.
“Okay, thanks. Put him in interview room one, will ya?”
“Of course Detective.”
“Let’s grab our coffee and go talk to him and find out what he wants,” Sam said to Roger.
As they entered interview room one, they found Anderson Williams sitting in one of the chairs. “Good Morning Mr. Williams, what can we do for you?”
A voice greeted him from behind and he turned around and held up a finger, “I’ll call you after I’m finished here,” he explained to Byung and hung up. “What can you do for me? I wanna know if you guys are doing anything to find my father’s killer?” Anderson replied.
“Since it’s only been two days since the murder of your father Mr. Williams, we haven’t had enough time to do much of anything yet,” Sam replied.
“I see,” Anderson said as he stood up. He dumped his cell phone into his pocket and leant his back against the wall. Folding his arms across his chest, he crossed his legs at the ankles and inhaled deeply, “May I ask what exactly are you doing to find this bastard?”
“Look, sir, we know you’re upset, but we are not the enemy. We are doing everything we can to find the murderer, but it will take time and resources. We believe we have a serial killer on the loose here and your father may have been victim number three.”
“Of course I’m upset. Wouldn’t you be walking in and finding your father in that state? But I’m also enraged at the bastard who could do this to another human being and now you’re telling me that this animal has done this to other people?”
He tried to reign in his temper by turning away from the detectives to face the wall. He braced his hands against the wall before pressing his forehead to it. He inhaled deeply and counted to ten silently trying to calm himself down. Anderson then asked his questions again, more calmly this time, “Do you know what it feels like, Detective,” his voice was low, more like a rumble than speaking. “to see the man who has been your protector, ever since you were a baby with his body all over the damn house? There was so much blood…and now you’re telling me there’s a serial killer loose? Do you at least know why he targeted my father?”
“We’re working with other detectives on this exact issue, but it takes time. We have three separate victims, and we need to find out if there is a connection between your father and the other men. That’s why I was asking you the questions that I did. By the way, where did you father go to law school?”
Anderson turned and flopped down against the hard chair at the question. He removed the class ring he wore and placed it down against the table. “Yale,” he replied and tilted the ring towards the detective with a single finger. “He gave me that the day I started working at NYU. That’s his class ring, maybe that’ll help some. There’s an engraving on the inside that I never did know what it was. He always clammed up when I asked him about it. If you’re gonna take it I need it back.”
Sam picked up the ring and looked at the outside of the ring and then turned it slightly so that he could squint and read the inscription, which read, “umquam astrictus.”
“It means, ‘ever bound,’ or something like that,” said Roger.
“Wow, you speak Latin Rog?” Sam asked.
“Catholic school boy, ya know?” he replied.
“Yes, we’ll take a look at it. Right now, we are looking at everything connected with these cases, and I really don’t have anything else to tell you. You need to let us do our jobs and be patient. You can keep the ring, we have the inscription noted,” Sam said.
“Tell me Detective, and be honest,” Anderson glued his brown eyes on Sam. “Could you be patient if this had happened to someone you loved? A wife, partner, friend, family member? Could you just sit back feeling helpless because someone asked you to?”
“No, but then again, you really don’t have any choice. I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to rush this investigation and miss something, now would you?”
Anderson couldn’t help the smile that trailed his lips briefly. “Touché,” he nodded. “I need you to do me a favor, Detective. Because normally a cop’s word around here doesn’t mean anything, I’d like you to look me in the eyes, and tell me honestly that you will get this guy.”
“I can’t promise you that. What I can promise you is that the police department will do everything possible to arrest and convict this killer; of that you can rest assured in spite of your lack of respect for what we do here.”
Anderson kept eye contact with the detective for a while longer than was necessary. There was something in those deep, blue eyes that brought a strange sense of trust. Nodding his head, Anderson stood up, “I’ll see myself out,” he spoke. His hand was against the door handle when he stopped, rummaged through his pocket and produced Byung’s card. “Since this whole heartbreak started, a friend of mine is watching me like a hawk. I think he believes I will do something to myself—I’ll be at this address most of the time if you cannot reach me anywhere else.”
“It’s good to have friends like that. Don’t think you can’t call me from time to time either. In fact, here is my cell phone number, use it if you need to.”
“Thanks,” Anderson smiled tightly while taking the card. “Do you know when they’ll release my father’s body?”
“Call the coroner, he’s the one with the say so. We’ve already signed off on it.”
“Yeah,” that was the last word Anderson said before stepping from the room into the hall and made his way out. Uniformed officers stepped out of his way as he passed them silently. He felt a strange sense of peace then—temporary or not—for he had taken comfort from two beautiful blue eyes.
“Well partner, let’s get back to working this case so Anderson can sleep better.”
After sitting down, Morgan pulled out the crime scene photos from all three murders since the photos from the last homicide had arrived while they were in with Williams. He spread them out on his desk and both he and Sizemore studied the gruesome scenes.
“Ya notice how the heads and legs are arranged the same way in all the murders? Does that suggest anything to you?”
Sizemore looked them over and a realization dawned on him. “It looks like a pirate scene of some sort. You know, the Jolly Roger!”
It took Anderson a while to get through the hellish New York traffic. When he finally got onto a side street and sped towards a shortcut back home, he decided to stop off and pick up some groceries. Byung would have his ass if he didn’t get some food to at least pretend he was eating right. When he finally found a parking spot and hopped from his car, he glanced up at the sky. It looked like rain.
He grabbed a cart from the outside of the store and hurried inside. Uselessly, he stood where he entered. Everything felt new to him. Thinking of the impending rain, he willed his legs to move and began packing healthy food into the cart. By the time he was at the front of the store again, he had gotten over three hundred dollars worth of food
. He ate more calories than regular people because of his workout regimen. But even so, he had the sinking feeling that most of it would spoil because of what was happening around him. He paid for the groceries, got back into his car and then sped off towards his house.
Anderson was barely home when the rain began falling—lightly at first. But when he pulled up into his parking lot the heavens really opened up. Water drenched everything unmercifully. He sat in the car long after he turned the engine off hoping that it would be one of those rains that would pour for a couple of minutes them taper off. That wasn’t happening and the longer he sat there the more it began to seep into him that the rain wasn’t about to stop. Reluctantly, he pushed from the vehicle, snapped open the trunk and rummaged through his bags. He found the ones with meats, milk and ice-cream—things that needed to be refrigerated. Braving the rain he walked up to his front door. He juggled the bags slightly, hunched over to shove the key into the lock but when he braced slightly on the door, it pushed open.
That caught his attention instantly because he knew he had not left that door open. He had gotten especially paranoid about open doors due to the circumstance of how he had found his father. Anderson straightened his body then used the toe of his boots to push the door wider. The bags he held slid from his hand, crashing into the ground and Anderson stood in the rain staring into his home. He had paid so much money to have it decorated perfectly now everything was a mess. From where he stood, there were markings on the wall, clothes on the ground, broken cups. He stepped in slowly, glancing around him. He swallowed the angry lump in his throat and moved through the house. The kitchen was completely destroyed. The china that his mother had left him in her will were all broken to pieces on the ground. Every glass, plate, saucer and mug was shattered. . Kicking a pot, it flipped to reveal a hole in the bottom. The food he had left in the fridge before was now sitting in the sink and the fridge stood open.
The Orchid Murders Page 3