The Last Day of Emily Lindsey

by Nic Joseph

  “I told her that maybe you could get her a stairwell key. That way, she could come upstairs and sing for you, and nobody would know. But you know Lill. She said that it was against the rules, and you couldn’t do that. She hates to see you so upset.”

  She shook her head. “You’re just a child,” she whispered, and the tears welled up in her eyes. “What’s wrong with me? I shouldn’t be talking to you about this. You’re just a child.”

  The next couple of events happened so perfectly that Jack couldn’t believe his luck.

  As if on cue, he heard footsteps behind him. The sounds of Lill’s humming as she walked along stopped both Jack and Mother Deena in their tracks.

  He couldn’t stop a smile from coming to his face. He couldn’t have planned it better.

  The humming stopped, and he heard Lill’s voice.

  “Jack?”

  But by then, the tears were already spilling down Deena’s cheeks. As Lill turned the corner, the expression that crossed Deena’s face told him everything he needed to know.

  He’d done it.

  Lill paused as she saw Mother Deena, her forehead scrunching up as she took in her tear-streaked face and puffy eyes. She rushed to Deena’s side and grabbed her hand. “Mother Deena,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  Deena looked up at Jack, who raised his eyebrows.

  “Well,” he asked. “What do you think?”

  As she looked down at the young girl holding her hand, Deena took in a sharp breath and then nodded fiercely, the tears still flowing. “Thank you,” she whispered to Lill, who stared at her in confusion. “I’ll get you the key for the stairwell if you’ll really come sing for me. Nobody will know. Thank you so much.” The tears were flowing again as she pulled Lill close. “I haven’t slept in weeks. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  As they stood there, Lill stared at Jack over Deena’s shoulder, her face filled with confusion and emotion as she hugged her mother back.

  Chapter Nine

  Now

  Right before we left for the station, I overheard Gayla telling on me.

  Granted, I had run out of a crime scene in the middle of an investigation and practically hyperventilated on the front lawn.

  Over a couch.

  And the tone of Gayla’s voice as she whispered into her cellphone was considerably more worried than it was mean-spirited.

  And we were both fully adults, and at the end of the day, Gayla was just doing her job.

  But it sure felt like tattling.

  Her phone had rung as we were talking to Derrick, and she slipped away with a quick “be right back.” I didn’t think much of it, since Gayla was constantly taking calls. She hadn’t returned by the time I finished up with Derrick, and I headed toward the car to find her.

  When I got there, she was standing with her back to me, her shoulders hunched over as she spoke softly into her phone. But not softly enough. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but her first words stopped me in my tracks.

  “You can ask Derrick about it later, too, but I think he had another episode,” she said.

  I knew instantly that she was talking about me, and I couldn’t stop the flood of anger that swept over me. We had just talked about this, and she obviously hadn’t believed me. The fact that I had been lying made no difference; she was my partner, and she should trust me. I remained silent as I stepped even closer, straining to hear what she was saying.

  “No, we were in the middle of a case, and he just got all quiet, turned, and ran out of the house.” She paused. “Yes, we’re at a crime scene right now. I don’t know, Mary. It kind of freaked me out. I thought you should know. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  There was a conscientious, mature part of me that would have backed away and pretended that I hadn’t heard a thing. But the other part of me—defensive, embarrassed, and, above all, hurt that she couldn’t have at least waited until she got home—took a sullen step closer.

  “Hey,” I said, and she whipped around, the phone in her hand, her eyes wide. “Got that out of the way?”

  Her shoulders slumped, but she didn’t look embarrassed, only concerned. “I’m worried about you,” she said as she moved toward the driver’s side door. She opened it as I walked around to the other side of the car and got in. She started the car but didn’t put it in drive.

  “You’re not telling me what’s going on, and you’re lying and saying you’re okay,” she said. “When I know you’re not. I had to do something. Are you ever going to tell me what happened back there?”

  “I already did,” I said.

  She shook her head as she put the car in drive. “I guess the answer is no,” she said as she made a U-turn and headed for the main road.

  I opened my mouth to protest again, but I knew it wasn’t worth it. I closed it and turned to look out the window.

  We drove the whole way back to the station in silence.

  • • •

  By the time we pulled into the station’s parking lot, I knew that Gayla was pissed. She hadn’t said another word during the trip, which was completely unlike her. We got out of the car, and there was an apology lingering on my tongue, but I couldn’t get it out.

  As we walked into the station, the operations officer, Dori, looked up and gestured toward the waiting area with her head.

  “Cabdriver is in there, waiting for you,” she said. “His name is Freddy Cruise. Fair warning, he is not in a good mood.”

  I nodded, and Gayla and I walked over to the small waiting area where a man was sitting by himself. He was slumped down in one of the chairs, his stubby legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes on the ground. He was holding a hat in his hands, and his thinning hair was combed over to one side, held by sweat and maybe a little bit of gel, too. He looked up as we walked into the room, and his eyebrows shot up as he stood, still gripping his hat tightly in front of him.

  “Mr. Cruise?” Gayla asked.

  “Yes,” the man said. “Are you the detectives that they asked me to wait for? What’s going on with my car?”

  “Your car?” I asked.

  “Yeah, who’s going to pay to have my car cleaned?” he asked. “That’s why I waited. I don’t have time to be here all night, but I need to know who’s going to pay for it.”

  “Sir, we can get into that later,” Gayla said. “We really need to know what happened to the woman you picked up and dropped off in Whitewater.”

  “We can get into that later,” he snapped back.

  Gayla drew back in surprise. She threw me a quick glance as Cruise continued.

  “There’s blood all over my backseat. That shit doesn’t come out. And you think people are going to want to get into my car when they see that?”

  “No—” Gayla started.

  But the man continued, cutting her off. “Somebody’s going to have to pay for that,” he said. “We’re already hurting out here, with Uber. You don’t know how hard it is to get a ride most nights. I can barely cover my gas. I don’t need this, too. Somebody’s got to clean my car.”

  “Look, we’ll work out something with you for your car,” I said, taking a step forward and lowering my voice. “But we need your help with this investigation. A woman’s life might be in danger. Help us, and then we’ll talk about the car.”

  Cruise let out a long, exaggerated sigh. “I’m sorry for her, but that’s not my fault,” he said. “I didn’t do nothing to her. Just picked her up and dropped her off.”

  “Mind if we step to the back?” I asked, gesturing toward the back of the station.

  He paused for just a moment before nodding. He still looked angry, but he followed Gayla and me out of the waiting area and back to a small chair next to my desk.

  “You can have a seat here,” I said, putting my hand on the back of the chair.

  Cruise sat down and placed h
is hat back in his lap. I sat in my own chair, and Gayla perched on the edge of my desk.

  “So what do you mean her life is in danger? Something wrong with her?” he asked. “You think she’s the one who is responsible for the blood in my car?”

  “Well, you’ll have to tell us,” Gayla said. “She’s currently in the hospital, suffering from some kind of shock. When she was found, she was at home, covered in a lot of blood. Are you telling us that you didn’t see any blood on her when she got in the cab? Or when she got out?”

  “Naw, I didn’t see anything,” he said. “I was so happy to get the fare, I didn’t really look at her.”

  He didn’t seem to be making it up, which meant one of two things. Either he was completely unobservant and he’d missed the fact that his passenger was covered in blood when he picked her up, or whatever had happened to her occurred while she was in the backseat.

  “So you didn’t see anything?” I asked. “Nothing that seemed suspicious?”

  Cruise crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “No, not really,” he said. “I mean, they said that she must have been covered in it for there to be that much on my backseat, but I didn’t see anything. I know she had a lot of hair or whatever, hanging all in front of her face, and she had a long coat on. And that was it.”

  “Where did you pick her up?”

  “Believe it or not, off the interstate. Near the intersection of 59 and Highway 12. Over by those woods. What is it? Piper…”

  “Piper Woods,” I said. “Near the lake. What were you doing out there?”

  “I took a job out there, coming from the airport. I was on the way back, and I was pissed, because that’s an empty cab ride back to the city. Do you know how hard it is on us to have an empty ride back to the city? It basically cancels out any profits I make from the entire night. Anyway, I stopped to get gas and then got back on the road, and there she was. Standing by the side of the road, her hand out.”

  “And you didn’t see anything odd about her?”

  “Not really, but I just told you, I wasn’t looking. All I saw was a figure in the dark, a lot of hair, and a hand out. I pulled over, and she got in.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She gave me the address. The place out in Whitewater. It wasn’t back to the city, but it was closer, and I was happy for it. I just told her I needed the cash up front.”

  “You did?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I wasn’t about to pick up some hobo out in the middle of nowhere and give a free ride back to the city,” he said. “I told her it would be seventy-five dollars, and she handed me a wad. Hundred on the outside. That was all I needed.”

  “Did she have a purse with her?”

  “I think so.”

  “Is that where she got the money?”

  “I don’t know!” he said and let out an exasperated sigh. “So many questions. I have no idea. Her purse, her pocket…I don’t know. She just handed it to me. Like I said, I didn’t ask that many questions.”

  “But she had to give you her address. What did she sound like?” Gayla asked. “I mean, did she sound…okay?”

  “I guess,” he said. “Kinda robotic, like she didn’t want any more conversation. Which is normal for me. A lot of people don’t really want to talk. Some people want to talk your ear off, or tell you about their day, or ask about yours, as if they really care. I always wonder about those people who act like they want to know my life story. Think it makes them feel good about themselves, like they’re talking to the hired help, you know? I don’t mind it, though, ’cause they’re usually the best tippers—”

  “Mr. Cruise?” Gayla said.

  “Oh, sorry. So yeah, she didn’t say anything else. Just gave me the address and the money, and that was it.”

  “Did you notice any blood on the money?”

  “I noticed that it was dirty, but that’s not the kind of thing that bothers me, really. I didn’t notice that it was blood until I got home.”

  “Ok, so when you dropped her off, did she go right inside?”

  “Did she go inside?” he asked. “How would I know? She got out of the car, and I left.”

  “I thought you might have noticed—”

  “Nah. I kept working for about another hour or so. I had a bunch more clients. I guess they couldn’t see it in the dark, thank God. Probably got all over their clothes, but not my fault. I bet you they’re going to call the company and say it was my fault, but it wasn’t. I can’t do anything about it. Anyway, I never really know what’s going on in the back of my car during the night. Sometimes, a smell will hit you, and you know something has happened. But when I get home, I check the car out in the garage, with all the lights on, so I can see what kind of damage there is. Usually I find a bunch of junk that I have to throw away. Gum, cigarette lighters, things like that. Sometimes, wallets and gloves, which I turn in, ’cause you can get in trouble for that. But tonight, I turned on the light, and all I see is all these brown spots that are obviously blood. And that’s when I called you guys.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I need to check something.”

  I stepped away from the desk and headed back to the front of the police station.

  Dori was typing on her computer. She looked up as I approached.

  “Hey,” I said. “Piper Woods, over by Highway 12, where he says he picked up the Lindsey woman—”

  “We already have a team out there,” she said. “I’ll send the exact location to your phone.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Make sure they contact me right away if they find anything.”

  She nodded, and I walked back over to my desk.

  Gayla was writing down some information for the cabdriver. “I think that’s all we need for now,” she said. “Please call me if you remember anything else, and we’ll let you know if we have any more questions.”

  “What about my car?” the man asked. “You said we’d work something out if I told you what I knew.”

  “And we will,” I said. “After we take a closer look at it. We’re going to need to keep it for a while since it’s evidence now.”

  Cruise balled his fists. “You gotta be kidding me!”

  It took another fifteen minutes for us to talk him down, but finally, he stormed to the front of the station and out the door.

  “There’s no blood anywhere else in that house,” Gayla said. “She must have had it on her when she got in the cab. I think she could have had a monkey on her back, but as long as she had the fare, Cruise wouldn’t have noticed anything else.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “So whatever or whoever that blood came from, it’s gotta be out there in Piper Woods.”

  • • •

  I had three missed calls from Mary when I got home.

  “Steve, Gayla told me you had a rough night,” she said on my voicemail. She was one of the few people who actually called my apartment rather than my cell phone. “I’m just calling to check in on you. Give me a call back.”

  I considered calling her back that night, but I knew she’d just grill me about what happened at the Lindsey house. She’d use the word blackout a few times. I’d make something up that she wouldn’t believe, just like Gayla.

  No, I’d call her tomorrow.

  I picked up my phone to make one more call. As I did, I reached over and picked up a small, black-and-white race car off my nightstand. It was Kit’s car—he’d loved it as a toddler, especially when I drove it back and forth over his belly and did the “vroom vroom thing,” as he called it. After Lara and I separated, I’d found the car nestled between the cushions in the backseat of my car.

  I balanced it on my palm as I dialed her number. As always, when Lara’s name flashed across the screen, I felt a pain in the middle of my stomach. I took a deep breath. As the phone continued to ring, the nerves began to sli
p away and turn into something else. Disappointment, and a little bit of anger. It was late, true. But being married to her for four years let me know that she always slept with the phone beneath her pillow because she hated missing calls.

  She wasn’t missing my call.

  She was ignoring it.

  “Hey,” I said, angry at myself for sounding breathy. “It’s me. Steve. Sorry.” I took a deep breath and tried to push through. “Just calling about seeing when I could stop by. Just…yeah, call me back when you have a chance. Thanks.”

  He’s not your kid.

  He’s not your kid.

  I tried chanting it to myself a few times a day when the divorce was first finalized.

  He’s not yours.

  It seemed like it should mean something, like that fact should make a difference, but it didn’t. I’d been there for most of the first six years of his life. He sure felt like my son.

  I hung up the phone and walked into my bathroom, where I grabbed a washcloth, along with the box of tissues from my vanity. Then I walked into my bedroom and sat down on the side of the bed.

  Go somewhere, Steve.

  I knew I should leave. I should grab my keys and wallet and hightail it to the nearest bar or all-night diner or Walgreens or absolutely anywhere else that wasn’t home by myself. I should call Mary or go sleep at Nell’s.

  I should leave.

  I leaned over and opened the drawer on my nightstand. On top of a small wooden box that Nell and Mike had brought me from their twentieth-anniversary trip to Puerto Rico was a small and recently sharpened razor blade. As I stared at it, the waves of guilt began to wash over me.

  The guilt was one of the worst parts.

  The throbbing in my arms, the dry mouth, the actual feeling of the blade on my skin—all of that had nothing on the guilt.

  And even then, the guilt had nothing on the urges.

  I lifted my sleeve slowly, averting my eyes from my arm as I reached into the drawer and picked up the blade.

  Chapter Ten

  Adult males in their late thirties do not cut.