The Devil and the Detective

by John Goldbach

  ‘All right,’ she said, ‘but I want Mr. James in the room.’

  O’Meara sighed and said okay, then asked Elaine if she was in fact positive that she’d spoken with Mr. Andrews, that is to say, seen him in person, yesterday evening, after they’d had dinner together and he’d gone out. Elaine said that when he returned home he’d called out to her from downstairs, greeting her, and she’d called back, and that she hadn’t actually seen him, though she did hear him come in and call out to her and she’d answered, then she fell asleep shortly thereafter, while waiting for him to come to bed.

  ‘As I said last night,’ she said, ‘and this morning. I haven’t changed my story, Detective O’Meara.’

  ‘I thought you said you saw Mr. Andrews last night.’

  ‘I did see him, when we ate dinner together at home, and then he had to go out for a few hours, and when he returned I was already in bed and he called out, “Hello!” and I called back. Then, while waiting for him to join me, I fell asleep in my bed for about an hour, and when I woke up, Gerald wasn’t there. I felt around in the bed and I felt that I was alone. I called out his name. I called it a few times. When he didn’t answer, I got out of bed and put on my robe and went downstairs. First I checked the kitchen, because the kitchen lights were on, but he wasn’t there so I continued on. I checked his den and every light was off except his desk lamp, and it looked like he’d been there working moments ago. He wasn’t there, however, so I went to the living room and there he was, lying on the couch with a knife protruding from his chest. Then I dialed 911. How many times do I have to tell this story?’

  Despite Elaine’s obvious exasperation, this was the first time I was hearing the story in full. The night before, when we were drinking, she didn’t want to talk much about the case and I respected her decision because her husband had just been murdered and I was falling for her.

  ‘We’re just trying to be thorough, Mrs. Andrews,’ said O’Meara. ‘We want to make sure we have all the details straight.’

  ‘I know, and I appreciate that, but my story hasn’t changed since last night, or this morning, for that matter.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Andrews, I know you’re under a lot of stress, but you and I haven’t spoken yet today,’ said O’Meara.

  ‘Right, but I did talk to the officer this morning,’ she said.

  ‘What officer?’

  ‘I don’t think he ever gave his name. The one who was taking photos of Gerald’s desk. The one who was riffling through the files. The one who harassed me.’

  ‘Mrs. Andrews, I’m sorry, but I didn’t send an officer here this morning,’ said O’Meara.

  ‘Then who was it? Who was in my house?’

  ‘I’m not sure but we’ll get to the bottom of this. Don’t worry, Mrs. Andrews, we’ll take care of everything,’ he said.

  I looked at O’Meara and told him he was doing a bang-up job so far.

  ‘Shut your trap, Rick! What have you done? Where were you this morning?’

  ‘O’Meara, you jackass, you should have someone watching the house. Her husband was murdered here last night. What were you thinking, that because they spared her last night no one will come back? You should have a squad car out front round the clock.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to do my job, Rick. I’ve got everything under control. Mrs. Andrews, not only am I going to put a man out front, I’m going to have a man in the house at all times, starting tonight. I’ll have someone sent over now.’

  ‘Thank you, Detective O’Meara, but a man out front will suffice. Mr. James will be staying here this evening, so there’s no need for an officer in the house.’

  ‘Are you sure, Mrs. Andrews? Rick here’s just a private dick. He’s not exactly a trained professional. I bet you he doesn’t even carry a gun – do you, Rick? Do you have a gun?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, lying, ‘but not on me.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ said O’Meara.

  ‘Thank you for stopping by, officers. Good evening,’ said Elaine.

  ‘All right, I’m putting a man out front, though.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and they left.

  With her back up against the shut front door Elaine said, ‘I was really hoping it was the food.’

  We returned to the kitchen and finished off our beers, which were no longer ice cold.

  I said to Elaine, ‘I know you’re sick of talking about this stuff but eventually you’re going to have to fill me in on the details I don’t know. I need all the details of the story, from A to Z.’

  ‘I know. You know most of the story already. Gerald and I ate together, at home, and then he went out, and when he came home he called out to me and I called back and then I fell asleep and you know the rest …’

  ‘What did you eat for dinner?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What did you and Gerald eat for dinner? Did you order in or did you cook or did – ’

  ‘We made dinner together. A simple pasta, a penne arrabiata, nothing fancy, a lot of garlic and a lot of chili peppers.’

  ‘Did you drink?’

  ‘Yes. We split a bottle of red wine, a Chianti. It was good. I drank more than Gerald, which wasn’t uncommon.’

  ‘So you ate dinner and then he went out immediately thereafter.’

  ‘Not immediately, no. He went to his den and was on the phone for a while. I brought him an espresso. He likes espresso after dinner. I mean, he liked espresso after dinner. I don’t. It keeps me up. I finished the wine.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he was going?’

  ‘No. But I didn’t ask. He just said he’d be back in an hour and I said okay and then he was gone. I finished my wine and then got into bed and read for about half an hour and then I heard the front door open and shut and Gerald called out to me and I called back and I fell asleep and I woke up and then found his body and so on and then I got drunk with you and so on and then a police officer, who probably wasn’t even a police officer, basically harassed me this morning, while I was suffering a terrible hangover, and then a crank caller kept calling me and then you came here and then that asshole O’Meara came and asked the same goddamn questions over and over again and I feel like I’m going crazy,’ she said.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause you any additional anxiety, you know. I want to help you but it means knowing everything you know about what Gerald was up to. Do you know who he was talking to on the phone?’

  ‘No. I have no idea.’

  ‘Did he seem upset when he left?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Did he go out in the evenings often?’

  ‘Sometimes, though never for long. I didn’t keep a leash on Gerald, and for that matter, he didn’t keep one on me. Or at least I wouldn’t let him.’

  I wondered what that meant. Did it mean she had a lover? I wanted to ask and I think she knew that I wanted to ask. I was silent. I was thinking about the possibility of Elaine having a lover (or lovers, plural). For some reason, despite her beauty and the age difference between her and Mr. Andrews, I hadn’t considered the possibility that she in fact had a lover (or lovers). I believe I paled. I should ask her, I thought, for it pertains to the case. If she has a lover, of course, he’d be a suspect, and so would she for that matter. I looked at her. Her wide-open brown eyes were looking straight at me. She knows what I’m thinking, I thought. She knows that I’m speculating about her sex life, I thought. It was pertinent to the case. I needed to know. I needed to know if she had a lover or several or none.

  ‘Do you have a lover?’

  ‘Is that really pertinent to the case?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ I said.

  The doorbell rang. It was the delivery guy from Mou Gui Fang, with our food.

  5

  The food was incredible, like Elaine said it would be. The shrimp, the rolls, the soup, the Kung Pao Ming Har, the vegetables, especially the vegetables, which had been pan-fried, pan-fried in a sort of spicy soya sauce, I thought, but wa
sn’t sure, being no chef myself, though I have a few dishes. I love water chestnuts, too, though eat them only when I eat good Chinese food. I ate ravenously but Elaine didn’t eat much. We drank more beer while we ate and Elaine had wine, too. ‘Eat more,’ I said to Elaine, and she ate a little more, though mainly vegetables. The vegetables were incredible, and I wanted more, too, but she finished them off, which was of course fine. Since I’d asked her if she had a lover, we hadn’t said much to each other. That was fine, though, because I wanted her to eat something, but, of course, I kept wondering, wondering about a lover, but the food was so good that it briefly calmed my cursed imagination. When I was finished eating, however, I immediately imagined her with some young guy, someone athletic and vacuous but fun to fuck, as far as she was concerned, someone to fool around with when the old man was away, or perhaps even around, I thought. I felt jealous and angry, then looked at her, at her beautiful face, while she ate vegetables, and I hated myself for feeling jealous and angry, especially because I didn’t even know her till yesterday, I thought, yesterday evening, when I took a cab to her home after she called me re the case. She was beautiful and I was lonely and something inside of me ached, gently at first, but persistently, and I realized I was making an expression of frightened and sad concern. My forehead furrowed, my eyebrows on strange diagonals, I confronted my feelings for Elaine and realized they’d bring me more hurt and heartache, for they already were, that is to say, already bringing me hurt and heartache. I feel like a jealous lover, I thought, but I’m only her private detective.

  ‘I had a relationship,’ she said. ‘But not anymore. We stopped seeing each other a while ago. He was the one Gerald cut off, so to speak, the one who traded on his name.’

  ‘When did you stop seeing each other? Why?’

  ‘After Gerald cut him off,’ she said. ‘He became desperate and Gerald knew about us, though he didn’t say anything, that was his style, but instead worked at ruining Adam’s life, little by little, he picked away at it. He never trusted Adam in the first place but my affair with him just confirmed his suspicions. It was a mistake.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Getting involved with one of his associates?’

  ‘Yes, that, but Adam specifically; if I hadn’t’ve gotten involved with him, Gerald wouldn’t’ve destroyed him financially, and Adam wouldn’t’ve killed himself.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘When I realized that Gerald was making things difficult for him, I stopped seeing him, hoping that’d calm Gerald down. It didn’t, though. Gerald just sped up his plan to destroy Adam. He made sure no one would do business with him and he found ways of reclaiming what belonged to Adam. Adam kept trying to contact me but I wouldn’t answer his calls or his emails or letters. It was too much for me. I didn’t realize how desperate he actually was. I was sad and thought he was just suffering like me and that we couldn’t help each other while we suffered and so on. I just thought that it’d be healthier for him not to hear from me, but that wasn’t the case. About a month after we last spoke, he walked down to the harbour late at night and drank a bottle of whisky, then walked out onto the frozen river and jumped in where there was a large crack in the ice. He left me a letter, though I didn’t get to read it. Gerald intercepted it and burned it in our fireplace. He burned it in front of me and told me it was an irrelevant letter from an irrelevant ex-colleague of his. I knew it was from Adam, of course, but didn’t argue with him. I didn’t question him. From that day forth, however, things between us were never the same.’

  ‘But weren’t they bad already? Wasn’t that the reason you had an affair in the first place?’

  ‘No, not at all.’

  ‘Then why did you cheat on him?’

  ‘Because there was something about Adam that was different from Gerald, it was different and exciting, and I loved him for that, for being different and exciting, for treating me differently, for not always keeping me at arm’s length.’

  ‘Did you want revenge for Adam’s death?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Elaine, ‘but I didn’t want Gerald to die. I don’t think he knew how desperate Adam really was. I don’t think he thought Adam would kill himself. It wasn’t his fault.’ She paused, drained her wineglass, then said, ‘If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s mine.’

  I didn’t argue with her or say anything, hoping that she’d say more, though instead she stopped talking and poured another glass of wine. I helped her clear the table and put the leftovers in the fridge.

  6

  ‘Do you want vodka?’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Would you like a martini or straight from shot glasses?’

  ‘Shots are fine.’

  She poured two and said, ‘Santé,’ and I said, ‘Na zdorovye,’ and we clinked the small glasses and drank back the freezing-cold vodka. She looked at me and smiled. I smiled back.

  ‘One more,’ she said, and I agreed.

  It was getting late and we were drinking vodka so that maybe we’d sleep. We talked a bit, though about nothing of note. We smiled at each other and then drank another shot. After three, I put the bottle back in the freezer and poured us both large glasses of ice water. My hands were cold from the cold vodka bottle and the ice cubes. I went to give Elaine her water but instead I put it down on the counter and took her face in my cold hands and kissed her. She kissed back, so I kept kissing.

  After a minute, she stopped and said, ‘Let’s go up to bed.’ I nodded and followed her up the staircase; for the first time I was upstairs, but I was distracted. The room was large, the sheets dark, and that was all I noted.

  7

  ‘Your chest is hairy,’ she said, nuzzled up against me, her hand on my chest and her head on my shoulder. My eyes were closed as we lay in bed, still dazed – I was not yet ready to consider the implications of sleeping with my client, a client whose husband had been murdered approximately twenty-four hours prior to my sleeping with his widow. Elaine, too, seemed to possess a sort of post-coital obliviousness, for she seemed softer, warmer in general, and very trusting, I thought, more trusting than before.

  ‘You don’t like hairy chests?’

  ‘No, I like them. It’s comforting,’ she said. ‘When I was younger I never thought I’d like hair on men but now I do.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. In my early teens I liked effeminate men, or at least hairless ones, but eventually that changed.’

  ‘So you liked the kinds of guys who’d be in boy bands?’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said.

  ‘Newts.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And now you like the Magnum PI types.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ she said, laughing, and I said, ‘Good. I don’t like those types, either. I don’t even drive.’

  Elaine then asked me about girlfriends, that is to say, if I had a girlfriend. Not anymore, I told her, the same response I’d given the night before. She asked me when we broke up. I told her we broke up about eight months ago or so, though I wasn’t sure. She asked me what happened and I told her that when we first met there was a series of misunderstandings, resulting from her blindness, that led her to believe I was a millionaire, and that at first things were blissful, like they’d never been before with anyone else, for either of us, ever in our lives, but then eventually, after our initial courtship, a surgeon claimed that he could cure blindness, or at least the type that she suffered, and he was performing free operations, so she contacted the surgeon and got the surgery, and then when she discovered that I’m not the man she’d imagined me to be, that I’m not the millionaire she’d imagined me to be, we both realized that things would never work out for us and that a life together would be impossible. ‘It was sad,’ I said, ‘for both of us.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘So what really happened?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said, and must’ve sounded sincere, for she let me leave it at that. ‘There were girls before her, though.’

  ‘Oh y
eah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Girls have I slept with or had serious relationships with?’

  ‘Had serious relationships with.’

  ‘Not that many, though they seem to get more serious each time,’ I said, ‘but I suppose that’s how it goes.’

  ‘For a while,’ she said.

  And we left the conversation at that. We were silent for a long time, though not sleeping, just lying in bed, in each other’s arms, without talking, thinking, perhaps, though it was hard to be sure. For a while, I wasn’t thinking, but then I began thinking about Gerald Andrews again and wondering if his killer was in my arms, though I didn’t really believe Elaine was the killer, or at least I didn’t want to believe that she could possibly do such a gruesome thing to someone she loved, or at least once loved, according to what she’d said. Could I ever kill someone that I once loved? I wondered. Of course, at times, I’ve thought that it’d be easier if someone I once loved were dead, rather than separated from me, but those kinds of thoughts are fleeting, at least in my experience, like all thoughts, though some turn into action. It’s sick what some people do to leave their mark on an indifferent universe. No, I thought, I can’t dismiss the possibility that Elaine killed Gerald – or had him killed – to avenge Adam’s death. We become cold and hard when we’re let down or angered, I thought, and we often lash out at those who we feel duped us. Elaine hadn’t spoken in a while, though her eyes were open and unmoving, save the odd blink. We stared into each other’s eyes as if into space. Then she opened her bedside drawer, produced a bottle of 222s, swallowed at least three, without any water, and again closed her eyes.

  8

  While Elaine slept I sat up awake trying to think what my next move would be. I really was at a loss: sleeping with her, not surprisingly, threw me for a loop. I knew I wanted to be around her, though, as much as I possibly could be, and that in fact was my plan, that is to say, to be around her as much as possible. I watched her sleep and felt a calm I hadn’t felt for a long time, even though she might’ve killed her husband not twenty-four hours earlier. Her eyelashes were incredible. The idea of eyelashes once again became incredible to me, while I watched her sleep, breathing softly, her mouth slightly opened. Her lips looked dry and her face younger than when awake. I closed my eyes and thought of the image of Elaine sleeping; feeling unburdened, I drifted off.