Redirection

by Gregory Ashe

  Tucker flushed. “They destroyed our home. You won’t believe how bad it is.”

  “Then go stay with mommy and daddy until the maid can fix it.”

  Tucker sighed and fixed a long-suffering look on Shaw. “Do you mind?” He had unloaded the box on Shaw before Shaw could respond. “Can we go inside? You can yell at me in the air conditioning, and I can take a Xanax.”

  “He’s not carrying your fucking box—” North shouted after Tucker, but Tucker was already halfway to the house.

  “It’s fine,” Shaw said, adjusting the load.

  “Fuck that.” North yanked the box from his hands and threw it down on the driveway, grimacing in satisfaction as cans and bottles and microfiber towels spilled across the asphalt. “Come pick up your shit, Tucker!”

  A warm hand on his arm made him start.

  North wiped his face. “I am losing my mind.” He took a few deep breaths. “I’m going out of my fucking mind.”

  On his knees, Shaw gathered up the cleaning supplies and returned them to the box. North dropped into a crouch to help, but he was slow, and he only managed to grab the last bottle before Shaw had finished.

  “I can deal with Tucker,” Shaw said slowly. “If it’s better for the case, I mean. I’m not asking you to make a personal decision. I’m asking you to make a professional decision.”

  “No. I’m better. Today, with you, remembering what’s important—I feel like a human being again. I won’t let him get under my skin again.”

  Instead of looking reassured, though, Shaw adjusted the box, got to his feet, and shook his head. He went into the house, and North lingered, the sun hot on the back of his neck, and considered kicking in every one of the Volvo’s windows.

  The house was a disaster. Furniture moved and, in some cases, overturned. Several of Tucker’s knickknacks and decorative trinkets, like the crystal golfer statuette, had been broken. Fingerprint powder buried everything, drifts of it accumulating against ledges and outcroppings like a sirocco wind had blown it here. But it was still the same house, with the same linen sofa stuffed with real eiderdown, the same hand-thrown zellige tiles, the same Edison-bulb chandelier that North had argued against—another lost cause—because it looked like fucking Sputnik. It was the house where they had shared drunken giggles while eating Chinese out of takeout containers, the house where they had argued over the credit card bills, the house where the hitting had begun, the house where they had built a life together. Or pretended to, anyway.

  “—low blood sugar,” Tucker was saying as North stepped into the kitchen. Tucker was rummaging through the fridge, and he emerged with a bottle of Michelob. Shaw had found a space on the cluttered island to lower the box. When Tucker held up the beer, Shaw shook his head, and Tucker grinned as though the answer had been obvious and shut the door with his hip. “It’s important to make sure he has something to eat, even if it’s just a little something, to keep it from dropping like this.”

  “I’m not—” Shaw tried.

  “When was the last time he ate?”

  Shaw glanced over, flushing, and the expression in his face was unreadable. “He picked me up after breakfast, but I didn’t ask—”

  “So probably nothing all day.” Tucker opened the beer, made a face, and held it over the sink as it foamed. Shaking suds from his hand, he said, “There’s nothing in the house, unfortunately. One of us is going to have to get him something.”

  “I’m fine,” North said.

  “I know this place he likes. It’s on Elm. If you can keep him calm, I’ll go grab something for all of us.”

  “In the first fucking place, I’m not a child. I’m a grown man. If I need something to eat, I’ll get something to eat. And I sure as fuck do not need to be kept calm. We’re here to talk about Rik, not to—”

  “This is what I was talking about,” Tucker stage-whispered. “You should have seen him when I didn’t pack snacks for our six-hour flight to—”

  “I’ll go get him something.” Shaw’s voice was uneven. “There’s a sprouts place—”

  Tucker laughed so hard he spilled some of the Michelob, and he kept laughing as he dug through the kitchen’s chaos, found a stack of napkins, and wadded some up to clean the spill. “Oh my God, that would be hilarious. Shaw, I forgot how much fun you are.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah, God, that’s amazing. Look, I’ll go—”

  “No, Tucker.” North pointed to the farmhouse table and chairs. “You’re not going anywhere. Sit your ass down, and we’re going to have a conversation.”

  “Sometimes he gets like this when he’s had too much canned food.” Tucker turned to Shaw. “You’re not letting him eat that off-brand chili—”

  “Shut up!” The words wore so frayed and high pitched that they bordered on a scream. “Tucker, shut the hell up. Shaw doesn’t tell me what I can eat. I can eat all that Savers chili I want. I could stock my fucking pantry with it if I wanted to.”

  Tucker was looking at him. Shaw was looking at him.

  In a slightly more controlled voice, North managed to say, “The chili is not the fucking point.”

  They were still staring.

  “I think I’d better sit down,” Tucker said, but although the words were to Shaw, it was obviously intended for North’s benefit. It was also so fucking placating that North pictured, briefly, shoving the full length of the French rolling pin up Tucker’s ass.

  “I’m going to get those sandwiches,” Shaw said. “Can you text me the place?”

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  “I don’t need a sandwich.”

  “North, you don’t seem—” Shaw offered a smile. “I think a sandwich would help. All of us. I mean, me. My blood sugar. I haven’t eaten all day. And I’ll follow-up with the caterers while I’m driving. See if I can talk to the guys working Teddi’s party.”

  “That’s bullshit. That’s him. He’s doing this on purpose. He put that idea in your head, and now you think you need to do something for me, and Jesus, Shaw, now you’re lying to me—” North made himself cut off.

  Tucker’s gaze slid between them before down to his phone. Pretending to speak to himself as he tapped out a message, he said, “I planted the idea in his head that he was hungry. Subliminal sandwich messaging. Ok…”

  North wrapped one hand around the back of a chair. One of his knuckles popped.

  Thirty seconds later, Shaw had the keys to the GTO and was gone, and the house was silent except for the whir of the air conditioner.

  “Drop the act,” North said.

  Tucker sipped his beer. “What does that mean?”

  “Shaw’s gone. You can cut out this whole performance.”

  Instead of answering, Tucker sipped his beer.

  All the old feelings were back: the tightening sensation in North’s belly, the mental scramble, the search for any way, physical and otherwise, to make himself smaller. Invisible. North took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and met Tucker’s gaze.

  Tucker smiled slowly and set down the beer. In a gentle voice, he said, “Hi, Mickey.”

  North drew the folded eight-and-a-half-by-elevens from his pocket and slapped them down the table. The wood was so pale in places it was almost white; Tucker had bragged, when they bought it, that it had been scrubbed with sand by hand. And that made North aware now of his own hands, of the tremor.

  After a glance at the photos, Tucker shook his head. “I didn’t take those.”

  “They were under the seat of your car.”

  A crack in the façade: worry drew a line between Tucker’s eyebrows. “I didn’t take those.”

  “And yet, there they were.”

  “I’ve never seen those before. I don’t know—”

  “Then why the fuck were they under the front seat of your car?”

  Tucker shot halfway out of his seat, both hands braced on the gleaming white wood. “Because someone is trying to frame me, you
stupid cunt!”

  A smile twitched at the corner of North’s mouth.

  “I’m sorry.” Tucker deflated back into his seat. “I have anger management issues. Dr. Farr and I—”

  “No. Don’t do that. We were doing so well for a minute. I knew the real Tucker was hiding under all that bullshit.”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about—about a lot of things, Mick—North. About why I struggle to express my anger, and my other emotions, in healthy ways. About some childhood trauma that messed me up. About why I abuse alcohol—”

  “He says with a beer in his hand.”

  “—and about what I feel for you, and how much guilt and shame and regret I’m carrying around because of how I treated you, when you’re the only man I’ve ever loved and—”

  “You know what would make you feel better? It’s really simple. You take a gun—you can borrow my CZ if you want—and you stick it right here—” North pointed to the roof of his mouth. “—and you pull the trigger. God, Tuck. You’ll feel so much better.”

  “Is that what you want? You want me to kill myself? That’s how much you hate me? That’s the only way I can ever make things right? God, North, if that’s the truth, I honestly might kill myself. I don’t know if I can live with—with someone hating me that much.”

  “Sorry. I don’t have a lot of sympathy left for abusive, manipulative, cheating assholes.”

  “I—”

  “On our wedding day, Tucker?” North couldn’t explain the tightness in his throat. “On our fucking wedding day?”

  “God. I am so sorry. I knew you’d see those, and I wanted to tell you, I wanted to warn you, but I’m so embarrassed—”

  “Right, right, right. Let me guess: you’re a sex addict too. And none of this is your fault because Great-Uncle Al stuck his pinky up your bunghole when you were four, and that’s why you’d beat the shit out of me whenever a deal went bad at work or you thought your friends didn’t laugh enough at your jokes or you couldn’t get a hard-on. That’s why I spent years lying to everyone I know about black eyes and cuts and bruises. Jesus Christ, Tucker. On our wedding day?”

  “I’m so glad you want to talk about this. Thank you for talking to me about this.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. Christ, where’s Shaw? I knew this was going to happen. I knew it.” Which wasn’t true at all; he’d felt so much better, he’d felt like he was finally awake again and seeing clearly, and now he was back in the nightmare, out of control, an undertow of rage and fear ripping him out into a black, starless sea. “Why isn’t Shaw back yet?”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for so long, and now here we are, and even if they convict me, even if I spend the rest of my life in prison for a murder I didn’t commit, it will be worth it because I finally get to tell you how sorry I am. I am so, so sorry North.”

  “Fuck your sorry.”

  “I am sorry. Unbelievably sorry. And no, I’m not going to say I’m a sex addict, although it might be easier if I were. I have—well, Dr. Farr says it’s a compulsion. Compulsive behavior. The cheating is a manifestation of some deeper issues.”

  “Of course.” North cast off from the chair, anchorless now and adrift, and found himself in front of the fridge. He opened one of the Michelobs, swore when it foamed over his fingers and fat, frothy drops spattered the Redwings. He tilted his head back, opened his throat, and his sense of disorientation doubled like this was college again, and what mattered was getting hammered with Tucker. He finished and set the beer on the island. The glass clinked against stone.

  “Some of my behavior comes from my fear of abandonment.”

  “Ok, yeah, I can see that. Perfect home. Loving mommy and daddy. Yep, textbook recipe for abandonment issues.”

  “Nothing’s ever simple, North. You know that. I have a lot of fear about being left. About being alone. And cheating is a weird way to handle it because the second relationship is like a security blanket. Of course, as Dr. Farr helped me see, the behavior is maladaptive because it’s ultimately self-defeating. By cheating to make myself feel safe, I lost the thing I was trying to keep.”

  “You lost me because you lied to me for years, lied about Shaw, beat the shit out of me, fucked guys in our bed. Hey, when you fucked the hotel staff at our wedding reception, when you had that little twink bent over the bathroom counter, did that feel like a security blanket?”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that. And I’m sorry I hurt you again. I can’t seem to stop hurting you.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Tucker. The day I walked out, you stopped hurting me. And you’re never going to hurt me again.”

  “Dr. Farr also helped me realize that my infidelity, well.” He took a deep breath. “In part, it was about my needs not being met. Inside our relationship, I mean.”

  “Ok.” North laughed. “I’m done. We’re going to talk about Rik now.”

  “One more thing, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

  “No, I’m done, Tucker. Done. These pictures of Rik—”

  “I want to finish this conversation.” Tucker’s voice had a quiet dignity. “Dr. Farr thinks you have avoidant patterns in relationships, which is one reason we—”

  “I don’t have avoidant patterns. I’m not avoiding you. I hate you. And even though I hate you, Tucker, even though it would be really, really nice to never have to see you again, I’m here because you need help and your parents were good to me.” North tried to stop there. The flood broke through his dam. “And your needs weren’t being met? Your goddamn needs? What? We weren’t fucking enough, is that it? Whose fault was that when you were out trawling ass every other night?”

  The smile was sudden surprisingly dirty. “Come on, Mickster. The sex was always fantastic. You can’t say it wasn’t. No, I mean emotionally.”

  “Jesus Christ. I’m done. I’m seriously done. Keep it up, and your dad can hire someone else to dig you out of this mess.”

  “Fine.” Tucker hesitated. “But North, if you—if you’re honest with yourself, I don’t think your emotional needs were being met either. And I don’t mean after I started—after what I did to you. I mean from the beginning. Because there was always Shaw, right? There was something I wasn’t giving you, and you got it from Shaw, and that’s why he was always there.” It wasn’t truly a smile, only a hard crease at the corners of his mouth. “That’s why I never had a chance.”

  North studied the Michelob bottle on the island. He swallowed a few times. He shifted the bottle. The glass made a faint chiming noise as it slid over the stone.

  “I’m inclined to agree with you.” He cleared his throat. “About Rik, I mean. And these pictures. It’s not my favorite scenario, since it doesn’t include someone locking you up and throwing away the key, but it does look like someone’s trying to frame you. Even you wouldn’t be stupid enough to use your own driver and keep stalker photos of the victim under your front seat.”

  “Thank you?” Tucker said, a half-smile buoying up the question.

  “The usual motives in something like this are sex and money. So, you know Rik better than just about anybody else around here. Who would want to kill him?”

  “Quite a few people, I think. I’m not sure about that, by the way. What you said about me knowing Rik best. Percy knows him pretty well too. I mean, Percy hired him, and they work together. But yeah, I think a lot of people might want Rik dead. And some of those same people—” Tucker flushed. “—well, they wouldn’t mind pinning it on me, I guess.”

  “Other lovers?”

  “Oh. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that. Jean, maybe. She knew about Rik and me. She knew Rik was getting ready to leave her. Maybe there’s another guy. Rik and I weren’t exclusive, and he was making up for lost time.”

  “Rik was going to leave Jean for you?”

  Tucker burst out laughing. “God, no. I mean, I’m good, as you know, but it’s not like I seduced this happily married
het man into ‘the gay lifestyle.’” He drew the air quotes with his fingers. “I guess maybe Rik was bi, but honestly, I think he was just gay and an opportunist. I know, I know; spare me the joke. It takes one to know one. But Jean comes from money—her family’s from Cameroon, and I guess when Rik married in, they were loaded. For a long time, Rik played the politically conservative, happily married straight guy, talked shit about fags and then got sucked off by waiters behind dumpsters. Finance is still a pretty conservative field.”

  North snorted. “I’ve heard that once or twice.”

  Flashing a grin, Tucker shrugged. “I think that went a long way for Rik, playing straight, talking about how much he hated gays. He did really well in his career. Until he got greedy, I guess. But when it came to guys, he couldn’t keep his hand out of the cookie jar. There were those months, back when we were in college, when he and Jean separated, and he slept with pretty much every boy who’d hold still.”

  “Including you.”

  Another shrug. “But then his kid got sick, and Rik and Jean reconciled. He was still sleeping around.”

  “With you?”

  Tucker blushed. After a moment, he nodded. “And I’m sure he was still catting around in Chicago too. A couple of times on business, when I was there…”

  “Jesus, Tucker.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. But you need to know.”

  “Honestly, at this point, I’m impressed. And embarrassed. I’m not much of a detective, I guess.”

  “You knew, Micks. Neither of us wanted to admit it, is all.”

  That was eerily close to the truth, and far more human than North liked. “So he was finally going to leave Jean?”

  “He didn’t need family money anymore. He’d gotten hired on at Herbert and Galleli, and his boss was a gay bro. And I think he was tired of being in the closet. He never came out and said that, but he talked around it a lot.”

  “So you think Jean realizes her man is about to walk out on her again, and she decides to kill him and frame you.”

  “Well, I kind of came up with it right now. I mean, I guess I’d be the obvious choice. I’m not trying to brag, but I was definitely with Rik the most. Unless he was way more creative about his work hours than I knew. But honestly, I wasn’t thinking about Jean until you mentioned sex as a motive.”