The Stories You Tell

by Kristen Lepionka

  “You didn’t think to inform your sugar daddy of that?”

  “Huh?”

  “Vincent Pomp.”

  He scowled at me. “I, uh, left a message.”

  “With?”

  “His … answering machine?”

  “Oh, so somebody accidentally deleted it, yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “You might want to try again. Explain yourself.”

  “Would that make you get the fuck away from me?”

  “Where’s Addison?”

  “Why don’t you ask her that?”

  He slammed the door again, and this time, I heard the dead bolt sliding into place.

  “Shane, are you familiar with the term non sequitur?” I said.

  But I only got silence in return.

  * * *

  I was firmly on board with the weaseliness of Shane Resznik. I certainly didn’t believe him, but at least the mystery of his whereabouts was resolved. I left a message for Lisette saying that I’d located him, and asked her to call me back if she wanted to know where. I hoped she wouldn’t call but figured she probably would.

  Some part of me must have enjoyed getting doors slammed in my face, because I found myself heading back to Addison’s apartment. All of this weirdness could be put to bed if she was just sitting at home, dropping beats in her living room. I didn’t see any signs of a maroon Scion parked on California Avenue. This time I went to the front door, and this time, someone new answered.

  The woman in front of me gave me a once-over. She was Addison’s age, dressed in a fitted grey pantsuit with neon socks poking out at the ankle. Even without shoes, she towered over me. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a tight, high ponytail at the top of her head but still hung halfway down her back.

  I said, “Hi.”

  The curtains ruffled. “O-M-G,” a voice whispered from somewhere else in the apartment, “that’s her. That’s the lady.”

  “Um, hi.” She leaned one long arm against the doorjamb. “Can I help you?”

  “Jordy, that’s her, I said.” Now Addison’s roommate appeared behind the tall woman and they both stared out at me.

  I tried to look as unthreatening as possible. “Is Addison at home?”

  “No,” they said in unison.

  I tried, “Are you getting worried about her? Because I am.”

  The roommate bit her lip, and concern flickered through Jordy’s eyes as she said, “Yeah, a little, actually. So could you tell me who the hell you are?”

  * * *

  Her name was Jordana Meyers, and she was a friend of Addison’s going back to grade school. The roommate—Carlie—was Jordy’s younger stepsister, a current Ohio State student who had moved in with Addison a few months earlier.

  “I don’t know why Raddish still lives here,” Jordy was saying. She had her long legs pulled up to her chest as she sprawled on an armchair, a pose that made her seem much younger than she was. “I mean, all the drunk students around all the time. But I guess it doesn’t matter much to her, since she doesn’t have to be at work at eight in the morning or anything.”

  “And she’s, like, never here,” Carlie added.

  “So when’s the last time either of you saw her?”

  “I heard her come in on Saturday morning, I think,” Carlie said from the small dining room table without looking up from a psychology textbook, the publisher of which hadn’t even bothered to change its cover from when I was in college. “But I haven’t, like, seen seen her for a while. We have basically opposite schedules and she’s pretty much never awake when I’m here.”

  “So that’s not unusual.”

  She shook her head, chewing on a pen cap.

  Jordy said, “I saw her last week, at one of my games—I coach basketball, at the rec center in Blacklick—that’s where we grew up.”

  “I figured you used to play,” I said, and she nodded. “Did she usually come to your games?”

  “No, hardly ever. I mean, maybe actually never. Before that I hadn’t seen her, oh, since Thanksgiving, I think? She’s one of those people, you can go forever without seeing her but when you do, it’s like no time at all has passed, she’s always the same old Raddish. But that’s probably part of the problem.”

  I waited for her to go on.

  “I’m not one to tell somebody to grow up or whatever, but come on. Our ten-year reunion is going to be next year and she’s still carrying on like she did when we were seventeen.”

  “Carrying on?”

  “Just teenage melodrama,” Jordy said after a brief pause. “Except we’re not teenagers anymore. There’s always some guy crisis, some urgent middle of the night phone call. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve woken up to my alarm and saw ten missed calls from Addison and spent the rest of the day worrying that she was in the hospital or in jail or whatever. But nothing’s ever really wrong, it’s never that she actually needed anything. It’s just how she is. Honestly,” Jordy went on, “in the last year or so, I’ve kind of tried to take a step back. For my own sanity. I hope that doesn’t make me sound awful. But it can be a lot, with her. She’s got a lot of problems.”

  “Problems?”

  “Just, self-esteem stuff, really,” Jordy said, waving a hand like she suddenly thought better of selling her friend out to a stranger. “I work in real estate at Chase and I’m hoping to be at the AVP level before I’m thirty, so. I just don’t have the bandwidth to worry about her like I used to.”

  “So you have a real job.”

  Jordy smiled. “A big-girl job. That’s what Addison says.”

  “So the two of you are still close?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Growing up it was me, Raddish, and Elise—always together. Elise and I are still pretty close. Addison is just sort of off doing her own thing. But she can really surprise you, too. Like when she came to the game. It was the sweetest thing, and she cheered so hard for the girls—they were so pumped, I’ve never seen them play so hard. But anyway, afterwards, we got pizza and she seemed kind of, I don’t know, anxious, but in a quiet way. Like she didn’t actually want to talk about it, which is weird for her. So since then I’ve checked in with her a few times.”

  “Did she ever tell you what was on her mind?”

  “No. And I asked. I tried to get her to open up, but she said everything was fine. You can just tell though, you know?”

  Carlie looked up from her book. “Maybe something to do with that cop.”

  “What?”

  “There was a cop here, looking for her. A week ago or something. I gave her his business card.” She pointed at me.

  Jordy said, “And?”

  “I left him a message. Well, two messages. I haven’t heard back from him.”

  “Great,” Jordy said. “So that’s not weird at all. Some cop is looking for her, and now she’s randomly not coming home anymore?”

  “I told you,” Carlie said, “that’s pretty much par for the course. She’s never here.”

  It was clear where the roommate stood on whether or not anyone should be worried about Addison. “Do you know what else has been going on in her life, other than deejaying?”

  Jordy slid the elastic out of her hair and let it fall over her shoulders. “Well, she told me she was thinking about going back to school. But that’s—she dropped out after two semesters at OSU and ever since, she’s constantly saying she’s thinking about going back. So I doubt it.”

  “What about a girlfriend or boyfriend?”

  Jordy smiled faintly. “There was this guy she was talking to, but I don’t think they ever met or anything. On BusPass.”

  “On what?”

  “BusPass. The dating app? Bus, for Columbus. BusPass.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Really? Everybody’s on it. It’s like Tinder, but just for the Columbus area. And it has this feature, called Missed the Bus, that’s like on Craigslist, from that Missed Connections section on there, like, ‘You:
luminous modern hippie at the Dirty Projectors show…’ Addison has been obsessed with those since high school, but Craigslist is all pervy now.”

  “So BusPass, that’s not pervy?”

  “No, it’s really cute.”

  I didn’t point out that cuteness and perviness were not mutually exclusive. “So someone wrote one about Addison being a luminous modern hippie?”

  Jordy laughed. “No, that’s just me spouting some bullshit. But that’s the kind of thing she’d like. Under all the drama and mascara, she’s a romantic.”

  Somehow, I had known that about her. “So some guy wrote a Missed Connections post about her on this BusPass app and she saw it.”

  “Yup. I got her turned on to the app, actually. We were looking for a date for me. It’s kind of addictive, just flipping through people. But anyway, at some point there was a Missed the Bus post about Raddish. She even said that after reading stuff like that for so long, it was kind of weird to actually find one that was about her—she almost didn’t write back. But she said it was a great post so she did, and they were chatting back and forth since then.”

  “Know his name?”

  “No.”

  That would’ve been too easy. Part of me wondered if Sergeant Dillman could’ve been the missed connection, and came sniffing around to see what Addison was like. “Know anything about him?”

  “He likes tiny houses? You know, little shipping container places and whatnot. Addison’s very into those.”

  “Was it serious?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, just that when she first wrote to him she said she wasn’t even interested in meeting the guy. Look, we’re having coffee tomorrow, for Elise’s birthday. I’m sure she’ll have a whole story about where she’s been.”

  I didn’t doubt that.

  EIGHT

  It was medium-hard to find Dillman’s home address—not a surprise, since most cops are more careful than the average citizen about how much personal information they allow online—but I prevailed. He lived in a winding network of identical town houses on the far north side of the city, near a Baptist megachurch and the Lazelle community rec center, which was sad and grey under a heavy blanket of winter. I felt a little weird about showing up at his house. But he still hadn’t called me back and I wanted some kind of answer about why he’d been at Addison’s apartment with an old business card.

  His soon-to-be-ex-wife answered the door instead.

  “He doesn’t live here anymore,” she said, almost gleefully, her hands on her hips. She was barely five feet tall and had the most perfect winged eyeliner I’d ever seen. “Are you with the department?”

  “No, I’m a private detective,” I said, offering her a card. “I just want to talk to him about a—”

  “Weary,” she read off my card, something flashing in her eyes. “You’re his daughter! Frank’s.”

  I got that feeling in my chest, like something didn’t fit quite right. “Yes,” I said. Surprised, since it was always other cops who did this. “You knew my father?”

  She motioned me inside. “You can come in. I promise I’m not crazy.” The condo was caught in a mid-move nightmare, with boxes stacked halfway to the ceiling. “Sorry,” she said, “just ignore all of this.”

  “Moving day?”

  “Hardly. Just getting rid of Mickey’s shit.” She reached into an open box and pulled out a framed photo. “By which I mean, anything that reminds me of him.”

  She flashed the image my way—their wedding photo. Diminutive bride in a white sheath, no veil, Mickey in a three-piece suit, charcoal color. He was probably about five-six, built like a fireplug.

  “Looking at this,” she said, “neither of us even look all that happy.” She chucked the frame back into the box. “So Frank, yes, god, what a shame. I’m so sorry.”

  I nodded.

  “I always liked Frank. You know he was in the Navy in Subic Bay, and I grew up in Manila, so we bonded. About food, mostly, like halo-halo. I brought it to a cookout once and he nearly wept with joy. There’s not exactly much love lost between me and the department but I had a soft spot for him. Sorry, is this upsetting?”

  “Uh, no.” I shook my head. It was news to me that my father had ever even been stationed in the Philippines. I didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Sunshine Castro. Call me Sunny, though. You have his eyes, people probably tell you that all the time.”

  I nodded.

  “You do, though. That blue. You know, a copper eye shadow would make the blue really pop. Or a salmon color.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry,” she said again. “Cosmetics. That’s my thing. Anyway. Frank. Mickey. What do you need, again?”

  “I’m just hoping to talk to Mickey. His name came up in a case I’m working on.”

  Sunny nodded. “Well, he’s only got two speeds. At the hotel or at the bar.”

  I waited.

  “He’s been staying in this dump over on Sinclair, right beside Morse Road. He’ll send me pictures sometimes. Like I’m supposed to feel bad his hotel bathtub has mildew on the curtain? I had to have my jaw wired shut for two months after what he did to me. I don’t care about mildew.”

  A picture was starting to form here, and it didn’t make me feel better about Addison’s prospects. I said, “Which speed is he on at work?”

  “Work? No. Mickey’s not working these days. He’s been on leave, five months or so. Back surgery.”

  * * *

  For the second time that day, I found myself at a crappy motel. Though the America’s Best Value Motel was a cut above the dump Shane Resznik was staying at, it still definitely looked like the sort of place an out-of-work wife-abuser would choose to hole up in and feel sorry for himself. There was no answer at his room. So I tried the bar on the corner, a nameless affair with a sign that just said BAR and another one that said OPEN.

  I went inside. It delivered on the promises of the exterior; the place had the grubbiness of a dive bar without the character. Low ceilings, ripped vinyl, a mirror behind the bar that was so grimy I could only see my silhouette, not my reflection. The only patron in the place was barely able to stay on his bar stool, but he was not Mickey Dillman, and the bartender glared at me.

  “Hi, I’m looking for somebody,” I started.

  The drunk man leaned an elbow on the bar and focused in my direction, sort of. “And I’m looking for you, toots.”

  “Trust me, you’re not.” I looked at the bartender, a grizzled old guy somewhere between fifty and dead in a plaid shirt and a trucker hat that said GUN OWNERS AGAINST CRIME. “His name’s Mickey. He’s been staying at the hotel over there, he’s a cop.” The gun owner against crime was still glaring. “Any of this ringing a bell?”

  “No.”

  “Because I think he’s here a lot, and you don’t exactly appear overwhelmed by customers.”

  He picked up a dirty rag like he was thinking about throwing it at me. “Well, he ain’t here now, is he?”

  “That doesn’t exactly answer the question.”

  He shrugged as if to say that wasn’t his problem, and I supposed he was right about that.

  I wasn’t even sure it was mine.

  * * *

  I headed south via 71 with the radio off. Catherine had a Humanities department get-together tonight, something I had not asked her to skip, but still hoped she would have since tomorrow night we had dinner with Tom and his girlfriend, followed by her early flight to Rhode Island the next morning. So I wanted to ease into the silence of my evening rather than face the sudden, jarring quiet that would hit me when I parked on my street and turned the car off and then spent the rest of the night alone. It never used to bother me. I used to love it, in fact, or at least I thought I did. But now I was thirty-five, and I’d spent the last few months getting quite used to having company.

  I didn’t like how lonely I was without her.
>
  Or the fact that sometimes, I was lonely when I was with her, too.

  I hit my post office boxes in Whitehall and headed for home, still contemplating how I’d spend my evening until a pair of too-bright headlights flashed in my rearview mirror to interrupt my wallowing. I reached up to flip the switch on the mirror and change the reflection so it didn’t blind me. As I did so, I realized that the same pair of headlights had been right behind me for longer than seemed coincidental.

  I changed lanes and so did the headlights. Whoever it was followed too closely for me to see much about the car or the driver other than the shape of the headlights. But it was clear that they sucked at following undetected, or maybe weren’t even trying. I slowed; they slowed. I sped up; they sped up. As we climbed the slight hill up the exit ramp onto Broad Street, I got some distance between us easily, enough to tell that whoever it was had a car with an engine that couldn’t accelerate on an incline. The car caught up to me as I turned onto Broad. I made a tight lane change to turn right on Parsons and the car had nowhere to go but straight. As it passed me I saw that it was Shane Resznik’s beat-up Jag.

  * * *

  There was a note on my door, blue ink in Shelby’s bubbly handwriting: Sweet potato chili! There’s chocolate in it!

  I smiled and let myself into my apartment long enough to put my coat and today’s leggings haul and my gun inside, and then I climbed the creaky steps to the second floor of the building. I’d met Shelby on a case a little over a year earlier and had sort of fallen into the role of “cool surrogate aunt”—her words, not mine—ever since. She had taken over the lease on an apartment in my building last summer and it was nice to have her nearby. Especially because my refrigerator was chronically empty, and Shelby was an amazing cook. Upstairs it smelled savory and sweet all at once and I heard happy girl voices from behind Shelby’s door as I knocked.

  “Come in,” she called, “it’s open.”

  I turned the doorknob, wincing a little, and pushed into her apartment. It was a mirror image of mine, the hallway on the right instead of on the left, and her walls were a sedate taupe color rather than the craziness of my apartment. And she kept a much neater house than I did. But the similarity was real, and it was always a little odd. “Hi,” Shelby said from one end of her couch. “Good, you came, I have literally three gallons of this chili.”