He reached into the inside pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a folded document and handed it to me. It was an affidavit from Earl Kelley. In it Earl claimed the night Billy Ferguson was murdered he played poker with Junior. He also claimed he tried inviting me into the game, but that I told him I had business to take care of. There was more stuff in it but that was the gist of it.
‘You can keep it,’ Junior said. ‘It’s a copy. I got the original.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Pretty stupid of you shooting off your mouth to my pop,’ he said. ‘Whatcha thinking? That he’s not going to tell me everything you said?’
‘Yeah, it was stupid,’ I agreed.
‘So you’re not so brilliant, are you?’ he said. ‘And Duane and Jamie will be seeing you Wednesday to collect my first eight grand. You want to know something? I’m hoping you don’t have the money. Be seeing you soon, Joe.’
He started to walk away, but stopped to tell Jamie to stick with me.
‘Make sure he don’t go near Pop,’ he said.
I watched as he and Duane walked down the hallway. Jamie stood next to me, smirking. When Junior was out of sight, I told Jamie to beat it. He seemed to find something amusing in that and got a good chuckle out of it.
I started in the direction of Manny’s room.
‘Hey, asshole, where do you think you’re going?’
Jamie’s smirk grew wider as he put a hand out to stop me. I turned and kicked him hard below the knee with what you’d call in martial arts a front snap-kick. He let out a howl and hopped on one leg, grabbing at his injured knee. Before he could do much else, I took hold of his head and slammed it as hard as I could against the wall. It made a loud clanging noise. He groaned at that. I let go and he slid down the wall. He wasn’t out, not entirely, but he wasn’t in either. I saw that his head had taken a large chunk out of the wall. If his skull hadn’t been as hard as concrete, I probably would’ve killed him. I looked behind me to make sure no one saw anything and then kept walking.
Taking him out was easier than I would’ve expected. I guess he didn’t expect me to do anything. I guess over the years he had gotten used to people just pissing in their pants at the sight of him. This time, though, it looked like I left him pissing in his own pants.
It was a few minutes past seven. I got to Manny’s room and found him alone. He was sleeping with his mouth wide open, and as he breathed, he made thin grunting noises. What was lying there was only the skin and bones of what used to be Manny. It was as if all his flesh had been sucked out of him. Yet there was enough of him left to screw me over. All I could think of was why he couldn’t just die already.
I was watching him from the doorway when a nurse I hadn’t seen before squeezed past me.
‘Visiting hours are over,’ she said, shooting me back an annoyed look.
‘That’s okay. I was really trying to find Charlotte.’
‘Charlotte Boyd?’
‘Yes.’
‘Her shift’s over. I think she headed home.’
I thanked her. I took a few steps away from the door and watched for a moment as she took Manny’s pulse, and then got out of there. Jamie was still sitting on the floor when I walked by, but he had company; a nurse and a doctor were checking him out. He looked up, but I don’t think he recognized me. I don’t think he knew what planet he was on. I kept going. A security guard ran past me while I walked out of the hallway.
No one bothered to stop me as I made my way through the hospital and out to my car. As I drove to Charlotte’s apartment, I thought about Junior. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he was putting on an act or not. He seemed convincing about not knowing I’d been shot at. I had to think if he had shot at me he would have found a way to rub my nose in it. But if he didn’t take those shots at me, somebody else did. I couldn’t imagine Dan doing it. If he had decided to go to his Plan B, he’d find an easier and less public way to take me out. And I couldn’t imagine Phil doing it either. No matter how strongly he might hate me, I couldn’t imagine him doing something like that. And it made no sense, especially if he expected to crack Manny and have me locked away for life. His daughter, Clara, though…
Yeah, she was another story. There was so much rage still in her. When I saw her in church, she was chalk white and trembling with it. I could see her trying something like that, or maybe talking a friend into it. I could see her playing up the attempted rape and showing off her bruises, and getting some dumb football type worked up enough to try blowing my head off. It could’ve been something like that…
Or it could’ve been a friend or family member of one of the boys I’d put in the hospital. Other names popped into my head, names of people who I knew would have no problem taking a shot at me.
Over the years I’ve learned to trust my first gut feeling, and usually nine times out of ten it’s been right. But the more I thought about it, the more the shooting smelled like something an amateur would try. Someone would’ve had to park and wait by the curb until I was visible through a window. It was still possible Junior did it, but I was beginning to have my doubts.
As far as the affidavit went, I had been expecting something like that ever since I shot my mouth off. I knew it was a mistake as soon as I said anything to Manny about Ferguson’s murder. I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I was a little hurt that Earl went along with it, but I could understand it. Junior probably offered to lower his weekly take. I couldn’t blame Earl. The only person I had to blame was myself. I never should have said a word to Manny about trying to wrap Junior up with Ferguson’s murder. I knew it at the time, but I let him get under my skin. My price for that was the affidavit.
I checked several times along the way and saw that Hal Wheely was still following me. I figured it didn’t matter. He’d know the apartment complex, but he’d still have no idea who I was seeing there. And I had no plans on being seen with Charlotte anywhere in public.
When I arrived at the Maple Farms apartment complex, I waited until Wheely parked, and then drove behind his car so I would have to walk past him. When I did, I gave him a wave. That pissed him off. He rolled down his window, spat, and then looked away, pretending not to notice me.
I had to ring Charlotte’s buzzer several times before she answered. She buzzed me in, and later when she opened her door, looked surprised.
‘Joe, you’re forty-five minutes early.’
‘I’ve been anxious to see you,’ I said, which was mostly true. ‘I couldn’t wait any longer.’
‘Well – why don’t you come in?’
I followed her into her apartment. After sitting down, I asked whether she had any more samples of the allergy medication she’d given me the other day.
‘You won’t need it,’ she said, showing a secretive little smile. ‘I put my cats in a kennel for the night. Joe, I was planning to surprise you and make you dinner. Would that be alright? If you want to go out instead, we could still do that.’
‘No, dinner here would be nice. Do you want me to help?’
‘Why don’t you sit down and relax. You can watch TV if you like, or listen to music. Can I get you a drink? I bought a bottle of Scotch today.’
‘Scotch on the rocks would be great.’
She gave me a puzzled look so I explained, ‘Scotch with some ice.’
She made me the drink and brought it back to me, and then went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. I brought the drink over to her CD collection and looked at what music she had. It was mostly classical and operas. She did have one of old Frank Sinatra songs, 1940s-era stuff. I settled on that, and after putting it in the CD player, I went back to the loveseat.
I leaned back, stretching out my shoulder muscles, and then took a sip of my drink. The kitchen was open to the living room, and I could see Charlotte pounding chicken breasts with a mallet. She smiled at me when she noticed me looking at her. It was a nice smile. I smiled back.
‘What are you making?’ I asked.
Looking very pleased with herself, she told me, ‘Chicken Cordon Bleu.’
I felt relaxed sitting there. On the surface it was nice, and I guess it was the way some people actually lived; just sitting back and listening to Sinatra as you sipped Scotch and had a pretty woman make you dinner.
Of course, the woman in this case had deep issues and probably bordered on psychotic. But as I sat there, it didn’t matter to me. And I had to admit that Charlotte, at least for the moment, was pretty. I’m not saying she was beautiful by any stretch – she wasn’t anywhere near in the same league as someone like Toni – but in her own way, she was pretty. Her nervousness was gone and she had fixed herself up and had put on some makeup. Her hair was set so it fell past her shoulders, and she was dressed nicely, wearing black Capri pants and a pink short-sleeve sweater. And again, she had better curves than I would’ve thought after seeing her in her nurse’s uniform. The pants she was wearing made her hips look slender enough that I started daydreaming about what it would be like to take them off her. Maybe her coloring was a bit too pale, and maybe when I looked at her from a certain angle I could see blue veins crisscrossing her temples, but it was okay. It didn’t matter. It didn’t change the way I was feeling. For a few minutes I almost forgot what I was there for. I almost forgot about her murdering those people.
She seemed happy as a lark as she prepared dinner. I could hear her humming softly to the music. Every so often she’d look over at me and smile. And I made sure to smile back.
I tried to picture her killing those people, but I couldn’t do it, at least not the version of Charlotte that was now in the kitchen. The other version I could see doing it, the mousy and nervous version that I’d first met at the hospital, but not this one. The mousy, nervous one, though, I had no problem with. I could picture her holding the morphine syringe. I could see her face set in rigid concentration as she emptied the narcotic into the patient’s IV tubing. I could see the relief washing over her as the patient slipped into respiratory failure. But it almost didn’t seem possible that that was the same woman who was now in the kitchen humming happily to herself.
I guess I could understand why Charlotte did what she did. I committed so many crimes to keep from literally drowning in gambling debts. In her own way, she murdered those four patients to keep from suffocating. While she didn’t know about all the things I’d done, she knew about Phil. I guess at some level, we understood each other.
Charlotte had left the kitchen and was bringing over a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.
‘Dinner’s cooking in the oven,’ she said. ‘Would you like to open the wine?’
‘Sure.’
She handed me the bottle, and I uncorked it.
‘Wait,’ she said, and she went quickly into the kitchen and came back carrying a tray holding two wineglasses and a plate of cheese. She placed the tray on the coffee table.
‘I thought we could sit here together until dinner is ready,’ she said.
I finished my Scotch, and then poured us both some wine. Charlotte joined me on the loveseat. At first she sat with her hands clasped and her arms held tightly into her body, but after I put my arm around her shoulder, she moved close to me, curling her legs under her and resting her head against my side.
It felt nice sitting with her. I know it sounds crazy, knowing what she had done, but it wasn’t as if I was much of a choirboy myself. Body-count-wise, she might’ve had an edge, but not by much, and not if you included the maimed and wounded. I even found myself feeling attracted to her. It made me uneasy thinking about Manny and what I was going to force her to do. I decided it could wait until later.
She brought me out of my thoughts by asking whether I liked the wine. I told her I did. Usually I preferred beer, but I did like the taste of it. I squinted at the bottle and saw that it was a French Chardonnay.
‘It feels good sitting here with you,’ I said, and again, I was mostly telling her the truth.
I could feel her body tense. ‘You must’ve sat like this with your wife many times,’ she said.
I thought about it and realized I never did. It wasn’t as if every moment between Elaine and me was hell, but I couldn’t think of one time where I felt as comfortable and relaxed with Elaine as I did right then.
‘To tell you the truth,’ I said, ‘I don’t think we ever did.’
She turned to me, not quite believing what I said, but I could see in her eyes that she was hoping I wasn’t bullshitting her.
‘You’re lying now,’ she said, half serious.
‘No, I’m not. Elaine and I got together when we were teenagers. Back then we were always sneaking around and trying not to get caught. Things between us always seemed hectic and rushed. We were only nineteen when we were married, and then we were just scraping by. I had joined the force, and all the stresses of the job. And…’
And then there were the payoffs, the graft, the small crimes. At some point early on a coldness had come between Elaine and me. Not long after that came the cocaine, the gambling, and all the rest.
I shook my head, trying to shake loose those old memories. ‘I guess I got married too young,’ I said.
Her body relaxed after that. She put her hand on my stomach and peeked at me to see how I would react to her gesture. I reached down and kissed her forehead. As I sat with her I tried to forget everything, about who I was and what she was. I tried to forget everything that had happened and everything that was going to happen. I tried to simply enjoy the moment, because I’ve had so few in my life where I felt any real sense of contentment.
The buzzer for the oven timer went off.
She pulled away from me and showed me a reluctant smile. ‘Why don’t you bring the wineglasses to the table and I’ll get dinner,’ she said.
The table was in a small area off to the side of the living room. Charlotte had already set it, using a linen tablecloth and placing two silver candlesticks in the middle of it. I put down the wineglasses, and sat and waited. Not long after, Charlotte came in with the food. Along with the chicken, she had made roasted potatoes and string beans.
She lit the two candles and then sat across from me. I watched as she started cutting her food into tiny bite-sized pieces. Like before, after every few bites she’d dab at her mouth with her napkin. She was beaming. I could tell the food was good, but thinking about what I was going to do made it tasteless. Still, I ate it and remarked to her how delicious her cooking was, and that made her beam all the more.
‘You really like it?’ she asked.
‘Could be the best meal I’ve ever had,’ I said.
We both sat and ate quietly after that. Charlotte seemed deep in thought, as if she were trying to make up her mind about something. She didn’t exactly look troubled, but her brow was somewhat furrowed and some nervousness had crept back into her eyes. She coughed lightly to get my attention.
‘Mr Vassey’s son asked me about you today,’ she said. ‘He wanted to know how I knew you.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘He had seen me in your car, so I told him that I didn’t know you but that you were kind enough to offer me a ride home when my car wouldn’t run.’
‘Did he believe you?’
‘I think so, yes.’ Her small, pale face darkened. ‘I don’t like him at all. I think he’s also a criminal like his father.’ She paused. ‘You’re not involved with him, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. Anything between the two of us goes back to when I was a police officer. And you’re right, Charlotte, he is a criminal and he’s dangerous. You should try to keep away from him.’
She had handed me the perfect opening to bring up Manny, but I didn’t have the heart to do it. The least I could do was let her enjoy her dinner. As it was, talking about Junior had darkened her mood. I tried to change the subject by asking how she had learned to cook so well.
She showed me a shy smile. ‘My cooking is nothing special,’ she said.
‘Who are you kidding? You must
’ve gone to culinary school.’
‘Only for a year.’ Then, hesitating, lowering her voice, ‘My father convinced me that nursing would be more practical.’
‘You don’t like nursing, do you?’
She looked down at her plate. I didn’t think she was going to say anything, but she told me, ‘Not particularly, no.’
‘You should go back to culinary school,’ I said. ‘We could both start fresh together. Only I have to first figure out what I could do.’
I don’t know if I was bullshitting her, or playing for time, or what, but I think I actually started believing it was possible. I guess the last thing I wanted to do was think of Manny.
There was some wetness around her eyes when she looked back up at me. Not much, but some.
‘Do you have any ideas what you would like to do, Joe?’
I did have one idea. Something I felt in my gut. ‘I’d like to travel. Maybe go to Europe,’ I said.
‘Really?’
‘I’m forty years old and I’ve never been out of the state, except for Albany, and a one-day trip to Boston.’ And Canada for a couple of hours, but I didn’t mention that.
I stopped to take a bite of food, and after swallowing, added, ‘I used to be content with the idea of living out my life in Bradley, but those days are long gone.’ I laughed. ‘Kind of pathetic, huh? I don’t know, I just want to see some of the world before I die.’
‘I haven’t traveled much either,’ she said. ‘I grew up in Toronto. Once, when I was a child, we went to Niagara Falls, and a few summer trips to Quebec City. But that’s really been all. I haven’t seen any other towns in the United States other than Bradley, and of course, yesterday, our trip to Burlington.’
‘Would you like to see Europe also, Charlotte?’
She nodded.
‘We could go there,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing in the world stopping us.’
Small Crimes Page 17