Dead End Job

by Ingrid Reinke

  “IT WAS YOU! You PRICK! You sonofabitch! It wasn’t enough for you to just ruin my family, NO! You had to KILL MY WIFE!!”

  What the hell? He, and everyone else at the service were staring straight right at me. I was completely bewildered.

  “No,” I started to say, “you’re confused…”

  At that instant, I was given a big shove from behind. Ari was trying to get me out of the way, but it was too late—Ben wasn’t coming for me, he was coming for Ari.

  Ari’s push had caused me to lose footing and teeter on the muddy ground, and I started to fall forward and to the left at the same moment that Ben reached us. His hand swung up to hit Ari at the same moment that I fell. His fist and my face collided. I heard a crack that sounded like a semi-truck demolishing a building stocked with gas cans. A searing pain instantly spread through my left eye, then my entire head was engulfed the same sharp pain, which suddenly blinded me like a bright, white light. The force of the blow caused my free fall to change direction, and I splatted backwards to the ground on my ass with a thud. Unfortunately, the force of the strike also caused Ben to stumble, and he landed directly on top of me in a big, muddy pile.

  I tried to push Ben off of me, but he was as stunned and confused as I was. While he was being lifted off of me by several pairs of hands, I glanced to my right and noticed that Ari had taken the confusion as an opportunity to get the hell out of there. The last I saw of him, he was jogging down the hill through the rain to the parking lot. I looked up and saw that Ben was being walked over to the corner by the rabbi, while his mother was trying to shoo the two children away from the scene.

  “Oh man, Louisa, that looks like it’s going to be quite the shiner,” said a familiar voice.

  Two large, strong hands wrapped around my waist from behind, and I was gently but firmly lifted out of the mud and up onto my feet. When I turned around Rocky still had his hands loosely around my waist in an awkward embrace.

  “How bad is it?” I asked him, forcing myself to move my hand off of my eye and show him the damage. He put his right hand under my chin and tilted my face up, studying the damage.

  “It’s going to be a pretty nasty bruise, but I think you’ll live.” He smiled at me. I smiled back, embarrassed but beaming. I was so grateful and excited to see Rocky that even though I had just been involved in a funeral brawl, I couldn’t really think of anything else at the moment besides how good it would be to fall right into his arms.

  This was the first time I’d seen him out of uniform and he looked fantastic. He was wearing a dark grey, perfectly tailored suit with a lighter grey buttoned up shirt and a black tie with a grey embroidered design. His face was freshly shaven, and I was close enough to him to smell that familiar cologne that he wore. His brown eyes were burning into mine. Our faces were only inches away. My face moved slightly towards his, almost involuntarily. I swear he was leaning in to kiss me…

  But then he abruptly pulled away, looking right past my head. I turned around just in time to see that we were being approached very quickly by a very aggressive-looking Detective Lopez.

  She gave me a quick once-over and then turned to Rocky. “Sergeant Evans, a word?” Although the request was formal, I detected a fair amount of incredulousness in her voice. I guess it on-the-job flirting was frowned upon in the SPD. Rocky’s arms dropped away from my waist immediately.

  “Uh, sure thing, Rachel,” he replied, flushed. “Louisa, I’ll talk to you later. You should go straight home and put a steak on that eye.”

  I nodded, and it took me a minute to realize that they were both waiting for me to leave. The whole interaction made me feel a bit strange, and a little hurt—like Rocky was embarrassed that he had been talking to me. I forced myself to brush it off, giving myself a short but effective lecture: someone was murdered. Get the fuck over yourself.

  Over in the corner of the tent, Ben stood with his mother and Detective Wang. Next to him, Detective Schreck spoke with the rabbi. Apparently, if I had been wearing my glasses I would have seen that all of the detectives from Sarah’s case had shown up. With Ben’s outburst and accusation, it seemed to be well worth the effort.

  I didn’t see Martin anywhere, so I decided to head back to the parking lot and the car. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen what had happened, but even so, it was pretty evident that the service was now over. The solemn calm that had marked the beginning of the morning was long gone, and the atmosphere was more like a cocktail party, with groups congregating in small social circles, chatting and gossiping. Although some people were headed out, it seemed like most were excited about the morning’s surprising turn and were waiting around to see if any more juicy events would take place.

  I felt like a total idiot as I began walking back down the hill past the crowd. Not only was every person that I passed staring at me, again, but I was still freezing cold, and now my ass and back were completely covered with mud. I could feel my eye swelling by the minute. I was completely soaking wet, and the parts of my hair that were not matted with mud were stuck to my face and neck. I trudged down the hill slowly, my shoes sinking in the mud up to my heels with each step. What a morning.

  When I finally got to the parking lot, I spotted Martin on his cell phone behind his beige Toyota Corolla. He was furiously talking, nodding his head and pacing back and forth in the rain. For a second, I was frustrated that he was out here on his phone instead of looking for me in the crowd. But, just as quickly, I decided that I was happy to see him so I could go home.

  “Martin! Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  His head snapped up. He paused, then I saw him say something quickly and hang up the phone. He chucked it into the open door of his car and started jogging over to me. He’d taken his coat off, so I could see his large man-boobs bouncing up and down under the soaking wet navy blue button up shirt he was wearing. As soon as he got close enough to see the damage that had been done my face and outfit, he started fussing.

  “What happened? You look awful! Are you OK? I was with Mr. Curtis after we threw that dirt into the hole and then I heard all the yelling. He ran off and I couldn’t find you so I ran down here.” He was rambling through his heavy breaths.

  As he approached me, I fought the urge go full bitch and start screaming unintelligibly at him for ditching me in my time of need. I was so frustrated, embarrassed and in pain. Somehow I swallowed down the raging anger long enough to narrowly avoid a very wet hug that I really did not want by stepping to the side and holding my hand up.

  “It’s bad. I’ll tell you about it in the car, Hon, let’s get the hell out of here—now,” I said, controlling my anger. I glanced back at the crowd on the hill behind me and could see that many of the people were starting to disperse toward the parking lot. Everything inside of me told me to get out of there before there was any chance that I would either get stared at or physically assaulted any more that morning.

  As we got into the car my temper cooled off a bit. I hiked my filthy skirt up to my waist and apologized both for flashing Martin my black thong and for smearing mud on the beige interior of the car. Although both of us knew I didn’t have the money, I promised to get it detailed the next week. Thankfully, Martin didn’t seem too worried about it, and we zoomed out of the parking lot before we ran into any of the other employees.

  “The quiet ones are always the biggest whores,” Martin asserted when I told him about the events of the morning. Of course that was what he would take from the whole situation.

  “Well, you’re not quiet,” I replied, laughing gratefully.

  “You know it’s true!” he insisted, snapping his finger diva style. Then, becoming more serious, he lowered his voice seriously. “You know what I mean though, with Sarah and Ari. They were having an affair, her husband found out about it, she broke it off, and Ari went insane with jealousy and killed her. It’s so obvious. Also, sooooo movie-of-the-week. Oh my God! Your hot cop boyfriend is probably arresting Ari as we speak.”

  “H
ow sad.” I sat pondering the situation. “It makes sense, I guess. I just didn’t think that someone like Ari had it in him.”

  “You never know about people, Lulu,” Martin lectured. “You have to be careful.”

  “I’m starting to realize that,” I replied, pointing at my throbbing face.

  When we pulled up to my apartment I got out as gingerly as I could, trying not to smear any more mud up and down Martin’s passenger seat.

  “Ew, go take a shower,” Martin said. “I’ll see you on Monday, but let me know if you hear anything from that cop. I want all of the gossip.”

  “I will,” I replied. Even though I really doubted that Martin would be my first call, after the encounter this morning I was really hoping I would hear from Rocky and be able to have some gossip to share.

  Chapter 9: Hard to Swallow

  When I got home it was still before noon, a time I usually didn’t usually see on the weekends, so the rest of my Saturday went by painfully slowly. Kathy and her on-again-off-again boyfriend Curtis were in the kitchen making some rubbery-looking, gluten-free waffles, and although I had managed to avoid them all week, my appearance was so dramatic that I felt compelled to brief them on the office death, the funeral and the accidental eye-punching incident. They were staring at each other in disbelief when I walked out of the kitchen with a bag of frozen vegetables I’d grabbed out of the very back of the freezer, leaving a trail of wet and muddy footprints all the way up the stairs.

  After I took a quick shower and threw my new dress in the sink to soak, I spent the rest of the afternoon dividing my time between watching TV in my bed with the frozen peas and carrots on my face and obsessing on my laptop on Google and Facebook, trying to find any information about the case, Ari, or Rocky. After a couple minutes of digging I found Rocky’s Facebook page, which was set on private, and hovered my mouse over the button for a couple of seconds before I totally wussed out on friend-requesting him. I thought that might be just a little bit weird and slightly stalker-ish of me. I checked my phone obsessively every ten minutes or so, sure that after this morning, Rocky would call me as soon as he could and let me know what was going on with Ari and Ben.

  By five o’clock, things were looking grim. I had gotten exactly zero phone calls, and the only text I received was pictures from my little sister Beverly of some dilapidated house she and her husband were looking to buy out in North Bend, a heavily forested suburb thirty minutes east of Seattle. I had also watched four Top Chef re-runs, was becoming increasingly depressed, and was starving for roasted duck and pistachio cous cous. The swelling in my eye was going down ever so slightly, even if by now the frozen veggies were almost completely thawed and turning into a warm mush. The house was quiet, and even though it would be light outside for at least another four hours, I felt like calling it a night. Luckily, Kathy and Curtis had left sometime earlier in the afternoon, so I didn’t have to deal with anymore stares or uncomfortable silences for the time being.

  I had just gone downstairs to let Winston inside and toast a bagel, and I was heading back up to my room with the bagel and a jar of peanut butter when my phone rang. I bounded up the last couple of steps to answer, hoping that it was Rocky. Instead, it was Amanda. I plopped down on the bed and picked up.

  “Oh, hey poop,” I said, disappointed.

  “I talked to Alex this morning. I cannot believe you haven’t called me.”

  I had taken the lid off of the peanut butter and started to rip the bagel into pieces and dip them into the jar.

  “I’m sorry.” I said, through a full mouth. “I’m kind of having a shit week.”

  “I can imagine. Can you come out tonight and meet me and Travis for dinner at Machiavelli?”

  Travis was Amanda’s fiancé. They met when Amanda and I were both working in the Belltown bar, and had been dating for the past four years. The wedding was planned for August, so Amanda has been preoccupied with planning all of the details and trying to lose an inordinate amount of weight for the wedding photos. I popped my head up and looked in the mirror across the room, studying my swollen eye. The skin around it was a bright pink, probably from the cold peas, but it was still pretty swollen and I could see the beginnings of a deep purple bruise on my cheek directly underneath my eye. I needed some time to let this thing calm down. No way was I leaving the house looking like a beaten wife.

  “I don’t think tonight is going to work for me,” I told her.

  “I totally understand, but I think we should get together. I am worried about you, Lulu.”

  “I’m fine. Try not to worry,” I tried to reassure her. “Actually, I’m supposed to have drinks with Alex on Tuesday night at some new place on Capitol Hill. Hopefully my face won’t look so bad by then. Do you think you can make it?”

  “Tuesday I think is fine, let me check with Travis and I’ll text you.”

  We hung up the phone and I returned to eating my bagel and peanut butter dinner. I sat for a moment and thought about everything that had happened this week. Nothing really made any sense to me, especially about Ari and Sarah. I had known and worked with Ari for over a year now, and never once had I heard him even raise his voice. I had always found him to be a really quiet guy, a little too introverted and nerdy for me, but a genuinely nice person. Although I was surprised to find out about his and Sarah’s affair, I have to say that if I had really thought about it, the tryst wouldn’t have come as too much of a shock. I guess it was a pretty typical work affair: two people who were working all hours of the day in a stressful job, feeling neglected and alienated by their families, finding comfort in each other’s arms, etcetera, etcetera.

  Not only did Ari and Sarah both work at least sixty hours a week in the office, I noticed that ever since the intent to merge with NorCom PR was announced at the beginning of the year, they spent a lot of time together on the road, travelling back and forth to NorCom’s headquarters in Portland. They also usually requested that I book them on same flights and then stayed at the same hotels. I could not imagine a situation where Ari would get so upset as to kill Sarah, but I do know from watching a lot of TV that crimes of passion do happen.

  As I worked through the situation in my head, I wandered downstairs and fed Winston dinner. When I got back to my room I checked my phone one last time, then I chided myself for being so pathetic and made the choice to give up on Rocky’s phone call and run myself a hot bath. I grabbed a couple of magazines and a bottle of $12 Pinot Noir from Burgundy, and drank my wine and read my smut until the water turned cold.

  By 8:45 I had polished off a little more than half of the bottle of wine and read the entire US weekly and People magazines that I had gotten earlier that week in the mail. Without anything else left to do, I turned my phone off and put myself to bed for the night.

  When I woke up the next morning, I made the conscious decision that I would not obsess over Rocky, work, and especially Sarah’s murder for at least one day. It was still pretty early and (surprisingly for a Sunday morning) I found that I was not painfully hung over and exhausted from a Saturday night of dining and boozing with friends, so when I rolled out of bed, I avoided the usual weekend morning routine of feeling fat, guilty about what I had eaten and drunk the night before, and lazy for sleeping in.

  After brushing my teeth and studying my now less swollen but more purple eye in the bathroom mirror, I smeared on a thick layer of under eye concealer and covered it with some powder and a touch of bronzer in an attempt to make it look more natural. When I was satisfied that the bruise was less than noticeable, I left my considerable pile of dirty laundry untouched and headed to the gym for a morning workout.

  When I got home, I made myself a pot of coffee and had a small lunch of whole wheat pita bread with hummus, sprouts and tomato, then decided to tackle the large task of cleaning the apartment. The sun was peeking out and it felt like the day was going to be a little warmer than the forecast, so I threw open the windows, put on a retro 90s station and sang to Lisa Loeb and Alanis
Morissette while I mopped, vacuumed and readied piles of clothes and linens for the laundry.

  It was a little after two that afternoon when Rocky called. I was sitting on my bed near the window, breathing in the sunshine and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my day when the phone rang from my side table. Even though for days I had been waiting for and obsessing over this moment, my heart temporarily stopped beating, rendering me unable to take a full breath. For a second I even panicked and considered sending the call to voicemail, but I thought better of it and picked up the phone.

  “Hello?” I said, putting on my best casual and unassuming phone voice.

  “Louisa? It’s Rocky,” he replied in that deep voice of his. It almost gave me chills to hear him. “How is that eye feeling today?”

  “It’s much better, thanks. I don’t think that Ben guy has much of a punch.”

  “That’s good. I was worried about you. Hey listen, I know its a little last minute but I was thinking that maybe we could go get something to eat tonight. Are you free?” he asked.

  “Um, yeah sure. I don’t think I have anything on the books for tonight,” I replied, then felt immediately like a mega-dork for saying something as cheesy as ‘on the books.’ “What time?” I asked, trying to recover.

  “I was thinking that I could pick you up at six o’clock and we could go sit on the deck at Duke’s over on Lake Union?”

  “That sounds perfect. I love that place,” I said, even though every time I ate Duke’s “famous” clam chowder I was reminded of my slight lactose intolerance and rewarded afterwards with hours of painful stomach cramps and the strong probability of several hours of burning gas. Not the best choice for a first date. It didn’t matter though, because the view was great, and much more importantly, I would be with Rocky.