Lightning People

by Christopher Bollen

  “Was there a note?”

  “No,” Hazlett replied, taking over from his partner. “We didn’t find a note. The coroner estimated he’d been dead for more than two weeks. The super had come to collect the back rent yesterday morning and let himself in with his key. Did you have any contact with your friend in the last month?”

  “I’m sure I talked to him on the phone. No, not recently, but maybe two weeks ago, yeah. I’d call to check in on him periodically. He didn’t have many friends left, you see, so I tried to be there for him. I was meaning to stop by the cottage this week. Oh, Christ. I can’t believe it.”

  Tasser bowed his head in sympathy. He had respectful silence down to a science: he waited ten seconds. “Can you remember the last time you spoke? It’s very important. Was he acting peculiar in any way? Was he depressed or paranoid or did he mention anything troubling that had happened?”

  “No. He was working on costumes for a play up in the Theater District. He hired a few tricks here and there, which kept him happy.”

  “Prostitutes, you mean?”

  “I don’t think they call them that, but yeah, basically. He didn’t make much money. But, no, I don’t remember him mentioning any problems.”

  “He didn’t mention anything about his car?”

  At Tasser’s prompting, Hazlett placed a photograph in front of him. It was a shot of the Cressida parked exactly where William had left it. He could see the shoddy repair job on the hood, the hammered-out dents in the front fender, the mismatched blue paint that glimmered against the car’s muted metal.

  William took a breath and crossed his legs and arms to consolidate his body into the smallest amount of space.

  “That’s his car. He’s had it for years. I never understood why he kept the thing. It barely worked.”

  “He said nothing about an accident?”

  “No,” William responded curtly in a pitch five octaves too high. Then he tried to reroute the conversation. “How can it take two weeks to find a body? What kind of city is this?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Mr. Asternathy. The scene was pretty gruesome. A body decomposing for fourteen days in that kind of heat. You say that he could have been murdered, but from what we could tell, there were no signs of a struggle to indicate that he resisted in any way.”

  “I can’t believe it,” William repeated piteously. He looked at them for consolation but found detached detective stares. “I don’t get the point of all this. If you think Quinn was a suicide, why are two homicide detectives investigating his death?”

  Tasser nodded, and from a folder, Hazlett produced a copy of the New York Post sealed in plastic. Folded to the second page was the cell-phone photo of the hit-and-run, Madi Singh piled on the cement, the blue Cressida a blur in the background with Quinn’s bumper sticker reduced to a white rectangle. Somewhere in the pixilated stew William was leaving the scene, driving away from the second-worst moment of his life.

  William tried to access some deep reserve of composure, but instead his face turned white and his hands shook. He realized right then that he didn’t have the strength to defend himself. The past was catching up, each action weaving and knotting into a web until there was no way to struggle out of it. The detectives knew. They were spiders familiar with the thrashing of doomed insects. They studied him as he stared at the paper, their shoulders bent forward, their eyes trained to catch the slightest tremor in his face. The bare room with its greasy Formica and hot white fluorescents didn’t allow any retreat from the showdown. Hazlett tapped two nicotine fingers on the picture.

  “Does that look familiar?”

  “It’s the newspaper.”

  “Does that story look familiar?”

  “I think I saw something about it on the news.”

  “That’s all?” he asked with surprise. “You never heard about it anywhere else? Never knew anyone involved?”

  “No,” he stammered.

  “William, if you’ve got something to admit, you’d better do it right now. That way it will be easier on all of us.” Tasser’s voice was a masterpiece of reason and control, and William wanted to spit in his face for the fatherly manner in which he proposed a simple confession. They could hear him faltering, they could see the desperate acrobatics of his thoughts.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Tasser straightened up and placed his hands on his belted hips.

  “I find that hard to believe, Mr. Asternathy.” He paused, then continued. “Don’t you wonder how we managed to find you today? We got your whereabouts from your agent at Touchpoint. She said you were staying at the address of a Cecile Dozol.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s my girlfriend.”

  “Are you aware that Ms. Dozol took this picture with her cell phone the day of the accident?”

  This information arrived like a bullet. William’s eyes opened, and he collapsed backward in his seat. He had no idea that Cecile had taken the photo on her cell phone, and he assumed the detectives must be telling him a lie. Cecile had never said why she had been at the gallery. She hadn’t wanted to discuss it, and neither had he. He stared up at them frantically, comparing their faces.

  “That’s not possible,” he managed.

  “You didn’t know that? You said she was your girlfriend.”

  “The truth is, we’ve only been dating for a week.” They had caught him. Out of one lie the truth would slowly be ripped out, each new deception placed on the table and dissected until it was revealed for what it was: a lie with a rapid heartbeat.

  “So you do know one person involved with this picture. Do you know any others?”

  “Hazlett is asking if you know the driver,” Tasser prodded helpfully.

  “No.”

  “We don’t believe you.” Tasser slammed a fist on the table and shot his eyes on him. “I think you know who was driving that car. I think you are the only person on earth that can tell us the identity of that man.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m telling you the truth. So what if Cecile took that picture? I wasn’t there. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “We have asked her. And we might just go and ask her about you right now. She might be able to tell us some interesting things about your involvement with a particular hit-and-run. Do you think she’d like to hear our version of events?”

  He couldn’t follow their logic. He had been so careful about guarding his own crimes at the front door he hadn’t notice them slip in from the back. It was as if they anticipated his answers and spun him around until he was jumping over one trap only to be caught in another. Now they were using Cecile against him. He drove his palms into the table and watched helplessly.

  “We found this newspaper in Brutus Quinn’s cottage. Odd that it should be there, don’t you think, because there weren’t any other newspapers found in his junk.”

  William sank at the realization that he had forgotten the newspaper when he wiped the evidence from the scene. His own fingerprints might be all over that paper. Had he touched it? Had it ever moved from Quinn’s hands to his? Maybe he could grab it and rip the plastic off and contaminate it with his fingerprints before they bothered with a test. He swallowed and dropped his head.

  “And isn’t it also odd that Quinn owns a blue car that matches the one seen leaving the accident? Odd too when we performed some analysis on the hood that we found it had undergone a recent patch-up job. What do you think, Hazlett?”

  “The kind of patch-up job to hide damage that could have been caused, say, by hitting a woman.”

  Tasser smiled in rage. “Makes sense to me. And now we have you, Mr. Asternathy, suddenly in the arms of our only material witness. That’s a little bit odd too.”

  “I told you, I don’t know who was driving the car.”

  “Of course you do. And you went over there to make sure the driver would get away with killing an innocent human being. You had to be certain all the fires were put out. That way no one wou
ld ever discover the guilty party.”

  “No.”

  “Then why was this newspaper found at the scene of Quinn’s suicide?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t he leave a note? If it was just a normal suicide, you’re right, where’s the note?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because the Cressida was the car driving away in this photograph.”

  “No,” William screamed, holding his hands up to shield himself.

  “Tell us who did it.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do. Quinn knew. You two talked about it before he died.”

  “No.”

  “You talked about it, and you’d do anything to keep it quiet.”

  “No.”

  “Quinn trusted you. He let you in. He opened his door to you.”

  His whole body convulsed, choking up spit as he sniveled into his palms.

  “I won’t say it. I won’t say anything. I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Tasser and Hazlett retreated a step. Tasser whispered in Hazlett’s ear and they both left the room, shutting the door behind them to leave William shaking and staring into the infinity of a white cinder block wall. The detectives were outside preparing for their final drive home. They were watching him. He spun his head around, looking for mirrors or cameras from which they were spying on him. He rubbed his hands and felt a warm stream of urine flood his underwear. There was no way out.

  The detectives returned a minute later, Tasser smiling and Hazlett grumbling as they finally took the seats across from him. Now it was only a matter of one last accusation and they’d finally have William by the throat. What did they have? A positive ID from the desk clerk at the New Jersey hotel? The check that Madi wrote with his own name signed across the back? Cecile now crying in another room just like this one, suddenly realizing she could remember a young man at the wheel of the car?

  “Please, stop,” he begged. “Please. None of this happened like you said. I loved Quinn and now he’s gone.”

  “We know that,” Tasser replied solemnly, reaching his hands over the desk to offer a ceasefire.

  “Jason,” Hazlett snapped. “We can keep going. Come on.” Hazlett didn’t get the response he wanted and kicked the table leg in fury.

  “We know what happened,” Tasser said softly. “And we think all you were doing was trying to protect him. After all, you were his only friend in the city. You were the only person he loved. He was like a father to you, wasn’t he? You were just trying to save him from trouble. Am I right?”

  “What?” William’s voice broke with confusion. He wiped his nose and timidly lifted his head to meet their eyes. Something had replaced Tasser’s ruthless gaze, some unmuscled expression simulating kindness.

  “William, we know Brutus Quinn was the driver of that car. He couldn’t live with the guilt of hitting that woman, could he? He couldn’t shake the shame of killing someone, and it weighed on him. He killed himself over it.”

  William sat frozen, waiting for Tasser to manipulate his logic or swerve back into another round of accusations. He almost fell to the floor when Hazlett hissed in anger, rebuking his partner for giving in.

  “He must have confessed this to you. You were like his son, isn’t that right? And you went over to make sure that Cecile Dozol couldn’t identify Quinn as the man behind the wheel. Because that would mean a prison cell for a sick old man who was like father to you.”

  “No,” William said quietly. “That didn’t happen. Quinn never told me that.”

  Tasser nodded, and Hazlett gathered the newspaper back into his files.

  “The kid didn’t admit anything,” Hazlett yelled.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tasser countered. “We don’t need him.”

  “He’s lying,” his partner said. But Tasser continued to nod compassionately and pulled his open hand from the table.

  “William, it doesn’t matter if you tell us or not. We’ve got the evidence on Quinn. It’s so solid I’d stick my mother on it. We were hoping for a little confirmation, but if we are wrong on that theory, I’m very sorry you had to go through this. It’s our job to give the family of Madeline Singh some peace of mind, and even though this interrogation might have been troubling to you, we’re here to bring relief to a brother who’s been begging us to find the man responsible. If you really don’t know, as you say, I’m sorry to tell you that the man we’ve been looking for is your friend. Quinn must have been very depressed about what he had done. It’s not uncommon for the guilty to suffer as much as the victims. As you said, he knew how valuable life was.”

  “Yes,” William replied, his brain spinning and his body so drained he wasn’t sure if he could rely on his legs to support his own weight.

  “I hope his crime won’t stain your memory of him. If it’s any consolation, your name came up for questioning because you’re the only person we could track down in this city who was close to him. We had hoped you could tell us something.” Tasser reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and placed a business card on the table. “If you do remember anything, I’d appreciate a call.”

  “So I can leave?”

  “Yes.” Tasser smiled coyly. “You were free to leave at any time. We were never holding you. We appreciate your patience.”

  The detective stood and offered his hand. William shook it, said thank you, and he walked through the hallway, down the steps, past the bulletproof lobby, and out into the cold autumn sunlight.

  William was so dazed by the sun, he shouldered into an olive-skinned man nervously rubbing his hands as he entered the police station. The man stopped and turned as if he recognized William, but William refused to pause, expecting hands to reach out from behind him at any second and drag him back into that room.

  He walked a block without a single thought passing through his brain, just his feet echoing on the pavement, the chilly air whipping over his ears, his eyes squinting in the direction of home. When he got to the corner, he stopped to wait for the walk light. No cops had followed him out of the precinct. A group of pedestrians huddled around him waiting to cross, remote, staring distractedly at the speeding traffic, but unafraid to stand next to him. A pregnant woman pushing a grocery cart. An Asian skinhead with a skateboard stopped under his sneaker. A hirsute businessman yakking about an impending market crash on his cell phone. An elderly couple with matching Toledo sweatshirts and matching never-go-gray blond hair.

  It was over. The dead had taken the fall for the crimes of the living. William watched the green traffic lights turn yellow and the impatient swaying of his fellow travelers preparing to cross. The city swam around him, his every glance filled with incalculable pools of information, every detail, every atom, bursting with activity, the whole town right now a raw shot of chaos flowing around him on this Tribeca street corner. He hugged himself tightly and let the cold sun pour across his cheeks.

  The cross light told him it was safe to start walking, and he waited for the first pedestrians to begin moving. He went with the crowd, a gathering of strangers making their collective pilgrimage across two lanes of traffic, connected for an instant in the same simple purpose of reaching the other side. In a few seconds they would separate, never to be together in the same place again.

  But not yet. They were only halfway across.

  They still had time with each other, free, unnamable men and women of this city with rich, convoluted histories that had led them all to be here at the same moment, wandering east together in a colorful, unspeaking herd.

  They were nearly over. The cross light changed from a solid white figure to a blinking orange hand. The cars began to creep forward in the release of their brakes. But they had made it across safely.

  William broke from them and headed off alone. The beginning of a smile leaked across his face.

  CHAPTER FORTY - SEVEN

  THE NEWS THAT the police had identified the driver should have come as a relief, as if
what was broken could be fixed. Raj extended a sincere thank-you to Detective Tasser, who informed him that since the perpetrator was already dead, there’d be no need to endure the duress of a trial. Raj relayed the information to his father by phone, and he exclaimed “praise the universe” in gratitude. Raj was part of that universe, and his father goaded him on the victory of justice over the wicked. “My son, you have avenged your sister by catching this evildoer,” he avowed with paternal pride. Raj wondered if anyone outside of his immediate family and intergalactic sciencefiction sagas ever spoke to their loved ones this way. Raj was happy for his father. The man could go on living now from the pages of his holy scripture, and the world he met at his doorstep each morning returned to one marked with equal measures of fairness and spite. Raj wished he could have shared in that consolation.

  After he had cleared Madi’s loft of her belongings, save for the gold peacock that remained standing in a tapioca shaft of Chinatown sunlight, he had expected to feel something amounting to closure—finality, resolution, the clasp of hands that could do nothing further. But the opposite happened. The spaciousness of Madi’s vacant apartment disturbed Raj’s equilibrium. He tried sleeping on an air mattress there for a few nights as a trial run before moving in and had awakened terrified that intruders had cracked the locks and, finding nothing they could steal, decided to bash his head with a brick in retaliation. Raj couldn’t remember the last time he had actually been scared of New York. He had grown too used to living in tight quarters, where every door and window could be inspected with a single turn of the head. After two nights, he gave up and returned to his cramped, gas-reeking studio on the tip of the West Side Highway. The ratty mattress and the mildewed Polaroid boxes comforted him as he chain-locked the front door.

  Raj understood that if he fell now there would be no woman with a spare set of keys to march down the hallway and entreat him back into the world. He’d have to tread very carefully from here out. Mirabelle Petz had called a week prior with a bleak report. The art wasn’t selling. It had merited a glowing paragraph review in The New York Times and a few prospects from European curators who were hoping he might reenact the interactive fly performance, preferably without the accompanying portraits. Collectors didn’t want dead bodies piling up in their living rooms. It didn’t take much convincing to persuade Mirabelle not to add his name to the stable of artists on her website.