by Sharon Potts
“‘If what you say doesn’t piss someone off, it’s not worth saying.’ I’m quoting your father. He enjoyed being the rabbit all the dogs chased around the track.”
But didn’t his father consider what happens to the rabbit when it gets caught?
Marina’s thighs tightened around his own. With a flick of her finger, she shifted aside the crotch of her panties. “We have ten minutes,” she breathed into his ear. “Ten minutes until the veal is done.”
Chapter 21
Elise held her mother’s hand tightly as they walked through the mall. Her mother wore white pants and a yellow shirt the color of a happy face button. Her hair was held up in a ponytail with a red ribbon. She smiled at Elise. Elise felt so happy she wanted to laugh out loud. She and her mother, together, forever.
But there were hundreds of people at the mall, all zipping past them. Why couldn’t she and her mother keep up? Her feet were heavy; she could barely lift them. And the black-and-white tile floor that looked like a giant chessboard was moving backwards, carrying them farther away from their destination. The sound of carnival music became louder. Over the edge of a railing, she could see a carousel.
That’s where they were going— to the carousel. Elise heard screeches of delight as the horses rose and fell in time to the music. The children’s black wings lifted them higher and higher, far above the painted ponies.
The children’s black wings.
All the children and all the people had wings, like bats. That’s why they could move so quickly. They could fly. Elise felt her back with her free hand. Yes, she had wings too.
She began rising high into the air. She squeezed her mother’s hand. “We’re flying, Mommy. We’re flying.”
“I’m not your mother,” said a thick shadow with a black mask. “But she’s calling you,” the shadow said in its deep distorted voice. “Your mama’s calling you.”
Elise touched her back. The wings were gone. And she began falling, falling into a deep, dark hole.
Elise awoke with a start. The tee shirt she slept in was soaked with sweat. The shadow. The dark shadow was in her dreams every night. But she could never see its face.
How she wanted her mother back! Her mother in the yellow blouse with her hair held up by a red ribbon. Her mother smiling at her. Elise closed her eyes, trying to reconnect with the happy part of her dream. Mommy, she whispered. Mommy, come back.
But only black bats flew across her mind, blocking out the sweetness as they flapped their dank wings.
Elise reached for the water glass on her nightstand. She was thirsty, so thirsty. The glass was empty. It was after two in the morning. Dwight had called around midnight asking for Jeremy, as he did most nights, and she had unplugged the phone.
She turned on the faucet in her bathroom and held her mouth under it to catch the cold stream of water. She couldn’t seem to get enough.
Her mother smiling. So happy, so real, Elise was certain she had touched her. Elise’s heart ached with unbearable emptiness. It had been a dream. Her mother was dead. Her mother was dead. Tears ran down Elise’s cheeks mingling with the tap water. Was that why she was so thirsty? So she had something to make more tears with?
Her legs were heavy, like in the dream, as she went to Jeremy’s room. She was frightened. She was always frightened being alone in the house. She would lock all the doors as soon as she was inside, but it didn’t seem to help. The murderer had gotten in with a key last time. Why would locked doors stop him now?
Jeremy was stretched out across his bed. Elise felt a wave of relief. She wasn’t alone. Then she realized it was only a couple of piles of laundered clothes. Jeremy wasn’t asleep in his bed. Jeremy never slept in his bed anymore.
A terrible sadness pulled Elise down to the floor. Carlos had given her a pill tonight. It had a tiny black Batman insignia. Ecstasy. “Take this,” he’d said. “It’ll really make you fly.”
And perhaps because she was already high from the pot, she’d washed it down with a glass of water.
“You have to drink plenty of water,” he’d said. “This shit makes you real thirsty.”
And she was. So thirsty. She went back to her bathroom and drank from the faucet. The water splashed her tee shirt. Her mother’s shirt. The one she’d found hanging in the hallway closet. It had three brown teardrops. Her mother’s blood from the nosebleed she’d had the night they’d come home from visiting Jeremy. Elise could still smell her mother’s perfume on it. She wore the shirt every night, refusing to wash it. Unwilling to lose any more of her mother than she already had.
Moonlight was seeping in through the partially open blinds in her mother’s office. Elise sat down at the desk and rested her head on her arms. A sharp point poked her. The clipboard with its yellow pad and squiggly writing was lying on top of the desk. She had only scribbled on the top page the last time she’d noticed the clipboard. Now, she found every page filled with her tight, intense pen strokes. Had she done this? In her sleep?
She flipped through the pages. The letters became almost legible as she got to the end of the pad. She could make out m, g, e. And there were breaks in the scribbles, almost like she’d been writing words.
Elise studied the last few pages. It seemed as though she’d been making columns. Geezer. That was one of the words. She was sure of it. Then, Elise, Jeremy, something that looked like May 2, Elise’s birthday, and February 20, Jeremy’s birthday. In a few days, he’d be twenty-three.
But what had her subconscious been doing? She turned to the next page and tried to decipher the words. Corvair, freedom, Mozart.
“Corvair, freedom, Mozart,” she said aloud. Her father’s favorite things. And the names and birthdays were important to her mother. Passwords. Could she have been making a list of possible passwords in her sleep? Trying to break into her parents’ e-mail accounts?
Elise got her laptop from her room. She set it on top of her mother’s desk blotter.
Passwords. She logged onto her parents’ mail server to input each one. Geezer, Jeremy, Elise, May 2, February 20.
Invalid password. Please try again, the computer said.
She tried her father’s account. Corvair, freedom, Mozart.
Please try again.
Each time she input a new word, she felt a stab of pain. Just like in the Kafka story she’d read in school called “In the Penal Colony,” where a torture machine wrote the name of the crime into the culprit’s body with a sharp needle. With each word came a memory, which stabbed her like the needle in the story. But Elise couldn’t stop. She threw the clipboard on the floor and started typing in her own memories.
Bicycle. She remembered her father pushing her on her little pink bike after he’d taken the training wheels off, shouting, “Go on Elise. You’ve got it. Go on, pumpkin.”
Pumpkin. One Halloween when she was four or five, her father had taken her outside in the dark. On the step sat two large heads with fire growing out of their eyes and mouth. Elise had screamed in terror. “They’re only pumpkins,” her father had said, pulling her close. “Come on, baby. Don’t cry.”
Baby, she typed in now. Don’t cry. But she couldn’t stop herself. With each word, her loss spread wider and wider, like a drop of blood in a bowl of water. Mommy, Daddy, how could you leave me?
It was the Ecstasy, she knew. The depression was a symptom of coming down from the high. She needed to stop this self-pity. She had to do something to find her parents’ murderer.
To close the dark hole within herself.
She focused her attention on the desk blotter. Her mother had used it as a reminder calendar. Each word, each letter was written in her mother’s graceful handwriting. So different from the scribbles Elise had made. So different, yet so much the same. Her mother’s notes were as cryptic as the words Elise had written on the yellow pad.
Elise looked at the entry her mother had made for the day after they returned from visiting Jeremy in Madrid. Geezer— bath; drycleaners; Opa Locka— St. M, 1PM
, Passport.
Her mother had been planning on traveling, that was clear. But where? She was often flying off on business trips, and Elise had stopped paying attention to her mother’s destinations or even to how long she was going away for. She would find herself pleasantly surprised when she returned from school and her father would say, “Well, looks like it’s just you and me tonight, babe. Can you stand it?” And Elise could more than stand it. She’d loved those evenings when it was just her and her dad. So, probably out of guilt, she’d block out her mother’s travel talk.
Elise flipped through her mother’s file drawer looking for a travel itinerary, but the only ones she found were from before Madrid. Maybe she’d left the tickets or itinerary out on her desk and, hopefully, the police hadn’t taken them. She searched the desk blotter, under the coin paperweight, behind the calculator. Nothing.
She focused again on the words. Opa Locka— St. M.
Opa Locka was a small neighborhood just outside of Miami. St. M. Was that a street in Opa Locka? No, then it would have been M St. Elise pressed her hands against her head. She had a dull headache and she was thirsty. So thirsty. And this was too difficult. She couldn’t figure it out. But she had to. St. M, St. M. St. Mary’s? Where had she heard of St. Mary’s? Mrs. Castillo had said the Olympus Grande resort was located on St. Mary’s. Could her mother have been planning a trip there?
Opa Locka was also the name of an airport for private planes. Was her mother supposed to fly from Opa Locka to St. Mary’s at 1 p.m. the day after she was murdered? It made sense. She would have needed the passport.
But what did it all mean?
Geezer licked her hand. She wished Jeremy was home so she could ask him. There were so many things she wanted to talk to him about. Was he feeling as lost as she was? Did he also get angry at their parents for leaving them? Did he know how to make the pain go away?
But she couldn’t ask Jeremy anything. Jeremy didn’t come home anymore, nor answer his phone.
Elise lay down on the Oriental rug in her mother’s office. She closed her eyes and concentrated as hard as she could until she saw the smiling woman in the yellow blouse with her hair held high by a red ribbon.
Chapter 22
Jeremy awakened with a throbbing headache as if someone was hitting him with a rubber hammer. He went down to the kitchen and took three Motrins. The sun was pouring through the kitchen windows, and Jeremy had to squint to keep the pain from flaring up. He closed the blinds.
“Another rough night?” Elise asked, walking into the kitchen. She was dressed in her school khakis and polo shirt, but looked like crap with dark circles under her eyes, her hair messily braided.
“I got to bed pretty late.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Look, Ellie. I don’t want you thinking I’m wasting my time when I’m not here with you.”
She took a glass from the cupboard.
“I’m making progress. I’m pretty sure the murderer targeted Dad.”
“Why?” Elise filled the glass with water and drank it down.
“Because Dad made a lot of people angry. I just have to narrow it down.”
“Sounds like you have everything under control.” She refilled the water glass, drank it, and started toward the door.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” he asked.
She gestured toward the countertop, empty except for the bottle of Motrin. “Aren’t you?”
“Touché, I guess.”
“Gotta go.” She waved without meeting his eye.
“Ellie, wait a sec.”
She leaned against the refrigerator, her arms folded across her chest. “What?”
“I want to make sure you’re okay. You were asleep on the rug in Mom’s office when I got home last night.”
“Was I?” Her tone said she couldn’t care less.
“You were holding the pad— the one you’d been writing in the night you were sleepwalking.”
“So?”
“Every page was filled with scribbles.”
“Is, is that a crime?” She’d pushed off the refrigerator with her foot. Her lower lip was trembling. “At least I come home at night.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t criticizing. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
“Thanks. You win the good brother award. I’ll make sure Dwight knows.”
“What does Dwight have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. He, he calls. That’s all.”
“When?”
“Most nights. Usually he starts at ten or eleven and keeps calling until I unplug the phone.”
“What does he want?”
“You, I guess. He keeps asking for you.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, well. We all have problems. I’m going to school.”
“He’s not going to take the guardianship away from me, Elise. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“You know something, Jeremy. I don’t care anymore. M-maybe it would be nice to have someone in the house to talk to.” She flung her braid over her shoulder. “Even if it’s Dwight.”
Jeremy walked Geezer to the park where he used to take Elise when she was little. She loved climbing the huge banyan tree they’d named “the grotto,” or hiding in its thick roots. But taking his sister to the park was very different from having complete responsibility for her. Flora did the shopping and cooking, but late at night Elise was all alone. And even if she spent time with Carlos, it wasn’t the same as being with family. So maybe Dwight and Selma moving in with Elise wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
It seemed to be what Elise wanted.
He rested his hand against a low smooth branch protruding from the banyan tree.
Take care of your sister.
“But I’m no good at it, Mom. That’s why I went away in the first place. Because I wasn’t ready for commitments or responsibility.”
Geezer looked up at him and wagged his tail.
Of course, if Elise wanted him to stay, it would be different. But she’d said herself that she didn’t care. So he’d finish working with Marina to find the murderer, then get the hell out of here.
Back where he belonged. Where there were no mothers, fathers, or sisters.
Where there was no one to worry about but himself.
He left the park and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose. The sun was already strong. He lit a cigarette. A bicyclist whizzed by. Jeremy resisted the impulse to run after him. His father used to do that— run after speeders and shout, “Slow down.”
A slouching woman in a dark pantsuit was walking toward him. He took another puff on the cigarette. It was after eight. Time to leave for work, not that it served much purpose for him to be there anymore.
“I thought you might be walking the dog,” the woman called out as she got closer. “There’s a car in the driveway, but no one answered the door.”
“How are you, Detective Lieber? I’ve been meaning to call you.”
“But you haven’t. You must be pretty busy.” In the harsh sunlight, the gray in her hair gleamed.
“I figured you’d let me know if anything was happening.” He dropped the cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with his shoe.
Lieber leaned over to pet the dog. “Geezer’s looking well,” she said, pulling herself back up.
“Our housekeeper usually walks him.”
“But you wanted some fresh air this morning?”
He checked his watch. He remembered Detective Kuzniski doing that the first time they’d met, as though he didn’t have time to be bothered by Jeremy.
The bicyclist zoomed by, causing Jeremy to pull Geezer out of the road.
“I won’t keep you long.” Lieber gestured toward a stone bench at the edge of the bay. “Why don’t we sit there so we don’t get run over?”
The reflection from the water hurt his eyes, even with sunglasses on. Jeremy twisted around on the bench so that the direct glare didn’t hit him.
Lieber took a small bottle from her handbag. She held out the Advil. “Need one of these?”
“Thanks, I’ve already taken three Motrin.”
“You’re keeping up a heck of a pace— work, school, taking care of your sister. How’s it working out?”
“Great.”
She popped a piece of gum in her mouth. “That’s a beautiful car you’re driving. I remember someone telling me your father really cherished it.”
“Yeah, well. I wish he would have cherished his family as much.”
“I was under the impression he did.”
Jeremy rubbed his temples. How much did he want to tell the detective about his relationship with Marina and what he was discovering about his father?
“I thought you and I were on the same side, Jeremy. What’s going on?”
Geezer pulled on the leash, straining to chase a squirrel. “I think I’m onto something,” Jeremy said, “but I don’t want to be premature.”
“I’m just here to listen.”
“I’ve been looking over my father’s papers. He was a pretty outspoken guy. Seemed to get a kick out of pissing everyone off.”
“You think he was rash? That he didn’t consider the repercussions?”
“Well, he sure gave a lot of people a motive to kill him.”
“Is that what his graduate assistant believes?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Marina Champlain smokes those unfiltered cigarettes, too.”
“She’s helping me. Is that a problem?” He was sounding as defensive as his sister had earlier.
“Not at all. As long as you remember one source isn’t very objective. I assume you’ve been talking to other people at the school. Confirming what Marina tells you.”
“Look,” Jeremy said. “Marina’s been great. She’s explained my father’s theories to me and who they may have offended.”
“It’s obvious she wants to help you.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she? Marina cared about my father and she wants to find his murderer. I think it’s pretty clear something my father said provoked the murderer. You know about the fire in his office?”