The Nutting Girl

by Fred DeVecca

  “Then I looked around and there I was. Back in town. Somehow I had circled back and there I was, walking along Conway Street, with the river flowing just to my right.

  “So I cut through this yard to get back along the river. And I walked around. I was following the river back toward town. Then I walked by a yard and this old guy was sitting in a chair and staring out at the river. He had on one of those blue Yankees caps. And he had a big sandwich on a plate. He had a big bottle of beer too.

  “So this old guy says, ‘Want half a sandwich?’ And I said yes and he handed it to me and I scarfed it down. Then he handed me the other half and I scarfed that down too. And he let me sip from the beer. Hell, I more than sipped it. I chugged it.

  “Then he said, ‘I knew you’d be back. I was waiting for you.’

  “Then he said I looked like I needed to clean up. So he let me come inside and I took a long, hot bath. And he gave me clean clothes to wear. They were real old, but in good shape. Retro, you know? Cool. Belonged to his dead wife, Emma. The stuff you spend a fortune on in a vintage clothing store. If you can ever find anything as nice as that. Like old hippie clothes from forty years ago, but real nice.

  “So I stayed there. He let me sleep on the bed. He slept on the couch.

  “And I stayed there. It turned out I had a few bruises. Cuts on my forehead, hands, wrists. He was a kind, gentle man. He cleaned them up for me, applied some kind of salve, bandaged them. I stayed there and didn’t come out for three weeks.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Time to Go

  “I didn’t do anything for three weeks except sit there and think. And change my hair. Cut it, dyed it darker. That was a sign that I needed to change something about myself. Once in a while, I’d go out in the yard and watch the river flow by.

  “Then I called up Frack. Frack and I had started to get to know each other at the start of the shoot. He was nice to me. All men are nice to me, Frankie, because I’m hot. I understand how that works.

  “But there was something sweet and innocent about Frack, and also competent. The guy seemed to be able to actually do things.

  “And he had touched me, Frankie. In more ways than one. His arm brushed me just as I fell into that river. I don’t know if he caused it, but he had something to do with it. He touched me, and the next thing I knew I was gone and the whole world had changed.

  “So I called him up. And he came over and we hung out for a while. We walked and we talked.

  “It was his idea to come here. For some reason, he always wanted to move to New Orleans. I’ve never been here, but it seemed to be as good an idea as anything.

  “So I was almost ready to go. I had lots of money, Frankie. I’d been paid fifteen million dollars for this film. Pretty much all my money was in an offshore account, always has been. Me and Frack could live forever very comfortably on that. More than comfortable. Luxury.”

  “But I stayed there for a while. I wasn’t totally ready to go yet. I had more thinking to do.

  “Then one day that old dude comes up to me and says, ‘It’s time to go.’

  “I didn’t know what that meant. Him or me?

  “The next day I woke up and he was still there, lying on the couch. And he wasn’t moving.

  “I went up to him and touched him and he didn’t move. He was dead. He had died overnight.

  “So I dressed in that costume from the movie again. I didn’t want to steal clothes from the old dead guy.

  “And I hit the road for New Orleans.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Miracle Monk

  “I bought Frack some kind of cute little car. Brand new. Paid cash.

  “We loaded up what little stuff we had and set off. Got as far as that truck stop in Whately, where we stopped for breakfast.

  “We were sitting there in that booth and he started talking about the future and stuff like that.

  “The future? Frankie, I had never thought about the future before in my life. The present was all I knew. I don’t know what he had in mind. I don’t think he did either. But the future? I couldn’t get my head around that.

  “All I had been doing for the past couple weeks had been thinking. Thinking about life, and love, and spirit and everything. But never about the future.

  “And I realized I needed more time before I could run off with Frack.

  “So I told him I was going to the bathroom and I got up from that booth and I walked away. I saw this guy sitting there all alone. He looked up from his paper and smiled at me. Not a sexy kind of smile. He looked kind and safe. The way you look, Frankie. I checked him out real good. The dude was okay and I knew he’d take good care of me. For a while at least.

  “So I put on one of my acts and figured out I would find a way to New Orleans myself and check back in with Frack when things made more sense.

  “He was a nice guy. I knew he would be. Took me to Florida. Where I did the same thing at another truck stop. This time I chose a cute family with a husband and wife and two little kids and they took me to New Orleans. They were real safe. I was looking for safe. I was leading a crazy life, filled with risk. I yearned for safety and comfort.

  “So they got me here. On my first day here, I’m walking around the French Quarter. Then, sitting on a bench on Jackson Square, who do I see but Frack.

  “I had bailed on him and he wasn’t mad. He forgave me. He knew I was going through a lot and he just accepted all of it. He was another good guy.

  “I was surrounded by good guys. There were a lot of bastards mixed in there too, but I was on a roll. Everybody was kind to me for a while now. It happens that way sometimes.

  “I had given him a bunch of money and he had gotten a sweet small place somewhere in town. It was on a homey residential street and it had shade and a porch and a banana tree.

  “By then, I thought I might be ready to start thinking about the future, so I stayed there.

  “I walked around the neighborhoods. Just played the quiet, lost little girl. I can play anything, Frankie. You know that. I didn’t have to act hard for this role, though. It was easy. Then one day, I’m walking down here. It’s just a couple blocks from the house, but I had never been here before.

  “And I didn’t even know what it was. But the sign said ‘welcome.’ I figured if I was welcome, I should go in.

  “So I did. And except for the time they made me stay home and think it over, I haven’t left since.

  “We all have jobs here. Mostly we pray, but we have jobs too. Some work in the yard, on the gardens. Some do cleaning and maintenance. Some do the bookwork. Shopping. Computer stuff. Cooking. Stuff like that.

  “Me—I’m in the office. I do filing and correspondence, things like that. Part of that involves going through old files and organizing and purging stuff that isn’t very important. They’ve got piles and piles of stuff, most of it from the old Ninth Ward place—old photos, old writings. A lot of the former monks and nuns were kind of scholarly. They wrote a lot—philosophy, history, reflections, poetry. One of them wrote songs, Frankie. He wrote new verses to old songs that they sang here. That was pretty cool, huh?

  “So, I find this old file. It was actually in a box because it was too thick for a regular folder. And it was filled with writings, this guy’s personal thoughts, how to live, what life is all about, what God is, what man is, what love is. And a lot of it sounded familiar, like stuff I had heard before, from someone else.

  “This guy was blind. He came here blind. He wasn’t born blind but he had gone blind with some kind of degenerative condition in his eyes and he was blind when he got here. He wasn’t here long, though. They ended up throwing him out because they didn’t like what he was writing. And what he was saying.

  “The funny thing was, he stopped being blind while he was here. He regained his sight. It was a miracle. There was no medical reason for it to happen. He just woke up one day and—boom—he could see.

  “And still they tossed this guy. This guy who had a mi
racle happen to him. Can you imagine that? They really, really must have hated what he had to say to toss a miracle monk out of here. He called himself Brother Bruno.

  “Any of this sound familiar, Francis?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but Brother Bruno didn’t regain his sight. He regained half his sight.”

  “What’s the difference? He could still see.” That was Sarah speaking.

  “It was enough to leave doubts,” I replied.

  “Some people expect, and accept, only perfection,” said Julie.

  After thinking it over for a minute, I finally replied, “They never find it, do they?”

  Julie said, “But they can. They can, Francis. Because everything is perfect. Half blindness is perfect. Total blindness is perfect.”

  And then she surprised me a bit when she said “And Nick Mooney? That sonofabitch? That bastard. Even him … perfect.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Magic Hour

  It was a low-pitched gurgling with some harsher bursts of higher-pitched squeaking mixed in. Oka-ree, oka-ree, chek-chek. A red-winged blackbird was perched up on the telephone line above Mooney’s driveway. I recorded it.

  It felt good to be home, despite the midsummer heat. The weather was pleasant compared to the sultry New Orleans steam.

  Mooney didn’t appear to be home. I peeked in the front window and saw no signs of life, so I opened the door and walked in. As always, it was not locked.

  No one was there. I walked around a little. The place was mostly orderly and clean. Not pristine. Lived in. Looked almost like a normal house for a normal person.

  Night was approaching. The sun had dipped down behind the hills, but it was not yet completely dark. Movie makers call this the “magic hour.” It’s supposed to be the best light for filming, the most beautiful, the most evocative, the most emotionally moving. The thickest reds, the moistest greens, the deepest, bluest rivers.

  So I walked over to the river.

  It was roaring. There must have been a lot of rain while I was away.

  He was there. I knew he would be. He was standing on top of one of the rock ledges with the river thundering all around him on both sides, waves reaching head high, the water wetting his hair.

  He looked like Moses parting the Red Sea, except unlike Moses, he didn’t seem to know what he was doing. He looked lonely and helpless and pitiful.

  Julie said he was perfect. He was. He was a human. All humans are perfect.

  But there were some theological beliefs I no longer embraced the way Julie did. I wanted to kill him. He was evil. He had killed one young woman. He had more young women lined up and I knew he could kill any one of them if they got in his way. He had put us all through hell.

  Things are what they are. That is seeing the truth. Mooney was evil.

  I wanted justice. That was what my quest was all about—to restore order from chaos. Mooney was chaos.

  But I could not kill him. I was no longer a monk. In fact, I had no idea what I still believed in. Every legitimate religion in the universe condemns killing. Though I had no religion left, I still knew that killing was morally wrong and I could not do it.

  So, all I wanted to do was talk to him. I’m naïve. I think talking can change a person, even an evil one.

  I climbed up over the rocks and jumped across a four-foot gap where the waters were rushing underfoot.

  I was standing right next to him. His eyes were clear and he was clean-shaven. He held a bottle of Jameson in his hand. It was three-quarters empty and the first thing he did when I got there was take a swig and then hand it to me. I took a drink too. It tasted pretty good, I have to admit.

  We could hear each other pretty well up there, even with the turbulent waters swishing all around us. We stood quite close.

  “Deliver us, oh Lord, from all evils past, present, and to come, and by the intercession of all the saints, grant that we may be always free from sin,” he said.

  “Amen,” I said.

  “That’s what the priest says during confession, while he blesses the Eucharist. They used to say it in Latin.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know? You were never a priest. You were a monk.”

  “Yes. I was. Once. And how is it you know what the priest says?” I asked him.

  “I know a lot of things.”

  “So do I.”

  “I see a lot of things,” Mooney replied.

  “So do I.”

  “Even though you’re blind,” he said. “Okay … half blind.”

  “I can still see.”

  His hair was wet. It looked like he was drowning.

  “Who said ‘only drowning men can see’?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know. I never heard that before.”

  “Somebody said it. Somebody before me.”

  “Do you think it’s true?” I asked him.

  “Might be. I’ve never seen more clearly or better than right now. Everything is totally clear to me, maybe for the first time in my life. Probably because I’m drowning.”

  I had no idea what the hell Mooney was talking about. He wasn’t going to drown. I wasn’t going to push him in.

  He laughed, but then he changed the subject. “Where have you been? I missed you. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I miss you. I like you.”

  “I was on a road trip. I found her.”

  For a moment he just stared at me, although I didn’t see surprise on his face. “I knew if anyone could, it would be you. Didn’t I say you were the best detective in Shelburne Falls? So how is she?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Good. I’m glad. I owe you some money, don’t I?”

  “For what?”

  “For finding her.”

  “No need for that.”

  “I’ll pay. I keep my promises. And by the way, you’re off the hook. They dropped the charges.”

  “So I heard. Karen’s been keeping in touch. Somehow they lost that first DNA test. Lost it! How does that happen? Then when they tested my hair a second time. There was no match. No paternity match. No match at all of any kind. Like I said, how the hell does something like that happen?”

  He lowered his voice to say, “Beats me.” But I heard him.

  “And seems their great eyewitness recanted. Wonder why?”

  “I told you my lawyers would take care of it. No evidence whatsoever. Case closed. Charges dropped.”

  “Yeah. Fantastic. But how the hell does something like that happen?”

  He wiped his face. He was staring off into the distance. “My lawyers are good. I told you. More than good. More than lawyers too. These guys can make DNA go away, just like they can make it show up.”

  “So I owe you.”

  He didn’t seem to detect the sarcasm in my voice.

  “No, you don’t. That’s on me. I promised.”

  We stood there, buffeting by gusts of wind.

  “So she’s alive,” Mooney said. Did I hear a sob escape? “That means I didn’t kill her. That should make you feel better about me.”

  I thought this over. “No. I guess I don’t feel much better about you. Not at all.”

  He sneered. “You never liked me.”

  “I liked you fine, Mooney.”

  “Now you’re talking about me in the past tense.”

  “Yeah. Why do you suppose that is?”

  Now it was his turn to think. “Guess I’m on my way out.”

  “Are you?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Stick around for a while,” I said. And I sat down on the ledge of wet rock.

  There was room, just barely, for another person next to me, so Mooney sat down too. He handed me the bottle. I took a chug and the rushing water sprayed our faces.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s sort this out.”

  “Sort away.”

  “Okay. First, you show up in town with two pregnant girlfriends—Julie
and Edith.”

  “Her name was Victoria. And I prefer to think of the other one as Juliana.”

  “You like the ‘A’ girls, don’t you?”

  “You too.”

  “Yeah. Weird, huh?”

  “Not so weird. We’re the same guy.”

  “Don’t pin that on me, Mooney. I didn’t do what you did.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “I thought that’s what you were all about, Raven. We’re all the same.”

  “I’m not you, Mooney. I didn’t kill her.”

  “Did I? She’s alive, Raven. I didn’t kill her either.”

  “You killed the other one—Victoria.”

  I was talking to him slowly, quietly, despite the roaring waters. Still, I knew he could hear me.

  “You show up here with two pregnant girlfriends,” I said. “But you had fallen in love with Julie and you were done with Victoria. And you didn’t know what to do about that. So you tossed her into the river. Then Victoria died. You killed her.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes.”

  He whipped his head around and stared at me, beady eyed, like a rat trapped in a corner. “How do you know? I mean really, Raven. Did I push her? Did she fall? Did she kill herself? Who knows what happened?”

  “You were up here on the rocks with her when she went in, Mooney. We have real photographic evidence.”

  “Do you?” His laugh had a deranged edge. “Do you see me pushing her?”

  “No. You know that. I guess only you know what really happened. What do you know, Mooney? What do you remember?”

  “I don’t remember anything. I had a blackout.”

  “You know what you did, Mooney.”

  “No, Raven. I really don’t.”

  Then he reconsidered. “I knew I wanted to get rid of her,” he said. “I had to get rid of her. And I had to set you up. But did I actually kill her? I don’t know.”

  And now he looked near tears. “Honest to fucking God, Raven. I don’t fucking know what I did.”