by Kasia Fox
“He had no complaints last night,” Tessa said, lest Berkley think she was too naïve to understand that she was trying to make her feel insecure about her sexual experience. It would’ve been cooler if her face hadn’t burned bright red after the comment.
“When are you going to see him next?”
“Tonight, I think.”
“You think? Has he texted you? Made any firm plans?”
She was trying to worm inside of Tessa’s head. The reason Berkley thought she was so smart was because she was always manipulating dumb people.
“Everything is very firm,” Tessa said.
“Well, if you have any questions…” Berkley breaststroked away.
“Actually, I do,” Tessa said. Berkley paused and looked over her shoulder. Eyeing Ron, who had a phone to one ear and a burning cigarette in the other hand, Tessa lowered her voice. “The other night when we were coming up to Peaches, a woman was standing out front with a sign, like a protester sort of thing. What did her sign say?”
Berkley blinked, all innocence. “Hmm,” she said, making a great performance of remembering. “Oh, her. She’s just a homeless woman. There’s a rotating bunch of them out there with signs. ‘Abandoned and alone’ or ‘Anything helps, God bless.’ Strip clubs are always in the rotten parts of town, hon. Us bottom feeders like to hang out in the shadows.”
✽✽✽
I told my husband I was taking a trip to North Dakota to visit my father. I believed he was happy I was going. His days were spent building his empire of filth; his nights were for other women. “How long are you going to stay?” my father wondered after my first ten days back home. “Another week or two,” I replied.
It took about a month for me to get my husband’s attention. I’d stopped calling him. He telephoned at 3 a.m. one morning, his voice clumsy with booze. He asked me if I was playing hard to get. “Maybe I’m not coming home at all,” I told him. “We’ll see about that,” he said, his voice a threat.
Another month went by. My father suggested my husband and I seek counseling from our priest in Las Vegas – as if the best person to give relationship advice is a celibate man married to Our Lord and Savior. The phone rang constantly in those days. Often I unplugged it. One evening my father intercepted before I could get there. He answered and passed me the receiver. “This is ridiculous. You’re coming home,” my husband said. “I’m leaving you,” I said and hung up. “D-d-divorce is not an option,” my father said. His stutter came out in times of stress. “The church will annul it,” I told him. “Families are supposed to be t-together. Think of the baby,” he said.
I put a hand to my stomach. How did he know? I thought I had at least another month or two before my body betrayed me. “He’ll be a terrible father,” I said. “D-d-didn’t I warn you? But you had none of it,” my father replied.
I came home from the dentist and found a stranger was drinking a cup of coffee with my dad at the kitchen table. The man was sent by my husband to drive me back to Nevada.
“Please don’t make me go,” I pleaded with my father. “Who do you think called him?” my father said. “It’s time to go back to your husband.”
So I went.
29.
No texts from Cal. No plans for that evening. Much as she didn’t want the seeds of doubt Berkley had planted to take root, Tessa worried. Then she became annoyed with herself for worrying. Obsessing over a boy texting wasn’t her style. Cal was at work and she had big things to do. She couldn’t get sidetracked by compulsively checking her phone. When Ron left, Tessa told him that her plans for the evening were to get caught up on reading. As soon as he was gone, Tessa dressed in jeans, a cropped t-shirt and sneakers and slung her purse as she made her way down the hallway. In the kitchen, Berkley was getting champagne glasses down from the cupboard.
“It’s five o’clock all day in Vegas, huh?”
“I thought we could have a girls’ night.”
“I can’t.”
Berkley’s face darkened. She made for a lonely figure, standing with an empty champagne flute in each hand. “Plans with your big boy?”
Tessa nodded. “Maybe tomorrow?” Every time Tessa lied she assumed sirens were going off in the other person’s head. Alert! Alert! This girl is a liar! Alert!
“Fine,” Berkley pouted. “Let me give you a ride at least.”
“I’m walking down the street. Thanks though.”
Technically, Tessa wasn’t lying. She left through the front doors and walked in the direction of Cal’s house. Half a block away, a rideshare picked her up. When she opened the back door of the car, heavy piña colada air freshener wafted out. That or the driver – a grim woman with stringy gray hair – had applied too much coconut sunscreen. The driver made a U-turn and Tessa slumped down when she drove past Ron and Berkley’s house. Within minutes, they were coasting down the freeway. Buzz. Heart pounding, she checked her phone, certain it was Cal checking in to make plans for the night. We miss you!, she read, confused before she realized that it was a text from a smoothie shop in Minot with a discount offer. She clicked the phone screen off. Tessa was too distracted by her thoughts to absorb the view out the window. No messages. No phone calls. He was working and so she didn’t want to disturb him, but what was stopping him from checking in? She was the one on vacation here; he should assume she’d be making plans. It was almost the end of the day.
The sex had been so good last night she’d thought. Berkley’s words echoed. Actresses. Models. Maybe for a playboy type the sex had been normal? Dull even. She checked her phone again. Tessa needed a clear head. Ron and Berkley hadn’t been straight with her. Tonight she needed answers and she was worrying about being good in bed! Cal had all day to call. Probably he’d been busy, and that was fine; now she was busy. Tessa needed an hour or two to focus. She powered off her phone and tossed it in her purse.
In a stranger’s car, she hurtled across the valley. As the sun settled into the mountains behind her, the driver pulled off the freeway. Outside her window neighborhoods of stucco houses gave way to strip malls with tire shops and Vietnamese restaurants and cell phone repair stores. Above her, the sky was orange, washed with pinks and purples and streaked with filmy white clouds. She wished she were watching the sunset with Cal. Disgusted with herself for falling back on thoughts of Cal seconds after banishing him, Tessa squeezed her eyes shut and visualized building a wall between them. It was like that corny joke her mom used to play, where she said not to think of pink elephants and suddenly that’s all Tessa could think of. The car slowed. She opened her eyes. They were a block from Peaches.
“Here is fine,” Tessa said. The driver pulled over and let her out. On the sidewalk right before the turnoff to the club, a woman bent over to set up a camping chair. The woman unfolded a sign and set it up next to her chair. The woman was tall, her limbs hardly more than skin over bones. Her limp hair was cut bluntly above the shoulders and dark brown, though as Tessa drew closer she could see a couple inches of grey roots at the part. Even though the woman paid her no attention, Tessa’s heart pounded. The woman popped open a small cooler and rooted through it with an ease that signaled the everydayness of her actions. Her sign featured the picture of a young man with floppy dark hair and his mother’s round, worried eyes. From the look of his clothing and haircut, the photo was taken sometime in the nineties. The bold red letters underneath the picture said RON DOUCETTE MURDERED MY SON.
Perhaps reading the shock on Tessa’s face, the woman straightened up. “You ever hear about my son’s murder?” she said. She had a longtime smoker’s rasp to her voice. Her eyes were green and her skin was very brown and lined, as if she spent a lot of time outdoors.
“No,” Tessa said.
The woman said her name was Deb Furnish and the guy on the poster photo was her son, Tyson.
“Ron Doucette is the owner of this strip club right behind me.” Deb jerked a thumb behind her in the direction of Peaches. “My Tyson didn’t even know the guy. Some cops
tried to say he must’ve got tangled up with the wrong crowd but I call bullshit. Tyson was a good boy. If anything, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. One day he went to eat at that Chinese buffet over on Sahara? Next thing I know there’s a cop telling me my only son is dead.”
“He and this, um, Doucette got in a fight?” Tessa asked. Alert! Alert! This girl is a liar!
“One witness came out and saw some big goon dragging Tyson over to a dark corner of the parking lot where no one would find him. Then he hauled ass outta there. Didn’t even call an ambulance. Beat my son to death.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tessa said. “Have you ever found out why?”
The woman shrugged her bony shoulders. “No one knows, but if you ask me, it would be maybe Doucette parked to close to Tyson’s car or something? The car was a big deal to my son. Treated it like a lady. Doucette’s a tough guy but Tyson wasn’t one to take shit from anybody.”
“So this Doucette was acquitted…?” Tessa ventured, holding her breath for the answer.
“Cops never even charged him. The witness got a partial plate number. When they went to visit Ron Doucette, his wife said he was there with her the whole night.”
“His wife?” Tessa wrapped her arms around herself. The word chilled her.
“Yep. Doucette claims the witness took the plate down wrong, and identified him wrong. The police? They believe it’s Ron Doucette that did it. I believe it’s Doucette that did it. There was just that one witness. No one in the restaurant saw Doucette in there or anywhere else. Doucette claims he’d never met my kid in his life.”
“What about DNA?”
“None. And so my son’s murder became a cold case. The only person who has anything to do with Metro who still takes my calls is the old detective and he’s retired now.”
“I’m sorry,” Tessa said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Two years ago I had to take early retirement from the casino because of my disability. What else am I going to do? The least I can do for Tyson is spend every day shaming that man until he admits what he did.”
Telling the story seemed to deplete Deb Furnish. She sighed and slumped in her chair.
“I’m so sorry,” Tessa repeated. What else could she say? She wasn’t about to tell this woman that she was Ron Doucette’s daughter. Not without gathering more information first.
“Hang on.” Deb rummaged around in the fanny pack belted to her narrow waist. She found a piece of paper in her fanny pack and held it out to Tessa.
“You ever hear anything, call up this detective. The one I told you about. He’s retired now, but he told me any tips I can bring to him he’ll listen.”
It was a piece of regular printer paper, cut to the size of a standard business card. The photocopied words MICHAEL GILOT were hand printed in neat block letters. Underneath the name were the words Detective in the Tyson Furnish murder case and a 702 phone number.
The handmade card swelled Tessa’s heart with pity for Deb. A dead child. The biggest pink elephant the world had to offer. Desperate to think of some way to help her, Tessa remembered the money her father had given her to shop with on her first day in Las Vegas. So far, the money had been untouched. Tessa unzipped her purse and counted out one thousand dollars in hundreds. She held the bills out.
“Here,” she said. “I got really lucky at a casino. I didn’t earn this. I want you to have it.”
The sagging skin of Deb’s face dropped into a frown and she recoiled from the cash. “This isn’t about money, if that’s what you think. I don’t need money, do you understand?”
“I’m sorry. I wanted to help –”
Deb’s face softened. “Sorry. You meant it nice. I see that.” She sighed. “People in Vegas don’t get it. Money doesn’t mean a damn thing. Thanks anyways.”
With that, she crossed her spindly arms and looked up the block for someone who might understand.
Tessa had already started to walk away when she remembered a question. “Excuse me? I forgot to ask. When did this happen?”
“1996,” Deb Furnish said. “November 23, 1996.”
As Tessa walked away, the woman called out to her. “Hey! You don’t know anything do you?” She had risen from her chair, her eyes narrowed and searching Tessa’s face.
“I wish I did,” she replied.
The night was warm. The encounter with Tyson Furnish’s mother left Tessa trembling. November of 1996. Tessa would’ve been one month old. Ron had told her that her mom had taken her back to North Dakota before they even got a chance to spend their first Christmas together as a family. That meant her mother would’ve left Las Vegas around the same time. Tessa walked aimlessly, trying to convince herself that the information she’d just received wasn’t the first smell of smoke from a swiftly burning fire.
Graffiti screamed out from under the concrete overpass. A homeless woman dozed on a sheet of cardboard on one side of the road. When the street Tessa walked reached a dead end, she turned right at random and continued walking, unencumbered by the suburban gates or prowling security cars of her dad’s neighborhood. Tessa didn’t know where she was headed. She’d wanted to banish Cal from her thoughts and she’d been too successful. Ron had probably killed that woman’s son and her mom had helped him get away with it.
30.
The doorbell rang. Berkley clicked down the hallway. No sane woman ever wore heels at home, and neither did she. Unless she wanted something. She took her time getting to the door. Men could wait. She tweaked her nipples, smeared on lipgloss, arranged her hair and swung open the door.
“Oh,” she cooed. “You’re a bigger package than I was expecting.”
On the other side stood Callum Quinn – two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and angst on her welcome mat. With a man like this distracting Ron’s daughter, it was no wonder Berkley’s revenge plot against Ronnie had ground to a standstill.
“Is Tessa in?” Quinn asked.
Interesting. Guess Tessa had lied about her little date. Quinn looked concerned. The longer Berkley went without replying, the more his concern shifted to irritation. Was it possible he was actually into Little Miss North Dakota? She let him twist in the wind a few moments longer.
“I’m afraid our Mary-Therese is out.” Berkley smiled and stretched her hand up higher to lean against the door frame. Give him a better view.
“Do you know when she might be in?” Quinn said slowly.
“Late, I’d imagine. I’d tell you where she went but I’m not sure. A guy she’d met when we were out the other night picked her up, oh, an hour or two ago? I’ll let her know you stopped by though. Or you can come in and wait. I’m very good company.”
“No, thanks.” With that Quinn turned and strode away. Berkley watched him go down the walk and turn in the direction of his house. She closed the door. To satisfy her curiosity, she tried Tessa’s phone. Voicemail picked up immediately. Very interesting.
“What are you up to, Tessa?” Berkley tapped the edge of her phone against her lips.
The doorbell rang. This time when she opened the door, the man standing in front of her was the one she’d expected. Skinner took a good long look and liked what he saw. Berkley wore tiny terrycloth short shorts and a white cotton tank top thin enough to see her nipples through. Full face of makeup. Fucking mermaid hair. She gave a little cartoon princess yawn.
“Sorry,” she said, her voice an octave higher than natural. “I just woke up from a nap.”
“You wanted me?” Skinner said to her nipples.
“When I called you, you sounded like you didn’t want to come.” Berkley hit the last word of the sentence a little harder than the rest. “I thought, ‘That doesn’t seem like the Skinner I know.’”
Aside from those unfortunate teeth and his nineties grunge bleached hair, Skinner wasn’t terrible looking. Berkley had banged far uglier men for less pressing matters. She walked down the hallway, trailing her fingers along the wall. Was Skinner dumb enough to believe that a woman wa
lked around in high heels after waking from a nap? It didn’t matter. Fantasy was what men were willing to pay for. What was she willing to pay for? Very little. She did, however, want to know what exactly Ronnie wanted with his daughter. Since Tessa’s arrival, it had become increasingly obvious that what he was after wasn’t just a father-daughter relationship. After all, he could have that with any number of twenty-year-olds from the club and those girls didn’t require half the effort.
Prior to learning of Tessa’s existence, Berkley was aware that Skinner had played some role in finding and bringing Tessa to Las Vegas. Since then, he and Ronnie had been in constant communication. No doubt they were still up to dirty tricks. No sense asking Ronnie; the man would do life in prison before he would crack. Getting Skinner to open up took no more effort than shelling a peanut.
Skinner followed her down the hallway, until they reached her work room. Berkley flicked on the neon light and Her Special Place blazed across the room. Skinner stopped at the threshold, like a vampire waiting to be invited in.
“So this is where the magic happens.” He eyed the camera.
“It’s not on,” Berkley pressed a button on the camera. A light glowed green. She pressed again and it went dark. “You’d be bad for business anyway,” she added, crooking a finger at him. Beckoning. Skinner stayed put.
“What do you want Berkley?”
“I want to know what you and Ronnie are up to.”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” She tilted her head and pursed her lips.
“I helped him track down Tessa. That’s no secret.” Skinner cracked his knuckles.
“And since then?”
“Driving. Odd jobs. Doing everything except what I want to be doing.”
“Which is what exactly? Or…who?”
He stared at her like her clothes were already on the floor.
“Tell me what you know about Tessa,” she said.
Skinner shrugged. “What father wouldn’t want a daughter like that?” He stepped inside. An unexpected uneasiness came over her, watching the way he proprietarily strolled about the room. No one came in Her Special Place but Berkley and the occasional fellow camgirl she invited in for a joint show. At a lacquered white credenza running along on wall, Skinner paused. There was a large, bedazzled box on top.