Neon Burn

by Kasia Fox

  More slow nods from Gilot. “And if you don’t mind me asking, was her death sudden?”

  “Cancer. She had about two years after the diagnosis.”

  Gilot sipped his tea, furrowing his brow as he chewed the inside of his cheek. “During that time, did she mention the name Tyson Furnish?”

  “Nothing. I would never have heard of him if I hadn’t seen his mom protesting outside Ron’s club. There was no death bed confession, if that’s what you’re getting at. I didn’t know my dad’s name, let alone the fact that he’d been charged with murder.”

  At this news, Gilot’s interest flagged. The men gathered around the table he’d been sitting at earlier burst into sudden laughter. Gilot glanced their way, as if he wished he were over there instead of stuck in the past.

  “There was one thing,” Tessa continued. “When I talked to Deb the one thing that stood out was that her son died in November of 1996. And I know from talking to Ron that my mom returned with me to North Dakota in December of that year. The timing is suspicious.”

  “Yes, we thought so too.”

  “So you knew?” Her shoulders sagged.

  “Of course. And I agree – the timing was suspicious.”

  “So what? She lied to give him an alibi?”

  Gilot tented his fingers, staring at them before he spoke. “She knew more than she was saying. Unlike Ron, Lily…” he paused, remembering, “was not a convincing liar.”

  “Or maybe she was telling the truth. You don’t know her. My mom wasn’t a liar.”

  “She wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “Even if he wasn’t at home that night, you can’t blame a wife for believing that her husband wasn’t capable of beating someone to death.”

  “Our theory was always that she had some piece of evidence. Took it back to North Dakota with her for safekeeping.”

  “From Ron? If she wanted to get away from him, wouldn’t the safest thing be for her to give it to the police? Put him in jail?”

  “He did have some old mafia connections that she might’ve worried about.” Gilot shrugged. “I’ve stopped trying to understand anyone’s motivations.”

  “What sort of evidence could she have taken?”

  Another laugh rose from the table of Gilot’s friends. This time he didn’t look.

  “When Tyson Furnish’s body was found, he was missing a sock. The heel of his foot was torn up, post-death, like he’d been dragged. The sock wasn’t in the parking lot or anywhere around him, even though he must’ve been wearing it when he was killed. Ever come across anything like that?” Gilot raised his eyebrows at her, asking the question like he already knew the answer.

  Tessa shook her head. “Even if we did have that sock in our house, how could I have known?”

  “A bloody sock you might remember.”

  “No. There was nothing like that.”

  “Okay then. By all accounts on both sides of this, Ron Doucette and Tyson didn’t know each other. My second theory is that your mom was the link between them.”

  “Link in what way?”

  “The only way that makes sense.”

  “Romantically? Uh-uh. My mom was in no way capable of juggling two men. She was a devout Catholic. Preached to me all the time about abstaining from sex before marriage.”

  At the word sex, Gilot cleared his throat and looked with sudden interest at a caddy poking through a golf bag out the window. “Sometimes who our parents were when they were younger is very different from the version we know as their children. If her priest could talk, I would’ve loved to put him on the stand.” Gilot shifted in his seat, stretching like his back was bothering him. “Look. I feel bad for Deb Furnish. She’s driven me nuts over the years. Handed my number out to whoever’ll take it. I have crackpots calling me. Psychics. You name it. And this for a case…” he paused before proceeding. “You have to understand that while her son’s death was tragic, it wasn’t even close to cracking the top cases of my career with Metro. Tyson lost his life that night and so did Mrs. Furnish. She should be playing with grandkids. Instead she’s staked out in front of scum bag’s strip club every day.” Gilot caught himself. “Sorry,” he said offhandedly.

  The waitress arrived with a plate of food in each hand. The omelet she set in front of Gilot had little chunks of ham and green pepper. She watched the detective butter his toast and take a bite.

  “So if you were me, what would you do?”

  Gilot swallowed. “Ask Ron. See if he’ll give you a straight answer.”

  “He’s not going to tell the truth. He wants me to move to Vegas and live with him.”

  Gilot lowered his forkful of egg. “If I were you, I’d follow your mom’s advice and steer clear of Ron Doucette.” Lost in thought, he took his bite and chewed. “I absolutely think Lily had something on him, knew way more than she told us. Whatever deal she made with him was compelling enough to make him stay away all those years. But your mom took the answer to this case to her grave. Probably to protect you.”

  The news sickened Tessa. It was her fault. Her mom, so worried for her daughter’s safety that she let a murderer go unpunished. As unbelievable as everything else Gilot had said about her mother was, this part rang true. She’d disappointed Gilot, wasted his time and ruined his nice golf day.

  Tessa took a bite of her wrap. Bits of chicken, tomato, cucumber and feta cheese spilled out onto the plate. She wiped her mouth on her napkin and told the detective that it was fine if he wanted to go back and eat lunch with his friends. “No, no,” he insisted, too polite to brush her off. They ate the rest of the meal in silence punctuated by talking about the weather and the new hockey team in Las Vegas. When Tessa went to pay, she felt even worse that he insisted on picking up the tab.

  From the golf course, Tessa planned to head directly to the airport. Instead, seeing as this was her last time she would ever come to Las Vegas, she took a rideshare to the strip. She joined the other tourists walking the crowded sidewalks and ended up people watching from the balcony of a food court across from the Wynn. The sun dropped in the sky. Below, the crowds on the sidewalk thickened. They carried frozen drinks in cups shaped like cowboy boots and electric guitars. They stopped to take photos with girls wearing showgirl costumes and posed their kids next to Elmo who, at one point, took off his giant headpiece to reveal that there was an Asian guy in need of a smoke break underneath. It was a different being back on the strip alone, without her thoughts clouded by a fog of alcohol and Berkley’s voice purring in her ear. The twisted seduction. Cal had been right to get her away from Berkley and Skinner that night.

  As if summoned from the depths of her imagination, a truck pulling a moving billboard crawled past her. The billboard was for an upcoming American Prizefighter event. Two boxers on opposite ends of the truck glared at each other. Now, more than ever, it seemed impossible that she ever thought she could be a part of Cal’s world. What would Cal’s PR lady have to say about him dating an unwitting porn star? Even if Tessa managed to withstand the humiliation of getting the police involved, even if they were able to get it taken down, even if she and Cal tried to be together, someone would find the video. Nothing on the internet ever really disappeared.

  The dream had ended. A trip to Las Vegas wasn’t going to produce the father that she’d always wanted, the fairy tale boyfriend. At least her mother hadn’t lived to see this. The only saving grace of the situation was that Tessa had no one she could humiliate anymore. In that way, she was free. The worst had happened and she was upright and breathing.

  As the American Prizefighter truck drove out of view, a thought occurred to her. What if she went to Cal one last time? What did she have to lose? It was doubtful that he knew about the video yet; maybe he’d never know about it. She could apologize from her heart and go home feeling alright, at least, about parting on good terms. Tessa checked the time. Her flight was at midnight and it was seven-thirty. She could easily make it to Spanish Palms and back to the airport.

&
nbsp; From a notebook in her backpack, she tore out a piece of paper. On it, she wrote Cal a note and folded it in half. If he wasn’t home, she’d slip it between the bars of the fence and leave.

  The rideshare driver dropped her off a block away from Spanish Palms. The sun was down below the mountains and the grackles roosting in the trees along the golf course were alive with chatter. Tessa threw her backpack over the wall surrounding the golf course and, after a quick glance around, climbed over and landed hard on the other side. From there, she followed the cart path as stealthily as she could while shouldering an overstuffed backpack. Eventually she dumped the bag behind a shrub with plans to retrieve it on her way back. Now that she was so close to him, so close she could feel him, she couldn’t stand the suspense of not knowing if she would see him again, even one last time. Her body wouldn’t let her walk anymore. So she ran.

  ✽✽✽

  I got the feeling again. Someone was watching me. Watching us, my baby and me. It was my husband, I thought. One day, as he prepared to leave for work, he came to me. I was in a chair feeding you. Tenderly he touched my face and said, “You know I read your mind, Little Flower, and I didn’t find a thing in there that surprised me.” I was plotting an escape and he knew it. People were tracking my movements, reporting back to him. Was I paranoid? I’d thought I was invisible to him but maybe the opposite was true. I was always on his mind.

  One afternoon, we went to the park. I spread a blanket on the grass and laid the baby in the sun. I felt someone’s eyes on me. I looked around and saw a pair of men’s legs. A man sat on a bench nearby, his face and torso hidden by a willow tree. “I know you’re there,” I said, my voice trembling. The man revealed himself to me.

  “You’re the one hiding from me,” he said.

  35.

  A pair of girls dressed in pajama pants shuffled toward Skinner dragging their suitcases. One clutched a pillow to her chest; the other held two rinsed out yard-high margarita cups. Both girls looked like they needed a bottle of Gatorade, two Advil and eight hours of sleep. Skinner tried to imagine what they looked like on the flight in, when they were fresh for the party.

  “Vegas, baby,” he shouted, laughing and sticking his tongue out as they wheeled by. The girl with the pillow sneered at him. His phone rang. It was Berkley.

  “What makes you think you’re allowed to call me?” he answered.

  “Thought I’d check and see if you wanted to run away with me.”

  It wasn’t like he had low self-esteem – far from it! – but Berkley had made it seem like she was throwing him a pity fuck.

  “You really think I’m that disloyal?” Skinner said. “Fuck off.”

  “Aw, poor Skinner. Did I accidentally nick you when I plunged the knife into Ronnie’s heart?”

  “Plunged? Ha. You barely got the tip in, baby.”

  Berkley giggled. In the background there was an announcer’s voice, overly loud. Do not take baggage that is not your own. If you see any unusual activity or unattended bagged please report it immediately using our courtesy telephone. The announcement played in stereo. Berkley was in McCarran airport. So was Skinner. He stood up and looked around in earnest.

  “Well, Skin?” Berkley urged. “I’ll buy your ticket. I can’t believe you’re not dying to tell Ronnie to go fuck himself.”

  “He says he’s gonna murder you.” Skinner strode along the ticketing counters, scanning the crowd.

  “Ronnie’s quite the killer. Sounds like you knew that.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  Up ahead, he saw a redhead rolling a giant monogrammed suitcase. She had her back to him. Keeping his distance, Skinner followed at a leisurely pace.

  “Last chance,” Berkley said. “Think about it. You could start up a little bar somewhere. Sex on the beach…”

  For the last year he’d been lusting after Berkley. When they did have sex, it was probably the best he’d ever had. What that chick did to Ron though – that was messed up. Too messed up for Skinner to tangle with. Too messed up for Skinner to picture any sort of future where he fixed Berkley Bahama Mamas and she shook the sand out of his shorts at the end of a happy day.

  “Hard pass,” he said.

  When the redhead stepped up on an escalator leading to security, she turned facing his direction. It was Berkley alright. Like usual, she looked right through him.

  “When all of this is over, when I come up for air, I’m gonna call you and you’re going to fly to whatever beach I’m on and you’re going to come to me panting like a puppy,” she said. From the ground, he watched her rise up, surveying the terminal like it was her kingdom.

  “Sure, Berkley,” Skinner said.

  “My name’s not Berkley by the way.” Her voice had a mean tone.

  He hung up. He watched her get off the escalator and disappear from view. He dialed the boss. “The bitch just called me, can you believe it?”

  “Called you?”

  “Said to pass along a message. She’s going away. Thinks you won’t find her.”

  “She told me so herself last night,” he said. “Wonder why she thought she needed to call you.”

  Skinner didn’t have the whole story. He had a decent imagination though. Last night Berkley had texted Skinner around midnight: Go tell Ronnie he needs to check out the link I just sent him right now. Ronnie had finally put Skinner on a bartending shift. It was annoying that Berkley thought he was her bitch. But he left the bar and went to Ronnie’s office. Turned out, he’d already seen whatever it was Berkley had wanted him to see. Ronnie sat at his desk, his head in his hands. Dude had looked crushed, like the animation for when you’re playing Mario and he just lost to Bowser.

  Today, though, he sounded like he’d recovered nicely. “Know what I said? I said, ‘You’re doing me a favor by going. You aged out of my bracket.’ Musta found out about Cassandra.” In the background, a woman giggled. “Has the kid shown up there?” Ronnie asked.

  The assignment was to go to the airport and look for Tessa. The terminal was packed. There was no way Skinner was going to find her; he hadn’t really bothered.

  “Nope. How long should I stick around here?”

  “Few more hours. She’s upset. Maybe she thinks I had something to do with this Berkley garbage, all the lies her mom told me. Upset women are reckless.”

  “You want me to call our friend up north like we talked about? Put a little pressure on.”

  Ronnie murmured something to whoever was in the room with him. To Skinner he said,

  “Maybe, yeah. A little. Nothing serious.”

  “You sure? There’s no going back after that. No Christmases at daddy’s place in Vegas if you know what I mean.”

  “Fuck it.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  Before he hung up, Ronnie said, “You’ve been very helpful to me, Jason. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that. Don’t think I won’t remember.”

  Skinner left the airport. Tessa wasn’t here and if she was, he wasn’t going to find her anyway. He’d parked the car in short term but he took the elevator all the way to the top level of the garage. He walked to the open side and looked out over the strip. Evening was on the cusp of night. The lights of Las Vegas Boulevard raged in the dark. He closed his eyes and visualized his bar’s sign among them. He saw his face on the side of the MGM like a famous DJ. Jason Skinner: Resident Mixologist. Designer cocktails, live music. No tits and ass at his club. Wasn’t worth the trouble.

  36.

  The 65-inch television replaying the Mets game was on mute. Cal wasn’t invested but Jay would want to talk about the game tomorrow morning. At the very least Cal needed to know the highlights or Jay would sense something was up. He couldn’t concentrate. When he’d come home from work that night, Ron Doucette had been waiting on his driveway, demanding to know where his daughter was. Ron didn’t believe him when Cal answered honestly that he hadn’t spoken to Tessa. Then Ron had said, “Tell her I’ll kill Berkley for what she’s done.”<
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  The phone rang. He grabbed for it too quickly and the phone slipped into a crevasse of the sectional couch. He managed to fish it out before it stopped ringing. It wasn’t Tessa.

  “I told you I needed some off hours, Sasha.” Cal didn’t bother to check his tone.

  “Suck it up, my hands are tied.” Sasha didn’t check her tone either. “There’s a fire that needs putting out right now.”

  “Everything is an emergency, huh.”

  Cal was distracted from Sasha’s reply by a small bleep that was a home security alert indicating movement at the back fence. Never again would he buy on the golf course. Before he got this place, he didn’t know that the houses in the community that backed onto a golf course were the ones that got broken into the most.

  “…and, I mean, this is a five-alarm situation.” Sasha’s voice was clipped.

  “Sasha? I’ll call you back in two minutes. Someone’s at my back gate.”

  “Callum! Do not hang up! I need to discuss –”

  “Five minutes.” Cal hung up.

  In his office, he opened the security feed in time to see Tessa climbing over his fence. He laughed out loud.

  No chance he was letting her get away this time. Cal wasn’t a man who made the same mistake twice. He threw on the lights to the backyard and burst outside. Caught unexpectedly in a flood of light, Tessa froze like a dazzled wild animal. He called her name. At the sound of his voice, fear left her face. She ran to him. Cal hurtled down the hill of his lawn to meet her. When they collided their mouths mashed together with lip-bruising force. They kissed in this near-painful way until Cal had to pull back because he needed air.

  “I’m sorry,” Tessa whispered breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I acted like an animal.”

  “I shouldn’t have left you in that restaurant. The stuff with Sasha, it’s a mis—”

  “Shhh. Stop. Everything is fine now. You’re perfect.” She kissed him gently on the lips.

  “Your dad showed up on my doorstep this afternoon. What did Berkley do to you?”