Full Release

by Marshall Thornton

  “I did. Then he said, ‘let’s go to New York on my private jet.’ I mean, who says no to that? His name is Alfonso something-or-other. He’s some kind of financier. It’s been nothing but limousines and five star restaurants. Oh, and by the way, I joined the mile high club.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. I wanted him to say he’d be on the next plane back, but that was silly. In a way, nothing had happened to me. Something had happened near me, and I was affected. But very soon my life would go back to exactly the way it had been. I was fine.

  “I slept with Jeremy,” I said abruptly.

  Peter made a sour sound, then said, “Darling, I’d really rather you didn’t make the same mistake again and again. I prefer it when my friends make new mistakes. Making the same mistake over and over is just boring.”

  “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. When are you coming back?”

  “Next week, maybe. I’ve got oodles of vacation time, so they’ll just have to deal with it at work.” Of course, the main reason he had oodles of vacation time was that he “forgot” to submit his vacation forms.

  The last thing Peter said was, “I’m sorry Eddie did that in your garage. It seems like a really angry thing to do to someone you barely know. I mean, didn’t he have a garage of his own?”

  “I don’t know if he had his own garage. I didn’t really know--” The door bell rang. “Peter, I have to go; someone’s at the door. Call me back.”

  I hung up and ran through my living room to the front door. When I opened the door, I found Detective Tripp standing there holding a sheet of paper in his hand. Obviously, he hadn’t been home yet and hadn’t gotten any sleep since that morning. I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “I hope you’re on your way home. You look exhausted.”

  He laughed. “I am. If you could just read this over and sign it, that would be great.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Come on in.”

  He came into the house and handed me the statement. I was incredibly aware of the fact that we were alone. I glanced at the statement, but instead of reading it, I asked, “How long have you been a cop?”

  “I’ve been a police officer for ten years.” I guess he didn’t like being called a cop. “A detective for three.”

  “You like it?”

  “It has its moments.”

  “So, where do you hang out?” The words seemed to die the minute they were out of my mouth. Instantly, I remembered the “Easy-Does-It” cup. He didn’t hang out, at least, not in bars. My stomach sank as I realized that I probably smelled of alcohol and from where we were standing he could see he half-empty glass of wine sitting on the table on the patio. God, he probably thought I was as bad a drunk as Mrs. Enders.

  In a pointed gesture, he reached into his suit jacket and pulled a pen out of the inside pocket. I took the pen and tried to concentrate on reading the statement. It looked pretty much like the things I said. I laid the statement onto the dining table and signed it.

  Tripp took the pen and the statement from me. “Thank you. Have you run across Javier’s other phone?”

  “No, I haven’t.” I hadn’t even thought to look.

  “You still have my card?”

  I nodded.

  “If you find the phone, give me call.”

  “Sure.” He turned to leave, and I had the terrible feeling I’d never see him again. “So, have you ever gone out with a witness?”

  He looked back at me and gave me an appraising look that made me very uncomfortable. “Once,” he said.

  “I guess that didn’t work out.”

  “He’s a level one offender spending the next five years in Folsom. It’s not a mistake I’m making again.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  He took a step and got very close to me. “We pulled a dead guy out of your garage last night. A dead guy you dated. You don’t flirt with me less than twenty-four hours later.”

  “I didn’t, I mean, I’m sorry, I just…” A flush crept over my face. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”

  “Very.” And then he walked out the door.

  After he left, I wondered if I was taking this not-vanilla thing way too seriously. Hitting on a policeman. I’d gone too far. Way too far. And I knew it, even as I was doing it. Somehow, ever since I made the phone call to Eddie, my whole world had turned upside down. I was a mess. I had to get myself under control.

  Should I try to do something to fix this situation? Detective Tripp probably thought I was a complete ass who did nothing but follow his dick around, and while lately that seemed to be at least a little true, I didn’t want him to think so. But then, what did it matter what he thought of me? The investigation was over. I wasn’t likely to ever see him again, and while I’d like to see him again, I was relieved I’d never have to face my humiliation.

  Then it occurred to me that there were things I should have told him. The truth about how I met Eddie, for one thing, and that Eddie had peed on my bed for another. I could have even mentioned the feeling that someone had been in my house. None of that mattered, though. Nothing changed the fact that Eddie had killed himself in my garage. The whole thing was over, and it was time to move on -- after a couple more glasses of wine.

  I refilled my glass and was about to sit down again on my patio when I realized I really needed to do something about my bed before I had too much to drink. I went into the bedroom and stared at my ruined mattress. Urine had soaked through, and I doubted there was a way to save it. Even if there was, I couldn’t imagine ever sleeping on it again. I just wanted it to disappear. Actually, I wanted everything about the last twenty-four hours to disappear. In a spurt of activity, I sprayed air freshener over the stain and then dragged the mattress out of my house. It was no easy task.

  Queen-sized, the mattress was big enough that it flopped a little when I stood it up. I pushed it end over end out of my bedroom. By the time I got to the living room, I was dripping in sweat. I slumped it against the wall and took a rest, then walked across the room to open the sliding glass door to the backyard. As lovely as it was, my backyard was also a challenging obstacle course if you were moving a mattress by yourself.

  I did have an idea, though. Tucked in the back corner, behind a thicket of lavender, stood a small shed where I had a potting bench and kept my tools. Inside was a wobbly wheelbarrow. I figured it was the best way to get the mattress across the yard to the alley.

  When I’d caught my breath and collected the wheelbarrow from the shed, I positioned it on the patio just outside the sliding door. I got the mattress across the living room, managing to endanger the flat screen for only a moment, squeezed it through the sliding door and flopped it onto the wheelbarrow.

  The mattress was much larger than the small, red wheelbarrow, and I couldn’t lift the wheelbarrow very high without risk of the mattress sliding completely off. I had to remain in a crouched position and crabwalk across my backyard. Believe it or not, it was easier then schlepping the mattress through the house had been. When I got to the back of the yard, I opened the gate to the alley and pushed the mattress out.

  Pretty much everything I’d ever put in the alley had disappeared within an hour. Yes, a pee-stained mattress wasn’t all that attractive. But this was an expensive mattress, purchased on sale, of course, but still expensive. It was only a few years old and had a nice thick pillow-top that was otherwise unstained. I hoped it would be gone by the next morning.

  By the time I was ready to sit back down with my wine, I’d lost the taste for it and decided to clean instead. I’m not normally a big cleaner, unless I’m really angry about something -- the house was really clean after Jeremy left. The thing was, so many people had been in my house and so many strange things had happened that I just had to do what I could to erase them. I threw some CDs into the player: a couple Kylie, a vintage Madonna, and an incredibly tacky disco compilation I liked.
Then I pulled out a plastic bucket, filled it with pine-scented cleaner and got out the mop.

  Starting in the living room, I moved all the furniture around and rolled up the carpet. I swept and mopped the floors, dusted the baseboards, wiped down the TV and the coffee table, the whole time singing like a disco-diva. About an hour and a half later, it was completely dark outside and my living room was so clean it sparkled.

  After refilling the bucket, I carried it into my bedroom. This was the room I really wanted to clean. The living room had just been the warm-up act. After what Eddie did to my mattress, I wanted to clean the entire room from top to bottom. I was about to begin mopping when my landline rang. I could barely hear it over the stereo.

  Hurrying back into the living room, I paused the CD and grabbed the phone. It was Mrs. Enders. “How are you, sweetie? Are you all right?” Her voice was like gravel after forty years of smoking.

  “Yes, Mrs. Enders, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? Can I do anything for you?” I had a feeling she really just wanted to come over and get a good look inside my garage. “I’d make a casserole, but who cooks anymore, right? Hey, how about a cocktail? I got some nice bourbon at Costco.”

  “That’s sweet, but I think I’m in for the night,” I said, the kind of “nice bourbon” she bought in bulk would burn a hole in your stomach. “Thank you for calling, Mrs. Enders.”

  “Oh now, don’t run off…” I could hear the ice clink in her glass. She lowered her voice, as though she didn’t want the other neighbors to hear. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t think--”

  “Too soon? I understand. I had a friend who killed herself. She took pills. That’s how I’d do it if I wanted to off myself. Anyway, I didn’t understand why she did that. Didn’t understand for years, then I got real depressed. I think it was after I broke up with my second husband. Have you ever been real depressed?” I was about to answer, but then she did for me. “Well, of course you have. You lost Jeremy. That must have knocked the wind out of your sails. The thing is, what I realized when I got depressed myself was that they’re not trying to kill themselves. They’re trying to stop the pain. And the only way they can think to make it stop is to kill themselves.”

  “Mrs. Enders, I can’t talk now. I really need to go.”

  “But it’s good to talk about these things.”

  “I really didn’t know Eddie well. We’d only been on two dates. I think I’ll be just fine.”

  “Now don’t be that way, all bottled up.” I heard her say as I hung up the phone.

  I flopped down on the sofa, suddenly exhausted and wishing I was as bottled up as Mrs. Enders thought I was. Too much had happened in the last twenty-four hours; I could barely take it all in. I thought about going back into the bedroom and continuing my cleaning project, but I didn’t. It was too easy to think while I cleaned, and what I really needed was not to think. I needed to turn my head off completely. I needed distraction. I clicked on the TV and channel surfed until I found an all-day marathon of Heidi Knickerson’s Supermodels, Season Five in progress.

  As I watched twelve young women who couldn’t get a modeling job without a camera crew and host to egg them on, the phone rang three or four more times and my cell phone once. I ignored them both. When Heidi was down to four contestants, I took a Norco. My doctor had given me a prescription when I hurt my back working out over-zealously just after Jeremy and I broke up. There were two more hour-long shows to go, and I fell dead asleep. I never found out who won.

  Around four in the morning, I woke up, still on the sofa, with a crick in my neck that seemed like it might require the kind of painkiller that had given it to me. My mouth was dry as chalk, so I got a glass of water. Then I peed. When I came out of the bathroom, I found the phone and, still half asleep, picked up my voicemails. Two were from neighbors, one was from Jeremy saying he felt weird about what happened, hoped I was okay and please don’t mention anything about it to Skye. When did I ever talk to Skye?

  The last was from Yummee Tum-Tum, a Chinese restaurant in Hollywood. I order takeout from them on Tuesdays when they have a two for one special. The message was garbled, the caller a young woman who spoke English as a second language. The gist was that I’d ordered for delivery and then not answered the door. Even though she was sorry, my credit card was going to be charged.

  My stomach felt wobbly. The menus. Eddie hadn’t just read the menus; he’d ordered Chinese food. They always asked for a phone number, and he’d given them mine. It would have been easier for him, so why wouldn’t he? For a moment, I wondered if he’d been planning to try and charge the food to my credit card? But then I stopped worrying about that and instead wondered, why would anyone order Chinese food and then decide to kill themselves instead?

  I had picture in my head of the delivery guy standing at my front door, knocking and knocking, while Eddie hung himself in the garage. It was a creepy picture, a disturbing picture, but a very clear one. Was his suicide really that spontaneous? I wondered. Did he really think, “Oh, I’m hungry, I think I’ll order some food”? And then killed himself before it arrived? That didn’t make sense. Why not wait and enjoy a last meal?

  I wondered if there had been some kind of trigger event -- between ordering Chinese food and killing himself. Had someone in his family found out about how he made his living? Had they called him? Could someone be that ashamed of being gay in this day and age? Yes, they could. It was hard for me to connect with. I’d been out for a long time, more than a decade. Forgetting what it was like to be closeted was easy, I suppose. But there were always stories in the gay press about people so shamed, so closeted, that they’d hurt themselves.

  And somewhere in there, between ordering food and killing himself, Eddie had peed on my bed. None of this made sense. I was exhausted, though, and knew I wouldn’t be able to figure anything out just then. I needed more sleep. I decided to give sleeping on my box spring a try. It would be hard and uncomfortable, but at least I’d be able to straighten out my neck.

  I dragged myself into the bedroom. Without turning on the light, I shuffled in and slammed my shin against the bed frame. Backing up, I sloshed a couple gallons pine-scented mop water out of the bucket. Ankles wet, shins in pain, I turned on the light and saw that the bed wasn’t in the right place. I knew that. In my sleep haze I’d just forgotten. I’d noticed it earlier when I felt weird about someone being in my house. But that was silly; the bed probably got shifted when I pulled the mattress off.

  I tried shoving the bed back up against the wall, but the imitation Oriental rug on which the bed sat got dragged with it and ended in a clump between the wall and the headboard. I pulled the bed out away from the wall and tried to get it centered on the rug again. The rug had curled up under the headboard, so I lifted the bed to let if fall flat again. That’s when I noticed a set of keys resting next to the footboard partially under the rug.

  The key chain was a Pez dispenser with a small, yellow rubber duck at the top. Attached to the Pez dispenser were four keys. One was a car key, older, with a Lincoln logo. There were two jagged edged house keys. The fourth key, the final key, struck me as odd. It was a second car key. This one was for a Ford. It was much newer; in fact it looked brand new. The top was thick and black with an alarm switch and a panic button. Eddie had another car other than the dilapidated Lincoln.

  Without warning, my eyes stung. Eddie was a real person who had likes and dislikes, who’d chosen an unusual profession, and had sense of humor when it came to key chains. In the panic of everything that was happening, it was too easy to forget that. I blinked my eyes a few times and tried to guess what kind of car Eddie had beside the Lincoln.

  Probably a small truck, like a Ranger. An inexpensive truck made sense. Eddie wouldn’t want to put his table in the back unless he had a cover for the bed. Maybe he was saving up for one before he got rid of the Lincoln completely. It was a
nice little story, except people who killed themselves didn’t save up for things. Did they?

  Why were the keys on the floor? I wondered. How had they ended up exactly there? Had Eddie left them on the bed, and when I pulled the sheets off they’d ended up thrown onto the floor? But I hadn’t heard anything, and I would have. The keys were clunky. Noisy. They’d have made a sound landing on the floor, right? Not much of a sound if they’d landed on the rug, I admitted to myself. Had they been in his pocket? And when he’d thrown his pants onto the bed they’d fallen out. Later, he got dressed to go into the garage and…of course, he wouldn’t have been worrying about where his keys were then. Or had he put them there deliberately for some reason? What reason?

  Dropping the keys into the lower pocket of my cargo shorts, I told myself I’d call Detective Tripp and let him know I’d found them. Not that it was urgent, I supposed. They’d probably already told Eddie’s family what had happened. They’d be dealing with his things in a few days. Selling his Ranger, or whatever his other car was. Selling the Lincoln, though dropping it off at a junkyard seemed a better choice. Either way, they wouldn’t need the keys until then.

  After taking off my clothes, I laid the comforter down on the box spring hoping it might act as a cushion. I turned off the lights and lay down. The comforter wasn’t much help. I could feel each slat that made up the box spring. In fact, there was no spring to it at all; it was all box. I knew I’d never be able to fall asleep on something that uncomfortable.

  And that’s the last thing I remember until someone pounding on the front door woke me up.

  Chapter Ten

  Quickly, I pulled on the T-shirt and shorts I’d been wearing the night before. I had no idea who might be at my door. It was just before seven a.m., making it too early for deliveries, and friends never dropped by at this hour -- actually I didn’t have friends who dropped by -- so I was clueless.

  As I walked to the door, the fear that someone from Eddie’s family might show up crossed my mind. I had a moment of relief when I saw Detective Hanson standing there. Then I got a good look at her face. It was dark, like a malevolent cloud. Behind her was Detective Tripp, and behind him, a whole crew of other officers. Opening my screen door, Hanson shoved a folded piece of blue paper into my hands. As she pushed by me, I unfolded it and tried to make sense of it. It was a search warrant.