Think Before You Speak

by D. A. Bale

  “Relax,” Duncan said, pressing me to sit. “Mr. von Braun is in the building superintendent’s apartment.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. Gave his statement. I just need to finish getting yours.”

  His statement? What all would Reggie have said? If I mentioned the blackmail, that would open up a whole other can of worms and cause any number of headaches. All this had started because of those stupid blackmail letters. But wait – the blackmail letters had come about because Reggie had mentioned his plans to sell the decorating business and retire. Hmm. The gears in my brain started spinning again.

  Bad sign, I know.

  To protect my friend, I didn’t mention the blackmail and instead kept my answers to Duncan’s questions short and to the point. Focused on what had started this whole fiasco – Reggie’s plans to sell the business to someone else. Then there was that whole unrequited love angle Han had confessed. I knew firsthand how those pesky feelings could make one a little crazy.

  Or a lot.

  “Vickie!”

  Speak of the devil. How was it that those closest to me always had a front-row seat to my mental musings? Duncan waved Zeke over, who reached us in three strides.

  “Don’t say another word without a lawyer,” Zeke instructed as he wrapped his warm arms around me and shot Duncan a glare sure to burn a hole in his retinas. Couldn’t blame him, after Duncan had played Zeke earlier that summer by trying to pin Amy’s death on me.

  “You sound like my parents,” I grumbled into his chest.

  “Take it easy, Ranger Taylor,” Duncan said. “From the looks of things and the matching testimonies, it’ll be classified as self-defense.” Duncan checked his notes one more time before closing the pad and slipping it into his jacket pocket. “We’ll be confiscating the Sig for ballistics.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know,” I said.

  “I’m serious, Vic,” Zeke said. “No more talking.”

  “That’s okay,” Duncan said. “I’m done here.”

  “Can I go back inside?” I asked.

  Duncan gave me the once over. “If you need to grab something, Ranger Taylor here will escort you. But you’ll have to stay somewhere else for the next few nights until we can clear the scene and close the case. And you might want to call in a cleaning crew.”

  Uh-oh. Bloodstain on the carpet where Han had fallen. I didn’t think I could look. Oh man, what was Mom gonna say after her extensive and very expensive renovations?

  “Hey…um…Zeke?” I stammered.

  “Yes, you can stay with me as long as you need,” Zeke said as he led me between police vehicles toward the front door of the building.

  “Appreciate it, but that wasn’t what I was gonna ask.”

  “You want me to go upstairs and get your stuff?”

  I nodded. “And don’t forget Slinky. He’s probably hiding on my bed under a mountain of pillows.”

  “Got it,” Zeke reassured as he deposited me out of the way in front of Jimmy’s apartment.

  The medical examiner’s team worked their way down the stairs right about then, a black bag with Han’s body strapped to the gurney. I shuddered as they wheeled past and out the door.

  “But Zeke, I need to ask one more favor…and this one’s vitally important.”

  He gave me a look but refrained from making promises. “What?”

  I knocked on Jimmy’s door to check on Reggie. “Don’t tell my mom.”

  ***

  How had I ended up here again so soon?

  Two weeks ago I’d left Zeke’s place and returned to my apartment briefly before running off to San Antonio with Nick. Went on my first date with Radioman, and now I was right back where I’d started – in Zeke’s apartment.

  Slinky cuddled in my arms, all snoodled with me in the blanket as I stared out Zeke’s floor-to-ceiling living room windows toward the Dallas skyline, blazing against a veiled night. Lightening flashed in the distance, a bolt snaking down like a giant hand swatting at a spire. Felt like I’d gotten one of those slaps tonight – and then some.

  I sensed rather than heard Zeke’s approach, the deep grovel of sleep garbling his voice. “It’s almost four in the morning, Vic.”

  “Mm-hmm,” I acknowledged.

  The warmth of his arms loosely encircled as he stood behind me. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “Nope.” Numbness hadn’t fully worn off, and I was tired beyond belief, but my brain still wouldn’t shut down. “Hey, Zeke?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  His arms tightened ever so slight and pressed my back deeper into his chest, until resting his chin on top of my head. “Yes. In the line of duty, it’s sometimes an unfortunate necessity to save others.”

  The skyline blurred in the ensuing silence. Rain dotted then ran in rivulets down the glass like the tears I couldn’t muster – until I realized the blur came from my eyes.

  What the hell was this? I hadn’t turned into some sappy, silly, emotional girl – had I?

  “I didn’t mean to kill Han,” I whispered.

  “I know.”

  “The only person I ever in my life dreamed of killing was Lorraine Padget.”

  Zeke released a ragged sigh but didn’t respond, as if he knew immediately where my train of thought took me.

  “I never gave you a chance to explain the situation then,” I continued, stepping from his arms to face him. “But I’d like to know now. What happened that night at the restaurant?”

  “After all that’s happened, do you really want to go there tonight?”

  “I need to know, Zeke, in order to let go of it once and for all. To forgive.”

  Brown eyes swirled in doubt, calculating the risks. Knowing Zeke, he was also trying to read me to see what kind of angle I was playing. Strange and unusual emotions swirled my thoughts when I realized I didn’t have any ulterior motive either. When he reached a hand to brush the tear from the corner of my eye, his expression softened. Was I that easy to read?

  “Lorraine and I were friends in high school.”

  “If memory serves,” I returned, “you two were more than friends at one time.”

  “As were you and Bobby,” he said with a smirk.

  Ouch! The Ranger had me there. “Touché.”

  He turned to stare outside like I’d been doing, and I focused on his silhouette in the ambient and intermittent light from outside as he spilled his side of the story. A story long overdue.

  “That night it was really busy, so I waited for you out on the restaurant’s deck overlooking the water.”

  Knowing Zeke’s penchant for avoiding large crowds and his preference for the great muggy and buggy outdoors, that part rang true.

  Zeke continued. “Lorraine was there, huddled in a corner, crying over some guy who’d left her to pay the check.”

  “She was crying over getting stuck with the bill?” I asked, incredulous. “The girl’s on television. She’s not hurting for money.”

  Zeke pressed his lips together as if deep in an internal debate. “There’s more to that particular piece of the story, but it’s not my place to share it.”

  Someone blackmailing Lorraine perhaps? Talk about your ironic twist. “Fine. Go on.”

  “She told me what had happened with the check, and about how that affected something else in her life,” he said, shooting me a look that said don’t ask. “Then I hugged her.”

  “You hugged her,” I reiterated.

  “Yes,” Zeke stated. “There was nothing to it but an offer of sympathy and encouragement for the hard times she was going through.”

  The image of that night flashed through my mind in concert with the window-reflected lightening. I focused – really focused – on exactly what I remembered.

  “No kissing?” I asked, picturing Lorraine’s mascara-streaked face resting against Zeke's shoulder.

  “Nope.”

  “Not even the forehead thing?”r />
  “None,” Zeke returned, his eyes hardening as he faced me again. “I’d never have done that to you…to us.”

  The memory coalesced with Zeke’s chin on top of Lorraine’s head – just like he’d done with me moments ago – and countless times before tonight. I sighed, feeling the fool for my rash reaction that night. An emotional reaction.

  Sometimes it sucked being a girl. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  A gruff snort. “There was too much yelling and screaming and too many fists and claws flying. Besides, someone had to fish Lorraine and my hat from the lake.”

  “So you stayed behind to help her instead of following me,” I accused. “Then you never came home.”

  “Stayed with one of my buddies. Figured you could use a night to cool off,” Zeke said. “I didn’t expect to come home to find you’d moved out.”

  I looked him square in the eyes, my voice low. “You never called either.”

  Silence. Regret passed like a shadow across the angular planes of his jaw. “An error on my part.” With a sigh from the bottom of his toes, he headed off toward the bedroom. “I’m going to try and get a few more hours of sleep before work.”

  “Zeke?” I called.

  He stopped but didn’t look my way. “What?”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. “And for what it’s worth…I’m sorry.”

  The import of those words passing my lips shocked me like a zap of lightening. Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t the only relationship besides the one with my mom that had matured this week.

  “Maybe now we can be friends,” Zeke said, before closing the bedroom door.

  Zeke and I friends? The thought sent a warmth through me – or maybe that was heat from Slinky’s body nestled in my arms. Guess we’d have to wait and see how the next day or two went – and if my brain ever awoke from this damn fog.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  With Han leaving an empty place in Reggie’s business, by late Friday he’d made quick work of signing preliminary contracts with that corporate entity to purchase the Premier Interior Decorating Company of Dallas. I doubted it’d be long before Reggie made even more permanent decisions about his future, namely moving to San Antonio to be nearer a certain person of the female persuasion. Then he could retire the name of Reginald von Braun and become once again simply Reggie Brown. With the pile of money he’d have from the sale of the business, he’d be very comfortable whether he chose to start a family or not.

  Speaking of money, since he wanted nothing to do with it, Reggie offered the blackmail cash to me in appreciation for saving his name – or names – but I had a better idea. Instead, I convinced him to make an anonymous donation to Bobby’s prison ministry, thereby killing two birds – er, um – helping two friends instead of one.

  By Sunday morning, I had my emotions in check and sported another new cell phone and a different purse to protect a hot commodity sure to cause a little chaos – at least I hoped. Janine offered a knowing look when I dropped the folded cashier’s check into the donation box set up for Bobby at the church.

  “I knew there was another reason you agreed to come with me this morning,” Janine accused. “You’ve been pumping people at the bar for money, haven’t you?”

  “Can’t I help out a friend?” I asked.

  “If memory serves, helping friends is what seems to have gotten you into trouble a lot this summer.”

  “You’ve got a point there, but I wasn’t about to miss the public launch of Bobby’s ministry.”

  Janine beamed her blue eyes sparkling. “It is pretty exciting, isn’t it? Getting to be on the ground floor of a new enterprise?”

  Spoken like a true entrepreneur. I mused again about the wrong De’Laruse being groomed for the takeover of the family corporate empire.

  My best friend skittered back and forth in front of the counter, while I tried to remain scarce behind it and keep a running tab on the total donations thus far to avoid falling asleep. Most of the saintly persuasion hustled by her with hardly a glance. Those few who gathered to hear Janine’s pitch for Bobby’s work dropped in a dollar bill here and a fiver there. Some were gracious enough to write a check and take the applicable tax deduction.

  Bobby popped out of the sanctuary between each service and fielded questions from a gaggle of women both young and old. Before the start of the third service, Lorraine Padget sliced through the crowd like a hot knife through butter and practically draped herself on him before making a grand show of placing a check in the donation box.

  Me? I got a snarl directed my way like a pit bull staking its claim. The poor guy. A widower only a few months and already the chase to claim his carcass was on. I thought to ask Lorraine about the status of her engagement, but given our present location, I figured it best to keep those comments to myself.

  Maybe there was hope for my disease-ridden mouth yet.

  After Bobby left to share the stage with his dad one more time, Janine and I finished tabulating the final trickle of donations for the grand announcement at the end of the service. When she saw the amount of the anonymous cashier’s check representing Reggie’s blackmail payout, she gasped.

  “Oh, we have to announce this one separately from the rest,” Janine squealed. “Such generosity must be highlighted to encourage others.”

  I don’t know how much encouragement it’d spur other people to give if they weren’t already so inclined. More like guilt them into opening their pocketbooks. But since it all went to help Bobby, who was I to correct my best friend?

  Shortly before the end of the service, a runner came by to collect the final tally and deliver it to Pastor Dennis for the big announcement. Janine and I entered the darkened auditorium and stood along the back wall until our eyes adjusted, then made our way down the center aisle toward the front to the honorary seating designated for our families.

  Usually the De’Laruse and Bohanan clans attended either the first or second service – minus myself since I’d ditched the double life years ago. However, with the big announcement slated for the third one, they’d chosen to be a part of this service.

  Pastor Dennis went on and on about his son, the catalyst behind Bobby’s calling to this ministry, about his return to Dallas and the loss of his wife. He carefully skirted Bobby’s short stint in prison – and the fact they’d left him in there to rot – and merely referred to his being a suspect.

  The whole time Bobby towered over his father, I couldn’t help but notice the rising flush in Bobby’s cheeks and the careful swipe at his eye as if to brush away a tear. Meanwhile, the elder Vernet openly cried, mingling sweat with his tears as he played the sympathy card for the audience. I couldn’t help but notice the dichotomy of the reactions between father and son.

  Maybe Bobby was adopted.

  The pastor made a big show as several older kids from the children’s department pranced onstage holding an overlarge check image of five thousand dollars from the church. I stewed. Reggie, who didn’t even attend church, had displayed a greater generosity than Bobby’s own family.

  When the runner from earlier appeared onstage and handed over the final donations tally Janine and I had collected, Pastor Dennis practically shouted the announcement of Reggie’s anonymous donation. The whole congregation stood in thunderous applause. All I wanted to do was run up on stage and highlight the hypocrisy.

  The sperm donor beat me to it.

  My dad sidestepped to the center aisle, walked up onto the stage and presented his own check to Bobby – for a quarter million dollars. Some people just had to hog the limelight.

  Janine glanced my way while the crowd went wild, and Thomas De’Laruse dropped into his seat to furiously scribble out a check, most likely an amount to one-up my dad. I dissolved into a fit of laughter. It no longer mattered who got credit for what because there would always be someone else who had to overcompensate in one vein for what they lacked in another. In the end, Bobby was the real winner here.

  Talk about your dick
measuring, folks. And in church no less.

  ***

  Since I wasn’t real keen on hanging around a death scene, Slinky and I didn’t get firmly settled again at my apartment until late Sunday afternoon before leaving for the preseason opener at Cowboys Stadium.

  Okay, okay. So the powers that be had sold the naming rights of the new stadium several years ago. But to tried-and-true, die-hard Dallas Cowboys fans, it’d always be Cowboys Stadium to us.

  Bite me AT&T.

  The storm front had brought in more comfortable temperatures – for most people. With the dome retracted it meant no air-conditioning, which allowed the sun to call dibs on my sweltering carcass and promised an uneven tan of epic proportions. Guess it was better than a blistering sunburn.

  My evil plans to force Grady and Rochelle together somewhat misfired when Grady sat on the far side of Radioman, leaving Rochelle to sit on my right. ‘Course I sat next to Radioman, so he could experience all my glistening glory. We were on a date, after all.

  Ah, hell. I’d already sweat through my t-shirt and practically slid out of my daisy dukes soon after we’d sat. Despite the cool-down, it was still Texas. In August.

  What was the point of having a domed stadium if not to protect patrons from the elements? Suppose for most people that meant rain or cold, but thousand percent humidity in the south made it difficult to breathe – and I wasn’t even one of the poor souls all geared up on the field.

  Our seats, however, were nothing to complain about – completely awesome, sitting just off centerfield and halfway up the stadium to offer a full-spectrum view of play. I glanced around to the near-capacity seating and eyed the luxury suites dotting various levels. The sperm donor, the De’Laruses and their entourage were in one of the prime locales, drinking champagne and eating fresh lobster flown in from the coast that morning – at least I assumed, considering all the years I’d spent in one of those goldfish bowls.

  I loved sitting out here among the masses, enveloped in excitement, swarmed by the raucous screams at kick-off, the pungent scent of eau d’ spilled beer, and vendors tossing dogs into the crowd with a tight spiral like a quarterback in a last-ditch Hail Mary. The electricity generated by these fans would light up the city for at least a week. I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my face until my cheeks ached.