by Jeff Orton
The male anchor sitting next to her broke in, “Fox 4 News’ Melissa Sharp is live at the scene. Melissa...”
The picture cut from the news anchors’ desk to a female reporter with short blonde hair and wireframe eyeglasses that seemed custom made to give her a neatly clipped, corporate look. She was standing across the street from Milton’s estate.
“Tom, I’m standing in front of the residence of Jebediah Milton, owner and founder of the prominent law firm, Milton and Associates. Police are only releasing limited information at this time, but what we do know is that this was the site of at least twelve homicides, but the most shocking death of all was the thirteenth...”
The picture then cut to scenes showing police tape blocking off the gateway of the property, and of neighbors standing on the sidewalks gawking in awe at the entire scene. The reporter’s voice narrated as the cameraman surveyed the area.
“Mansfield Police Officer, Chuck Bonet, was killed in the line of duty last night in what appears to be a freak accident while attempting to pursue a suspect in these murders—“
WHAT!!! WHAT!!!
“—police are not yet speculating how a large iron gate became dislodged from this wall behind me, but somehow a portion of that gate ended up crashing through the windshield of Officer Bonet’s police cruiser. It is important to note that police have not ruled out his death as a homicide.”
My heart was pounding, fluttering, palpitating.
Ohshitshitshit!!!!!
A cop is dead. They think whoever shot up the place probably had something to do with it. But...
An image of the apparition popped into my head. One hand on a twisted piece of iron gate, the other giving that half-assed salute.
Ah, fuck. He couldn’t have.
I became possessed by a maddening desire to get the fuck out of Dodge. And I knew only one person who lived far enough away. Paranoia was warning me not to call her from my home phone. I walked down the street to a convenience store a little after six AM, in the dewy twilight of early dawn. I bought a long distance calling card, stepped outside to the store’s payphone, and followed the instructions on the back of the card.
With the one hour time difference, I figured it was about 7:20 in New York. I prayed she was awake.
“Hello?” Desiree answered. She sounded fully awake, without the slightest trace of grogginess.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said.
“Wow, you’re up early... Is anything wrong?”
“Um, well, something’s come up. Would you mind if I visited you for a few days? Maybe a week?”
“What happened?” Though we were thousands of miles apart, the shortness in her voice still made me cringe.
“Uh, I can’t really get into that here, but I promise I’ll explain everything when I get there... If that’s okay.”
A long silence followed. I felt so damn alone standing by that payphone. I was nervous and jittery and doing the motherfuckin’ pee-pee dance due to a combination of anxiety and insomnia.
“Yes, of course it’s okay. But only cuz it’s you. When do you think you’ll get here? I’ll pick you up from the airport. I hope it’s La Guardia. It’s the closest to where I live.”
“I haven’t arranged all that yet,” I said, “I’ll call you back and let you know.”
“Alright, well, I’m on my way to work, but I should get home around two. I have to work half-day Saturdays... Hey, are you still in school?”
“Yeah, I am. It’s... It’s just not real important to me right now.”
“O-Kay,” Desiree replied. I didn’t need any sixth sense to tell me she’d already figured out there was a lot more behind this sudden trip to New York than my desire to see her.
I spent the rest of the day tying up all the loose ends I could think of. I thoroughly washed and vacuumed out my truck, fearful that a criminal forensics team might find a blade of grass from Milton’s lawn in the driver’s floorboard, or perhaps some chalky dust on the tires from the new gravel at Buster’s.
I bagged everything I’d worn or carried that night, including my expensive black workboots, and tossed them all into the dumpster of an apartment complex twenty miles from where I lived.
I stopped at another payphone and, using my phone card again, booked a one-way flight to La Guardia Airport, realizing bitterly that this would use up a good chunk of the money I had left. My flight would depart just shy of two a.m. tomorrow morning.
I went back home to pack my things and discovered Doris had already left for work. She left a note saying she had to work a double and probably wouldn’t be home until ten tonight. There was some leftover roast beef in the fridge for dinner. I figured I’d just leave her a note too: will be out of town for a few days, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, see you soon. Phil.
I watched the twelve o’clock news as I packed. The police had released a composite sketch drawn using descriptions given by witnesses whose names had not been released. I almost fell over, laughing with joy, when they displayed the picture.
It didn’t look a damn thing like me! You couldn’t even tell what ethnicity this guy belonged to. The only things they had right were the black face-paint and pullover knit hat. The lips were ridiculously inflated, and there was a villainous scowl cutting across his dark eyebrows. It was easy enough to see if you took off this guy’s cap, you wouldn’t expect to find straight blonde hair lying underneath.
I felt a little relieved after that, but it was only a trivial consolation at best.
* * *
I sat in a chair in front of my terminal in DFW Airport, thinking about what kind of galactic deep shit I’d gotten myself into. I bought a paperback novel for my wait, but my mind just couldn’t concentrate on it. My thoughts kept slipping, trying to think up possible ways I might have fucked up, evidence I might have left behind, things I should or shouldn’t have done or said.
It was just too damn much. I was too jumpy. Every time a security guard walked by, I wanted to curl up into a ball out of fear they had discovered I was that Mansfield Gunman all the news stations couldn’t stop quacking about.
For several hours, I had to fight the urge to call Bo so I could at least give him some flimsy, make-believe excuse as to why he wouldn’t be hearing from me for awhile. Paranoia overrode that nagging feeling in the end and I sat where I was, with a numb ass and a sore neck from reading. I could easily picture two detectives paying him a visit, and Bo letting it slip that the last time he talked to me, I was calling from an airport.
It didn’t occur to me until my plane left the ground that I was officially on the run. I didn’t know how long it was going to take the law to discover my identity and track my ass down, but the gnawing sensation in my gut was telling me it was going to happen eventually. My empty stomach churned with airsickness as I gazed down upon the lights of Dallas from my window seat. The skyline looked so familiar, yet so alien from above.
* * *
My reunion with Dez wasn’t as happy as I thought it should have been. I had caught only an insignificant amount of sleep, which had been under constant attack by a multitude of nightmares. I felt like an inducted, card-carrying member of the walking dead as I left the aluminum corridor connecting the plane to the terminal, but the excitement of seeing her again after so long gave me a brief rush of energy.
We hugged, said hello and made small talk. All the normal things... But there was an underlying current beneath the few thoughts she was letting me read. There was a concern weighing heavily on her mind that she didn’t want to discuss yet.
I thought it kind of peculiar when she bought a newspaper before we left La Guardia. She didn’t say much on the cab ride home. She kept sorting through the New York Times, like a woman on a mission to find the right ad for the right sale at the right department store. Had I been fully alert, I would have figured it out, why she was behaving so oddly. But my frazzled brain kept wanting to drift off to sleep and just not think about it.
That was until Des found
the page she wanted. She skimmed over it for a few seconds, and quietly set it down in my lap.
It seemed the MANSFIELD MASSACRE was no longer just a local story. It was far from the front page, but still within the first quarter of a world recognized newspaper. I looked over at her. She was sitting next to me on the well-worn vinyl backseat of a New York cab that smelled very distinctly like an armpit that has never once seen a stick of Rightguard.
Desiree’s eyes had a sad, defeated look.
Am I wrong? she asked me.
‘Fraid not, I answered.
The cabbie drove on towards Queens, oblivious to the silent conversation taking place behind him.
Did you kill the cop? she asked.
God no! Remember that ghost-guy I told you about? The man in black that keeps appearing to me? I think he did it, or had a hand in it. I don’t know. But nothing happened to the cops while I was there. That happened after I left.
I could feel an immense wave of relief crash into her, You don’t have to tell me everything here. We’ll talk after we get to my place.
But I couldn’t. There were things I wanted her to know right now. Look into my memory. Just listen and watch!
I closed my eyes and swiftly went through every noteworthy event of the past month, from the two men at Dan & Bruno’s to yesterday morning when I’d called her.
“My God,” she whispered, “Do you have any idea where they might have taken her?”
Tessa?
I shook my head.
* * *
The next we spoke, Desiree’s coffeemaker was brewing as we sat in her small apartment. I explained why I hadn’t just called the police, and why I thought it was now best to stay out of Dallas for awhile and watch the news; see if my face got posted on America’s Most Wanted.
“I don’t think there would be any way for them to connect you. You’re probably safe. I can almost see them labeling it as a mob hit now. I’ve heard of Milton & Associates. They’re pretty shady.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“They’re a huge personal injury firm. You’ve had to have heard of them. They’re based in Fort Worth. They have a bunch of doctors and chiropractors they pay off to inflate medical bills so they can win higher settlements. I think there was a big story when I was younger about them being in bed with the Russian mafia. Something about the Russians hiring guys to stage car accidents and then sending them to Milton & Associates for representation.”
“Shit. I had no idea,” I said.
“Well, I mean, with all those underworld connections, the police will probably just think that Zachariah guy—“
“Jebediah,” I corrected.
“—or whoever, you know. Someone pissed off the Godfather, and Milton and all his buddies got whacked.
I chuckled weakly. Sleep was ready at any moment to steal over me.
Des sighed, “Ugh, I’m so rude. You’ve been awake for two days straight. Go take a nap. You can use my bed. I’ve got some errands to run anyways.”
* * *
I accepted her offer with great appreciation, and woke up several hours later. The harsh light coming through the bedroom’s shaded window told me it was late afternoon. I was surprised I’d slept so long.
I went into the living room and found Des, sitting on a loveseat that was just a little too low to the floor, legs crossed, body leaning forward, staring intently at a CNN anchor as a cigarette burned between her fingers.
The picture on the TV flashed over to what looked like a magnified piece of gray cement, displaying tiny droplets of blood as a voiceover announced, “Investigators believe this blood found at the crime scene belongs to the perpetrator. Police believe the attacker might have climbed up this tree and jumped to this wall, gaining entry to Jebediah Milton’s home.”
The blood, from what I could tell, was sitting on top of the cement sheath that caps the fireclay brick wall. But I couldn’t fathom how any of my blood could have been found anywhere on the property. I never got cut or even scratched that night.
Then it hit me. I had landed with my arms stretched out over the wall, gloved hands gripping the other side of the cement cap. I remembered the long black sleeve on my right arm riding up a few inches, temporarily exposing my wrist.
I looked down at the underside of my wrist now and saw the scrape left by the abrasive surface of the cement.
“Well, Dez,” I said, my voice cracking, “Looks like they found some DNA.”
* * *
Desiree had to go back to work the next day, but promised she would try to get off Tuesday so we could spend the day together. I spent the day alone in her apartment, flipping from one news channel to the next, pausing every so often at MTV or one of the sports stations. Thank God she had cable.
The only interesting developments for Monday were that authorities had announced that three children had been found alive with only minor injuries at the scene. They were apparently the victims of an international human trafficking ring. The FBI has now taken over the case, in light of recent findings.
“That’s just fuckin’ wonderful,” I muttered to the empty apartment.
* * *
“So why didn’t you want me to know?” she asked without warning as we sat outside an Italian café in Lower Manhattan. She had been successful in getting both Tuesday and Wednesday off, and we were now eating lunch after a morning of sight-seeing.
“About what?” I asked with mock innocence.
“You know damn well what,” she replied as she zapped me a mental picture of the two of us sitting in an airport terminal.
I stared down at my food, not wanting to look her in the eye.
“I don’t know,” I answered after a long, uncomfortable pause, “The thought of it just scared me to death.”
“I wish you’d told me sooner.”
I shook my head, “Would it have made a difference?”
She didn’t answer. She just guarded her thoughts closely. I did catch one enigmatic idea, though. She questioned whether or not we would be sitting here if she had known sooner.
[Let me break here to add one note of interest. In our tour of Manhattan, we stopped to visit the World Trade Center. As two psychics, you would think that we should have felt the impending doom for these two buildings, but unfortunately neither Desiree nor myself were blessed (or cursed) with clairvoyance. We were only two telepaths walking in and around a pair of structures that would be forever remembered for their destruction. I felt nothing but awe (and a little dizziness) as I stood upon the concrete outside and stared up at them.]
* * *
We returned to the apartment with rented movies, a bottle of wine and a six-pack. The day had been wonderfully tiring and relaxing at the same time. I felt as though I’d stepped into someone else’s life, someone else’s reality, for a few hours. But as I sat down on the sofa where I’d spent the previous day glued to the news channels, I was reminded why I was even in New York. I was itching to turn on CNN, but didn’t want to break Desiree’s pleasant mood.
She was putting the first tape in the VCR when the sudden remembrance of this intolerably stressful week made my neck feel stiff. I popped it. One good crack to the left, another to the right.
“Oww,” Des said, wincing from the sound of it, “Is your neck sore?”
“Eh, a little.”
“Sit down on the floor, I’ll rub it for you.”
I sat down cross-legged on the floor as Desiree sat on the loveseat and kneaded my shoulders and neck with expert hands as the previews started. We exchanged neck rubs, drank and laughed at what few funny moments there were in this cheesy romantic comedy (most of the laughs came when we made fun of the bad acting and the god-awful script these people had to work with.)
When the massages were done, we sat next to each other rather uncomfortably due to the loveseat was just a little too small to fit the both of us. It was more like an oversized chair designed for one person, if that person happened to have an oversized fat ass.
It was also the only piece of living room furniture she owned.
Desiree paused the movie and got up to refresh her glass of wine. I stretched and yawned and, with complete absent-mindedness, let my arm lie over the back of the chair. Then Des plopped back down into her seat next to me before I had a chance to move it. Now my arm wasn’t necessarily around her, but it was now behind the back of her neck. Since I felt this was a little improper, I decided to reach for my beer that was sitting on the coffee table in front of us, thereby giving me an excuse to lean forward and slip my left arm back to where it was supposed to be. In my lap.
But then she did something completely out of character. She leaned over to her right, settling herself into the crook of my arm and rested her head against my chest. She hit the play button on the VCR remote and took a sip of her Riunite as if this were all perfectly natural and commonplace.
I was shocked. With any other girl, this suggestive maneuver would have been easy to interpret. It was possible this was her way of letting me know she felt something for me, but a fluttering, whispering doubt in the back of my mind kept suggesting that maybe she’s just had too much wine and felt I was safe enough to get cozy with. The damn pseudo-sofa was so cramped, she probably just saw my arm as an open invitation to finally get comfortable.
If it sounds like I’m complaining, believe me, I’m not. I was internally rejoicing that our bodies were so close together, but I was deathly afraid that if I made a countermove, she would react negatively and my entire stay here would be infected with awkwardness.
And there was something else. The close contact was causing something to stir around downstairs.
Ah, fuck. Down, boy, down! Now is not the time!
I had changed into a pair of denim shorts and a t-shirt after we’d gotten back to Desiree’s place, and yep, the bulge was now forming. Is she aware of what she’s doing to me? I tried to read her thoughts, but I wasn’t picking up anything except her attention to the movie.
Her hand fell to my bare knee and her manicured nails began stroking some of the thin hair below it. My leg betrayed me with a sudden reflex. My foot struck the bottom of the coffee table which caused the half empty beer bottle to rock slightly, threatening to spill. But Desiree’s arm shot out and caught it before it could.