Yesterday's Echo

by Matt Coyle

  No complaints. I’d never been a manual guy myself.

  “Try to obey the law from now on.”

  The black-and-white drove off, but kept the floodlight plastered on me until it finally went black half a block down the street. Must have gotten lucky and caught the cop at the end of his shift. He’d probably had a long day and just wanted to get home safely. Just like me.

  “Thank you.” Melody touched my hand on the steering wheel.

  “For what?”

  “For still being that old-fashioned gentleman who guarded the bathroom door tonight.”

  If old-fashioned meant stupid, then call me a gentleman.

  I pulled down my street and parked around the corner from my house and left the carport empty. If the Expedition stumbled onto my block, I didn’t want to make it easy for them to find my house.

  Melody clung to my hand as we hustled the couple hundred yards to my house. Inside, I tossed my keys onto an end table and led Melody through the dark living room over to the front window. I peeked out at the street through Venetian blinds.

  “Is anyone out there?” Her hand squeezed mine, nervous breath on my neck.

  “No. Must have lost them.” I dropped Melody’s hand, found the switch on the wall, and turned on the ceiling light.

  The room illuminated and Melody came into clear view for the first time since she surprised me outside Muldoon’s. A purple welt on her left cheekbone pinched in on a bloodshot eye. The rest of her looked just fine. Beautiful. Magnetic. Her leather jacket was cut short and tight to her black dress. Tanned, athletic legs gleamed below the hem. Only the Giants cap and the tennis shoes didn’t belong. And yet, they did.

  “You were pretty impressive in that car.” The worry now out of her voice, replaced by a confident growl that again reminded me of Colleen. “I’m guessing you’ve done that before.”

  “I’ve done a lot of stupid things.” I went into the kitchen.

  “I hope helping me isn’t one more of them.” Melody stood in the doorway, hip against the frame like she owned it.

  “Me, too.” I smiled like it wasn’t a big deal. “You want some ice for that eye?”

  “No, thank you. but I wouldn’t mind some in a glass.”

  “What would you like to go with it?”

  “Anything that will make me cough if I take a big enough sip.”

  I grabbed two rocks glasses from the cabinet above the sink, then pulled down a bottle of Herradura Tequila off the top of the refrigerator and some orange juice and ice from inside it. Just enough ice for a chill, three fingers of tequila and a splash of OJ for color.

  I handed Melody her drink, walked over to the back door, and opened it. Midnight, my black Labrador retriever, bounded in. He reared up, slapped his front paws on my chest, and licked my chin. He walked over to Melody, and she scratched his square head and cooed dog talk to him.

  “Looks like Midnight has a new friend.”

  “He’s adorable.”

  Melody liked my dog and seemed to like me. But her world was dangerous. Nowadays, my idea of danger was a green guarded by water with a long iron in my hand.

  “Time to tell me what’s going on.”

  I took Melody’s hand and led her back into the living room to a beige chenille sofa fronted by a maple coffee table. I set my drink down on a coaster and pulled the sleeve of her jacket off her free hand. She slid her back to me and I caught another whiff of her perfume as I took the coat off her bare shoulders. She took off her baseball cap, shook down her hair, and sat down on the sofa. I hung her coat in the hall closet and tossed the Giants cap onto the pile of hats on the upper shelf.

  I sat next to Melody and she pushed off her tennis shoes and tucked bare feet underneath her. She took a sip of her drink and eyed me above the rim of the glass. Comfy. Cozy. Inviting. Tempting me to forget about the night’s events and roll with the moment.

  The moment didn’t pass, but I tried to ignore it. For now.

  “Who hit you?” I took a long, double swallow of my drink. The sweet tang bit my throat and warmed my face.

  “I was in a hurry when I left my motel room and bumped into the door.”

  I’d heard similar lines dozens of times from spouses on domestic dispute calls when I was a cop.

  “Melody.” My voice caught an edge. “I knocked down some rich fuck, played hide-and-seek with an SUV, and lied to a cop for you tonight. I deserve the truth.”

  “You’re right.” She touched my hand. “I’m sorry I dragged you into the middle of this.”

  “Into the middle of what?”

  “I’m a reporter for Channel Five News, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco.”

  Another buzz along my spine.

  A reporter. CBS. The network that had blown my face up nationwide in prime time eight years ago on 48 Hours. The guilt about what I’d done that long-ago night in Santa Barbara reawakened in my gut. It was always there, just beneath the surface, waiting to breach. Surely, Melody knew my story. Why would she choose me for help?

  “I’m down here on a story about Mayor Albright’s run for governor.” She left it there like that was enough.

  “Who hit you?” I shoved down my past and concentrated on Melody’s present. “Stone?”

  “No.” She went for her drink again, but I stopped her with my hand on her arm.

  “I’m tired of the cat and mouse, Melody. Who hit you?”

  “One of my sources for the story.”

  “Who is he? Why did he hit you?”

  “I can’t reveal his name.” A silken strand of hair fell across her eye. She let it hang, obstructing the view. “He got angry when I wouldn’t pay him for information.”

  “Was he the one chasing us?”

  “I don’t know.” She hit her drink, harder this time. “He got mad, and I left the motel and then the SUV started following me. I tried to lose it, but I couldn’t. I finally parked in front of the La Valencia Hotel and went in pretending that I was going to get a room. I ran out the back. That’s when I thought of you.”

  “Why?”

  “Your restaurant was just down the block.” Her eyes went soft and her mouth turned sad. I thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t. “You took on Peter for me. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”

  That made me stupid, not heroic.

  “Where does Stone fit in?” I asked.

  “He’s someone I used to know when I was young and not very smart.”

  “So, he’s an ex-boyfriend.” A spring-autumn relationship. I’ll bet Stone made for a cold, dark autumn. “How does he play into the story?”

  “He doesn’t. I thought it would be nice to visit him while I was down here.” Her eyes found the floor. “It wasn’t.”

  Stone didn’t seem to be the kind of man you’d want to visit at any time. Especially as an ex. I figured she had another reason, but I let it go for now.

  “Why no police?” I asked.

  Melody took another long tug of her drink and set the glass down empty. She was pulling strength from a tequila bottle. In order to deal with the truth? Or deliver a lie?

  “I’m sorry, Rick. This isn’t fair to you.” She swung her legs out from under her and her feet found her shoes on the floor. She put them on and stood up. “I shouldn’t have gotten you involved. I’m going to call a cab and go back to the bungalow.”

  Melody was still evading my questions. She had something to hide. But, she wasn’t the only one. Even with all 48 Hours thought they knew about me, I had something to hide, too. Some things needed to stay hidden in the dark corner of one’s soul. Melody and I didn’t know each other well enough to venture there. I didn’t know anyone that well.

  I stood up. “That SUV might be there waiting for you.”

  “I know.” Her voice creaked high and her shoulders slumped. “But I have to go.”

  “Stay.”

  “No, I can’t.” Her eyes went liquid.

  She wouldn’t go to the police and shouldn’t go back
to her hotel. She only had me.

  “You don’t have to tell me anything. I won’t ask any more questions.” I swallowed her in my arms and pulled her to my chest. “Just stay.”

  There was no redemption from the sins of Santa Barbara, but Melody needed me. Maybe life could finally start over.

  Melody’s face grew wet against my neck. Tears in silence. I held her and stroked her hair until she stopped crying. She looked up at me. One eye swollen, both bloodshot, nose red. Yet still beautiful. Her lips met mine half way. Soft, delicate. Then eager. Fingers fumbled at clothes, mouths explored freshly exposed skin. My bedroom was a five-second walk down the hall.

  The couch was more immediate.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER FOUR

  We went at each other hard and hungry like our first time might be our last. Lips, teeth, fingernails. Her body was firm and soft and wrapped around me like a velvet vine. She filled my wants before my body could scream them out. Rough, smooth. Prolonged, quick. When I caught Melody’s eyes, they were dark mirrors hiding their content even as her body convulsed. My eyes were more revealing. The mask the public, my friends, even my last lover saw, came off. I was vulnerable, exposed. At ease.

  When we were done, we were both spent. I’d had more than a few one-night stands over the years. Celebrity junkies who got off by having sex with anyone who’d been on TV. Adrenaline junkies who got off by having sex with someone dangerous. And lushes who thought I was cute and just wanted to get off. This was different. The sex was ravenous, yet intuitive, with a resonance underneath the physical attraction. Maybe it was the events of the night and the flush of raw sex, but I felt more alive than I’d felt in years. Eight years.

  I was splayed on my back, the sofa under me, Melody over me. Her naked body a warm blanket. We lay mute, content to loll in the syrupy afterglow of sex.

  Melody ran a finger along my ribs and finally broke the silence. “I don’t think you did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Killed your wife.”

  My body clenched. The sight of Colleen’s pale body laid out on the cold steel of the coroner’s drawer assaulted me. The red indentation encircling her neck. Her eyes were closed, but her white-purple face still accusing me. The image was burned into my mind. An indelible stain that had marked me for who I was. The disgust and the shame slowly bled out and the image faded away.

  Melody’s finger continued its track along my ribs. I relaxed and exhaled from down deep within me. Melody knew the story everyone else knew and she had deemed me innocent. She saw the man I used to be. But like everyone else, she didn’t know the whole story. Only God and I knew the truth about my innocence or guilt. He’d make his judgment when the time came. I’d already made mine.

  “When did you decide I was innocent?”

  “Well, I remember thinking at the time that you might be.” She tilted her head up at me. “But tonight, after I spoke with you the first time, I was sure.”

  “That’s all it took?”

  “I read men very quickly. Women are a bit trickier.”

  “Yes. They are.”

  I hoped we were done with the subject and could move on to the weather, the Chargers, the Pythagorean theorem. Anything but Santa Barbara.

  “That must have been a horrible thing to go through,” she said.

  No such luck.

  Melody laid her head back down on my chest and continued to unbury my past. “Your wife is murdered and you’re arrested by your own police department. Then 48 Hours does a hit piece on you even after you’ve been exonerated. I can’t imagine what that must have been like.”

  “I wasn’t exonerated.” I didn’t deserve anyone’s sorrow or want anyone’s pity.

  “But, the charges were dropped.”

  “Not the same.” SBPD made that very clear at the time in their statement to the press. Eight years later, I was still a “person of interest.”

  “One thing always bothered me about that 48 Hours.”

  “Only one?”

  “Well, that’s just it.” She rose up on an elbow wedged between me and the rise of the couch. “You were innocent. Why didn’t you talk to them and give your side of the story? You came off looking guilty.”

  “I would have come off looking guilty either way. That’s how they spin it. I wasn’t going to be interviewed just to make for good television.” That was mostly true. But I also didn’t trust myself enough to sit in front of a camera and not look guilty.

  “I think maybe you should have.” Melody peered at me and the mirror that separated us during sex disappeared and warmth radiated from her dark, almond eyes. “If people had gotten to know you, they wouldn’t have believed you killed Colleen.”

  The mention of Colleen’s name opened up the ache in my chest. It always did. Even when I said it silently in my head. But Melody mentioning it also set off alarm bells. She seemed to know a lot about my past. Her tears and fears earlier had been real, and I hoped our roll on the couch had had the same meaning for her as it had for me. But she was a reporter. Five hours ago she’d pumped me for information on the mayor’s drunken wife. Had I become the next possible story?

  “How did you remember Colleen’s name?”

  “I Googled you on my iPhone after we met tonight. I wanted to see if the police ever arrested anyone else. I hoped that you had at least gotten closure.” She kissed me on the chest. “I’m sorry you haven’t.”

  I wanted to believe her.

  I didn’t say anything and we lay quietly for a while. No more questions. No more memories. Finally, Melody inched up my chest and kissed me on the lips. Natural, easy, like we’d known each other longer than just one night and one eight-year-old TV show. In that moment, I wished we had.

  I checked the clock on the DVR: 2:03 a.m. I had to open Muldoon’s in five and a half hours.

  “Let’s go to bed.”

  I took her hand and led her to my bedroom and into my bed. We spooned in an intimacy beyond our time together. In the movies, we would have made love again. In real life, I was asleep in five minutes.

  A rustling woke me up. I saw Melody’s shadow pass in front of the bed and then heard the bathroom door close. I checked the time on my clock radio: 4:07 a.m. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until the alarm woke me at 7:00 a.m. Midnight sat beside my bed wagging his tail, smiling at me through his eyes the way Labs do. Time to start the day.

  I slowly eased out of bed so as not to wake Melody. I looked over and saw that I needn’t have worried.

  She was gone.

  I checked the bathroom and the kitchen to be sure, but the house felt empty and I sensed she wasn’t there. The absence of her coat from the hall closet confirmed it.

  I felt empty, too. And, I felt foolish for allowing myself to feel anything. It was a one-night stand that was never meant to make it to night two. That’s how it worked. Take the flowery talk and the soft caresses and stick them in a forgotten file. It was sex. It was over. Melody just figured it out before I did. I couldn’t blame her for that.

  Knowing all that still didn’t fill the vacuum in my gut.

  Midnight snorted and ran his head under my hand to remind me of my priorities. I opened the broom closet in the kitchen and filled his bowl with dog food from a forty-pound bag. I allowed myself a glance at the refrigerator to see if there was a note under a magnet. Nothing.

  Get over it.

  I let Midnight outside, then went into my bedroom and threw on shorts, T-shirt, and tennis shoes.

  On the way out the door, I opened the hall closet to grab my black Callaway hat. My hand came down with Melody’s Giants cap instead. So, she had left something behind. Surely, a lapse of memory and not an excuse to come back. I held the hat up to my face and caught a whiff of Melody’s shampoo. It brought me back to last night on the couch and in bed.

  Move on.

  I tossed the Giants cap back onto the stack and grabbed a dark-blue Chargers hat. It smelled like me and fit my head t
he way it was supposed to.

  Back to normal.

  Muldoon’s

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I unlocked the front door to Muldoon’s and Peter Stone’s image took supremacy in my mind. His barb about seeing the restaurant listed for sale sat undigested in my stomach. I wondered if my mornings unlocking Muldoon’s might soon come to an end. I’d given the restaurant my heart and soul. It was home. No one was just going to take it away from me.

  The phone rang as soon as I hit the kitchen. I grabbed the wall extension hanging on the pillar next to the meat-cutting table.

  “Rick Cahill?” It was a man’s voice that I didn’t recognize.

  “Yes. How can I help you?” He didn’t reply, and then a couple of seconds later I heard the dial tone. Not a great start to the day. Hopefully, not a continuation of last night. I let it go and focused on the restaurant and my real life.

  I grabbed eight rectangular pans from the rack opposite the dishwasher and walked out to the cook’s station in the grill area. I pulled the pans that held steaks from their slotted drawers in the under-counter refrigerator and rotated the meat into the new containers. After I’d done the same with the fish, I dumped the empty pans back in the kitchen on the dishwasher counter and washed my hands.

  Nothing had started to turn yet, but we needed a busy night. I decided not to call in a fish order. Better to sell out of what we had than to dazzle customers with a variety of fish that would go bad before it sold. The restaurant business was different from most. You couldn’t have a year-end sale or even a week-end one. When the product got old it went into the garbage and your tiny profit went in with it. Still, it beat wearing a badge for a police department that wanted to put you behind bars as much as you did the gangbangers on the street.

  I grabbed the clipboard with the meat order sheet off the hook next to the phone and went into the walk-in refrigerator. I usually checked the inventory at night before I shut Muldoon’s down, but last night Melody and Stone had knocked me out of my routine. We were pretty well stocked, and it would be another light order. I grabbed a shrink-wrapped strip loin from its box to get started on my meat cutting for the morning. When I came back out of the walk-in there were two large men staring at me from across the butcher-block meat cutting table.