“I didn’t know you dyed your hair,” he said. “I mean, other than the red parts.”
She looked up from her cup. “I don’t.” A shiver ran through her body and she took a sip of her coffee, hunching up trying to hold its warmth closer.
“Huh. When did you start going—”
“You have to find somewhere else to stay,” Liana said. She wasn’t a curt woman. She had a Southerner’s penchant for friendly small talk and filling the spaces in between moments with cheerful reflection. They’d spent long nights sitting on the sofa discussing his past, her past, their future. She knew everything about him and his family, and she had told him all about her own. They’d shared stories about what had led them to where they were physically and emotionally while they sat, hands intertwined, and made plans for the future together. Time reached out from those moments like a bright highway he couldn’t wait to travel. But now, her tone suggested that she didn’t want to talk about her hair or her eyes and had nothing else to say on the subject of his departure. She was asking him to leave. No. Not asking. She’s telling me to go. Mitch felt like he should put up a fight. Something in him said that he could have his lover and the girl. He wanted to say he understood how she felt and that they could make it work. Things would get better. But the face of the woman sitting in front of him put that all to rest.
“I’m going to go stay with a friend,” she said. “So, you don’t have to get out today. End of the week though—before I get back. Okay?”
“When can I see you again?”
Liana looked over his shoulder at the girl sitting on her couch, watching television. “I don’t know. Maybe never, I think.” She dropped her head down so he couldn’t see her face. Her shoulders jerked and hitched and he heard her sob. Mitch put his hand on her shoulder and she batted it away. She said, “I have to go now.”
“I—I don’t understand, Li.” Except, he understood entirely. Liana was frightened by Sophie. She wasn’t a normal little girl. Despite Liana’s considerable efforts to conquer her fears over the last few days, she was still struggling. “Please don’t make me choose,” he said.
“I’m not offering you a choice. Look at me.” She widened her eyes. The crow’s feet that used to only appear when she smiled now remained no matter what expression she wore. The gray in her hair was more than just noticeable.
“I’m sorry. I don’t—”
“Take a good look. She did this to me,” she said as she stood up. “I need you to be gone by the time I get back. I’m sorry, Mitch.” She wiped tears from her cheeks, grabbed her keys from the counter, and walked out the door.
Mitch picked himself up and turned toward his niece. She sat watching the characters singing and dancing on the television, and looked like a normal little girl. Liana had aged, and Sophie looked healthier. That was his fault. Everything was his fault.
21
It took less time for Mitch to gather together their meager things than he’d anticipated. He’d been packed and ready to go in under ninety minutes. Although he’d prided himself on having a simplified existence, he felt like he was walking out of Liana’s apartment with fewer things than he’d carried out of MCI Concord. That his life fit into a single, large duffel bag didn’t bother him. He wanted the opposite for Sophie, though. He wanted her to have everything he didn’t. A house full of things that brought her pleasure and gave her roots. A real home.
Though Sophie looked better than she had when they’d picked her up from Dr. Downum’s office—he tried not to think of it as the morgue, though it was—she still drew stares from other riders on the bus as they made their way to their old apartment. The back of the bus, already mostly empty, owing to the overheating compressor above the rear seat adding to the late summer heat, emptied out completely when they sat down. It suited him just fine. The distance home from Liana’s was over six miles. Though she never seemed to tire, he couldn’t imagine asking Sophie to walk that far, and he couldn’t carry her the whole way along with the bag holding their things. So they took the bus, and he sat trying to ignore the side-eyed stares from other riders.
She nuzzled under his arm, and stared at the floor while Mitch tried to pay attention to the route. After a long ride feeling like they were on display, he pushed the button signaling they wanted off at the next stop. When the bus pulled to the curb, he picked up the bag and Sophie and clumsily made his way to the rear exit. When the doors didn’t open, he called out, “Back door,” hoping the driver would let him disembark without having to walk the gauntlet of other passengers to the front. Nothing happened, and he repeated himself a little louder. He began to fear the driver was going to pull away without letting them off when the rear doors finally swung. On the sidewalk outside, he thought he heard a passenger aboard say something, but it was drowned out by the hydraulic hiss of the kneeling bus and the dinging indicating they were pulling away from the sidewalk. He wasn’t the kind of person who got directly confronted often. Not outside of a bar. And he didn’t go to bars any more. But from the safety of the bus, with him on the sidewalk, someone felt emboldened. Fine. Whatever makes them feel righteous. He took a breath and then another until he no longer wanted to get back on the bus and make that person repeat themselves to him, clearly and within reach.
He tried to set Sophie down, but she clung to him, so he carried her and the bag the rest of the way home. It was only two blocks. She weighed next to nothing and a slow stroll wasn’t exactly cardio. Still, by the time he approached their place, he was sweating out the last of the moisture left in his body. Drinking a glass of water was going to feel like diving into the ocean in April. From halfway up the block, he saw it, though. An orange paper rectangle stuck to the door, across the jamb. He climbed the steps, knowing what it declared before he was close enough to read it.
WARNING: THIS IS A NOTICE TO VACATE THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS
He stared at the door. The eviction notice sticker stared brightly back at him, plastered on the window. Written in black Sharpie beneath the warning was his address and a date by which he was expected to remove all his personal belongings before a county sheriff came to take them away instead. Under that, it read: “Removal of this seal is a crime.” Looking at the shining new deadbolt lock for which he didn’t have a key, he wondered how he was expected to get his things out of the apartment at all. He assumed they expected him to call the number on the notice and arrange a time. That also assumed he had someplace to take those things. Somewhere else to live. He peeked in through a side window and saw the furniture and their other possessions where he’d left them.
After he moved in with Liana, it had only taken a single trip for him to gather all the things he required, and feeling no need for the constant reminder of all that he’d lost, he hadn’t been back. He’d locked the door and walked away, knowing this was a probable outcome, but not caring. Now, all those things he saw as unnecessary entanglements with his sister and her selfishness were necessities once again. He chided himself for not planning ahead before remembering there was no way to anticipate something that had never happened before. Not to him, not to anyone. Not ever.
It didn’t seem like it had been long enough since abandoning the apartment for the landlord to have gone to court and gotten an order of eviction. He was uncertain how such an order even worked, but he was pretty sure someone had to notify him they were going to be changing the locks and give him a chance to get his stuff out ahead of time. Then again, the landlord only seemed to poke his head up if the section eight rent checks were late.
He jiggled the door again. The fresh deadbolt held securely. They were locked out, and out of luck.
Letting Sophie down onto the front porch, he took a seat next to her on the front steps and tried to keep himself together. Panic was creeping up his spine. He had no idea what he’d do if he couldn’t keep it pushed down and it reached his brain, overwhelming his ability to think clearly. He tried to imagine where they could find shelter for the night. He was sure there we
re places homeless families could just show up and find a spot to sleep, but again, like evictions, he had no experience with them, and didn’t even know how to get started. Braddock’s words at the hospital echoed in his memory, “Appointed by the court, right?” The power of attorney his sister had left him was locked in the house with the rest of their stuff. He imagined a whole new set of problems arising if he—a single man—showed up at a shelter with a child in arms he couldn’t prove was his to care for. Especially one in her state. He was running low on hope that the future would turn out all right. The future! He didn’t want to think a week or even a day ahead, as it seemed each hour brought a new horror, a new reason to close his eyes and wish that none of this was happening.
His niece looked up at him, her eyes questioning why they weren’t going inside. Although her skin had a more vibrant color and fewer of those unpleasant purple veins were threading through it, her eyes were still... dead. Clearer than the day before, but not alive. She tried to climb into his lap and he pushed her gently back onto the stoop beside him. “Just give me a minute, Soph. I need to think, okay?” She stared, wrinkling her forehead quizzically. “I can’t open the door,” he explained, “and we’ve got nowhere else to go, hon. I need to think.”
She pulled on his arm. “Open it,” she whispered.
Mitch stood and followed her to the door. She pointed at the keyhole and he pulled his keys out of his pocket and slipped the old house key in, jiggling it so she could see it wouldn’t move. He shook his head. “See? They changed it.” Mewling again, she pointed and stood up on her tiptoes. “You want to try?” he asked. He stepped aside to let her turn the key and learn for herself that it wouldn’t do what she knew it was made to do.
Sophie reached out with a slender finger and caressed the shiny brass cylinder of the new deadbolt instead. From under the tip of her tiny finger, thin tendrils snaked out across the cylinder. They turned the metal from a shiny brass hue to brown and then black. The rot spread under the cylinder collar and ate through the wood of the door. She withdrew her finger as the dark rot began to crawl back up her nail. The corrupted lock fell to pieces, clattering dully at Mitch’s feet. He stepped back from the wreckage, not wanting to let it touch him. He looked at the remains of the deadbolt and imagined the gray ruin creeping up her arm. The thought made him feel ill. Like so many other unbidden images he’d imagined of late, it was burned into the backs of his eyes, always there, haunting.
He grabbed her finger and held it up in front of his face. The purple-black veins were back and her skin was fishy pale again. The slight clarity in her eyes he’d noticed that morning had gone as well. She looked almost as bad as when he’d first picked her up from the morgue. Whatever meager healing she’d enjoyed, it was undone. She’d given it up to get them inside. Hefting her tiny body up in his arms, he gave her a big hug and held on. She squeezed back. Her hold on him was weak and limp. Destroying that lock had taken a piece of her life away. It felt like part of him died along with it. Despite that, he no longer had to think about where they were going to stay for the night. He turned the doorknob, careful not to touch any of the rot, and pushed the door open. The musty smell of a house that hadn’t been opened for weeks in the summer heat greeted them. He stepped over the threshold and breathed in the familiar scents of home that still lingered underneath.
Laying Sophie down on the sofa, he returned to the door and stripped off the eviction sticker as best as he could. The orange top layer came away easily, but left behind a sticky white square of gum and paper. He thought about picking at the rest with his fingernails, but realized he didn’t care. They were in, and the orange part was off. For tonight at least, they had someplace that was theirs. He’d face tomorrow’s problems when they arrived.
He grabbed the duffel bag off the porch and shut the door on the world, thankful that there was a slide chain to at least add a measure of security. At his feet rested a pile of neglected mail shoved through the slot by the mailman. He bent down and inspected it. Most of it was junk: credit card applications for his sister and enticements to switch his non-existent cable company. Halfway down, he found an envelope from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Housing and Community Development. He tore it open and read the notice of suspension of his participation in the Housing Choice Voucher Program—or rather, his sister, Violette’s participation. Another lack of foresight in the unimaginable future. The state had quit paying their part of the rent. His inertia had set wheels in motion—ones he couldn’t stop turning, even if he lay down underneath them.
He took the mail into the kitchen and dropped it all in the trash. There was no point appealing the decision of whatever bureaucrat at the HCVP had signed the letter. Doing so would only bring unwanted attention, and right now, he was focused on realigning his powers of social invisibility. And doing a bad job of it. There was a knock at the door. He looked at Sophie wondering if he should scoop her and their bag up and make for the back. Instead, he told her to stay quiet and out of sight, and walked to peek through the faceted window.
Two familiar men stood on the deck: the detectives from the hospital. He hadn’t seen them since they’d released him from custody. What are they doing here? Did someone see us break in and call the cops? There’s no way they could have gotten here that fast. “What do you want?” he asked through the cracked door.
“Mr. LeRoux, I’m sure you remember us.”
“Who could forget?” He knew they had just been doing their jobs, but he also knew what doing their jobs meant to a guy like him. Sometimes it meant three years of your life.
“We’ve been waiting a while for you to show up. We’d like to talk to you?”
“I already told you everything at the station.”
“Please,” Braddock said.
Mitch pushed shut the door, his hand hovering in mid-reach for the security chain as he thought about refusing to let them in. If they kicked it in, he would have nothing left to keep them safe. A chain was better than nothing. It was a tiny something, and right now, every little thing mattered. He undid the chain and opened the door.
Still dressed alike in dark suits despite the heat, Mitch had a hard time remembering which one was Braddock and which was Dixon. He thought he recollected Dixon being shorter, but he couldn’t remember.
The taller one glanced at the remnants of the deadbolt lying on the porch while the shorter one said, “You haven’t been home in a while. You neglected to let us know you were taking a trip.” The shorter one was Dixon; he was “bad cop.” Mitch got the feeling it wasn’t a shtick either; Dixon might always be on the simmering edge of a fit of rage.
“I never left town,” he said, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.
“Well, that’s not true, is it?” Dixon said. He tilted his head as if Mitch were a child lying about taking a cookie from the counter.
“What do you mean? I’ve been staying with my girlfriend.”
“Yeah, Ms. Halliday. She seems like a firecracker.” Braddock winked at him, smirking. Mitch didn’t return the smile. The fear spreading through his body kept him from feeling anything other than a building fight or flight response. Neither one of those biological imperatives was going to be worth a squirt of piss on fire against these two. Even if he didn’t have Sophie to care for, he couldn’t outrun or outgun a pair of cops on the job.
“May we come in, Mitch?” Braddock said. “Maybe we could all sit down and have a chat.”
Mitch unconsciously stepped to the side to let the men in before thinking better of it and moving back into the doorway to block their entrance. This wasn’t prison and they didn’t have the right to shake down his house any time they wanted. “Not right now, guys. I’m not feeling good and I just want to... take care of some stuff.”
“Yeah, I imagine you’ve got a lot on your plate,” Dixon said, peering over Mitch’s shoulder.
“Have I done something wrong, detectives?”
“You been to Worcester lately?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Don’t fuck us around,” Dixon interrupted. “You think we don’t know? Dead girl’s body goes missing, you go missing, the dead come back to life and here you are, home again. Where is she?”
Mitch tried not to turn around to check on whether Sophie was doing as he’d asked. If they were asking where she was, she hadn’t poked her head up. He tried to stay calm.
Braddock put a hand on Dixon’s arm. Bad Cop glanced at his partner and the two shared a silent communication. Dixon sighed heavily through his nose. “We know you’ve got your niece in there,” Braddock said. “Since she disappeared from the morgue, we’ve been watching the place, waiting for you to come home. We saw the two of you sitting on the steps. Look, as far as we’re concerned, the investigation into her death—before she came back—it isn’t closed. It’s just become… complicated is all. I don’t care what the DA says, someone’s going to be held accountable for that kid in there being a living corpse instead of a living girl. Do you follow me?”
Mitch felt their stares peeling away his skin and chipping at bone looking for the truth. The way Braddock referred to his niece, it was clear that both men were bad cop, no matter how nice one of them acted. It took every ounce of his will not to slam the door and try to run for it. Still, they weren’t arresting him yet, so he resolved to stand his ground at least for a minute longer. If he slammed the door in their faces, they’d just kick it open and take her.
“Didn’t you find Faye?” Mitch asked. “She’s the one you need to talk to.”
Braddock nodded his head. “We did. Tracked her down at her boyfriend’s place in Revere. She says she’s been staying there since she hurt her back... uh, what was it?”
“‘Helping a friend move,’” Dixon said, hooking air quotes with his fingers.
“Yeah, helping an unidentified friend move from one undisclosed location to another. She claims she was laid up with a Percocet and a cocktail on the davenport up there the night you say she and her kid, Meghan, were babysitting. The daughter and boyfriend both confirm her alibi.”
Come to Dust Page 10