by Diane Capri
“This belong to you?”
“Jeepers, isn’t that my name written on it?”
He slams the card down, stands. Dramatically, I might add.
“Laugh it up, Moonlight. It doesn’t take a brilliant homicide detective to know that you spent some time with Sissy this afternoon. That you drank and did coke with her. And when we find your DNA sample up inside her pussy, we’re going to prove you fucked her too. Your prints are all over the house, and the snot from your nose is all over the dollar bill you were using to suck up that white powder.”
The pulsing in my head is so intense that I can feel myself on the verge of blacking out. That’s the trouble with my damaged brain. Too much pressure can reduce me to a pile of passed out rags and bones. No choice but to breathe in and out, easily and steadily. Evenly.
“Can I go now, Detective? I have this condition with my head.”
“I know all about your little, ah, condition, Moonlight. We all do.”
“Then you know the seriousness of the situation. I wouldn’t want it to get out that you were holding a handicapped man behind closed doors without his formally being charged with anything.”
“Should we be charging you with something?”
“I’m not sure. Sissy lived in Chatham which is a million miles away from Albany.”
He sits back down, palms pressed down flat on the metal table.
“We’re at present working in cooperation with the Columbia County State Police. Chatham is too small to support its own police department. Which is none of your business it turns out.”
“Jeepers, as a tax paying citizen, I feel that I’m owed an explanation.”
“Give me the truth, Moonlight, and you can go. Did you spend time with Sissy tonight?”
“Her husband has gone missing. Or, was missing that is, until I located him tonight at Ralph’s Bar. His agent, Suzanne Bonchance, hired me to find him. Thus my comment about him being a hard man to find.”
He nods, like I’m suddenly making sense.
I add, “I started by heading out to Chatham to ask his wife some pertinent questions. Simple as that. Routine procedure for a private Dick like moi.” Turning to the one-way mirror that makes up a good portion of the painted cement block wall to my left. “You get that? Moi is French for me, moron.”
I turn back to Miller.
“Is it standard operating procedure for you to engage in sexual activity with your interviewees?” he poses, a slight smirk forming on his face.
“You’d be surprised, Miller, especially when it comes to two consenting adults who wish to perform a sexual act together in the privacy of their chosen residence.”
The place goes silent for a few beats. It tells me that our interview, such as it is, is over. For now. I should know. I used to be the one sitting across the table from me in Miller’s chair. I know the drill.
Pushing out my chair, I stand, turn back to the one-way glass and, raising my left hand and middle index finger high, flip off the audio-visual techie doing the recording.
“Yah, and fuck you too, head-case,” comes a muted voice from the great beyond.
I can’t help but laugh. Even Miller cracks a hint of a smile.
“Just like old times, huh Moonlight?”
“Let’s hope not.”
The detective leads me out of the interview room, back across the booking room, and to the door.
“Listen,” he says, before the guard sergeant hits the lock release, “if all print and DNA evidence at Sissy Walls’s home points to you, and you alone, you’re gonna need to grab yourself some professional counsel.”
I stare up into Miller eyes.
“You trying to tell me I’m suspected of murdering Mrs. Walls, Detective Miller?”
“You know how this works, Moonlight. We find out she didn’t die of natural causes exacerbated by drug use, you will become suspect number one. And until we eliminate suspect number one as a viable candidate for the title of crazy-ass murderer, you will indeed remain as such. Clear?”
“Gosh, I’m trembling with fear. I might have to lie down.”
He smiles.
“Good to see you maintain a good sense of humor. I like that coming from a dishonorably discharged cop.”
“I’m a glass half-full kind of guy,” I say.
He nods at the guard sergeant. The solid metal door buzzes, unlocks, and opens automatically.
“Enjoy the rest of your night, Moonlight,” Miller offers. “Don’t forget to pick up your gun on the way out. And by the way, we got a DWI sweep going on tonight. So I were you, I’d plan on heading straight home to sleep off your little alcohol and drug problem.”
I step on through the door praying that Roger Walls still has no idea his wife is dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BACK IN THE HEARSE I make a quick check of my cell phone. When I see that no one has called or texted, I turn the engine over and pull out of the precinct lot onto Central Avenue in the direction of Suzanne Bonchance’s townhouse. But shouldn’t I be trying to break the sad news about Sissy to Walls? Doing it to his face before he finds out from some strange cop that I was the last man to be with her before she died? Should I come clean with everything in order to avoid his wrath later on? A wrath that just might involve a firearm discharged in my general direction?
Okay, here’s the truth: While my conscience tells me to head straight back to Ralph’s Bar for the four a.m. last call in which Walls will no doubt be participating, I make the executive decision to stick with my original plan and make a beeline for my employer. To try and get a handle on the shit storm I’ve ventured into and to see how I might gently exit from it without being accused of murder, starting with Bonchance agreeing to provide the police with a rock-solid alibi for having met with Sissy this afternoon in the first place.
At this hour, Central Avenue is nearly devoid of automobile traffic. Just the occasional blue and white cruiser speeding past, no doubt prowling for drunken drivers. It’s late in the month. Time for the APD boys and girls in blue to make up their monthly quotas. I can only assume Miller wasn’t lying about the DWI sweep. I’m more than conspicuous in my big black hearse. Plus I’m more or less still drunk. But I’m not speeding, nor am I taking any more chances now that I’m solidly on Detective Miller’s radar. Last thing I need is a DWI.
When I reach Bonchance’s address on a side street that parallels the Madison Avenue hill in the city’s far-east end which is in sight of the Hudson River, I find an empty space across the street and park the hearse there. The entire street seems to be asleep.
Sleep. What a concept.
But when I get out, I can see that Suzanne is still up, at least judging by the light on in what looks to me like the living room. There’s a small stone and concrete staircase leading up to the front door, like the kind you might find attached to a townhouse in Brooklyn heights. Pretty soon I’ll have been up for twenty-four hours straight. But that doesn’t stop me from taking the stairs two at a time. Standing on the landing, my pulse pounding in my head, I thumb the doorbell three times, the sound of an electronic gong coming through the black six-panel wood door.
Suzanne answers the door as if she were expecting me for dinner some eight hours ago. She’s dressed in a sheer, white, satin nightgown which supports her substantial cleavage. Her hair is long, dark, lush, and parted neatly over her right eye. In one hand she holds a glass of champagne, and in the other, a lit cigarette—the butt end of which has been fitted into a long, black, plastic filter device. Add to this her fire engine-red lipstick, black eye shadow, and a perfect strand of white pearls wrapped around her neck, and I might confuse her for the return of Yvonne Dicarlo.
“Moonlight darling,” she says, just a hint of slur marring her words, “whatever took you so long?”
Without a word, I step inside the door, slam it closed behind me, making her eyes go wide. I grab the glass of champagne from her hand, drink down what’s left in it. Then I toss the glass to the fl
oor so that it shatters.
“Yes, Moonlight,” she says, “you may have a drink.”
That’s when I take hold of her arm, pull her into the living room, and toss her down on the couch.
“You are hurting me!” she shouts.
“Tell me what the hell is going on!”
“Whatever do you mean?” She goes for the cell phone set on the coffee table. “I’m calling the police.”
I step forward, snatch the phone from her hand, toss it to the opposite end of the couch.
“You’ve been hiding the truth from me from the start,” I say, holding tight to her wrist with my right hand. “Now the police think it’s possible I had something to do with Sissy’s death.”
“How do you know?”
“Where do you think I’ve been for the past hour? Partying until the wee hours with your star literary client? I was being interrogated by the APD. Detective Miller to be precise.”
“Was Sissy murdered?”
“It’s possible somebody tried to kiss her a permanent goodnight by stuffing a pillow in her mouth. And if Albany’s finest arrest me for it, you can bet I’m going to let them in on your little cocaine scam. The same cocaine that Sissy was doing when her heart stopped.”
Her face goes pale. She tries to pull away.
“Please let go of my arm,” she insists.
I do it.
Her cigarette has burned down to nothing—a gray, worm-like length of ash about to drop onto the white shag carpet. “Who told you about the coke?”
“I just told you. Sissy.”
“So you were with her today.”
“Yes, I paid her a visit to see if she had any idea where her husband might have run off to. Nothing unusual about that. In fact, I recall telling you I was going to interview her. We ended up doing a little partying together since by the time I got there she was already on her way to blotto. Nothing unusual about that either if it gets her to loosen up her lips.”
Bonchance grows a sly smile as the ash falls to the carpet.
“Would you be a darling, Moonlight, and get me another drink?”
There’s a bottle of opened champagne set in a silver ice bucket on the table by the fireplace. I make my way over to it while she lights another cigarette. I pour her a drink in a fresh glass.
“Get one for yourself too,” she says, ever the congenial host. “We need to calm down, think this through.”
“I’m good,” I say carrying the champagne to where she’s still seated on the couch.
She takes the glass in her hand by its stem, brings her red lips to it, drains half of it.
“Tell me, Moonlight, did you sleep with Roger’s wife?”
I don’t answer her. I don’t have to. She’s smart enough to read my face. She’s the Iron Lady after all. The master literary agent. Never mind that she’s fallen from grace or drunk as a skunk. She’s still as sharp as a dagger.
She laughs. “Now I see why you must be worried,” she says with a nod. “If the police should happen to suspect you of foul play in Sissy’s death and they find nothing but your signature all over the house and, ah, not to mention, Sissy’s cute little pink pussy, you just might be heading to Sing Sing. Now isn’t that right, Mr. Moonlight?”
“So if the cops come calling to arrest me, you’re going to provide them with the alibi I need.”
“Which is?”
“That you sent me to her place in order to gather information in the hope of finding her lost husband. Then you will confirm that I left Sissy Walls while she was still very much alive and kicking.”
“How do I know that?
“You don’t, but you can lie. You’re good at lying. You’re a literary agent.”
“And now, you’re a writer. A euphemism for professional liar. Which means, in the end, the police won’t really know who to believe, now will they?”
I take a step back knowing that I’m going to get nowhere fast with this conversation. It’s then that I notice the manuscript taking up space on the coffee table. My manuscript. The pages are dog-eared and mussed up, like she’s been reading it all night. My heart speeds up. She must see that I’m looking at my book, because she downs her drink and asks me to get her another. Which I do. Moonlight the gentleman.
I pour another glass of champagne, which I drink in one swift pull. Then I pour another for her. Bring it to her.
“Well,” I say.
“Well what, Moonlight?” she says, looking up at me with those big eyes.
“Come on, don’t play coy with me, Good Luck. What did you think of the book?”
“Come closer,” she says, her eyes lids falling to half-mast.
She sets her cigarette down in the ceramic ashtray on the table. Taking a quick drink of the champagne, she sets that down too. Then she sets herself back on the couch, running her hands through her thick hair.
I take a step forward.
“Closer,” she says.
I step around the coffee table. One more step and I will be kneeling on her.
She raises her right hand, and begins to rub me where it counts.
“Does this mean you liked my book?” I say, feeling myself grow instantly hard.
“You might say that, Moonlight,” she answers, slowly unbuckling my belt, then unbuttoning my button-fly jeans, slowly pulling them down.
“I still want some answers, Suzanne. I. Need. Answers.”
“Shhhh, Dick, shhhhh.”
She pulls me out and takes me into her mouth, stoking me gently and working me with her tongue and lips. It doesn’t take the inevitable very long, and when it happens, Suzanne Bonchance doesn’t shy away. She goes for the no mess, easy clean-up version of a perfectly executed blow job. She swallows all of me, hook, line, and DNA sinker. You might think that’s when I would take my leave. But she’s only getting started. When she stands and slips out of her silk nightgown, the morning sun is just about beginning to poke its bright morning radiant beams into the living room. Her cue to take me by the hand and lead me to the staircase.
“My bed will be much cozier than the couch,” she says, starting up the stairs.
I watch her naked loveliness climb the stairs and, like Pavlov’s dog reacting to the chiming dinner bell, I hopelessly follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMS.
Footsteps pounding up the stairs.
“Where the fuck is he?!” shouts the voice.
Roger Walls.
I jump out of bed. Naked. Trembling. Suzanne pops up, covering her naked breasts with the white comforter.
He enters into the bedroom, double-barrel shotgun gripped in both hands. A weapon he must store in the trunk of his beat up Porsche. He’s dressed in the same clothing I left him in at Ralph’s. Blue jeans, brown cowboy boots, button-down shirt under a ratty bush jacket with the sleeves rolled up. His thick gray hair is mussed and the facial skin beneath his gray beard is beet-red from anger and skyrocketing blood pressure. His brown eyes are wide and even from where I’m standing halfway across the room, I can see that beads of sweat dripping off his brow.
“Down on your knees, evil murderer!” he screams, setting the shotgun stock against his right shoulder, planting a bead on me. If he triggers both barrels at me from this distance, he will evaporate my head. I also know that if for some reason the shotgun jams, he’s still got that six-gun hidden under his bush jacket. If it isn’t loaded he’ll crush my head with it.
“Roger, please,” I beg, as I lower my naked body down on my knees, my hands raised up in surrender. “I can explain.”
“You went to my house. You got drunk and coked-up with my wife. You fucked her and then you killed her.”
“Why would I do a thing like that, Roger?”
“Roger, stop it now!” Suzanne finally chimes on. “Put that gun down at once. This is your agent speaking.”
He shifts his aim from me to Suzanne.
“Why should I listen to you? You hired this evil murdering scoundrel
to chase me down. To defoul my wife. To kill her.”
“I did no such thing, you jerk. I hired him to find you before you end up killing yourself behind the wheel of that Porsche. You are the only client I’ve got and I want you healthy and writing. What happened to Sissy was bound to happen anyway. You know what she was like, Roger. You know how she felt about you. Now put that gun down.”
He’s back to taking aim at me, his chest heaving in and out in deep breaths. The sweat pouring into his eyes.
“Suzanne’s right, Roger. I would never harm a hair on your wife’s body. I went to the Chatham house this afternoon in order to talk with her about places you might have run off to. Where else am I going to get firsthand information like that?”
“You would have done the same thing, Roger,” Suzanne says, backing me up. “You would have interviewed Sissy.”
Roger remains silent, those shotgun barrels staring me down like the opaque, bottomless pit-like eyes of the devil himself.
“Did you drink and do drugs with my wife?” Roger spits after a time.
“Yes, Roger. I did drink with her. She offered it up. She also graciously offered me a few blasts. In fact, she insisted on it.”
I see the Adam’s apple inside his substantial neck bob up and down. The shotgun barrels begin to slowly drop.
“Did you have sex with my wife?”
All the oxygen in the room seems to turn to poison, making it hard to breath. Or maybe it’s the effects of my pounding heart and my now paining arms raised up over my head. I know I could lie and pray that I can get away with it. But if my semen is discovered inside Sissy during the internal that’s sure to be a part of her autopsy, the police will have cause to arrest me, and Roger will find out the ugly truth then.
“Roger,” I say, “I’m so sorry.”
I lower my head, squeeze my eyes closed, await the explosion that will send me on my way to an eternity side by side my old man.
But that doesn’t happen.