The Devil She Knows

by Bill Loehfelm

  “Dennis have plans for the future? Ambitions?”

  Maureen chuckled, looking down at her hands in her lap. “Funny you should ask. We talked about that, kind of, earlier in the night. The future. The lack thereof. Dennis called himself the same thing he called me: a lifer. One of those people who never, one way or another, get out of the bars, the nightlife.”

  Waters nodded slowly. “I’m familiar with the term.” He looked up at Maureen. “So you’ve got no sense of a history there, between the two. Personal relationship? Business?”

  “Dennis knew about him,” Maureen said, “about the campaign and stuff. That was the whole reason Sebastian was at the Narrows. Maybe they knew each other, maybe they didn’t.” She frowned into her drink. “Work, the bar, it’s like being onstage. You’re acting all night. Dennis was in the business a long time; he had his act down cold. He could’ve hated Sebastian’s guts, they could’ve been lovers for ten years, they could’ve known each other since they were six. No one would ever see it if Dennis didn’t want them to.”

  “And if Dennis was depressed, or suicidal even,” Waters said, “over something with Sebastian or over something else entirely, it’s possible you could never have known.”

  “More than possible,” Maureen said. “It’s likely.”

  Waters rested his elbows on his knees, stared at the palms of his hands. “I would really like to know what Dennis was gonna tell you later. Obviously, he thought you could somehow help him out.”

  “He thought he could count on me.”

  “Or use you,” Waters said. “Either way, Sebastian wouldn’t want that conversation to happen. He might take steps beyond frightening you to make sure it didn’t. I’d like to know what he did and where he went after he talked to you.” Waters pulled a MetroCard from his shirt pocket, studied it. “Somebody wants you thinking hard about Dennis.” He held up the card. “That’s the reason for this.”

  Maureen sank deep into the couch, stared at her busted television. “You think Sebastian threw Dennis in front of that train?” She spread her hands. “I mean, just, forgetting everything else, that’s no way to start a run for office.”

  “Cleaning out the skeleton closet? Makes sense to me.” He looked down at his hands, then back at Maureen. “I have seen worse done, much worse, over less. Plenty of times. Trust me.”

  “Christ. You are depressing as hell.”

  “Comes with the job,” Waters said. “Sebastian could be telling you you’re next. Or maybe he’s an opportunist using a legitimate suicide to scare you. There could be no connection whatsoever, though I really doubt that. Either way, you were smart to trust your instincts last night and not be home alone.” He slipped the card into the back of his notepad, stuck the pad in his coat pocket. “I gotta ask you this, so don’t take offense. You got any embarrassing secrets of your own Sebastian might be privy to? You got any reason to have it out for him? Better that I hear it from you.”

  “Am I the real opportunist here? That’s what you’re asking. Am I setting up Sebastian? Because he’s the big shot. Because he’s some slick up-and-coming politician and I’m just a dopey cocktail waitress. You know what? That’s pretty friggin’ insulting.”

  Waters stared at her, his expression blank. “So you’re familiar with the scenario, then. You understand I’m not pulling the possibility that sometimes people try to take advantage of one another out of thin air.”

  “I’m the victim,” Maureen said. “Sebastian doesn’t need protection from me. But thanks for reminding me.”

  “That doesn’t answer my original question.”

  “No, that hump doesn’t know a thing about me.” Maureen tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, looking away from Waters. “Nobody at that bar does.” Her eyes landed on the liquor bottles, stayed there.

  “Go ahead,” Waters said. “I don’t judge.”

  Maureen started to rise from the couch, thought better of it, and sat. Maybe she’d have another after Waters left, to settle down.

  “I don’t mean to offend,” Waters said, “but you’d be surprised what women will do to get a man’s privates in a vise.”

  “No surprises here,” Maureen said. “I am a woman.”

  “Fair enough.” He stood, glancing out the window as if studying the weather. “I’ll get with the guys that caught the body and see if there was anything abnormal about the scene. They’ll have grabbed up witnesses if there were any, talked to the motorman. They’ll keep me in the loop.”

  “A dead guy on the train tracks isn’t abnormal?”

  “Unfortunately, no.” Waters waited a beat before he spoke again, scratching at his forehead. “You know anyone else at the Narrows I can talk to about Dennis? Anyone he had a personal relationship with, maybe?”

  Translation being, Maureen thought, Who was Dennis fucking?

  She thought of Tanya, of her common-knowledge secret affair with Dennis. What had Dennis told Tanya between the sheets? If Sebastian really was cleaning up his messy secrets, Tanya needed a warning and maybe protection. Maureen looked up at the huge detective waiting patiently for an answer to his question. Tanya, with her handbag full of illegal prescription pills, would go to pieces at the sight of him, if she let a cop anywhere near her in the first place. Maureen knew she’d have to talk to Tanya first, explain the real danger and ease her into talking to Waters. Maybe she’d set up some kind of “accidental” meeting between them. She could make it happen. Tanya trusted her.

  “I can’t think of anyone,” Maureen said. “Dennis and I never talked personal stuff.”

  “Well, should anyone turn up,” Waters said, “please point them in my direction.”

  “I will,” Maureen said. “Listen, when you start asking around the Narrows about Dennis, you’ll leave this conversation out of it, right? Vic, the owner, he knows Sebastian. I don’t want it getting back to him that I’ve talked to anyone, especially the police.”

  “Dennis worked at the Narrows,” Waters said, “and he died right next door. There’s nothing suspicious about the police asking questions. Sebastian was at the bar. Dennis organized his event. Because they had contact last night, it makes perfect sense that we interview him. And that we interview you.” He inflated his cheeks, tilted his head to one side, thinking. “Which could be moving him to lean on you. If he scares you enough, maybe you’ll neglect to mention seeing him after hours.”

  “To keep his connection to Dennis covered up,” Maureen said.

  “You think like a detective, Maureen. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” He walked over to the shattered TV, straightened it on its stand. “Sebastian will want his secret kept. Be smart about who you talk to. I was a good start. And just to be safe, you got somewhere you can spend a few days?”

  “You think he’ll come back?”

  “You wanna take that chance?”

  “I don’t believe this,” Maureen said, furious. “I can’t even stay in my own house. This is bullshit.”

  “I can’t promise you it’s safe here,” Waters said. “He may have come in because you weren’t here, but he may be disappointed and planning a return visit. There’s no telling. Where can you go?”

  A good question, Maureen thought. “For how long?”

  “At least a couple of days.”

  Maureen could think of only one person who could put her up for that long. Her mom. God, that was the last thing she wanted to do. She almost preferred running into Sebastian to spending a few days with Mom. “I could go to my mother’s.”

  “Do that,” Waters said. He held out a business card. “You need anything, anything sets off your alarm bells, you call me, day or night. Anytime. I mean that. That card has the precinct number and my cell. I’ll do everything I can, Maureen, but nobody can protect you better than you can. Be smart.”

  Maureen took the card, tucking it under her cell phone on the coffee table. She walked with Waters to the door. He stopped as Maureen opened it.

  “Ask the
knucklehead upstairs to keep his eyes and ears open while you’re gone,” Waters said, “and to call me if anything happens.” He waved away his words with his hand. “Scratch that. I’ll tell him myself.”

  Waters touched his knuckle to his forehead, as if tipping his hat, and ambled off down the hall. Maureen eased the door closed behind him and locked it. She ran her fingers through her hair. She was alone, she realized, all alone for the first time since she’d stumbled out of Dennis’s office.

  She walked into the kitchen, grabbing her cell and Waters’s card off the coffee table on her way through the living room. She dumped the rest of her screwdriver down the drain and stood there, holding the glass in her hand, staring at the mess in the sink. Not a single dish. Not one pot or pan. Nothing but highball glasses, coffee mugs, and tarnished silverware she’d used to eat takeout right from the carton. Sad.

  She hit the hot water, poured the last of her watered-down dish soap into a ratty sponge, and tossed the empty soap bottle in the trash. No need to get more if she wasn’t going to be home for a while. Steam warming her cheeks, she started the washing with the last glass she’d used, then set to scrubbing everything else in the sink, twice, running the water hot enough to turn her hands bright red. How good it was gonna feel, she thought, to get in the shower and wash her whole body under water that hot. She’d step back out into the world feeling renewed. She’d be pulsing cardinal red, so clean her skin would squeak like immaculate glass.

  When she finished the washing, wiping her throbbing hands on a dish towel, she studied the drying rack by the sink. When this ordeal at the Narrows was over, things would change. No more feeding the birds with more consistency and care than she fed herself. Once a week, she’d go shopping. Meat, vegetables, fruit. Fresh, not frozen. Not cooked and delivered by strangers. Real food-group shit. Grown-up food. She laid the dishrag over the sink to dry.

  She found the phone book, tossed it on the kitchen table, and plopped down in a chair. She stared at the book’s cover, riffled the pages with her thumb. Good luck finding a working locksmith on a Sunday. She swept the phone book off the table and onto the floor. What was she thinking, anyway? The landlord had to change the locks. And that asshole would make her pay for it. Maybe she could get Paul to do it. Or maybe that wasn’t such a good idea; a favor that size would require serious flirting. Good luck getting Paul off her back after that. She didn’t need to owe that guy another favor, this one bigger than the last. Like I need to be getting the landlord’s attention anyway, she thought. If I can’t go back to work soon, I’ll never make the rent. No way I’m borrowing money from Vic, no matter what he says. And I’m definitely not asking my mother.

  If I was Waters’s size, Maureen thought, I could get the money, plenty of money, from Sebastian. If I was the size of a grizzly, I could threaten to paint Sebastian’s secret all over town and get paid like crazy not to do it. I could beat the shit out of him just to make a point. But I’m not Waters. I’m a scared little girl who needs to call her mommy. Save the shower for after that, Maureen thought. So you can send that embarrassing conversation down the drain.

  Wearing her threadbare terry-cloth robe, her wet hair wrapped in a towel, Maureen froze when someone knocked on her door. Relax, she told herself. She pulled the robe closed at the collar, tightened the belt. It’s John, coming to check up. Or it’s Waters. He’s put the whole thing to bed already. Her visitor knocked again. Answer the door, Maureen. What’re you afraid of? On her way to the door, she stopped in the kitchen and dug her knife out of her purse. She dropped the knife in the pocket of her robe.

  At the door she took a deep breath, held it, and put her eye to the peephole. For chrissakes. She blew out her breath. It was Paul, the landlord’s kid. When he raised his hand to knock again, Maureen yanked open her door.

  “What?”

  “Oh, hey, Maureen,” Paul said. Automatically, he tried peeking down her robe but caught himself right away and directed his eyes over her shoulder. “How’s the ceiling fan holding up? I see it hanging there.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “It’s not turning. Is it broke? I can fix it for you, no problem.”

  “It’s not broken,” Maureen said. “It’s winter.”

  “About that,” Paul said, now staring at her forehead, “now that you mention it, there’s a switch on the fan, makes it turn backward. It’ll blow the heat back toward the floor. ’Cause heat, you know, it rises.” A pause. “Obviously.”

  Paul blushed, both cheeks turning tomato red. Maureen checked her neckline. She had nothing showing. What was he, twenty? Twenty-one? Too old to be blushing and giggly. Maureen felt kind of sorry for him and kind of disgusted at the same time. True, he’d had a crush on her since she’d moved in, and she was standing there in her bathrobe. But still, what was this, eighth grade? She knew the best thing for both of them was an end to the conversation.

  “The ceiling fan is fine,” she said. “Is that really what you’re here for?”

  “Well, no. I just noticed it when you opened the door.”

  “What can I do for you?” Maureen asked. “I gotta go to work.” She wanted to be gracious, the guy really was harmless, but it was chilly in the hall and, harmless or not, there was no way she was asking Paul into her place.

  “My dad asked me to talk to you,” Paul said. “It’s about last night.”

  “What about last night?”

  “I had to come up here.”

  “Why?” Maureen got up on her toes and in Paul’s face. “Who was here last night? Did you see someone? This is very, very important.” She waited for Paul to ask why. He didn’t. “My new TV got broken.”

  Paul leaned back, away from Maureen, keeping his feet rooted to his spot just the other side of her door. “My father sent me over here last night. To let those cops in.”

  Maureen thumped down onto her heels. “What cops?”

  “The cops that broke your TV, I guess,” Paul said. “Look, my dad called me last night, late, and told me I had to meet these two cops over here. That they had called him and told him they needed to get into your place. So he sent me here to let them in.”

  “And they had a warrant? You saw it, right? The warrant. They had badges, right?”

  “I didn’t see a warrant,” Paul said. “I didn’t see badges. They had guns; I saw those.”

  “Jesus Christ. You’re sure they were cops?”

  “Whadda you want from me?” Paul said. “It’s my job to check? Listen, it was late, I was high as a motherfucker. I didn’t feel in a position to be checking IDs. I didn’t want those guys checking me out too close either, know what I mean? My dad said let the cops in, so I did. Listen, I’m not even supposed to be telling you this part.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Cops,” Paul said. “Guns, like I said. Long coats. Shirts and ties.”

  “Was one of them an older guy, tall, silver hair?”

  “They were older maybe, forties, maybe.” Paul shook his head. “I’m not real good with ages. One had dark hair, the other was a redhead. Like you, only brighter.”

  “No big fat guy, either? Going bald?” Maureen asked.

  “Like the cop that just left?” Paul asked. “No, that guy wasn’t one of them.”

  “Wait a minute,” Maureen said. “How’d you know that guy was a cop?”

  “My dad saw him out the window.” Paul cleared his throat. “He knows cops when he sees ’em, he says. So, yeah, about that. That’s why Dad sent me over right now. I wasn’t supposed to say anything over here other than my dad says you need to quit whatever’s got cops coming and going from your place. Either that, or you’re out on your…you’re out of the apartment in one month.”

  Paul was a dim bulb, Maureen thought, but even he knew those guys weren’t cops. He knew he’d been sent to Maureen’s door that afternoon with half the truth, if that, which is why he’d let slip what he had. Not that he really cared about the whole story. Nor would I, Maureen thought
, were our places reversed. Everyone has their own ass to cover, even if it still lives in Mommy and Daddy’s house. Maureen closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it. What else could Paul be doing at her door, except following up on the message from last night? Had she gotten it? What was her reaction? He’d report back to his dad, who would report back to someone else. Three guesses who waited at the end of that game of telephone.

  That had to be it. It had to be him.

  Well, she thought, looking Paul up and down, may as well put the guy to good use while I’ve got him here and send him home with a message for that silver-haired bastard sending men with guns to my door.

  “Thanks for the message, Paul,” Maureen said. “Tell your father he’s got nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. It was a big misunderstanding, and it’s already all taken care of.”

  “Okay.”

  “Make sure you tell him I said no one has anything to worry about. No one.”

  “I got it.”

  “Thanks for coming over,” Maureen said, reaching for the door. “Everything else we talked about, we’ll keep between us.”

  When Paul was gone, Maureen pressed her forehead hard against her door, squeezing her eyes shut tight. Fuck me, she thought. Waters. He’d been seen, been ID’d as a cop. Hell, she’d admitted it to Paul. How long now till Sebastian knew she was talking to the cops? It had taken him less than a day to find her address and to lean on her landlord. If she had to, she could pass off Waters’s visit as routine follow-up on Dennis. But on a Sunday morning, at her place? Not likely. She thought of Waters’s advice to relocate. Maybe it was indeed time to pack a bag.

  Maureen grabbed her phone off the coffee table. She had messages. When had the phone rung? She checked and saw she’d never turned the ringer back on after work. Another bad habit that has to end, she thought, is leaving that ringer off.

  Yeah, you need to stop missing those calls from Brad Pitt.

  One message was from Vic, checking up on her, asking if she’d heard from the cops about Dennis. Fantastic, someone else interested in her and the cops. The next call was from her mother, because it was Sunday. And the hits just kept on coming. Next came three calls from Tanya in quick succession, from earlier that morning. The first two were hang-ups. On the third, Tanya finally spoke, her voice hushed and hoarse.