“Okay,” I say, and we don’t say anything else.
The coffee shop is called Gravy and has an industrial hipster vibe, flat caps and beards with iron machinery and butcher-block countertops. The barista, barrel-chested and bearded and dressed in denim and tweed, greets Frankie and starts making two lattes. I ask him to make a third and pay for all of them over Frankie’s protests. We sit in a scarred wooden booth to wait for our drinks.
“It’s a nice place,” Frankie says. “Jamie’s a good dude.” He means the barista.
“Kinda looks like he’s in Mumford and Sons,” I say.
Frankie turns to look at Jamie, who is making our lattes at an enormous espresso machine that’s straight out of a steampunk novel. Frankie chuckles. “Guess he does,” he says. “Hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe he’s the bassist. Nobody ever remembers the bassist.”
“Paul McCartney,” I say. “John Paul Jones. Lemmy from Motörhead.”
Frankie raises his hands in mock surrender. “Point made.” He leans back and looks around, as if considering whether to invest in Gravy. “Always wondered what it takes to open up a place like this,” he says. “Do you think, ‘I wanna open a coffee bar’ and then go look for a location, or do you find the place first and—”
“So you and Caesar,” I say. The words just burst out of my mouth. Frankie is startled, his eyes wide for a moment, but then he settles back in his seat with a rueful little smile. He actually looks relieved, as if glad this can be dealt with.
“Okay,” he says evenly. “What about us?”
“Don’t look at me like that,” I say.
He frowns. “Like what?”
“I’m not a bigot, Frankie,” I say. “I’m not scared of gay people. My neighbors are gay.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And you have a Black friend, too, right?”
“Goddamn it, Frankie,” I say, because now he’s grinning at me. “I don’t care if you’re gay. Seriously. That’s not the issue.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“How come I didn’t know?” I say, and although I hate how my voice sounds, an adolescent whine with a dash of outrage, I can’t deny the pain behind my question.
He looks at me, the grin now gone, but his expression is more sad than angry. “You think I owe you an explanation? You’re upset because I didn’t tell you?”
“No to your first question,” I say. “Yes to your second.”
He nods, understanding. “You’d prefer a postcard from prison? ‘Dear Ethan, missed you the last couple of Thanksgivings, hope your sister’s okay, and by the way, I’m gay’? How would you have reacted to that?” He’s still sitting back, arm over the back of his bench, like we’re just two guys hanging out waiting for our coffee, talking about nothing important.
I think about his question for a moment. “I’d probably react the same way,” I say. “But you wouldn’t have seen me get upset. And when I would’ve seen you next, it wouldn’t have been a thing at all.” I lean forward. “Frankie, we grew up together, man. I had no idea, no sense at all. We talked about girls. Hell, you were as much in love with Sally as I was. So was all of that just … a lie?”
Frankie shakes his head, but whether in answer to my question or just as an overall reaction I don’t know, because Jamie appears just then to drop off our lattes, interrupting the thread of our conversation, and neither of us picks that thread back up as we go out to the car and drive back to Caesar and Frankie’s place.
* * *
CAESAR IS TAKING clean dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them into cabinets when we return with the coffee. He accepts his cup, sips from it, and gives a brief nod to indicate it’s acceptable.
I look at his laptop, which is closed. “No luck?” I ask, my hopes sinking.
Caesar takes another sip. “Jamie is an artist,” he says. He closes the dishwasher with his free hand. “Your girlfriend visited Fulton County Jail last week,” he adds.
It takes me a second to process what he’s saying to me. He doesn’t smile, but there’s a hint of one in his eyes. “You hacked into Fulton County?” I say, equally shocked and impressed. “That was fast.”
“No,” Caesar says, taking another sip. When he’s finished, he says, “I backed up the phone data before Mr. Lester smashed the phone with a hammer.”
Frankie gives Caesar a look that’s both amused and annoyed. “And you didn’t say anything earlier,” he says.
“Wanted my coffee first.”
“What was she doing at the jail?” I ask, not interested in Caesar’s passive-aggressive coffee game. “Did she go see someone? When did she go?”
Caesar walks over to the laptop, lifts the lid, and presses a key. The screen comes to life, showing multiple open windows. “The things a smartphone can reveal about you,” he says. “They’re like GPS trackers, record all sorts of data unless you know what to turn off. Only goes back about six months, but that ought to be enough.” He steps back and waves his latte-free hand at the screen, a ringmaster inviting me into the big tent.
I sit and look at the open windows. Each looks like a screen from an iPhone. One has a map of Atlanta dotted with several blue circles. Below the map is a list of the locations marked by those circles, along with the number of visits since a given date. “How did you do this?” I ask.
“It’s what I do,” Caesar says. He states it as a fact rather than a boast.
“It’s what you do?” I say, looking up at him. “You hack, and you know things?” Caesar and Frankie both look blankly at me. “Game of Thrones reference,” I say. “Never mind.”
“I know what Game of Thrones is,” Caesar says. “I lifted all that straight from her phone. It’s all stored under your smartphone’s privacy settings.” He smiles, a thin curve of his lips. “What a delightful example of irony.”
“I’ll make sure to use that in my next English class,” I say.
Marisa’s phone has a few locations marked in the Atlanta area: the Archer School, no surprise; a Publix on Roswell Road; the Georgia World Congress Center, where we met at the conference; an address in Buckhead. And a single visit to the Fulton County Jail off Marietta Boulevard, dated Tuesday of last week. One of the same days she took off work.
“Why would she go to the jail?” I ask.
“Only one reason to go there if you aren’t being taken there,” Frankie says.
“Jay Gardner,” I say. “In her calendar, dated last Tuesday. That’s why she went to the jail. She went to visit him.”
“Why?” Frankie asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Which is why I’m gonna to talk to the guy.”
“You can’t just roll up to the jail and talk to an inmate,” Caesar says. “You have to make an appointment. And the inmate has to say yes.”
“I’ll do that,” I say. “What about Sam Bridges, last Wednesday? Is he in jail, too?”
Caesar leans over again and brings another window forward, this one called Significant Locations with a listed history beneath. Sandy Springs, Chamblee, Dunwoody, and Marietta, all Atlanta suburbs, are there. He scrolls down, then stops at Dahlonega GA. One location is listed under Dahlonega, dated last Wednesday. Caesar clicks on it to reveal Monastery of Our Lady of Mercy. According to the screen, Marisa visited there from 9:48 AM to 11:31 AM.
“Same place she Googled,” I say. “She actually went there.”
“Looks like this Bridges dude went there too,” Frankie says. “Least that’s where she was gonna meet him. Guess he got out of prison.”
I shrug. “One way to find out.”
“Whoa,” Frankie says, holding up a hand like a traffic cop. “This guy invaded your home, güero. You’re just gonna drive to a monastery and ask to speak to him?”
“Not before I find out how to make a jail visit.” I look at Caesar. “May I use your laptop to do that? And then I’ll get out of your hair.”
Caesar is clearly growing bored with me. “Go ahead,” he says, flicking his hand at the l
aptop as if waving off a fly. “But make it quick. I have work to do.”
It isn’t until I turn back to the laptop that I realize what Frankie said. Not about Bridges invading my house. It was the first time today that Frankie called me güero. It’s a small enough gesture, but it’s enough to lighten my spirits a little.
* * *
THE WEBSITE FOR the Fulton County Jail looks like it’s Nineties-era internet, and about as easy to navigate, but I finally manage to put in a request for a video visitation with Jay Gardner and set up an account on the secure channel website the jail uses. That way I can talk to him via video link from home. Now I just have to wait and see if Gardner will agree to talk or not.
While I’m doing that, Frankie and Caesar engage in a hushed but animated discussion on the other side of the loft. I can guess that they are arguing over me, but beyond that I don’t know. I push back from the laptop and stand. “Done,” I call out, and they both turn toward me, falling silent. “Thank you for your help, both of you. I’ll get an Uber to a MARTA station.”
Frankie glances at Caesar, then back to me. “You going to the monastery now?”
“Tomorrow,” I say. “I need to check on Susannah first.”
“I’ll go with you,” Frankie says. “To the monastery.”
That simple offer eases an iron band around my heart, a band I didn’t even know was there. Caesar sighs and looks at the ceiling.
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”
“It’s not a debate,” Frankie says. “I can have Pablo cover for me at the bar.”
Quietly, Caesar says, “Mr. Lester won’t like it.”
“Mr. Lester won’t know what I’m doing,” Frankie says.
“Uh-huh,” Caesar says sardonically.
“Guys,” I say, “really, it’s okay.”
“The man says he’s okay,” Caesar says to Frankie.
“I don’t care,” Frankie says.
Something in Caesar’s face twists, just for an instant, but I see what it is—pain, and fear. His voice is low but urgent. “You cannot fix everything,” he says.
“Not trying to fix anything,” Frankie says. “I’m helping a friend.”
Caesar’s eyes are hooded, arms across his chest. “How many times did your friend come visit you in prison?”
That one sinks home. It’s a punch in the gut, and no less effective because it’s valid. Frankie wavers at that, glances at me. In that moment, I realize that he cannot come with me. As hard as it is for me to adjust to the idea of Frankie and Caesar as a couple, I have no desire to be a source of friction between the two of them. And yet some part of me shrinks at the thought of Frankie stepping back and away, tearing at whatever fragile bonds we’ve refashioned in the last couple of hours.
In the few moments I take to think about all this, though, Frankie straightens up and puts his shoulders back, less a posture of defiance than a man squaring himself to confront a difficulty. “I’m going with him,” Frankie says.
For a few moments, Frankie and Caesar are in a standoff, each gauging the other’s resolve. There’s a molten anger in Caesar that he keeps contained, although I can see it in his eyes. In contrast, Frankie is solid, implacable. And then Caesar has turned and is walking to the garage door. “I’ll let you out,” he says, and it takes me a moment to realize he’s speaking to me.
“You don’t need to do this,” I say to Frankie.
“A guy like this, you don’t go see alone,” Frankie says. “Don’t care where he is. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning.”
Caesar pulls the garage door open. The force with which he yanks it seems nearly enough to tear the door off its tracks.
As I walk out, I pause by Caesar, standing in the open garage entrance. “Thank you,” I say.
The menace in his voice is like a deep bass note that penetrates to the spine. “If anything happens to him,” Caesar says, “you and I are going to have words.”
PART III
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
—Banquo, Macbeth (3.1.26–27)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When I get home, I let Wilson out and get him fresh water and food and then call Birchwood to talk with Susannah. The nurse puts me on hold for a few minutes until finally I hear Susannah’s voice on the other end. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” I’m sitting on the floor of my living room, throwing a rope bone that Wilson chases and brings back to me with obvious pride. “How are you?”
“I’m in the psych hospital,” she says. She sounds dispirited, not quite listless but definitely down.
“You should hear the Muzak they play when they put you on hold,” I say. “It’s like bad Kenny G.”
“Isn’t that redundant?” she says, and she chuckles. It’s not much, but it’s something.
“What’s the worst thing about Birchwood?” I say. “You can tell me. The orderlies? The food? I bet it’s the food.”
She doesn’t say anything for a minute. “I can’t go to group,” she says.
“Why not?”
“Dr. Ashan doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
Wilson puts his head in my lap, the rope bone in his mouth, and growls playfully. I take the rope bone out of his mouth, throw it across the room, and watch him bound after it. “Do I need to come up there and kick his ass?” I say.
“It’s the same group Marisa was in,” Susannah says.
“Oh,” I say.
“Dr. Ashan thinks it might not be the best place for me to recover. So I’m in this other group.” There’s a rustling noise. “It’s okay. Mostly I’m just tired.”
I close my eyes. As annoying and infuriating as my sister can be, I can’t bear to hear her like this—exhausted, caged like a tiger in a zoo.
“Thanks for bringing me clothes,” she says.
“Sure,” I say, latching on to that positive note. “You need anything else?”
She sighs. “I need to find an apartment,” she says. “When I get out of here.”
“I’ll help you do that. But first you’ll stay with me. Until you find a place.”
“’Kay,” she says. “I’d better go.”
“Okay. ’Bye.”
She hangs up, and after a moment I do the same. Wilson nudges my hand, and I look down to see the rope bone on the floor and Wilson looking at me with his little head cocked to the side. “Okay, boy,” I say, and I throw the rope bone again, Wilson scampering across the hardwood floor to retrieve it and bring it back to me so I can do it again.
* * *
LATER THAT AFTERNOON my doorbell rings, causing Wilson to bark his head off, and even as I’m moving to answer the door, I know who it is. There are two of them: one, older and black, standing on my tiny front porch, the other, younger and white, behind him on the steps. They both wear the kind of off-the-rack suits worn by door-to-door salesmen and cops, and I’m certain they aren’t here to sell me a new internet plan.
“Mr. Faulkner?” the older black man says. He holds up a badge. “I’m Detective Reginald Panko with the Atlanta Police Department. This is my partner Detective Klingman.” Panko looks down at Wilson, who is cavorting at his feet. “Cute dog. May we come in?”
“Is this about Marisa Devereaux?” I ask.
The younger detective, Klingman, has a food stain on his tie and has been passing his hand over it as if he’s embarrassed by it. Now his hand stops moving and his eyes widen slightly. No poker face on that one. But Panko looks calmly at me, no change in his expression. “What about Ms. Devereaux?” he asks.
“She was found murdered this morning,” I say, and the quaver in my voice is real, as is the sudden prickling in my eyes. She may have tried to ruin my life and pushed my sister and my student to the brink of suicide, but I wanted her out of my life, not torn out of life altogether. “It’s all over school,” I add. It’s true—about an hour ago Byron Radinger sent an all-staff email simply saying that Marisa Devereaux ha
d died, that our hearts went out to her family, and that more information would be forthcoming. That set off a flurry of emails and social media posts by faculty and students alike, including a link to an 11Alive news report about a young woman found dead in the trunk of her car off of Fulton Industrial Boulevard.
Panko nods, gently, confirming my news. “We want to ask you a few questions.”
I nod. “All right. But I’d like my lawyer present. If you want, we could meet him at a police station.”
Detective Klingman is now practically gaping at me. Even Panko blinks. “All right,” he says. “But you’ll have to come with us.”
* * *
PANKO AND KLINGMAN drive me to the nearest APD station, which is in Buckhead behind a giant PetSmart store. I sit in an interrogation room with Detective Klingman, who says nothing but reads his phone, occasionally glancing at me. I gaze at the wall, trying to stay calm, and wait for Johnny Shaw to arrive.
Shaw is older than my uncle and wears a gray seersucker suit and a regimental tie, like Andy Griffith in the old Matlock TV show. There’s no folksy Southern charm about Johnny Shaw, though. When I called him earlier, he cut me off halfway through my explanation and told me to keep my mouth shut until he got to the station. Now, twenty minutes after I’ve arrived, he bursts into the interrogation room and barks, “Don’t say a single word, Ethan.” I raise my hands and shake my head. Shaw turns to Klingman. “I need a moment with my client,” he says. Klingman reluctantly stands up and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.
“Hi, Mr. Shaw,” I say. “Thank—”
“Save it,” he says. “Gus had to drive me here. You know how hard it is to drive from downtown to Buckhead in rush hour?” He pulls out a chair, the legs scraping the tile floor, and drops into it. “Your uncle told me what happened,” he says.
I look meaningfully at the closed door. It has a glass window, but currently no one is looking into the room.
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