I dragged fingers over my mouth, tasting the salty perspiration dripping from my nose. Last night’s kiss shimmered like a desert mirage. What did it mean to Annie? Was it a mistake? A nostalgic trip to a past we were lucky to escape? Or was this a glimpse of the life we might have led, if fortune had run our way? Could we still rewrite our story? Confusion wrestled with desire: maybe the past could be revised.
Heat from the pavement pounded through the soles of my shoes to my head. When I shoved through the hotel’s revolving door, the lobby’s stale chill air slapped my face. I blinked to repel sweat, but the drops stung my eyes. I slipped through the crowd, headed for the escalators. I took the stairs two at a time, racing around drowsy conventioneers carrying shopping bags full of treasure. From the second-floor landing, I trotted down the broad corridor toward the meeting room where I hoped to find Annie. If I hurried, I’d catch her before the session started.
I didn’t know what I wanted, but I was eager to see Annie again. Maybe her face would clear my mind and settle my heart’s direction.
I hitched a sigh and shifted on the hall bench. I ducked Archie’s soggy glance. That inside stuff wasn’t for his ears. Not yet. Not ever. But the rest of the story was. Archie bobbed his head and I continued.
Chapter
Six
By the time I had found the meeting room for Annie’s program, I was sweaty and exhausted. And no nearer an understanding of what I hoped to say when I saw her again. I was early and the rows of folding chairs weren’t filled. I chose a seat near the air conditioning vent to enjoy its cool breeze while I waited.
At ten minutes to three, a tall older woman with a cap of blonde hair took a seat behind the long table at the front of the room. Odd, Annie hadn’t appeared. She was always a meticulous planner; she’d arrive early to prepare for the presentation. I had come to the session ahead of time hoping to speak with her before the formal program began. But maybe we could arrange for another drink after the session. Or dinner tonight. Or a rollercoaster trip to the future. Together.
The blonde woman shuffled papers, consulting her laptop and then her phone. This must be Annie’s collaborator, Pearl Byrne. She was dressed like an off-duty nun in a stack of navy-blue boxes: a broad-shouldered suit jacket on top of a square skirt hemmed to an inch below her knees. Her convent-ready shoes were dark blue with squat block heels. Above them, her sturdy legs were pale as sea foam. The woman smiled and nodded at several people in the audience as we waited. She ignored me. I was one of only three men in the crowd and, as the room filled, that remained true.
At twenty-five minutes past the hour, Annie was still missing. A sheepish representative of the convention organizing committee announced the session was cancelled. Complaints rumbled from the crowd as it lumbered toward the door. I stayed in my seat as the grumbling women shuffled around me. Head down, I eyed my phone for another call to Annie.
I didn’t catch the movement in my row until the blonde woman from the front sat in a chair beside me. “You’re Mr. Rook, aren’t you?”
She shook my hand with a firm grasp. Her palm was calloused, the knuckles leathery and thick. My raised eyebrows drew an explanation. “There weren’t many men in the audience. And you’re just like Anniesha described you: tall, rangy, good-looking.”
She smiled, showing small teeth in lots of gum. “I’m Pearl Byrne. Anniesha and I were supposed to do this session together.” A frown drew two lines between her milky blue eyes. “I’m surprised she didn’t show. She was so excited about it when we talked yesterday afternoon. Jumping out of her skin, she was. I can’t figure out what happened. Have you heard from her?”
“Not since last night. We had drinks together in the bar downstairs.” I swallowed hard, then fidgeted with the phone. “She invited me to come to the session this afternoon. I haven’t spoken to her today. Have you?”
“No. This isn’t like Anniesha. She’s all business. Responsibility personified. I can’t imagine what kept her from getting here on time.”
I glanced at my phone again. “I tried her room several times. No answer. Maybe the hotel manager can help.”
Pearl and I wove our way through the congested halls and down the escalator to the hotel’s main entrance. Scanning the lobby, I glimpsed a patent-leather head spurt from the revolving door and into the crowd. Maybe Rick Luna. I was too distracted to follow the darting figure in a pastel suit.
At the front desk, we explained our concern. I asked for someone to go to Annie’s room. The clerk was cordial as she glanced at my fists flexing on the counter. Our request was above her pay grade. She referred us to the manager, Mr. Stevens, who tried four times to contact Annie by house phone.
Brock Stevens was a sweaty loaf of bread squeezed into a red vest. His black pants were shiny in the knees and torn at the left pocket. He twisted his fingers like a school girl as he resisted our pleas for action. Stevens asked why we thought Annie was still in her room. Couldn’t she be out shopping? Or meeting a friend for lunch? Maybe she had tickets for a Broadway matinée. Due diligence was his motto, tact and discretion defined his method. His mild common sense drove me crazy. I blinked three times to stifle my rage. The flickering made Stevens look shifty, but that wasn’t his fault.
Delay sent alarm bells clanging in the back of my head, at the exact spot where the hangover headache had hit four hours earlier. For each second we hesitated, another thump pounded my skull. As I fumed, Pearl kept cool. She spoke in the sing-song cadence of a nun facing a class of mulish sixth graders: explain, point, smile, repeat. She described the aborted presentation and our attempts to call Annie. Three times she covered the same ground. After each verse, Stevens balked.
I rotated my shoulders to blunt the returning headache. And bumped into the phony grin of Little Ricky Luna. His daytime outfit of lime shirt and powder blue suit emphasized the luggage-tan color of his throat. A thirsty woman in a navy dress with white polka-dots stared along the counter at him. He looked that good.
Luna’s greeting wasn’t warm. “You still hanging around, Rook?” The noisy crowd at the registration desk jostled him into my face. He’d had fish tacos for lunch.
“Yeah. You too?” Sunlight picked threads of gold in his black hair. If possible, I hated him more on second viewing.
“I’m registered here. Spent the night and everything.” He grinned like he’d won the Megabillions sweepstakes.
Wrangling with this junior pest wasn’t my aim. Unless pushed. “I’m looking for Anniesha. You see her?”
“None of your business if I did.” More teeth, black eyebrows hopping.
“I’m making it my business. Ricky.”
He smirked and puffed his glossy chest, a bantam on display for the admiring chickens. He thrust his chin at me. “She told me about the divorce, Rook. She got lucky when she dumped you.”
“That what she said?” Heat raced from my collar to my hairline. My belt and shoes tightened as I rocked forward.
Luna’s grin twisted with juicy intimacy. “Use your imagination, cowboy.”
“Use this.” I slapped his chiseled left cheekbone. Pearl Byrne turned her head at the thwack of palm against skin. The lustful woman in polka-dots bugged her eyes, thick tongue darting over lower lip. No one else noticed.
Luna whined through a smirk. “Now I see why Annie called you a fucking animal.” He touched his face. Pink jumped under the twelve o’clock shadow on his left cheek. “Only Annie spelled it P-I-G.”
I slapped him on the right. “Don’t say her name again, asshole.” Luna gasped, his palm fluttering in front of his mouth. I curled my fingers into a fist. Was the lounge hostess around to witness her race riot fears coming true? I didn’t care: Rick Luna needed clarity. I’d deliver it. Before I could raise my hand again, Rick flipped the hem of his baby blue coat. Jammed into his belt was a small pistol, gleaming black against the white patent leather.
His lips peeled from his teeth in a snarl. “Go ahead. Try me.”
Pearl Byrne stepped between us, heavy fingers on my forearm, a worried Mother Superior breaking up a school yard squabble. “Please, Mr. Rook, let’s go. The manager will take us to Anniesha’s room now.”
Pearl herded me away from Luna. He yipped and fussed like a lap dog until we reached the elevator bank. Ricky lucked out; gun or no gun, I’d settle him later, after I found Annie.
Stevens fiddled with the key card to unlock the door to Annie’s room. I let Stevens enter the room first. I angled my elbow to block Pearl’s view from the hall. I saw Annie; her blank face and naked legs told me she was dead. She’d been dumped in a heap on the floor. Erased, stolen from me. There was nothing I could do to reclaim her. My orders to the gaping manager spewed with professional ease, my voice brittle as the first ice of winter. As he fumbled for his phone, I retreated toward the door, shoes dragging over the spongy carpet, my eyes on Annie’s sprawled body.
Thinking over those scenes as I unspooled them for Archie, my mind clouded. Details that should have been certain crumbled into dust. Facts I should have gripped for close examination dissolved and blew away as I talked. I tried to capture the scene in the murder room. I wanted to remember everything. But the effort boxed me; the facts fled.
I remembered how Pearl barreled into my back at the entrance. But she must have glimpsed Annie. Her shrieks wrenched Stevens from his daze. On my instructions, he shouted into his phone, louder with each command. As if he could whip chaos into order with a raised voice.
In the hall, Pearl’s face stiffened, flat and gray as pavement. The blue in her eyes flashed, then sank under a wave of tears. I wrapped Pearl in my arms. The folds of my shirt muffled her cries. Soap fumes mixed with warm vanilla on the pale skin of her neck. After the initial wave of sobs, Pearl wrestled her hand between our bodies. She touched her fingers to the four points of the cross as she mumbled prayers of remorse. Useless gestures, empty words.
I wanted to return and do something useful for Annie: straighten the foul bed covers; unplug the harsh table lamp; throw a blanket over the destruction. Anything important, anything for my wife. But Pearl needed me. So, I stayed in the corridor, my arm across her heaving shoulders. She dropped her head on my chest, the yellow petals of her hair fanned over my blue shirt. Freckles floated under her translucent skin, like flakes of rust in soapy water.
The cops landed in battalions, rustling with official purpose. The first surge of police seized the hotel room and established their beach head. A second wave arrived: the caring squad. A female officer crumpled a tissue into my hand and offered me a bottle of water. I shook my head and stuffed the Kleenex into my breast pocket beneath Pearl’s tears. Another woman patted Pearl on the arm, and led her away. Without Pearl’s sudsy warmth beside me, the damp spots on my shirt chilled my chest.
Hollowed out, I had waited on the bench until Archie Lin came and listened.
When I ended my story, Archie stayed on that bench. It took an hour for the cops to finish the ugly business of cataloging the details of Annie’s death. Strangers zipped plastic bags on both hands, preserving evidence. A plastic cap snapped over her hair. Other strangers threw a white sheet over her pink kimono. Another pair hoisted her by the shoulders and ankles onto a stretcher. They jerked the gurney over the door frame, jostling her tiny body.
I didn’t have a title or a claim on her. Our time was up. Our past murdered. I watched, drained and silent, as strangers swept Annie down the corridor away from me forever.
Archie walked me through the hotel lobby, his nails gripping my elbow. On the street, I turned toward the subway entrance, but Archie called a hired car. I rode the empty miles to Harlem above ground.
Chapter
Seven
In the hours after Annie’s murder, I walked. A lot. Misery dogged me, but I kept walking.
My Harlem streets were choked with pink fog that night. Not the flushed haze of forgiveness that blankets memory in a warm mist. The other kind of vapor – a vile rosy pollution, putrid and sticky. Remorse’s lurid pink smoke spotlighted every past fault, every misstep, every wrong turn of my life in a sickly glow.
The morning after Annie died, I walked to my office. Pink haze still draped each lamp post. But my gray metal cabinets and aluminum blinds corralled their dingy files and dim light without new demands. Those dusty surfaces lent a familiarity that played like comfort. I deleted eighty-five messages from the spam file on my laptop: those Nigerian princes, political wizards, and male enhancement peddlers could live without me. I took phone calls from people who’d misplaced their necklaces or their pension checks. I downed coffee and dry cornflakes at my desk.
I read online news reports of Annie’s death. Seeing her picture, the one from the convention program, jolted the numbness from my heart. Her face reminded me of the job I had to do. The news stories were short and jumbled. Maybe the reporters were eager to move on to another, sexier, incident. Maybe the murder of a black executive from a small maid service didn’t hit enough juicy notes. Too minor, too obscure, too Florida for above-the-fold coverage in the Big Apple.
But she was my wife; that made her death my case. I gulped more coffee and wrote notes on yellow legal pads. I covered four pages with my scribbles. I wanted to remember everything from my last conversation with Annie. As I reread my notes, I etched black arrows next to two names. Then I walked home.
Brina dropped by my studio that evening to bring sandwiches and feed the cat. Herb ate, I didn’t. The cat grated. Selfish, unfeeling, and greedy, Herb didn’t care about me, so I returned the sentiment. Didn’t matter if he ate or starved. I wanted nothing to do with him.
After washing two dishes and three glasses, Brina plated the sandwiches she’d brought. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want, so I made roast beef on pumpernickel and tuna on rye.” She pushed the plate across the kitchen peninsula toward me.
I grunted and slumped deeper into the arm chair.
“Or I’ve got cheddar, sliced thick the way you like.” She held up the cheese square like a snapshot. I lifted my head but didn’t say anything. She shifted her jaw right, then left. I looked away before the tears in her eyes had a chance to fall.
I shook off the comfort food. The sandwiches went into the fridge untouched.
When Brina retreated to the bathroom, I stood in front of the picture window to let the yellow city lights and white stars dazzle my aching eyes. I heard scrabbling noises from behind the bathroom door. I thought she must be rummaging under the sink. After a moment of silence, water rushed in a muted torrent. Scraping sounds, then more liquid gushes. She was scrubbing the bathroom.
I didn’t have the heart to stop her. She wanted to comfort me, take care of me. A wave of guilt surged through my chest. I’d thought of leaving Brina. I’d imagined building a life without her. A future built on promises the past had failed to deliver. Even with Annie gone, I still thought about it.
Brina returned to the main room ten minutes later, her knuckles striped with red scratches that matched the red along her eyelids. When she smiled, I could see where she’d chewed flakes of skin from her lower lip.
She waved her arm around the apartment, as if it were a grand ballroom. “You shouldn’t stay here by yourself tonight.” When I opened my mouth to object, she interrupted, “I won’t let you. And that’s final.” She folded back the quilt and sat on the bed, defiance mixed with hope flitting across her face.
I didn’t want comfort food and I didn’t want pity sex. While she undressed, I turned again to the window, as if we were modest college roommates. The sky had darkened to somber shades of purple; pink-tipped clouds first choked the amber moon, then swallowed it. Brina slept in my bed; I sank into the high-backed chair, watching airplanes streak past the window. After staring for ninety minutes, I charted the floorboards, trudging from the kitchen peninsula to the bathroom door,
past the oak table, the chair, the chest-of-drawers, and around again to the refrigerator. I stumbled once on the blue-gray rug, then remembered to skirt it on the next twenty trips across the room. I didn’t touch the cat. I didn’t touch Brina. I didn’t sleep.
Saturday, the second day after Annie’s death, Archie Lin dragged me to the Continental, claiming he needed help scouring the hotel room for clues. He was lying, but I went along with the charade anyway. I wanted to inspect the room and Archie was my official ticket.
Room 1823 looked barren and smelled stale. Despite the air conditioning, a hint of Annie’s candy perfume remained, even after forty-eight hours behind crime scene yellow tape. We snapped on blue plastic gloves for our inspection. Archie moved clockwise around the perimeter of the room, while I churned in the opposite direction. After ten minutes, we met at the foot of the bed and sat on the bench, shoulder to shoulder.
Archie dropped some general news first. “Her brothers come to pick up the body tomorrow. Said the funeral would be back home in Texas. You going?”
“No.”
Her family didn’t like me before we got married. I’d brought a duffle-load of trouble with my mixed races and my double-take on languages and my disappearing act of a father. Too many borders, too few boundaries. Her brothers threw a party when we divorced. Annie’s people couldn’t stand me then. They didn’t want me now. And I didn’t need the pain. But Archie could guess whatever he liked. I wasn’t talking.
Switching to the job, he probed further. “You think of anything else since?” He knew me, knew I’d taken on this murder as my own case.
Murder My Past Page 6