Murder My Past

by Delia C. Pitts

  “Fuck you.”

  “Stay away from my mother, understand? I’m warning you. Stay out of her life. If I hear of you visiting her again, I will get a restraining order against you. The police will dispose of you like the filthy con artist you are.”

  “Buy a goddamned plane ticket and visit your mother.”

  As we talked, I paced between the bed and the kitchen peninsula. With each pass, my bark tightened into a growl. But snarling wasn’t enough. This bastard needed a beat down. I had no money to fly to Seattle. He didn’t know that. But I had a head crammed with words. So, I dealt two fistfuls.

  I said I’d be on the next plane to Seattle. I described what I’d do to his face when I landed. Spike his nose through the twisted vents of his brain. Break off his teeth at the gums. Jam his tongue down his throat. I wanted him scared shitless. I recited his work and home addresses. And the names of his law partners and clients. And the locations of his wife’s art studio and their children’s school. I threw in the names of his darling dog and cute neighbors. Carl Wiley thought he’d escaped his past by fleeing west. I wanted him to know I’d caught him. As I hung up, Carl’s sloppy retching gurgled between his curses.

  Words were good, but all that dammed energy had to explode. I tossed the phone on the bed. Then I punched a hole in the closet door. A quick right-left combo, with an uppercut finale. Splinters showered below the picture window. A dry gold heap, like straw.

  The cat hissed, then slunk under the bed. Cuts on my knuckles popped red. I grabbed a dishtowel for my hand and snatched the broom from next to the sink. But thinking about the clean-up made me thirsty. So, I bought myself a drink from the Four Roses bottle above the refrigerator. No glass, no ice. Just fast gulps of smoky heat. The bourbon burned going down. Scraped my tongue like liquid shards. I sat on the bed and sprang for another round. The bottle dangled between my knees as I swallowed. On the white dishtowel, ooze from my knuckles dried to pink. I dribbled booze to clean the scrapes. A few drops. Not too much wasted on these little nicks. Then I gargled a heavy dose to scour my throat of the taste of Carl Wiley.

  After the fifth round, the wood splinters on the floor looked nice. Brown, pretty yellow, tan. Spiky swirls like cool modern art. Herb leaped to his throne on top of the dresser. He stared at me, the shattered door, the splinters. Then me again. His eyes were golden disks of contempt. Scorn lifted his whiskers. So what? I didn’t need him. The bourbon needed me. My full attention. Those pretty splinters could lay there overnight, piled on the memory of Carl Wiley. Herb licked his golden tail as I swigged round number six.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Five

  The next afternoon, my knuckles were still raw. Despite two scrubbings, my mouth still ponged with sour grit. Drilling above my temples had smoothed to a minor tick-tock. I was sober enough to leave the apartment. Almost fit for civilized company. Plunging into Annie’s murder again hurt. But the pain cleared my head. Decades ago, selfish people had killed Norment Ross’s wife. Maybe the same careless types had murdered mine. Academia seemed a fine place to hunt for swollen egos, so I headed to New York University.

  Lounging around the bustling NYU campus was easy. But doing it without looking like a lunatic or a pervert was tough. The hangover made it harder. I should have shaved, but the stubble hid the scratches, so I took my hip tramp style downtown.

  I wanted to catch Sally Anastos on her home ground, but not at her own apartment. I aimed to keep her off-balance, not defensive. My questions about her involvement with Gerry Keith, Pearl Byrne, and Annie could prove touchy. A relaxed and confident Sally would be more open if she felt she had the upper hand. Wounded and grieving was my pitch. Also my reality, but she didn’t need to know.

  A chatty assistant in the anthropology department told me their newest post-doctoral fellow liked to swim at the university athletic facility on East 14th Street most afternoons. According to Dana, the bloodhound in tan corduroy, Sally went by the more formal Sarah now that she had the Ph.D. tacked on her name. Sarah enjoyed swimming laps for an hour in the L-shaped deep-water pool. Dana recommended the stationary bicycles, treadmills, and elliptical trainers in the aerobic fitness room. But Sarah wasn’t interested in improving her cardio health on dry land. Swimming was her jam.

  The brute gray facade of the recreation center didn’t give any cover for lounging in inconspicuous shadows. Square recessed openings sheltered the brass framed front doors and butted against the broad sidewalk. Winds hustled down the block, whipped into sharpness by the stark buildings and the metal awnings over ground floor windows. I flipped my jacket collar to fight the gusts. In front of the main entrance, a skinny tree with four brown leaves struggled from a square plot cut into the cement. I couldn’t very well lean against the tree for long without drawing attention to myself. Or damaging the tree. So, I stood straight and motionless for ten minutes. My back was okay with the plan but my throbbing head, knuckles, and feet objected.

  A cinderblock dressed as a university cop ambled by me. I’d had my fill of campus police; I didn’t want to attract his professional curiosity. So, I bought an apple from a vendor in front of the Trader Joe’s next to the rec center. Then I bought a cup of coffee from the near-by hot dog stand. I kept a close eye on the people exiting the building. No joy. Desperate to get off my feet and cover my surveillance, I took a chair at the outdoor café sheltered by the red awning labeled, “Five Napkin Burger.” From this perch at the corner of the block, I had a clear view of the rec center front door. But a waiter with lime-green hair slanting over pasty skin insisted I purchase something from the menu. I ordered a cheeseburger and paid him upfront in case I had to leave in a hurry. Despite the restaurant’s boast, I only used three napkins.

  I was looking straight at the entrance, but when Sally Anastos slid from the building, I almost missed her. She’d pulled the hood of her purple sweatshirt close around her face, covering her red curls. Tight denims frayed at the knees and black lace-up sneakers with wedge heels were a perfect downtown disguise. A black nylon backpack was slung over one shoulder. She looked nothing like the sexy sprite I remembered from our first meeting in the bar of the Continental Regent Hotel.

  I looked the same, however. Sally recognized me as soon as I stood from my table to intercept her. “You’re Rook, aren’t you? That detective boyfriend of Anniesha Perry.”

  She remembered that Annie’s cleaning service company had my name. She knew I wasn’t a boyfriend. Sally was sparring with me and put-downs were her weapon of choice. She intended to demean me or hurt me. I had to find out which.

  “Ex-husband. And yes, I’m Rook. How’re you doing, Sally? Or is it Sarah now?”

  She had the decency to blush, but stood her ground. “What are you doing so far downtown? I thought your beat was Harlem.”

  “It is. But I wanted to talk with you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, if you have the time.”

  She shivered, but didn’t decline my invitation. The narrowed hazel eyes and twist to the mouth said she was curious about me. When she shivered again, I suggested we skip the windy patio and look for a table inside the burger joint.

  My old friend the waiter tossed a raised eyebrow when I ordered another cheeseburger. But then I nodded at Sally and winked, letting my tongue peek from the corner of my mouth. I made him a collaborator in my imaginary pickup game. After pushing the hood from her head, Sally fished a pair of wire-rimmed glasses from her backpack. She scanned the menu then ordered a veggie burger and a ginger ale. It was too early for my usual four o’clock bourbon, so I settled for a diet Coke. Unprompted, my ally the waiter brought us a side order of onion rings to aid in the seduction he hoped was in progress.

  Sally and I exchanged neutral notes about her new status as a post-doctoral fellow at New York University. She liked the loose hours, the lack of teaching requirements, and the access to library and technical support. She’d already c
ompleted an article based on her cleaning service research and submitted it to a journal for consideration. Her goal for the academic year was to revise her dissertation into a publishable book. By December, she planned to be in interviews for a top academic position, probably Ivy League. Harvard was hinting, Yale was flirting. She was sure she’d land an offer by spring. Sally’s tone flattened when describing her colleagues in the NYU anthropology department. They were friendly but uninspiring.

  I didn’t care about them either, so I probed closer to my real target. “Nobody at NYU stacks up to Gerry Keith in the intellectual pizazz department?”

  “Yeah, it would be hard to match him.” Sally’s eyes blurred as she sucked the ginger ale through a straw. “He’s got more vigor in his little finger than the whole department down here.”

  Keeping the conversation on Keith was easy from there. Just drop a line and watch her bite. “I ran into him on the Alexander campus last week. I’m no expert, so you tell me: is it his ideas that are so fresh? Or is the pop in the style he delivers them with? Is it the steak or the sizzle with Gerry?”

  She preened, polishing her curls as if the supposed compliments had been aimed at her. Chlorine wafted from her skin as she warmed under my smiles.

  “Oh, I’d say both. Gerry pushes the envelope in the development of theoretical re-considerations of the intersection of class, ethnicity, and language. But he’s dynamic as a speaker and a terrific writer too. Even if he wasn’t saying anything truly important, you’d want to stop and pay attention to him. I don’t know how he does it. He’s genius.”

  Ga-ga for the great man. I’m no fem-libster, but Sally was sunk so low, it embarrassed me. Ride or die for real. When the burgers arrived, we devoted a few minutes of silence and several napkins to tackling them. I feared Sally would switch topics, but she refused to drop her hero.

  “You said you ran into Gerry at Alexander? What were you doing up there?”

  “Helping another prof sort out a little project.”

  “Private eye stuff?” Her lashes fluttered to contain the eyeroll of boredom.

  “Right. But Gerry filled me in on that prize his new book is up for this week. What’s it called again?”

  Sally’s nose scrunched as her mouth widened with pleasure. This was the chance to show off inside knowledge, so I let her drop details on the academic achievements of her idol. “It’s the Blackistone Prize. For the year’s top scholarly achievement. Gerry’s got only two other nominees running against him, so his chances are strong.”

  “Yeah, he seemed confident of the win. He told me how he planned to spend that fifty-thousand-dollar prize money.” Time to wriggle the hook until it lodged in her fond and foolish heart. “How much of a cut do you get, Sally? You were co-researcher. You must get some of the big haul, right?”

  High color ran across her cheeks: she was sliced to the quick. “I…I mean…I don’t know. I, uh… that’s a lot of money. I never heard the exact amount. You sure it’s the Blackistone Prize you’re talking about?” Her eyes scanned the restaurant, looking for someplace to land other than my face.

  “Positive. That’s what Gerry was telling me about. He went on and on about the Blackistone Prize. How winning it would nail down his academic reputation as a world-class scholar. Plus give him all that money. He bragged hard and long about that grip. The man’s pretty proud of himself and his achievement.” I sucked at the coke and waited.

  Sally crunched an onion ring, then reached across the table for the ketchup. She gave the bottle three whacks until it shot a puddle of sauce onto her plate.

  I poked at the wound I’d opened. “Gerry said they announce the prize winners this Friday afternoon at five. You invited to the ceremony?”

  “At Alexander? Friday? Yeah…um, yeah, I’ll be there.” She dragged another ring through the ketchup and took a bite before she spoke again.

  “I put my heart into that research…, cockroaches and coke everywhere..., all those people…, all the filth…” Her growl crept over the table in a soft monotone. She was speaking to herself, not me. Revisiting her past degradation, the present pushed aside.

  I clunked my glass against a fork and raised my voice to bring her around. “Gerry said you did some of the research here in New York. Where did you go?”

  She shook her head, clearing her mind to answer me. “Yeah, I went to Poughkeepsie, to interview workers at a cleaning service there. Run by a woman called Pearl Byrne.”

  “Pearl. I met her. Wasn’t she the one who was supposed to speak on a panel with Anniesha at the business conference that day… that day she died?” The catch in my voice wasn’t acting. Neither was the stitch in my gut or the ache in my chest. I pressed fingers against my belt to blunt the pain.

  Sally caught the movement and I jerked my hand onto the table top again. I shoved a spoon under the rim of my plate. I’d wanted to raise the subject of Annie to see Sally’s reaction. But I hadn’t been prepared for how it would hit me. So, Sally’s first response was to my pain, rather than her own feelings. She looked down to avoid my eyes and took a napkin from the pile next to the salt shaker. I could see her arm muscles flex as she twisted the paper underneath the table.

  “Right. Yeah, Pearl was a co-presenter on that panel with Anniesha. I think they were going to speak about something to do with our research project.” Her thin lips clamped to stem the tide of words.

  I wanted to hear more. I leaned forward. “You mean, they were going to talk about the work you and Gerry did with all those maids in their companies?”

  Sally snapped the next words, like a cornered lion tamer cracking the whip. “I guess so. How do I know what they were going to say? It wasn’t my presentation, was it? I don’t know anything about it.”

  These were the sharpest words Sally had uttered since we’d started eating. Annie’s presentation meant something to her. Something uncomfortable or unsavory or dangerous.

  “You didn’t talk with Anniesha about her presentation that night after I left you in the bar?”

  “Yeah, maybe we did. A little. Anniesha was ragging on about how exciting her talk was going to be. Pretty general stuff.” Her eyes slotted left, copper-colored pupils filling the angles of her lids. “I really… I don’t remember much -- I guess, details -- about what anybody said after the third drink, you know.”

  A slow hand ruffled the damp red curls at the nape of her neck. A tight smile stretched her lips. Pleading she was too drunk to remember was weak deflection. But Sally wasn’t going to give me any more on that.

  I shrugged and chomped on my burger. If she thought I didn’t care, she’d relax. And if she saw I was a slob, she’d give me even more. Without swallowing, I changed topics through the ground beef. “Did Rick Luna ever come back to join you three for dinner?”

  “That slippery piece of work? Yeah, he returned a few hours after you left. Caught up with us again after we moved on to dinner. That stench from his cologne was so strong, I could hardly keep my food down. Drugstore coconut and lime. Yuck!” Sally laughed and waved a hand in front of her nose. Her eyes sparkled again, inviting me to share her scorn for the boorish outsider.

  I returned the smile, as if we were conspirators. “I know what you mean, he came on a bit strong, didn’t he? But still, Rick was a pretty attractive guy. I could see why Anniesha was interested in him.”

  I was fishing and Sally bit with gusto. “Do you think she was involved with Slick Rick? I wondered about that when we were down in Miami. Obviously, she spent lots of time with him. He was vice president for marketing, so they had plenty of business reasons to be together.”

  “But also after hours? As far as you could tell?”

  “As far as I knew, yeah, maybe they did.” Sally looked doubtful as she cast her mind over the time she and Gerry Keith spent with Annie, Rick, and the others.

  “Didn’t you and Gerry hang out socially with Ann
iesha down in Miami? Hit the bars, clubs? The beach?”

  “Not really.” That sounded weak, so she rattled an explanation to puff her importance. “Well, obviously, I couldn’t do that, since I was embedded as an employee inside the company. As you know, I worked as a maid in the cleaning service. That’s how I collected most of my informant data. So, it wouldn’t make sense for me to be seen in public as the social equal of the big boss. Gerry did spend lots of time with Anniesha at the office and after. But I didn’t. Naturally.”

  “Naturally.” I let my comment hang to take the sting out of what could have been a sneer. But I wouldn’t let Sally slip off the hook now. I was on the track of information I wanted. “Come to think of it, that evening Anniesha did seem fond of Gerry. It looked like he felt the same about her. I was only with them a few hours, but I thought they clicked together. Like old friends or lovers or something. Warmer than business partners. Didn’t you get that vibe too?”

  Heat coursed up my neck. I assumed a red tint had reached my ears by the time I finished that speculation. Sally’s signs of inner turmoil matched my own: her pale throat pinkened as I spoke about Annie and Gerry’s involvement. Rosy splotches burst on her chest in the V of her unzipped sweatshirt. She touched her collarbone and then ran her fingers through her hair until the curls stood like spiked armor over her head.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Sally lowered her lids for a slow beat trying to blot out the images racing through her mind. That raunchy slide show flashed pictures of raw sex featuring a man she desired and a woman she hated. The girl blinked again, then found her voice, a thin damp squeak. “Sure, they were close. I guess you could be right.”

  We both took swigs from our drinks. I prayed to the genie of bourbon that mine would transform into something hard and smooth. But my diet Coke resisted the magic spell. After a few more nibbles on her crumbling veggie burger, Sally flicked the whip again.