The Consultant

by Sean Oliver

  “That’s how you’re going to get through all this, aren’t you?” he said. “You’re going to keep doing that with your phone and you’re going to sit and ask your father to pass the Danish.”

  “Better than hiding in a bathroom, scared of the world.”

  “I’m not scared. That’s not the feeling.”

  “Then what is?”

  He took some time. She watched his eyes lock on a spot on the wall. He was scanning through some inventory and clearly not finding something. She wasn’t sure she wanted honesty. She wanted him to shut the hell up and get back out there and just scan shit. All that stuff works itself out, but the registry will surely not.

  But he spoke, and without looking at her. He kept his eyes on the wall.

  “I cannot explain this, and a huge part of me is screaming that I should not say this to you, but I just have the feeling that July—our wedding—is never going to happen.”

  Deanna had nothing to say. It was honest.

  She tossed the barcode scanner onto the sink and folded her arms. She leaned there, the wind out of her sails.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  IT WAS THE quietest car ride Deanna ever had. She sat and said nothing. Jared drove and didn’t offer anything, either. He’d been more silent than usual lately, more distant. He was more of a lot of things lately—all things she didn’t necessarily want. And he was a lot less of the things she did want.

  In truth Deanna wasn’t mad at him. She was mad, yes. But madder at the shattering of the wedding she wanted so badly than at Jared in particular. Words had been spoken tonight that put those plans in limbo. The thing she’d thought about every day for the past eight months would now unnerve her and cause her stress. The first thing on her mind upon waking and the last thought that lulled her to sleep, her wedding, was now on the verge of bringing her to tears.

  They were two minutes from their building and all she wanted was to get inside and lock herself in the bathroom. His company was making her itch, like she had to say something, but she didn’t want to speak at all. His confusion frustrated her and she’d been sensing it for a while. But his verbalizing it was a dagger. And she wanted to be alone.

  They were parked and headed up the elevator in record time. Jared was a step behind Deanna, who stomped out of the elevator and down the hallway to their unit, but then stopped short. Jared almost plowed into her, as his head was down while walking.

  “What?” he said.

  She gestured to their door, which was ajar.

  “Did you leave it open when you left today?” she asked. He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “This morning? I left before you today.” He was thinking. He opened his mouth to speak, but didn’t. “Jared,” she whispered, “yes or fucking no? Could you have left that open?”

  “No, no. Of course not.” He held her arm and walked her back away from the door a dozen paces or so. “You have your mace?”

  She reached into her bag and gave him a small container of pepper spray. He started toward the door.

  “Jared, don’t.” He waved her off and went to the door. She slid up behind him. “I’m coming, too.”

  “No,” he whispered. “Get back.”

  “The hell I will. This is my place, too, and I want a piece of the son of a bitch.”

  Jared shook his head. He pushed his way inside. It was dark. He flipped on the living room light and took a second to look around from the doorway. Nothing seemed out of place. Deanna walked past him into the kitchen. She slid a butcher knife out of the drawer and started down the hallway toward the bedroom.

  “Jesus, Dee…wait.”

  She was already past him. Who had the balls to break in there with a doorman and cameras all over the lobby? He wouldn’t have balls for long. Deanna slowed her pace and raised the knife as she neared the bedroom door. Jared’s dark sense of humor nearly took the reins and made him apologize to Deanna for telling her they’d never use a knife that big for anything when she bought the set. But they arrived at the bedroom door before he could. The light was on and the door was half closed.

  Jared caught up to Deanna and held her still. He reached out a hand and slowly pushed the door open. It gradually revealed a room undisturbed. With each inch he pushed the door open, they could see a little more of the orderly room.

  Foot of the bed now visible—looked fine. Floor around the bed, fine.

  More of the bed. Someone in a dress, on the bed. White dress. Deanna’s heart was off to the races. Jared pushed the door more.

  More of the bed. Someone in a wedding gown.

  “Oh, my God,” Jared muttered, pushing the door all the way open.

  Until they could see the head area, it looked like somebody was wearing the gown. It had form, but from the deflated arms it was clear that it was empty.

  Deanna brought hand to her mouth and crept into the room. The dress was larger than anything she’d be able to wear, and it certainly wasn’t hers. That was already chosen and sitting comfortably in the designer’s shop. This was a vintage type—frilly, lacy. It was laying in the center of the bed, deliberately and carefully posed.

  Jared grabbed Deanna’s arm and tried to pull her out.

  “We gotta get out of here,” he said. “I’m calling the police. Let’s wait downstairs.” She nodded, now trembling. They needed to get out. The sick bastard who put the dress in there could still be in a closet or the bathroom. They should bolt.

  But Deanna was looking at the midsection of the dress. That part was definitely not empty. She’d initially thought someone was wearing the dress. Now it was clear that something was in it.

  “Come on, come on,” Jared pleaded through accelerating breaths.

  She stepped closer to the bed. She reached out and poked the gown’s chest. It compressed easily, like packing peanuts might be stuffed inside.

  “Screw this,” Jared said from behind her. “Siri, call 9-1-1.”

  Deanna placed her whole palm on the chest and pushed down. It was crunchy inside, like balled newspaper maybe. Were they trying to make a paper body inside? That would be even sicker than posing the dress.

  “Yes, hello, we had a break-in at 1550 River Street…”

  Deanna slid her hand down through the neck of the dress, feeling her way down, through something. Lots of something.

  “…they may still be in here, please send a unit right away…”

  Papers—cut, crumpled, folded. She pulled some out and tossed them on the pillow. It wasn’t newspaper, wasn’t garbage, thought it was hard to see at first.

  “…we are still inside…”

  The papers fell on the pillow—some sliding off, some staying on. All of them with a face on them. All the same picture, all the same face.

  “…yes, we will…we are getting out now…”

  Deanna shoved her hands into the dress and pulled out the hundreds of cutouts of Trisha’s face, smiling at her. More and more. Deanna was growling through tears as she savagely tore the printed pictures out of the dress and threw them all over her bedroom.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE FOUR OF them stood around the bed just looking down at the gown and little cutouts of Trisha’s face, strewn about. Two Carson PD uniformed officers stood on the one side, Jared and Deanna on the other, his arm around her. Deanna had her hands clasped, drawn to her mouth, looking like she was warming them with her breath. She was staring intently at the scene before her, unable to take her eyes from it. Jared rubbed her back gently, but didn’t even feel him there. The only thing in that room with her lay on her bed.

  “Weird, for sure,” the smaller officer said. “It’s your dress?”

  Deanna shook her head.

  “Hmm,” the officer said.

  “Sir,” the taller one said to Jared, who looked across the bed to him. “You should look around and take a quick inventory, see what’s missing. We cleared the place. It’s safe.”

  “Right.” He leaned in to Deanna. “Babe, you good fo
r a minute?”

  She kept her eyes on the gown. How many damn pictures were there? All cut out, trimmed around Trisha’s head. It was tedious, obsessive. Why her? Why Trisha?

  Why was Deanna pushed into an oncoming car?

  Why did George have that laptop?

  “Babe?”

  “Okay, yeah. Go. Check my jewelry box first.”

  “Miss,” the tall officer began, “we are having a tech come and look for prints, so why don’t we head in the living room and leave the scene as it is.”

  “Prints on the dress?” she asked.

  “Probably not. But the papers and surfaces around the apartment.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene below her. Her chest heaved as she drew in the polluted air of her violated home. She vacillated between fear and fury. She couldn’t move. Wouldn’t.

  “Miss?” he said again. “Let’s go into the living room.”

  “She’s alright,” said a voice entering the room. Detective O’Malley walked into the bedroom and headed to the bedside, next to the cops. “I see that face on her. She’d doing half our job for us right now. Those wheels are turning.” He looked over and smiled at Deanna.

  She nodded and started picking at her bottom lip.

  “One of you guys stay with the husband and the others should be outside the unit, watching the door,” the detective said. “I don’t want neighbors touching it and ruining a possible print.”

  “Okay.” They headed out. O’Malley looked down at the odd display. Deanna, comforted to see the detective, watched him. He looked down at the pictures.

  “That’s certainly her,” O’Malley said. He leaned over the bed, his face a foot from the cutouts. “Driver’s license?”

  Deanna put on a quizzical face.

  “The picture,” he said. “Her expression, the harsh lighting, blue background. Looks like a license photo. I’ll have to check the system again. Could be a passport, too.” He stood again and walked the perimeter of the bed, still looking down at it. “Not just a B & E anymore, that’s for sure. Those pictures change the ballgame.”

  “That what they said?” Deanna asked.

  He nodded. “Came in as a home invasion. Buildings like this, downtown, we assume it’s a burglary.” They looked down at the bed some more. They were both looking at Trisha’s face and likely thinking the same thing.

  “Find anything yet?” Deanna said, meekly. Good news would have been told to her already.

  “Not even her purse.”

  Deanna shook her head, fighting tears. “Why?” she said. It was O’Malley’s turn to shake his head.

  “Who?” he asked.

  Two crime scene techs entered the room behind O’Malley.

  “Hey, Irish,” a jovial, short, female tech said.

  “Hi, Bernadette.”

  She entered the room and looked at the scene on the bed. “Well, either I’m losing my touch or your body’s missing.”

  “No body today, hon. But lots of little papers we need processed for prints, along with dusting any common surfaces from the door through to the bedroom.”

  “All that paper?” she asked.

  “Yeah. One might have a print.” He looked over to Deanna and motioned out of the room. “Let’s leave Miss Bernadette to her work. She’s got plenty ahead of her.”

  “No love for me, Irish.” Deanna and O’Malley passed the tech on their way out. She looked up at Deanna as she went by. “He’s gonna marry me.”

  “Get me a print off those papers and I’ll book the hall,” O’Malley said.

  Deanna sat on her couch, her arms wrapped around herself. Jared was beside her but keeping his distance. He comforted her as much as she’d allow, but he knew the sting of his words at the mall was not gone. That sat in the stew with the break-in and made for a nasty dish.

  Across the apartment, the click of Bernadette’s camera with its bright flash punctuated their muffled conversation. It was just a backdrop to Deanna’s and Jared’s thoughts.

  O’Malley entered the unit again through the open door. There was black fingerprint powder along the doorjamb from knee to shoulder height. The same powder was on the door, the hallway wall, and probably all over the bedroom.

  The detective was putting a small notepad in his jacket pocket when he came back into the living room.

  “Anything?” Jared asked him. O’Malley shook his head.

  “Nope. Spoke with four of your neighbors. The other tenants weren’t home. No one noticed the door was open.”

  “What about fingerprints?” Deanna asked as O’Malley sat down beside her on the couch.

  “Got a bunch on the door and in the bedroom. They’ll probably be both of yours, though. Won’t know until we get back and feed them into the computer.”

  “Those little papers in the dress?” Jared asked.

  “They’re being collected and will be processed in the lab. Iodine test. Dust usually won’t work on paper.” He watched the couple—Deanna rocking and Jared running his hands through his hair, leaning over and looking at the floor. “You get along with your neighbors?”

  “Pretty much,” Jared said. Deanna shrugged and nodded. “Why?”

  “Doorman didn’t see anyone out of the ordinary come in since he started at 4:00 p.m. Got a call into the guy that was on duty earlier this afternoon. We’ll review the cameras with them also, look for anything weird. But if we don’t see anyone, we should consider people in this building. So start thinking about it.”

  “I don’t care what the cameras show,” Deanna began, “this was someone from school.”

  “Is there any chance you forgot to lock the door?” O’Malley asked Jared.

  “I always lock the door,” he said.

  “We will look at the lock after they pull prints and see if it was compromised. But those new locks aren’t easy to get through. How many teachers in your school are expert lock-pickers?”

  Deanna was shaking her head. “Someone from that school did this to me.”

  “To us,” Jared said.

  “To me,” Deanna shot back.

  “Okay, guys,” O’Malley said. “Let’s calm down. Deanna, have you thoughts about why? Why you? What do you do in that school that would make someone want to hurt you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You an overachiever? Get a lot of awards or anything like that?”

  She recoiled. “Awards? What frigging awards?”

  “I don’t know. Extra recognition? You’re in a service profession. Those types tend to dislike others that get too much attention.”

  “You’re in a service profession, too,” Deanna said to the detective. “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “Dee,” Jared reprimanded. O’Malley put up a hand.

  “No, that’s okay. Fair question. Yes, Deanna. A detective that gets a high profile case, gets a lot of press, shows up on TV and solves it can expect a lot of crap. It’s a pack mentality, and if anything makes someone stand out, the pack attacks.” The two teachers nodded along, a little out of guilt, a little out of understanding.

  “That’s not me,” Deanna said.

  “Which?” O’Malley asked. “The standout or the pack?”

  “I mean I’m not the standout. I’m the first to call out a bitch when she gets moved out of the classroom and is given a comfy chair somewhere.”

  O’Malley smiled at Jared. “Self-awareness. It’s a good thing.”

  “I don’t do anything to attract professional jealousy,” Deanna said. “Personal jealousy, maybe. Not professional.”

  “Your dad is the principal,” O’Malley said.

  “Yeah, so? I don’t get benefits because of that. It’s actually worse.” It wasn’t. But she knew in her gut that this was bigger than some nasty teacher harboring a dislike for her. She knew it was tied to Trisha.

  “I’m going to leave a patrol car in front of your building tonight. You call if anything weird happens and they’ll be up here in thirty-seconds. Me
antime, you guys keep thinking of anyone I should talk to. Anyone you think might be responsible.” He stood and walked toward the bedroom. “Get your lock changed ASAP.”

  Deanna wrestled with opening her mouth and actually saying the words on her mind. She’d been thinking them the entire night. Trisha’s laptop might provide a clue somehow, but they’d want to know where she found it. She felt ripped in half. She was betraying Trisha by not reporting what she knew about the laptop. But she was doing it so as not to betray her father.

  And why, God, why, would working to solve the murder of her best friend be betraying her father?

  THIRTY-NINE

  GEORGE WAS LEANING on the doorframe to the master bathroom. Rose was behind him in bed, still asleep, and the house was dark. Moonlight slid through the slats of the bathroom blinds, lighting one wall, glistening on the silver wallpaper. It stretched down and caught part of the sink.

  He breathed deeply and caught control of his body before it drifted away. This thing that kept happening to him was worse than the heart attack. That had made him feel tingly and strained his breathing. But this thing washed over his entire body. It rolled from the middle of his back, through his chest. Sometimes he just fell back into it, letting it take over his body.

  He could still remember everything that happened when it did fully occupy him. The Smoke was like some kind of drug injected in the spine, gradually warming the upper half of his body. Then thoughts came into his mind seemingly on their own. They were random, connected to nothing happening at the moment, nothing he was doing at that time. He moved, talked, walked just as always. But defenses were down. Someone else might just think he was tired. He could probably spend the whole day in the office with the Smoke full in him and get nothing more than a few comments from Mariana about how he mustn’t have had a good night’s sleep.

  Though he was aware when it rolled through him completely, he couldn’t reason with it. Thought and action were immediate, as if directed by remote control. He would do something and would know he was doing it. But it was like his arms and legs were mechanical.