Homicide Related

by Norah McClintock

  When he opened his eyes again, she was smiling up at him. She raised a hand and pushed the hair back off his forehead. Then she put both hands on his face and pulled him down and kissed him.

  He said, “You make all the bullshit go away.”

  She was still smiling, but he saw a tightness between her eyebrows. “Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

  “What I meant was—”

  A cell phone trilled.

  His. Names flashed in his mind: Jeannie. Al Szabo. Annette Girondin.

  “I better—”

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  He groped for his jeans and pulled out the phone.

  For a moment, he just stared at the display. This time he recognized the number.

  It was Teresa.

  She was hysterical.

  “I don’t have any money,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about what he was doing. You have to believe me, Dooley.”

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  “I don’t have any money,” she said again. “I—Oh my god, I think something’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

  “I’m bleeding. Something’s wrong.” She was screaming now. He had to hold the phone away from his ear.

  “Teresa, calm down.”

  Beth sat up when he said Teresa’s name. She looked at him.

  “I think it’s the baby, Dooley. Oh, shit.”

  Jesus, why had she called him of all people? What was he supposed to do?

  “Hang up the phone, Teresa. Call 9-1-1.”

  “I think it’s the baby,” she said. “I think I’m losing the baby.”

  “Teresa, listen to me. Hang up the phone. Call 9-1-1.”

  She was sobbing now. It was all he could hear.

  “Teresa, where are you?” He recognized the number but didn’t know if it was a cell phone or the cordless he had seen at the apartment. “Teresa?”

  She was at home. Dooley could picture the place. What he couldn’t remember was the street number. He had to coax it out of her while she sobbed.

  “Hang up the phone, Teresa,” he said. “I’m going to call someone, okay? I’m going to call an ambulance. Just hang up the phone.”

  She let out one last wail and then, just like that, Dooley was listening to dead air.

  He punched in 9-1-1, gave her address, and described what he thought the problem was. When he’d finished, he reached for his clothes.

  “Who’s Teresa?” Beth said.

  “She’s this girl I know. I have to go.”

  There it was again, that tightness between her eyebrows.

  “Know her how?” Beth said. “What did you just say about a baby?”

  “Beth—”

  It was probably the phone call. No, it was probably a combination of the phone call and stealth. Maybe it was completely innocent. Maybe she had got off early. Or maybe it was planned. Maybe she was checking up on Beth, which, for sure, would explain why neither he nor Beth heard anything. Dooley was standing beside the bed in nothing but his underpants, holding his jeans out in front of him, getting ready to step into them. Beth was sitting up in the bed, her bare shoulders resting against a white pillow, her breasts covered by a white sheet, watching him. Then, boom, the door to Beth’s bedroom opened and there was Beth’s mother, looking at Dooley with cold, unwelcoming eyes. Yeah, Dooley thought later, she must have been checking up on Beth because, you know what, she didn’t look the least bit surprised to see him there.

  Fifteen

  Much later that night, Dooley was downtown thinking how much had changed and how much was the same. He wished Jeffie was still around because that would make things easier. For one thing, he had always been able to trust Jeffie one hundred percent, not just on the fact of the sale but on the quality of the goods. Jeffie never screwed around with him. Jeffie always delivered. Some of the other guys he knew—okay, so they were guys he used to know—he wasn’t as sure about. Yeah, they’d make the sale. No, they wouldn’t set him up. But you had to be careful. You had to wonder what they were really selling. Back before, Dooley had never cared. Back before, it was, whatever, bring it on, the more the better, and there was no such thing as too much. But the fact that Jeffie wasn’t there anymore, the fact that there was nobody he could trust the way he’d been able to trust Jeffie, didn’t stop him from standing on the corner, eyes shifting this way and that, searching for a familiar face, his foot thrumming like Fred Astaire warming up. He was there because of everything that had happened after he had taken Teresa’s call.

  The first thing that had happened: Beth’s mother had opened the bedroom door wide and had stood there and stared at him, and what else could he do? He pulled on his jeans and reached for his T-shirt. The whole time he was getting dressed, Beth was yelling at her mother to get out, get the hell out. When her mother didn’t leave, Beth got out of bed, her naked body wrapped in that white sheet, ran to the door, and tried to push her mother out, which her mother didn’t like. So then her mother started yelling, going on about how she had trusted Beth but that she should have known better; what kind of self-respecting girl would take up with a criminal? “For God’s sake,” she said, “his uncle just murdered his mother.” Dooley had his jeans zipped up by that time—he kept thinking what would have happened if she’d showed up a couple of seconds earlier, while he was completely naked. Jesus, what a thought that was, Beth’s mother seeing him that way. Or a couple of minutes before that, when he and Beth … He pulled on his T-shirt while Beth and her mother screamed at each other, Beth saying she was seventeen now, she was legal for sex, Beth’s mother reacting to that word as if Beth had slapped her across the face, and Dooley, socks on now, sliding into his boots, realizing just how much he didn’t know about girls and women.

  He was dressed and in a hurry to get out of there, both for the original reason—Teresa—and for a new reason—Beth’s mother. But they were blocking the door, mother and daughter. They were really going at it, and Dooley understood that although his presence had precipitated the fight, it had escalated way beyond him or anything to do with him. The mother had a litany of complaints: Beth’s general lack of communication, her lack of gratitude (after all, there were plenty of other things her mother could be doing with the money she was spending, giving Beth the best education she could buy and her mother didn’t insist she get a job and help with some of the expenses the way a lot of parents did), the fact that Beth didn’t help out around the place, the fact that lately—and here Dooley was part of the grievance again, the mother throwing a dagger of a look his way—she had become insolent and talked back to her mother. Beth had a few grievances of her own: Her mother was controlling; her mother was over-protective; her mother disapproved of things she knew nothing about; her mother …

  Dooley put a hand on Beth’s hip—he loved that hip—to nudge her away from the door so that he could leave. She stepped aside without even looking at him; she was still ripping into her mother. But the mother noticed. She stiffened when she saw Dooley’s hand on the sheet covering her daughter’s hip, and Dooley knew with certainty that if the mother had had a cleaver handy, or an axe, any sharp edge, she would have hacked that hand off.

  “I’ll call you,” he whispered in Beth’s ear. Then he’d had to squeeze by the mother, who at first didn’t budge. She looked up at him, menace in her eyes. But Dooley was a lot taller than her and, to be honest, he was a little pissed with her, too, for barging in on them like that, for standing there and watching him dress, and then tearing into Beth, so, yeah, maybe he’d put a little menace on his face, too. He saw a startled look in the mother’s eyes. She shrank back and let him pass.

  The second thing that had happened: Half an hour after leaving Beth’s, he was at the hospital closest to where Jeffie used to live and was asking at the information desk in the Emergency department if Teresa was there. He was directed to a screened-in cubicle. Teresa was lying on a bed. She looked like shit. Her face was pale,
there were black smudges under her eyes from where her makeup had run, and her eyes were red from crying. One of her cheeks was swollen. Her lower lip was split open and in the process of scabbing over. There were bruises on her arms and tubes running out of them. Tears dribbled down her face. But when she saw him, she sat up and put her arms out, and, even though he didn’t know her all that well, he let her hug him. She was bony with tiny little breasts that he could feel pressing against him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money, Dooley. He didn’t leave anything.”

  “Jesus, Teresa, what happened?” he said.

  The curtain around her bed opened and—uh-oh—in stepped a uniformed police officer. She was shorter than Dooley, a slight-looking woman, but with cop eyes and a don’t-fuck-with-me cop expression on her face.

  “And you are?” she said to Dooley.

  Dooley identified himself.

  “Step outside, please,” the woman cop said.

  Dooley released Teresa gently and helped her lie back on the bed. “I’ll be back,” he said.

  Once he was outside the cubicle, the woman cop asked him to move out into the hall away from everyone.

  “Name?” she said.

  He told her.

  “What’s your relationship to the victim?”

  “Victim?” Dooley said. “What happened to her?”

  “I asked you a question,” the woman cop said in the same tone used by every cop Dooley had ever met—I’m doing the asking, I’m in charge here, and don’t even think about trying to snow me. It was easier to go along and completely counter-productive to resist.

  “I knew her boyfriend. She called me. She said she was afraid she was losing the baby. I’m the one who called 9-1-1. What happened to her?”

  “She called you?” the woman cop said. “When?”

  Dooley told her.

  “What exactly did she tell you?”

  “She said something was wrong. She said she thought she was losing the baby.”

  Another uniform, a male cop, approached them. The woman cop filled him in and he walked away again, going to check on him, Dooley knew. He stood there with the woman cop and waited. A few minutes later the male cop came back. The woman stepped aside to listen to what he had to say. When she returned to Dooley, her partner had her back.

  “What is your relationship with Teresa Delorme?” she said.

  “I told you. I knew her boyfriend.”

  “Jeffrey Eccles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know that he was murdered recently?” she said.

  “Yeah, I knew. Look, what happened to her?”

  “What did she say happened to her?” the woman cop said.

  Fucking cops. He hated their games.

  “Did someone hit her?” Dooley said.

  “Why do you think someone hit her?”

  “Because that’s what it looks like to me,” Dooley said. “Is that what happened?”

  “She says she fell down the stairs,” the woman cop said, her tone and the way she was looking at Dooley making it clear she thought that was a crock.

  Dooley supposed it was possible that was what had happened. Or maybe Teresa had thrown herself down the stairs. After all, the only person she could think of to call after Jeffie died was a waitress who used to go with Jeffie. And look who she’d called just now: Dooley—a guy she barely knew.

  “Her boyfriend just died.”

  “Was murdered,” the female cop said.

  Dooley ignored her.

  “She’s alone. She’s pregnant—”

  “She lost the baby,” the woman cop said.

  Shit.

  “Show me your hands,” the woman cop said.

  Dooley stiffened. It was always the same thing. He thought about telling her flat out, I’m seventeen; in other words, I have rights, and you have obligations. You have to caution me. You have to tell me I can call a lawyer and have an adult present. You have to tell me that I don’t even have to give you the time of day if I don’t want to. But he hadn’t done anything except answer his phone when Teresa had called. He held out his hands, palms up, even though he knew that wasn’t what the cop meant when she’d asked to see them.

  “Turn them over,” she said.

  He complied. He also told her, because she asked, exactly where he had been all afternoon. He kind of liked the idea that when the cops checked, Beth would back him up and, at the same time, Beth’s mother would freak out that the cops were investigating him—again. He answered all of the cops’ questions, and when they finally ran out of them, he went back to see Teresa.

  “What happened?” he said.

  She couldn’t even look him in the eye when she said, “I tripped on the stairs.”

  She’d lost Jeffie. She’d lost her baby. She was all alone. She was covered in bruises.

  “Come on, Teresa,” he said. “Who hit you?”

  “No one.” She still wouldn’t look at him. “I didn’t say anything. Honest.”

  “What are you talking about? Jesus, look at me, will you?”

  She stared wide-eyed at him, like a terrified child.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.

  She blinked at him as if she was having trouble processing what he was saying.

  “Those guys came to the apartment,” she said. “At first they said they were friends of Jeffie’s. Then they said Jeffie owed them money. If I’d had any, I would have given it to them, Dooley. Honest I would.”

  “Guys Jeffie owed did this to you?”

  Tears started to dribble down her face again. He passed her a tissue. She peeked up at him while she dabbed at her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t have any money. If I did, I would have given it to them. Just don’t let them hurt me anymore.”

  What?

  “You think I’m responsible?” He was glad now that she’d told the cops she’d fallen down the stairs.

  It must have been his tone. She looked directly at him for the first time.

  “You said Jeffie owed you money. Those guys came to get the money he owed. You sent them, didn’t you?”

  “Jeffie is—was—my friend, Teresa.” He couldn’t believe that she thought he would send guys over to muscle her under any circumstances, let alone when she was pregnant. “The money he borrowed, I wrote that off.”

  “So who were those guys?”

  “I don’t know. But if I were you, Teresa, I’d tell the cops.”

  She was shaking her head even before he finished speaking.

  “No way,” she said. “If I tell them about those guys, whoever sent them might come back at me. No way.”

  He couldn’t blame her. She was all alone.

  “What did the doctor say? Are they going to keep you here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You want me to find out?”

  She was so grateful for just that one thing, it made Dooley wonder what kind of life she’d had and whether Jeffie had made it better or worse. It took a few minutes, but he finally tracked down a harried young doctor who told him, no, her X-rays had checked out, there was nothing broken, there was no reason to keep her, but she needed bed rest, plenty of liquids, and she should check in with her family doctor the next day. When Dooley told Teresa that, she said she didn’t have a family doctor.

  “Weren’t you seeing someone?” Dooley said. “You know, for the baby?”

  “There’s a walk-in clinic a couple of blocks from the apartment,” she said. “I’ve been going there.”

  Dooley guessed that would have to do.

  “You want me to take you home, Teresa?”

  She started to cry again. “What if those guys come back?”

  Boy, he wished Jeffie was still alive.

  “You want to come home with me, just for tonight?” Dooley said. He couldn’t think of any other plan. “You can rest, and we can figure so
mething out tomorrow.” Maybe Jeannie would have some ideas.

  Teresa started to cry again, with gratitude this time.

  “You get dressed,” Dooley said. She looked pretty rough. He didn’t think she would be able to manage the bus and the walk from the bus to his uncle’s place. “There’s a cash machine across the street. I’m going to get some money for a taxi, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  The third thing that had happened: He’d walked through the front door of his uncle’s house, Teresa leaning heavily on him—groggy, it turned out, from some painkiller they had given her at the hospital—and directly into a shit-storm, only he didn’t realize it right away. No, right away all he saw was Jeannie, who came out of the kitchen when she heard the front door.

  “This is Teresa,” Dooley said. “She’s going to stay here tonight, if it’s okay with you.”

  Jeannie’s expression was tense and confused. Dooley couldn’t blame her.

  “Teresa, this is Jeannie.”

  Teresa nodded weakly.

  “Come on,” Dooley said. “You can sit down in here.” He helped Teresa into the living room and eased her down onto the couch. He even slipped her shoes off and helped her put her feet up. Then he pulled Jeannie toward the kitchen. “She was pregnant,” he said. “She just lost her baby and she doesn’t have any place to stay. I was—”

  Jeannie squeezed Dooley’s arm hard but too late. Someone else came out of the kitchen. Beth’s mother. She glowered at Dooley and then at Teresa, who was so out of it that she smiled back. Then she said, “I’ll see myself out.”

  Dooley glanced at Jeannie, who shook her head and waited until after the front door had closed behind Beth’s mother before she said, “You’ve had some day, Dooley.”

  “I can explain,” Dooley said.

  “I’m sure you can,” she said. “But we have company.”