Black Leather

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  “So you love us all the same amount?”

  “Um-hmm.” His lips brushed the top of her head and she could feel his love for her.

  “You don’t love Irene more?”

  “No, sweetheart.”

  “You love her different though, right?”

  “She’s older, and she’s a different person.”

  “I still get to sit in your lap.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Irene’s too old.”

  “You’re almost too old.”

  “Nooo.” She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. She remembered how Irene kissed his cheek, and she didn’t want to do that, she didn’t like that.

  “I have to finish my reading now.”

  “Okay. Daddy?”

  “Yes, Cynthia?”

  “When I grow up, will you marry me?”

  “I’m already married, sweetheart. When you grow up, you’ll find your own husband, and he’ll be a good man, and he’ll love you as much as I love Mommy.”

  “And I won’t have to share him with Irene.”

  He laughed, a deep chuckle that made her want to make him laugh some more. “No, sweetheart, you won’t have to share. He’ll be all yours.”

  “I want to marry somebody just like you.”

  He gave her another of those hugs, those soft hugs that almost crushed her breath, but she let him because he always did that. He might not love her as much as he loved Irene, but he loved her and was letting her know. He kissed the top of her head again, put his cheek on top of the kiss, then said, “If that’s what you want, darling, then that’s what you shall have.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted,” Cynthia whispered to the darkened room, “but that’s not exactly what I got.”

  Chapter 51

  Owen pushed the elevator button in the lobby of Irene’s building a couple of times, then leaned on it, bouncing up and down on his toes. He stood back and watched the numbers over the door descend. “Come on,” he urged it.

  “You’re going to have a heart attack before you’re forty,” Matthias said.

  “I’m going to be governor before I’m forty,” Owen said, and pushed the button again.

  Chapter 52

  Miss Lillian climbed up onto Joseph’s bed and watched him wake up.

  His eyes opened and he smiled. He didn’t seem startled, as if he half expected to see her there. The faint light coming through the vertical blinds was enough for her to see him, and she knew that she had vertical lines of light striping down her.

  “Hi,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He reached for her, and the knife, with a will of its own, snicked out.

  “Ouch! Sonofabitch!”

  He pulled his hand back and put it to his mouth, his eyes widening in surprise, in wonder, in fear.

  “Jesus Christ,” Joseph said. What the hell is this?” He sat up, holding his bleeding hand to his mouth. “And what is that smell?”

  Chapter 53

  The elevator dinged, the light went on, and the doors opened.

  Irene, dressed as Miss Lillian, stood in the doorway, poised to step out of the elevator into the lobby.

  Owen grinned. Perfect timing.

  “Hello, Irene,” he said.

  She did a double take, her brow furrowed. “Hello, Owen.” He hoped her face was turning red under all that ugly makeup.

  “It is my extreme pleasure,” Owen said, then thought about that for a moment. “No. No, it isn’t. Actually, I take no pleasure at all in informing you that you’re under arrest.”

  “That’s my job,” Matthias said.

  “Arrest?” Irene said.

  “Is it Halloween?” Matthias asked, looking sideways at Irene’s attire.

  “Bobby Milner,” Owen said, ignoring him, “took a screwdriver through the neck in his van outside The Serpent’s Tooth. There was an eyewitness.”

  “Bobby...” A vacant look came over Irene. It was a look Owen had seen before, and those who had it usually fainted shortly thereafter.

  “Screwdriver through the neck, just like Sam Begay. Only this time we have an eyewitness.”

  She didn’t seem to be tracking.

  “Eyewitness, Irene,” he said again, but she still wasn’t listening. “Me. I was the eyewitness. I was there. I saw you. I’m an unimpeachable witness.”

  She whispered something, her lips moving quietly while her eyes stared off into some inner space.

  Owen didn’t quite catch it, but it sounded kind of like one of those mantras, something about being or not being afraid.

  Chapter 54

  “Irene, what the hell...” Joseph tried to clear his head of the fogginess of sleep. He was awake, but it was an adrenaline rush, not sharp awareness.

  “You were the only thing I ever did right,” she said.

  “Cynthia?” He squinted his eyes, then opened them and tried to put Cynthia’s face underneath that wig. The slatted light didn’t help.

  “And I couldn’t even do that right for very long.”

  “I’m going to turn on a light,” Joseph said slowly, as if gentling a wild animal. Making no sudden moves, he reached over and clicked on the bedside lamp. He heard her gasp.

  “She’s even artistic,” she said, gently touching the waterfall of scar tissue. “Look at that,” she breathed with reverent admiration. “It’s beautiful.”

  Slowly, Joseph lay back on his pillows and looked at her.

  She was a mess. Her mascara had raccooned her red-rimmed eyes. Her wig was askew, lipstick was smeared, a thin line of moisture ran from her nose to the top of her lip. She had fresh bruises on her upper arm. His heart filled with pity as he saw Cynthia try to be Irene and fail.

  “C’mere, babydoll,” he said, reaching for her.

  She backed away, waving the knife. “Leave me alone, you cocksucker. You cheater. You asshole. You adulterer.”

  “Cynthia...”

  “I tried to be artistic, too,” she said, “with Warren, but I couldn’t get the hang of it. I kept trying, but it was too much. It got stupid. I got... I got carried away.”

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and a slash of dark reddish-purple lipstick smeared across her cheek. She looked grotesque. “She’s got everything. Irene’s got everything and I’ve got nothing.”

  “Cynthia...”

  “She’s even got you.”

  “That’s not true, hon,” Joseph lied with a jolt to his soul.

  “Shut the fuck up.” With the back of her other hand, she wiped at the tear streaks on her cheeks, smearing the mascara even more. “I’m going to carve you into tiny little cubes. Then she won’t have you, either. She won’t have anything.”

  “You’re going to kill me?”

  “If that’s what it takes to see her hang. I want her dead. She should be dead. She deserves to die.”

  Joseph extended a hand. Cynthia needed to be touched, held, rocked, comforted. She needed to cry out all her frustrations, clear the decks and begin building herself a new life. What she had been through could put anybody over the edge. “Please, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Don’t sweetheart me!” Silver flashed in a broad arc and the knife razored right through the skin on his chest in a long slash.

  “Oh, my God!” she said, horrified at what she’d done.

  Blood sheeted down Joseph’s chest, and the sight of it made him feel faint and queasy. Cynthia started bouncing around on the bed, doing God only knew what. He heard a noise, a familiar noise, but he couldn’t concentrate on it. He was feeling his life drain away. He felt weak and as if his ears were filling up with cotton.

  “Call 911,” Cynthia called out to nobody in general. “Call 911!”

  Joseph reached over and grabbed at the telephone on the nightstand, but his grip was weak and the phone clanged to the floor. Cynthia pressed a pillow to his chest to stanch the bleeding.

  He’d never felt so helpless. He was having a hard time breathing with Cynthia pushing down so hard on
his chest, and he was beginning to see little black swirly things in his peripheral vision.

  He thought he saw Irene, dressed as Miss Lillian, standing in the doorway to his bedroom.

  Two Miss Lillians?

  Then Irene spoke. “Joseph?” she said, and Cynthia jumped as if shot.

  Cynthia’s head spun around so fast that her wig lurched, spilling some of her blonde hair out the side. Joseph saw a hard look come over Cynthia’s face when she saw her sister. Then she deliberately put her knee on Joseph’s wrist and held the knife to his neck.

  He closed his eyes as she mindlessly pressed the point too hard. He felt the tip pierce the skin on his neck. “I’ll cut his fucking throat,” she said in a low growl.

  “Why?” Irene said. “He loves you.”

  “He loves you. Everybody does.”

  “Not Joseph. He loves you.”

  Joseph felt the pressure of the knife ease up a little bit as Cynthia considered this. He’d never had anyone hold a knife to his throat before. It was an experience he didn’t care to repeat.

  “What about Myron?” Cynthia said.

  Irene took a couple of slow steps into the bedroom. Two men in suits materialized in the doorway behind her. In that odd, adrenaline-fueled place where time slowed down and clicked by in micro-seconds, Joseph both wondered who the men were and marveled that everybody instinctively spoke and moved slowly around an unbalanced person, especially one with a weapon.

  “Myron? You mean our stepfather? What about him?”

  “I loved him,” Cynthia said.

  Irene moved closer, the two guys in suits not far behind her. “I know, honey, we both did,” she said.

  “He loved you more. Different, he said, but I knew he loved you more. Everybody does. Why you? Why not me?”

  “That’s not true, Cynthia. Mom and Myron both loved you. I love you. Joseph loves you.”

  Joseph felt himself taking a turn for the worse. His breathing sounded loud in his ears. It seemed to echo in the room.

  “Joseph needs to go to the hospital, Cynthia,” Irene said. “Let him up.”

  Cynthia looked at the two men behind Irene. “They’ll take me back,” she said. “They’ll put me back in jail,” she said.

  “No, they won’t,” Irene said.

  “Yes we will,” one of them said. “You murdered Bobby Milner.”

  “Please,” Joseph said, but he wasn’t sure if he said it out loud.

  Cynthia looked down on him and moved her knee from his wrist. His hand was numb, but he gripped the pillow to his chest in a bear hug. Nausea was overwhelming him. He rolled onto his side, grabbed the phone cord with fingers that were tingly and useless from the pressure of Cynthia’s knee and fumbled the phone to the bed.

  Chapter 55

  So Irene had been right, Owen thought. She’d had to talk pretty hard and fast to get Matthias to turn his car toward Joseph’s house instead of down to the precinct. Odd as it seemed, it was the detail of the empty key bowl that convinced him. When Irene’s eyes clicked into focus and she said with a tone of desperate conviction that a set of keys was missing, she and Matthias hit some common psychic nerve. The mind of a detective thrived on those little details.

  Matthias even drove fast for her, and he turned his red light on, too. Treatment Owen’s hunch hadn’t deserved.

  Nothing about this case surprised Owen any more. This whole sister affair had taken the goddamned cake. And it was nothing if not weirder and weirder every moment.

  Owen saw Cynthia release Joseph, and he meant to walk over and help the poor man dial the phone, but then he saw Cynthia put the point of the knife against her own flesh. Right over her heart.

  She looked at the way the point made an indentation in her soft skin, and seemed transfixed by the sight.

  Matthias pulled out his gun.

  Irene touched Matthias’ hand in a dismissive gesture and walked to the bed.

  Owen nudged the detective and pointed at Joseph. Matthias walked over, took the phone, faced the corner and ordered an ambulance and police backup in a soft, calm voice.

  Irene sat gingerly on the edge of the bed next to Cynthia.

  Cynthia looked up, her nose running, her eyes running. The sight of her almost broke even Owen’s unsympathetic heart.

  Irene held out her arms, and Cynthia fell into them. Irene scooted closer, then pulled her tight. Cynthia rested her head on Irene’s shoulder. Irene slid Cynthia’s wig off, pulled out a couple of hair pins, and let Cynthia’s long hair down. With a loving touch, Irene smoothed Cynthia’s hair back, and rocked her back and forth. “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered into Cynthia’s ear, into the quiet room.

  Matthias set the phone back on the nightstand.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Irene was saying softly into Cynthia’s ear. “Say it with me. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Cynthia barely whispered.

  “It’s just another step,” Irene said. “I’m not afraid. We’re all together.”

  Joseph closed his eyes and looked like he was going to rest peacefully if not comfortably, until the paramedics arrived. Owen and Matthias could wait that long for Cynthia to settle down. They shifted uncomfortably amid the thick air of female emotions, and shyly looked at each other. This was an intensely personal moment between family members.

  Irene continued to rock Cynthia, kept stroking her hair, kept whispering into her ear.

  Finally, they heard the siren.

  Matthias looked at Owen before he stepped over to Irene. He cleared his throat. “Okay,” he said, tapping Irene on the shoulder. “That’s enough sisterly stuff. We’ve got to go.”

  Irene looked up at him, her mascara weaving black trails down her white cheeks. “Just another minute.”

  Matthias and Owen both saw the blood in her lap at the same moment. Both of them jumped forward, but Matthias was closer and pulled Cynthia away from Irene.

  The knife was in Cynthia’s breast up to its hilt. Their embrace had shoved it in, and Cynthia had bled out right in front of them. Matthias checked for a pulse, but there wasn’t one. Owen knew it before Matthias threw him the look.

  “You murdered her,” Matthias said to Irene.

  “No,” Irene said. “I just held her.”

  Chapter 56

  Irene remembered cozying up with Cynthia in Myron’s lap, settling in for a story. Myron opened the book, but Cynthia stopped him by saying, “Daddy?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Do your patients die?”

  Myron closed the book and looked down at the two of them. It was a good question, and Irene wished she’d thought of it first.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Are they afraid?” Cynthia asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Are you?” Irene asked.

  “No,” he said, the vibrations of his voice moving through his chest and into her back as she leaned against him. “Death is just another part of this strange journey we’re on. I’m not afraid because we’re on it together.”

  “Together?” Cynthia asked.

  Myron set the book on the end table and hugged the girls close. “All of us. You,” he squeezed Cynthia, “and you,” he squeezed Irene, “and Mommy and me. Death is just another part of life, only it goes on in a different place. Mommy and I will get there first and we’ll be waiting for you, just like my parents will be waiting for me. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  Irene looked over at Cynthia, and they had a long look at each other. It was one of those silent communications that pass between siblings that says, Remember this. This is a rare morsel of value from an adult.

  “You’ll wait there for us?” Cynthia asked, just to be sure.

  “Yep,” Myron said. “And I’ll show you around. I’ll introduce you to your new teachers, just like when you first started school.”

  “I was scared when I first started school,” Cynthia said.

  “I know, honey, but you y
ou’re not scared any more. Sometimes new things make us a little bit nervous, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. Especially since I’ll be there to hold your hand.”

  Irene looked up at Myron’s face and said, “I’m not afraid.”

  “Me, either,” Cynthia said.

  ~~~

  Irene looked down at Cynthia’s pale, lifeless face. She had told the truth way back then, and it had never changed for Cynthia. Life scared Cynthia, scared her to distraction, but she knew that Myron was waiting for her in death. They were together now, Cynthia and Myron and their mother, Cynthia enfolded in that mysterious, all-encompassing love that only parents can provide. Irene found herself a little envious. She missed her mother. She missed Myron.

  She looked down at Cynthia’s face, and saw the little girl under all that costuming. She missed Cynthia already. She missed the little girl Cynthia used to be, before life did her in.

  Irene moved Cynthia around so she looked more comfortable lying on the bed, then moistened a corner of the sheet in her mouth and worked at the smeared mascara around Cynthia’s eyes.

  Better.

  Joseph’s face looked gray as he held a blood-soaked pillow to his chest.

  Bobby. Cynthia. Joseph.

  Irene’s world crumbled.

  There was no such thing as permanence. She’d been spending her whole life shying away from things that looked as if they would hold her back, box her in, tie her down, when nothing—not a career, not a marriage, not a friendship, not anything, not even life itself—had any permanence at all to it.

  She looked down at Cynthia’s pale face.

  Except maybe love. That may be the one constant.

  Irene reached over and touched Joseph’s hand.

  Without opening his eyes, he moved his hand away.

  She really couldn’t blame him.

  Was that sound—that tiny, rustling sound of a hand moving away across a sheet—was that the sound of a train wreck? Was that what killed their father?