The good judge needed more than the red light camera photo and the word of a traumatized young girl to convince him to sign the affidavit. As such, Barrington and Gandry had to put together a photo lineup for Aria.
Tony had no arrest record so they put together an array containing the driver’s license photos of him and five other men who resembled him. This took an additional hour. Barrington’s stomach continued to cramp and churn. It was becoming unbearable.
Aria identified Tony in the photo lineup and at last, Judge Massey was satisfied. With warrant in hand, Barrington and two other officers jumped in their cars. He prayed he wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 46
“YEAH THIS GREEN LEATHER is not a good look,” I said as I tossed the accessory to the side. I was happy now that Tony seemed to be in a better mood. He had just needed something silly to take his mind off of everything.
“Here you go,” he said. I held out my hand without looking and felt something lightweight drop onto my palm.
“Ew!” I yelled, dropping it on the floor. It was the dirty yellow cotton ball. “I don’t know where that thing has been.”
“What is it?” He asked me with the same tone a teacher would use when asking a student to answer a question.
“I guess it’s a cotton ball.”
He frowned. “I don’t know. That kinda looks like a pompom to me.”
“Pompom?”
“Yeah, you know those little balls that go on the back of your sock? Girls used to wear them all the time. When I was young, at least. Maybe they were out of style when you were coming up.”
“Maybe,” I said blankly, my mind starting to wander. I was experiencing a strange sensation, one I’d felt before. It was like walking into a room to retrieve something and then forgetting why you were there. I was there, standing in a room, the right room, and the thing I needed was there but I couldn’t remember what it was. It was unnerving.
“This looks like something you would wear,” said Tony, holding up a small diamond stud earring. I glanced at the earring and then at my husband’s face. He was right, I did like stud earrings, but that thought was an irritating distraction. He was smiling again, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Mm-hm,” I hummed in response, barely listening.
Something was off. The living room seemed to be tilted a few degrees to the side and the furniture was moving ever so slightly, almost undetectable. The temperature in the room rose, not by much, but enough for me to start sweating, and I could have sworn I saw the leaves of our ficus sway back and forth even though no windows were open. Was I imagining everything? Was I crazy? Tony didn’t seem to notice it.
My breathing became faster and shallower as Tony dug through the box. I paid close attention to him for the first time since we sat down together next to the little door under the stairs. He took an ink pen with a pink furry cap out of the box and unlike me, he handled it gently, taking care to touch it with both hands before setting it down next to him. He repeated this routine with a Minnie Mouse keychain, a box of cinnamon Altoids, and a thin, tarnished gold chain with a cross on it. My eyes followed his hand to the floor, where each item was placed next to the last in a perfectly straight line. The clouds in my head began to break and I slowly came to the realization that the things in the box actually meant something to Tony. They were special. Mr. Reggie’s words echoed between my ears.
His self-destructive tendencies are no joke.
What did that mean? Had he broken into people’s homes and stolen the items? Robbed people? As a mentor, that’s information Mr. Reggie would have been privy to. But why would Tony keep a bunch of junk? It didn’t make sense.
Tony seemed to have forgotten I was even there, so enthralled was he with his trinkets. I watched as he fondled a turquoise coin purse, smile still intact, and my eyes were drawn downward. Down past his chest, which I had always loved, to his waist, and then down to his pants. He had an erection.
My stomach turned violently and I felt like I would throw up at any moment. I fought to clear my mind, to organize my thoughts, to understand what was happening. Mr. Reggie. My heart raced. I was still in that room, still trying to remember why I was there and what I had forgotten, and I was close. So close. Mr. Reggie had gotten me closer but I couldn’t figure out why.
My haphazard pile of junk sat forgotten to my left. None of it meant anything to me, but one item captured my attention. The yellow cotton ball. I stared at it, at the dirt and what looked to be a small piece of a leaf, and willed it to make sense. Then I remembered I had seen one just like it a long time ago. As part of a set. On a hot, humid Georgia day.
On sheer instinct, I inched backward away from Tony and his box of treasures. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do but it couldn’t involve standing. My legs shook as hard as my hands and I prayed he didn’t notice. When my back nudged the wall, I stopped and rested against it. Tony finally looked up, and he didn’t look like himself.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. I knew my voice would give me away if I spoke so I simply shook my head and stared at him. He must have seen it on my face. He slowly exhaled and looked down at the floor before leaning back against the chair behind him, as if totally defeated. Neither one of us said a word for several minutes until Tony finally broke the stalemate. “What’s on your mind, Tamara?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“About what?”
“About the stuff in that box.”
He sighed and wiped a hand down his face. “Uhhhh...I took it.”
“I know that. Who did you take it from?”
“Just...random people.” His smile was gone, replaced by that smugness I had once been attracted to. Now it seemed menacing.
“What were their names?” I asked. The answers still weren’t clear to me but I knew it would be bad. A part of me didn’t want to hear the answers because I knew they would change things. Everything.
“That was in my past, T.” He leaned his head back against the armchair and stared at me, waiting, daring me to challenge him. He wasn’t going to give me anything. He was making me chase it.
“Tell me why you still have those things you stole.”
His eyes darkened. “I don’t like that word.”
Something told me it would be best if I didn’t push him. “Tell me about the stuff you took.”
Tony sighed as if I was inconveniencing him. “I’ve taken lots of things from lots of different people. I kept some of them and occasionally it makes me feel better to look at them.”
With every word he said, my life, as I knew it, felt more and more like a memory. It was disconcerting. And painful.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.” He raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if to say none of this was important. “Have you ever seen a Matryoshka doll?”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“They’re these little dolls from Russia. They come in different sizes and they nest inside each other. You open the biggest one and there’s one that’s a little smaller, and then inside that one is a smaller one, and on and on.”
I shook my head and frowned at him. He was playing games and I didn’t know the rules. My frustration seemed to please him.
“Tamara, there will never be an answer good enough to satisfy you. You’re just gonna keep asking more and more questions and in the end, you’ll end up with nothing. Is that what you want?”
“Where did the yellow pompom come from, Tony?”
He stared at me with the intensity I used to think was passion. Now it seemed like rage. “A friend of mine.”
“What was her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What was her name, Tony!” He tilted his head at my outburst, his eyes narrowing. He drew in a sharp breath and looked at the little door under the stairs.
“I think her name was Leah.”
Oh, God. “How did you know her?”
“Youth Rising. I started wor
king for Mr. Reggie and he had me rotating at a few of the locations.”
“Did you know I knew her?”
He raised his eyebrows, then furrowed them in confusion. “You knew her? How?”
“She lived down the street from me.”
“I never even put that together. Small world.” He smiled, a bewildered smile, like he had run into an old classmate from elementary school.
“Did you kill her?”
He shook his head and scoffed as if he was offended. It was unbelievable, him acting as if he was being mistreated. Like I had no right to get in his business. “Whatever I did in my past, whatever you think you know, it has nothing to do with you.”
“What about the present?” I asked, my heart still racing. It was funny, whenever I watched something suspenseful, I would always marvel at how stupid the main character was for questioning the villain alone. Their lack of patience and planning disgusted me. A smart person, a thinking person would play it cool until they were safe. But here I was, being stupid.
“What I do, at any point in my life, has nothing to do with you,” he continued. “I have my life with you, and then I have my inner life and the things I do to enjoy myself. I don’t bring that shit home.”
“Yes, you do. You did. I found these things in my home.”
“Well, you know what, Tamara? Maybe that’s a lesson for you. Maybe you shouldn’t have been snooping through my shit,” he said, his lips getting tight. “When you look for reasons not to trust somebody, you can always find them.”
I blinked back tears. “How can you say your actions don’t have anything to do with me when they affect me?”
“You’re making this too personal. Try to understand this: not everything is about you.” I sat with that for a moment. He was getting angrier and I needed to stop pushing. I wasn’t safe.
“Wasn’t I a good husband to you?” he asked. “Didn’t I do everything you needed me to do? I went to work every day, I supported you, I dealt with all your issues, I loved you.”
It was true. It was all true. But I was quickly realizing that he had handled me the same way he handled his students. He was only a good husband because he acted like one. But he wasn’t a good man. There was a difference.
He stood and stretched before walking toward me. I put my hands in front of my face in a defensive pose. “What are you gonna do?” I asked. He grabbed my wrists and pulled my arms down. “I would never hurt you. I swear. I swear on my mama.”
“Your mother is dead.”
“Exactly.” He crouched down beside me and stared into my eyes. “I need to know what happens now. Are you gonna stand by me?”
“Stand by you how?” I asked, my lips trembling.
“I ain’t no angel. Can you handle that?” I pretended to think about it. In truth, I was marking time trying to figure the best way out of this. He was too close for me to run and I didn’t have the strength to fight him. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. Lie.
“If that’s what you need me to do, I will.”
He studied me carefully, searching for the real answer. He had always been able to read me, which helped him manipulate me all these years. I averted my eyes, not wanting him to see into my soul. But it was too late.
“I don’t believe you.”
Chapter 47
HE SLOWLY WRAPPED HIS hands around my throat, as he had many times before, but this time his touch was different. My body felt it before my mind had a chance to register it. Pain, dull at first, increasing as his fingers squeezed tighter. My hands flew up and grasped his arms, but the muscles I had always loved to caress felt hard and unyielding.
He’s trying to kill me.
The realization didn’t cause panic or fear, at least not initially. My first thought was an odd one. So this is how it ends for me. After all, I had been playing around with the idea of death for years. Maybe I attracted it. Maybe I deserved it.
Millions of tiny spots danced around behind my eyes as the pressure on my neck increased. Pain shot up my neck into my skull, and I tried to remember if I’d ever had a day without pain. Then I thought about the boys, and then my mother. She would probably have to identify my body.
I would never have a baby. I had been putting it off, but maybe that had been for the best. How do you tell a child their mother is dead?
A tear escaped my right eye and danced down my face, pooling on top of his fingers. I wondered why I was crying. From the pain? No, it wasn’t that. At least not the physical pain.
How can he do this to me?
The sun was setting. It would be night soon, and sleep was calling me under. It would feel good to close my eyes and fall into darkness. My body was spent. I let my arms go limp. That felt good, I was relaxed.
Close your eyes.
The spots were falling now, like raindrops. Maybe they would disappear if I closed my eyes. Maybe sleep would stop the pain. All of it. I could leave my brother behind, my failures, my insecurities, my pathologies, my sickly outer shell. The burden of never being good enough, the pain of being around but never seen, the agony of being unwanted and unloved. How much would anyone really miss me anyway? I was a broken person. Always was. A burden.
Close your eyes.
I tried to close my eyes and wondered why I couldn’t. Maybe they were already closed. I couldn’t tell one way or the other, but it was taking way too long for me to fall asleep.
He’s killing me. I’m dying.
I never imagined he would hurt me like this. I had stood by him through a lot. I was his cheerleader, his sounding board. I had read every word he wrote and soothed his hurt feelings. I was loyal. And this was how he repaid me.
This was bullshit. Why was I letting him hurt me? Maybe I didn’t have a lot to live for, but I sure as hell deserved a better ending than this.
My fingernails clawed at his forearms. They can get the DNA from under my nails. My feet kicked wildly but the kicks didn’t land, but then the pain in my neck eased slightly and the sun started coming back up. Then it hit me. I was fighting back.
It’s not my time.
I did want to have kids one day. I wanted to figure out my purpose. I wanted a career, a real one, and to know why God put me on this earth. I wanted to live. I wanted to breathe.
I heard noises. They were muffled, and they sounded like voices, but they didn’t sound human. I saw light but it was hazy and all I could make out were dark shapes. There was so much pressure in my head I thought my skull was going to explode, and then suddenly, the bubble popped and the pressure was gone. What’s happening?
I coughed. With each blast of air through my lungs, the pain in my head beat like a bass drum. More voices. What were they saying? They were louder now but still muffled.
“Hands up! Let me see your hands!” The voice sounded familiar. I coughed and gasped for air. The pain wasn’t isolated to my head anymore; my entire body throbbed. It was unbearable. I began to weep. It was all I had the energy to do.
“We got him, Tamara. Tamara? Can you hear me?”
It was Barrington. I tried to speak but couldn’t get any words out. I couldn’t even swallow.
“Don’t try to talk. Just nod. Can you hear me?”
I nodded. Of all things to worry about, I wondered what I looked like at that moment. The tears wouldn’t stop. My vision was still blurry but my hearing was coming back. “Hey! You! Find me some tissue.” I couldn’t see who he was talking to.
“Listen to me. We have him. You’re safe. Do you understand?”
I nodded and closed my eyes. “Tamara! Stay with me. The ambulance is on the way, sweetheart. Tamara! Wake up!”
I dragged my eyes open again and felt something touch my face. I flinched. “No, no, it’s okay. It’s still me.” He was dabbing my eyes with something. Tissue. I still couldn’t stop crying, but I was grateful.
Sirens. Footsteps. Someone put something else on my face. Whatever it was felt cool to the touch. “Ma’am? This is oxygen. I want you to rela
x, okay? Just breathe normally for me, okay?” It was a woman. I didn’t know her but I was relieved that she wasn’t there to hurt me. I nodded. I wanted to ask her to give me something for the pain, but the mask wouldn’t allow me to speak.
Someone or something jostled my body around, then I was suddenly lifted in the air. It was an odd sensation. Then I was moving. The light suddenly got extremely bright, and I realized I was in an ambulance. I closed my eyes again but this time, I fell asleep.
Chapter 48
BARRINGTON WAS EXTREMELY careful. It was serious business he was tending to, and he needed to make sure he did everything right.
“Is this okay, sir?” asked the florist. She held up a blood-red rose with what looked like diamond beads—he couldn’t really tell—circling the bottom.
“Is that the deepest red you have?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, I’ll take that one.”
He placed the plastic-encased rose inside the glove box and got on the road. He needed to be there by 6 and traffic was bad, as usual. He rarely did this without cause but it was important. He placed his cherry on top of the car and turned his sirens on. He had somewhere to be.
He turned the sirens off once he got off the interstate. He turned into the neighborhood, driving slowly past bike-riding kids and a game of football that extended part of the way into the street. He pulled up onto the curb about half a block away from the house. The driveway and streets around the house were already full.
An older woman he didn’t know answered the door. “You must be Detective Dunn!” she said with a big smile on her face.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Come in!” she said, grabbing him in a tight hug.
He hugged her back and only noticed how full the room was once they parted. There had to be twenty people sitting in that little living room.
“Hello everyone,” he said toward their smiles. They spoke back in unison. They were happy to see him.
Of Things Unseen Page 29