Death by the Riverside (27 page)

Chapter 22

When I woke up, bright sunlight was streaming into the room and I was alone in my bed.

I looked around the room. Cordelia was standing next to a window, looking out. I watched her, the play of the clear rays of sunshine on her body. A bright patch on one breast, the other in shadow. One thigh was in the light, her dark pubic hair made even darker by the shade, making it seem both hidden and exposed, an enticing combination. I watched her, knowing that soon she would be leaving.

“Good morning,” she said, catching sight of me.

“Good morning,” I replied. “Cordelia by morning. You are a sight to wake up to.”

“Good, bad, or indifferent?” she questioned, with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Wondrous.”

She turned to face me, the sunlight falling on her shoulder, catching the peak of her breast.

“You’re a very kind person, Micky,” she said, shifting back to face the sun.

I swung my legs off the bed and stood up. Cordelia was still looking out the window. Suddenly she shuddered and then hugged herself, as if she were cold.

“No,” she said, looking at me. “I’ve seen too many young women in emergency rooms. You were one of them. Next time you might not walk out.”

“I’m doing my best to stay out of hospitals.”

“Any guarantee?”

“No,” I answered, because there were none.

“I’ve got to get going,” she said, turning away from the sunlight.

“Not yet. Half an hour more,” I asked, going over to her. I stood very close to her, almost touching.

She nodded and smiled. “Or forty-five minutes,” she agreed.

I put my arms around her, holding her in the sunlight. We kissed softly, morning kisses.

We made love again. This time we did it slowly, gently, as if savoring the last strawberries of the season.

When we finished, we lay next to each other for a long time, embracing in the radiance of dawn.

I was glad we made love by the light of day. I wanted the possibilities of the morning, not to have our touching confined by the dark boundaries of night. I wanted the sight of her caught in our morning embrace etched in my memory long after she was gone.

The sun reached for us where we lay on the bed, catching an auburn strand of Cordelia’s hair, polishing it a rich umber. I knew it was time to go. Time for me to let her go and wish her well. I shifted, breaking the line of the sunshine.

“Reality awaits, dear Doctor,” I said.

She laughed. Her eyes glinted blue, like a deep clear lake with the bright sun reflected off its gentle waters.

“Reality’s here, too,” she answered. She kissed me one more time. We got up, went into the living room, and put on the clothes we had discarded last night.

“Let’s go,” I said, not wanting to prolong the ache that was starting to build up inside me.

She nodded.

We left, making good time back to the city in the light traffic of late morning. All too soon she was pulling in front of my apartment.

“End of the road,” I said, striving for a banal cliché and picking the wrong one.

“Don’t say that. We’ll still see each other. Too many friends in common.”

“Do I get an invitation to the wedding?”

“Do you want one?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “I think not.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why? I have nothing to wear. That’s the real reason.”

“I’m sorry,” she began again. “I seem to have entangled you in my emotional mess. And I think I’ve been unfair to you.”

“You made your choice. I made mine. Let’s stop apologizing for the way things are,” I replied brusquely. I remembered to grab my jacket from the back seat where I had left it to dry, then got my duffel bag and opened the door.

“Goodbye, Micky. Take care of yourself.”

“Fare thee well, Dr. James.” I got out and made it to my door without turning back to look. When I did she was gone.

I let myself in and ran up the stairs. Going nowhere in a hurry, I thought as I opened the door to my apartment. All that greeted me was a pseudo-hungry cat. There was a heap of food in her bowl, she just wanted a newer, fresher variety. I ignored her and she lay down to take a nap.

I sat down, enjoying the comfort of the familiar. I tried to sort through my mail, even glance at a magazine, but my thoughts keep churning.

I could have told Cordelia that I loved her, not let her off easy. Though it was true, it would still have been manipulation. She carried considerable guilt about her father killing my father and it would have been easy to have used that.

The kindest thing I could do was to let her go. She didn’t love me and wasn’t going to, so all that was left was for us to be kind to each other. Too bad, all this kindness hurt like hell. For me, at least.
Congratulations, Micky, now you know exactly how Danny felt.
King Lear.
How appropriate. That was the line. “The wheel is come full circle; I am here.”

I jumped when I heard the key in the lock.

“I could shake you until your teeth fall out of your head. Cordelia had to call me and tell me you were here.”

It was Danny. I remained where I was, still staring out the window.

“Where the hell do you get off,” she continued, “letting us worry about you all this time. You’ve got some pretty nasty people out after your ass and it’s not stretching the realm of the possible to picture you floating out to the Gulf face down. Do you hear me?”

“Danny,” I said, finally turning to face her, “It’s too little and way too late, but I love you.”

“Micky,” she said, her tone changing. She came over to me and brushed a tear off my cheek. “I know that.”

“You still deserve to hear it.”

She put her arms around me, stroking my hair while she talked. “I can’t tell you how furious I am that you didn’t tell me the truth about what happened to your parents,” she said, but her voice wasn’t angry.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, sugar, I know.” She held me while I cried.

“Damn it, Danny, I keep ruining your clothes,” I said, pulling away and wiping my eyes. There was a large wet spot where my head had rested. “How pissed is Ranson?”

“Well, yesterday she was madder than an eel on a fishhook. She calmed down a wee tad after Cordelia called last night and said you were all right.”

From the grocery store, of course.

She continued, “But the sooner you convince her that you’re alive and well and ready to testify, the better it will be for you.”

“Right. I can see Joanne Ranson twisted into a knot like an eel.”

“Shall we go?”

“Let me wash my face. What are you doing here in the middle of the day, anyway?”

“Stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, dear El Micko, and you end up being my official business. One way or another.”

I washed my face, but I still looked like shit.

Danny took me to her office and left me in an empty room to await my fate.

Ranson appeared about an hour later, nonchalantly chewing on a roast beef po-boy. Seeing her made me realize how hungry I was. She and Danny continued their conversation. Ranson pretended to ignore me.

“Definitely the asylum,” Ranson was saying, “Either that or the women’s penitentiary.”

“Naw,” Danny played along, “she’d be too disruptive an influence there.”

Enough of this.

“Nice to see you, too, Detective Sergeant Ranson,” I said, breaking into their reverie of what to do with me.

“Oh, Micky, I didn’t see you back there in the shadows,” she commented, taking another bite of her sandwich.

Two can play this game.
“I must have heard the rumor wrong,” I said. “I heard that you were as pissed as a water moccasin on a trawling line. But I knew you could control your temper better than that. That you wouldn’t get madder than an eel on a fishhook,” I repeated Danny’s words, imitating her.

Ranson shot Danny a killer glance.

“You two.” Danny burst out laughing. “Here, lunch.” She put a sack in front of me. My very own po-boy. I stopped plotting a sneak attack on Ranson’s. “I’ve got to do some work around here. Get along, girls, or I’ll call the fire department to hose you down,” Danny said and then left.

“Polite of you to reappear, Ms. Knight,” Ranson said, coolly appraising me. I ignored her and started eating. “Where did you go yesterday?”

“I took a walk,” I said between mouthfuls.

“A walk?”

“A long walk.”

“Where?”

“East, I think.”

“Mick,” Ranson said, leaning across the table at me, “if Milo doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“Joanne, after all I’ve done for you.” I feigned chagrin.

“To me. You are a major pain in the butt, as I’m sure you’re aware.” She started pacing the room again.

“I’ve not had a fun-filled time these past few weeks, you know,” I shot back, feeling sorry for myself.

“I do know that. I’m very sorry about yesterday,” Ranson replied in all seriousness. “I wish…I’m sorry. Do you want to talk?”

“No, I’m okay. I want you to spend your time chasing the bad guys, not nursemaiding me. I have to get out of ‘protective custody’ sometime soon and earn my rent.”

“Right. Hutch will be by later to pick you up. He’ll drop you off at my place after dark.”

“What a glamorous life,” I commented.

“Right. Mick? You won’t like this, but the gun Beaugez used was the gun that killed Elmo Turner.”

“What? That doesn’t make sense. That’s not…”

“Calm down,” Ranson ordered. “It’s probably an odd coincidence. Milo throws it away or pawns it, and Ben gets it through some perverse fluke. I doubt that it means anything..”

“Then why the hell tell me?”

“Should I let you read about it in the paper?”

I shook my head. Ranson had to be right, it couldn’t mean anything.

When I didn’t reply, she said, “See you later,” and left. I sat around and read law books out of sheer boredom and to keep myself occupied. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, Aunt Greta had always said. Aunt Greta could go to hell, I decided. I didn’t want to think about her anymore. That was easy. The hard part was not thinking about having made love to Cordelia last night.

Hutch came and got me a little after six. By the time we got up to Ranson’s, she was already there. She hurried me in, then talked briefly to Hutch.

“Make yourself at home,” she said as she came back in. “You know how, I’m sure.”

“As if I had any choice,” I replied.

“I’ve got to work on some reports,” she said, and she went into her study.

I didn’t see her until eleven when the phone rang. From what I heard, I gathered it was Alex. They talked for a while. After she hung up, Ranson suggested that it was time for bed. “I’m very tired,” she added, with a yawn to prove her point.

“Yeah, me, too,” I agreed, though I didn’t really want to go to sleep. There would be no one to hold away my fears tonight.

Ranson disappeared into her bedroom after helping me unfold the couch and make it up.

I turned out all the lights, save the one next to me. As tired as I was, I still didn’t want to sleep. Waiting is always the hardest part. That’s what I was reduced to these days. Just waiting. And remembering.

If Ranson had had headphones, I would have listened to music, even the sixties rock and roll she seemed so fond of. Instead I found my bottle of Scotch and took a swig. Another couple of shots and I would be able to sleep.

A light from the bedroom door fell across me. Ranson stood watching me.

“I forgot to brush my teeth,” she said, a tight anger in her voice. She couldn’t miss seeing the bottle.

“I thought you were asleep,” I mumbled.

“You’ll get yourself into trouble with that. Drinking alone.”

“I am in trouble,” I replied. “Remember?”

“That’s the solution? Drinking cheap Scotch by yourself?” she said contemptuously.

“Oblivion’s better than pain.”

“Pain will still be here in the morning.”

She came over to me and put her hand on the Scotch bottle to take it away. I tightened my grasp and wouldn’t let her have it.

She suddenly let go. “Do as you like,” she said. Then she turned and left, going back into her bedroom and shutting the door.

I sat still, not moving. Then I defiantly took a large swallow of the Scotch. It burned all the way down. I took another one. Finally, I put the bottle down. Then I fell asleep.

I shuddered awake. I had been having a dream. A nightmare. My father was there. No, not my father, but what death had made him. Blackened and burned, almost beyond recognition. He led a parade of the dead and dying. Barbara Selby, with blood dripping out of her head, dyeing her hair a harsh crimson. Frankie, with his guts hanging out, dragging behind him like a ghastly tail. And Ben with half his head gone. They were coming after me. Telling me that they would never leave me alone. The final horror hit me when I realized that I was awake and that I knew it to be true. They would never leave me. I would carry their memories until the day I died.

I sat shaking, holding myself. I thought of waking Joanne, telling her that tonight was the night I needed her to hold me. But I was afraid of her anger and that she would dismiss my dream as a result of my drinking.

I got up and paced the living room, trying to get the bloody and burned images out of my head, but I couldn’t walk away from my memories. I stood staring out the window, watching and waiting for the gray dawn to come.

When Ranson came out of her bedroom in the morning, she found me dressed, with coffee already made. “What are you doing up?” she growled, still groggy.

“It’s a free country. I can wake up when I feel like it.”

“You look like shit. But cheap Scotch will do that to you.”

“It’s hard to get decent Scotch when you’re under arrest,” I retorted.

Ranson’s jaw tensed, but she didn’t say anything. She went into the bathroom and slammed the door.

I sat drinking coffee.

Ranson came back out of the bathroom. “You can stay with Danny,” she said. “I don’t want you here.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“I’m not watching you drink your life into the gutter. You want to be a fuck-up, be a fuck-up somewhere else.”