Harmless (5 page)

I slammed the drawer
closed.

The next one down: rows
of intimates, arranged by cut, color, and material. 

The attention to detail
was staggering—yet another instance of
what might have been
.  My own
unmentionables are arranged exactly the same way.  Kismet?  Planetary
alignment?  I told you we would’ve been perfect for each other.

You’re probably
wondering why I didn’t get all gooey (
ugh
, sorry, even I’m aware that’s
a horrible choice of words) after looking through her underwear drawer.  By
that time, some semblance of reality had inched its way into my head and I was
no longer looking at the possibility of a future, but the ghost of a fantasy. 
And besides, I hadn’t been able to shake the thought of Clarence and his
stupid, desperate, horny grin.  That’ll ruin anyone’s lustful thoughts. 

My mind, your mind,
everyone’s minds, they all go to some terrible places at the most inopportune
moments.  Denial ain’t just a river…  For example, the next time you’re in
church, try not to think about sex.  It’s like telling someone not to think
about a white elephant.  And now that I’ve said that, let me ask you this: what
did yours look like?  Random side note: did you ever read
Hills Like White
Elephants
by Hemingway?  So powerful.

The bottom drawer was
empty.  I liked her style.  An empty drawer either meant a lack of things to
store inside it, or it left room for hope of things to come.  I prefer to think
that she exited this world full of hope, which no doubt included a world full
of Steven Allister Pendragon.

Am I delusional to
think that?  Some would agree, i.e. Shayna.

I moved on.

Beside the dresser, a
single photograph hung on the wall.  A picnic somewhere.  A lake.  Lots of
sun.  A water skier in the background, being tugged along by a speedboat.  A
large group of people behind Kerry, Clarence, and some unidentified woman who
was thin and tan, with a nice smile that pushed back the loose skin of her
cheeks, like someone who used to be
fuller
as a person.  Dark circles
under her eyes.  And on her head, a universal sign that initiates an immediate
thought of
I wonder how the treatment is going?

You know what I’m
talking about.  A blue bandana, covered in paisleys, stretched tight across a
hairless scalp. 

I wanted to vomit.  The
nerve.  It had to be a company outing of some sorts, and Clarence—bastard that
he was—was brazen enough to pose for a picture with his dying wife and his
mistress. 

Let me be clear, I had
no intention of laying any sort of blame on Kerry.  If anything she’d been the
victim of his scheming.  Older man, likely someone in a position of power. 
Kerry with a healthy, justifiable fear of losing her job.

Know this: the truth
can stay hidden, even when it’s visible.  Do you remember those pictures that
were popular in the 90s, the ones that looked like nothing more than a
mish-mash of weird designs, but if you stared at it long enough, if you were
able to relax your perception and see what was really there, another image
would appear?  Something like a 3D picture of a dolphin or a sailboat.  The
hidden image was there all along—you simply had to allow yourself to see it.

That night, I certainly
wasn’t in a position to see the sailboat.  It would take another encounter with
Clarence for that to happen.

I moved away from the
photo, so revolted by him and the treatment of his sick wife that I actually had
to brush off my arms and shoulders to shake the sensation. 

Call me a hypocrite if
you must.  A wretch, whatever.  The fact that I had
encounters
outside
my marriage isn’t lost on me.  But, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I had been
driven to these trysts by an emotionally lonely bed and the black heart that
occupied the other side of the king-sized mattress.  We might as well have been
in different zip codes.  And not just between the hours of eleven to seven.  It
was constant.  Shayna, do you hear me?  Do you understand where you went wrong?

In the closet hung
neatly arranged clothes, organized by cut, color, and season, just like mine. 

Can you grasp the
enormity of this?  I’m telling you, even our hearts would’ve beaten in unison.

I could smell traces of
perfume so sweet I could almost taste it, like a mixture of peaches and cotton
candy.  I missed Kerry already.

On the floor sat a box
of loose papers.  Old bills, ancient receipts, pay stubs, and, finally, the
large envelope from our mutual attorneys.  A quick scan revealed that her
possible murderer, the man that had created a crevasse in my soul the size of
the Grand Canyon, was named William Davis Oliver.  I’ve never liked the name
William, for a variety of reasons that are too long to list, and the fact
immediately assigned a deeper feeling of absolute hatred.

Congratulations,
William, welcome to the top of my Arch Nemesis List.

I stood up from the
floor, papers in hand, thinking about how to find him.  How to bring about a
little payback.  Officer Planck would know, and I made a mental note to call
him.

When I noticed some of
my shirts hanging among hers, it felt like I was the one that had been shot and
thrown from the window.

CHAPTER 6

If you need a quick
refresher, here’s what I found that belonged to me: one pair of slacks, three
shirts, a stack of
Entertainment Weekly
magazines, and a shoebox full of
photos that could’ve only been pulled from my iPhone.  The photos included
selfies of Sparkle and me in the bathroom mirror, shots of Smoke and Shade, and
one picture of Angry Shayna after I informed her that I was moving on. 

To say that I was
flabbergasted, shocked, and utterly mystified wouldn’t do my emotions justice. 
I couldn’t have been more floored if you’d laid me down on the ground.

Not only had she
commandeered my cat while he was out on walkabout, but Kerry had been
inside
my house, stealing my things
.

When?  Why?

What could possibly be
the reason, and why such innocuous items?  If she was going to steal from me
with harmful intent, why not take valuable things?  To be fair, I had little in
the way of
valuables
in my house, per se, but still…she could’ve taken
my laptop, or the DVD player, or my collectible baseballs, autographed by
Willie Mays and Barry Bonds. 

The baseballs were an
unnecessary expense, according to a certain ex-wife whom I’m sure you’re quite
familiar with by now.  You’d think I’d committed a crime punishable by death
for skipping a mortgage payment for two months, without permission or
knowledge.  But come on—Barry Bonds and Willie Mays?  Classic Giants!  However,
I’ll allow that I overpaid.  Excitement and a lack of due diligence on my part
resulted in expensive consequences.

If I had removed my
things then, if I hadn’t gone back inside and dug a little deeper into the
closet and found what I’d found, it would’ve saved me a lot of undue stress,
but I was overcome by the urge to speak to her, to ask her why, however
unobtainable the answers may have been from her dead body.

Those words…“her dead
body”…it’s been months, and they still bother me.

I ran out of the
bedroom, through the hall, and practically leapt down the stairs.

I paused to gather
myself at the doorway, just in case that nosy old hag Mrs. Epstein happened to
be monitoring the neighborhood with her talons hovering over the telephone.  No
sense in giving her any more ammunition than was warranted. 

Twice now she’s called
the police on me for sunning myself in the front yard, citing public indecency.
 It’s a known fact that men wear thongs while tanning.  I’ve seen it, I’ve
researched it, and I provided examples to the officers answering the calls.  I
can’t help it that she’s offended by the male body.  The harridan should be
thankful that I might possibly be worth looking at, instead of some slovenly,
rotund guy that resembles a hairy snowball. 

Kerry lay on the
ground, between our homes.

Seeing her there—that’s
when the veracity of the situation finally grew roots and enveloped me like
that suffocating vine that takes over a whole hillside. 

An unwanted, unexpected
reality is like a sea of Kudzu.

Invasive.  Smothering. 
Taking over everything and shadowing the light in your life.

I bent down beside
Kerry’s body.  My chest tightened so much that I felt like I was breathing
through a pillow.  Short, thick breaths that refused to fill my chest.  I was
dizzy.  I was confused.  So much had changed within the past thirty minutes.

I wanted to touch her. 
Hold her.  Pick her up in my arms and apologize for the abrupt end to her
existence. 

What had she been doing
in the moments before?  Eating french fries?  It seemed like such a waste.  The
lesson here is to make every minute of your life worth it, because the next one
could be your last.

I wanted to squeeze her
and tell her that I’d find her killer and make him pay. 

I wanted to put my lips
on hers and exhale resurrecting voodoo magic into her lungs.

But I didn’t. 
Fingerprints.  DNA.  The curse of the incarcerated.

I was innocent of any
wrongdoing, of course, and the burden of proof lies with the accuser, but I had
no room in my life for any further courtroom visits.  At least not until I’d
found her murderer.

So, as much as the
inability to fully embrace the loss pained me, I resigned myself to mourning, and
questioning, from a distance.

“Kerry,” I whispered. 
“Such a goddamn waste.  Look at you.  It’s too soon.  I want you to know
something—if you can hear me, wherever you are—I promise you, I
will
find the guy that did this, and he’ll regret it,
believe me
, he’ll
regret it.  Was it your husband?  Was it William?  Even if I have to go to jail
and leave my kids behind, so be it.  So be it.  They’ll understand.  They’ll
know that their daddy is a good man and he doesn’t let things like this go
unpunished.  I hope
you
knew that about me.  I think you did.

“But I have to ask you
something—I know you can’t answer me, but maybe, maybe you can give me some
sort of sign or send me a message.  I don’t know.  Something.  Anything.  I
hate to ask because I feel like I’m accusing you of something and that’s not my
intent, not at all, but what in the hell were you doing with my stuff?  I
doesn’t make any sense, Kerry!  I don’t mind that you had it.  Honestly, I
don’t.  You don’t know how often I’d daydreamed about having you over for
dinner.  Just the idea of you being in my house was enough.  This is going to
sound crazy, but I already had a drawer cleaned out so you’d have a place to
keep your things.”

Was that unbridled
hope?  Too presumptuous?  Was I too overconfident that it would happen
someday?  I’d definitely say
no
.

“Why, Kerry?  What am I
missing?  Sparkle, I can understand.  He loves everybody, so I can see why
you’d want him around.  But my clothes?  My pictures?  Why?  Who were you?”

I realized somewhere
during that line of questioning how insane I must have looked, kneeling on the
ground, talking to a dead woman.  Never mind my quirks, my failings, whatever
they are, and how foolish they look from an outside perspective, I can assure
you that I’m not given to flights of fancy, expecting things like getting an
actual response from the beyond.  It simply felt like the right thing to do. 

Sometimes you have to
get it out, no matter what inanimate object (whether it’s a dead body or a wall
clock) becomes the target of your release.  Shayna once found me on the front
porch, talking to a fern.  Do I have to tell you that she didn’t understand?

I also realized how
deeply in over my head I was, and that retribution would likely not come as
easily as I’d promised.

Kerry, my sweet, sweet
Kerry, was dead.  It could’ve been William.  It could’ve been Clarence.  If
it’d been William inside her house, he’d had a gun.  Clarence had a
weapons-class Adam’s apple and knowledge of what could’ve easily been
misconstrued as a snooping, obsessed neighbor. 

Meaning
me
, and
the possible word of others, not my own.  And really, I wished I’d kept my
emotions in check—I shouldn’t have told him to get the goat cheese.

I understood that I’d
never get the answers I wanted, no,
needed
from Kerry, and the only
logical choice was to get help.

I called Officer
Planck.  It was late.  He’d be home from league night down at the bowling
alley.  He’d know what to do.

It rang.  And rang. 
And rang.  I almost gave up.

He answered, finally,
with a mixture of excitement to hear from me and a touch of mild annoyance,
which I assumed was due, in part, to another bad night on the lanes. 

I’ll allow that the
irritation was justified—who wouldn’t be irritated with a game average that had
dipped below two hundred?  He’d mentioned this once.  I don’t know why.  I’d
never asked.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Steve. 
Steve Pendragon.”

“Pendragon,” he said. 
“It’s after midnight.”

“Sorry I’m calling so
late.”

“We’ve talked about
this.”

“But you said any time,
day or night.”

“I’m pretty sure I
said, ‘
Don’t
call my personal number, any time, day or night.’”

A class act, certainly,
but known for mixed signals.  Do this, don’t do that.  Who can keep track of so
many erratic demands?

“Thomas, listen—”

“We are not on a first
name basis, understood?  Especially not at twelve-thirty—Jesus, I don’t even
know why I’m talking to you about this.  Goodnight.”

I blurted out,
“Somebody murdered my neighbor,” before he could hang up.  “It’s Kerry.  She’s
dead.”

I could almost hear him
sit up in bed. 

“What?” he asked,
followed by a curt, “It’s nothing, honey, go back to sleep… That guy, the one
from Thrifty’s…  No, he’s not trying to sell me a car.  Pendragon?”

“Yeah.”

“If you’re—damn it,
hang on a second.”  There were shuffling noises, then in a subdued whisper,
kind enough not to disturb his wife (Daisy, a flowery, beautiful name that
didn’t fit the angry, rude woman who’d hung up on me several times), he said,
“You mean the one you have a crush on?”

That stung.  “It’s not
a crush.  Wasn’t a crush.”

“How many times do I
have to tell you that I am not the person to call every time you have a damn
cat up a tree?”

“My cat?  What?  No—”

“You know what I mean. 
You’ve got to stop this.”

“Stop what?”

“These—these paranoid
shenanigans.  That guy—
Clarence
, whatever you call him—he’s probably
just having an affair.  He’s having a midlife crisis and wants a Porsche to
drive around, and it’s too damn bad that the Porsche is the girl next door. 
It’s none of your business, man.  Leave it alone, let it go.  And what—what am
I doing having this discussion with you?  I don’t care!  You hear me?  I don’t
care!  You can’t just go around accusing people of murder, trying to get rid of
them.  Here’s a dose of tough love, buddy, but you need to hear it.  You’re
outside of the picture looking in.  It’s how it is.  We’ve all been there and
most of us grow out of this phase.  You’ve got to accept that this situation is
out of your control.  There’s no other way.  Man up, grow up, and move on. 
Find somebody else.  Better yet, find a therapist.”

Without having all the
details, I could see why he’d believe that.  However, he was wrong.  And a
therapist?  As if.  The members of the Pendragon clan do not demean themselves
by spilling their guts to snake oil salesmen, and I was tempted to tell him
so.  A friend should know better than to insult another friend’s pride and
integrity.  Even Shayna, whom I no longer consider a friend, had said, “I am
not your wife.  Go see a therapist.”  We didn’t speak for a week after that.

I took a deep breath
and ignored his jab.  “I really need your help.”

There may have been a
small twitter of a chuckle.  “Yes, I’m aware you need help, but not from me.”

I exploded.  “I don’t
mean that kind!”  I couldn’t contain myself.  I was offended.

“I’m hanging up now,
Steve.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“You called me Steve.”

“Steve?”

“What?”

“I’m going back to
bed.  Reach deep down inside that brain of yours and erase my number, got it? 
Delete it from your phone.  Forget you ever had any contact with me.  I hate to
be a dick, because you seem like a nice guy—you’ve got a few screws loose, but
you seem like a nice guy, so do me a nice guy favor and quit calling me, okay?”

It hurt.  I’d thought
we were friends.  But I’d gotten used to letting things go.  Or, I should say,
I’d gotten used to having things taken from me.  “Okay.  Fine.  Can you at
least tell me what I’m supposed to do about Kerry?”

“She’s your neighbor?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d advise you to
leave her alone, too, before you get yourself in trouble.”

“No, I mean about her
body.  I can’t just call 9-1-1, they’ll screw it up.  She deserves better than
that.”

There was a long
pause.  “What do you mean,
her body
?”

“That’s what I’ve been
trying to tell you.  Somebody murdered her.”

“You’d better not be messing
with me.”

“I’m serious!  I’m
looking at it right now.”

Another pause.  “You
didn’t—”

“Me?  No!  Listen—the
Giants were down by two in the ninth.  I remember it specifically because
Russell was up at the plate and I was kinda pissed that they’d subbed him in to
pinch hit because the guy’s been in a hell of a slump for the past month.  So
right as he’s about to strike out—”

“Did you kill her?”

“I didn’t—you know me
better than that.  I mean, you
should
.  I heard something that sounded
like a gunshot, and when I looked outside, somebody tossed her out her window.”

“They tossed her out
the window?”