Murder in the Rue St. Ann (15 page)

I dropped  my hands to my sides.

“I think maybe you’d better go.” He said.

His skin was turning greenish-purple, where my fingers had dug in.

I stumbled past him, out the front door, and down the steps, not stopping to breathe and trying not to think, I pulled my car keys out of my pocket, opened the door, started the car, and pulled away from the curb.

I stopped at a light on St. Charles. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles were white. My palms were soaking wet. My heart was pounding so hard and fast I could barely hear anything else.

The coffee in my stomach was turning to acid. I started to shake.

Calm down, Chanse.

I took some deep breaths. I’d grabbed Paul. I’d hurt him. I’d left marks.

Inhale, hold it. Exhale. Get a hold of yourself
.

My heart rate began to slow down.
Get control, Chanse
.

The wave of adrenaline subsided, and I felt nauseated and feverish, like I was going to throw up. I was drenched in sweat.

I turned the air conditioning on high, my hand trembled as I reached for the controls.

What just happened? “You lost control,” I said aloud.

The light changed.

I crossed St. Charles and headed down to Tchoupitoulas, like every other time I’d driven home from Paul’s. I didn’t have to think about it—it was automatic pilot taking over.

The last time I’d lost control someone had died. It had been pretty stupid going to confront a killer, I’d told myself that a thousand times since then. What was I thinking? I wasn’t armed with anything more dangerous than a tape recorder. I should have just gone to the police, even though all I had was suspicions. But no, I thought I could handle a killer without even telling anyone where I was going.

I remembered the roaring in my ears. Yes, he was trying to kill me— he had a knife— but there had to have been some other way to disarm him. I outweighed him by at least 50 pounds, but he was so much stronger than he’d looked. And his eyes—his eyes were so crazed when he came at me—wild and primal. He didn’t look human anymore.

I’d seen those eyes many times in my dreams since then.

I closed my eyes, reliving the sound of the shattering of the glass as he went through the window. The glass exploded and sprayed everywhere. Later, I found splinters lodged in my hair.  I’d hit him hard—a direct punch to the face with all of my weight behind me. I broke two knuckles in my right hand. He fell back and through the glass door as though it offered no more resistance than a shower curtain. He seemed to go over the railing in slow motion. I would never forget the sound of him hitting the brick courtyard.

I was sweating again and struggling to catch my breath. I pulled over to the side of the road. I coughed, choked, and gagged.

Every time I’d relived this horror in my dreams—waking up gasping and body shaking—Paul had been there, somehow waking up with me. He would put his strong arms around, kiss me, talk me down from the emotional ledge and hold me until I could fall asleep again.

What the hell had I done? I pulled the car to the side of the road, turned it off and got out.

There was a coffee shop on the corner.  I walked unsteadily toward it.  My lower back hurt, my stomach was churning, and my knees threatened to buckle as I walked. I stopped in front of the shop and tried to get control of my breathing. I used my shirtsleeves to wipe the sweat off my face. When I was done I saw my sleeves were soaked.
Nice,
I thought. Finally, everything in my body seemed to go back to normal.

As I climbed the steps, I could almost smell the vodka on her breath as I heard my mother’s voice in my head. “You’ve got your father’s temper, God help you.”

I’d been eight years old. My sister, who was six, was doing something. I don’t remember what. But she was bothering me or wouldn’t give me something I wanted, and she wouldn’t relent. She was always doing that. She would want one of my toys and cry until my mother made me give it to her. Once the toy was securely in her fat little hands, she would give me a smug smile.  It seemed like all she ever wanted to do was get me in trouble.

That day, my eight-year-old self decided that enough was, finally, enough. So I picked up the pewter replica of the Alamo off the coffee table and whacked her in the back of the head with it. I remembered how satisfying it felt; the thudding sound of pewter connecting with bone. Then there was blood everywhere. My sister screamed, loud enough for my mother to put down the vodka bottle and come running from the kitchen. I had to hold the white towel to her head as we headed to the emergency room. My mother babbled the entire time, “Remember, just remember to tell anyone she fell on the steps, we don’t want any trouble, remember she fell.” And then she looked over at me, the Pall Mall hanging off her curled lip. “You’ve got your father’s temper, God help you.”

I ordered a cup of iced coffee and a muffin, grabbed a stack of napkins, and went back outside. I sat in a wicker chair facing the street. There were a couple of college-age kids— probably student— sitting alone at various other tables and pounding away at laptop computers propped up against worn backpacks.

The muffin tasted like sawdust, but I choked it down to get something in my stomach to settle it. I stared out at the street and watched the cars go by.

I grew up in fear of my father’s temper. All three of us kids did. It got worse after my mother brought my baby brother home from the hospital. His crying always seemed to set Dad off, and the good days when Dad came home smiling and whistling became more and more rare.  We learned to keep quiet when he was home—not to raise our voices, never to say anything at all if possible. We watched what Dad wanted to watch on television. If Dad wanted to listen to the radio, we turned the television off. We didn’t talk about school and Dad never asked. Only Mom would talk, and always in a low, quiet voice. When he walked in the door she poured a beer for him from a bottle into a glass she’d had in the freezer all day and brought it to him when he sat in his reclining chair. It took Dad exactly 30 minutes to drink that beer, and when he finished it, dinner had better be on the table, goddamnit. 

We tried to learn from our mistakes—any behavior that set him off was never repeated. But there was never any knowing
what
would set him off. Something mundane— some little thing that went on every day would, suddenly, inexplicably, light the fuse.

He could be sitting in his reclining chair, his beer glass clutched in his right hand, laughing his head off at
Three’s Company,
when all of a sudden his mood would turn. His face would harden and his eyes would get the dangerous glitter in them. As the rage in him built, he would first talk in a low voice, so low it could barely be heard, and then the explosion came and he would start screaming.

Other times, you could tell it was coming from the moment he walked in the door from work. You could see him seething. He wouldn’t say a word to anyone—this was usually when something happened at work to piss him off, and he’d had to hold it in all day—and then we were all completely silent. The only sound in the trailer was the canned laughter on the television as we all waited for the inevitable eruption of anger.

My brother and sister and I were very well behaved when Dad was around. I think the last time he took a belt strap to me was when I was 12. After that, I was too big for the belt—and that’s when he started punching. That was when he thought I was old enough to learn how to take a punch.

Nobody ever noticed. Teachers, other student, counselors at school—no one ever noticed. Maybe they chalked up the bruises to gym class, or a fight that happened off campus, or something.  Whatever they thought, they never said anything to me. Maybe they were waiting for me to say something.

It never occurred to me to tell anyone, partly because I grew up thinking everyone’s parents acted like that. Later, when I knew better, I was too ashamed. Wasn’t it bad enough we were trailer trash, that everyone knew we were poor and our clothes didn’t fit right and my mother cut my hair with scissors as her cigarettes dropped hot ash on my shoulders? That other mothers had to smell the sour liquor on my mother at the Safeway.  Why give them something else to laugh at us about?

I knew I had my father’s temper. I felt it boiling inside of me whenever I heard kids at school whispering and giggling when I walked past. Sometimes they wouldn’t bother to whisper. Sometimes I’d hear someone say, as I walked past their table in the cafeteria, something about my clothes or about seeing my mom weaving down the aisles in the Safeway as she put stuff in her cart. The rage would boil up then. I’d clench my fists and wanted to knock the smug smirks off their faces, pound them until I felt bones breaking. But I fought it down, struggled to control it.

What I really wanted to do was give in to the rage, let my vision go red and start screaming, throwing things, punching and kicking, let it take control and stop thinking so much, stop feeling so much, just let it go. But acting out wouldn’t change anything. It would just make things so much worse.

So I never gave in to it. I just kept driving it deeper and deeper inside of me. Not even on the football field would I let it take over. I always kept cool on the field, never gave into any kind of emotion. Even when I scored a touchdown— my teammates jumping all over me in excitement, the band playing the fight song, the cheerleaders tumbling on the sideline, the fans screaming— I felt nothing. No elation. No joy. Giving into any kind of emotion was dangerous because it could turn without warning, just like in my dad. But I always knew it was there.

I’d have to apologize to Paul. There was no excuse for hurting him physically.

Paige was right. I was being an asshole. So Paul had a past— big fucking deal. Everyone has a past. Everyone has secrets, things they don’t talk about. So Paul made some wrestling videos and hadn’t told me? So he’d posed naked? What did it matter?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was I loved him.

Stupid jackass.

I left my coffee untouched and walked back to the car. I started it up and pulled out my cell phone. Loren answered on the second ring. “Found anything yet?” he asked.

“I haven’t even had time to start,” I said as I pulled out in front of a white Lexus. The driver, a perfectly coiffed bleached blonde, flipped me the finger. I returned it with a smile.

“What did Paul say to you?” Loren asked.

I hesitated. “I—“

“Chanse, we are trying to save his life here, have you forgotten?” He exhaled. “All normal boundaries are off. I don’t want to know anything intimate, for God’s sake.”

“He gave me another lead.” I finally said. “I don’t think it’s very likely, but I’ll check into it.”

“Reasonable doubt, Chanse, it’s all we need.” Loren sounded more cheerful than he had earlier. “This isn’t television. I don’t need a confession from someone else, you know.”

Maybe you don’t
, I thought. “I’ll let you know if I turn up anything. How’s the case looking?”

“The assistant DA wants to meet—probably wants to offer a plea bargain.” He snorted. “Obviously, they think I graduated from law school yesterday.”

“Maybe the case isn’t that strong.” Maybe it was just grasping at straws, but at this point anything would make me feel better.

“Well—they don’t like not having the motive.” Loren sighed. “That’s in our favor.”

“But when they find out about the wrestling stuff—“

“We don’t have to tell them. Let’s deal with that only if and when they do.” Loren cut me off. “Look, I’ve got to be in a meeting five minutes ago, so just find me something, okay? Anything. Reasonable doubt.” He hung up.

I pulled into my driveway and waited for the gate to open.
No, I need to know. I have to know.

Not guilty doesn’t mean innocent; it means the State couldn’t prove its case and nothing more than that. It doesn’t mean the accused is cleared.  That’s why rich guilty people get away with it. They can hire a lawyer who can create reasonable doubt—and say that’s the same as innocence. It’s up to the State to prove guilt.

 But that wasn’t good enough for me in this case. I had to find the person who killed Mark Williams. I had to prove it wasn’t Paul. But I also knew if there was any chance for us, I had to know the truth.

I went into the house and immediately sat down to check my email. Sure enough, Paul had forwarded the threatening message to me.
Maybe he wasn’t that mad,
I thought as I opened the message. But there was nothing from Paul, no note, no nothing. It was just the forwarded email.

I wanted to call him but knew it was best to wait a little while. Give him a chance to get over whatever he was feeling about me.

What if he never forgives me?

I couldn’t think about that. He had to, that was all. I’d make it up to him somehow. Focus on this email, even if it a wild goose chase.

Reasonable doubt, remember that. Getting Paul out of this jam was the most important thing, and I needed to focus on that.

I looked at the computer screen.

Well, for one thing, the guy who sent the email was on a different internet server than the one I ordinarily use. I made a note of the name, then pulled up Paul’s web site. I stared at the picture of him in the red speedo for a minute. He looked great—he always looked great. He had his left thumb hooked in the waistband of the bikini, hiking it down just enough to reveal just a suggestion of trimmed black pubic hair. He had a lazy half-grin on his face.