Painting With Fire (6 page)

Chapter 8: Knives Fly

Tom and Claudia were eating cereal, and he had just managed to dribble some milk on his work outfit when they heard a loud thud against the wall and a muffled cry for help. It was the Johnsons fighting again.

The two of them sounded like
mad dogs in the alley fighting over bones. Claudia had given up trying to figure out what the squabble was about, but it still made her heart pound in her ears every time she heard the yelling and crashing noises.

“Was that the sound of breaking glass?” Claudia asked.

“Yep,” Tom said.

“We’ve got to go over
there,” Claudia said. “I keep hearing him yelling for help.”

“I don’t think you
should knock on their door right now,” Tom said. “Especially when they’re in the middle of a fight. You’re one crazy woman.”

“I’ll call the cops first,” she said, dialing Stan.

“Call Stan, but really, let’s not go there.” Tom grabbed her shoulders. “Why do you always have to get all up in everybody’s business?”

“That’s just the way I am,” Claudia said, pushing him away.

Stan told her the cops were on the way. But the muffled cries for help continued.

“I can’t wait,” she said.

She started to walk out the door and Tom followed. The milk had dried to a white crust around his collar.

They walked
across the hall and she knocked on the door.

“Are you guys okay?” she yelled. Stupid question, she thought, especially since they could hear muffled cries on the other side of the wall.

To her surprise, Tom reached for the doorknob. Not only did he turn the knob, but the door swung open.

At the same instant, a kitchen knife sliced through the air, brushing the side of Tom’s face and embedded itself on the wall behind them. The blade danced against the crumbling plaster.

“Jesus, Tom, why did you open the door?” Claudia shouted.

“He was crying out for help,” he said.

For a stunned split second, Claudia peered inside the couple’s apartment. It looked like a designer catalog gone mad with a sleek white, leather couch covered in pieces of a broken, green vase. A 50” flat-screen TV hung diagonally on one wall, dangling dangerously. But then they caught sight of Mrs. Johnson with her face puffy and red and framed by red hair flying in wisps.

They retreated across the hall but still
witnessed Mr. Johnson flee his apartment in nothing but his boxers, his wife giving chase, this time with a small folding chair. Barely over one hundred pounds, pissed and petite, she had no problem tossing the chair at him as he sprinted down the stairs, with a clunk, clunk crashing sound.

She pawed back sweaty strands of red hair from her glistening face and spat at the floor before huffing back up the stairs.

As Tom and Claudia ran inside their apartment, she yelled, “You bastard!” just as they slammed their door safely shut.

“Yeah, we definitely need to move,
” Claudia said, panting. “I’m so glad you weren’t stabbed to death. Why did you open the door?

“I had to, he was crying out for help,” Tom said.

“Do you want to go to the ER?” she asked, cringing as the towel became splotchy red and pink. “Maybe you need stitches.”

“I’m ok,” he said, looking into her eyes.

She put her hand behind his neck and hugged him for a moment. Blood dripped from a thin line across his cheek. Claudia pressed a warm soapy white towel against the wound.

“It’s not that deep,” he said, looking into the mirror on the closet door. “Shit, it looks like I’ve been in a swordfight.”

Stan
knocked on the door and told them they’d already arrested Mrs. Johnson. Claudia could see a few more patrols out of their window, driving around and still looking for Mr. Johnson. They could even hear the squeal of brakes at the stop signs as the cop cars looped back.

“I won’t be able to ask them any questions, I guess,” Claudia muttered to Tom. “Not like I would have had the courage to anyway. They were too crazy to talk to.”

Tom told Stan that he’d be more than happy to press charges over the knife.

“That bitch nearly did me in,” he said, pacing back and forth. “If I hadn’t jerked to the right…”

Stan shook his head. “You should have waited for us to get here,” he said.

“That dude would have been dead if we hadn’t opened that door just then. I’ve never seen anything like that. You should have seen that crazy bitch.”

“Tom, watch the language with the cops,” Claudia said.

“How else would you describe her? Please! She was a crazy bitch.”

“Ok, fine, I agree,” she said, “I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I? I almost got you killed.”

Claudia stroked his arm, trying to calm him.

“Why haven’t you guys already locked her up?” she turned and asked Stan.

“Well,
my dear, they always decline to press charges,” Stan said. “The two of ‘em always end up at the court house and the judge always asks ‘em, ‘Sir, are you afraid of her?’ and he always says no.’” And the judge asks her, “Ma’am, are you afraid of him?’ and she always says no. And the two of ‘em walk outta there down the aisle between the rows of seats, holding hands like a pair of goddamn newlyweds.”

“This time is different because she tried to impale Tom,” Claudia said. “Right?”

“Definitely,” Stan said.

“Do you think either of them were responsible for the murder
in January?” she asked Stan. “She did have that glimmer in her eye. She looked like she could’ve killed Tom.”             

He bit his lower lip and shook his head. “I’m not in charge of that investigation. I only assist.

“But h
ave you ever seen them with the victim or know what reason they might have had for attacking him?” Stan asked.

“No,” Claudia said. “But
Sara was at Steve Jackson’s funeral, so she knew him.”

“One other thing,” Stan said. “You ever meet a guy who goes by the name Angel?”

Tom and Claudia shook their heads.

“Hispanic male in his late 20s?”

“Who is he?” Claudia asked.

“A person of interest. Well, let me know if you hear anything,” Stan said. “But don’t do anything stupid. The community is our eyes and ears, but we don’t want you gettin’ stabbed in the eye.” He winked at Tom, and Tom crossed his arms.

Claudia followed Stan as he walked out to his car.

“Out of curiosity, who in my
building has a criminal record?” she asked.

“Baby, you live in this city long enough you’re bound to
know somebody who’s gotten into some kinda trouble,” Stan said, stepping into his squad and turning on the ignition. “Even your Tom’s got a record.”

“What do you mean my Tom has a record?” she asked.

“You mean you didn’t know? Why don’t you ask him?” Stan laughed. “But keep this in mind, just ‘cause someone’s got a record, don’t mean they’re a murderer.”

Claudia slammed the front door a little harder than she had meant to on her way back into the apartment. A stream of obscenities spilt out of her mouth as she walked back up the stairs.

But she didn’t ask Tom about his record right away when she got back into the living room. The thought made her nervous. She was going to ask him any minute. She knew she should just put it out there but here was the thing. He was still paying her goddamn rent. What difference did it really make? It must have been something small, insignificant. She would ask him later. It would be easier later after she had figured out how to ask, thought about the right words to use, right?

Chapter 9: Closed Doors

Claudia could feel the icy cold fingers. She could feel the ice-cold skin. She could see his dark and frosted eyes.

She woke up gasping. The thoughts were whirling through her head. The dead man’s frozen eyes had burned into her dreams.

She tried to squeeze them out by closing her eyes as tightly as she could. A few tears came out. She flipped onto her stomach and cradled the pillow in one arm, pulling it toward her damp face. Her mouth tasted dry and cottony. She got up for another glass of water. The bed groaned when she left it and groaned when she came back. The springs were shot.

She wondered if she should knock on Tom’s door, like a child seeking comfort from a nightmare. But that didn’t seem like a good idea.
She was scared of his criminal record. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to know. She wanted to ask but she didn’t want to ask. Would she think less of him? Would it matter? Why bother asking? After all, he was the one paying the rent lately and he was a good roommate. Would it really change anything?

She needed a job so bad. She wouldn’t need him so badly if she had a job. But she knew that was a lie too. She needed Tom for
one hundred reasons. She had one hundred reasons not to sleep, didn’t she? She had one hundred reasons to toss and turn.

Claudia couldn’t fall back asleep, so she just lay there, like a corpse with her hands folded on her belly clasped in an unuttered prayer. She breathed deeply and rhythmically. But the sleep wouldn’t come.

She should just get it over with and ask him again. But the thought made her heart pound. The few times she had started to ask, her hands started to shake involuntarily. That’s how nervous she had gotten around him lately. It was silly. Here she was, a grown woman with a close male roommate and they had built their whole home life together around not talking about anything serious, avoiding all their real problems.

She got up, tied the string on her pajama pants and walked around the living room looking at his pictures. She couldn’t imagine going back to empty, white walls.
She loved the paintings.

One of her favorite
pictures was propped up on the wooden bookshelf. It was of a little girl walking down a lane full of sunflowers. They were taller than she was. Maybe it wasn’t a little girl, but a young woman. It was hard to tell. She was dwarfed by the flowers and her hair hung in braids. Claudia liked the picture because the scale was all Alice in Wonderland. She stared and stared at the image and then went back to bed.

She fell asleep thinking of giant sunflowers and walking down the winding path into a distant, lush, green forest. The
n,
she started to dream about them swaying in the breeze, snapping a tall stem and carrying the flower like a parasol under the sun. Tom was suddenly carrying his own parasol and twirling it around. “Art can heal,” he said.

“You always say dreams mean something,” she said. “What does this one mean?”

“I don’t know, Claude, you tell me.” He leaned over and kissed her. She woke up gasping with thoughts whirling in her head again.

What had he done and would it make a difference, she wondered.

She ran through the list of possible offenses in her head. She could forgive shop lifting but not drunk driving, she thought. Smoking a joint was not the end of the world but felony drug possession was not OK. What was she even thinking? She thought. There was no way Tom could have done hard drugs and still have his brains. Well, maybe shoplifting, she decided. She could see him stealing art supplies. Canvases are expensive. He told her so all the time.

It was the same endless
loop of worry playing like a bad recording. Who killed Steve Jackson? What was Tom’s real past?

For a moment, she lay in her bed, listening to the sounds of the birds and the rain. A sea gull squawked over the whoosh of cars slicing through the water and the low rumble roar of engines.

The new spring leaves outside the window were bright, freshly washed green. Even the building across the street seemed cleaner. The black blemishes of pollution seemed to shrink against the old brick and stones.

She stumbled out of bed and saw Tom sitting on the couch in his boxers.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Like shit,” she scratched her head under the tangled misshapen mess of hair.
“I need to stop thinking about this murder.”

“
Sometimes there is such a thing as knowing too much about people,” he said.

“
I know,” she said.

“You’ve got one of those faces,” Tom said, touching her cheek. “People think they can trust you and you care. With a face like yours, it seems so easy to spill secrets.”

“I know what you mean. People are always telling me crazy shit about themselves,” she said. “Except you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Tom, do you have a criminal record?”

“No,” he said quickly.
“Of course not.”

S
he sighed. “Then why did Detective Stan tell me you did.”

“It was stupid, juvenile shit, Claude,” he said. “It shouldn’t count.”

“Great, so you just lied to me then,” she said. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about it? What the hell?”

“It doesn’t matter, Claude. I’m a reformed man.”

She snickered. “Is there such a thing?”

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Why do you have to be such a bitch about it?”

“Fuck you, Tom,” she said. “I have a right to know these things.”

“L
ook, I’m sorry.” His voice was suddenly soft as satin and silk. “You want me to move out, I’ll move out. But I’m done talking about this. You have to believe me, it was stupid, juvenile shit.” He got up, walked into his room and closed the door.

“Is the truth really so terrible?” she called after him. “Fucking A. Coward. Just tell me what’s going on.” But the door stayed closed.

What if Tom actually had something to do with the murder? She wondered, grinding her teeth. What if the killer lived in her apartment and not outside of it? It was a sad, paranoid thought. She tried to dismiss it, but it was there in the back of her head as loud as the lie he
had spoken.