Pernicious (26 page)

         
Her mind was on Perry Davis; in fact, her mind had been on Perry Davis since she’d walked out of police headquarters and into Mabel’s Beauty Salon, where she’d told the woman, “Do what you think best.”

         
Perry had questioned her womanhood, injured her self-esteem and in blunt terms called her fat and ugly. Through Neal she’d hoped to validate herself, prove that she, Tasha Denise Montgomery, was a woman whom men desired.

         
After leaving the salon she’d walked directly into a drugstore and purchased a large tube of Schott’s facial cream. Looking in the mirror, rubbing a copious amount on her face, she said, “This is silly.”

         
Yet she continued applying the cream.

         
When Neal walked through the door, carrying Derrick, asleep, she knew he was a man qualified to grant a second opinion. His, she knew, was biased: he knew she would send him home if he maintained a negative opinion. As she’d expected Neal’s reaction had been favorable, but still, as he lay next to her making sounds similar to a moribund moose, she felt like crap.

         
Above all else, she blew the case. Bob had confirmed her negligence when he’d said, “Tash, why don’t you call it a day.”

         
Bob was a rude cuss at times, spitting tobacco juice in paper cups, telegraphing bowel movements, scratching private parts whenever and wherever the urge hit him, though no way would he tell his partner: “You blew it.”

         
No, Bob wouldn’t criticize me. He and I both know I blew it
.

         
Confessions, Tasha knew, were the end results of
 
subtle manipulation or textbook tactics. She had utilized neither
.
     

         
I wanted to hurt her and make her confess at the same time. When she jumped up I was hoping she’d hit me, begging she would, and I would’ve painted the room with her pretty butt.

         
That too would have hurt their case.
       

         
True, but Perry probably would not have confessed under any amount of pressure. Psychos rarely do.

         
Another thought kept rearing its ugly head, a thought so disturbing it frightened her:
Perry Davis will kill again!

         
There was a knock at the door, and immediately Tasha covered Neal and herself with a sheet.

         
“Daddy?” Derrick called from behind the door.

         
“We’re talking, Derrick,” Tasha said. “Honey, why don’t you go outside and play?”

         
“Will Daddy come out and play with me?”

         
“Maybe. Give him an hour or so, okay?”

         
“Okay,” Derrick said.

         
A few minutes later she could still sense his presence behind the door. She quietly got up and dressed; she didn’t want Derrick to think Mommy and Daddy were still playing house.

         
“Where’s my daddy?” Derrick said the second she opened the door.

         
“He’s asleep,” quickly closing the door behind her. “Are you hungry? I’ll fix you something to eat.”

         
“No!” he protested. “I want to see my daddy!”

         
Tasha exhaled through her nose. “He’s sleeping. Step away from the door, please. I’ll fix you something to eat.”

         
Derrick crossed his arms, conveying he was willing to wait. “No,” shaking his head. “I’m waiting for my daddy!”

         
On impulse she turned and slapped him. Hard. “Do what I tell you!”

         
Derrick wailed. “Daddy! Daddy!…I want my daddy!”

         
The bedroom door opened. Neal stood there naked, scowling at her. “What did you do to him?”

         
“I haven’t done anything to him yet,” Tasha said.
      
Derrick ran to Neal and hid behind his legs.

         
“She slapped me, Daddy!” holding his face, tears streaking down his hand.

         
Neal growled, slammed the door and locked it.
 

         
Not knowing how to react to this, Tasha went into the living room and sat down. Lighting a cigarette, she noticed her hands were shaking.

         
Wait a minute, this is my apartment!

         
She returned to the bedroom door. “Neal, open this door.” No response. “Neal, open this door. I mean it!” She kicked the door. “Neal, open this door!” Kicked it again and it opened. Neal was hastily putting on his clothes; Derrick was nowhere in sight.

         
“You don’t lock any doors here!” she shouted at Neal. “This is
my
apartment, and I’ll not have doors slammed in my face, you hear me? You don’t sweat the rent here--I do!”

         
Neal zipped up his pants. “You’re not hurting my son.”

         
“I’m not hurting him, and you know it. He’s doing what I tell him. You’re not helping him running interference.”

         
“You didn’t have to slap the shit outta him! Look!” He gestured toward the bed. “He’s hiding under there because he’s scared of you, and I don’t blame him, don’t blame him one bit.”

         
“Neal,” Tasha said, lowering her voice, “it’s time you leave.”

         
“I
am
leaving, taking Derrick with me.”

         
“No, you’re not!”

         
Hearing this, Derrick crawled out and ran to his father. “Take me with you, Daddy. Please! Take me with you!”

         
“Derrick,” Tasha said, “go to your room.”

         
“I’m going with my daddy!” Derrick said. He stared at his father, eyes pleading for intervention.

         
Tasha stepped to the closet and retrieved a belt. “Let’s see if you ignore this.”

         
“Son, go to your room,” Neal said. Derrick sniffled and ambled past his mother.

         
“You better stick that mouth in before I stick it in for you,” Tasha warned.

         
After he left, Neal, shaking his head, said, “This don’t make no damn sense! This shit don’t make no sense at all!”

         
“Bye, Neal.”

         
“I’m leaving. Don’t be surprised I take you to court and take my son!”

         
“A court will grant you custody and you haven’t held a steady job in…hmmm…never! Oh, by the way, where do you plan to raise your son, Mr. Montgomery?” Adding bass to her voice: “Your Honor, I live in my aunt’s garage, it’s a wonderful place to raise a child.”

         
Neal snatched up his baseball cap and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

         
Craps! Forget Neal! No child of mine is going to disrespect me!

         
‘I’ll take you to court and take my son.’ Ha. The judge would laugh him out of the courtroom. ‘Mr. Montgomery, the space heater you cook your food on, can you bake in it? And that mattress on the floor in your aunt’s garage, you think there’s enough room for two?’

         
What if the judge asked Derrick which parent he’d prefer to live with?

         
Craps!

         
Tasha stared at the two portraits on the headboard. The first was Derrick at the tender age of six months, sporting a blue-and-white beanie, his chubby face grinning with delight.

         
He was
her
baby, then. Neal claimed Derrick wasn’t his, claimed that Jimmy Jones, a guy she dated once, one single time, was the father. For five months, Neal, who had acquired the amazing ability to determine paternity by looks during her thee-day hospital stay, wouldn’t even acknowledge Derrick’s existence.
    

         
The foolishness ended when Neal’s mother, Gloria Montgomery, who possessed the amazing ability to determine paternity by rubbing an infant’s head, drove down from Missouri and declared the baby Neal’s.

         
Tasha went back to work; Neal stayed home and watched Derrick, what he called babysitting. She couldn’t sit and relax for a second after a long day before Neal barraged her with a litany of problems: the baby ate too much; the baby burped too much; the baby pooped too much; the baby took too much of his time, preventing him from looking for a job.

         
Neal whined so much she seriously considered paying a sitter.

         
Then everything changed. At some point, she couldn’t remember when, the whining stopped. Neal and Derrick became friends, best of friends. They played with toys, drew crude pictures, played games, and spent hours on end watching cartoons.

 
       
Things would have been different, she told herself, if she hadn’t spent so many hours at work. The vast difference in parenting styles didn’t help matters, either. She would spank Derrick’s bottom in a heartbeat. Neal never spanked. He didn’t need to. Derrick would gladly do whatever his father told him. So when Neal started taking Derrick to the park, to movies and to the zoo, she wasn’t invited along.

         
“Boy stuff,” Neal would say. “You wouldn’t be interested in boy stuff.”

         
True, she wasn’t interested in
boy stuff
, but was interested in spending time with her husband and her son.

         
Tasha was a tad envious of Derrick’s unwavering devotion to his father. Whenever she stepped out the front door, and often she made a grand exit, Derrick would not bat an eye. Neal, however, could simply jingle car keys and Derrick would throw a hissy conniption.

         
Tasha sighed. She studied the portrait next to Derrick’s. Neal, looking rather spiffy in a blue workshirt, Montgomery stitched in the left pocket, Nick’s Lawn Service in the right. She remembered ironing that shirt. She remembered fixing Neal’s lunch the two weeks he worked there.

         
She also remembered Neal coming home and saying he’d quit. The supervisor, Neal explained, had requested that he, Neal, a champion of worker’s rights, rake leaves. Raking leaves, Neal stated indignantly, was not listed in the job description. Three days she was so angry she didn’t speak to him.

         
Neal belied his bloodline. His father, Dexter, and his brother, Chris, were both successful lawyers. Both were also relentless braggarts, especially Dexter, who would rudely monopolize conversation ranting endlessly about his cars, houses, bank accounts.

         
Neal vowed to outdo his entire family by making millions. To this end he attempted several get-rich-quick schemes, one involved incubating emu eggs in a hall closet.

         
After each harebrained scheme failed, Neal blamed his wife, railing that her unwillingness to provide moral
and
monetary support was the main reason his ventures failed.
         
Tasha filed for divorce six times, each time not going through with it. After her seventh trip to the lawyer’s office, Neal, now accustomed to her filings, said the two words that sealed his fate: “Divorce me!”