Emerson Ward Mysteries

Chapter 1

If George Saunders had been lucky as well as cautious that Tuesday, he might not have ended up lying on the pavement, an ever-widening pool of his own blood oozing beneath him like primordial pitch, reflecting black under the leaden sky of early morning. Then again, maybe no amount of luck could have saved him. Whoever had gotten to him had wanted him badly.
His body – most of it – had been found in Montrose Park, near the lake. A shotgun blast had turned his knee to hamburger. Second shotgun blast had torn off his right arm at the shoulder. Probably ended up as fish food – it wasn’t found anywhere near the body. The third load of shot had blown away most of his face. It was several days before the body was positively identified.
That particular day had been dreary and rainy. Maybe the result of warmer than normal Pacific currents and a low pressure system over the Azores. Or global warming, which has become a catchall for blame of every sort. On such days, the wind blows in off the lake, whipping its surface to an angry froth on careening swells of menacing green water. It forces the waves crashing ashore, blows geysers of spray across Lake Shore Drive, drenching passing cars. It hurtles down city streets, gaining speed as it squeezes between the tall buildings. The keening as it careers past the big bay windows of my house rises and falls with each furious gust. The sheets of glass heave in and out as if breathing, tattooed by rain that sounds as loud as a handful of pebbles thrown against the panes. It finds its way into every crack and crevice, little rivulets of cold that stream indoors like the rain coursing down the window. It is the frosty breath of a callous beast, a moisture-laden cold that seeps deep into my bones, leaving me chilled and shivering.
Spring. In Chicago. An oxymoron to anyone who’s spent any time here. There are usually a couple of weeks in May that are representative of spring, a week or two in October that could be construed as fall. Hard to call them seasons, exactly. Those who live here know Chicago has only two seasons – winter and construction. Metaphors for life.
Winter, that time of darkness, decay and death, beneath which lingers a fierce vitality. Life that, while dormant, gathers strength. Not in spite of, but because of winter’s cold womb. And construction, when we create order out of chaos, impose structure, expand, improve. We spend a lifetime constructing ourselves, our surroundings. Fashioning them into pleasing and comfortable edifices, refuge against the elements and foreign invasion.
We use materials at hand, adding, improving, each year shoring up and building upon what came before. Throw on a deck here, a room addition there. Soon it begins to look a little random, if not ramshackle. Little did I know then that what lay ahead was a season of deconstruction. Like a remodeling project, an extreme home makeover, life would be stripped bare, down to the studs. Examined for structural defects, mold, gaffes in design, adequate plumbing and electric. Then the question becomes rebuild? Or tear it all down and start anew?
I knew a George Saunders, so the story on a back page of the metro section of the Sunday Tribune caught my eye. My stomach grumbled indignantly as I read the rehashed particulars of his death. Happy news, apparently, is boring. Sensationalism is addictive, so the media feed us daily doses of fires, beatings, shootings, the twisted wreckage of fatal car crashes. The flotsam of lives destroyed by greed, jealousy, anger, madness and natural disaster. Life would be mundane without the terrorist threat of impending nuclear holocaust. Newspapers would be thin without an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Television anchors would have little to say without a Darfur, a pitched Congressional battle over the imminent demise of Social Security, the destructive power of a tsunami or a hurricane.
A cynic might say it was all about selling us whiter clothes, new cars, fresher breath. We’re hooked on bad news, on tragedy, on the dark, macabre side of human nature. And while we sit transfixed with morbid fascination, clever marketers blithely and deftly throw commercial messages at our sensory receptors. It’s only natural. We slow down to gawk at the fender-bender because we’re so damn glad it’s not us.
I like to think there’s another reason we’re drawn to life’s misfortunes. I like a feel-good story as much as the next guy. Too much of a bad thing can be depressing, overwhelming. Makes us want to shut out the rest of the world. After all, life isn’t fair. It’s random and capricious. Most of the bad things that happen in the world are just bad luck. But life is beautiful, too. It’s the sound of a smiling baby gurgling. The sight of birds on the wing in an azure sky. The fecund scent of moss and pine and decaying leaves in a forest after a spring rain. The touch of a snowflake against your cheek or the brush of lips against yours.
Every once in a while, stories of adversity stir up something inside of me. Call it moral outrage. Righteous indignation. Call it being just plain pissed off. Sometimes the hard luck tales make me want to do something to fix it, to make the world a better place. If nothing else, it makes me want to better myself, be a little more compassionate, take a little more time to anger at bad drivers and inconsiderate people. And maybe that’s the good side of bad news.
That Sunday was sunny. One of those rare, warm March days designed to make me forget the rain of the previous week and the inevitable early April snowstorm yet to come. A day too beautiful to contemplate tragedies. But sitting in the sun on my bricked garden terrace with a cup of coffee and the newspaper, I found my curiosity piqued. The name in the article had tried knobs and opened some of the cupboards of memory. I wondered if I’d known the man who had died on gray pavement under a gray sky. It was hard to picture the George Saunders I’d known finding himself in the awkward position of staring down the muzzle of a shotgun.
Shrug the shoulders, turn the page. Look at all the pretty pictures in the travel section. Turn up a corner of the mouth in wry amusement at something in the entertainment section. Think sunny thoughts on a sunny day.
The tinkle of the bell that hangs on my back gate disrupted all that sunshine. An elfin face peered through the iron grate set in the wooden door. Its familiarity stirred up something long buried. A dark rush of indeterminate feelings flitted past in a blur like bats in a cave. For a moment I was yanked back in time and space. I gripped the back of the deck chair and stood, shaking off the shadows of the past.
I unlatched the gate. Wordlessly, she stepped through the open doorway and wrapped her arms around my waist. She buried a tear-stained face in my shirt and sobbed, slender shoulders heaving. I felt the wetness of her tears on my skin as they soaked through the thin cotton shirt. First warm, then cold as they dried in the soft breeze.
Her shaggy crop of dark hair barely came to my sternum. I stood there awkwardly, arms dangling, as she clung to me. Cautiously, I put one hand in the middle of her back and patted her gently. Too high, someone once told me, and it’s paternal. Too low, they think you’re trying to grab ass. I aimed a little high, stroked her hair with the other.
The bits and pieces of flesh and gristle and bone the medical examiner’s office picked up in Montrose Park five days earlier had been the remains of the George Saunders I’d known. Now, I was afraid the ninety-nine pounds of tearful, willful woman clinging to me was going to ask me to fix it. How can I put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, Mitzi? How can I fix it? I can’t. But I held her anyway until the sobs slowly subsided, soothing her with little murmurs like one would a small child.
“Oh, Emerson, it’s so awful,” she finally said. “It’s all been s-s-so h-h-horrible. I just c-c-can’t stand it.”
I put a hand under her chin and gently tipped her face up until she looked at me. “It’s all right,” I said softly. “You’re going to be okay. Come with me.”
She allowed herself to be led gently inside, an arm around her shoulders. I sat her down on a kitchen chair while I fixed a strong Bloody Mary. Then I took her and the drink back out to the terrace, sat her down and put the drink in her hands. They trembled as she brought the heavy glass to her lips. She lowered the drink, holding it in her lap, and stared at it. Her hair swung across her face as she shook her head, hiding her thoughts.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. I strained to hear the whispery voice.
“When did you find out?”
The question brought her head up. She looked unsure. “A couple of days ago. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what day it is. Sunday?”
I nodded.
Her brows knitted in concentration. “Thursday. His secretary called me Thursday morning to ask me if I had seen him. He hadn’t shown up for work.”
“The paper said he was killed Tuesday.”
She nodded. Her eyes didn’t waver. “You probably hadn’t heard – George and I separated about six months ago.”
“No. I hadn’t heard. What’s it been, Mitzi? Seven, eight years?”
“Has it been that long?”
“I haven’t seen you since the wedding.”
“Eight, then.” She nibbled her lowered lip. “A long time. You never called.” There was accusation in her eyes.
“That goes both ways. Doesn’t look like your arm’s broken.”
She relented and a small smile flashed across her face like sun glinting off something shiny, disappearing just as quickly.
“You seemed to have found what you wanted,” I said. “You looked happy that day. Happier than I’d ever seen you. Didn’t seem to be any point in messing up a good thing.”
She looked thoughtful. “I was happy back then. Lately … ” She shrugged.
“What happened?”
“What usually happens, I suppose. We just drifted apart. He had his work. I had the business.” She let it hang.
I tried again. “What happened when you found out?”
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed as she shifted gears. “I called around. No one had seen him. So, I called the police. It took a while before they got back to me. They told me they had a John Doe who could be George. Wanted to know if they could have access to his dental records.” She shivered. “That sort of request doesn’t instill a lot of hope in a girl. I mean, that pretty much told me he was dead. And they made it sound like there wasn’t much left of him, whatever it was that happened. God, I can’t tell you the horrible thoughts that went through my head.”
“Awful, I’m sure,” I murmured.
Her lower lip quavered. “The thing is, we were starting to get it back together. We were really trying. Now it seems like such a waste, so damned pointless.” She bit back tears. “Damn it, we had our problems, but we could have worked them out, given time. We didn’t have time.”
The dam overflowed. Big salty drops left snail tracks down her cheeks. One fell from the strong line of her lower jaw, leaving a dime-size rust-colored stain on the dusty brick at her feet.
“Hey, now.” I leaned forward in my chair and took her hand in my two. There are no words that help. No thoughts that ease the emotional pain. But somehow the effort is meaningful. Saying something – anything – showing you care, gives comfort. So I tried.
“I know it’s not fair, Mitzi. Life rarely is. Knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less, but you can’t blame yourself. You gave it a try. Regret won’t bring him back. Or guilt. All you can do is cry the hell out of it and let him go. Focus on the good times you had. Lean on your friends. You’ll get through this. I promise.”
She gave a shuddery sigh and pulled away, retreating inward. The glass on the table next to her was empty. I picked it up and went inside to make her another. I started to pour myself more coffee, reconsidered, and fixed a drink just like hers instead and went back outside.
She accepted hers with a nod. I perched on the edge of the low table next to her and took a long sip. She sighed again, then leaned sideways and rested her head on my thigh. I stroked her hair, preoccupied, the faint churnings of too many questions beginning to muddy the waters of my mind. Suddenly, she came up out of the chair and into my arms, pressing her face into my neck, tears scalding my skin.
I couldn’t know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. No one, no matter how empathic, can truly feel another’s pain. Sometimes, all you can do is be there. So I just held her. Eight years is a lot of time. It had been a lot more years, maybe twice as many, since I’d held her this close, this long. They all vanished in an instant. The smell of her, the feel of that strong, vibrant, pneumatic little package erased them all as if they’d never been. My fingers knew every contour, every curve, and memory served up an image of her flawless, matte-finish, honey-colored skin. The memories kept tumbling, one after another, too fast to put into context or perspective, a kaleidoscopic whirl of colors and flashes of emotion.
A subtle change in scent, in the pattern of her breathing – quick, short exhalations, hot and moist against my neck – slowly brought me back to the present. Her warm weight pressed against me, hardening nipples straining against the taut silk of her blouse, fingertips tightening in the small of my back. Other images flitted through my head – the face of another girl, a different smell, the feel of someone else’s touch. Guilt coursed hotly through me like a slurry of molten slag. I shook myself like a retriever coming out of water and held her by the shoulders at arm’s length.
“Whoa,” I said softly.
“Hey!” Her eyes slowly focused on my face, and the corners of her mouth turned down in a pout.
“What was that all about?”
She pulled away and looked down at the ground. “I don’t know. It just felt good to have you hold me, I guess. Then suddenly, pow! Keep your distance, girl.”
“We cut each other up pretty good for a while, Mitzi. No sense in opening old wounds. Friends should play fair.”
Her face darkened. “It wasn’t all bad times, though, was it?” She looked pointedly at the front of my khakis. “At least, not judging from that.”
A flash of heat rapidly spread from my collarbones up to my scalp, as unbidden and unconscious as the tumescent bulge in my pants. Her eyes glinted with triumph, then something else – shame? remorse? – flitted across her face. She sighed.
“Well, at least it took my mind off George for a minute.”
I looked at her curiously. “You suddenly sound a lot less upset.”
She plopped back into her chair, took a sip of her drink and brooded for a moment.
“I am upset, you know. Not so much by the fact that George is dead. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It hurts. But as much as I liked and respected that man, it hadn’t been going well for us. It’s possible we could have gotten love back into the thing. I don’t know. I know that I was back out on my own long enough to realize I can make it without him. I’ll miss him. I’ll cry and carry on a lot for a while. But I’ve got my friends and my job.”
She stared into space, taking stock, then turned to look at me. “What really bothers me is that it was such a horrible way to die.” She shuddered. “Who could be sick enough to do a thing like that? God, it terrifies me to think there are monsters like that running around loose.”
She paused and shook her head. “The last few days have been absolute hell. Talking with the police. Making arrangements for the funeral. Dealing with all the relatives.”
“When’s the funeral?”
“Today.” She saw my surprise and flushed. “I just came from there. I didn’t think you’d want to go.”
I took in her tailored silk slacks the color of Key Lime pie, the beige and green print blouse open at the collar, a gold chain with a diamond pendant hanging there, drawing attention to her cleavage.
“The grieving widow,” I murmured. “Where are your widow’s weeds?”
Her eyes flashed. “Oh, stop it, Emerson. It really has been upsetting. But it’s all happened so fast I think I’m still a little numb. At the reception after the funeral I heard so many people say how sorry they are I thought I was going to be sick. You paste this sad smile on until you think your face will crack, and nod and tell whoever is standing in front of you they meant the world to George. When all you can think about is that he’s not coming back. I couldn’t take any more of it. I had to get out and clear my head before I have to face more people back at the house.”
She fell silent. I studied her, thoughts roiling in my head like the stormy surface of Lake Michigan the day George was killed.
I lost someone close a long time ago. I don’t know how anyone can feel worse. There were days, weeks, of rage, of darkness and despair as black as night. There was haunting guilt that I might somehow have prevented it, that I was responsible. There was loneliness and emptiness that yawned as wide as a cavern. Life became colorless, drab and bleak, drained of substance and meaning. Every day was a struggle. There was no reason to get up each morning. Only by mindlessly adhering to some sort of routine was I able to avoid confronting the alternative.
Somewhere in the months that followed, I met Mitzi Parrish. She had just ended a rocky relationship, and we recognized in each other some primal need for connection. We clung to each other like shipwreck survivors, hanging on for dear life. Eventually, as we found our footing in the shallows and then the gradual warmth and life of dry land, we needed each other less, and found more reasons why we shouldn’t be together. Out of some sense of survivor’s guilt, we stayed together, even after the worst was over for each of us. But we were still vulnerable, and we found ways to pick at the scabs of old wounds, draw blood. We were smart enough, finally, to call a truce and let each other go.
Maybe she was still in shock. No doubt she was disturbed by George’s death. And maybe her lack of feeling resulted from being anesthetized by the horror of it. She’d let some of it out, and maybe it would tear at her guts in the days ahead. Maybe she would spend sleepless nights crying her eyes out before the real healing started. She gazed at something in the distance, looking thoughtful.
“No one knows where you are?”
She turned her head at the question, then slowly shook it. I said nothing, but she justified her answer anyway.
“I’ll go back soon. I just needed a little time.”
“Why me?”
She looked surprised. “I needed someone to talk to. Someone who would communicate, not just offer condolences. I thought of you.”
“I’m flattered. But it’s been a long time, Mitzi.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought of me once in all this time.”
I started to shake my head, then hesitated. The truth was hard to admit. As long as we’d been together, and for a long time afterward, I was hers. I belonged to her, needed her, even when I started seeing other women. That hopeless addiction had been one of the reasons she was able to wound me so easily. By the time she’d met and married George Saunders, I was long over her. But had I thought of her in the intervening years? Who doesn’t occasionally visit the past and wonder “what if?” I nodded slowly.
She smiled. “I thought of you, too. Some of it was very good.” She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“No regrets here, Mitzi. I’ll admit I’ve thought once or twice about what might have happened if things had been different. While I’m sure it does your ego a world of good to know that you can still get a rise out of me, you didn’t come here for me.”
Her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched. Then, like the sun emerging from a passing cloud, her face suddenly lit up and she laughed.
“Don’t look so smug. Of course I didn’t come here for you. I just buried my husband.” She looked at me slyly. “But a girl’s allowed to think happy thoughts that take her mind off of all that sadness.”
“You’re entitled. We all handle grief in our own way. If it makes you happy to think of us in better days, by all means go ahead.”
She tipped her head. “Thank you. Say, you don’t think after all these years we might be getting to be friends, do you?”
“It might not be a bad thing. I think we’re too dangerous to each other on any other ground.” I disarmed the comment with a smile. “So, you going to tell why you are here?”
She looked sheepish. “Oops. I guess I lied. I’m here for you after all.”
My eyebrows lifted.
“I want you to find out who killed George.”
“Just like that?”
“I guess so.”
“You’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious, Emerson.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Do you have any idea who killed him?”
“No.”
“Do the police?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Do you – ” I brought myself up short and looked at her.
“Do I what?”
“Why do you want to know who killed him? Why not let the police do their job and catch this guy? You have any special question in mind for this person?”
She looked incredulous. “I’d ask him what he did with the money.”
It was my turn to be surprised. “What money?”
“George’s money!”
“The police said they didn’t think robbery was the motive. He still had his watch, a ring.”
“Of course he wasn’t robbed. What is wrong with you?” She stamped her foot.
I put a hand up. “Whoa, settle down.” I cupped my thumb and fingers into a C and moved my hand in the air from left to right. “‘Crazed with grief, widow loses marbles, plays with half a deck instead.’”
She looked at me sullenly.
“Come on, Mitzi. Indulge me. It’s a beautiful, lazy Sunday afternoon. I’ve had only three cups of coffee today. I’m not tracking well. I’m getting older. I’m starting to lose brain cells. Start from the beginning. Paint me pictures.”
Her pique turned thoughtful, and she suddenly giggled. It could only be attributed to grief, I decided. A former acquaintance had been blown to bits by some trigger-happy, out-of-season duck hunter, and his widow sat on my terrace giggling while I wondered who had done what with whose money.
“I’m sorry.” She put a hand to her mouth and swallowed the grin. She lowered her head to hide what was left of it and looked up demurely.
I stopped pacing and sat in a chair facing her.
“Let me think it through out loud and see if it makes any sense, okay?” She bit her lower lip, silent for a moment. “George wasn’t just killed.” She gestured toward the stack of newsprint at my feet. “You saw the paper. He was taken apart. God, I think I’ll have nightmares about that for months.” She shivered.
“He must have pissed off somebody pretty bad. Did he have enemies you know of?”
She shook her head. “Not that kind. He had lots of enemies. Banking is cutthroat. Businesses don’t make it. Banks foreclose. But in his world they would have tried to ruin him financially, not kill him. I think someone wanted information.”
“They went to pretty drastic lengths to get it. Looks to me more like someone was in a rage. I mean, who carries a shotgun around in the city? This wasn’t some punk-ass kid with a Saturday night special. Or some homeboy gangsta with a MAC-Ten.”
She waved a hand. “Just listen. What the papers didn’t say is that George’s T-shirt was tied around his leg, above the knee. Like someone was trying to stop the bleeding. The police told me. They say it’s one of those details they don’t reveal to reporters.”
She watched me digest this new information.
“About eight months ago,” she went on, “a couple months before George and I separated, George got really uptight about something. It was one of the reasons we finally split up. I knew something was bothering him, and I made the mistake of harping at him to get him to tell me what was wrong. The most he would ever say was that he was worried about a deal he was trying to work on a condo. He was looking at one on a high floor of the Bloomingdale’s building. Said it was for when we were ready to downsize, which was fine with me.
“Anyway, he said he was worried about financing it. Which is just plain bullshit. I told him so. He was doing well at the bank. No business problems that I could tell. And he was certainly pulling down a good salary. But something was making him jittery as hell. He tried to cover it, but I could tell something was eating at him. At the time, I really cared. I wanted to help him. I wanted him to trust me. But I just made things worse. Whenever I asked him what the problem was, he would get into these foul moods. It made me nervous. Scared, actually. I’d never seen him like that.”
She paused and looked inward. Her eyes flicked back and forth at images only she could see.
“What happened?” I prompted.
“You know me. I’m not one to back down easily. I kept pushing it, poking at it until finally we were crawling down each other’s throats at every little remark. Neither one of us could stomach that for very long. God, Emerson, you think what we did to each other was bad … ” She frowned at the memories. I wondered if she liked the Mitzi she saw in there.
“Whit was very apologetic,” she said abruptly. She raised her eyes to look at me, saw my confusion. “I don’t think you’ve met him. Whitley Piedmont. George’s lawyer. Such a sweet man.” Her laugh sounded forced. “He met me at the house before the funeral. Told me that George barely had a dime to his name when he died. No, that’s not quite true. There was a pretty substantial stock portfolio that he’d put into a trust for his ex-wife and their son.”
“I’m sorry, Mitz. Are you going to be all right?”
“Whit said there’s a life insurance policy that names me as beneficiary. And the condo that was supposed to be for us when he retired. The one that ended up splitting us up.”
“What about the house? He didn’t leave that to you?”
“He’d already sold it. I never knew. He was leasing it back from whoever bought it. There was nothing else. No cash, no nothing. No debts, either. It’s just too damned neat. Almost as if he planned on dying. It bothers me. Okay, maybe it shouldn’t. I get the life insurance. I can live in the condo until I have to sell it. I still have my business, so even after the government gets its cut, I’ll have enough to get by. Everybody’s happy, right?”
Her eyes searched my face. I shrugged.
“Something’s very wrong,” she said. “It feels like George was tidying up loose ends for some reason. I don’t think he planned on getting himself killed. I’m almost ashamed for thinking it, but I can’t help believing he was into something very risky or dirty. Something crooked. All three. I think he stashed away a lot of money somewhere, but somebody got to him. Somebody knew about it, figured out what he was into. I’ve thought and thought, and I can’t explain it any other way.” She forced another laugh. I liked it even less this time. “My adoring husband, a thief.”
It was possible. I’d wondered about the tourniquet. It could be someone wanted to give George hope, then take it away. Or, like Mitzi laid it out, someone let George know he was in some seriously deep crap, then kept him alive long enough to talk. I met Mitzi’s gaze.
“I have to know, Emerson. Can you understand that? The money – if there is any – is an incentive, I’ll admit. But I have to know what really happened. I need to know what drove us apart. Can you help me? Will you help me?”
I rubbed the back of my neck and slowly rolled my head on my shoulders before looking her in the eye.
“I think it’s a stretch, Mitz. I’m not sure there’s enough there to suggest George was a crook. Okay, so it looks weird. Unfortunately, there are a lot of weird people in the world. It could have been a robbery gone bad. Whoever it was might have gotten spooked before getting George’s watch. Who knows. It could have been anything. Chalk it up to bad luck.”
“Please, Emerson.” Her eyes misted, and she suddenly looked like a little girl.
“The police will handle it. It’s what they do. There’s nothing more I can do that they won’t already have thought of.”
“Just poke around some. You’ve done it before. I know you have. And you’re usually lucky. Please?”
Framed by dark hair, her eyes were shockingly blue, reflecting the clear, spring sky. I tried to read what lay behind them along with the conflicting emotions running through me.
“If he wasn’t planning on dying, you know what that probably means,” I said.
She pulled on her lower lip with her teeth. “I think so.”
“If he was tidying up so he could disappear, would he have taken you with him?”
She didn’t answer.
“Let me think about it, Mitzi.”
Disappointment registered on her face, but she didn’t press the point. She lifted her glass to her lips and drained it.
“I should be getting back.” She sighed, but didn’t move.
I stood and waited while she collected herself. Finally, she rose and walked to the gate. When I opened it for her, she turned and stood on tiptoe to kiss me on the corner of my mouth. She started to turn away, then hesitated and gave me a hug, clinging to me just a little longer than necessary, as if I needed a reminder of what she felt like pressed up against me.
“Thank you for being the friend I needed,” she said softly. She flashed me a quick smile, then turned and was gone.
A sour taste filled my mouth, and I felt a faint compulsion to go wash my hands. Something under all that wide-eyed innocence didn’t ring true. It bothered me. She hadn’t reacted properly. She’d been too unconcerned about someone once very close to her. Maybe the separation had given her enough distance. Maybe she’d never loved George in the first place. She’d been too materialistic. Downright greedy, in fact. She’d shed a few tears in the right places, but I couldn’t help wondering how much of it had been acting. George, even if he had been a crook, deserved better than that. It offended me. E. Ward: romantic. Morally outraged on behalf of a dead man I’d barely known.
Or was that self-directed irritation because I’d come close to letting myself get suckered. Even after sixteen years, she had almost been able to reduce me to a hormonally charged teenager. Despite what we’d ended up doing to each other. Despite the fact that I had been happily in love with the same woman for the past four years, and even more in love with the two-year-old daughter we shared. Despite all of it I still almost chose to see only those times when it had been perfect between us. Doesn’t everyone have that time in their twenties when life is a toy? When everything seems to go right?
Mitzi and I had gotten on that ride until each of us realized we’d gone for the thrill of the rollercoaster in order to forget the pain we’d left on the midway. I remembered what I had come to learn after finally confronting my loss, confronting the reasons I stayed with Mitzi Parrish. It had never been acting for Mitzi. She believed wholeheartedly in whatever part she threw herself into. I’d wanted something more real, more tangible than whatever suited the moment, a deeper connection.
I had to laugh then. Laughter that forced me to sit before I fell. I laughed until my sides ached and tears rolled down my cheeks. Every time I thought it was over, another image would pop into my brain, causing uncontrollable giggles to bubble up again. I laughed at how transparent, really, Mitzi’s pass at me had been. I even laughed at what poor George must have been thinking when someone interrupted his morning run through the park with a shotgun. Most of all, I laughed at my own foolishness. There was no moral outrage left in me, only wry self-consciousness and amusement at my own susceptibilities and foibles.
I was still chuckling when Brandt Williams let himself in the terrace gate.