Hints of Heloise (9 page)

“Ma'am, this is a crime scene—”

“But it's my sister's house.”

“Is that Heloise?” It's Meghan's voice, croaking from inside the house. “Please, let me see my sister. I want my sister.”

Meghan's eye is freshly bruised, her lip split. She is wearing a robe and a pair of socks, and presumably nothing else. A female police officer sits with her at the kitchen counter, pushing a cup of tea toward Meghan, who keeps pushing it away.

“Our neighbor,” Meghan tells Heloise. “Dan Simmons. He came over here with some of the paperwork for the trusts I'm putting together for the kids and he raped me. I—all I was trying to do was protect myself. I thought he was going to kill me.”

Paramedics trudge down the stairs, shaking their heads, and now the attendants from the medical examiner's office march up, followed by detectives with rubber-gloved hands. Heloise wants to follow, but she knows they will think her morbid, unnatural. Still, she wants to know, wants to survey the scene.

Some unnerving inconsistencies start to surface as the policewoman talks to Meghan in her deceptively conversational way. Why is Dan Simmons naked? How did he manage to take his clothes off while keeping Meghan under his control? Did she really keep a loaded gun, unlocked, in her nightstand drawer? With kids in the house? Was she crazy? Heloise wishes her sister would stop talking. But Meghan points to the marks on her face, admits how frightening it has been, living without her husband, admits her ignorance and negligence with the gun but says she believes it is the only thing that prevented Dan from killing her. He choked her when they had sex, see? There are marks on her neck. She was blacking out, she thought she was dying, there was nothing to do but reach into that nightstand table, grab the gun, and blow his brains out. Look—there is brain matter in her hair, a fine spray of blood on her face. She knows she has to go to the hospital and talk to police at greater length—Heloise puts in here that she wants her sister to have a lawyer, a good one. She won't use her own man, but she'll ask him for a recommendation.

“Can't my sister drive me to the hospital for the rape kit? Do I really need to go in the ambulance or a police car?”

Meghan walks stiffly to Heloise's car, carrying a duffel bag with clothes to change into after the exam.

“So,” Heloise says, letting that one word stand for the two dozen questions she wants to ask.

“I told him I like it rough. It took him a while to warm up—I had to beg him to hit me, bully him, even scratch him a little—but he caught on. And then I told him I wanted to do the autoerotic thing.”

“With Brian's gun?”

“Oh, no. I had him wait downstairs, told him I wanted to get ready for him. That gave me time to get it out of the lockbox and load it, then put it in the nightstand.”

The hospital is only a mile away now. They will never speak of this again, Heloise knows.

“Are you sure?” she asks. “That he was the one?”

“Yes. And he wanted me to kill his wife, Lillian. Isn't that awful?”

“Awful,” Heloise agrees.

“I saved her life, if you think about it,” Meghan says. “What a terrible, terrible man.”

“Yes.”

SIX

M
eghan sits in the little dressing room adjacent to the green room at the
Today
show, waiting for the makeup and hair people. She had hoped for something a little loftier—
Oprah,
to be exact—but she supposes
Today
is the best thing to do if you can't get
Oprah.
She did get
Oprah,
though;
Oprah
just didn't get her. She was asked to be one of several women, up to a half dozen, featured under the theme “She Fought Back.” Meghan doesn't want to be one in a crowd, her story reduced to a mere trend. Besides, there were some indications that Oprah might ask a lot of questions about the gun—why was it so near to hand, in a house with children—and the publicist who has been advising Meghan found the course of the pre-interview worrisome and recommended pulling-out.
Today
is more interested in Meghan's decision to speak publicly about being a rape victim, her assertion that women have nothing to fear by coming forward. “There's not just one way to be a rape victim” is the line the publicist impresses upon her to use in interviews, something he apparently cribbed from an Internet site.

“And what are you talking about today?” the makeup girl asks, beginning to apply foundation.

“I was raped and I killed my attacker,” Meghan says.

“Oh.” The makeup girl's eyes slide upward, meeting the gaze of the hairdresser, who's standing behind Meghan, twirling a round brush through her hair. Meghan sees it all in the mirror—the concern, the pity.

“It's okay,” she assures them. “That's why I'm here. Because women should talk about these things. It was horrible, what happened to me, what I had to do to survive. But I have no regrets, and certainly no shame.”

Again, her lines are rehearsed, but that doesn't mean they're not true. Even when Meghan allows herself to think about what really happened—something she does less and less—she can't imagine taking a different course of action. No regret, no shame. She was on top of Dan, their second go-round, riding him and encouraging him to choke her, when he saw her reach for the drawer. “What are you getting?” he gasped. “Something to make it better. Close your eyes.” He did as he was told and she managed to grab the gun, hold it behind her back. “Flip me, you on top.” “I'm too big for a little girl like you, I'll break you.” “I'll be fine.” Gracelessly, they switched positions, and she let him have a few more seconds of pleasure—“Eyes shut, eyes shut,” she crooned—until he finally asked, “Where's the surprise?”

She had never fired a gun and it bucked in her hand, but it didn't matter, given how closely it was pressed to the spot behind his left ear. He looked surprised. Brian had looked surprised, too. Dan flopped a little and there seemed to be a delay before blood and other things began leaking out of him. It didn't bother her. She was the mother of four kids. She had been vomited on, peed on, shat on, wiped snotty noses. A little blood and brain matter was nothing to her. Besides, she did this for her kids, all of it. Killing Brian, killing Dan.

So why not kill Lillian, as Dan wanted? He loved her, she wanted a second husband. Eventually. Why not kill Lillian? But that struck Meghan as wrong. She wasn't a cold-blooded killer. She did the things she did only when backed into a corner. She did what any mother would do, given the same proclivity for quick thinking. It's not as if she enjoyed it, not quite. She appreciated the power it bestowed, however briefly, the sense of besting men who were making her miserable. But it wasn't
recreational.

It's pleasant, being tended to, the feel of the soft brush across her cheekbones, her hair being blown and teased into something larger and grander than it is. She also enjoyed checking into a hotel room last night, being by herself, ordering room service. A single mother, she is at once alone and yet never alone in her daily life, and this pure solitude was something to cherish. The producers had offered to bring the whole family up, make it a vacation, but she had quickly demurred. “Oh no, that's hardly necessary.” Her eyes drift upward, to the monitor above the makeup mirror, and she watches Matt Lauer explaining something, his face grave. Utterly relaxed, she closes her eyes at the makeup woman's instruction, thinking:
I could break Matt's neck like a little twig. If I had to, if it came to that.

SEVEN

W
hy can't I walk home?” Scott asks. It is the first day of school, the first day of fifth grade for him, his last first day ever at Hamilton Point Elementary School. Next year he will be in middle school, which means a bus. A bus will take him away from Heloise every morning and return him in the afternoon. It's the beginning of his leaving her.

“Why?” he repeats. “Billy does.”

“Billy doesn't have to cross Old Orchard.” The prettily named street, a monument to a place long gone, a place torn down to make room for the houses there, has the distinction of being the suburb's most dangerous. Three high school students died in a head-on crash there the last weekend before school started, a tragedy so enormous that it has eclipsed the gossip about Dan Simmons going nuts, trying to rape his neighbor.

“I'll be good. I'll look both ways. There's a crossing guard.”

Heloise begins to repeat her argument, then says: “We'll talk about it. Maybe soon. But you know what? I like driving you.”

She glances in the rearview mirror, sees Scott make a face, but also sees a guilty flush of affection beneath it. “Mom.” Two syllables, verging on three.

“What did you learn in school today?”

“Nothing, it's the first day. But I think science is going to be neat. We get to do yearlong projects if we want. Not experiments, but reading projects, where we take on a topic and learn everything about it. I think I want to do nature versus nutria.”

“Nurture? Nutria's an animal, I think.”

“Right, nurture. It's like, we used to think it was all about how you were raised, but now we think it's about what's in your genes.” A pause, a heartbreaking pause. “Why don't we have any photographs of my dad?”

“I've never been much of one for taking photos, except of you. Children change. Grown-ups, not so much. Your father lives in my memory.”
And in my scars.

“But he had red hair, like me?”

“Yes.”

“And he was a businessman, who ran a com-, com-, com—” Bright as Scott is, as many times as they have gone over this story, he stumbles on this word.

“Commodities exchange.” Oh yes, Val traded in commodities. “I never really understood it. Soybeans. And something to do with pork belly futures.” And the bellies and breasts and thighs and cunts of young women.

“And he was nice.”

“So nice.”
Especially after he had beaten a girl. He was never nicer.

“But he had a bad accident.”

“Very bad.” His gun ran into a young man, and the woman he thought loved him made sure the police got hold of that weapon, and if he ever finds out, he will arrange to have her killed just for spite. Unless he finds out about you. Then he'll instruct his old friends to kill you in front of her and leave her alive, knowing that will be the truest hell he can fashion.

“I wish I had even one memory of him.”

“I do too, baby. I do too.”

Nature versus nurture. Hector Lewis had two families. Hector Lewis had two daughters. He beat one. She grew up to be a whore. With the other, he spared the rod, blew hot and cold, providing money and love in fitful amounts, and she grew up to be a cold-blooded killer. Just last week, Meghan moved her family to Florida. A fresh start, she said. It was too awkward, she said, living next door to Lillian after all that had happened. Not that Lillian was going to be living there long. Just as the cobbler's children go barefoot, the Simmons heirs turned out to have hardly any insurance. Except for Lillian, on whom Dan had taken out a huge policy earlier this summer. That information, along with the selected correspondence that Meghan showed the police—the CD, the poetry, but never the Bible verses—and the autopsy findings of some odd, calcified spots in Dan's brain, probably months old, took care of everything. Dan had lost his mind. His obsession with Meghan, the rape, his plans for Lillian, the disturbing pornography that he had neglected to clear out of his computer before he died—it didn't exactly add up to anything, but it served the scenario Meghan had created. Unhinged Dan tried to rape Meghan and she killed him. It made as much sense as anything. It certainly made more sense than the truth. And if the police ever looked into the death of Brian Duffy for any reason, Dan would probably take the rap for that, too. Who was going to contradict Meghan? Not Heloise, certainly.

Nature versus nurture. Heloise glances in the rearview mirror, sees her redheaded son looking out at the passing landscape, thinks of the redheaded man who fathered him, of the grandfather he never knew, of the aunt who has killed two men, of the mother who lies as naturally as breathing.

“Mom!” Scott's yell is horrified, embarrassed. “You're
crying.
”

“Sorry, honey. You're just growing up so fast.”

To: Captain Hookes

 

Jan. 21, 2000

 

Began assigned surveillance of subject, name unknown, connected to Valentine Day Deluca, target of CID vice investigation. Subject was identified via hotel clerk who is familiar with Deluca's operations. Clerk indicated that of all the women who work for Deluca, the subject is the only one who ever leaves hotel during the day. Purpose unknown.

Subject arrives at 10:40 in white van with four other women. She and two of those women enter hotel; the other two walk west. Men begin arriving at hotel shortly after 11 and appear to stay in increments of 45 minutes to 90 minutes. What appears to be the last customer on the noon "shift" departs 14:25. Until 16:00, all traffic in and out of hotel seems to be legitimate guests - older couples, foreigners. (Asian.) Then there is another steady stream presumed customers until 19:45. Subject never leaves hotel. Can't blame her. It's cold as fuck and the storeroom above the soup kitchen is unheated, although I can smell the cabbage they're cooking for dinner. Nineteen degrees for the high today. I love my job.

The van, driven by a No. 1 male, arrives at 19:30 and departs by 20:00.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Detective Tom Bradford

 

February 3, 2000

 

To: Captain Hookes

 

 

Subject finally left premises for first time since surveillance began. I was beginning to doubt the clerk's info and am still skeptical about the clerk overall

Subject arrives at 10:45. Clients begin to arrive at 11:00. Last client clears premises at 14:15. Lull generally lasts until 16:00. It appears that Deluca has worked out some sort of lunchtime/post-work trade, which allows men to make appointments during the workday, thus keeping spouses and/or bosses from being suspicious. The appointments are probably run through a phone booker in another location, although not Deluca's home, per results of wiretap last year. Hotel staff almost certainly paid off, as the only people who don't realize what's going on are the foreign tourists who must think the Lady Baltimore Hotel is a lot more central than it is. I realize that Simpson swears by clerk as a reliable confidential informant, but we should consider possibility that CI is playing both sides against each other and tying up a good police (me) on a completely bogus detail (this).

 

There are two men who alternate driving duties, but neither one matches the DMV photo that goes with the name on the registration, Julian Deluca, whose photo shows a No. 2 male with dark hair and eyes. Both drivers, names unknown, are No. 1 males with very dark skin, but one is small and reminds me of the ferret in
The Lion King
, while the other is massive and, although not wearing a cape, reminds me of Darth Vader. Assume Julian Deluca is a relative of target, given surname, but Julian Deluca has no criminal record in Maryland. Could be a brother, but why not Christmas Day Deluca, or Labor Day Deluca, or even Fourth of July Deluca? Mom missed a real opportunity there. DOB 2/3/1975. (Hey, happy birthday, Julian Deluca! I hope you did something fun today. Something better, for example, then sitting in a storeroom above a soup kitchen, with its incomparable view of the front and side entrances of a hotel in midtown Baltimore that is basically used by hookers and confused tourists.)

 

Subject leaves motel at 14:55. Using my super powers, I manage to get to the street and follow her before she has traveled more than a block. It helps that she is wearing ridiculous hooker shoes. (Strappy shoes made from that shiny stuff. Possible anniversary gift for Mrs. Hookes?) Also, she has long, dark hair, which makes her easy to track on a city sidewalk. Subject walks three blocks and goes to the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Cathedral Street between Franklin and Mulberry Streets. Inside, she browses the for-sale books on the top floor, picks out one, takes it to the front desk and pays two dollars for it, in cash. She puts book in purse, then returns to the hotel, stopping at sandwich shop for soda and what appears to be a Hostess Cupcake. Does not leave hotel again until 19:55, when all women are rounded up and returned, presumably, to Deluca's home.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Detective Tom Bradford

 

 

February 5, 2000

 

To: Captain Hooker

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, left motel at 19:55.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Detective Tom Bradford

 

(Is that better? No "extraneous detail" whatsoever.)

 

(Okay, seriously, I am sorry that I suggested your wife would look good in those strappy shoes, but isn't that better than saying she has enormous cankles like some other guys' wives, not naming names,? Also, thanks for the heads up on
The Lion King
, that it's a meerkat, not a ferret. I'm really glad to know that.)

 

(And I'm sorry that I deviated from the assignment and added all that speculative crap about Deluca's business model, but I wanted to justify the time spent on this. I accept that I am just a little cog in this big machine that is trying to make this case against Valentine Deluca, but seriously - what the fuck? You're going to bust balls over me trying to do more work than I was asked to do? Fine, I'll take my cue from the legendary Polk and Mahone, the dynamic duo, and never do one thing more than I'm asked to do, possibly less. If an alien spaceship comes down, lands on Mulberry Street and sucks subject into the spaceship via some weird transporter and the spaceship promptly levitates and leaves Earth's orbit, my report will read simply: Subject was observed entering dome-shaped vehicle at 13:30 and did not exit.)

 

(Finally, "Hooker" instead of "Hookes" was totally inadvertent. I'm a two-finger typist, must have slipped. No insubordination intended whatsoever. If I was going for a joke, I would have called you T.J. Hooker.)

 

(And, no, I don't think I over-use parentheses.)

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

(Tom Bradford)

 

February 21, 2000

 

To: Captain Hookes

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, left hotel at 19:35. (Val Deluca is to hookers as Mussolini was to trains.) At 15:15, subject left hotel via side entrance. I followed at a discreet distance. Still no name on the subject, who appears to be in her 20s. She's actually very attractive, compared to the other women working for Deluca, the usual mix of pudgy and pockmarked girls with bad habits. But she doesn't seem to have a drug thing. When I opened this file on her, I assumed that she was leaving the motel to cop or generate business on her own. Even after first library visit, I thought that might be the case. But she leaves only to go to library or bookstore down in the Inner Harbor, although that's a haul in those high heels. Possibly into Deluca for money? His business ventures are reputed to include some loan-sharking on the side. Can't figure out how she got mixed up with him.

 

Today, she went back to the library and to the third floor, but instead of browsing the for-sale books, she went into the women's restroom. Obviously could not follow her there, but the door is kept open for some reason and I could linger outside without drawing too much attention because information desk on that floor was unmanned while librarian was walking around eye-fucking homeless men sleeping at the tables. I believe subject was weeping. I went back to the first floor because it is the only possible exit from the library from what I can ascertain. She left at 15:55 and when she returned to hotel, #1 male (the meerkat) (see, I do listen to you) (only not about parantheses) was out front. He grabbed her arm, appeared to be scolding her.

 

Subject departed motel in van at 20:05. (Really, Deluca ought to be running public transpo for the State of Maryland.)

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Tom Bradford

 

To: Captain Hookes:

 

February 29, 2000

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, appeared to be moving stiffly, as if achy with that flu that's been going around - or recovering from a physical attack. Given distance of surveillance, could not ascertain that subject had bruising on her face, but it seemed possible. And, for the first time since I have observed her, she was dispatched to the streets for the day. Did not feel it was smart to try to follow her on the streets, although I can't imagine she did much business. My hunch is that she hid out in the library most of the day. High was 40, relatively mild for this time of year, but she had no hat, no gloves and only a short fur (probably fake) jacket over short skirt.

 

I bet Deluca doesn't even do his own dirty work when it comes to beatings. What a punk.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Tom Bradford

 

 

To Captain Hookes

 

March 27, 2000

 

Subject appears at motel for first time since that freak blizzard last week. No point in bringing girls downtown if the customers can't get in. Great job of snow removal, Baltimore City. I guess that's one thing that's not going to change under Mayor O'Malley. My two cents: Put Deluca in charge of it. He knows how to motivate his people.

 

Subject arrives in van with other girls at 10:45 - seriously, could this guy be more punctual? I stand by my belief that punctuality is highly over-rated, possibly sign of deviancy. Enters motel. Departs 20:05 in van.

 

 

April 3:

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 20:05 in van.

 

:

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 20:05 in van.

 

April 4:

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 20:05 in van.

 

April 5:

 

Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 19:55 in van.

 

April 6:

 

What happened? I dozed off. Oh: Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 20:05 in van.

 

April 7:

 

Message received, mein kommandant! Subject arrived at 10:45, departed 20:05 in van.

 

 

April 15

 

 

Subject arrives at 10:45. At 14:02, leaves hotel and proceeds in usual direction toward library, then changes direction and heads west, then south to Rite Aid at Baltimore and Calvert where she shoplifts feminine hygiene product.

(I briefed you in person on all subsequent events. The bottom line is that I could have charged her, but to what purpose? Deluca beat her up for going to the library. What do you think he'll do if he hears she got popped for shoplifting? Guys doesn't like any attention drawn to him, no matter how trivial. And how grateful will she be to us if we get her in trouble with him? I stand by my decision to release her and set up a meeting to see if she can be persuaded to be a CI. She's got the potential to be a much better one than the hotel clerk, that's for sure.)

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Tom Bradford

 

 

April 22

 

Oh Captain, My Captain!

 

Subject arrived at agreed-upon meeting place at 14:15. Her name is Helen Lewis, but she declined to provide ID (says she has none, not even a driver's license) DOB or even place of birth. Says she dropped out of school and followed a boyfriend to Baltimore in 1992, which would put her at 24 or 25. I brought her a pregnancy kit, figuring she must need one badly if she was willing to shoplift it. (I didn't put that in the original report because she was nervous about it. And "feminine hygiene" is technically correct because the tests are sold on that aisle.) She's a cautious person in her own way.

 

She's also very smart. She's the one who, when I told her you were kind of a dick, said "Oh Captain, My Captain," then told me to start the report that way, said it was from a poem. She's very up on current events and history. We ended up talking about the Elian Gonzalez case and she had a very nuanced view of it. Has very little sympathy for the biological father, but also says that the diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Cuba shouldn't be affected by a custody battle. I told her that, that her ideas were "nuanced" and she seemed surprised that I would use a word like that. I didn't tell her I knew it from the movie Diner. She was probably five years old when that movie came out.

 

Close up, even in a diner with crummy lighting, she's pretty, but in a quieter way than I expected. The clothes that Deluca makes her wear, they don't do her justice. She should shop at Saks, out at Owings Mills, or maybe Nordstrom. I can't buy all my suits at places like that, but I always manage to pick up one or two at the sales, and I get all my ties at Saks. She's one of those women who can be a knock-out if she wants to be, but also could just disappear from view. Seriously, like one of those women in an old movie who takes off her glasses and lets down her hair and suddenly you realize she's beautiful. Only in her case, it's when she pulls her hair back, twisting it into a knot that somehow holds itself and eases her feet out of those stupid shoes - she says they give her corns - that you realize how gorgeous she is.

 

I could have talked to her all day. She just has that way about her. She's not super chatty, but she's a good listener and, as I said, she's smart. But time was short. I had to make sure she was able to sneak back into the hotel before 16:00. It's no good for us if she's on the outs with Deluca. And it's definitely not good for her. She has to stay in his good graces to be any good to us. She explained that's what happened back in February - she got caught, sneaking out, which she's never supposed to do, and Deluca beat her, then put her on the street to teach her a lesson. She said that hadn't happened for a long time and she never wants it to happen again. I wanted to hold her when she told me that. Anyone would want to hold her. She says one of the drivers lets her slide and the other one doesn't, and she made the mistake of trying to get around the one that doesn't, the meerkat. She claims not to know their full names, says that Deluca calls them George I and George II. But she knows a lot about how Deluca does business.