The Devil's Wire (18 page)

45

Lenise stirs. She's in that loose, hazy space between waking and sleeping and tries to hold on to it. But it's futile. Something is dragging her into the world by her tongue. She's lying prone on the bare concrete floor. Her eyes water and she's not sure if it's from the stench or the stark fluorescent light. There's a puddle of vomit where someone has missed the toilet and more splashed on the door. Then she sees a person, a woman, sitting against the wall staring at her.

"Where am I?" says Lenise.

The woman ignores her and Lenise gets to her feet and promptly throws up.

"God damn it!" cries the woman, pushing herself into the wall. "You nearly got my feet that time!"

Lenise wipes her mouth and looks at the woman.

"Who are you?" she says.

"The virgin-friggin-Mary."

Lenise shuffles over to the mirror, which isn't actually a mirror but more like the reflective steel they have in gas station bathrooms. Leaves and sticks are tangled in her hair, her eyes are ringed with mascara, and on the right side of her face there's a long bloody scratch. She turns to the woman.

"This some white slavery kidnapping thing?" she says.

The woman lets out a loud sharp "Ha! You'd be so lucky. You're more loaded than I thought."

The woman, come to think of it, doesn't look much better than Lenise, and has a large black bruise on her left cheek.

"This is detox," says the woman.

"Detox?"

"That's what I said."

Lenise becomes aware of an ache in her chest and groans and sits down on a concrete slab.

"That'll be your ribs. From the fight," says the woman.

"Fight?"

The woman points a red talon at her own black eye. Then somewhere in the fog a sketchy memory of a cop saying "You girls sort out your differences" and the sound of the steel door slamming behind them.

"What day is it?" says Lenise.

"Thursday."

She'd lost three bloody days. She blinks at the floor trying to remember. Jennifer laughing in her face. Some shithole dance bar. Drinking. A blubbering call to Cody that was met with a "you're so disgusting when you're drunk". A park. Passing out. Coming too with someone riffling through her pockets.

"You tried to rob me," says Lenise.

The woman shrugs. "I thought you were dead."

Lenise stares at the single, humming florescent strip. Dark outlines of dead insects line the bottom.

"Got a smoke?" she says.

The woman shakes her head. "You talk in your sleep, you know that? Ghosts and some such shit."

"Any names?" says Lenise.

"Nuh."

Lenise lies on her back and closes her eyes. "Good."

They fall silent then Lenise says, "What's the worst thing you've ever done, virgin-friggin-Mary?"

"The absolute worst?"

"Yeah."

"I stole an old lady's rent money to get a fix. I ain't proud of it, but I own it now, you know? I think about that old lady from time to time. You?"

"I left my back door open and my dog got out and was hit by a car and died."

"Jeez."

"I know."

"That kind of shit would cut me up."

"Strange thing is I became friends with the person who did it. Helped her out with something big, but she let me down."

"That's a lot of the problem these days."

"What is?"

"Lack of gratitude."

"Yes," Lenise nods. "There's nothing I hate more than a lack of gratitude."

*

They are released just before noon. Lenise steps out into the sharp morning light and her cell mate waves a goodbye above her head and sashays off down the road in her white dagger heel boots. Lenise is about to flag down a cab when she looks in her wallet and finds it empty. No money. Not a dime. That bitch had taken everything she had.

She shoves the empty wallet back into her purse. What did it matter where it had gone and who took what and who didn't? No money, no ride. Her head pounds and her mouth is sore and her ribs ache and all she wants to do is crawl into bed but instead puts one leaden foot in front of the other and begins the long walk home.

*

Lenise has the key in her door and is about to go inside when she sees a car pull up. A dark-haired man steps from the vehicle, handsome in an unkempt sort of way. At first, she thinks he's some sort of debt collector.

"Ma'am," he says. "My name is Detective Ethan North. May I have a word?"

His eyes linger on her dirty clothes, the scratch on her face.

"Are you going to charge me with something?" she says.

He looks startled. "Why would I do that?"

"For the detox thing."

The detective jams his hands in his pockets and looks over his shoulder at Jennifer's house. "I don't know anything about that. I just want to ask you a few questions about your neighbors – the Blakes."

Lenise feels sick. "What about them?"

"If we could just go inside."

"I need a shower, can't we do this later?"

"It won't take long."

Lenise sighs and unlocks the door and he follows her inside and glances around. The sketch of a lion she had picked up at a Jo'Burg market seems to interest him and he goes close to study it.

"Africa?"

"Yes."

"I've always wanted to go."

"They have airplanes for that now. What's this about?"

From his pocket, he takes out a pen and a black notebook and flips through it.

"Jennifer Blake told me about that night. How you helped when he came after them," he says, eyes on his notes.

Lenise tries to maintain her composure. "What about it?"

"It was kind of you. Dangerous even," he says, without looking up.

"I couldn't exactly turn them away."

He flips through his notebook until he reaches a blank page. "You see him after that?"

"The husband?"

He nods.

"Once or twice, maybe. I can't remember. Who cares?"

"He's missing."

"Ha! More likely gone on to terrorize some other poor, unsuspecting woman."

Detective North pauses. "What do you think of the wife – Jennifer?"

She looks at him. "You really want to know the truth?"

"Sure."

"She's weak. She needed to open her eyes and see him for what he is a long time ago. If someone ever pulled a gun on me…well…let's just say there would be consequences." She looks at her watch. "Now will that be all?"

"You see anything funny?"

"Funny?"

"You know, out of the ordinary."

She shakes her head. "I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"No."

"Has she talked to you, Jennifer, since then, I mean?"

Lenise shrugs.

"In passing. Neighbor stuff. Waving when I put out the trash etcetera."

He writes something down but she can't see what it is.

"I prefer to keep to myself," she says.

"You live alone?"

"My son recently moved out."

He looks at the scrabble board on the table.

"Okay," he says finally. "Here's my number." He gives her his card. "Call me if you think of anything else."

Before leaving, he stops at the lion sketch.

"I saw a documentary once – about the Serengeti or some such place. Mostly it's the females who do the hunting yet the males who eat first. Seems the battle of the sexes isn't just a human condition. But I tell you something else for free – those females can be ruthless. I saw one bring down an impala and you know how she killed it? By holding its nose and mouth in her jaw and suffocating it. Held it down like that while it thrashed about from lack of oxygen. And that's the other thing about them – patience – they got a ton of it. But then again, so do I. Thank you for your time."

He gives her a nod and heads out. When he reaches his car, he turns to look at the forest and
stands there staring at it, in those crumpled chinos, for what seems to Lenise like the longest time, like a bear with its nose in the wind.

46

Jennifer rises from her desk and opens the office window. She breathes in. Across the lot, the lawnmower man shaves a perfect rectangle path through the grass. He's working his way inward in precise formation, like some strange game of Tetris.

Her door swings open, and Lenise stalks in, furious. "What in God's name are you playing at, Jenny?"

"He's been to see you," says Jennifer, crossing the room to close the door.

"You could have bloody well warned me."

"I had no choice," Jennifer replies evenly.

"What did you tell him?"

"I thought it better to stick as close to the truth as possible."

Lenise shakes her head as if Jennifer is the dumbest human in history. "You should've kept your mouth shut. You've made yourself the number one suspect, you know that, don't you? You put me at risk too."

Jennifer takes a seat, rubs her temple, tries to will the universe into making Lenise disappear but when she opens her eyes, she's still there.

"I had to tell him," says Jennifer. "Besides, sexually abusing your daughter and threatening to kill your family is a good reason to disappear."

"For heaven sakes Jenny, don't be so naive!"

Jennifer explodes and leaps to her feet.

"Who do you think you are, Lenise? We wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for you!"

"Don't pull that shit on me. You know it was an accident. You're not laying everything at my door. You're up to something and I don't like it."

"You're being ridiculous."

"I'm not having a bar of it."

"Lenise, they've got nothing. You'll see. It will die down now. They'll make a half-hearted attempt to look for him, another big case will come along and they'll forget all about Hank Blake."

Lenise pauses. "Does this mean Florida's off?"

Jennifer meets Lenise with a level gaze. "Everything is still moving ahead as planned."

The door opens.

"Everything okay?" says Rosemary. "You guys were shouting."

"We're fine," says Jennifer.

"You sure?"

"I'm just leaving," says Lenise. She gives Jennifer a look. "If anything changes, call me."

"Whatever you say."

"I mean it, Jenny, don't leave me in the dark again."

*

As Jennifer pulls into Seener Road, her hope of making up lost time soon fades when she sees traffic backed up all the way to Cooper Street. She had wanted to collect some empty packing boxes from the moving company before peak hour traffic hit, but by the looks of the trail of red tail lights there wasn't much chance of that.

There's no avoiding it, so she pulls in behind a gold Lexus, and joins the wait, planning on breaking away and taking a left on Quincy Road when she reaches the intersection. Outside pedestrians are walking, chins down, jackets pulled tight at their throats. Then, to her right, Jennifer sees him. Ethan North.

She's startled at first, thinking perhaps she's caught him in the act of tailing her. But then her mind computes what she is actually witnessing – Ethan North on the sidewalk trying to wrangle an old man into his unmarked sedan. The man's being uncooperative and keeps shuffling to the left, pointing at something down the street, causing Ethan to circle around in an attempt to coax him back toward the car.

Initially, Jennifer concludes the man must be an intoxicated vagrant until Ethan kneels down to tie the lace on the old man's shoe. The man smiles and places his hand on top of Ethan's head, gently, father to son.

She's almost embarrassed because it feels like she's walked in on someone in their private space. Ethan and his father continue their back and forth rumba up and down the sidewalk until Ethan finally wins out and gets his father into the passenger side of the car, guiding him into the seat, then reaching over to click the safety belt it into place.

A car honks behind her. Traffic has begun moving again and she pulls away.

*

An hour later, when Jennifer returns home, the back seat filled with packing cartons, she nearly hits the fence when she sees Ethan North's empty sedan parked out front. Trying to quell her shaking hands, she angles the car into the garage and opens the internal door and finds McKenzie and Detective North in the kitchen.

"He says it's about Dad," says McKenzie.

"Oh, yes?" says Jennifer, heart pounding.

Ethan North gets to his feet. "You're moving away."

"That's right."

"You should have told me."

He seems harder now and she wonders where that tender shoe-lace-tying son went.

"I wouldn't have just left," she says.

"Oh?"

"Of course not. It's just with everything going on…"

"Florida?"

She laughs, uneasy. "You bugging my house?"

"McKenzie just told me."

"It's stupid and I don't want to go," McKenzie chimes in.

"I know how it must look," says Jennifer.

"How's that?"

"Husband disappears, wife leaves town," she tries for another laugh. "But McKenzie and I, we deserve this."

He pauses.

"We're conducting a search."

He is watching her and she uses every inch of self-control to keep her face passive.

"A search?"

"In Pine Ridge Forest."

Jennifer feels a rush of blood to the head.

"Why there?" she says.

Detective North hesitates, glances at McKenzie. "It's better if we talk alone."

"Go upstairs, hon," says Jennifer.

"I want to stay."

"Please, McKenzie, do as I say."

"Stop treating me like a kid. I deserve to know what's going on, too."

"Alright," says Jennifer, relenting. She nods at Ethan North to continue.

"Your husband's bank account hasn't been touched, which could mean a possibility of suicide."

"Dad wouldn't do that!"cries McKenzie.

"Hon."

"I know he wouldn't," McKenzie insists.

Ethan looks at his hands, and shoves them in his pockets.

"We have to rule out every possibility. Most research shows people don't stray too far from home to carry out the act, so the forest is a good guess."

"That's a big area. Where will you start?" says Jennifer.

He rubs a knuckle over his lip. "People tend to stick to the tracks and like to be close to water. Thinking time, I guess. Our focus will be on a small, targeted search in a 10 mile radius."

"When?"

"Monday," he says. "If the weather holds up."

Two nights away.

"You're wasting your time," says McKenzie flatly. "You won't find him."

He looks at them both. "I just thought you should know."

"You won't," she says.

*

Afterward, Jennifer stands on the landing and hears McKenzie crying in her room. Jennifer has no tears though. She is thinking instead, about where they had put the body, somewhere not far from a walking track, close to water.