The Spellmans Strike Again (24 page)

Connor looked at me, not with concern but with annoyance, as if
he
had taken the brunt of last night’s nightmare.

“Is this your idea of a joke?”

“No,” I replied, too spent to say more.

“I don’t think you and I are going to work,” Connor said.

“No, we’re not,” I agreed.

And now I will provide you with Connor’s epitaph:

Ex-boyfriend #12:

Name:             O’Sullivan, Connor

Age:                37

Occupation:     Bartender

Hobby:            Rugby

Duration:         Five months

Last Words:     “Sharing a bed with a fat man is where I draw the line.”

CONSEQUENCES

I slept out of exhaustion and, in part, to keep myself occupied. It was too soon to take action—not that I knew what action I would take. When I wasn’t sleeping, I stayed in bed and watched TV. Phone calls filtered through and I sent e-mails back explaining that I had the flu. My mother asked if I needed anything. I told her that Connor was taking care of me and there was no need for her to drop by. Rae went silent—too fearful, I suspect, to make any kind of move.

The following day, Henry dropped by. When I opened the door, he felt my forehead and handed me a paper bag containing soup—not just any old soup, but a savory Vietnamese specialty called pho.
¹
While I like pho it seemed an odd choice for someone claiming to have the flu.

“Chicken soup and ginger ale are the generally agreed-upon fluids for influenza,” I remarked.

“I just figured you were hungover,” Henry said. “And spicy soup is the agreed-upon fluid for that.”

“True.”

“But you’re not sick, are you?” he asked.

“No.”

“You don’t look hungover, either.”

“I’m not.”

“So why are you hiding out?”

“I’m thinking.”

Henry sat down on the couch. I guess he was planning on staying.

“About what?”

And so I told him. And after a lengthy debate and thoughtful consideration, we came up with a plan. If you’ve read the previous documents, maybe you think that plan might be a carefully orchestrated revenge plot that would fall flat. But this time around, we acted like the rational adults that we aspire to be and did what we had to do.

I would like to make it clear that we did not make this decision lightly.

I filed a police report that afternoon. Henry and I arrived at my parents’ house shortly thereafter and explained the events of the previous days. While my parents took in this alarming information, Henry took in the state of the Spellman home, which was increasingly lacking in small but significant hardware.

“You know, the doorknob to the office is gone,” Henry said.

“Yeah, we know,” Dad said without much interest. And under the circumstances, who cared about missing doorknobs and light fixtures (the hallway one was now AWOL, I noticed).

The unit had other things on their mind and, frankly, so did I. While we waited for Rae to return home from school, I added another rule to the whiteboard. It’s one of those rules you’d think would be implied. But I suppose with the Spellmans everything needs to be spelled out.

Rule #51– No locking relatives in confined spaces

When Rae returned home from school, my mother made her change into clean and comfortable clothes and explained that the police would be arriving shortly to take her into custody. Rae turned to every adult in the room with a genuine look of surprise.

“Are you bluffing?” she asked no one in particular.

My father was too furious to speak. But Mom had a few choice words.

“How could you do such a thing? Lock your own sister in a room for eleven hours. It’s despicable. What if the building had caught fire? She wouldn’t have been able to get out.”

“Those odds were extremely unlikely,” Rae quietly replied.

“Don’t speak,” said my mother. “That’s the best advice I can give you.”

Rae was arrested at five
P.M
. on a Thursday afternoon. She spent the night in a juvenile facility, was arraigned the following morning, and bail was set at $2,000. My parents posted bail and brought Rae home, where the real punishment began. Her room was cleared of all items that might provide entertainment and for the next week she was forbidden to leave the house. Mom picked up her schoolwork every afternoon and returned it every morning. Rae went into immediate sugar withdrawal—coercing, negotiating, pleading for some form of sucrose. My mother, out of pity, gave her some dried apricots, but that was it. All her meals were the bland, square variety. My parents didn’t speak to her unless it was to reiterate their sense of shock and disappointment.

To be perfectly honest, I was truly surprised that the unit sided with me. But I guess locking someone in a file room overnight is a considerable offense. It was hard for me to have perspective since I had my own substantial rap sheet.

I spent the next few days away from the Spellman fold.

On Friday, I lounged around my apartment in my pajamas clearing out all signs of Connor. I tried to make myself wallow in the breakup, but to be perfectly honest, I barely noticed Connor’s absence, and not being woken up in the middle of the night improved my sleep pattern, which then improved my general mood. That is, until I realized that I could no longer frequent the Philosopher’s Club. Rather than mourn my loss, I decided to move on. Immediately.

THE HEMLOCK EFFECT

Saturday afternoon I commenced a bar crawl, anonymously auditioning bars to be my new watering hole.

I started with a beer at the Kilowatt, but then I decided I needed a place closer to the office, in the event of an emergency. I hopped on the Van Ness bus and stopped at O’Farrell and walked a few blocks to The Nite Cap. I made friends within a few minutes and decided I needed a place with more anonymity. I then strolled down to Polk Street, which is like a bar garden—a vast and incongruous mix of flora ranging from weeds, to daisies, to lilacs, to orchids, and even the occasional plain but snobby rose (which I suppose I associate with wine bars—and those were totally out of the question). I dropped into Lush Lounge and ordered a whiskey. I liked it, but somehow the name seemed too fancy for me. I moved on to Edinburgh Castle, but it reminded me too much of Uncle Ray and it made me sad. Still, I stayed for another drink and honored his memory.

When I finally surfaced again, it was night and the cool air sent a chill through me. My audition wasn’t complete, so I roamed the street a little longer looking for that perfect flower. And then I found it—the Hemlock, a tavern right off Hemlock Street, walking distance from Spellman Investigations. It seemed perfect considering the mood I was in. I sat down at the bar and I ordered a drink. I made small talk with the bartender, but that was it. No point in things getting personal. I was going to learn to keep things professional. That was the only way this kind of relationship could work out.

By seven
P.M.
I was tanked, out of cash for a cab, and in no mood to take the bus. Since Rae always asks for rides from Henry, I didn’t see any reason why he should deny me.

I made the call.

“Hello. I need a ride.”

“Isabel?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Only a little.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Hemlock.”

“Where is it?”

“On Hemlock Street.”

“Off Polk?”

“Yes. Don’t you think it’s cool there’s a street called Hemlock? It’s more like an alley, but I think it’s cool. Don’t you?”

“I’ll be there soon. Don’t drink anymore.”

I ordered another beer while I waited for Henry. He arrived twenty minutes later, looked at the bartender, and said, “Is she paid up?”

The bartender, whose name I never got because now I’m all into the anonymity thing, nodded his head. Henry took my arm.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“You called me,” he replied, annoyed.

I didn’t forget calling him, I just felt like being difficult.

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“How drunk are you, Isabel?”

“Extremely,” I replied.

Can you blame me for drowning my sorrows? In the past four days, I had been locked in a file room for eleven hours, my boyfriend had broken up with me, and I had been directly responsible for having my sister arrested on felony charges. Plus, every single case I was working on was going nowhere. This was definitely not my best week.

Henry pulled his car into the driveway of my apartment building and left a note on the windshield in the event one of the neighbors needed access to the garage. I stumbled up the stairs; he made sure I didn’t plummet to my death.

“Is Connor here?” Henry asked.

“Nope.”

“You expecting him?”

“Huh.”

“Yes or no. That was indistinguishable.”

“You like big words.”

“It’s not that big a word.”

“It has many letters. I can’t count them right now, but if I did I think you’d be surprised how many letters it has.”
¹

“Yes or no,” Henry said. Unfortunately I had forgotten the question.

“Huh?”

“Are you expecting Connor?”

“No way, José.” (One of the problems with being drunk is that you say things you wouldn’t normally, and if you say something like that once, there’s always a chance it will pop up again inadvertently.)

I tried to work the key in the door, but it was testing Henry’s patience, so he took it from me and worked the lock himself. Once inside, I threw myself down on the couch. Henry busied himself in the kitchen. Then he made me sit up and drink a glass of water. Then he served me a plate of toast and butter.

I seemed to sober up for just a split second and my mind briefly returned to work.

“Where are my fingerprints!” I demanded.

“On your fingers,” Henry replied.

“Noooo.
Not my fingerprints. The ones I gave you. I need them. I need them
now.
”

“You don’t need them right now,” Henry replied. “Eat your toast.”

“Don’t try to distract me from my work.”

“There’s a backlog in the lab and they’re not a priority. You’ll get them when I get them.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, which I suppose doesn’t really make any sense.

After that brief exchange, Henry made me drink another glass of water, then take two aspirin and have another glass of water, until I flat-out refused.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I asked.

“You’ll thank me in the morning.”

The next morning, I was in no condition to thank anyone. I got out of bed, ate more toast, drank more water, and went back to bed. Two hours later, I made eggs (loaded with Tabasco sauce) and coffee and once again returned to bed with a pounding headache.

At eleven
A.M.
Dr. Hangover (Henry) phoned to check on my status. He asked if I needed anything; I said no. At one
P.M
. Henry dropped by with more pho. And after I ate it, I was at 70 percent. Then Henry handed me a grocery bag.

“I don’t approve of this kind of nourishment, but I’ve heard that it helps with the hangovers.”

“Just say ‘hangovers’. Not ‘the hangovers’. You sound like Morty.”

“Whatever. At your age, you shouldn’t be having ‘the hangovers’ anymore.”

“Can we have this conversation in about five years? My head still hurts.”

“Just take the bag.”

I looked inside the offering and saw what appeared to be the entire contents of my sister’s junk food stash from Henry’s apartment. Potato chips, beef jerky, licorice, dark chocolate malt balls, a variety pack of Jelly Bellies, Tootsie Rolls, and Blow Pops.

“I’ll be 85 percent in no time at all.”

“Where’s Connor?” Henry asked, interrupting my brief moment of happiness.

“Not here,” I replied.

“Something you’d like to share?”

“Don’t like sharing. You know that.”

“Is it over?”

Long pause.

“Yep.”

“What happened?”

“Bernie crawled into bed with him while I was locked in the file room.”

Henry sat down next to me and choked back laughter. He put his arm around me and said, “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I replied. “It was over long before that. Do me a favor, though. Don’t tell my mom. I’m not in the mood to watch her celebrate.”

“It’s a deal.”

PHONE CALL
FROM THE EDGE #28

After Henry left, I devoured Rae’s unnatural food stash and watched bad TV. My evening was broken up by Morty, finally returning my call:

MORTY
: What’s new, Izzele?

ME
: If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.

MORTY
: Never stopped you before.

ME
: I wouldn’t know where to begin.

MORTY
: It’s true. You tell stories funny. You always start in the middle.

ME
: Here’s a headline: Rae committed a felony and might actually have to do time in a juvenile facility.

MORTY
: That is news. What did she do?

ME
: Something very bad.

MORTY
: Usually felonies are. Feel like sharing?

ME
: I’m not ready to talk about it. Let’s switch subjects.

MORTY
: Okay, how’s your Harkey investigation going?

ME
: Nowhere.

MORTY
: Your brother still seeing the hooker?

ME
: I explained this to you before. She’s not a hooker.

MORTY
: Sorry, I got confused. I’m not even going to ask about your Irish boyfriend.