Jessica put the kettle on and readied a cup of tea.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been gone. All those weeks of agonizing hatred, floating above everything, detached and half-dead. And now she was home.
Unable to rid herself of herself.
She poured the tea, scooped in an unbearable amount of sugar.
Jessica stole to the living room, took a seat on the couch. Just a cup of tea, and her trusty book bag. She took a sip of chamomile. Too hot to handle just yet.
And yet she went ahead and took three large gulps.
Scorching her tongue, throat. The bloody pulp that was once her inner cheek got the worst of it, and still Jessica continued to drink. Downed the whole damn thing, realized that she was starving. Not for food, not for water. It wasn’t just an urge that came from what she had done that evening, what would come with the following days. She’d done everything she could. Explored every avenue, turned to every last comforting thought.
She sent her eyes across the room.
Over to the sewing machine.
Assorted liquor bottles, curves calling to her the way boys couldn’t seem to stop talking about tits.
Instinctual, almost carnal.
A gravitational pull begging her to stop running away, accept who she was.
What she was.
Jessica reached for the ceramic mug, forgetting she’d already gone down that road.
Tore into her book bag. Laid the laptop on the coffee table, popped it open and turned it on. No greater distraction on God’s green Earth than the Internet. As the computer began to boot, she dug deep, taking out her cellphone. Pressed the power button. It’s welcoming chime seemed to mock her, the cruel taunt of a schoolyard bully.
She was alerted to a couple dozen messages.
All from Dinah, minus one call from an unknown number.
The phone buzzed in her hand, all but decimating Jessica’s fragile nerves.
Incoming call from Detective Donahue.
“Is it six already?” Jessica asked, hardly able to carry the joke across the finish line.
“Just thought you’d like to know,” Donahue said, voice dim against the hectic background of the station. “We’ve got Malik’s mother.”
“Yeah?”
“Just turned herself in. Don’t know how, but she heard we’d picked up her son. Stormed right into the station, confessing to the whole thing… Want to hear something funny?”
“How funny?”
“Walked straight through security and up to the front desk without her cane… All of a sudden, it seems like she’s doing just fine without it.”
Jessica thought back to the pictures in Chaucer’s file. Photographs of Malik’s mother, in her backyard, out on the town. The red markings, lengthy ovals always positioned to the left of Patricia’s body. Highlighting not what was there, but what was missing. More mobile than she had cared to let on.
The wonders of modern physical therapy.
“Yeah, that’s real funny,” Jessica said.
“We’re processing her right now.”
“Case closed?”
“I’m still going to need you in a few hours.”
“OK.”
“You all right?”
“No…” Jessica felt her heartbeat accelerate, head throbbing uncomfortably with every last bit of good news coming her way. “Donahue, I’m not doing so good. I don’t know if it was what happened tonight, or what but… I feel so heavy. Like I’m paralyzed, like I can barely move.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Jessica. What happened tonight doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“I know, but –”
“Look. Tomorrow, after you give your statement, I’m going to have you meet with our psychologist. Her name is Ann, she does great work. It ain’t like Lethal Weapon around here, people really do respect this woman.”
“Going to let a civilian talk to a police therapist on the taxpayer’s dime?”
“Screw the taxpayers. They wouldn’t be happy if we served up Bin Laden’s head for Thanksgiving.”
“Fine,” Jessica relented. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. In a few hours, whatever.”
“Get some sleep.”
“Yeah.”
Jessica hung up.
Headache promoted to full blown migraine.
Her hands began to shake. Legs trembling, heels bouncing against the wooden floor.
Jessica shot up from the couch, unable to help herself. Took two sweeping steps over to the makeshift minibar. She planted her hands on either side, a preacher at the podium all set to grace the bottles with a good old fashioned dose of scripture.
Instead she grabbed one of the mini vodka bottles.
Close to tears as she’d been in a long while, Jessica unscrewed the cap.
“Fuck it,” she proclaimed. “It’s who I am.”
The cap offered little resistance, practically jumped into her hands.
Jessica brought the bottle to her lips and tilted back her head.
In an instant, she knew that something was wrong.
That this wasn’t vodka, or anything close to alcohol.
Seven ways from ambrosia.
The vile liquid was halfway down her throat when her gag reflex sent orders to choke it back up. The rest of the bottle poured onto her face. Streaming up through her nostrils, mercifully missing her eyes as she breathed in the noxious fumes.
She stumbled back.
Bottle dropping from her hand.
Vision swimming, brain turning sluggish as she collapsed on the floor.
Inhaling the sweet smell of freshly cut grass as she faded to black.
***
The first thing she realized was that she couldn’t move.
Jessica was sitting, she knew that much.
In a chair, that was the second bit of information that came swimming up from the depths.
With the same effort it took to bench press a Volkswagen, she forced her eyelids open. Only halfway so far, but enough to catch the soft light of the living room. Vision blurry. Eyes burning in a pool of chlorinated water. Slow, everything seeped in molasses.
Jessica felt her gorge rising.
Vomited soupy chamomile tea all over her lap.
It seemed to do some good, shocking the world back into half-focus.
Jessica was still in her living room.
No sign of the renegade bottle anywhere, halogen lamp in the corner set to the same dim level.
Shutters drawn shut over the windows.
Another quick assessment, paralysis explained.
Someone had tied her to one of the chairs. Not tied. Ankles duct-taped to wooden legs. Arms forced back through the rungs, bound tight. Didn’t account for her utter lack of movement, and then she glanced down. Saw her entire torso enveloped in the same gray spider webs, strapping her to the chair.
Her mouth was parched.
She ran her tongue over her lips, felt the skin around her mouth burn.
She dry-heaved, chest pressing against the tape.
Nothing left to throw up.
She heard the door to the kitchen open, close.
The sound of keys falling on the counter, footsteps heading down the hallway.
A less subdued Jessica might have feigned sleep. Dropped her head into an act of pure unconsciousness. But she was either too drugged or too curious to play possum.
Eyes trained on the entrance to the hallway as her aunt walked in.
Dinah caught the frightened rainbows in Jessica’s eyes and shook her head.
“Oh, shit.” Dinah ran her hands through her hair and drifted into the room. “I really thought you’d be out for much longer. Given all you just tossed back. Maybe all that vomit…”
As though urged by the power of suggestion, Jessica felt herself slipping under. Shook her head, refusing to succumb to sleep. Took a good bite out of her cheek, pain blazing a trail towards a half-conscious.
“Blondie?”
“Jess, what the hell were you thinking?” Dinah picked up another mini-vodka bottle, swirled its contents around. “Here I thought I’d picked the perfect hiding spot. Plain sight, this whole time.”
“Huh?”
Dinah took a seat on the coffee table. Pulled a white dishrag from her pocket. “Don’t worry about it. This will all be over real soon.”
“It is over,” Jessica insisted, words directed at herself more than Dinah. “They got Malik down at the station. His moms is there too, she confessed to everything.”
“What a long, strange trip it’s been,” Dinah mused. “But you know the truth now. I mean, look where you are. Can you really keep lying to yourself?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, come on, baby… Who you thought it was?”
“No…” Jessica shook her head. “No, this can’t be right.”
“Hey, inside voice,” Dinah teased. “You don’t want to wake up the neighbors.”
“Blondie –”
“I went to Jason Castle’s house that night, I swear, with no idea what I was going to do…” She smiled, a dark grin recollecting some childhood prank. “Got his name from the credit card receipt at Spiro’s. Did a little online snooping, found out where he lived. Took the chloroform with me, thinking I don’t know what. Never thought I’d get so far as the front door. But the garage door… open and unlocked. Kudos to Eli Messner for taking care of that for us.”
“For you,” Jessica slurred, struggling to keep awake.
“For both of us, and you know it.” Dinah stood up and brought the dimmer down on their lamp. “Now Eli didn’t know it, but I had seen him that night. I was in the shadows. He made the mistake of stopping right in front of a window, caught in a pool of streetlight. Our scared little scarecrow.”
“You knew this whole time.”
“Didn’t think I was ever going to do anything about it… Didn’t even think I’d ever have to bring Angry Jonny back. But then Davenport had to go just one step too far. The night he attacked you in the parking lot across from the pool hall. That was a sign from God.”
“So what? You loaded everyone at the bar with GHB, set up a tab you thought was airtight.”
“You can thank your ex-boyfriend for the drugs. I picked those up along with the chloroform. Found them in his special hiding spot. The drawer in his desk.”
Jessica ordered herself to break free.
Put up a real fight, at the very least hoping to rock the chair on its side.
Wood splintering, yet another chance at freedom.
She drew in a breath, tried to scream.
All that came out was a sad trembling moan.
“That’s right,” Dinah said. “You were so positive Malik had cheated on you. You told me he’d kept a journal. You told me about his special hiding place. That night of the party, Jessica. Valentine’s day. Celebrating his acceptance to Wesleyan. I crept upstairs and went looking for that journal. Didn’t find it. Just a notebook full of third-rate poetry, a few bottles of chloroform and some vials of GHB. At the time, I didn’t know that wasn’t his journal. I swiped it all to make it look like someone had raided him for everything he had. Stashed it all in my car. Came back to the party to find you telling him off in front of everybody…” Dinah flashed a disfigured grin. “That was a proud moment for me, Jess. The way you just stuck it to him. The same way we always should have; taking the fight to the cheats and liars, police and thieves.”
What really frightened Jessica was that this could have been any conversation.
Any night of the week. Late hours spent in dangerous fantasies, wishing the worst of fates upon the worst of people. It was all within the usual boundaries.
Even Dinah’s movements, emotions, explanations.
None of it came across as the mad rants of a psychotic criminal.
As far as this situation went, they were two reasonable people, sharing their grievances before the sun returned to show its face once more.
“No.” Jessica shook her head, sending the room into a whirl. Unable to cope. Certain she had fallen asleep soon as she had walked through the door. Any moment now, Donahue would be calling. Lifting her from this nightmare to drag her tired ass down to the station. “Malik’s mother. She confessed. She’s down at the station right now, spilling her guts.”
“Yeah, when I got back here and found you passed out, I called Donahue. Checked to see how things had gone. He told me all about it.”
“Checked how what –”
“Parents and their kids just don’t talk anymore,” Dinah said shaking her head. “That’s what makes us so special, Jessica.”
“Wait, slow down…” Jessica’s voice was losing what little was left.
“Don’t you see? They were covering for each other. Malik’s mother thought he had done it. All that talking in his sleep, you don’t think he said something that eventually just clicked? We both know why Malik thought his mother did it. All that sneaking around, all that spying. The two of them never once confronted each other, too busy assuming the worst. Come tomorrow, day after, the cops are going to figure that out. In the meantime... ”
“In the meantime what..? What are you going to do to me? Now that you’ve bragged about it, rubbed it in my face. Going to put me under again? Cut out my eyes, my tongue. Maybe slit my throat, make sure I don’t tell nobody about this?”
With a wounded expression, Dinah brought herself down to Jessica’s level. Rocking on her haunches, blue eyes overdosing on righteous sincerity. “You really think I would do that to you?”
“You got no other choice.”
“I think you know there’s always a choice... But I’ve gotten good at thinking on my feet. Gotten smarter. Hell, you were there the whole time, helping me on my way. I learned from you, Jess. The way you caught my every move, forced me to up my game every time. After Malik sent that first Angry Jonny letter, I thought why not. Let’s keep the tradition going. Those other letters, they were all mine, Jess.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jessica said. Tongue rasping against the roof of her mouth. “What happens now? Now that I know what Angry Jonny knows?”
“Well, first thing’s first. Soon as we’re done with our little chat, I’m going to step out of our apartment. Kick the front door open. Put you under again. I’ll let out a blood curling scream, then do myself the same favor. When the cops come, they’ll find us both passed out. And guess who we have to take the blame?”
“Eli?”
“Well, they found his DNA on Dr. Lazenby, didn’t they?”
“How did that happen?”
Dinah smirked. “You’d be amazed what you can lift off a man when you’ve got your fingernails digging into his back.”
“Oh, Jesus, Blondie…” Jessica held back her gag reflex, searching for a way to buy some time. “Why Dr. Lazenby? Why him, what did he have to do with either one of us?”
“Nothing. That’s the point. Two Angry Jonny cases, both linked to us. The third one had to be a nowhere man. Something to throw the cops off the trail. I didn’t think I’d be arrested the day after, but as I already pointed out… I’ve gotten better. I’ve learned.”
“So you just picked some random nobody?”
“I actually got the name from one of Malik’s poems. Didn’t take too much research to put it all together, but you’re missing the bigger picture.”
“There is no bigger picture. You tortured him just to cover your tracks –”
“No bigger picture?” This was where the quintessential maniac would have taken to the room. Pacing back and forth with wild abandon. But Dinah remained cool, too certain of her own designs. “Dr. Lazenby was the bigger picture. A man who cashes his checks helping insurance companies extort money from the sick and dying. Dr. Lazenby is a murderer, Jess. In the same way that Castle was dirty, in the same way that Davenport was fucking little boys, right along with his partner Glen Roberts.
There’s nothing random about it, these men were guilty.”
“Welcome to the cult of Angry Jonny,” Jessica mumbled, lips like cement glue.
“No need for irony, girl.”
“I may be digging my own grave here, but knocking me out ain’t gonna do you much good. What if I wake up and remember all of this?”
“I’ve still got a good amount of GHB…” Dinah began to head for the hallway. Paused at the entrance. Leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “Enough to put all these memories to rest. Hell, just from the chloroform alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if you aren’t already blacking out just a bit.”
“And how are you going to pin this on Eli?”
Dinah laughed. “Don’t move… And don’t even think about screaming. It’ll just make things all the more believable.”
Jessica was left alone.
She began to squirm, rocking back and forth in her chair.
No time to beat herself up over how stupid, how blind she had been.
In a few minutes, she would be waking up to find the paramedics hunched over her body, yet again. Only this time, she wouldn’t be able to tell them how she got there. Nothing but a void in place of the truth.
Jessica continued to breathe, still smelling the remnants of imitation vodka on her lips. Curled her fingers upwards, fingernails cutting into the duct tape around her wrists. Struggling against all odds, unable to kid herself into thinking she’d be free by the time Dinah got back.
Unable to stop.
And there was her aunt, once again.
Her caregiver, guardian angel, standing before her.
Arms behind her back. “Try not to be too grossed out, Jess.”
It was a tough request to comply with. At first, Jessica thought her eyes must have been playing tricks. That there was no way Dinah was holding a used condom hanging between her thumb and index finger.
“Yeah it is,” Dinah affirmed, unabashed. “Kept it in a small Tupperware container, nestled in my mini-fridge, and… well, the less I have to explain this one the better.”
Jessica didn’t think she could take another bout of sickness. Her whole stomach would have to come lurching out of her mouth this time. Come to rest at her feet in a pulsating, bloody mess.
“No worries,” Dinah said. “I’m not going to slap any of Eli’s babies on your face or anything. When the cops arrive, they’ll find us both passed out and…” She emptied the contents onto her blouse, spread it around a little with her fingers. “Yeah, that is kind of gross. Let me just dispose of this.”