“I’m not the cops, and I’m in this for Miranda and Miranda only.”
“She’s dead. Ain’t a fucking thing you can do about that, yeah?”
His torment was hard to see past. My own eyes were watering, too, remembering the frightened little girl in the cable car, remembering her despair, her utter hopelessness. Her belief that she had no value whatsoever. “You were a couple of years older than she was,” I said. “Maybe you feel responsible somehow.”
A slow, calculating smile appeared. He leaned forward, closed the distance between us until his face was in my hair, his mouth at my ear, and said, “I’m glad she’s dead.” His breath hitched in his chest, and it took him a moment to say more. “I wish she’d never been born.”
As cruel and unusual as his words sounded, as vehemently said, they didn’t mean what he would have me believe. I felt absolutely no hatred coming from him. No malice or contempt. I felt only a deep reverence and a debilitating, cutting guilt. That seemed to be going around a lot lately.
He pushed me away from him and stalked down the hall. After giving him a moment to gather myself, I followed. I could feel grief pouring out of him, so without knocking, I opened the door to a tiny bathroom. He was in a state of agony as he splashed water on his face. On the sink next to him was a bottle of prescription pills. According to his file, he’d been suicidal for years, and my guess was that those pills were a very powerful pain reliever. It took something powerful to mask that much pain.
I stepped in as he toweled off his face. “Marcus,” I said as softly and as unthreateningly as I could manage, “you do realize you aren’t actually responsible for her death, right?”
He granted me a flirtatious wink. “Sure.”
He opened the bottle, dropped two large white painkillers into his palm, then popped them into his mouth. He swallowed, waited a moment, then sank to the floor as his guilt devoured him. It was why he’d turned to drugs in the first place. I suddenly understood all too well. He felt guilty for not helping his sister when he had the chance. He’d loved her. I could feel it course through him.
“Please tell me that bitch isn’t getting out of prison anytime soon,” he said.
I knelt beside him. Like his sister, he’d been taught from an early age that he had no value. No intrinsic worth.
My torso felt too tight as I inched toward him. “Can you tell me what happened, Marcus?”
“Why do you care what happened to her?” he asked. “Nobody cared. My mother only reported her missing because a neighbor started asking questions. She’d been gone more than two weeks.” He looked up at me. “Can you imagine that? Two fucking weeks before she even considered calling the cops.”
“Marcus,” I said, putting a palm softly on his knee.
He had the towel in both hands, wringing it until his knuckles turned white. Dredging up the memories was taking its toll on him. He took the bottle off the sink and tilted it at his mouth, swallowing at least one more before setting it aside and covering his eyes with one hand. “We’d been evicted and were living in my aunt’s house while she tried to sell it. She married some rich guy from California and said we could stay there until it sold.”
That explained why Miranda was in that part of the city. The property around where she’d been found was upscale, and Mrs. Nelms didn’t strike me as ever having money.
“Something wasn’t right,” he continued. His hand clenched around the towel. “She was acting different. She kept saying she wanted her sister’s house but couldn’t afford it – then this man in a business suit came over and I heard them talking. My mom was buying life insurance on us.” He lowered his hand to look at me.
The bathroom had more light, and I could finally make out the color of his eyes. They were hazel green.
“She was going to kill Miranda. I knew it. From then on, every time she looked at her, she had this smile.” He wiped at his cheeks. “No, this smirk. And she started talking to me about everything we were going to do with the house. She wanted a pool and a wet bar and a big TV. She said if her sister could have nice things, so could she. Then one night, she came into our room. Told us to get dressed. Said we were going to the lake. It was the middle of the night in the middle of January, but she wanted to go to the lake.” His gaze slid past me. “She was going to kill her.”
I sat as still as I could and listened. He needed to tell the story. Miranda’s story.
“But we weren’t packing fast enough, and she hit Miranda. Hard. I just remember blood. So, she told me to forget the lake, that she was going to take her to the hospital, but I knew that was a lie, too. I took Miranda and snuck out the back door. We were just going to hide until morning, until I could get help, but it was so cold. We didn’t have our jackets. And it was so dark. We stumbled around, just trying to find somewhere to get warm when it started to snow. Miranda said she couldn’t go any farther, so we huddled next to a rock.” Fresh tears pushed past his lashes and streamed over his sunken cheeks. “She fell asleep in my arms and didn’t wake up.” He covered his face and bit back the sobs fighting to get past his closed throat. “I tried to carry her, but she was so heavy. I just left her there. Like she was nothing.” A sob finally wrenched its way past his efforts, and he covered his face again.
“No,” I argued. “Marcus, you were only nine.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and reached up to cradle the back of his head.
“I finally found my way back to my aunt’s house the next day. Mom didn’t even ask where we were.” He cast me an astonished glare. “She didn’t even ask about Miranda. Not once. Days passed, and we just never talked about her.”
I bit my bottom lip, wondered what my chances were of getting the rest of the pills away from him. He tipped the bottle again, and I realized he had no intention of leaving that bathroom. Ever.
“And then a neighbor asked about Miranda?” I said, inching closer.
“Yeah. She figured she couldn’t hide her disappearance much longer. She had to report her missing. That’s when she told me to lie. To say Miranda was in her bed the night before and then was just gone the next morning.”
I didn’t dare blame him for lying. He was living with a monster. He clearly feared for his own life. But at the moment, I was more afraid for his life than he was. The drugs were taking the desired effect. He leaned his head back and let them swallow him whole.
I took advantage of the situation and reached for the bottle.
“Please, don’t,” he said. He seemed tired. Spent. “You won’t succeed.” A sadness settled over him as he picked up the bottle again. “It’s okay. No one will miss me.”
“You’re wrong.”
His laughter felt hopeless in the tiny room. Humorless. “Don’t worry. This isn’t some pathetic attempt to pretend to try to commit suicide only to make sure someone is close enough to call an ambulance in the nick of time.” He held up the bottle, shook it to prove to me there was still one left. “This is my own version of Russian roulette.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In the center of one of these pills, and I have no idea which one, is a lethal dose of cyanide. So I take one every so often.”
I gasped and ripped the bottle out of his hand to check the label. Oxycodone. But I had no idea if that was what was really in there or not. I looked back up, gaping. He wasn’t lying.
“The way I see it, if I’m worthy of living, I won’t get the lethal one. If not…” He shrugged and leaned his head back again.
I patted my pants, but my phone was in my bag in the living room.
“You should leave,” he said, the sad smile back on his face. “This is long overdue.”
23
Bad decisions make good stories.
— T-SHIRT
Cookie and I stood along the outer edges of a small funeral procession clad in its best mourning attire. I was glad she’d come with me. The thickness of grief that surrounded us, the oppressive weight of it, made it difficult to breathe. And my ankl
e hurt.
Normally, I could shut down the part of myself that absorbed emotion, that siphoned it off the people around me like others siphoned vitamin D from the sun. Otherwise, I would be bombarded with the drama of everyday life nonstop. It took energy, but raising the wall was almost automatic now. I did it quite often before I even left my apartment in the mornings.
But here at the funeral of a beautiful three-year-old girl whose love for her two fathers lingered on the air still, my defense mechanism didn’t work. I could only hope Jessica’s funeral would not be as painful, as I had that one to look forward to.
Thankfully, I wouldn’t have to attend the funeral of Marcus Nelms that week. I’d called 911, told them about the cyanide. They pumped his stomach, but according to the doctor on staff, even though they’d gotten there in time to prevent an oxycodone overdose, the cyanide would have killed him almost instantly regardless. The authorities checked, and the one laced with the lethal poison was the only one left in the bottle. And I suddenly believed in miracles.
Marcus would need a lot of help, and I planned to make sure he got it. I’d already talked to my friend Noni Bachicha. Noni offered to not only hire Marcus at the body shop but also to keep a very close eye on him and let me know how he was faring. Noni’s support, along with the free counseling I’d talked my sister into providing, gave me hope that we could get Marcus out of the lifestyle he’d been living and into bigger and better things. He clearly had a huge heart. He so very much deserved another chance at life. Clearly someone else agreed.
Sadly, not everyone was granted a miracle. I had to focus on making it through the funeral without breaking down. The emotion radiating out of the friends and family of Isabel Joyce was strong. It came at me from all directions. I felt dizzy as we stepped forward in line to offer our condolences to the two grieving men. Isabel’s fathers loved her so deeply, walking toward them through their grief was like pushing against a brick wall.
Seeming to sense my distress, Cookie took my arm in hers and inched forward. Attendants hugged the men, their sympathy sincere, their loss like gaping holes in their chests. Cookie sniffed and took the hand of Mr. Joyce’s husband, Paul. He was a big man with a warm face and firm handshake, as I found out when it was my turn. Fortunately, he didn’t ask how we knew his beautiful daughter. Cookie and I had come up with a cover story, but so far, we hadn’t had to use it.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, his red-rimmed eyes watering in the process. I could feel the suffocating agony he held at bay. Forcing the words out, any words out, was torture for him. He just wanted to go home and mourn, and my heart ached in response. I wanted to tell him that all the ceremonial stuff would be over soon, and he and his husband could grieve, and heal, together, but it was not the time or the place. Isabel’s friends and family had come to pay their respects. To diminish that would be doing her an injustice.
Cookie squeezed my arm, and I realized I was still holding on to the man’s hand. He didn’t seem to notice. He was fighting tooth and nail to stay vertical. To keep from crumbling to the ground. Mr. Joyce’s arm tightened around his husband’s shoulders as they took a moment to let the sobs overtake them.
It was then that Mr. Joyce realized who stood in front of them. He glanced at his partner, worry flashing in his expression before settling his own red-rimmed gaze on me. I took his hand, leaned in, and whispered to him, “You’ll be with her again. Your soul is all yours. Don’t lose it again.”
When I tried to pull back, he held me to him, buried his face in my shoulder as a fresh round of sobs engulfed him. I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and fought for control over my own emotions. I hated funerals. I hated any rite of passage that emphasized how fleeting and fragile our physical lives were. I hated that children died. Even knowing what I knew about life and the afterlife and the momentary condition of our existence on earth, I hated it. It was better on the other side. I knew that. I’d been told by countless departed, but I hated this part nonetheless.
And just for the record, telling the living how their loved ones were in a better place rarely helped. Nothing helped apart from time, and even then, the long-term prognosis was sketchy. Most recovered. Many did not. Not really. Not fully.
After the funeral, I had one more errand to run before I could take the evening off to elevate my throbbing ankle. I felt a scalding hot bubble bath was long overdue. Combine that with a little candlelight, a glass of sparkling wine, and a real-life fiancé named Reyes, and I might have a wonderful evening. Only the fiancé named Reyes was still recovering from his fall. I had no idea how extensive the damage was as I’d fallen asleep the moment we got home, but having him so close to me, his heat permeating the sheets, enveloping me in a heavenly and healing warmth, sent me into a deep slumber. He was gone when I woke up that morning, his freshly showered scent bathing the area, making me crave at least a glimpse of him, but I’d been running late for the funeral, so I didn’t get a chance to go to the bar before I left.
And seeing him would have to wait a little while longer. I pulled Misery to a stop in front of Rocket’s place. The abandoned mental asylum had been cleaned, the grounds cleared, and a sparkling new chain-link fence bordered the entire area. I took out my key and glanced over at Cookie.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked her. She’d never met Rocket or his sister, Blue. Nor had she been introduced to Officer Taft’s sister, Rebecca – or Strawberry Shortcake, as I liked to call her, mostly because she’d died in Strawberry Shortcake pajamas, but partly because calling her Strawberry was safer than calling her the plethora of other names that surfaced every time I saw her. She was a handful. And she had issues.
Cookie was gazing wide-eyed at the building. She nodded, then turned toward me, biting her lower lip, her nerves getting the better of her. “You’ll have to interpret.”
“I promise,” I said.
After managing our way through the locked gate and the locks on the main entrance, we stepped inside cautiously. Cookie was cautious because she wasn’t super fond of abandoned mental asylums. Especially haunted ones. I was cautious because the last time I’d seen Rocket, I wasn’t very nice to him. He’d told me Reyes was going to die. I didn’t take it well. In fact, it was a fairly low point in my life, if one could measure low points by how many times one threatened to rip five-year-old girls – namely, Rocket’s sister, Blue – to shreds.
I cringed when I thought of it. Cookie noticed as I hobbled along beside her. While the outside had been cleared and maintained to perfection, the inside was still in a state of chaotic ruin. Bits of the crumbling plaster cluttered the floor, along with trash and other paraphernalia that had been left throughout the years. Many a partier had celebrated life here. Along with Rocket’s scribbling and scratches was all kinds of evidence of how many times the place had been broken into. Spray paint on the walls. Empty beer bottles and soda cans. The occasional used condom, which evoked a gag reflex every time I saw one. This place needed a good scrubbing.
“Has he ever been angry with you?” Cookie asked, referring to how I’d left things with Rocket.
“No, but he should be now. If he’s not, I’ll feel worse than I already do.”
“So, you deserve his wrath, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yep.”
Before she could argue, a young, high-pitched voice echoed throughout the halls. I winced at the sound of it. It had a certain je ne sais quoi nails-on-chalkboard quality that one didn’t find every day.
“Just where on God’s green earth have you been?” Strawberry appeared before me, her long hair hanging in tangles around her pretty face. Her pajamas had gotten soiled when she drowned, but they were still pink and cute and sweet. Unlike, say, Strawberry.
I hesitated. She’d been there during my lesser moment, and I didn’t know if she was still mad at me or not. The departed could hold a grudge like nobody’s business.
“Hey, kid,” I said at last.
In my periphery, Cookie wa
s looking where I was, even though I knew she couldn’t see the beautiful girl standing in our path. She was such a good egg, and way more handy than a crutch. This way I could lean my weight on her and not have to worry about dragging around a huge piece of metal. And Cookie finally got to see Rocket’s place. It was a win–win.
“Well?” Strawberry asked. “Where have you been? He’s very upset.”
“Is he mad at me?”
She crossed her tiny arms over her chest. “He won’t stop, and he has work to do. He’s very behind.”
Rocket’s work, if one could call it that, was carving into the plastered walls of the asylum the names of all those who pass, which contributed greatly to their crumbling and dilapidation. Thousands upon thousands of names lined almost every inch of the interior of the asylum, a fact that Cookie was just noticing. She made a slow circle, taking in the décor. I had to reposition my hand over her arms and shoulders to keep my footing as she circled. It was quite awkward when I grabbed hold of one of her girls, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“This place is incredible,” she said.
“Isn’t it?”
“It’s just so creepy and yet cool at the same time.”
“Right?”
Strawberry jammed her fists onto her slim hips. “Well?” she repeated.
When Cookie took my arm into hers again, I refocused on Strawberry. “He won’t stop what, honey?”
Her chin raised a notch. “I can’t tell you.”
I was getting used to this beguiling creature, much as I hated to admit it, and I asked, “Can you show me, then?”
One shoulder lifted and her attention flitted to Cookie as though just noticing her. “Who is that?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Cookie. Cookie, this is —”
“Her name is Cookie?”
“Yes, and it’s not nice to interrupt.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled as she studied my BFF. “I like her.”