Burning September (6 page)

And wherever my true talent and skills were, they did not lie in the realm of espionage.  The man stopped strumming abruptly, one sharp note hanging in the air as he squinted at me through streaming sunlight. 

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you staring’s rude?”  The gruffness of his voice made me thankful he hadn’t supplied lyrics to his meandering music.  

I pushed the door further in and took one tentative step inside.  “She killed herself when I was three.  So.  No.”

He twanged the guitar strings again, louder that time.  “Another
woe-is-me
coed.  Say it ain’t so.”

“I’ve been wait-listed for Music 101.  I’m looking for—” I consulted the crumpled slip of paper—“Professor Lawlis.”

“You found him,” he said, mostly to his guitar pick.

I descended the first few stairs toward the center of the room.  “Oh.  Hi.  I’m Kat, I don’t know if you know the names of all the people on your waiting list.  Do you have any open spots?”

Even if he hadn’t shaken his head, the chord he strummed screamed
negative
. 

I sighed and hitched my backpack strap higher on my shoulder.  “Oh.  Well.  Thanks, I guess.”

He leaned back in his chair, fingers lashing at the strings as he played another chord.  “Cheer up, sunshine.  One good thing about music,” he yelled over his own racket, “when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

I paused at the door.  “Bob Marley, right?”

His hand hesitated as he considered me from beneath a bushy, furrowed eyebrow.  “I really don’t have any spots, kid.  Sorry.”

***

He may have called first this time, but I was still annoyed when my sister’s counsel asked for another little get-together.  At least he didn’t suggest the visit take place at my condo. 

I swung through the door of my neighborhood Chili’s, met by raucous chattering and giggles, and promptly wanted to leave.  But Kyle would probably just follow me home, so I shouldered my backpack as well as my displeasure and shouted his name to the hostess.

“Cavanaugh?  Party of two?”  She consulted her dry-erase board.  “Follow me.”

Unfortunately, she headed
into
the heart of the throng of noise and nattering, and when I finally fell into the booth Kyle sat at, it was with more than a little heavy breathing. 

“I’m glad you made it,” he said over the top of his menu. 

“I’m lucky I found you at all.”  I disentangled myself from the straps of my backpack, locking eyes with the Sinatra picture behind him.  “It’s lunacy in here.”

He flipped a page.  “Some speed-dating event.”

“Bad timing.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.  “No, I knew what I was getting us into.  I love watching these things.”  The expression I wore must have been what made his smile grow.  “Give it a chance, they’re funny.  Look.”  He abandoned his menu, shoulders hunching as he leaned over the table.  “That woman right there, the one with the red lipstick?”

I followed the path his eyes had cut through the crowd of singles and found myself unable to decide what was worse:  her crispy curls, Ronald McDonald lipstick, or the way she kept shifting the neckline of her crimson dress to give everyone a clear view of her cleavage.  A large heart-shaped lock suspended from a chain around her neck threatened to get lost in her massive chest.

Caroline would have laughed until she cried. 

“She must have just bought them or something.”  Kyle mimed cupping large breasts.  “And whenever some guy comes to try his key in her lock, she bats her eyes and fake-laughs and says “
my eyes are up here, sweetheart
,” as if she’s not loving every minute of it.”

“Why are they wearing locks?”

“That’s the theme, I guess.  Lock and Key speed-dating.  Guys have to try their keys in the women’s locks and see who winds up with the most.  A little overtly phallic, but funny as hell.”

A high-pitched giggle split the thick air as a waitress struggled over to our table. She thumped his beer on the table and took off again, disappearing through the crowd. 

I arched a brow at the mustache foam had left on his upper lip when he set the glass down.  “Should you be drinking when you’re technically working?”

He shot a confused look at his beer.  “I’m Irish.  It’s a light beer. It’s like water to Irishmen.” 

“And is this really the best venue to talk about Caroline?”

“As good a place as any.”

“You don’t have an office?”

“I have an office, but I get antsy sitting behind a desk for too long.”

I got antsy when stuck in the middle of a throbbing crowd for too long, but what would saying so accomplish?  “We have to yell just to hear each other.” 

“We’ll manage.”

“Did you have any new information about the case, or is this just a social visit?”

“You’re pretty single-minded.”

“Well this is important to me.”

“So I gathered.”   His gaze strayed back to the bar, fastening onto a man who brayed like a donkey over a sloshing lurid pink cocktail.  “Let me ask you a question—do you think she’s crazy?”

“Well she looks like a stage five clinger, if you ask me.”

“Not the Lady in Red.  Your sister.”

“I already told you she’s not.”

“And yet, look at her new home. They don’t toss people into Breakthrough without good reason.  Why would that guy order a Cosmopolitan at a speed-dating event?  Not exactly masculine.”

“That’s sexist.  And slicing your wrists is as good a reason as any.”

He continued to stare askance at the Cosmo Man, seeming simultaneously intrigued and appalled as the guy pulled away from his martini glass with sugar shining on his lips.  “Wouldn’t slicing one’s wrists also make one crazy?”

“Suicidal actions don’t necessarily make someone a nutcase.”

He knocked back another sip of beer, peeling his eyes off the cosmo monstrosity.  “Maybe not.  I pulled some of your family records.  Your mother committed suicide?  I was sorry to hear that.”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“You don’t remember it.”

“I was only three.”

“Seems like a blessing, given what’s happened with Caroline.”

Nice as it was to hear things I already knew, he could have told me all this over the phone.  “My mother’s history doesn’t have much to do with the problem at hand.  Lots of people have shitty families.  They don’t up and kill their exes.  What are you planning to do about that? Aside from
victim blaming
.” My fingers etched quotation marks around the words.  “You’re wasting your time, talking to me.”

“I think your family history has everything to do with it.  Your childhood shapes who you are.  It doesn’t excuse everything, but it explains it.”

“So,” I pushed my menu off to the side, “just to be clear, you’re going to go with,
she’s guilty, sorry, but her mom offed herself, and her dad croaked when she was barely an adult, so let’s give her a get out of jail free card
.”

“Maybe more along the lines of,
the prosecution has no physical evidence so they’re using her tragic family history against her, and hey, the dead guy had a lot of enemies—look at his rap sheet
.”  He took as dignified a sip of his beer as possible.  “Tell me about your mother.”

“Caroline’s my mother.  I don’t remember my real one.”

“You spend a lot of time dodging questions for someone so interested in her sister’s liberty.  I’m not trying to be a prying asshole, here.  I need your help, and I don’t want to have to twist your arm in the process. Can you maybe try to work with me?  What do you know about her?”

“She liked tarot and the color purple.” I sighed as irritated wrinkles scored his forehead.  “Look, if it weren’t for some old pictures from the motherland, I wouldn’t even know what she looked like.  The only things I know about her, Caroline told me.”

She had hair like yours and eyes like mine
, I remember her saying while she got me ready for bed one night when I was eight.  She made her voice sing-songy to keep me from hearing our father’s drunken antics downstairs, brushing my hair until she claimed it shone like gold Rumpelstiltskin spun from straw. 

When I asked where our mother had gone off to, Caroline’s mouth twitched from side to side as I watched her in the mirror of the secondhand Barbie vanity she’d bought me.  She didn’t smile like she usually did, didn’t make eye contact for a while.  Her teeth bit into her bottom lip as she worked the comb through a snarled clump of hair.

Sometimes things don’t make sense
, milaya, she finally said. 
She felt like it was her time to go, so…she did what she felt like she had to do. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.  Her heart hurt, not her body.  Her heart was sick for a long time. 
Caroline pulled tendrils of my hair through her fingers as she French braided it. 
You might understand it better when you’re older.

Not really.  I
understood
with an asterisk.  My understanding* had grown to be that she chose the easy way out of a hopeless marriage and a life she felt was lacking.  That some people just don’t have enough strength or courage to keep going, despite apparent futility or grief.  And then I’d see Caroline’s struggles with keeping a roof over her kid sister’s head; so young, with so much responsibility, and I’d wonder just how strong she must have been, not throwing in the towel. 

Caroline didn’t drink very often, but one day she had too many mojitos after learning how to mix them, and she wound up telling me the whole sordid tale on our roof one night. She’d finally deemed me old enough to discuss the topic.  That, or the mojitos had convinced her. 

I’ll never get that picture out of my mind.  I wonder how long she was up there dead sometimes.  Could have been a whole day, since Dad slept on the couch.  He wouldn’t have noticed anything.  Anyway.  She slept a lot, so I didn’t really think anything of it until dinnertime.  Didn’t matter how bad she felt, every night at five, she’d start banging around pots and pans in the kitchen.  So I went up there.  At first I thought it was the sun hitting that red jewel curtain she had where the door should have been.  You remember that thing, right?  So I figured that’s what all the red was. 
She paused to hand me the mojito glass, waited for me to take a slug and give it back. 
Well, it wasn’t the jewel curtain.  I’d never been literally shocked dumb before.  And it was like time stopped, for a second.  The weirdest thing ever.  The only thing that made it start moving again was you calling me from the living room.  Anyway, there she was, dead as can be.  All pale.  Blood all over the sheets, crust in her eyes.  She would have been ashamed if she knew how she looked afterward, I mean, her robe had fallen
completely
open, and she was usually so modest.  God.  I’m glad you didn’t see her like that. 
She leaned back on one hand, swilling the mojito with the other as she stared at the stars through layers of smog. 
I never really cried.  Isn’t that weird?  I guess I knew it would happen eventually.  And all over some jackass. 
She snorted.  Shook her head in mock wonder. 
We need men like we need lobotomies. 

I don’t know why she put up with him as long as she did
, Caroline told me a few days later. 
He was useless.  Slobbering drunk half the day.  Could barely take care of himself, let alone the three of us.  She could have done better in a heartbeat; you’ve seen her pictures.  Married some guy who actually had money or whatever.  I guess it was just that old world bullshit mentality.  Men are your betters.  All a woman has to offer is her body, she’s not worth anything more. What a piece of shit, you know, sometimes I think it was a blessing he died.  He’d have never been able to take care of you on his own.  You’d have fallen down a well or something, played in traffic. 

Isn’t that a little harsh?
  I’d asked, looking down at where she sat, cross-legged on the floor, poking at the keyboard of her laptop. 

Whip off your rose tinted glasses, cupcake
, she said, brow furled, eyes on the laptop screen. 
Sixteen’s old enough to know your dad was an ass.  You know how drunk he was when I found her laying there?

I think I remember how drunk he was after.
I didn’t, but it was a safe bet.  He’d spent the better part of the seven years between our mother’s death and his own drunk. 

She gave me the same look she gave the maintenance man after he’d asked her out. 
You know what he said when I told him I found her fucking
dead
in bed?  Well, wait, he didn’t say anything.  Not at first.  He stumped up there on that stupid bad leg, stood there in the door for a minute like a goddamned mute, stumped back down, poured himself another drink, and said,
Vell, maybe ve should call ze po-lize
.” She spread her arms wide and shook her head.  “Seriously.  And that’s all the idiot ever said.”