The Big Rewind (9 page)

M
y ride to Rikers was the skinny kid from brunch with the Dr. Who T-shirt, only this time he was wearing a sweater vest over a short-sleeved plaid button-down. He drove a blue Honda Accord that was more rust than metal and had a radio receiver plugged into a Discman. There wasn't even a clock.

“I'm Bryce,” he said, handing me a cup of coffee. “You'll have to hold it in your lap—no cup holders.”

“Here,” I said, handing him
The Bridge
. “To thank you for giving me a ride.”

He looked at it like I was handing him a dead roach. “Keep it,” he said. Guess I couldn't blame him for that reaction.

I got in the front seat and wondered if the car would hold together on the ride. We sat in the heavy morning traffic in silence until he cleared his throat and asked how I knew Bronco. I told him about living upstairs from KitKat, that I knew them both from parties, that I didn't believe he was capable of this.

“So . . . ,” he drawled. “Are you the bitch that said Bronco was seen leaving the apartment?”

“No!” I said insistently. “No. I'm the one that found her body.” I don't know why I told him that as though it would clear
my name; all it probably did was give me more motive to narc. “I saw him leave that morning, but that wasn't unusual.”

“Yeah, he was over there, but someone got the times mixed up, told the cops he was seen leaving that afternoon. That's not possible.”

I drank my coffee. “What, are you his alibi?”

Bryce sighed and looked at me hard. “Look,” he said. “You can't tell anyone I told you this, but I know he didn't do this.”

“So why can't I tell anyone?” I replied. “You know, like his lawyer?”

“Because he doesn't want it getting out . . . that he was with me. He was doing a muscle show at the Inconvenience Lounge, same as every other Wednesday, and he spent all afternoon getting ready.”

“What's a muscle show?” I asked, and immediately felt like a Pollyanna.

Bryce rolled his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. “It's exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “Afterward, we went back to my place—hope I don't have to spell that out for you too.”

This was a revelation, to say the least. “But what about KitKat? Wasn't she his . . .”

“His bestie and his beard,” Bryce said. “He said she was his girlfriend when his family visited. They're those kind of snotty born-again types who think gay sex should stay between Dad of the Year and the kid he's diddling down the street. I didn't like it, thought he should be honest with them, but he just wasn't ready. Some people never are.”

If I thought about Bronco hard enough, I was more surprised that he pretended to be straight than that he wasn't. “But in Bushwick, seriously? Why stay closeted here, of all places?”

“Because you can't just be gay in one place,” said Bryce. “Admitting he was dating me meant broadcasting back to everyone in Armpit, Arizona, that he was out and proud. And being black, gay, and dating a white boy? He said he just wasn't ready to face his family with all that.”

“So how do I know you didn't kill her to force him to come out?”

“Bitch, please,” he said. “You watch too much
SVU
. I adored KitKat. She was going to bake our wedding cake . . .” He sighed and stared somewhere beyond the traffic. “. . . when he finally told his family about us.”

I
'D NEVER EVEN
been to the principal's office, let alone a prison visiting room. I was immediately seized with the fear that they'd somehow find contraband in my purse: a pocketknife I'd thrown in for a picnic because I needed the bottle opener; a strip of condoms forgotten from a long-ago hookup; a chocolate bar that could, in theory, be a brick of cocaine. I had visions of being slammed against a wall and strip-searched, forced to don an orange uniform and bunk with some murderous junkie named Sherrie. She'd tattoo me with a Bic pen; Sid and my parents would have to visit by phone through panes of Plexiglas. . . .

But instead, the guards nodded at the contents of our care package and waved both Bryce and me through to the sterile room. The yellow walls had just the opposite effect than was probably intended. There was no way anyone could feel happy or relaxed when an armed guard was glaring at your every move, as though each embrace was a secret transaction of drugs, weapons, cash, or contraband Snickers.

Bronco didn't look out of place here. He was a big guy, covered in tattoos, though his Mohawk was now wet down and plastered to his head. The only difference was that his eyes were sweet and sad and soft. They didn't have the hard look that the eyes of the man two tables down being visited by his mother had.

“We're going to get you out of here,” Bryce said, reaching across the table.

Bronco pulled away. “Not here,” he hissed. “I don't want any trouble.”

Bryce shrank back like he'd been slapped.

“How are you holding up?” I squeaked out.

“Well, I think I've had more visitors in the last two weeks then I've had since I was ten, when I had my appendix removed in the fifth grade.”

“Next time I'll bring you a coloring book,” I joked, opening up the care package. “I think there's some crosswords in here to pass the time until then.”

Bronco smiled for the first time since we arrived. Bryce didn't like my stealing his thunder and quickly added, “There won't be a next time—we're going to get you out of here. We're holding a benefit and Lovelle says that we should raise enough money to secure your bail.”

“That's a relief,” he said. “It's not so bad in here; quiet mostly. But the food is going to kill me—all that animal fat, ugh. I feel so sick and sluggish all the time.”

“We'll get you a juice detox when you get out,” Bryce promised. “I would have brought some tea, but they don't allow anything labeled ‘herbal remedies' in here. Just work out as much as you can, sweat and drink lots of water. It won't be much longer.”

I let the silence settle for a minute before I spoke again. “We missed you at KitKat's memorial,” I said, cringing at my clumsiness and hoping he didn't notice. So much for my L.A. gumshoe routine.

He either didn't know it was an interrogation or didn't care. “I just couldn't go,” he said. “I got as far as the door and I just started bawling. There wasn't anything I could take from her place that would preserve her memory better than I could in my heart.” He paused to wipe tears from his eyes. A weird little storm settled over Bryce. I was sorry I'd said anything—at least in front of his boyfriend.

He took a deep breath, wiped his eyes with the sugar-skull tattoo on the back of his hand and continued. “And I didn't want everyone there treating me like a widow. It wouldn't have been fair to Bryce or to anyone else.” And when no one was looking, he reached under the table and squeezed his boyfriend's hand.

I wanted to ask Bronco about George Parker Lennox, but I felt weird asking in front of Bryce. I squirmed a little, and Bronco seemed to pick up on the vibe. “Babe, you think you could get me a soda?” he asked. “They won't let us carry cash.”

“I don't think they carry fruit spritzers in that machine,” he said.

“At this point, I don't even care,” he said. “A Dr. Pepper would taste so good.”

Bryce rolled his eyes and got up, muttering about high-fructose corn syrup.

“Something you want to say, Jett?” Bronco said in a low voice.

“Did KitKat ever mention anyone else she was dating? Someone you were her cover for?”

He drew back his hand and went quiet for a minute. He glanced over to make sure Bryce was still wrestling with the vending machine.

“I knew she was in love with someone else,” he said. “I'd water her plants sometimes when she went away to see him, and I overheard her on the phone one time, asking about his wife, but I never got his name. I tried to tell my lawyer, but without a name, it didn't do my case much good.”

“Does the name George Parker Lennox sound familiar?”

He shook his head. “No—why do you want to know all this?”

Before I could answer, Bryce came back with the soda and Bronco took a grateful—if not staged—swig. I tried to give him a look that said,
I'll explain later
. All I got back was a glance that I translated as hopelessness.

I
took what was left of my paycheck to Trader Joe's and stocked my fridge with frozen meals and carton soups. I bought shampoo and toilet paper. I swallowed a sample cup of caramel corn and snuck a second when the sample girl wasn't looking. I stopped by Hartford and hid Philip's packet of dirty dainties in my Trader Joe's bag, and when I got off the subway there was a message from Sid.
Got behind on work,
he wrote.
I'll be by a little after six. Need me to bring anything?

Just the usual,
I wrote back.

A cheap bottle of wine and a corkscrew
.
One of these days, I'm just going to buy you one.

Then you won't have an excuse to come over anymore.
I added a little smiley face so he'd know I was joking.

I'll always find an excuse
, he wrote.
You have all my records
.

W
HEN
S
ID SHOWED
up, he had two brown paper bags, one in his fist and the other under his arm. “Look what I found the other day,” he said, setting the wine down on the table and holding out Cyndi Lauper's
She's So Unusual
. “Cyndi was my first crush. I haven't thought about this album in years, but it was right up
front in a box of vinyl at the bookstore next to the liquor store. Thought we could listen to it tonight.”

“You know how the turntable works,” I said.

He went to the living room while I got our enchiladas out of the oven. I hadn't heard “Money Changes Everything” in years, but I still knew the tune enough to hum a little under my breath.

I came out of the kitchen and almost dropped the plates. There was something intimate and sexy about the way Sid was working to open the bottle of wine, his lean hand wriggling the cork with a soft squeak against the green glass. I had to remember to breathe, to set the plates down, to hold on to the glass he placed in my hand instead of letting it fall slack between my fingers.

“You have any luck finding the guy who made KitKat's tape?” he asked, ruining the moment he didn't know we were having.

“George Parker Lennox,” I said. “A professor in Binghamton.”

“Ooh, hot for teacher,” he said. “How very Van Halen.”

“Yeah, except I don't know what to do now,” I said. “He's married, and I don't think he knows she's dead.”

“You should return the tape to him,” he said. “You should be the one to tell him. In person.”

“How?” I asked. “I can't just call him up and say, ‘Hey, your girlfriend is dead and I have your tape.' Besides”—I took a bite of my enchilada—“he lives in Binghamton, I don't have a car, and I'm sure as hell not taking the bus by myself to some strange city to tell a guy his mistress got murdered.”

“You think he killed her?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “Not with the songs he chose.” I handed him the track list I'd typed up. “He broke up with her, sure, but he didn't kill her.”

Sid chewed thoughtfully for a minute. “You're quite the Rockford,” he said, grinning out of the left side of his mouth. “I wouldn't have put all that together.” My heart did that little hollow flutter thing it does every so often when I'm about to fall in love, and he continued. “Look, if you want to go—and I think
you should—I'll go with you. We might even be able to borrow Terry's car for a day. He's rarely in any shape to drive it.”

My stomach dropped. I appreciated his offer, but that now meant I had to confront George and give him the news. And if his wife was the killer, that would put me on her hit list. I started to feel dizzy and flushed, like the wine had gone straight to my head even though I'd only taken two sips. “And if he's the killer?”

“Then you'll have me to protect you.” He mopped up some sauce with a spare scrap of tortilla. “But let's not make any plans until I'm sure I can get the car.” He took a sip of his wine and perused the track list like it was a menu at a fancy restaurant. “I don't know half of these,” he confessed. “But the Smiths track is a nice touch. A classic in the pining genre, if I do say so myself. I think I put that on a mix tape I made the girl I sat behind in History.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope,” he said, blushing a little. “If I recall correctly, she threw the tape at me in the lunchroom, called me a loser, and walked away laughing with her girlfriends. Haven't thought about that sting in a while.”

I poured a little more wine in his glass to balm the pain. “We've all been there,” I said. “Dan DeRosier, like most seventh-grade boys, wasn't exactly thrilled by the mix tape I gave him before our field trip to Hersheypark. I found it stuck in a fence with all the tape unwound.”

Now it was Sid's turn to refill my glass. “I'll drink to that,” he said. “Cheers—to all the great music no one understood. Their loss.”

“Eh, it wasn't so great,” I admitted. “I think it had Sting's ‘Fields of Gold' on there. I wasn't quite as sophisticated a listener as I am these days.”

“I love ‘Fields of Gold'!” Sid argued. “It's a romantic song!”

“Oh, Sid,” I said. “Sid, it is so corny! Next you're going to tell me you like ‘Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman.'”

“It's not my favorite, but it's not that bad.”

By now I was laughing so hard I could barely speak. “It has a
lyric about seeing a woman's unborn children
in her eyes
. That's
so
creepy.”

“Oh, so when Peter Gabriel sings it and John Cusack's standing outside your window with a goddamn boombox, that's romantic, but when Bryan Adams says it, it's creepy.”

“Yes.” I gestured with my glass. “Because Bryan Adams sang ‘Summer of '69' and he is gross.” I was ignoring the fact that Catch had put “All for Love” on a mix for me. His memory was not going to darken this perfect moment.

Sid got up to turn over the record. “I guess I have to erase ‘Heaven' from your mix tape,” he said, rummaging through the crate. “Maybe you'd prefer something a little lyrically deeper, like ‘This Is the Time.'” He held up
The Bridge
like evidence at a trial.

“That's not fair!” I shouted. “That record was forced on me!”

“Was it, Miss Bennett? Or are you just trying to cover for the fact that you lied to the good people of Barter Street about your tastes in music?”

I grabbed the lyrics to “Wither Without You” and held them up. “This song, Your Honor, should prove my innocence,” I said. “Mac forced me to buy
that
record in exchange for finding out who wrote this song.”

“A likely story.”

I wanted to kiss him. The urge came on strong and sudden; we were laughing so hard and his grin was so perfect and genuine and beautiful that I just wanted to grab his face in my hands and kiss him hard.

But instead, fearing rejection, I snatched the record out of his hands. “And what's this? Cyndi Lauper cowrote and sang backing vocals on ‘Code of Silence'? What do you have to say for
yourself,
Mr. McNeill?”

“I'd say we should finish our dinner,” he said. “I think we're getting too silly.”

He went back to the table and I went into the kitchen to cut and plate the lemon tart I'd picked up for dessert. When I came out, he was still standing, reading over the lyrics.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” I said. “Like the kind of song you sit by the radio for, hoping your crush will dedicate it to you.”

“What is it?”

“The last track on KitKat's mix,” I said, taking a bite of my tart. It was still a little frozen in the middle. “I can't find it on iTunes or Pandora or anything. Makes me sad that she never got this. I think he really loved her.”

“With a song like this, yeah,” said Sid. “He deserves a chance to mourn for her.” He took a bite of his own slice and reached over to squeeze my hand. “And you're the only person who can give that to him.”