J Bertrand - Back on Murder

“What is this?” she says. “Police harassment?”

“Where’s Tommy?”

“He left not long after I showed up. Didn’t want to talk, I guess. But listen, you should leave him alone. He hasn’t done anything.”

“He’s done this,” I say, sweeping my hand inadvertently against the refrigerator. I try again, motioning carefully at the party still ebbing along over my shoulder.

“So what?”

“So I told him not to.”

“What does it matter to the police if he invites some people over?”

“It matters to me,” I say. “I live here.”

She cocks her head, then smiles wryly. “This is your place? You’re the landlord? So that’s how he knows you.” Her eyes roll. “Now it all starts to make sense.”

I don’t have time for this. There’s a neck to wring. But there aren’t many places to hide in here, so I suspect she’s right about Tommy taking a hike. Who throws a party and then leaves? The more I think about it, the more my tenant fits the bill.

“Your wife is nice,” Marta says.

“My wife?”

“The lady who lives here – she’s your wife, isn’t she?”

I nod. “How do you know her?”

“I met her,” she says. “When I was here before. She gave me a ride home.”

“That was you?” I ask, leaning against the cabinet across from her, arms crossed, not exactly blocking the exit but fencing her in a bit.

She glances out the window again, nodding.

“Charlotte, my wife… she was worried about you.”

There’s something false about her sudden laugh. “About me?”

“You were in quite a state, she said. She even thought maybe something happened to you, that you’d been drugged or something.”

Her bravado is gone, and in spite of the heavy eyeliner and tight-fitting top, she seems quite childlike and small, almost virginal. And she’s lost all ability to meet my gaze. Still, her voice keeps its hardness, projecting world-weary scorn.

“I was just a little out of it from the night before.”

“Are you and Tommy friends or something?”

“Do I look like any of these people are my friends? I just know him from the bar. A bunch of them come in and, I don’t know, I just thought it might be fun. See how the other half parties, you know? Personally, I didn’t bother finishing school, and if you ask me, I didn’t miss anything. From what I see here” – she nods toward the living area – “I’d say I didn’t miss nothing at all.”

“How old are you, Marta?”

“Old enough.”

“Twenty-one, at least?”

She rolls her eyes again. “Well, duh. You know where I work.”

“Charlotte said that when she drove you home, she dropped you at a dorm. If you’re not in school, why do you live in the dorms?”

“I don’t,” she says. “That’s just where I left my car.”

“She also said you couldn’t remember who you came with.”

“Not their names.”

“Is that a common thing for you, memory loss?”

She glares are me. “I’m not good with names, okay? That doesn’t mean anything. Look, I said your wife was nice to me. I wasn’t trying to make a big thing out of it.”

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m just concerned. Because if something did happen to you – ”

“Then what?”

“Then I’d have to do something about it.”

The words come out, they float between us in the air, unseen but making their presence felt. Why am I worried? The memory of Charlotte’s distress, perhaps. The sudden though incomplete vulnerability Marta’s shown, or my earlier hunch that her hardness concealed a penchant for abuse. Or maybe it’s all the missing girls at the back of my mind, blending together, seeping out as a general concern for young femininity. Hannah Mayhew, the nation’s absent daughter, and the nameless one I tried to make her into – not even a woman, just a pattern of blood on the sheets.

And behind them all, the girl who’s always absent but always threatening to make herself tangible, always visible in hints and traces in the face and shape of every woman I see of a certain age. The one I won’t talk about, because Charlotte’s right about the futility of revisiting the past.

“You’re kind of nice,” Marta says, “in a weird sort of way.”

“Not really. Not once you get to know me.”

“Tommy says you are.”

He has his reasons. And maybe Charlotte sees them more clearly than I do. I’ve been shielding him without realizing why, afraid that a reckoning of any kind could start off a chain reaction, forcing everything into the light. As a consequence, a girl like this, motivated by God knows what undefined ambition, some desire to belong, could come under my roof and suffer – what? Nothing, she says, and I want to believe her. I want to believe I don’t deserve a reckoning on her account.

“You’re young,” I tell her. “I don’t know what happened to you the other night, if anything did. But your life… it should be a lot more than this. I’m just saying, don’t waste it.”

She hops off the counter, heading slowly toward the living room. “I’m not looking for a surrogate daddy,” she says, “but if I was…”

A surrogate daddy. And what is Tommy to me? An adopted son?

“Get out of here. I’m gonna be rude to some people. You don’t want to see me when I get rude.”

“You forget,” she says. “I already have.”

Tommy’s party ends not with a whimper but a bang, the sound of me snapping the door shut behind the last of his friends. I follow them down the stairs, herding the pack, channeling people into their cars and then tapping the roofs until they pull away. The final car reverses down the drive with me trailing the bumper, hands on my hips, badge and holstered gun gleaming in the headlights. If Tommy gets it into his head to throw another shindig, I have a feeling not too many of these folks will see fit to attend.

Once they’re gone, I camp out on the front steps for a little while on the off chance my tenant will return. But I figure he’s been tipped off and decided to spend the rest of the night on somebody’s couch. Back inside, Charlotte greets me at the door. I start to say something, but she pushes her lips against mine.

“You did it,” she says. “Time for your reward.”

“You were right,” I say.

“Don’t sound so surprised. Now come on.”

I let her take my hand and lead me up the back stairs. All is not right in my world, but one small corner is about to get noticeably better.

It’s Marta at the breakfast table this time, looking just like she did a few hours ago. She sinks a spoon into her cereal, letting milk drip over the side, and Charlotte gazes at her fondly, stroking her hair. They show no surprise when I appear at the door. They both smile at me, both with the same smile, bearing a resemblance to each other that they don’t in real life.

“I’m all grown up,” Marta says, holding her spoon up like an exclamation mark.

Then the kitchen door starts rattling over her shoulder. A knock so loud it sends tremors through the floorboards. They turn, eyes wide, Marta dropping the spoon into the bowl, Charlotte covering her mouth with her hand.

“Don’t let him in,” Marta pleads.

“Let who in?” My legs take me forward. My hand goes to the doorknob.

“Please don’t do it! Please, please, please!”

“Don’t be afraid,” I say.

“Roland.” Charlotte’s voice. “Roland, wake up.”

My eyes blink open. I turn toward her. “What?”

“Someone’s pounding on the door.”

“For real?”

And then I hear it. The nightstand clock reads just past six. I roll out of bed, pulling my pants on, sliding my pistol from the holster. An overreaction, maybe, but it’s underreacting that gets people killed. At the bedroom door I pause and turn. Charlotte’s crouched at the bedside, feeling around for her discarded clothes.