Erased From Memory (15 page)

“Drugs.” I had forgotten about that.

“Everything. Pot. Meth. Heroin. Hash. Hash was his special deal.”

We’re silent for a minute. I guess Scott is remembering, and I’m feeling sad. All that liveliness and talent, splashed around so recklessly.

 
 
“Danielle didn’t look anything like Rita,” Scott says. “She looked like you.”

This is a stopper, but after he says it, I can’t get him to talk anymore about Thebes. He wants to discuss my dad’s health and my relationship with my old boyfriend—what’s his name, Rob?—and why Cherie is now Rob’s girlfriend and why the sheriff is pursuing my father. He’s concerned about me. What am I going to do with my life?

And he talks about the Hartdale Grant. “Maybe it’s a crock of shit, but I sure wanted it. I’d have given anything. If they said, ‘You lose everything in your whole life except your brain and the Hartdale,’ I’d’ve agreed straight off, ‘Okay, right.’ I’d’ve donated my left nut. That Hartdale is a lot of money, but that wasn’t the point. It’s a symbol. It’s your life all in one, everything you’ve been working for.”

I pick up on the tenses in this lecture and ask, “And not so much now?”

“Now I’m not really sure of anything.”

Scott is mostly silent on the way home. He stares at the dark road with its many curves. An owl flies right across our windshield.

But inside the museum residence, as we’re waiting for the elevator, he shifts again. “Carla, you’ve been a big help. Really.”

When I don’t respond, he picks up, “Christ. This whole thing hit me hard.”

And after a minute, “Can I kiss you?”

I put my face up. If he had asked in the middle of talking about his Yale appointment, I would have told him sorry. But this is a Scott that I partly understand. I feel sorry for him.

The kiss lasts for the elevator ride. It’s a good kiss, better than I’m prepared for. Too good, one of those that you sense all the way down in your gut. This man packs a lot of animal energy.

We part as the elevator doors open. I don’t have any trouble breaking away, though maybe he hangs on to my shoulder a minute too long. I depart toward my room, shoring myself up with the idea that I have a secret. In my pocket there is a copy of one of Rita’s notes to Marcus:

 
I’m not that great with spotting secrets. It could be on a computer or on the Internet or on the inside of Rita’s dead wrist. Well, shoot.

There are people that are probably good with that stuff. I don’t want to think of Cherie, but I do.

Chapter 12

And Cherie is very much with me and on the spot.

First of all, I get a veritable information storm of e-mails, each written in Cherie’s patented text-message shorthand, and needing translation. The first one dates an hour after the shooting:

 
Fifteen minutes later:

 
Half an hour later:

I get a headache and can hardly think (tk) and know that I have lost the ability to spell (spl) after dealing with ten (count’em, 10) of these effusions, with more popping up every few minutes and my assiduous computer ringing a bell for each one. Cherie, of course, really wants to text-message but I’ve lied to her about the text-messaging capacity of my phone. So, of course, she calls.

“Hello? Darling? Oh, my God, my God.”

We do that for a while, with Cherie wanting to know how is her darling Crocodile, and how is her darling Carla, and have I any idea who could have shot Rita, did I see anything, does that feeble-minded asshole of a sheriff have any idea at all?

“And Rob and I are both feeling so guilty, we were set to go down to the bar that night; we go most nights for just a spot of dancing, but then we got involved and got too lazy . . .”

My stomach does a neat flip here. I understand this rhetoric and enjoy a mental picture of Cherie and Rob locked in a long languorous embrace. Hasn’t Cherie said about Rob, “He seems kind of stiff at first, but when you get used to him . . .” Oh, hell and damn. I summon a counterimage of me and Scott in the elevator.

“So, darling,” says Cherie, “when should we come over; we are dying to see you; of course, Rob is on duty today and also tonight and I actually do have some cases that are nipping at my heels, but if you need me, I’ll be there in a flash.”

I assure Cherie that we can live without her, and she assures me that if we need her, she’s there, spot on, right away, and she hates to be just thinking about me from a few miles away and Rob is so worried.

“He cares so much,” she says. “For your dad. And for you. He really cares about you, Carla.”

I restrain myself and insist that we are fine.

“And that little sweet Rita,” Cherie picks up, “that poor child, I keep thinking about her . . .”

Amazingly, she trails off for a minute and something makes me want to try for a reality-injection. “Rita wasn’t exactly sweet, Cherie. She was an interesting woman. Educated. Good in her field. But not sweet.”

“Oh, girlfriend, I know that.
Sweet
doesn’t really mean that. It’s just the Southern in me coming out. Just something to say.”

As usual, Cherie proves herself smarter than she lets on. Smarter than I think she is. I’ll bet that surprise quality is attractive to Rob.

“But listen, sugar-bell, about Rita. Somebody shot her? In the back? And killed her? Have you any idea who?”

“None.”

“That little girl didn’t look like she had an enemy in the world.”

“Yes, she did.”

“Oh, God, there I go again. Sure, she looked like she had enemies. She was off-the-wall crazy part of the time. She said your dad was a murderer.”

“He didn’t kill her.”

“Oh, I
know
that.” She’s silent for a minute, and then says to me in her professional voice, “In my experience, people don’t get really, permanently mad about something somebody does when they’re in the down cycle of bipolar. The average person can recognize that. And know it’s not the true person.

“That’s in my experience,” she adds dismissively.

We actually have two seconds of telephone silence before I remember to jump in with my question. “Cherie, tell me. In the crypt the other day. What was Rita doing?”

There is a pause. Cherie says, “Hmm.” She waits. “Now that is a question, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Cherie, it surely is.” I let some irritation creep into my voice.

“Well, now darlin’, of course I don’t rightly know.”

I wait.

“She looked like she was just interested in that beautiful carving.”

“No, she didn’t. She looked as if she were looking for something. Getting her nose up to it, feeling it with her fingertips. We both thought so. And we kept Egon busy so he wouldn’t notice.”

“Is that what we were doin’? Oh, my God, naughty us.”

“Cherie, cut it out.”

There is another pause. I hear Cherie exhale. “Well, darlin’, since you are so observant, I guess I’ll tell you. There is a history for that crypt there. It’s the setting for a movie.”

I say, “Oh.”

“Not such a bad movie, really. Sort of porn and sort of weird artsy. If you know what I mean.”

“I have an idea.”

“I didn’t say a word about that to Egon. He’s such an unctuous bastard. I don’t know—did he produce the movie? Does he maybe not know a thing about it?”

I’m quiet, thinking about Cherie’s news. Yes, I can imagine both these possibilities. Egon Rothskellar, porn producer. Or Egon, complacent oblivious dupe.

The whole thing, of course, says Marcus Broussard.

“What happened in this movie?”

“The usual. Gasping, groping, penises, vaginas, whips, vampires.”

“Oh,” I say. “Vampires.”

“Well, natch. This is in a tomb. Real well photographed and weirdly lit and gorgeous costumes with holes in them. What I don’t know is if the crypt ever gets opened. The movie was underground, not to float a pun; my friend only had half of the video.”

I brood about this for a while. Very interesting news, which explains why Cherie wanted to see the crypt.

“Was Rita in the movie?”

“Maybe. Masks, costumes, you couldn’t be sure.”

“And so what was she doing the other day while we were there?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t know. Messing around. But I figure it’s real important.”

I figure that, too. Someone had better try to find out.

This part of our conversation ends in an uncomfortable suspension. I wait for Cherie to say, “Let’s work on this together,” but she doesn’t.

 
 
I’m about to sign off when I remember that we have more business. “Cherie. The sheriff was threatening to call us in.”

She sounds relieved to have a new topic. “Oh, absolutely, you can count on it. I’ll be there. I scared that little slimeball sheriff up proper; he won’t dare proceed without me.

“I’ll bring Robbie with me,” she threatens. “Now, Carla, you sure you’re okay? And your dad? He’s fine? I think about the two of you all the time . . . Hey, I got a new bottle of grappa that a client gave me, made in some little village of Tuscany; I’ll bring it along, just the right thing for those tense moments. See you, don’t forget now.”

Talking to Cherie upsets me. I hate to admit it, but it does.

I go out into the garden for a change of venue, and right away Egon is after me. He pursues me down several garden lanes and finally catches up with me, triumphantly gloomy. “I have brought you a cheese-filled doughnut.”

He has two of them, two cheese-filled doughnuts, one for him and one for me.

“Yes,” he says. “A beautiful morning. Sad. Ironic.

“I say ironic,” he expands, balancing a mouthful of runny cheese, “because of the dichotomy between the beauty of the scene and the tragedies around us. Possibly you feel it.”

I accept my doughnut and mumble, “Two murders.”

He is alarmed. “Murders? Well, not at all. That is, we aren’t sure. For Rita—poor, tragic Rita—-yes, certainly. Shot. That was murder. But for Marcus? There is no sign of murder.”

I look at him to see if he’s serious and decide that he thinks he is. I mention the ankh.

“Ah, yes. The ankh. The life force, the symbol. Many of us had them. Carried them, you know? For good luck.”

I mutter something about its not helping much, which Egon ignores. “And what could be more natural”—he gets almost enthusiastic—“than, at the last minute, when you feel the life force ebbing, all that you love going from you”—he waves a hand to indicate the things he loves dissipating into the atmosphere—“what could be more natural than that you thrust the potent token . . .”

(
Potent token,
I think,
good, good.
)

“. . . than that you thrust it into yourself.”

An unpleasant image, don’t carry it further.
“So you think he swallowed another ankh, that first time?”

He looks dumbfounded. No, he didn’t mean that.

“What did he die of?” I ask, veering the conversation some.

Egon sounds defensive. “They’re still testing.” The defensiveness makes me decide he hasn’t been told the cause of Marcus’s death and doesn’t want to admit it.

Of course, maybe they still don’t know. Don’t those forensic studies sometimes take ages?

“Well,” I suggest, “they said something about low blood pressure.”

Egon says, “Ah.”

“And someone has suggested internal bleeding.” Actually the person is Scott, but for some reason I don’t mention that.

Egon just stares.

“I mean,” I remind him, “staggering around for a whole day.”

He fishes for a remark. “Terrible, terrible.”

We give that some space. “What I really wanted to talk to you about . . .” Egon starts off.

Yes, I thought you were chasing me around the garden for a reason. And I won’t be deflected just yet.
“I’m curious about Mr. Broussard. What was he like?”

“Oh. Charming.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“He was very rich. Very generous. Listed in the Fortune 500. Other places. I think it was . . . banks?” Egon offers this with furrowed brow, as if the subject is a bit vulgar. Mr. Broussard was so rich that one didn’t inquire.

Now
I
get to say,
Ah. Egon, did you know he was making porn films in your crypt?
“Was he here often?”