Unhinged (13 page)

“No thanks, ma'am.” I smiled. “We ate earlier. Tell me. Did Bruce drink absinthe?”

“Oh no. He was a beer drinker. He wouldn't drink anything nicknamed the green fairy. My father used to drink it sometimes, and that's what he called it, but he got the real stuff from Europe illegally. That's the true absinthe, with the wormwood.”

“I was never a hard liquor drinker, either. So, was there a special place that you'd take Gene when he was abused? To lift his spirits?”

“We used to go to the far end of the lakefront near West End, you know, where the whites were, and sit out on the seawall and talk. He liked that.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Lots of things. He loved the boats out on the water. He always wanted to get one. Or own one of those camps that aren't there anymore. He'd tell me ways of getting out of New Orleans or getting away from Bruce. I couldn't talk to him when he threatened to leave. It broke my heart.” Greta stopped to wipe something from the bridge of her nose.

My tea was getting low, and I didn't want to waste time by drinking another glass, so I quickly asked, “Do you have any idea where your son might be staying? Any names? Other relatives? It would really help us out.”

“Well.” She looked up at the ceiling light in thought. There were several dead bugs lying in the glass of the light fixture. “I don't have anyone. Bruce's mother is still alive, I believe. She's the only family besides me that Gene has. She has to be about eighty now. But Gene wouldn't go there. Bruce hated her so much that he didn't even tell her we were married while I was pregnant, and she never had any contact with Gene. Now, I do remember about a week before he left for good, a girl called for him. Her name was Sarah Simpson. I remember because of the two s's. I wish his father was alive for that. Gene never went out with girls much, and Bruce had always wanted Gene to meet someone nice.”

“Do you have any recent pictures of Gene?” I asked, fearing that she wouldn't want to part with any of them. “It would really help us find him.”

“I lost all of my pictures except the ones hanging high on the walls. The water came up to five feet here, you know. I can get you one, but I want it back.” Mrs. Lotz got up to retrieve the multipicture frame still hanging from a nail and proceeded to slide out a picture with rattling fingers. “I want this back.”

“Of course,” I said, fully intending to return it.

She came back to the table and handed it to me. It was early Gene Lotz all right, in full punk gear. Fortunately, it was a close-up of his face. He had a Billy Idol sneer.

I saw Agent Wayne finish writing something, nod to me, and I took it as our cue to leave. Ron came out of the back room with perfect timing.

“We're sorry to have bothered you so late,” I said as we rose.

“Not at all. It's only 6:45. I did miss half of my
Wheel,
though. You know something, I haven't ridden a bike in a while.”

“That's too bad.”
I think.
“Thanks for the tea. It was delicious.” I placed one of my cards by my empty glass.

Ron and Wayne walked out the door, but Mrs. Lotz grabbed my arm. “If you find Gene, tell him I love him. Ask him to give me a call, please.”

I nodded and she let go of my arm, clasping her hands by her mouth as if in prayer. I got a sudden urge to call my mother to tell her how much I loved her and thank her for not being a weirdo.

When I got into the passenger seat of Ron's car, I heard him finishing up a call to Greenwood for an address on Sarah Simpson. I felt like we were getting close. We had to be; Jennifer's life might depend on it.

“Find anything good in the back of the house?” I asked Ron.

“No,” he said as he sped down Morrison Road toward Read Boulevard, trying to get to the interstate. “Everything was neat, tidy, and had its place, but it was all new, cheap stuff. Her bedroom had that old, stale moldy smell to it. She must clean constantly; there was no dust anywhere.”

“I made that observation myself,” Wayne said from the backseat. “Gene Lotz appears to be a boy raised by an abusive father and an anal-retentive mother.”

“A clean freak. A place-for-everything kind of woman,” Ron restated.

We were almost on the I-10 when Greenwood called Ron.

“Yeah. Yeah. Gentilly. Got it.” He hung up and pushed his Taurus to eighty miles per hour. “Sarah Simpson, here we come.”

Greta Lotz was going to have permanent residence inside my skull, like a bat hanging in a cave. As I saw it, there were two groups of people, mainstream and off-the-beaten path. Those odd, crazy, warped, idealistic, insanely passionate individuals who carved a place in other people's memories were those who helped shape people. I pictured Greta Lotz as someone her high school friends still talked about, whether it be good or bad.

We turned onto Gentilly Boulevard near St. James High School. Ron's face was set in stone as he drove. I noticed that his lips were silently reading the addresses, even though we had a few more blocks to travel.

My stomach turned when we passed the school. When I was seventeen, I had dated a girl named Tilly who went there. Would she be the next one to turn up dead? I felt like calling every girl I had ever dated, but that would only lead to panic. Besides, there were so many stories, so many girls. I forgot who I had told Spider about.

Agent Wayne's cell phone rang, and he answered it quickly. “Yeah? . . . All right. Thanks.” He hung up. “No luck on the address. Two Gene Lotzes came up. One in California and one in Chicago. Neither of them has a mother named Greta.”

Moments later we pulled up to the address Greenwood had given us. The shotgun house had a huge front yard and was angled, as they all were, to face oncoming traffic. The siding still had a slight two-tone effect from the standing water. The three of us walked up the steps to the front door, and Ron rang the doorbell.

“Who is it?” was faintly heard.

“Police, Ms. Simpson. Can you open the door?” Lacey asked. He held his shield up to the peephole.

The door opened, revealing an unexpectedly beautiful woman wearing a light blue pajama top that was just long enough to cover her panties—if she was wearing any. The loose top was buttoned just high enough to make it interesting. Her thighs were magnificent, smooth and unmarked, and her wavy brown hair fell over her face as if a stylist had arranged it.

“Ms. Simpson?” I asked.

She nodded, pulling her hair from her face.

“I hope we didn't wake you.” I was curious why she would be in bed at this early hour.

“Yes, you did. I'm a flight attendant. My hours are a little crazy.” Her voice was light and raspy, and she squinted.

“May we come in? We'd like to ask you a couple of questions about Gene Lotz.”

Sarah frowned as she let us step inside. The place had very few pieces of furniture and hardwood floors. If I were an interior designer, I would have called her style minimalist.

We stood in her living room, which had a spacious entryway into her bedroom and contained a huge four-poster bed and a dresser. Farther on I could see a hallway leading to the back.

“What do you want to know about Gene Lotz?” she asked with contempt. “Did someone kill him?”

“We're looking for him. Can you tell us how you know him?” I felt my testosterone rising. She leaned against an empty bookcase and folded her arms. The pajama top buckled between two buttons, exposing a good portion of her cleavage. It acted as a focal point.

“Do you mind if we sit? I'm so tired.” She plopped down on one end of her purple sofa.

Wayne took a seat in a corner rocker next to a tall plant, and I sat on the other end of the couch. Ron made himself comfortable leaning against the door.

“I met the freak one night at a club about five years ago.” Sarah slouched back into the cushion, wiped at her eyes, and then pulled her top down over her slightly exposed panties. “We danced a bit. He was different from the other guys. He was like a punker, and everyone else there had meat market personalities, like they all came out of the same gumball machine.”

“You dated Gene?” Lacey asked.

I glanced at him to find his gaze wandering down the length of her frame. This woman could have top billing at Jo-Jo's Cabaret if she was into that.

“Not really. I just wanted to go out with him on a fun, interesting date instead of being bored out of my mind with the shallow assholes I usually attract. He made me laugh, and I'd had a bad run of losers. Our first date didn't go very well. I never saw him after that.”

“Why didn't the date go well?” As with Greta Lotz, I noticed that Ron and Wayne were letting me do the majority of questioning.

“Let me see.” Sarah massaged her temples. “I noticed in prolonged conversation that his humor was a little more scary than endearing.”

“How so?” I urged. “Why don't you start from the beginning of the date?”

“Jesus, guys. I have a flight tonight.” Her eyes were pleading, but none of us flinched.

“This will be over before you know it.” I oozed sincerity. “Please tell us everything you remember.”

“Gene picked me up in a gray, mid-70s Camaro. He told me all about his car as soon as I got in. He bought it from a guy on the West Bank for three hundred dollars, and it had a truck engine in it. He warned me that my door could swing open on hard turns, so he'd try to be careful. He had two beers for us to drink on the ride, which I thought was sweet.

“He takes me to Tiritilli's out in Chalmette, which for any other guy would have lost major points, but Gene wasn't the shallow type, and I wasn't going to be, either. We got a table, ordered a pitcher of beer and pizza.”

“What did he talk about? What were the scary things you mentioned?”

“Gene asked me about my family, but he wouldn't talk about his. He told me that he used to work at Dixie-Mart but never said anything about the people he worked with. He told me about concerts he had been to and a mosh pit he was in one time. The story started off as funny. He talked about how crazy it gets and what these kids do to each other, but as I was laughing, he finished his story with how he kicked a guy's teeth in after this poor guy was knocked down. I stopped laughing. The story had turned me off, but I put it out of my head because I still didn't want to make any judgments yet.”

“Is that all that happened at Tiritilli's?”

“Yeah, then he takes me to Hawaii Bamboo, this place that's like Jimmy Buffett country with toucans, margaritas, tropical plants, and shit. We're having some drinks and shooting pool. He got quiet, which I didn't know how to take. Maybe he was still embarrassed or ran out of stories or was going over a plan in his head.”

“A plan?” I broke in.

“Like his next move. I was glad he was drinking a bit to calm himself down.”

“Absinthe?” I asked.

“Yes.” Sarah's eyes grew wide. “I told myself that if Gene made one more off-color remark, I'd end the date and not see him again, but he stayed well behaved. As we shot pool, he kept looking at me. I knew that look. He wanted to kiss me. I remember walking around the table to where he was standing, and he stared me down as I lined up my shot. So, instead of letting him say some stupid line or get himself worked up to ask me, I just kissed him.”

“How was he after that?” I asked.

“More quiet. A bit anxious. I could tell he didn't pick up women much. He was a little naïve about how to go about it, but it was just another one of the cute things about him.”

“Why did you think Gene was dead?” I could tell we were losing her to sleep. Like Greta, people loved to talk, but at this point she would probably tell us anything just to get us out.

“We came back to my old apartment after our date, and things were going great. He mellowed out after I said he didn't have to try to impress me. I told him to treat me like a friend. I had a few drinks, so did he, and things got a little hot on my couch. We started getting undressed as we messed around, and I could tell he was frustrated about something.”

“Wait. Who made the first move? Did you have to urge him on?” I asked.

“I made the initial contact. That was cool for me.” Sarah smiled for the first time. “I liked it. It was like role reversal where I was trying to get into his pants. Gene let me do what I wanted. Right in the middle of kissing, he asked me if I had any absinthe. Of course, I didn't, but that was so strange. Anyway, he started to mimic my movements. Like, when I rubbed his chest, he rubbed mine. Well, I eventually found out that he wasn't getting excited down there. You know—hard. I told him I'd help him, but he pushed my hand away and threw me off the couch onto the floor. He climbed on me, and I was shocked at first. But I thought maybe being rough gets him going. And since we were going to have sex anyway, I'd let him be a little rough. I'm not a slut. Sometimes I just do it if it feels right.”

“We're not judging you,” Wayne said.

“Right. Anyway, being rough fit his image, but the rougher he got, the angrier he got. Then he hit me across my cheek, and I knew I was in trouble. When I started screaming, he ran out. I never called the cops ‘cause he knew where I lived. I didn't want him coming back.”

Sarah looked down at the hardwood floor, causing her hair to swing into her face. “That's why I figured someone killed him. Or he killed someone. Wait a minute. Absinthe. Does this have to do with those double homicides? Is Gene the Absinthe Killer?”

“We're not at liberty to discuss the case,” I said. “So, you don't know where he might be?”

She let her arms fall to her sides, closing up the big show of cleavage. Panic came across her face. I knew she was visualizing Gene as the Absinthe Killer.

“I couldn't tell you where he is now.” Sarah raised her hand, letting one finger pop up to begin counting. “I knew his parents' phone number.” Second finger. “Where we went on the date.” Another finger. “And the place we met. The Castle.” Her last finger. “God, he could have killed me.”