Water mark, p.5
Water Mark, page 5
The young woman still haunted me. Too many ghosts.
Chapter Seven
We were at my house again. With one slice of cold pizza in the refrigerator. There was peanut butter, but no bread. There was one box of crackers, but they were garlic flavored, which didn’t seem like a tasty combination.
Inspiration/desperation again hit.
“Chanse, I need another favor,” I said as he answered his phone. “What’s Carmen’s name,” I asked Nathalie. “Carmen Gecklebacher,” I repeated to Chanse. “Cell-phone number, probably Wisconsin.” It took him a minute.
You’re slipping, Micky, I told myself as I dialed her number. I could have done this yesterday.
“Look, I told you I’ll meet you later. I can’t talk right now” was how Carmen answered the phone.
“What?” I asked, deliberately mumbling, curious enough—or enough of an asshole—to see if she would continue.
Her voice was a harsh whisper. “I’m with Coach in the hospital. I don’t want him to know about you, okay? If I spend enough time with him, he won’t be suspicious when I need to get away.”
I was willing to bet that she hadn’t been smart enough to cover her mouth with her hand, depending on whispering to make sure no one overheard. I was also willing to bet that she was young enough to not be aware that harsh whispers carried very well and everyone in the vicinity had probably heard her. Maybe Coach was on enough pain meds that he would think he was dreaming.
I switched to my professional, don’t-mess-with-me voice. “Carmen Gecklebacher? This is Michele Knight. We met under unfortunate circumstances last night. I need to know—”
“What the hell?” She demanded, “Who is this? How did you get this number?”
Ms. Gecklebacher was pissing me off. I suspected that Nathalie’s estimation of her was much more accurate than her brother’s. She was game playing and obviously not overly concerned with the kids she was supposed to be looking after.
“I’m in investigations and law enforcement.” That was stretching it, but not far enough to break. “It took me about thirty seconds to get your phone number. I need to know where your group is housed, because last night Nathalie Hummle got separated from them and we need to get her back where she belongs.” Giving her no time to take umbrage, I said, “Give me the address.”
“I’m at the hospital,” she said.
“So you have no clue as to where the group is staying?” I packed as much stupid-young-kid-who-is-clueless contempt into my voice as I could.
“I don’t really know the address.” The petulance came through the line clearly.
“I can either take Nathalie to the hospital and leave her with you, or you can give me enough information to find where the group is staying.”
That focused her. “It was somewhere off Williams Boulevard.” She seemed to think that was enough.
It took literally about twenty questions for me to get enough directions and descriptions, such as “We passed a pink building that sold daiquiris,” for me to feel I would be able to return Nathalie to her group.
“Thanks, Carmen,” I said, not meaning it at all. “Oh, and you’re way too young to be screwing Coach, let alone screwing him and screwing around on him.” I hung up on her surprised yelp.
Nathalie had been listening to my phone conversation. “Carmen’s not going to be happy,” but she said it in a way that let me know Carmen’s happiness was not her top priority.
“She doesn’t know me, and if she sits and thinks about it for a few minutes, she’ll know that I can’t know that much about her.”
“But it’s true,” Nathalie said. “She gives Coach blow jobs in his office in the church rec area.” She blushed when she said “blow jobs.”
“How do you know?” Carmen was certainly a suck-up to those she thought could benefit her, but that didn’t mean that actual sex was happening. Coach would be an idiot if he took her up on it.
Nathalie’s blush spread across her face and down her neck. “My mom had baked an apple cobbler that I took to youth group. I was supposed to get the pan, but forgot, so I went back for it…”
“And you saw them.”
“Well…I saw her disappear on her knees behind his desk and he got this weird look on his face and started breathing funny…” Her face was bright red and she was staring at the floor.
“Enough details. I don’t think either you or I want to know more than that.”
“And Enid came back with me and she saw it too and I think she told some others.”
“Coach is an idiot. Carmen is too, but she’s also young and stupid. They were bound to get caught. If it hadn’t been you and Enid, it would have been someone else.” Nathalie seemed guilty, knowing something she shouldn’t and being part of having that secret spread around.
This was a mess. I briefly considered just keeping Nathalie until it was time for her to get back on a plane. Coach and Carmen didn’t sound adult enough to care for this group. Coach might have been adequate except for occasionally thinking with his dick, but he was out of commission and that left Carmen, who clearly was only worried about getting away with sneaking around. However, someone had to be the host, and presumably some adults were involved there. Plus my own life was enough of a mess. Cordelia was supposed to be back in a few days, and the last thing we’d need for our meeting was a teenaged house guest.
“Time to take you back where you belong. We’ll stop and get an oyster po-boy on the way.”
Chapter Eight
Nathalie was back with her group. At least she was well-fed before I left her for the wolves. An older woman had been there, but it took her about five minutes to understand that Nathalie was part of the group staying with her church, then another five minutes to think of what to do with her, and when I left she was still debating whom to call first. Nathan was there, limping slightly, and maybe he would offer some stability. I gave her my phone number, secretly hoping she wouldn’t call because she was fifteen, and only time, and a lot of it, would get her to where she needed to go.
I took advantage of being far out in the suburbs to make a major grocery run and found myself standing in the aisle looking at my mustard choices, wondering if I should get a couple of jars, one for the house in Treme and one for my office. I wasn’t sure where I’d end up. I was determined not to have Cordelia come home to a bare refrigerator since her credit card had paid for the replacement. The least I could do was stock it, even if it was no longer really mine and I didn’t live there anymore. You can’t stand here forever staring at the mustard. Buy two of things that will keep and parcel them between the two places.
It’s your goddamned fault that I’m stuck out here, I thought. How can mustard make me so furious? Oh, yeah, my supposed forever partner got tired me of me, dumped my ass right before Katrina blew into town, and now I was here alone having to deal with everything from human shit left in my office to the long drive to civilization to get basics like mustard. I started to turn and walk out, fuck it, just fuck it all. I can’t take the long lines, the stupid people who don’t live here, all the swirling media commentary of people saying that New Orleans got what it deserved. Why did we live in a swamp?
It wasn’t a fucking swamp three hundred years ago when the Bienville boys planted a French flag here. Cut a canal through the marsh to dig for oil, then another and another until the marsh that used to protect us is a sieve.
I was halfway down the aisle before reality sank in. If I didn’t get it now, I’d just have to come back out here. Just fucking do it. I got the spicy hot mustard that I like. Cordelia could get her own fucking mustard if it wasn’t good enough for her. Then I grabbed our usual brand as well. I’d take the hot mustard to my office.
She was returning this weekend. Friday? Saturday? Sunday? I didn’t know. Was she flying or driving?
Call her back and ask, I told myself, as I put two bags of flour in the cart.
But I wouldn’t. I’d divide myself between the two locations, unload groceries twice, clean twice, not think about anything once. Or if I did think, it’d be about how a woman, dressed as a man, died.
Cordelia had left me and if she wanted me back she’d have to work for it. She’d have to come to me, coax me back into her life and her home. It was her responsibility, not mine.
If she wanted me back. I didn’t ask myself if I wanted her back or if I just wanted the chance to reject her. Nor did I ask myself what if she didn’t want me back.
Did I need cooking oil or not? Olive oil? Canola oil? Two bottles of each? Cordelia can cook, but I’d done most of it. She often worked late, so it made sense for me to do the cooking and leave the cleanup for her.
All the decisions about my life confronted me in the bottles of olive oil. My pride said get two, but my bank account wasn’t as big as my pride.
I’m standing in a grocery store and I can’t make a fucking decision about olive oil. There were too many decisions, so I made none, just stared at the yellow-gold liquid until someone bumped me with a cart. Like all the grocery stores that were open, this one was busy.
Get what you need, be nice and get a few things to tide Cordelia over until…until the next day or the day after.
I put back most of the doubles, save for a few things that I’d keep at my office in any case—water, bread, peanut butter, and some cold cuts. Enough to either get me through a few days or provide lunch for a week.
Standing in line, I felt defeated. If grocery shopping was too hard, how would I handle the rest of my life? The detective business wasn’t exactly booming. Cordelia and I had co-mingled our finances years ago—after I’d finally trusted her enough to not need total control of at least some money. She wouldn’t begrudge me using some, in fact during one of our brief phone conversations had said, “Take what you need.”
I cut out of line, made a run by the liquor aisle, got what I needed—two bottles of decent Scotch. Those would go back to the office with me.
Again, in line, I felt calmer. I couldn’t solve the problems today—or tomorrow, but I could make them disappear for a little while. Knowing that I could get away from my problems made it easier to think about them. The tasks of today fell into line—go home and to my office and unpack this stuff. Then go back out to those cursed houses and finish the one job that had come my way since Katrina.
It wasn’t much of one. Mrs. Louellen Frist was too old to ever come back to New Orleans. The attic of her flooded house contained keepsakes and mementos of days that held happy memories. She’d hired me to retrieve whatever I could find and ship it to her in Dallas.
She’d probably know who lived in the house next door to hers. Maybe even how to contact them. And ask why a body might end up in their house.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost three. The line was moving slowly. Going back to the house would have to wait until tomorrow. But I could do a French Quarter bar crawl, see if any drag kings were missing. Or if anyone knew about cross-dressing women. Yeah, and I might have to buy a few drinks to fit in. I wasn’t fooling myself; I just wasn’t sure if the alcohol was a piece of my falling apart or helping me hold it together.
Chapter Nine
The groceries were stowed; I had survived my trip out to the suburbs. Nathalie hadn’t called, so I seemed safe from having to worry about her.
I looked at the stocked refrigerator: the skim milk Cordelia preferred; several of her favorite kinds of teas (decidedly not herbal, she appreciated her caffeine); apples and pears (she’d been trying to eat more fruit in her diet); some goat cheese and a good cheddar—apples and cheese being one of her favorite snacks.
Did you get anything for yourself, I wondered as I surveyed the shelves. Oh, yeah, Scotch and chocolate. Everything else was hers. Or ours. We used the same mustard brand, ate the same bread, cereals.
I closed the door. I had food. It was too much effort to pick a whole new brand of mustard and bread.
I headed down to my office to stow the Scotch, chocolate, also some bread, mustard, and sliced turkey. This would have been usual before the storm; I was being a little more obsessive about it now that I couldn’t run out to a store a few blocks away.
As I was driving, I realized there was a message in the food. I had choices. I could have left Cordelia a barren refrigerator or just a few generic necessities, or got stuff that only I like and would eat, like anchovies. That would have been a message, a brand-new refrigerator that she paid for stocked full of cans of anchovies. Why had I been kind, picked up things she liked, when I was still so angry at her? Maybe I wanted to prove that I was a nice person even if she was a cheating, lying bitch. Or to make her feel even more guilty.
Or to let her know that it might take some work, but I was leaving the door open.
I parked in front of my office building. Or maybe some inchoate jumbled version of all three and a few more I wasn’t aware of.
I carried the groceries up the three flights of stairs to my office.
Before I’d met Cordelia it had been both office and home, with one big area in the center that was the office proper. Off to one side was a kitchen and bath and to the other side two smaller rooms. Once a bedroom and a darkroom, those had been converted, one to storage and one filled with filing cabinets. I had gone through everything in storage, ruthlessly weeding out anything that I didn’t absolutely need, so that room was now mostly empty, filled with an inflatable mattress.
My home away from the home that was no longer really my home? It seemed that my goal of the last few weeks was to go to bed so tired—and a little drunk—that it didn’t matter where I slept, on the inflatable mattress or the bed I’d slept in for years. It mostly worked, but in the morning when I woke up nothing had changed. My life was still in limbo—career, relationship, where to live, nothing settled or set.
I unloaded my groceries. I still had a full bottle of Scotch here. Three vessels of amber liquid reassured me that I could get through the next few days. I didn’t like that I needed that kind of reassurance. What happened to the Micky Knight who managed life without a bottle and could plan days, even years ahead? “She’s gone with the wind and the water,” I said out loud. I’d taken to talking to myself just to fill the silence.
One of the tenants on the first floor was in and out, but even before Katrina, I’d seen him only on occasion. I wasn’t even sure what he did. He seemed one of those characters who might have been interesting somewhere else, but this was New Orleans and we knew how to do characters better than just about any other city. I suspected he wanted to be an artist, but whatever talent he had had gone up in a cloud of marijuana smoke so he paid the rent and bought the pot by painting portraits for drunken tourists on a sidewalk in the French Quarter. Slightly seedy artists in this city were outnumbered only by Mardi Gras beads. Every time we passed coming in or out of the building, he looked at me like he’d never seen me before. Katrina had done nothing to change that.
As far as I could tell the tenants on the second floor hadn’t returned.
Or hadn’t survived.
My floor, the third, was too empty. The other half had been used by Sara Clavish, an older woman who had started out doing cookbooks, then discovered the Internet and had reinvented herself as a Web sleuth. I had hired her to do a lot of the tedious Internet crawling required in modern-day detecting. She had been caught in the flood in the lower parishes. They still hadn’t found her body.
The ghosts were everywhere, even dry land held its share.
I started to open one of the bottles of Scotch, but decided against it. If I started drinking before I went to the bars, then I couldn’t even pretend that I was trying to do something useful—find the identity of one more body among the already-too-many dead. I wasn’t sure I could ask the right questions sober; I knew I couldn’t if I was impaired. And the bottle would be here when I came back. I returned it to its cupboard and put the glass back as well. Another little game, like I wouldn’t just take them back out when I returned later tonight.
Almost desperate to have motion and something to do, even if it was probably pointless, I headed down the stairs. For all the burden she was, Nathalie had also been a welcome distraction—someone to pull me away from my solitary obsessions.
I could use the dead woman the same way if I had to.
I started outside the Quarter in the Marigny, but these bars were local and had only a few people in them. Everyone knew someone who was missing: a friend, an acquaintance, some second cousin that they hadn’t heard from since the storm. How do you find a missing person in a city of missing people?
After the third bar, I realized that I didn’t know enough about the woman to even ask questions that might help me. But I couldn’t face going back to that empty house.
Not enough people had come back from Katrina to make parking in the French Quarter the challenge it had been previously. Probably the straight, tourist part nearer to Canal was horrendous, but I was in the quieter residential end, what was considered the gay end of the Quarter. The gay bars were some of the first businesses to re-open after the storm.
The hypnotic music, the swirling lights, people—people I didn’t know and didn’t have to worry about—helped keep the ghosts away. Most of the bar patrons were men; the few women mainly seemed from out of town, probably straight and probably in the gay bars to dance without being pawed. I stopped asking questions, just got a beer, stood off to the side and watched the parade. Out-of-town gawkers, here for the first time, their do-gooder hearts pasted on their sleeves and their lack of sophistication on their faces; the jaded locals searching for what they needed—sex, drugs, booze—to ease the ragged holes where houses, friends, family, a job, a life used to be.
By the fourth beer I only vaguely remembered that I was supposed to be asking questions, supposed to be doing anything other than being another local seeking what I needed to get through to the morning.
