Real easy, p.25
Real Easy, page 25
“That was sloppy,” he says. “I’ve been good to you. To be honest, I expected a little more gratitude. A little more professionalism.”
Georgia’s breath is short from dancing, from fear of getting in trouble, from fear of him. “My mother called. She’s sick, you know—”
“Let’s discuss this in my office.”
“No,” she blurts.
His face becomes very still. “No?”
“I mean, that’s not necessary. I don’t want to take up any more of your time. I’ll make up for it. I’ll pay double house fees. I don’t mind.”
A waitress eases around them, balancing beers. She slides Georgia a look. You’re gonna get it, her eyes say. Dale says, “I have always been understanding about your mother’s illness.”
“I know. I’m so grateful.”
“I never had a mother, not one to speak of.”
“I’m sorry,” she says helplessly, and wishes she hadn’t lied, because if he knew her mother was dead he might forgive her. She is desperate for his forgiveness.
“Why don’t you go home and take care of her,” he says gently.
“Thank you, Dale. Thank you so much.”
“And stay home. You’re fired.”
DETECTIVE HOLLY MEYLIN
It’s midafternoon, just past two o’clock, and the temperature is already dropping. Holly ashes out the car window. Amador is a human candle, burning in anticipation beside her in the squad car. Her phone rings, but Holly doesn’t look at it. Whatever it is can wait.
When they pull into the parking lot of Nick Sullivan’s apartment building, Holly sees the black Oldsmobile. Pradko sent a tow truck. They’ll bring the car in, process it, and hopefully get something good enough for the judge.
When he answers the door, Sullivan is rumpled, sullen. He’s got that befuddled look of someone who’s eaten more than his share of sleeping pills. Good. A confession will be easier if he’s sleepy and stupid. “What,” he says.
They explain, friendly, that they’d like to bring him in for questioning. No, nothing’s wrong. Pure routine. No, it can’t wait. They are very sorry.
“I’ve got to leave soon,” Sullivan says. “I need to pick my daughter up. School gets out at three.”
Not to worry, they assure him. They’ll send an officer to the school and have his daughter brought to the station.
He doesn’t like getting into the squad car. He’s like a horse brought stamping into a trailer, except that Sullivan doesn’t want to show that he’s afraid.
But he should be.
* * *
NICK IS AWAKE for real by the time they reach the station. Holly watches, in the rearview mirror, as he reaches for the car’s door handle, but there is no handle, not in a squad car’s back seat. His hand slips over the blank plastic side. His eyes are loose in his head, darting all around.
When they walk into the station, Sullivan between her and Amador, he balks, stopping in his tracks in the lobby. “My daughter,” he says. “It’s nearly three. Someone needs to pick her up.”
“We will,” Amador says soothingly.
“What the fuck is wrong with you people? Send someone now. Call the school now. You are not leaving Rose alone at school.”
Amador meets Holly’s eyes. They know this isn’t urgent; people are sometimes late to pick up their kids. Children stay in the school office until someone comes to collect them. Nick has an image in his head that won’t exist: Rose standing in an empty, windswept parking lot. But Amador asks dispatch to send an officer to the school, and Holly says, “Okay,” and gets out her cell.
There is a missed call from Georgia. She checks voice mail before she does anything else, finger lifted to keep Sullivan patient, but there is no message. So she calls the school office—Sullivan recites the number—speaks with the secretary, and hangs up. “There’s no problem,” she tells Sullivan. “A family friend already came to pick Rosie up early from school.”
“No, that’s wrong.”
“Mr. Sullivan, I’m beginning to think that you’re stalling, that you have something to hide. All we want to do is ask you a few questions.”
“Listen to what I’m saying.” His face is pale with panic. “There is no family friend. No one picks up Rose except me. If someone picked up my fucking child and said they were a fucking family friend, they were lying. Get on that phone and call them back. Find out who has Rose. Do it, or I will kill you.”
GEORGIA
(GIGI)
In the car, Georgia stared at the parking lot. The sky had dimmed and the temperature had dropped. It was early afternoon, just after two o’clock. Her shift had barely started, and now it was over. Everything was. She hadn’t even bothered to clean out her locker. Jimmy had walked her to her car. “Tough luck, sweetheart.”
Georgia called Bella. Her cell battery was getting low and the phone was a hot little brick. Bella didn’t have a cell, though, and no one picked up at the number Bella had given her that morning.
She was about to try the police department again when she remembered what Bella had said about getting Rosie to identify the voice of the man who had called her. Either Ruby must have given her number to the man who called, Bella had said, or he knew her real name and looked the number up. Dale knew all their real names. He kept all their phone numbers and home addresses on file.
Georgia glanced again at the time. School would end in about an hour, at three, when Rosie’s dad would come to pick her up unless she took the bus. There was only one elementary school in town, and Georgia had gone there as a child, so she knew the way. She started the car.
* * *
“WHAT’S THE NAME, again?” the school secretary asked. Behind her, the clock showed that it was almost half past two o’clock.
“Rosie Sullivan.”
“Teacher?”
“I’m not sure.”
The secretary gave her an odd look.
“I’m a family friend,” Georgia said. “Her dad asked me to pick her up early.”
“Well, he didn’t call us. I can’t release his daughter to some random person.”
“He seemed distracted. He didn’t mention a teacher, or say he’d have to call the school. He and Rosie are having a really hard time after what happened to Samantha.”
The secretary’s mouth pursed knowingly. “Why don’t we call Rosie down to the office.”
When Rosie appeared, in a denim jumper, pink tights, and white sneakers, beaded pins fastened to each rung on the ladder of her shoelaces, her eyes went wide at the sight of Georgia. “Um, hi?”
“Hi, Rosie,” she said brightly.
“Rosie, honey, do you know this woman?”
Rosie looked between them. “Yes,” she said finally. “That’s Georgia.”
“Is she a friend of the family?”
“She’s Samantha’s friend.”
“She says your dad told her to pick you up from school early.”
Rosie’s eyes were disbelieving, curious. “Okay.”
The secretary pushed a spiral notebook toward Georgia. “You have to sign her out.”
* * *
“YOU CAN’T DO that,” Georgia said once they were in her car. She made Rosie get into the back and buckle her seat belt. “You can’t let just anyone take you out of school.”
“But you wanted me to.”
“I could be a bad person!”
“Are you?”
“Listen, didn’t you say you have a babysitter who lives in your building?”
“Mrs. Zace.”
“We’re going to leave you with her. She can call your dad.” Georgia drove as quickly as she could while still being safe. When she arrived at the girl’s apartment building, she turned around to look into the back seat.
“We can get out now,” Rosie said, holding her backpack on her lap.
“Do you remember when you told me that a monster took Samantha? You said that he called you.”
Rosie looked smaller, her body tighter. She fiddled with the zipper of her backpack. “No.”
“Yes, you do. I want you to help me find him.”
Rosie whispered, “I don’t want you to find him.”
“Will you listen to someone’s voice and tell me if that’s the person who called you? A recording of his voice. That’s all. It won’t be him, not really.”
“I said I wouldn’t tell.”
“All you have to do is listen and say yes or no.”
“He said he would play with me if I told.”
When Rosie said play, it held the echo of how the man had said it. Georgia drew a sharp breath. “I won’t let him.”
“He took Samantha. He can take you, too. Me.”
“How about, if it’s him, look me in the eyes. If it isn’t, look away. Then you’re not breaking your promise.” She dialed the club on her cell.
Heidi answered. “Lovely Lady.”
Georgia hung up. She dialed again.
“Lovely Lady,” Heidi said.
Georgia hung up. She dialed again. This time the phone rang and rang. She imagined Heidi muttering about all the creeps who call the club. The answering machine picked up.
“You have reached the Lovely Lady,” Dale’s voice said, “located at—”
Georgia passed the phone to Rosie, who put it hesitantly to her ear. Rosie looked at Georgia, eyes growing wide and scared. She stared into Georgia’s face, unblinking, and did not look away.
DETECTIVE HOLLY MEYLIN
Holly stows her gun and phone in one of the mailbox-sized lockers outside the interview rooms before she steps into the box, where Amador is waiting with Sullivan. The interview room has one skinny window set with safety glass in a wired diamond pattern. Sullivan instantly rises to his feet. Holly holds her right hand out, flat, palm down, and thinks this interview won’t end without them cuffing him. “Rosie’s fine,” Holly says. “I called your home and she answered. She said Judy Zace was there with her.”
He looks relieved, yet says, “I didn’t ask Judy to pick her up.”
Amador says, “Do you know Judy Zace well?”
“Sure, but—”
“Seems like you trust her with your child.”
“Yeah.” Sullivan starts to speak again, but Amador talks over him. “So you trust her, she trusts you, and you have a nice, neighborly relationship. Borrow a cup of sugar, that sort of thing.”
“Yes,” Nick says, defensive. “We’re good people. We help each other out. That’s not my problem. I just don’t get why Judy would go to school and pick Rosie up. Something’s off.”
“I’m sure you can clear all that up when we’re done,” Amador says. He places a tape recorder on the desk between him and Sullivan and turns it on.
“You’re recording this?” Sullivan says.
“We record every conversation,” Amador says.
“You didn’t before.”
Holly sits and invites Sullivan to do the same. “We did, you just didn’t notice it. We want you to notice this time. You need to understand the gravity of your situation.”
Sullivan remains standing. “Me, understand? My wife was murdered.”
“Girlfriend.” It is a true pleasure to nettle him. For a moment it looks like he will strike her. Let him. That and his threat in the lobby will be catnip for a judge.
Sullivan sinks into his chair. “I want a lawyer.”
“Do you now,” Amador says. “Really?”
“Only guilty people need lawyers,” Holly says. “We’ll get you one, of course, if you like. If you’re guilty. Are you? Should I get one for you?” She must, legally, if he asks, but her questions have made it hard for him to say yes to a lawyer without saying yes to his guilt. If he’s clever he’ll phrase the right words to work around this, but he is not clever. He is angry and scared. He eyes the tape recorder. “I assume that means we can continue without one,” she says. “This shouldn’t take long. Right, Amador?”
“Right. Now, you said, Mr. Sullivan, that you were home the night of the crash, that you were sleeping.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t realize Samantha hadn’t come home until an officer showed up at your door.”
“Yes.”
“You slept through the call she made, and didn’t even hear the answering machine’s message until the morning.”
He hesitates, then says, “Yes. This is ridiculous. It was three in the morning. Of course I was asleep.”
“And you kept sleeping. You slept the whole night, soundly, in your bed, at home, with Rosie asleep in the other bedroom.”
“How many times do I have to say it? Are you people morons, or what? Sitting around with your thumbs up your asses. Samantha is dead because of you. Investigation? Bullshit. Just the two of you useless pricks asking pointless questions.”
“So the answer is yes.”
“Yes, the answer’s yes.”
“You,” Holly says, “are a liar.”
GEORGIA
(GIGI)
After she left Rosie with Judy Zace, Georgia plugged her dying phone into the car’s cigarette lighter, clicked quickly through the four contacts she had saved on her phone—Bella, Kaitlyn, Lady, and Mom—and dialed the last. It rang for a while and went to voice mail. “This is Detective Holly Meylin. Please leave a message.” As Georgia drove home, fine rain cut against the windshield in pin-straight lines. The voice mail beeped. Georgia rapidly explained Violet’s claim that Dale could leave the club without anyone being aware he’d left. “He called Ruby’s house the night of the crash, right after Ruby called. It must have been when she left his office to get Lady Jade’s things from her locker. Ruby’s kid recognized his voice.” It would have been easy for Dale to follow Ruby’s car. He knew exactly where she would go, because he would have given her Lady Jade’s address, and he would have had slightly more than two hours to get back to the club before it closed and he oversaw payout. As the words rattled out of Georgia’s mouth, she knew her suspicion wasn’t based on much: a scared child, a phone call, holes in Dale’s alibi, the rumor that he had a nice car. None of it was proof.
Georgia turned left when she should have turned right. She did it automatically, the heel of her hand rounding the wheel as she passed the intersection she knew well, the red barn roof of the Dairy Queen, its sign shaped like a painted mouth.
She wasn’t driving home. She was driving back to the club.
This was stupid. This was like the girl in the horror movie who goes down into the basement. Bluebeard’s wife with a ring of keys. All keys are yours, all doors open to you. Here, the key to my strongboxes, filled with gold and silver. Here, the key to my suite. Yet this one little key you must not use. This one little chamber of mine you must not enter.
“I’m going to the club now. Call me back,” Georgia said into her phone, and kept driving.
* * *
THE COTTON SKY had darkened by the time Georgia reached the Lady. The lot was half full. The rain had stopped, but gray, solid clouds clotted the horizon, promising more weather. Georgia tried Bella and Holly again, but neither picked up. She grabbed her partially charged phone and her bag.
The door backstage wouldn’t be unlocked and manned by a bouncer at this hour, since it wasn’t the start of a shift, so Georgia walked through the front door. Heidi, who was at the register, glanced at Georgia in surprise and then pity. “Begging won’t work,” she said. “Tears won’t make him hire you back. And for chrissakes don’t offer to blow him. One girl did that and he blacklisted her at all the clubs in the state. I’m lucky he didn’t fire me for your screwup. Fucking entry-level purgatory here, working the register.”
“I forgot to clean out my locker.”
Heidi waved her in, flapping an irritated hand.
Georgia skirted the edges of the club, keeping to the darkness below the champagne room. She wove quickly through patrons who gave her a confused look—in sneakers, jeans, and a hoodie, she didn’t look like a stripper and she didn’t look like the sort of girl who came with her boyfriend or friends to the club, dressed as if on a date, in frilly black dresses and kitten heels and sparkly earrings.
Georgia had walked into the Lady not knowing exactly which dancer she was going to enlist in her plan, but as soon as she saw Sasha take a twenty from a guy and step into her raspberry mesh teddy, pulling it up over her breasts, Georgia decided. “Hey, Sash.”
“What’s up, you little ho. Heard you got fired. Sucks to be you.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“No.”
Georgia took all the cash from her wallet and held it out. “How about now?”
* * *
SHE WAITED IN the club’s main-floor bathroom, the one for patrons, for about ten minutes as she and Sasha had planned. Georgia had offered no explanations for what she wanted, and Sasha had asked no questions. Sasha promised to get Dale out of his office and keep him backstage. She swore she’d talk his ear off.
Back on the floor, Georgia met eyes with dancers who glanced up from their drinks. Most expressions were no more than a bored goodbye. Lacey blew a kiss. But none of them stopped what they were doing. They sipped from cocktail straws. The ones dancing leaned to whisper into a man’s ear. It was the end of a dance. That eerie Beatles song was playing, one with a moody bass and bewildering words. Dresses were puddles on the carpet. The girls were lambent in the darkness, soft fires of skin, their belly chains bright. The dancers did the math in their heads and counted to their nightly number. It was nothing to them that Georgia took the steps to the third floor, up toward the lit window of Dale’s empty office.
DETECTIVE HOLLY MEYLIN
“You know what I love about all this?” Holly shows Sullivan a photo of the black Oldsmobile, license plate clear, at the gas station in between his home and the club. Sullivan’s face pales. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing as though an enormous fish in his gut is biting the line. “You stopped to fill up the tank,” Holly says. “To a jury, that shows premeditation. You had time to think about what you were planning to do to Samantha.”
