Choke On Your Lies Part 24

A roll of her eyes, a waving-off of her free hand. "Don't worry. Just ribbing you. I'm the one who wanted to f.u.c.k you, after all. The other stuff, let's call it even."

That didn't make me feel any better. As long as I lived, I'd always have that fear in my gut that Alice wasn't really kidding.

She said, "You want to see him, I guess?"

I nodded. "I'm not asking. I'm going right in."

"Fine. I don't give a s.h.i.+t." She toed something under her desk. "Got a box right here. It's my last day. Told him this morning."

"Really?"

"Honest to whatever. I wish you'd introduced me to her sooner, you know. Maybe if you'd trusted me a little. I've never met anyone like her. Octavia's very special."

Special as in bitter? Angry? b.i.t.c.hy? Selfish? Vindictive? Sn.o.bbish? Outrageously mean? "Yeah, well. We've been friends for a long time."

"She thinks the world of you. Says you've really been amazing, and she trusts you. If I'd only known, Mick."

Well that was just swell. I was the subject of pillow talk. I clutched my stomach, then pointed to the Provost's office. "I'm going in now."

Alice shrugged. "Go for it. I'll say I wasn't here when you showed up. In fact, good time for a cigarette break."

She stood, brushed by me too close-smelling like perfume, s.e.x, and smoke-and was gone, her flip-flops noisily accenting each swish of her hips.

How hard did I want to go in? Too hard and I'd get laughed out of the room. Too soft, and he'd have a chance to bounce me out before I'd had my say.

Hand on the door handle. Now the next step was to push it down, swing it open, step in and start talking.

So that's what I did.

Pushed it down. Swung it open. Stepped inside and started with, "Carl, you're going to tell me what you did to Frances and pay for what you did to Stephanie."

Except he wasn't alone. Sitting across from Carl, who had obviously been crying recently, were Detectives Fitzgerald and Labat. They turned in their chairs, gave me a cold once over. Labat looked away, shook his head, and muttered, "f.u.c.k Christ, what a tool."

Gee, Alice, thanks for the early warning. I froze, felt as if my feet were literally encased in ice.

Carl said, "Geez, Mick, how can you even say that?"

"After what you've put me through? Don't even." I looked at Fitzgerald. "He's your killer, not me. He's made it pretty obvious."

"Because he had an affair with your ex-wife? The man's in serious pain here, and you're calling him a killer?"

Maybe I underestimated how much Carl loved Frances. Maybe he was a great actor. But I realized that telling the detectives about the swingers club would open a whole new can of worms, one that would drag us under even farther.

I said, "Well he certainly had it in him more than me."

Fitzgerald said, "Yeah, we know."

"You do?"

The detective pointed at the Provost. "He's spent the last twenty minutes going to bat for you. Said there's no way you had anything to do with this."

I opened up to say, well, yeah, of course not, because it was all on Carl, but...he defended me?

"Okay, sure. Really?"

"Willing to bet his life on it."

Okay, so maybe I was barking up the wrong metaphor, but, at least we had that out of the way. After all the humiliation we'd put each other through, he was still willing to let bygones be bygones.

Then Labat piped in, "He said you're too much of a p.u.s.s.y. Would rather suffer for your awful poetry-that's a direct quote-than kill anyone. And even if you did make the attempt, he said either one of those women would kick your a.s.s before you lifted the knife."

Carl leaned back in his chair. "I stand by that, too. Mick is an effete, bleeding heart, self-centered a.s.shole, but he didn't kill anyone."

How could something be going terribly and wonderfully all at the same time?

I said, "You're telling me you had absolutely nothing to do with this? You're not trying to frame me?"

"s.h.i.+t, why did Alice even let you in here? Thooft, it's over. Fran left you, then she left me, and I would appreciate it if you didn't come in here half-c.o.c.ked calling me a killer."

"Besides," Fitzgerald said. "There's no way your Provost here could've have done it. He actually has an alibi, unlike you."

"I did. I do. I mean, what was it?"

Carl answered, "I had to attend a really boring fundraiser, but I did it, and everyone saw me get up and introduce a very eager-beaver city councilman who wants to be a state representative. So, you know, it wasn't me."

Think, think, think.

"Yeah, but you could've hired someone."

His jaw tightened. He was keeping his cool better than I expected. Maybe I was onto something.

The cops laughed. Labat was enjoying it more than he should've. "Really? Everybody knows that most hit men are undercover cops. Except people who try to use them, that is."

I sputtered and said something like that wasn't always true, but it came out so mangled and sideways that in the end I just shouted, "f.u.c.k you, Carl!"

Fitzgerald rose from his chair, walked over to me and grabbed my arm. He pulled me towards the door and said, "Excuse me a moment. Mick and I need to talk outside."

He dragged me out of the office into the waiting area, where Alice still hadn't returned, and looked at me the way a jaded high school teacher might look at a student with retirement still too many years away. "What. The. h.e.l.l?"

"I don't care what he's telling you! He's the guy!"

He looked around, pained. "Lower your voice. For f.u.c.k's sake, man. Are you drunk?"

"Sorry, sorry." Brought it down to a whisper. "My a.s.s is on the line here."

Fitzgerald sighed, stretched his back. "Listen, you know...I'm sorry. We probably moved too fast. It all made sense, looked like a slam dunk."

"Wait. Am I not a suspect anymore?"

"Of course you're a suspect, you idiot. But now you've got some people on your side making it look less and less likely. If it hadn't looked so bad at first...if you did it, we'll figure it out. If not, we'll figure that out, too. So, I'm doing you a favor here. I'm not supposed to say anything, and if you say I did, I'll deny it til the day they strap you on the gurney for your nighty-night shot. You got me?"

A sudden sense of relief. I even felt a laugh bubbling up inside me. "I didn't do it?"

He shook his head as if I was the dumbest piece of s.h.i.+t he'd ever seen, including methheads, g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers, and in his own toilet.

"Stop investigating. Let us handle it. Go home and relax, okay?"

I nodded. Like a child given permission to have a cookie before dinner. I thanked him and started out. Then he called after me.

"You really think Mr. Provost here had anything to do with it?"

Could I really throw him under the bus? He hadn't given me the kindest support, but it was better than expected. Still, he had f.u.c.ked my wife. And he let other people f.u.c.k my wife. And that led to Ashton f.u.c.king my wife, impregnating my wife, and so on.

I shrugged. "Not every hit man is an undercover cop. It just seems that way."

I didn't wait for a response. I jiggled my keys and headed for the stairs, too bouncy to wait for the elevator. I had forgotten for the moment that Stephanie was still dead, and that Frances was probably dead. I instead felt the sort of relief that comes at the end of a semester, or when you find out you got the grant, or that Mid-America Review is going to publish three of your poems, or that, well, you're not being accused of as much murder as you had been ten minutes ago.

That bouncy, sing-songy feeling lasted all the way to the car. I clicked it unlocked, paying no attention to the cars around me. So nothing phased me until I saw the reflection in the window of a man running towards me. I turned around just in time to be slammed against the car and thrown to the ground. Finally got a look at him as he was about to kick me in the groin.

G.o.dd.a.m.ned, did that hurt.

I couldn't blame him, though. After all, I had been sleeping with the man's wife

EIGHT.

It took another couple of kicks to finally make me scoot my a.s.s across the parking lot and protect my jewels. I held my other hand above me to fend off blows. Ashton kept coming.

I said, "Jesus, calm down! There are cops in Carl's office."

"I don't f.u.c.king care. Let them stop me."

"Let's talk, man. We need to talk!"

Another kick, this time connecting with my thigh. "I didn't come to talk to you, Mick." Kick. "I came to bury you, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

I'd finally backed up enough to roll over and scramble to my feet, keeping a good three or four feet between us. "Like you're some sort of angel? You got my wife pregnant, like, months before I even touched yours."

"I didn't kill yours! I loved her! What did you do with her?"

He didn't wait for me to answer. Just lunged. I turned to run, but he wrapped his arms around me, forced me into the nearest tree. Banged up the side of my face. He grabbed my hair and bounced my noggin off the trunk again.

I finally got my hands in front of me, pushed back from the tree right before he tried again. I started kicking his s.h.i.+n with my heel, and he yelled and let go.

Ashton limped around, face contorted. He looked as if he'd stepped right out of a boardroom and off the plane, wearing a suit and tie.

I said, "I didn't kill anyone. I didn't kill Stephanie. I mean, f.u.c.k, man, I was falling for her."

He stabbed an index finger at me. "Don't!"

"No, listen for a minute. You give me a b.u.m's rush with your righteous anger because I'm some kind of monster, when all I did was cuckold you the way you cuckolded me. We're f.u.c.king even, as far as that goes."

Except for the fetus, I thought, but didn't dare say. I remembered how I felt when I believed it was mine. Had to draw a line somewhere.

He stopped pacing and shoved me. Not enough to knock me down. I wiped my hand over my face. A tiny bit of blood. Mostly I felt a couple of growing lumps on my cheek and crown.

He came at me again and this time I got in a good elbow to his head.

I said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n it, if you want to be p.i.s.sed at me, fine. But look in the f.u.c.king mirror, you p.r.i.c.k. She was going to leave you. You're lucky you were out of town, or I'd be p.i.s.sed at you."

"That's what she told you? She was leaving me? That's not what she told me."

"Oh yeah?"

"Said she was f.u.c.king you to make me mad. Make me jealous. Asked me if I wanted to keep her, I'd have to prove it."

"She didn't mean it."

"I know my wife, and she f.u.c.king well did mean it, a.s.shole. You didn't hear the talks we had after you left, or when you fell asleep."

I blinked.

"You didn't know that, did you? She called me after you started snoring, gave me a play by play. And you know what she did when I told her just how bad I was going to f.u.c.k you up? Wanna know?"

Could my soul sink any lower? "What?"

"She rubbed her c.l.i.t. I talked about breaking your nose, she breathed harder. I talked about beating you like a side of beef, it made her moan. And when I said I'd f.u.c.k her right in front of you while you were too b.l.o.o.d.y and broken to stop me, she f.u.c.king came hard, man. I'm talking a gusher."

Maybe I'd been standing like a wrestler, arms poised and ready for the next move, but I'd gone slack listening to him. Wasn't even seeing him there. Just imagining Stephanie doing that. And I could. She'd been wounded, and I knew our s.e.x was...not quite love, let's say. What Ashton didn't know was that she'd woken me up several times, hornier than ever, and we'd ridden each other until we were raw. So now I knew that it was all because of Ashton's calls. She had been playing us off each other.

Ashton noticed I'd gotten lost in my head, and it led him to calm down, take a few breaths. He said, "What? Why'd you stop?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

"Come on. You're not telling me something."

"No, no, it's...never mind."

"Hey, that's not fair. I owe you a beating. Fight like a man, you sick f.u.c.k."

I looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry about Steph. And I'm sorry about Frances, too. I know you know I didn't kill them. I'm so sorry. I wish I could take all this back."