Devil take me down, p.20
Devil Take Me Down, page 20
part #2 of Clementine Toledano Mystery Series
Devaughn and Sanger said at the same time, “Self-defense.”
Q fired her index finger at both of them, almost falling off her stool, and said, “One would think…but not super prick. Super prick decided that since I'd almost got his statutory raping ass fired, he decided that I wanted it. I mean what girl doesn’t want to be strangled and raped, am I right?”
She looked around the bar and found that she was alone with Sanger and Devaughn. She whispered conspiratorially, “Ok, so maybe you guys don’t know, but no girl wants that. Super prick disagreed. So, Daddy…” she looked at Devaughn and whispered loudly, “My daddy was kind of this big deal ADA.”
Devaughn nodded, looking like every word she spoke was drawing blood.
“Daddy dropped the charges against Super prick…Super prick was on the take and Daddy knew it… and then Super prick decides that ‘yeah, actually, the little bitch, that almost got me fired for fucking around with a fifteen-year-old child, was actually raped’ … Anyway, Pete was set free and my great-uncle, the Honorable Judge Jasper Feingold, sealed the records and lickity-split, all traces of what happened to me were expunged. Neat trick, huh?” She tried to snap her fingers for effect, but after three failed attempts, she gave up.
Sanger stared into his empty glass. Q picked up her last full shot glass and held it up. “Only problem is that nobody was supposed to talk about it. But somehow, fucking Marissa Rivers and fucking Sheila Jordan found out and now half the fucking city knows about it. Only all they know is that the pretty ladies on the nightly news said they thought it was Ben. My Ben. He’s poisoning the fucking grand jury.”
She drank her shot and stared at Sanger for a long time. “You want to know why Gabrielli hates me? Because I’m a slut who got what I deserved, and he didn’t get to use his god-given right to punish me for it…that’s just my theory, mind you. But anyway, Ben’ll pay the price for it. So, I’ve got that going for me.”
Q regarded Devaughn regarding her. “I’m sorry. It actually is crazy white people day. Feel free to cut me off, but I’d really like another shot.”
Devaughn looked at her for several long moments, before upturning an empty glass and filling it to the brim. “I’m so sorry,” he said. Turning to Sanger, he asked, “One more, Detective? I’m going to call my mama to carry the two of you home, no charge.”
“Who’s your mama?” Q asked, leaning her head in her hand.
“Alethia Fredricks,” he responded. “She drives a cab.”
Q slammed her hand on the bar. “Are you her baby boy? The one that gave her the Best of Bon Jovi for her birthday last?”
He grinned and nodded. “That’s me, how did you know?”
“Goddamn, I knew you were good people. Your mama, rocks.” She smiled at him.
“Don’t I know it,” he replied.
Hangovers and Sympathy
Q woke up, face down on her bed. She slowly pulled herself up and looked around the darkened room. The alarm clock on Ben’s night stand read 10:37. Q assumed that was ‘p.m.’ and headed to bathroom to scrub the stale taste of tequila out of her mouth. Once she was slightly mintier and fresher than she’d been a moment earlier, she went downstairs to find some ice water and anything to soak up the remaining agave playing havoc with her blood sugar.
Every light on the first floor had been left shining and Aaron Sanger lay sprawled across the couch. One hand was strewn above his head, the other rested on his stomach. He’d flung one leg haphazardly over the back of the couch, the other rested on the floor. As she walked past, he snored loudly, without moving.
Thank G-d, Ben doesn't snore.
She walked to the kitchen and made herself drink three glasses of water before rummaging through the refrigerator for something, anything. Unsuccessful in her hunt for food, she walked to the foyer, retrieved her phone, and ordered a twenty-inch disk of carbohydrate cure.
Q glanced at the snoring detective on her couch and decided to make up the guest room bed. Bed made, she returned to the living room and Sanger's slumbering symphony. She turned on the television, reclining horizontally across a nearby chair until her pizza arrived and she reluctantly stood up.
After paying for her food, she resumed her posture on the leather chair, determined to eat until the pain in her heart manifested itself into a full-blown coronary. Half-way there on her way to oblivion and about forty minutes into a ‘Lost’ rerun, Sanger awoke. She wordlessly gestured to the glass of water she’d left on the coffee table for him.
When he had drained it, she passed him the remainder of the pizza and he ate hungrily for several moments before scratching his head.
“I didn’t get out of line, or anything, right?” he asked.
Q shrugged and said without looking at him, “You told me I was gorgeous at the bar and I’m pretty sure a few times during the cab ride home. And maybe you tried to kiss me after we got here, but honestly, that’s all hazy, so I’m gonna go with: you were a perfect gentleman. You cool with that?”
He ate silently for a few moments. “I should head home.”
She shook her head and replied, still watching the television, “Fuck that noise. You’re sleeping in our rarely used guest room. Already put fresh towels and sheets in there for you.”
He stood to go. “It’s ok. Thank you, but…”
“Aaron,” she interrupted, annoyed that she had to expend any energy arguing with him. “I just put sheets on a bed with a damned tequila hangover raging in my skull. If you don’t sleep in them and tell me it was best night’s sleep you’ve had in years, I’m afraid we can no longer be friends.”
He sat back down. “Okay, you win. If I get into a moving vehicle, it’s not going to be pretty.”
He ate a few more slow bites while Q stared blankly at the castaways on the screen.
“So the news really did a number on you today, huh?” he asked.
Q replied without looking at him, “It was just the straw that broke my back. The last month has been awful, but it was easier at first because I could blame Gabrielli and just plain old bad luck for the situation. But finding out Ben was a match for the semen on that girl’s face and then Strickland...”
She turned off the television and rubbed her eyes in aggravation. “It’s all bad, I know. I mean, Ernst thought he killed Angela…for years. And he dated so many women on that list. But the beer bottle at Beth’s, maybe that’s just unlucky. Strickland was killed the night we got together and he fucked her two days before that, and that’s disgusting, but not damning.” She looked at Sanger and said, “I know, I know, it’s all bad, but all of that could still be explained away as circumstantial...”
“But….?” Sanger asked hesitantly.
“On her face!” she exclaimed. “Not nearby. Not on a used condom. On that poor woman’s broken face.”
She stood up and folded in on herself. “Oh god, Aaron, you don’t understand,” she said, grabbing at her stomach, the words sickening her. “He came all the way to Hammond that night. He drove sixty miles to see me play in this shitty little dive because he was worried about me. Because he missed me. We made love in his bed, our bed.” She looked at him, pleading, “He didn’t do these things, did he? He couldn’t have hurt that woman and then come to me to convince me to love him. Could he?”
Sanger shook his head and looked at her in pity. “I don’t know, Clementine. But we’re going to keep working under the assumption that he didn’t.”
She nodded, sadly, and coiled up into her chair.
“Do you have any ice cream?” he asked after several uncomfortably silent minutes. “In my experience, ice cream always makes things better.”
“If you say so,” she said, standing up to walk to the kitchen to retrieve two pints of ice cream and two spoons. When she returned, she held up the options and asked, “Pralines and Cream or Peanut Butter Chocolate?”
He regarded her with curiosity for several seconds before asking, “Do you wear a diaphragm?”
Q slowly sat the ice cream down on the coffee table. “Not sure what kind of weird fetish I just stumbled into, but I’m going to take the chocolate, cool?”
Sanger grinned and picked up the Pralines and Cream, taking an enthusiastic bite.
“Answer the question,” he said around his mouthful of ice cream.
She sat back crossed legged in the chair. “No. I'm on the shot. Any other personal information I can divulge?”
“Shit,” he said. “There goes that idea.”
“You thought someone stole my diaphragm? You watch a Harrison Ford marathon recently or something?” she teased, taking a large bite of her own and actually feeling marginally better. “You’re grasping, detective. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort to make me feel better, but that’s just plain idiotic.”
“Okay, you’re right, dumb idea,” he said. “I was just trying to think of a way someone could get a sample of Ben’s semen with traces of latex in it, but no spermicide.”
“What did you say?” Q asked.
“Almost all condoms have spermicide on them, right? That would have been in the lab results. It wasn’t. If someone stole a condom he’d used, say with Strickland or you, and saved it for later, it would have had spermicide on it. It still wouldn’t clear him, but it would be something.” He took another spoonful.
“Ben’s allergic to spermicide,” she said, suddenly queasy. “He has to use a specific brand, with some kind of hypoallergenic lubricant, or no lubricant at all, or no condom at all. Oh, god, it did come from him. He did it. He must have…” Q started to shake.
“Clementine, stay with me, now. Don’t fall apart on me yet,” he said firmly. “Eat some ice cream. I'm telling you it’ll help.”
She took a small bite and focused on the cold sweetness, trying to calm her breathing.
“So he does wear condoms?” he asked. "With you," he clarified. "He uses condoms, with you."
She shook her head, “No, not for a while. Not since that night, actually. The night he came to Hammond. We decided to be monogamous the next day. Figured out we always were monogamous in fact, just too stupid to know, and that was the end of that.”
“So the last time he used a condom with you, was the night Tracey Aucoin was killed,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, starting to shake again.
“Stay with me. Right here. Don't go off the rails on me, Clementine. Did he always wear one before, with you?” he asked.
Q nodded. “I wouldn’t without one. And he always took care of it, always.”
“What about Strickland?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I’d assume so, because it never seemed to bother him, me making him use them, but I don’t know. I don’t think they found one at the scene, so maybe not.”
“They didn’t, that’s why I’m asking. Didn’t find her phone either. It was one of those month to month burner things, that’s why they never traced any calls back to Ben. But her place was trashed. It was almost as bad as the Galvez scene,” he said as he grimaced at the memory. “What did he do with it, the condom I mean, when y’all were done?”
She shrugged, “I don’t know. Trash? I think. New Orleans plumbing isn't really conducive for latex disposal.”
Sanger nodded and said with a knowing annoyed look, "You've got that, again. So, in the trash. Always?”
“I guess, I don’t know, he always just took care of it,” she said helplessly.
“Before that night. When was the last time that you had sex?”
“Why?” she asked defensively.
“Just bear with me.”
“About a month earlier. We slept together at the Cove,” she said.
“How did he dispose of it at the apartment?” he asked.
Q shook her head. “I don’t know, but we weren’t at the apartment. It was…we were…on the pool table...in Lafitte's Cove,” she said, blushing.
Sanger teased, “And Constance said you were such a nice girl….”
She covered her face and laughed, enjoying anything to break the tension in her chest.
“It’s not something I’m proud of or even something that I can explain…” she started.
He shrugged and put down his ice cream. “Hey, two consenting adults enjoying each other’s company on a pool table. Nothing to be ashamed about. Some people might even brag about that kind of thing.”
“Not Ben,” she said. “He’s pretty circumspect about his personal life. Likes to keep his business to himself… unless his sisters are around. If he told anyone, it’d be one of them.”
“And you?”
“Me, too, mostly,” she replied.
“You tell anyone about that night?” he asked.
Q nodded. “Just Niko…and he’s not talking.”
“Pretty safe to say.” Sanger sat back.
She stood up to pick up the remnants of their ice cream and walked to the kitchen to put them away.
“What night was this unladylike behavior at the Cove?” Sanger called after her.
She came back to the living room and fished her phone from her pocket. “Would have been after our last gig there before the most awesome Lundi Gras gig ever…kidding. Sometime in January 2014. And by the way, fuck you.”
She looked at the calendar. “Saturday the eighteenth.”
“So, let’s just say that Ben threw the condom in the trash behind the bar. Anyone who worked Sunday could have easily seen it. Figured out what had happened and pocketed a little evidence for later.” Sanger yawned.
Q shook her head. “Nice try. I mean he threw everyone out that night because I’d pissed him off, so it wouldn’t have been difficult to figure out whose it was, but nobody works Sunday. The Cove’s closed. It was a decent theory, detective, but I don’t think that’s it.”
“Wait, Ben threw everyone out?” he asked, a little surprised.
She curled back into the chair. “Yeah. Like I said, I pissed him off good.”
“Tell me what happened, from the beginning.” Sanger stood up and retrieved one of the pads of paper they’d been using for notes from the top of the built-in bookcase. The stack had been growing steadily for the past ten days.
“I wanted to end it,” she started. “We’d been sleeping together for almost a year and it was tawdry. Or I thought that it was. I had convinced myself that he was a womanizer, turns out I was kind of right about that,” she said, wryly.
“Anyway,” she continued. “I didn’t want to be one of the women he did his womanizing with. So, I told him it was over and he got mad. So mad. Not outwardly, like at me. More like he was mad at himself. And I wanted to hurt him because I was mad at myself for falling for someone like him." She paused and corrected herself, saying, "Not him actually, but the person I thought he was. So, I played this Nina Simone song at the end of my set. It’s all about ending an adulterous affair, but it’s sexy as hell, just to mess with him. But that pissed the Beasts off because they were all fed up with me complaining about Ben and there I was playing sexy songs for him. So, they bailed on me as soon as the show was over. Ben refused to pay me until after the bar closed.”
“Was that like him?” Sanger interrupted.
“No, but he knew it was the only way I’d be alone with him.” She paused and thought through the next part of the story. “So, Josh and Joe and a few other people, all friends, were hanging out, carrying on with no intention of leaving. All the while, I sat on stage playing the piano, avoiding Ben, and Ben sat fuming in his office avoiding me. Finally, he came flying out of his office and lost his shit at everyone.”
“Lost his shit how?” he asked.
“Hollering, yelling, just being mean. ‘Get out!’, he started screaming at all these people…his friends mind you.” Q paused for a minute, trying to remember what had happened before continuing, “…What else? Something like ‘For fuck’s sake, don’t you people have homes?’ So, Josh… I think it was Josh…tried to calm him down and Ben told him to leave him be and take everyone with him.”
“And so everyone left, but you and Ben. Were you afraid?” Sanger asked, while writing something down.
“Of Ben? No, I was pissed the fuck off,” she laughed at her own behavior. “So he’s shoving everyone out of the bar and when he passes by me on his way to the door, he points his finger in my face and yells, ‘You stay the fuck put. For once, you’re gonna stay the fuck put.’” She smiled in smug appreciation at her recently improved Ben Bordelon impression.
“What do you think he meant by that?” Sanger asked. Q could read the concern on his face.
“It wasn’t like that. I was always making excuses not to hang out with him. We’d have sex and I’d make an excuse to leave instead of spend the night. Refused to go to parties with him. That kind of thing. Anyway, so he locks the door and I think someone even yelled from outside that they’d forgotten something, but he yelled back and told them to leave him the hell alone.” She had to laugh at the memory, picturing Ben standing at the door, grumbling to himself while he locked it.
Sanger interrupted her musings. “Do you know who it was?” he asked. “Who wanted to get back inside?”
“No, I didn’t know anyone well enough then to recognize their voice like that and anyway, I was too angry to pay much attention,” she replied.
“So, everyone left and you had an argument?” he guessed.
She nodded. “Started to, for sure. He’s standing by the door grumbling and stacking chairs on top of tables, so I jump off the stage and start to read him the riot act, demanding my damn money. He storms off into his office and gets the cash, but by the time he comes back to give it to me, he’s not angry anymore. He starts telling me that I’m driving him crazy and that he only wants to be with me. How he misses me when he wasn’t with me. How beautiful I was when I was pissed at him. How he understood if I wanted to leave, but he was begging me to just consider staying with him.” Her voice broke at the memory. She could smell the heat of him, the constant pressure of his hand on her palm, his breath in her hair, the way his lips brushed against her ear lobe as his pleading whispers begged her to stay. She closed her eyes and tried not to feel longing’s icy tearing in her sternum.
