Over My Live Body (7 page)

“The one who just left? The tall good-looking one?”

I nod. “Tell him. They’ll let you go.”

“Go where, Delilah?” he asks. “Home? Do you think I want to go back to that place?”

“You sure don’t want to stay
here
.” I look around, knowing we’re being watched, even though the only faces I see are our own, reflected in the mirror on the wall in front of me. “It took me
ten minutes
to get here,” I whisper self-consciously. “They
know
how long it takes to get from one place to the other. They probably have a
table
or something.”

“I walked home. I took my time. I called Vittorio before I left and there was no answer. So I walked and I stopped on the way for a cup of coffee. I don’t even remember
where
I stopped, Delilah, I was trying to figure out what possibly could have gone wrong since last night because last night we were so…”

“
Happy
,” I mumble.

He begins to sob again. “And I didn’t know what to expect, you know, when I got home. Whether Vittorio was going to be there or not or how things would be…”

I clutch him again.

“Who’d want to kill Vittorio?” Morgan wails.

“Someone from his past?” I suggest, considering what Detective Quick said to me about the ex-lovers angle. I don’t mention the fleeting suspicion that Morgan brought up earlier of the existence of someone
not quite
ex. “Is there anyone he talked about who might have…”

“Not unless they came from Rome to do the hit. I was his first and only stateside love that I know of, and it’s been a
year
, Delilah. The only mail or phone calls he got from Rome were from his family in Malagrotta.
I
was the one who brought in the mail.”

“Unless it went to the restaurant. What about whoever it was who was calling him from the restaurant? Do you think someone there could have…”

“That would
really
have made last night a feast to die for, wouldn’t it?” Morgan sniffs. “I told them about it, but they don’t buy it, even that porker who looks like he knows food, if nothing else. They said ‘we’ll look into it’, but they’re acting like they don’t see anyone except me doing it. I could
never
… I don’t think it was anyone else he knew either. No one who knew Vittorio would do what…”

“Maybe it was someone who
wanted
to know him. Someone he rejected.” I lick my lips. “Someone who wouldn’t take no for an answer. You just never know…what any one’s going to do…”

“It was probably just someone who hates gays,” Morgan says dully. “Nothing personal against Vittorio. It could have just as easily been me. It could have been him
and
me. If I’d gotten home sooner. I wish…”

“No!”

“…they’d find out who did this. Not waste precious time asking me, ‘Now where was it you had this cup of coffee,
Mister
Merritt?’ I think that’s what
they
think, too. That it’s
just
a
gay
thing. And I just happen to be gay and handy.” He points to the door. “They hate gays too. That other detective, that Crisco in a can, said to me, ‘What’d you say your name is? Morgan? As in Morgan le
Fey?
That was King Arthur’s sister, you know, Morgan. Ever read about the Knights of the Round Table, Camelot, all that stuff?’ and then he started rambling on how errant knights were killed in duels fought to preserve the honor of fair maidens. I couldn’t follow
what
he was saying,  but I knew he was trying to bait me, so I was careful about what I said.” He puts his hands over his eyes. “God, I wish I could help them, Delilah. If I hadn’t dragged ass going home, maybe I would have seen something, been able to provide them with some sort of description,
something
, but by the time I got there, the area was already roped off with crime scene tape and they were pulling me aside and the next thing I knew, I was here. The whole thing is a blur. And you know what kills me? Once they get it through their thick heads that I didn’t do it, I don’t think they’ll give a rat’s ass who did. Just one less queer, as far as they’re concerned.”

I don’t know what to say. I heard how the detective who interrogated Morgan referred to him outside. But I don’t want to believe he represents the aggregate of the department. I wonder how many other victims that attitude could affect. I feel a chill go up my spine. “What are you going to do when they let you go?” I ask him. “Where are you going to stay?”

Morgan shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’m not going back there except to pick up my things from the loft when they say it’s okay. I think I’ll go stay with a member of the family somewhere.”

“Do you want me to call anyone for you?” I look around the room. “A lawyer?”

The door opens behind us at the mention of the word. Detective Quick storms in. He looks more ruffled than he was before, his sleeves pushed up more carelessly, and he immediately gestures to me to leave. “Wait for me outside,” he says, “down the hall, where we were before.”

“He didn’t do it,” I say.

“Down the hall, Miss Price.” Detective Quick ushers me out of the room and shuts the door behind him.

The room isn’t so quiet any more. Another detective is sitting at another desk scribbling notes as a woman with a black eye and a bloody lip mumbles incoherently. “When did you last see him?” he asks. The woman mumbles a brief answer. “You haven’t heard from him since?” She shakes her head and dabs her lip with a soiled handkerchief. More writing. I turn away from them and close my eyes and keep them closed until I sense the immediate presence of someone hovering over me.

“Miss Price,” Detective Quick clears his throat, “you can go home. We’ll call you if we need further information from you. If you think of anything in the meantime, call the number on the card I gave you.”

“What about Morgan?”

“Morgan’s going to spend the night here.”

“You’re putting him in
jail
? No!” I try to rush back to the room where they’re keeping him. Detective Quick deftly blocks my path, his arms outstretched in the stance of a basketball player thwarting an inbound pass.

“He’s not going in lock-up. There’s a cot in the CO’s office. I’m going to let him get a few hours of sleep, then we’ll talk to him some more and then, if we’re reasonably satisfied with his account of what happened, he can leave. Does he have family here he can stay with?”

“No,” I say, “they’re all in Michigan. He’s from Grand Rapids.”

Detective Quick looks at me questioningly and I expect him to say something else, but he doesn’t, not right away. “Come with me,” he says finally, “I’ll get you a ride home.”

He leads the way down a flight of stairs and up to a group of three officers talking shop in front of a candy machine.

“So what’d you charge him with?” one of the officers asks, crumpling a Milky Way wrapper in his hand.

“Criminal trespass
and
disorderly conduct
and
resisting arrest
and
impersonating a human.” The officer who’s the center of all the attention nods to Detective Quick, then turns to me and keeps looking as he finishes his story. “And all the while he’s telling me he’s going to lawyer up, and I say fine, I’ll bet I can get your lawyer on something too. Hey, Hat Trick, what’s up?”

“This young lady needs a ride home,” he says, then keeps walking, waving for me to follow him. “And I’m taking her. Come on, Miss Price, let’s go.”

The unmarked car is department issue and must have been issued a long time ago. The dark upholstery is stained and torn around the edges. I sink deeper into the cracked leather seat, wishing I could be swallowed into the foam filling, thinking how much better off I’d be, how much
safer
I’d feel, if
I
were the one sleeping on the cot in the precinct house or in the jail, for that matter. Detective Quick’s eyes, darting in my direction every time he stops for a red light, look darker than anything inside the car or out. “You’re holding back something,” he says as we shoot past Broome Street. “What is it?”

“Hmm?”

“What is it you’re not telling me?”

“It’s not relevant.”

He slams his foot on the brake pedal at the next intersection. The light is green. A horn blares nonstop behind us. He signals for cars to pass and pulls over. I hear tires crunch against the curb. “Why don’t you let
me
decide what’s relevant, Miss Price. This is a murder investigation. You never know
what
small piece of information could be relevant.”

“What I’m thinking about has nothing to do with what you’re investigating,” I squirm in my seat. “My own personal problem. I feel guilty for dwelling on it, considering what happened tonight. It seems minor by comparison. Well, maybe
not
so minor. I don’t know.”

Bad choice of words. This confession of guilt sparks his interest for still more information. “Well then, why don’t you take a load off your mind and tell me about it.” This is not a suggestion. He lets the motor run, ostensibly for the heat, but the car isn’t going anywhere. Not yet. He stretches his arm over the back of the seat like a guy on a date who’s trying to get closer, only he stays at that arm’s length. “Maybe it’s something I can help you with.”

“Maybe you can,” I say. “I’m being stalked.”

Whatever it was he expected me to say, this wasn’t it. He checks out approaching vehicles, mostly taxis, in his rearview mirror and then aims his high beam stare at me. “Have you reported this to your local precinct?”

“They’re aware of it.”

“What’s going on?”

“It started with someone calling and hanging up. Then he didn’t hang up, he left voice mail messages instead. Then he progressed to wanting to talk to me in person and leaving
hand
written messages. Well, one anyway.”

“You saved it, I hope? And the voice mails?”

I nod. “All that stuff. Yes, I’ve got it.”

“Do you know who’s been doing this, Miss Price? Is he an acquaintance of yours or…”

“I don’t think I ever saw him before. Didn’t recognize him if I had.”

“You saw him, though? You spoke with him?”

“Someone came into the school yesterday…Saturday morning…and started talking to me, and a little while later I found a note tacked up on the bulletin board. I just figured he was the one who left the note. Not that many people go in and out that aren’t students there. Not that many people who aren’t associated with the place even know what it
is
.”

I’m guessing Detective Quick never knew about it either, before all this came up. Most of the abstract art I expect he sees is forensic in nature, blood spatters on a sidewalk probably the closest he’s ever come to a Jackson Pollock. “What did he say?”

“He asked if there was an exhibit inside he could see, which there was, and if there was anything of mine on display, which there wasn’t. He said his name was Curtis.”

“First or last?”

“He said he was Curt and that it was short for Curtis. I assumed that was his first name.” I shrug. “But I guess it could also be his last
.
Or his middle name, for that matter.”

“What else?”

“He asked me about my work and when and where it was going to go up and I was caught off guard enough to tell him Soho, but not
exactly
where, not
exactly
when.”

“He’ll be able to find that out easily enough.”

I nod wearily.

“Okay, Miss Price. Exactly where and when
is
this exhibit of yours going to go up?”

“Galleria Lafayette. That’s just a fancy name for a loft space over on Lafayette Street. It opens on the first of December.”

“Good. There’s lots of time between now and then.”

“I wish
I
felt that way.”

“Has he threatened you?”

“He’s insinuated that he’s not going to give up,” I tell him. “That’s as good as a threat to me.”

He puts the car in gear and pulls away from the curb. “What you should do,” he continues, “is contact your local precinct—that would be the sixth—each and every time this person makes contact, save notes and messages, keep filing complaints so there’s a paper trail to trace. You want to keep the heat on him. If he keeps it up, he can be picked up on a variety of charges. Aggravated harassment, menacing, disorderly conduct. And once he’s picked up and IDed, you can go down to Centre Street and get an order of protection from Criminal Court.”

I shudder, recalling Ivan’s warning about that. I haven’t even mentioned Ivan or how panicky I’m getting at the thought of another confrontation with
him
. He could be waiting for me right now. Now is not the time to bring him up. I remember another of his warnings.
You know how it’s going to look, Delilah, asking for protection against two guys? Flaky. Very flaky.

“
How will a restraining order make any difference?” I mumble. “It’s just a piece of paper.”

“It’s
some
thing to go on.” I hear sudden anger in Detective Quick’s voice, a pain response to my direct hit on a departmental nerve.

I’m in familiar territory now. The basketball courts are to my right. My keys slide out of my sweaty palms as Detective Quick veers the funereal car in front of my building. I pick them out of my lap and turn to him. “I don’t want to end up like Vittorio.”

“We don’t know all the circumstances that led up to Vittorio’s murder, Miss Price.”

“But it could have been something like this.”

“It could have been anything.”

“Morgan couldn’t have done it.”

“We don’t know who did it yet.”

I look up at my windows. “It could happen to me.”

“Come on,” he says, turning off the motor, but not the lights. “I’ll walk you up.”

Detective Quick vaults out of the car. In what seems like less than a second, he’s opening my door.
Quick moving
. I feel glued to the seat. “Come on,” he says again, more impatiently this time. He looks to both sides as he escorts me up the stairs, past the wilting chrysanthemums in the concrete flower pot on the top stoop. My hands shake conspicuously as I fumble through my keys and drop them again.

Detective Quick picks them up. “Allow me. Which is the right key?”

I fumble through them and pick out the one that says Yale. “Here.” I hand it to him.

He thrusts the key in the lock and gives it a quick turn. The beveled glass window rattles in its frame, and he doesn’t even have to push the door in hard. He holds it open for me. I look up the stairs. “Will you walk me to my door?” I ask him. He follows me, holding on to my keys. I take them from him when I get to the top of the stairs and riffle through them and hold out the keys that say Independent and Best. Best to be independent. Better to not
be
in this situation. I hear a door open and it isn’t mine. I see the fuzzy gray top of Mrs. Davidoff’s head lean past her doorsill, then disappear just as fast as she clicks the door shut behind her. Detective Quick goes for the top lock first, then the bottom. “What about the one in the middle?”

“Kiwi.” I take the keys from him. They feel warm from his hands. The letters on the key I’m looking for are worn and practically unreadable. He watches me as I wiggle it in the lock, gingerly push the door open, and flick on the light switch.

“Everything okay here?” he asks.

“Looks that way.”

He walks in and looks around for corroboration, taking in the pieces of sculpture propped on every tabletop, segregated stacks of artist magazines and partially read newspapers in the corner, the unmade bed, and the mess in the kitchen area. The latter looks like a crime scene even to me, but no different than when I left it this morning.

“Why don’t you check your voice mail too while I’m here? I’ll wait.”

I reach in my bag and retrieve it and remember why Morgan couldn’t reach me earlier. “Seems I forgot to charge it,” I tell him.

“Avoidance isn’t necessarily the best policy, Miss Price. A dead phone isn’t going to do you much good in an emergency situation. Or if someone wants to get in touch with you,” he says.

“Depending on who’s wanting
to get in touch.”

He clears his throat. “
I
may need to call you regarding the Scaccia case, Miss Price, and I wouldn’t want to keep getting no answer and have to send an RMP here to investigate or to pick you up and bring you downtown.”

“Who’s an RMP?”

“A radio car. I wouldn’t want you to have to sit in back, in the cage like a common criminal,
just
so that I can ask you some questions that could just as easily be handled over the phone.”

“Okay, okay,” I hold up my hands in surrender, “I’ll leave my phone on and fully charged from now on.”

“Good. Is Morgan planning to stay with you?”

“No, he said something about staying with some friends. Gay friends. He didn’t say who.”

“He’s likely to contact you, though, concerning his whereabouts and to tell you where he can be reached, isn’t he, Miss Price?”

I nod. “I should think so…”

He strides to the door and runs his hand along the array of locks suggestively before stepping out in the hall. “We’ll be in touch, Miss Price.”