Alumnus, Chapter 10-12  

Chapter Ten

I was battered and bruised.   Wanda had encouraged me get drunk and then had her way with me and now, standing at the bathroom sink, I was bemoaning what remained of my abused manhood.  I hurt down low.  Thought maybe I had a cracked rib a little further up.  A large bruise was forming on my right shoulder, which had been used as a handhold at one point.  My hair was awry, and my mustache matted.  My face had been held steady in a vice like grasp through a string of orgasmic earthquakes. 

I turned to the left gently; my neck had a creaky popping noise to it when I rotated it on my torso.  I looked over from the bathroom door at the bed.  The sheets were rumpled and covered a huge lump, a lump the size of a small mountain, and from that lump came a gentle snoring.  Surprisingly, the sound was much more lady-like than Tammy J’s snores.

I turned back to the mirror and shook my head at the pitiful person on the other side of the glass.  I wanted very much to feel the victim.  Problem was it had been pretty good fun.  I certainly didn’t resist too much, and it had taken remarkably little to get me to full mast.  Maybe I had a little of that masochist thing going.  I looked back at the lump in the middle of the bed.  She had turned on her stomach.  While her upper torso including her head was wrapped in the sheet, she was naked and exposed from the waist down.  It was like viewing the expansive dunes of North Africa.  I felt a stirring in my bruised and beaten groin.  Disgusting.  I really was a pitiful, disgusting human being. 

The phone rang.  I limped to the nightstand and picked up the receiver. The lump remained supine, vulnerable, I assessed, to a sneak attack from the South.  I started to say hello, but my jaw cracked a little.  Sore.  Like I had been strapped in a dentist chair with my mouth pried open for hours.  I swallowed and tried again.

“He, ha, Hello?” I mumbled into the receiver trying to get my mouth to work.

It was Detective Wiley.  He didn’t seem at all surprised that I had picked up the phone in Wanda’s apartment.  I don’t think I would have bothered had I not still been in a fog and distracted, contemplating further amorous adventures with the Battleship.  Ahoy, Moby Dick!

“Good morning, Mr. Easley.”  Wiley had actually greeted me.  A truly momentous morning.  

“Uh, good morning, Maurice.”

Nothing.  I waited.  Okay, so I was going to have to make some inquiries if I was to know why he called.

“What can I do for you, Detective?  Ms. Staring is indisposed at the moment.”

“I called to talk to you.”  Being taciturn was one thing.  Wiley took it to a new, most irritating, level.  But I couldn’t resist.  I had to ask.

“Why did you call here if you wanted to talk to me?”

“Because I knew you would be there.”  I was getting a headache on top of one I already had.

“And why, if I may ask, did you know that?”

“Wanda said you’d be there.”

I didn’t have a witty, snarky or any other satisfactory response to that, and I was growing tired of pulling information out of the detective about how he knew my current location.  I accepted that forces beyond human understanding were controlling me.

“Okay, Detective, so why did you call to talk to me?”

“I have her.”

“Who?”

“Brenda.”

“Who?”

“Brenda.”

“Unless you are talking about a different Brenda, the one involved in this case is dead.  They buried her already.  Maybe, just maybe, detective, you could tell me what the hell you are talking about.”  

I noticed the giant head of my delicate paramour had emerged from the sheets and she was watching me and listening to my side of the conversation.  There was a bruise on her cheek.  Good.  Got a little of your own back, huh, Baby Blue?

“Well, yeah.  She’s buried, but this one is the original.”

I knew there was a way to ask questions and get sensible answers.  I just seemed to have lost the ability to do so.  A bad thing for a lawyer.  Wanda’s muscled arm emerged, and her paw took the receiver from my hand. Her head went back under the covers with the phone.  I could hear her ask, “Wiley, what’s going on?”  

There was an extended quiet time as she listened and emitted a series of “uh-huhs,” and an “I sees.”.  It seemed Wiley was talking a lot.  For Wiley.  In the meantime, I sat and stared and since there wasn’t much else to look at, I examined with interest Wanda’s impressive Gluteus Maximus, truly Maximus, until I heard her say, “Good-bye.”

The sheet came off the head and she looked back at me over her shoulder and smiled.  She really did have good features.  She didn’t bother pulling down the sheet to cover the rest of her.  Instead, she rested her head on her arm and remained in, as we in law enforcement like to say, the prone position.   

“There is something strange about this Brenda thing”, she mumbled, “But I think I understand some of it.”  I positioned myself behind her.

“There may be multiple people here with the same identities.”

I pressed myself against her butt.  Big, round, infinite like the universe.  It hurt.  I was sore.  But I was up to the task and ready.  She knew it.  She shut up, covered her head with the sheet again and moved her legs a little.  

Just enough.

Chapter Eleven

Cleaned up, shaved, hair combed, sporting a fresh shirt and pressed suit, I jauntily strode into in the conference room of the Mayor’s office for our oft-delayed community leader’s meeting.  I was the last to arrive.

Wanda had done a nice job of cleaning me up.  Since I had left my car at Barney’s Bar and Grill, she had taken me home.    She stayed the morning, keeping me away from a pick me up Bloody Mary, picking out some duds I hadn’t donned in a while and then sending me on my way to do my job.  Our attempt to share my relatively small shower couldn’t be physically worked out.  Nevertheless, it had been a rather pleasant morning.  We were both, me more than her, recovering physically from our brutal coupling of the night before and the surprisingly successful experiment of the morning after. 

But more than that, I appreciated the eye-opening conversation we had over breakfast. Before she drove me to my condo, she fed me.  All of Wanda’s appetites were impressive, including the one for breakfast. Pancakes, sausage, (patty not link), scrambled eggs, strawberry scones, fruit if you wanted it, coffee, juice, chocolate milk.  In the kitchen she dominated the available space just like every other situs she occupied. Though it had proven obvious she was talented at many things, she was a good cook too.   She gracefully moved from station to station preparing our repast as I sat on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and watched her. 

She sat down next to me, sighed with pleasure at the mountain of food and dished out generous portions for both of us despite my protestations that I only wanted coffee.   She dug in.  I dug in.  It was good.

Her appetites satisfied, she wanted to talk about the case.  My appetites satisfied, I wanted to daydream.  I was only half listening to her when something she said got my attention.

“I don’t know if multiple identities accurately describe what I meant,” she was saying.  “What Dora described and which, you know, now is corroborated by one of the others.”

I interrupted her.  “What?  What other.  Who. . . whom are you talking about?”

“Just hang on a minute.  Go ahead.  Eat the rest of your scone.  I get these at Brubakers over on Third Street.  Best around.”  I obeyed her command and bit into the scone, the berry filing oozed out the side and ran down my chin.  She was right.  The scone was damn good. Sticky though.

“Nick, you ever want to be somebody else?  I mean don’t all of us at some point. I think so. Starts in high school a lot of the time.  It’s the place where a few kids always have it good and the rest, well, they are on the periphery, dreaming a lot that if they were different, you know, a better athlete, prettier, smarter, had nicer clothes, a cool car, their lives would be better.  And for a while there may even be hope that by making a few changes they can reach the goal. Become the person they want to be.”  

“And then they try something and it’s never quite enough, you know?  And they try something different and it’s still not enough, never enough.  They’re the same people after all.  And pretty soon the fantasy disappears and in its place is just a bitter wish, no hope of change, no hope really at all; just a wish, an unsatisfied, unrealistic, impossible wish. A Dream.”

“I guess,” I replied. 

“I’m not sure you do, Nick.  You were one of those, the oblivious ones, the effortless ones.  The others, those kids I’m talking about, had these hard, impenetrable wishes to be like you.  Just like you.  Believe me, if you had ever been one of those, the others, you would know what I meant. You weren’t.  I remember.”

“What?  What do you remember?  How?”

“Never mind.  I just know.”

“Know what, Wanda? Come on.”

“We can talk about that another day, but here’s the deal:  What if there was a way to change.  I mean scientifically to be what you wanted to be.  You know about DNA, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well, what if you could find a place on the DNA chain and cut it, remove not just physical characteristics, like everyone always talks about, but more like personalities, tendencies, and add not just physical strength, or slenderness, but belief, confidence, put back all those hopes that had been beaten down.”

“That’s pretty far out there, Wanda.”

“Yeah, well, stay with me a moment.  What if you could do that and did it, had it done, created another you. What if you through some procedure, some operation managed to redefine who you were, overcame your history?  Started a new person.  Just the way you wanted.  Well, what would you want to do with the old you?  If that old you was a physical person.  It is, would be, the historical you. What you were once. What would you want to do?  What would the replica, the improved replica without all the old hurts want to do with the old?”

“You wouldn’t want the old person around, I guess.”

“No.  You wouldn’t want that person you never liked around.”

“Welcome, Nick.”  It was the Mayor interrupting my reverie.  Time for work.  I would have to give more consideration to Wanda’s musings later on.

Nevertheless, as I sat down with the gentlemen gathered in the conference room, self-appointed leaders in some instances, elected leaders in others, some appointed, some by acclamation, I kept turning over in my mind what Wanda had proposed.  I was still not clear on how she had reached those conclusions or speculations much less the information she was relying on, but it was oddly compelling.  I still felt at the bottom all of it was crazy delusions, or the creation of a fertile mind, a mind that wanted us to believe our perpetrator had such delusions.  Clearly an attempt to use an insanity defense to escape justice.  Something I, newly anointed Special Prosecutor that I was, wasn’t going to let happen.

“Mr. Easley,” it was the Mayor.   In his uxorious voice he continued, “We appreciate you taking the time to meet with us.  We know how busy you must be.  Just as we appreciate you taking on the role of Special Prosecutor.”

Big Donnie nodded his head at that.

“We were wondering if you could bring us all up to date on your progress. We certainly are interested in giving you whatever support you require.”

Big Donnie nodded again.  I was beginning to wonder if he had drafted the script the Mayor was reciting.

“Well, yes, of course.”

Chapter Twelve

I spent the next hour recounting the arrest of Drew Staten.  I was sure they had already heard the same report from the Sheriff and city police boys.  I didn’t share my little team’s speculation about the “others.”  Or that there was now evidently another (the real?) Brenda.  I didn’t know what would come out or what they would think of me, if I tried to explain Wanda’s evolving theory.  I knew that Maurice appeared to be following the same roadmap as Wanda though I suspected he, like me, remained skeptical.

After I finished my report, the group asked a few questions.  Their inquiries were relevant, but not especially penetrating.  It was as if they were going through the motions of doing their “due diligence”.  I had no doubt, they were insuring that were they ever to be asked about the efficacy of their oversight, they could maintain they actively questioned the investigation and was receiving answers from the lead Special Prosecutor.  That would be me.  Should anything go wrong, it would be easy enough for them to maintain they were lied to or misled or not fully informed.  Who could fault them for being given false information?  But if they had never asked any questions then the strong odor of malfeasance would be in the air. 

This went on for some time with each person around the table being afforded the opportunity to ask his own set of questions.  A significant percentage was repetitive or redundant.  I had grown bored thirty minutes in, but was still conducting myself with, to my mind, remarkable restraint and courtesy when Big Don asked an unexpected question.

“Nick, we have heard that Dora Mason has some information on the case.  Is that true?  Why would she be involved?”

Dora Mason.  While I remembered her about as distinctly as some of the walls in the boy’s bathroom, she was becoming a recurring issue in my life. I must have done something cosmically hurtful to displease her enough to haunt me all these years later.

I replied cautiously.  “My investigator has indicated she reported some information which might prove relevant.  The information is still being evaluated and will need to be corroborated.”

That ought to throw them off the scent I thought to myself.  I was wrong.

“Do you actually remember her, Nick?”  I felt a pang of guilt.  Why should I feel guilty about some nobody I didn’t even remember?

Big Donnie went on by answering his own question.  

“I’m sure you don’t remember her at all, Nick.  A little shy doe-eyed creature.  We used to laugh about it. She was always staring at you and then if you turned in her direction, she would put her head down and pull into her shoulders like some turtle.  Sometimes she would walk quickly away, once even ran.”  

He laughed a little, remembering.  

“And that one time she slipped and fell.  She wore these big clodhoppers.  Tripped over them.  Man, she fell hard.  Her glasses broke.  She didn’t want to admit it, but she fell right on her knee.   Had to hurt.  Tears were streaming.  Some other girls tried helping her, but she jerked away from them.  She looked really quick to see if you were looking in her direction when she fell.  You weren’t of course.  You were chatting up some cheerleader, I think.  And she takes off running again.  Towards the girl’s gym.  She went home that day I heard and then didn’t come back to school for a week.  When she came back, she was even more withdrawn.  Bet you never even knew anything about it.”

Now I was really feeling guilty.  I’m sure I had been thoughtless, insensitive, maybe even cruel, a real cad, but for crying out loud, I didn’t know her.  I didn’t see her fall down.  Why did I have to feel guilty?

Of course, I knew the answer.  Dora and those like her weren’t real back then. They were just background to our lives.  Wallpaper to the real people’s lives.  Us. They were “others” or maybe we were.  Whichever, we were not the same.

“No, Big Donnie, I don’t remember Dora.”  I temporalized.  “Maybe we had a class or something.  I just don’t recall.”

“Well, what is this she’s saying?  I heard something about it, but it sounded crazy. Surely, you’re not wasting time and good taxpayer dollars I might add on some foolish mystical theory, are you?”

I smiled back at him and started to recite my lawyer’s rote about the necessity of nailing down all theories and potential defenses.  But as I talked, I noticed that all the others around the table evinced the same attitude as Big Donnie.  They were doing their jobs, but none approached his status in the community.  And they weren’t buying what I was saying either.

The Chief of Police spoke next.  “Nick, we asked you to take on this case and we are appreciative.  Very.  Thank you again.  But Mr. Babcock is right.  We can’t afford not to do this in as efficient cost-effective manner as possible.  We owe that to the taxpayer.”

“Of course,” I replied, but because I was getting a little teed off at their attitude, I couldn’t help but add a lawyer’s canard.  “I’m sure everyone in this room knows the law and how to prosecute a double murder case,” there was no mistaking the sarcastic tone of my voice, “but I have to make the ultimate decisions about which avenues of investigation should be pursued.  I want taxpayer money to be protected, Gentlemen, but ultimately it’s my responsibility to see justice done and that seldom comes with a half off price tag.” 

I was enjoying expressing a little self-righteous indignation at the end there.  Big Donnie had his arms crossed and his lips pursed.  He wasn’t happy with my response. 

“Well, sure, Nick.”  It was the Chief.  “It’s your case. All the way.  We are just here, as we said, to make sure you have all the resources you need to complete the task. That’s all, Nick.  We ask these questions because we want to make sure you can do your best.”

I figured that was the end of it. Wrong again.

This time the little bandy rooster of a Mayor spoke up.  “Nick, we were told this Dora had some fantastic story.  Something about a former teacher here.  Mrs. Vuitch.  She’s in our Community Hall of Fame, you know.  Deserves every honor.  Brilliant woman. Chose to teach kids mathematics and chaos theory and all the rest when she could have had a secure chair at the university.  Wanted to be around kids.  She certainly does not deserve to have her memory tarnished.”

My internal alarms started ringing.  Who said anything about attacking old “long tits” we used to call her which referred disrespectfully to the fact that her bust line and waist line shared the same longitude and latitude?

I had had enough.  I was feeling that special late afternoon craving that only a little brown liquid gold, my favorite whiskey, poured over new ice, preferably in an acceptable crystal tumbler, would satisfy.

“Well, gents.  I do appreciate the help.  I really do.  We are building a strong case here.  No stone unturned I assure you.  We are anticipating all the possibilities.  That’s the way to build good cases. From the ground up.”  I was on a roll with the skillful obfuscation of hackneyed phrases. “We are doing just that.  So, if there’s nothing further, I need to get back to meet with my investigators.”

They were all quiet for a moment. As if they wanted to continue but didn’t know how to restart the conversation.  I had ignored the question about Mrs. Vuitch and everyone at the table obviously noticed.  They wanted to press me on it, but no one jumped in.  Finally, Big Donnie took over.  He evidently decided another day, another time.   

“Okay Nick.  We appreciate the update.  We’ll keep an eye out for you.  Just make sure the case stays on track, you know.”

I didn’t know how to take that.  Sounded like his instructions contained a threatening undertone.  Big Donnie, in a bid to soften the edges of his statement, showed off one of his widest car salesman smiles.  Now I knew for sure it was a threat. 

I got up and carefully moved around the table and shook each person’s hand.  When I got to him, I gave Bid Donnie my best snarky lawyer’s smile in retaliation.  I don’t think it shook him in the least.  Oh well.

I left.  

Once outside, I climbed into the Porsche and contemplated if I should call Tammy J.  We could have a few drinks and see what happens.  I also I have to admit I thought of big Wanda.  I shouldn’t be but was interested to find what else she might have in store for a disreputable not quite alcoholic lawyer on the far side of youth and on the road toward middle age.  And beyond.  I told myself, it had been a one-night stand.  And sure, Tammy J. and I both had those once in a while.  But Tammy J. was kind of my girl.  I shouldn’t be interested in Wanda.  But I was.  Tammy J. was more my type, but I had just about decided to call Wanda, when there was a harsh tapping on my driver’s door window.  Maurice was using his ring to get my attention.  I didn’t like the sound and with some irritation rolled down the window.  

“What’s up, Maurice?”

“It’s Wanda.  She wants to see you.”

I knew it.  My mouth watered at the prospect of her violent creativity.  I could handle it.  I knew I could.  Well, I thought I could.  Not knowing for sure was delicious.  I smiled.

Maurice didn’t return my smile.

“Where is she? At her apartment?”  I could just see that mountain of naked flesh spread out waiting for me on her super king size bed with the heavy reinforced springs.

“No.  She’s at the morgue.”

I was startled.  ‘The morgue?  What? Who?”

“Dora.  That friend of yours from high school only she wasn’t a friend, was she?”  Even Maurice had picked up on the banter.  “She’s on a table down there.  They are getting ready to do an autopsy.  Wanda thought you should be there.”

My first thoughts were unexpected.  I didn’t wonder the reason she was laid out ready to be sliced and diced by the pathologist as I should have, I wasn’t burned up with curiosity about what happened to her, nor what this meant to my case.  Instead, I wondered what Dora would think.  I had never noticed her, never looked at her, she seemed to have made a point to everyone about my oversights, and the first time I would be seeing her she was going to be stretched out naked and dead, ready and waiting to be cut open.  I would be watching as the Doctor made the usual inverted “Y” incision with a scalpel from her neck to her pubic bone.  I would see the top of her head removed with a skull saw.   I was going to be watching it all.  I would see Dora all right, really notice her for the first time.  Man, what would she think about that?  

Talk about the ultimate humiliation.

 This is a novel I am publishing online in serial format.  For other chapters and other writings by Phil Cline, visit philcline.com