And what truly sucked was that he really was going to drive out there. On the possibility that the favor might be remembered. On the possibility that Monty Lee might think of him when an associate’s position opened at Lee’s law firm. On the chance that he might be able to start fresh, to make a new name for himself, to get out of here, to get out of this fucking cubicle.
Leo picked up his cigar from the cracked ashtray and puffed it back to life. He thumbed through the catalog one last time, retrieved the felt-tip pen and circled a picture of an ornate crystal ashtray. Lalique. $479.00.
He closed the catalog and hid it, and the ashtray, away in his desk.
Leo liked to cruise the more exclusive Atlanta neighborhoods on his days off, and as always, when he turned onto Peachtree Battle Road, he was in awe of the houses. They quietly screamed money, and not just money, but old money. The land the houses sat on would by itself be worth over a million for each lot. Leo lived in a one-room flat off Ponce de Leon Avenue with the prostitutes, drug addicts, and male hustlers. He craned his head to look around at the old houses bought with old money; nope, no crack whores in this neighborhood.
The house was easy to find. Two police cruisers and an ambulance were parked in front, their lights throbbing red and blue in the quiet October night. Leo parked his rust-flecked Nissan pickup truck behind Adam Lee’s shiny black BMW.
The coroner, Travis Vedder, looked on as two attendants loaded a white PEVA body bag into the back of the ambulance. As it was loaded onto the meat wagon, Vedder patted the shape under the heavy-gauge plastic material. A patrolman handed Vedder a clipboard. Vedder spat a healthy stream of tobacco juice into a foam cup that was nestled into his shirt pocket, then took the clipboard from the patrolman and signed off on it. Leo walked up behind Vedder and slapped him on the back. “Travis! All your staff call in sick?”
“Monty Lee called. Asked me to see to this one personally.”
“Same here.”
Vedder cocked an eyebrow over his steel-rimmed glasses. The blue and red flashing lights were reflected in the round lenses and Leo couldn’t see the man’s eyes, only the lone eyebrow that was arched disdainfully over them. Vedder grunted unintelligibly and spat another rivulet of brown juice into his foam cup.
“Hey, you ever hear of mouth cancer?”
Vedder spat again. This time on Leo’s shoes.
“Okay, okay. You made your point.”
Leo took out one of his fat cigars and bit off the tip.
He spat it on the coroner’s shoe. He began to search his pockets for a light, but when he looked up, Vedder was holding out a match that flared up in Leo’s face.
From inside the house, Adam Lee watched the short bald man accept the light the coroner offered him. He watched as the coroner slid his wife’s body out of the back of the ambulance. He watched as the coroner unzipped the bag and pointed out something to the man with the cigar. The man with the cigar took two steps backward, away from the body. Then the coroner pointed to the house and back to the body. The man with the cigar nodded his head and set off for the house.
“Mr. Lee?”
“Yes?”
“Oh, wait a second.”
Leo ducked back out the door and ditched his cigar in a bed of azalea bushes.
“Sorry ’bout that. Leo Hewitt.”
Adam stood and offered his hand to Leo. Leo began to reach out to shake, but realized that something was wrong. He hesitated a moment, retracted his hand, then offered his left hand instead.
“You’re a southpaw?”
“Yes, sometimes I forget.”
“Not a problem. Anyway, I’m the assistant deputy prosecutor with the DA’s office. Fulton County. Your brother called me. Said to tell you he was sorry he couldn’t be here. Asked me to take care of you.”
Leo took a look around the house. Old money or new, it was damn impressive. His eyes took in a Queen Anne dining room set to the left, a monstrously opulent Tiffany dragonfly lamp scuttled to one corner of the living room, a teakwood breakfront, original abstract paintings on the walls, all the creature comforts. On the black leather couch, looking out of place, sat Albert Lee. Drool slicked his heavy chin.
“Is this Albert?”
Adam nodded and watched as Leo squatted down in front of his adult son.
“How ya doin’, Albert?”
“Albert did bad wrong.”
“What happened? What did you do?”
“Albert did bad wrong.”
Leo stood up and turned to Adam.
“Does he understand?”
“No, not really. He’s hurt her before. Never anything like… I mean… I just don’t know what to say. How to react.”
“You’re in shock. It’s understandable. I can’t say how sorry I am. For your loss.”
Adam stared at the floor. His eyes were drawn to the dark stain hardening in the carpet. He spoke to the stain, not to Leo. “Thank you.”
“We’ll need to get Albert somewhere where he can be safe and accounted for.”
“Of course.”
Leo looked at Adam, waiting for the man to look up, but he didn’t.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Lee?”
Adam stared at the floor and shook his head. “No, no.”
“Are you sure?”
Adam didn’t respond.
“I understand you were away when… the incident occurred.”
“Yes, I went away for the weekend.”
Leo rubbed his hand lightly over his bald head, again surprised at its smoothness.
“With a friend?”
Adam finally looked up, stared into Leo’s eyes, and suddenly Leo could feel the syndrome and everything changed. The syndrome where they try to tell you with their eyes. Where they try to get their eyes to convey what their mouths will not. But what could this guy need to get off his chest?
“Yes. With a friend.”
And it hit him. A cheater. The guy was a cheater. And now the poor schmuck thought this was his punishment for cheating on his wife.
“Maybe you should tell me her name.”
And the eyes told him he was right. The eyes said Thank you even as the mouth turned defensive.
“Violet Perkins. Does it matter?”
“Probably not. Here, I don’t have any cards, but let me give you my number.” He scribbled on a scrap of paper and handed it to Adam. “Look, why don’t you have Ms. Perkins call me. She can confirm your story and we can put it to rest, just between us.”
“I would appreciate that. I loved my wife.”
Maybe you did, but your eyes didn’t love her.
“I know. I know you did, Mr. Lee.”
TWENTY-ONE
The coolness was the first thing that hit him when Leo walked into the basement of the coroner’s office. That and the death smell. A lump rose in his throat even before the smell registered. He knew it was just his imagination, but Leo believed that he could actually taste the decay in the air. He walked through several swinging doors deeper and deeper into the morgue, until he found Vedder in the last autopsy room. Vedder stood hunched over the body of an elderly man. Leo couldn’t help but notice that the cadaver suffered from the same male-pattern baldness as he did, only the top of the cadaver’s bald skull was separated from the rest of him. He watched as Vedder pulled a dripping organ from the gaping hole in the cadaver’s chest and plopped it into the grooved scale that hung over the examining table. Leo felt the lump in his throat move up an inch or two. The scale always bothered him. It reminded him of the one in the butcher shop his mother used to drag him to when she did her Saturday shopping. In the butcher’s case, Leo would stare horrified at the tripe and cow’s tongue offered for sale. Occasionally, the butcher would have pig brains for sale behind the cold glass. And speaking of brains, it looked like that was what was going on Vedder’s scale next. Leo had to massage his throat to keep the gorge down.