Jonathan Maberry
Like Part of the Family
“My ex-husband is trying to kill me,” she said.
She was one of those cookie-cutter East Coast blondes. Pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes. Lots of New Age jewelry. Not a lot of curves and too much perfume. Kind of pretty if you dig the modeling-scene heroin chic look. Or if you troll the anorexia twelve-steps or crack houses looking for easy ass that’s so desperate for affection they’ll boff you blind for a smile. Not my kind. I like a little more meat on the bone, and a bit more sanity in the eyes. This one came to me on a referral from another client.
“He actually try?”
“I can tell, Mr. Hunter.”
Yeah, I thought and tried not to sigh. What I figured.
“You call the cops?”
She shrugged.
“What’s that mean? You call them or not?”
“I called,” she said. “They said that there wasn’t anything they could do unless he did something first.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t arrest someone for thinking about something.”
“He threatened me.”
“Anyone hear him make the threat?”
“No.”
“Then it’s your word.”
“That’s what the police said.” She crossed her legs. Her legs were on the thin side of being nice. Probably were nice before drugs or stress or a fractured self image wasted her down to Sally Stick-figure.
Skirt was short, shoes looked expensive. I have three ex-wives and I pay alimony bigger than India’s national debt. I know how expensive women’s shoes are. I was wearing black sneakers from Payless. Glad I had a desk between me and her.
“Your husband ever hurt you?” I asked. “Or try to?”
“Ex,” she corrected. “And…yes. That’s why I left him. He hit me a few times. Mostly when he was drunk and out of control.”
I held up a hand. “Don’t make excuses for him. He hit you. Being drunk doesn’t change the rules. Might even make it worse, especially if he did it once while drunk and then let himself come home drunk again.”
She digested that. She’d probably heard that rap before but it might have come from a female case worker or a shrink. From the way her eyes shifted to me and away and back again I guessed she’d never heard that from a man before. I guess for her men were the Big Bad. Too many of them are.
It was ten to five, but it was already dark outside. December snow swirled past the window. It wasn’t accumulating, so the snow still looked pretty. Once it started piling up I hated the shit. My secretary, Mrs. Gilligan, fled at the first flake. Typical Philadelphian — they think the world will come to a screeching halt if there’s half an inch on the ground. She’s probably at Wegmans stocking up on milk, bread and toilet paper. The staples of the apocalypse. Me, I grew up in Minneapolis, and out in the Cities we think twenty inches is getting off light. Doesn’t mean I don’t hate the shit, though. A low annual snowfall is one of the reasons I moved to Philly after I got my PI license. Easier to hunt if you don’t have to slog through snow.
“When he hit you,” I said, “you report it?”
“No.”
“Not to the cops?”
“No.”
“Women’s shelter?
“No.”
“Anyone? A friend?”
She shook her head. “I was…embarrassed, Mr. Hunter. A black eye and all. Didn’t want to be seen.”
Which means there’s no record. Nothing to support her case about ex-hubby wanting to kill her.
I drummed my fingers on the desk blotter. I get these kinds of cases every once in a while, though I stayed well clear of domestic disputes and spousal abuse cases when I was with Minneapolis PD. I have a temper, and by the time they asked for my shield back I had six reprimands in my jacket for excessive force. At one of my IA hearings the captain said he was disappointed that I showed no remorse for the last ‘incident’. I busted a child molester and somehow while the guy was, um, resisting arrest he managed to get mauled and mangled a bit. The pedophile tried to spin some crazy shit that I sicced a dog on him, but I don’t have a dog. I said that he got mauled by a stray during a foot pursuit. Even at my own hearing I couldn’t keep a smile off my face to save my job. Squeaked by on that one, but next time something like it happened — this time with a guy who whipped his wife half to death with an extension cord because she wasn’t ‘willing enough’ in the bedroom — I was out on my ass. He ran into the same stray dog. Weird how that happens, huh? Long story short, I already didn’t have the warm fuzzies for her husband. We all have our buttons, and when the strong prey on the weak all of mine get pushed.
“Did you go to the E.R.?”
“No,” she said. “It was never that bad. More humiliating than anything.”
I nodded. “What about after the divorce? He lay a hand on you since?”
She hesitated.
“Mrs. Skye?” I prompted.
“He tried. He chased me. Twice.”
“Chased you? Tell me about it.”
She licked her lips. She wore a very nice rose-pink lipstick that was the only splash of color. Even her clothes and shoes were white. Pale horse, pale rider.
“Well,” she said, “that’s where the story gets really…strange.”
“Strange how?”
“He — David, my ex-husband—changed after I filed for divorce. He’s like a different person. Before, when I first met him, he was a very fastidious man. Always dressed nicely, always very clean and well-groomed.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“He owns a nightclub. The Crypt, just off South Street.”
“I know it, but that’s a Goth club right? Is he Goth?”
“No. Not at all. He bought the club from the former owner, but he remodeled it after The Batcave.”
“As in Batman?”
“As in the London club that was kind of the prototype of pretty much the whole Goth club scene. David’s a businessman. There’s a strong Goth crowd downtown, and they hang together, but the clubs in Philly aren’t big enough to turn a big profit, and not near big enough to attract the better bands. So, he bought the two adjoining buildings and expanded out. He made a small-time club into a very successful main stage club, and he keeps the music current. A lot of post-punk stuff, but also the newer styles. Dark cabaret, deathrock, Gothabilly. That sort of thing. Low lights, black-tile bathrooms, bartenders who look like ghouls.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But this was all business to David. He didn’t dress Goth. I mean, he wore black suits or black silk shirts to work, but he didn’t dye his hair, didn’t wear eye-liner. Funny thing is, even though he was clearly not buying into the lifestyle the patrons loved him. They called him the Prince. As in Prince of—?”
“Darkness, yeah, got it. Go on.”
“David was more fussy getting ready to go out than I ever was. Spent forever in the bathroom shaving, fixing his hair. Always took him longer to pick out his clothes than me or any of my girlfriends.”
“He gay?”
“No.” And she shot me a ‘wow, what a stereo-typically homophobic thing to say’ sort of look.
I smiled. “I’m just trying to get a read on him. Fastidious guy having trouble with a relationship with his wife. Drinking problem, flashes of violence. Not a gay thing, but I’ve seen it before in guys who are sexually conflicted and at war with themselves and the world because of it.”
She studied me for a moment. “You used to be a cop, Mr. Hunter?”
“Call me Sam,” I said. “And, yeah, I was a cop. Minneapolis PD.”
“A detective?”
“Yep.”
“Okay.” That seemed to mollify her. I gestured to her to continue. She took a breath. “Well…toward the end of our relationship David stopped being so fastidious. He would go two or three days without shaving. I know that doesn’t sound like the end of the world, but I never saw David without a fresh shave. Never. He carried an electric razor in his briefcase, had another at home and one in the office at the club. Clothes, too. Before, he’d sometimes change clothes twice or even three times a day if it was humid. He always wanted to look fresh. Showered at home morning and night, and had a shower installed in his office.”