Deceived (18 page)

The hall was a concrete corridor with industrial lights. Most weren’t working. There was no air conditioning. The stairwell was hot. It stunk of stale urine. Brandon reached the door, as Marvin knocked. A black woman with dark hair styled in neat curls answered. She wore a pair of jeans that had a sharp crease, a New Orleans Saints t-shirt, and white tennis shoes. She eyed them, then looked past Marvin, Brandon, and Pete, to Taylor. “I’m Callandra Washington, Anton’s auntie. I’m hoping he’ll talk to you, but if you want him to talk, the three of you men can’t come in. Maybe one of you men, but even that’s pushing it.”

Chapter Eleven

Brandon left Marvin and Pete in the hallway and shut the door behind him and Taylor. As Brandon led Taylor into the apartment, he made a mental note to tell Marvin to pay Callandra even if Anton didn’t talk. The apartment was neat and clean, a window unit cooled the space, and a kid’s crayon drawings were pinned to one of the living room walls. The drawings were signed by Anton. A skinny little boy was on a couch, wearing Spiderman pajamas and gripping a teddy bear tight.

“Anton,” Callandra said, “these people want to talk to you about what you saw two nights ago.”

His hair was in a short afro, and his eyes were wide with fear, but also curiosity. As he eyed them, Taylor stepped forward, and gestured to Brandon with her hand behind her back, to stay put at the door. She went to the couch, then got down on one knee.

“Hello, Anton. I’m Taylor.”

The child was more interested in his teddy bear than Taylor.

“What’s your bear’s name?”

The boy didn’t say anything, but he glanced at Taylor, then shot Brandon a wide-eyed glance.

“I have a bear that’s about that size,” Taylor said. “Mine’s a girl. She’s fluffy and soft. She has a pink ribbon. Her name is Annie and she’s scared of the dark.”

He giggled. “Bears aren’t scared of the dark.”

“Annie is,” Taylor said, “she lives in my bedroom, and I can never turn out the lights because she doesn’t like the dark.”

“Bears aren’t scared of the dark because they live in caves.”

Taylor shook her head. “Annie doesn’t live in a cave.”

“They sleep all winter.”

“Annie doesn’t,” Taylor said.

“Well, maybe Annie really ain’t no bear,” Anton said, with a serious head shake and a big smile.

Brandon chuckled as Taylor laughed. Anton handed Taylor the bear for closer inspection. “His name’s Teddy. I use him as a pillow,” Anton explained, “and sometimes to hide my eyes if I get scared, because he’s a bear and he’s never scared.”

“I have a friend I use like that,” Taylor said. “He’s standing in the doorway.”

Anton shot Brandon a wide-eyed glance, then he moved closer to Taylor. “Is he a nice man?”

Taylor nodded. “Super nice. His name is Brandon. He’s like a great big teddy bear.”

Anton glanced at Brandon, then started giggling. “He don’t look like no teddy bear.” His auntie started laughing when she heard the child’s laughter, and Taylor did as well. Taylor sat on the couch next to Anton, then, after another five minutes where conversation focused on Spider Man, other superheroes, and school, she steered the conversation to two nights earlier. “I was sleeping,” Anton said, “but the thunder was loud. I looked out the window for lightning. Wanna see where?”

Taylor went with Anton into his small bedroom. Brandon followed and stood on the threshold. “A big black car pulled up. Big and black and shiny. A white guy got out, and dropped the stuff on the sidewalk. Right where the bad man killed my mommy.”

Brandon’s stomach rolled. Taylor shot Brandon a pained over-the-shoulder glance. He watched her draw a deep breath. She said, “I’m really sorry to hear about your mom.” She reached for Anton’s shoulder and rested her hand there. “The person two nights ago, can you tell me what he looked like?”

Anton shook his head. “But he wasn’t Tilly. Tilly don’t have no car, and that man’s white.”

“How do you know he was white?”

“I saw the skin on his face. He white.” He nodded in the direction of the door, to Brandon. “Like him.”

“Was he small or tall?”

Anton was silent for a second. “I dunno. He seemed tall. Like him.”

Taylor asked, “Fat or skinny?”

He nodded again in the direction of the door, towards Brandon. “Like him. Maybe skinnier.”

“What was he wearing?”

“Black clothes. Black gloves.”

“Glasses?”

He shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

“Can you remember anything else?”

Anton shrugged. He shook his head.

“You’ll get your auntie to call me if you remember anything else?”

He looked at her and gave her a full smile. “Yes, m’am.”

They walked back to the car, with Taylor between Brandon and Marvin. Brandon told Marvin what Anton said. He waited for Taylor to chime in, but she didn’t. Once in Brandon’s car, Taylor rubbed her arms. “Wow.”

“You were great with Anton,” Brandon said. “Really, truly great.”

“Thank you,” she said. He watched her take a deep breath, square her shoulders, and straighten her posture.

“Hey,” Brandon said, as he drove out of the neighborhood. “Are you all right?”

Taylor glanced at him and gave him a slight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. After a second, she nodded. “Trying to shake off the sadness. So, the person who dumped Lisa’s things was definitely not Tilly.”

“If Anton is telling the truth,” Brandon said.

“There’s no way that child is lying. We have to let Joe know about this.”

“Marvin will be doing that, but Joe will want your impression,” Brandon said, “after he grouses about you talking to a witness.”

“So you think Joe will be ticked off at me for talking to him?”

“Probably. You’re no longer an assistant D.A., so you can’t use that as an excuse for doing police work,” Brandon said. At a red light, he watched her dig though her purse. “Do what I do when I deal with the police.”

She looked up at him and asked, “What’s that?”

“Tell them what they need to know, then ignore them.”

She shook her head. “I’m not good at ignoring those in authority.”

“Good lawyers know the rules, but make their own. If you want to win the hard cases, sometimes you have to ignore authority. That’s where the fun comes in.”

“I’ll remember that when you’re opposing counsel to HBW.”

“When I’m opposing counsel to HBW,” he said, “you won’t need a reminder.”

“Is that why you became a lawyer and didn’t stay on the police force? Problems with authority?”

He chuckled. “One of many reasons, but yeah. I wanted to be the boss. The money didn’t hurt, either. After my father died, my mother raised three kids on a nurse’s salary. We weren’t poor, but we struggled, and she worked hard, long shifts.”

He got on the interstate, and, with a few sideways glances, he saw her take her wallet and a brush from her purse. She unzipped a compartment, then shook her head and shut her purse. “I left my phone in your house. Probably by the baby’s things.” She paused. “Anton said that the guy was in a big black car. That sounds like my description of the car at the crime scene that flashed the lights at me. It is too much of a coincidence. Isn’t it?”

He nodded. It also sounded like the car that he saw when they were at the courthouse earlier in the afternoon. “It’s time for you to tell Joe about your visit to the crime scene, if you haven’t already.”

“I haven’t. I tried calling him earlier today, but he hasn’t returned my call.”

She was quiet as they drove to his house. When they were almost there, she said, “May I ask you a personal question?”

He laughed. “Since when have you asked for permission to ask a question?”

“Really personal.”

Warning signals flashed, because there was one subject that he wouldn’t talk about, and he didn’t want to have to tell her that. He said, “I’ll give you one.”

“You said that you’re an insomniac. What do you do at night after a bad day, when you know that you won’t be sleeping much?”

He breathed easier, then glanced at her, worried. “Your day was that bad?”

She nodded. “Well?”

“Do you want glib, or do you want the truth?”

“The truth.”

“I’ve never slept much. As a teenager and in my twenties, I’d watch TV, study, read, or work. About five years ago,” he paused, “my insomnia became worse. I got into street fighting. It was a fad. For me, it was my only release. I got involved with an underground club. At first the fights weren’t organized, but then they were, then there was money on the line.”

“The scar on your cheek?”

“A knife fight.” He paused. “I’m lucky he didn’t cut my eye out. I had broken ribs, a broken nose, countless black eyes, and a few concussions. My life five years ago, four years ago, and even three years ago, was an all-consuming buzz to forget something terrible.” God help him. He still couldn’t say it, not even to this compassionate woman.
My wife died. Amy. Our baby. Catherine.
He couldn’t say,
I went crazy after my wife died.
He was on Metairie Road, driving past the cemetery where they were entombed, and he couldn’t say their names, couldn’t admit out loud, in words, that they were gone. Taylor didn’t pry by asking a question. Instead, she gripped his hand.
She knew
, he thought. He turned his hand in hers, holding hers, gripping it tightly as he swallowed back the heartache.

“I didn’t intend to make you revisit something so terrible.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t sleep. I fought. Thank God I had filled my law firm with some serious talent, and they were able to take up the slack when I was at my worst. I met some bad characters,” he glossed over the reality, not wanting Taylor to know the absolute depravity of that time. “And then I met some guys who were involved in a murder for hire scheme, one of whom was a cop with the NOPD. They were targeting a witness who was fingering a cop with criminal activity. I wasn’t so sick that I didn’t realize how fucked-up they were. I went to the police chief. Joe got involved, and that’s what he referred to in yesterday’s interview. I thought the cops had it under control, or at least were doing something about it, but then the whole thing exploded, when one of them tried to kill me. I killed him instead.” He glanced at Taylor as he drove. She had the good grace not to look too appalled. He continued, “It was my reality check. That was about two years ago. I gave up fighting, but I still couldn’t sleep. I started working again through the night. Sometimes I exercise. But if I do that, sleep doesn’t come at all. There are times that my brain can’t handle another legal thought,” he frowned as he pulled into his driveway, “so I started getting tattoos.”

“Oh,” she said, giving him a look that he couldn’t read. She’d gotten an eyeful of them earlier. He figured that she had found them appalling, so gross that she couldn’t tear her eyes off of them.

“There’s an artist I met in my fighting days. It is tedious and slow. I lay on the table for hours. It hurts a bit. Something about it makes me fall asleep, which really should be a reason to worry, I guess.” He shrugged. “I don’t care. It keeps me out of trouble, because the biggest problem with not sleeping is that there’s all this restless energy that goes with it. Then there’re women.” He shrugged. “Nothing serious. And boating. I have the one that you saw yesterday, the Frayed Knot, and I have a smaller go-fast boat that I keep docked near her.”

“Women and boating seem to be the healthier of your alternatives.”

He chuckled. “You don’t like the tattoos?”

“Actually, I didn’t mind them at all when I got a view of them this evening. I’ve never seen anything like them. They shimmer.”

“I bet you’re not around too many men,” he paused, “or women for that matter, with tattoos.”

“That would be true, except for the random tiny act of rebellion, and always in a place where it won’t show.”

“You could get one, if you’re fond of them.”

She frowned and gave a quick head shake. “The boat that I saw yesterday is a beauty.”

He chuckled with her change of subject. “Sometimes I take that one out, drop anchor, and stare at the moon and the stars. The smaller one, I run at night, in the lake and in the waterways that surround it.”

“Sounds risky.”

He shrugged. “Only if I go really, really fast.”

“I bet that you do.”

He laughed. “I love it on the water, in the dark.” He pulled his car into the garage. He led Taylor inside, and nodded to Anna, who was sitting in a chair in the casual living room that adjoined the kitchen, reading. Michael was sound asleep in the pack-n-play. Jett was laying in her bed, which was next to the pack-n-play. The dog’s big brown eyes followed Brandon and Taylor’s progress across the room, but aside from a tail wag, she didn’t seem particularly concerned that Brandon was home.

Anna said, “I hope it’s okay that I pulled the dog bed over to Michael. Poor thing was laying on the floor. She doesn’t leave the baby’s side.”

“Of course it’s all right.” Brandon glanced at his watch. It was almost nine thirty. He told Anna, “In about an hour I have some people who are coming over for work in the study. With the hallway door shut, it stays pretty quiet in here, so we shouldn’t bother you. When Michael wakes up for his next feeding,” he paused, “let me know, if you don’t mind.”

Brandon led Taylor up the stairs so that she could look for her phone. “One day I’ll have to take you out on the boat.”

She hesitated on the top step, then gave him a look that he couldn’t read. Before entering what would soon be the nursery, she said, “Well, I have an idea of what really happens on those boats of yours.”