Sunset City (10 page)

He lived six blocks away, on the other side of Main, in a neighborhood of bungalows across from a park. The dog walkers were out, still dressed for the office, carrying plastic bags of poop. I parked my car behind his on the street. He had the whole place to himself, a two-bedroom, cute, painted blue. The arched front door led into a living room/dining room decorated with a combination of Ikea and thrift-store furniture.

“Sit down,” he said. “Be right back.”

He walked past the large table to the kitchen and returned with his arms full: a bong, a ceramic plate, and two glasses filled with ice and vodka.

He sat beside me and reached under the coffee table for a box. He rummaged through its contents and laid out a pill bottle, a razor blade, a straw, and a tiny bag of white powder.

“What is that?” I said.

“Special K,” he said. “Ever done it?”

“I don't think so,” I said.

He opened the pill bottle, full of buds, and loaded the bong. He pushed it in front of me. I fished a lighter from my pocket.

“Since Danielle died, I can't be sober,” he said.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and leaned over the bong. I had to use my hand to seal the wide opening. Brandon smashed the powder on the plate and formed lines. The high built gently as my body began to sense itself. The room grew cozy. I kicked off my shoes and sat cross-legged on the couch, facing him while he smoked.

“Do you ever get tired of sex?” I asked. “Filming it all day?”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Never. I think about it all the fucking time.”

I laughed. “What was she like, in bed?”

“Playful. Sweet.”

“Like how?”

“When we fucked, she smiled at me, touched my face. Like there was no one she'd rather be with.”

I nodded. I knew that, how she could make you feel that way.

“It was nice,” he said, “but she was always removed from it. She never let go, never got
naked
. That's not what I like the best. I like sex to be . . . desperate. To fuck . . .”

“Like it matters,” I said. “Like you have to.”

“Yeah. She never had that. I mean, we were friends, we weren't in love. What sucks is we had a fight.”

“What, you and Danielle?”

“Yeah, the night she died. If I had known that was it, I would never—I should have stayed out of her business.”

“What did you fight about?

“The inheritance. It was after she met with her mother. Her mom wanted to buy the land—”

“What land?”

“You know, her inheritance.”

“I figured it was money. Or antiques maybe. Sally never said anything to me about it.”

“No, there was an acreage. Danielle got one parcel of it and her mom got the rest. Her mom offered her three hundred grand. And Danielle wouldn't sell.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

My body flashed hot and cold, leaving goose bumps on my arms. How could Sally not have told me? It made no sense. Brandon was still talking and I tried to concentrate.

“I thought Danielle was nuts,” he said. “I mean, three hundred thousand dollars, can you imagine? She said I didn't get it. Her mom was the most selfish person in the world, she could never trust her.”

“What else did she say?”

“That her mom used money to get whatever she wanted. Danielle refused to be bought. But with that much money she could buy a house, go to school, whatever. She could have financed my business, we could have expanded, made some serious cash. She wouldn't listen to me. She was mad. I told her what I thought—I didn't know it was that big a deal. We never argued before, not once. She yelled at me for half an hour, then she packed a bag of clothes and left. I figured she'd call and apologize.”

“Then she went to the motel?”

“Yeah. I guess. She must have. I never saw her again.”

I could see why the cops kept questioning him. But they should be talking to Sally, not him.

“You look pale,” he said. “Smoke some more.”

He reloaded the bong and lit it for me. I inhaled the smoke and held it.

“She was so upset,” Brandon said. “I wish I'd stayed out of it.”

He took a ragged breath and wept quietly, trembling, baring the depth of his heartache, his exhaustion. At my touch he clung to me, and for a second I hated Danielle for dying and hurting everyone, making everyone sad.

“Charlotte,” he said. “Thanks for being here with me.”

“Of course,” I said. “It makes me feel better, too.”

He straightened, but left his knee touching mine. The connection between us grew like the slow filling of a pitcher, a simple promise I knew would be kept. I quit thinking about Sally and Danielle and thought about his leg against mine, and how he needed me. We hit the bong again, though I was already high. He busied himself with the white powder on the plate and snorted half.

“Try this,” he said. “It's not a lot. It won't send you into a hole, it just takes you away a little.”

The white grains stood out on the red plate, like a flag of some fucked-up country. He stroked my hair while I snorted the K. He touched the straps of my tank top, the hem of my skirt. There was a cavalier quality about it that thrilled me. His fingers moved from the fabric to my skin, and I felt such gratitude and warmth. I would do what he wanted, I didn't care what.

“You're beautiful,” he said.

Not like her, I thought. Nonetheless I liked his words and his hands on me. I made a decision then to let her in, to let her live inside me. I'd let in the dead, her and my mom; they could have me. I'd empty myself to make room. As soon as I had the thought it started happening. My self evaporated. In our kiss he bit me hard, and my body twitched, and they were right
there, all the people I'd never see again. He tightened his grip on my thigh and leaned over me. My legs parted as he kissed my cheek, my neck, my lips. I smelled an odd, chemical odor about him. I held him to me. He sucked the air out of my lungs and I was glad; I didn't need it anymore. I needed room.

“God, I miss her,” he mumbled.

He was doing it, too: channeling the dead. I understood and the understanding flew between us every place we touched.

Simultaneously I felt curious, analytical and without agency. I waited to see what would happen. Maybe it was the drugs, making me separate from my body, or the presence of Danielle inside me, in both of us, or maybe it was his cock, thick and hard and curved at the tip, the way he gained confidence, shed his grief as he entered me, turned me over and fucked me from behind, yanking my hair, holding me with his arm around my neck, pumping steadily, filling me and pulling out and filling me again. I came three times from fucking, and my body disappeared. I could see it on the end of his cock, a separate thing, pulsing like a severed lizard's tail—disposable, controlled by a distant electricity. I think for a while I stopped breathing. Pieces of him ended up under my nails.

I can't remember when it stopped or even if he came. At some point I was in the car, driving, having to learn again how to control my limbs to steer and brake and accelerate. I attached no emotion to any of these processes. Everything still seemed inconsequential and also fine.

T
he next day I put on a sundress and made coffee. I thought I'd be more affected by the K, but I felt normal, like it had happened to somebody else. I liked being with Danielle's friends. I could relax around them, like they'd been preapproved. My computer lay open, sleeping, and when I moved the mouse the screen brightened, still showing the porn site. What the hell, I thought, and played the video I'd seen before, of Danielle and Audrey together.

Audrey wore a simple shift that hung loosely, showing her body through the sheer fabric. Her slender back and bare feet and the way she moved, deliberately, with her eyes open wide, didn't mesh with Danielle's bratty cartoon appeal. The two women kissed, turning for the camera. Audrey sat on a bench and Danielle knelt over her, pushing her thigh between Audrey's legs.

How could her death exist in the same world as this tacky video? It was impossible, nonsensical. I wept and kept watching. Audrey reached to touch Danielle's face. They smiled at each other, genuine. I felt a vibration in my sinuses and deep
in my joints, an inaudible singing, like missing every place I'd ever been—every room, every park, every street I'd driven down in my whole life. I longed for them all at once, astonished at the pain, the inability to access the past. Usually I never knew what to want. Now suddenly I wanted everything. The world rushed from me, like each moment of the wanting had already ended by the time I perceived it. I was helpless to make it stay.

A man entered the frame and the girls turned to him. He was one of the ones I met. Kenneth, maybe? I couldn't remember his name. One of the other guys came in and I watched the rest absentmindedly, a series of acrobatic permutations among the four of them.

I thought of the photos of Danielle's body. Someone had beaten her until she stopped moving, and kept hitting her until her head caved in. I pressed my hands to my face, felt the hardness of my own skull. I couldn't fathom the passion, the energy it would take to break a person's head. What had Danielle done to make someone that crazy? She and Brandon had fought, but I believed his story. I couldn't see him following her to the motel. It really bothered me that Sally hadn't told me about the land. Or about seeing Danielle. She could have mentioned it. There was no reason not to.

I decided to talk to Sally again. Something weird was going on and I had a bad feeling that I was in the middle of it. The day was hot and breezy. I took my bike out. I rode on the sidewalk, wound through patched parking lots and bayou trails and walled streets lined with maples, the tops of townhomes visible beyond them. In River Oaks the streets were shaded by live oaks whose branches formed a canopy above the road. The neighborhood felt a couple of degrees cooler than the rest
of the city. How did they do that? Were they air-conditioning the outside?

I rounded the corner of Sally's block and stopped in front of her house, watching the Mexican workers mowing the neighbor's grass and carrying bags of mulch from their trucks. I walked my bike up Sally's drive and through the gate, past the outdoor room where we'd sat the other night. The pool threw off shards of light. A few leaves floated near the tiled sides, and a leggy begonia in a pot drooped, touching the water. Red caladiums rustled under a drake elm, and large pots filled with bamboo lined the side of the yard. A couple of spindly lemon trees shed sparse leaves onto the mulch below. A voice startled me.

“Charlotte? Sweetheart. Come on in.”

Sally stood in the entrance to the screened patio. I'd meant to confront her about the land, find out about the fight they'd had, but she looked so grateful to see me I couldn't say a word. I let her lead me inside, through the dining room's French doors. The room I remembered had been a rich coffee color. She'd repainted the walls red. I liked it better before. The table shone with wax.

“I'll fix us some iced tea,” Sally said from the kitchen. “It's hot out there. Are you hungry? There's leftovers from the caterer—artichokes, some grilled shrimp—I'll make a plate. This shrimp is delish. Wait till you try it.”

I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter while Sally dished out food. She poured tea into tumblers and added lemon wedges. We carried our plates into the breakfast nook. It disoriented me to be at the table, sharing a meal with her. Like I was in high school again, and Danielle was pouting in the other room, and my mom was alive, at home. I took a bite of shrimp.

“This is good,” I said. I'd been forgetting to eat lately.

“I'm glad you dropped by.”

I didn't know what to say. I was finding it hard to confront her.

“I miss her,” she said.

“Me, too,” I said.

“I mean, I've been missing her for years.”

I blinked, surprised. Sally had always pretended everything was fine, even when Danielle used to scream at her. She'd smile at me and say, “Oh, teenagers,” like I wasn't one, and ask me about school.

Sally said, “The other day I didn't tell you how much I appreciated you. If you hadn't put us in touch, I wouldn't have gotten to see her again.”

“It was nothing,” I said.

“I'm grateful for it,” she said. “I'm so thankful. If I had known it would be the last time . . . I don't know.”

“What happened?” I said.

Maybe Sally was finally going to talk honestly to me. She stood and poured more tea, and when she turned around I saw her mask was back up.

“We had a great dinner—paella from that place out on Bellaire,” she said. “Have you tried it? It's exactly like what I had in Spain. And they have that Serrano ham.”

“I meant how was Danielle?” I said.

“Oh, fine. She looked healthy, don't you think? Not too skinny. We talked about Aunt Baby. I used to take Danielle out there for visits. Those two adored each other. They baked cookies together and invented these silly dances. It was the cutest.”

“I can't imagine Danielle doing that stuff,” I said.

“Want to see some pictures? I had them out to show her. Let's go in the den.”

We used to watch TV in the den. New couches of dark leather
anchored the Persian rug. Sally adjusted the wooden shutters to let some light in.

“You've changed the room around,” I said.

“Oh, of course. I get tired of the same old stuff.”

She pulled a suede-covered photo album off the shelf and sat beside me. We opened it on our laps. Sure enough, there was little Danielle in a kitchen with an older woman. They both had chocolate cake batter around their mouths and the woman was grinning. Another picture showed Danielle in pigtails sitting astride a brown pony, clearly thrilled. We flipped the pages, studying each image of this lovely child in jeans and pink tees. It must have been before the thing happened with her uncle. I'd never seen Danielle smile like that.

“How old was she here?” I said.

“About nine. A couple years after this we stopped going out there. Baby had a stroke, and she couldn't get around. We had to sell the animals. She said to me once, ‘It's hell getting old.' I didn't think it was healthy for Danielle to be around that kind of attitude. Her life hadn't really turned out how she wanted, and then when her health declined she was so bitter. And she couldn't ride. Danielle would've gotten bored.”

The next page contained pictures of the land, farmhouse and fences.

“Hard to believe,” Sally said. “Now this is surrounded by development. Back then it was all horse pastures and cane fields.”

“Is this the land Baby left to her?” I said.

“Yes. Danielle's parcel is adjacent to my six acres.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I'm putting together a mixed commercial-residential development—we're ready to break ground as soon as it clears probate.”

“You've had this planned? What, have you been waiting around for your aunt to die?”

“Come on, sweetie. I took care of Baby. She was dying for years. It simply made sense.”

“That's why you tried to buy Danielle's share. You need it for your development.”

“Well, partly. But she had to sell. Think what Danielle would have done with four acres in the middle of Tomball. Can you see her maintaining it, getting it Bush Hogged, paying property taxes?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“Let me refill your tea,” Sally said.

“I don't want any more,” I said. I wanted a real drink, but I wasn't going to ask. “What happened when she told you she wanted to keep the land?”

“How do you know about all this, anyway? Did she talk to you about it?”

“Her friend told me,” I said. “I know she was upset.”

“She needed some time to think it over. She called me later. I had offered her three hundred for it and she countered with four, plus a two-point share in the profits.”

I wasn't sure I believed her. Why would Danielle change her mind? It didn't make sense, just to hold out for more money. Danielle never cared about money.

“A two-point share? How much would that be?” I said.

“Oh, two or three hundred more, depending on the market.”

With Danielle dead, that was over half a million dollars that Sally had saved. I stared at the photo album, unable to bring my eyes into focus. I felt hot in the air-conditioned room. My pulse beat in my temples.

Sally was still talking. “She stuck to her guns, she was a good negotiator. It made me proud of her. She could have been a
fine businesswoman. I was going to help her invest the money, set it up in a trust.”

“A trust,” I echoed. Funny word. “Now what happens?”

“The land will be in probate a while, then it will revert to me.”

I nodded, tried to swallow.

“Why didn't you tell me?” I said. “About the land, about your plans?”

“I don't know,” Sally said. “I didn't think it mattered. It wasn't exactly your business.”

“Well, it mattered,” I said.

“Why, honey? What difference does it make?”

“Sally, you used me. If I had known—”

“Used you? Charlotte, I paid you. Besides, you just said it was nothing. A phone number.”

“Would you have even bothered getting in touch with her if you didn't want the land for yourself?”

“Honey,” she said, “Don't be like this. I haven't done anything wrong.”

“Forget it,” I said. “I don't want to hear it.”

Sally sighed. “I wish things hadn't been so hard,” she said. “Danielle was such a sweet little girl. Around when she turned twelve or so . . . well, puberty is always difficult, those hormones. And I guess she blamed me for the divorce.”

“No, she didn't,” I said. “I mean, maybe, but she got over that.”

“Of course you didn't know her then.”

“Sally, stop pretending. It was because of your brother.”

“She talked to you about that?”

“Well, I was her
friend
.” The last word came out vicious. Sally didn't seem to notice. She sat on the edge of the couch, twisting her sapphire ring with the other hand.

“She didn't tell me until after he moved back to Denver,” she said.

“She told you and you still saw him, still let him in your house. Her house.”

“Charlotte, what was I supposed to do? He flew in from Colorado. I didn't even know he was coming, he just showed up for dinner. Was I supposed to send him away at the door?”

“Yes,” I said. “That is exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“Gary and I had just split up,” she said. “I was trying to keep our lives normal, to have a regular Thanksgiving, with people around.”

“Fine, but not him,” I said.

“It would have caused a scene. We had—Jesus, I had colleagues here. Investors. I told him that weekend not to come back. Gary took off, left town with his bimbo, I had to make the money—”

“A scene,” I said, disgusted. “That's what you cared about?”

“Look, my own brother . . . we grew up together. I knew him. I mean, it was hard to believe.”

“She didn't make it up,” I said.

“I know that now. But back then, Charlotte, she hated me. She lied about everything. I wasn't sure. There was so much else going on. Danielle would never let it go.”

“How could she? Nobody gets over something like that. Jesus. She was a little girl.”

“I know,” Sally said. “Of course you're right. But what could I do? By the time I found out, it was already over.”

“Sally, she was completely alone. How can you not see that? You let him in your house, and she knew you didn't care about her.”

“I did care. She's my child. Of course I cared. You know I sent her to therapy as soon as she told me what happened. I found the best doctors. But she lied to them, too, she just made
up nonsense, or sometimes she wouldn't speak at all. We tried medication, antidepressants, but she refused to take them. She wouldn't let me help. She was so difficult. She specifically tried to antagonize me.”

“Can you blame her?” I said.

“It's funny,” Sally said. “I gave her everything I had, and she didn't care. Look how wonderful you turned out. I should have sent her to live with
your
mom.”

I gaped at her, said nothing. It didn't deserve a response.

“Charlotte, I'm sorry,” she said after a minute.

She rose and tried to hug me. I stood there, holding my breath, and as soon as she let go I ran out the door. I rode fast out of that neighborhood, trying to keep in a straight line. At home I locked my bike and started up the steps. By the time I got inside and changed out of my sweaty clothes I had decided to call Ash. He answered on the first ring.

“I need to talk to you,” I said. “It's about Danielle's murder. I think it's important.”

“I can come by in an hour, will that work?”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll be at home.”