Wasted (2 page)

He thought about how each morning, Regina began her day by hacking and snorting to try to clear the cocaine from her sinuses. Barnes wouldn’t have been surprised if Hartwell had just picked her nose and flicked her bloody mucous on the walls.

He wiped away some of the small specks of blood on the white wall across from the toilet. He scrubbed away more small specks of blood just above the toilet-paper holder. He scrubbed the bathroom counter. He tucked neatly into a drawer her makeup and her favorite towel—the one she used when she put on her makeup. She loved that towel like a toddler does her teddy. It was filthy with eyeliner and mascara. And it was always the first thing Regina pulled out after Jeremy cleaned.

He moved through the hallway and missed the slips of blood on the cream-colored walls, blood splatters that were so thin and short that they were about the size of runny insect droppings. Except they were red droppings, blood.

Barnes walked into the living room and started cleaning there. He noticed more blood splatters on the wall, blood on one of the marble spheres on Hartwell’s beloved black-and-white-checkered coffee table. He scrubbed the walls of blood, but missed a few specks. He cleaned the cigarettes and beer from the coffee table. He wiped away the blood drops. He straightened Regina’s four remote controls and bloodstained marble spheres.

He glared at the huge stain under the black, leather recliner. The recliner was in reclining position with the stain slightly camouflaged by the footstool.

“You little evil wench,” he muttered to himself. “You knew I was coming in to clean. The least you could have done was clean up a little bit before I got here.” Barnes moved the chair. But he didn’t think much of that either. He always had to move things when cleaning her apartment—Regina had a habit of hiding things. He scrubbed the hell out of the spots on the floor. Still, he missed some.

 

 

That night, as Anita Morales walked between Oil Can Harry’s and Club 404, two gay clubs in Austin’s downtown warehouse and party district, Anita ran into Kim LeBlanc’s ex-roommate, Tim Gray. “Have you seen Regina?”

“She’s probably dead somewhere,” he said.

“That’s not funny.”

“Hey, I was only kidding.”

 

 

Sunday afternoon, Jeremy Barnes returned to Hartwell’s and he began to really worry. Once again, there was no food or water in the bowl for Regina’s pets. That wasn’t like Regina, he knew.

If she were just two hours late getting home to take care of Spirit and Ebenezer, she’d phone Jeremy to take care of them. And two days in a row, Spirit and Ebenezer had been without food and water. And for two days Barnes hadn’t heard from Regina. That was a heck of a lot longer than two hours.

But Barnes really knew something was wrong when he looked in the bathroom. Its counter was too clean. That filthy, favorite towel of Regina’s wasn’t spread out on the counter with her makeup on top of it. Regina always pulled out that towel.

He opened the bathroom drawer. There was the dirty towel and all of her makeup.

He called Morales. “Anita, there’s something really weird going on. Have you seen Reg, because she’s left Spirit alone. And she needs to come pay me for cleaning the apartment.”

“There’s something really weird about this,” Barnes repeated later.

Morales picked up Hartwell’s favorite black, leather backpack purse and held it in her hands. She fingered Regina’s makeup in that favorite bag. She stared at Regina’s favorite shoes. She and Carla had dropped by Hartwell’s one more time to check once again on their friend.

“Maybe she got coked up and just said, ‘to hell with it, I’m going to see my dad,’” Morales tried to rationalize, tried to convince herself. “Maybe she decided to go to Pasadena because of her threat to turn Justin in.”

But Anita didn’t buy even her own line.

 

 

By Monday, July 3, Anita Morales’s anxiety over Regina Hartwell had escalated. She made more phone calls in search of her friend. Not one living soul had heard from Regina.

Tuesday, the Fourth of July, it was hot and clear when the phone rang at Carla and Anita’s. It was Jeremy calling.

“Have you heard from Reg?”

“I’m going through her caller ID numbers to find who she’s with. I found blood in here when I was cleaning . . . in the bathroom, the shower, a little bit in the living room, on one of her statues.”

“Have you cleaned it?” said Anita.

“Yeah.”

“Damn, Jeremy.”

“That’s what she told me to do. She’s in her period. It could be that. Or it could be a nosebleed.”

 

 

Morales hung up and called the hospitals and jails. She called Regina’s friend Kim LeBlanc and got her answering machine, which relayed Kim’s pager number. She paged Kim.

 

 

Fifteen minutes later, Kim returned the page.

Carla answered the phone. “Have you seen or heard from Regina?”

“No,” answered LeBlanc.

Reid passed the phone to Morales, who heard Kim say, “I’m on my way,” before Kim hung up.

Anita dialed *69 to get Kim LeBlanc back on the line and a man answered. She supposed it was Justin Thomas, Kim’s boyfriend. “Let me talk to Kim.”

LeBlanc picked up the phone.

“Do you know where Regina is?” asked Morales.

“No,” Kim answered. “We had an argument last Wednesday. We agreed we need some space from each other, and I haven’t seen her since. Is her makeup there?”

“Yes.”

“Spirit?”

“Yes.”

“Her purse?”

“Yes. Kim,” said Anita, “did Regina and Justin have a fight?”

“No,” Kim LeBlanc answered, innocently. “She’s only mad at me. She’s mad because I took Justin over to Diva’s.”

Diva was Regina Hartwell’s drag queen drug dealer.

“Kim,” Anita was urgent by then, “Jeremy found blood in Regina’s apartment.”

“I’m coming into town,” LeBlanc said, sounding very upset. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

 

 

Kim LeBlanc was frightened. She got into her Jeep and drove the half hour from Bastrop County to Austin and Hartwell’s apartment. A blood bath, that’s what she’d been told. She expected to see blood on the walls, blood on the carpet, blood everywhere.

The door was unlocked; she walked in.

LeBlanc went into the bathroom, thinking that would be the bloodiest room of them all. Looking around, she didn’t see anything. She picked up a cheap, silver-toned dish that a former girlfriend had given Regina. Underneath that dish, Kim spotted a red, coin-sized spot. She began to shake.

She got a bottle of Sunlight liquid dishwashing soap out from under the sink and started scrubbing the red spot with a brush. LeBlanc cried, hysterically, like a child. Seeing what she thought was blood, scrubbing what she thought was Regina’s blood, Kimberley Alex LeBlanc finally realized that Regina Stephanie Hartwell, her friend and former lover, was dead.

 

 

Jeremy Barnes got home from work around two p.m. He went again to Hartwell’s, planning on feeding Spirit, but the door was locked. He heard someone crying. He cocked his head to listen. The wails came from inside the apartment.

“Reg, Reg,” he screamed. “What are you doing? Are you okay, honey?”

All he could hear was murmuring.

Barnes slipped his torso through the broken window, knocked over a plant in his rush, and ran down Regina’s hallway. The shadow of a figure stopped him as he passed the bathroom.

It was Kim LeBlanc—still crying hysterically, still scrubbing that coin-sized, rust stain.

“What’s the matter?” said Jeremy. He looked at the stain. He had scrubbed on it many times himself. Bleached it. Done everything in the world to it. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get this blood off. I’m trying to get this blood off,” she repeated and wept uncontrollably.

“Honey, that’s not blood. It’s a rust stain. I haven’t been able to get it up forever.”

Kim fell to the ground, curled into a fetal position, and screamed. “I should have called her! I shouldn’t have argued with her! I shouldn’t have told her I wanted her out of my life! I should have come over!”

Suddenly, Jeremy Barnes was scared, really scared. Something had happened, he knew, and he freaked inside.

He was afraid that Kim was about to have a stroke. Jeremy reached down to her and hugged her, hoping to stop her shaking. She was thin and frail. Barnes was heavy and cuddly.

“Honey, don’t worry about nothing.” He led her into the living room and sat her down on the couch. “Whatever’s happened, we can take care of this.”

Jeremy knew Reg and Kim always worked things out. He knew that too well.

LeBlanc lit a cigarette and phoned Anita Morales. “I told Regina that I was going to move back to my parents’ house,” Kim cried. “And Regina wasn’t going to pay my rent anymore. I thought she was giving me an ultimatum—Justin goes or Regina goes. I told her she couldn’t make me choose like that. I thought she was asking me to get back with her. But Anita, I’m not a lesbian. I’ve tried to be, but I’m not. I love Regina like a sister.”

“I’m on my way over,” said Anita.

 

 

Anita glanced at Kim, then at Jeremy. Kim was still crying, and Jeremy was still trying to comfort her. “Anita, there is something really fucked up here. There’s something just really, really wrong,” said Jeremy.

They searched for Hartwell’s computerized daytimer so they could call her father in Pasadena, Texas. They couldn’t find the daytimer.

They checked Regina’s caller ID and phoned everyone on it, everyone they hadn’t phoned in days previous.

 

 

Kim LeBlanc phoned Ynema Mangum, a long-time friend of Hartwell’s. “Ynema, this is Kim.” Her voice was soft, but shaking.

“Kim?” Ynema didn’t remember who Kim was.

“I’m Regina’s girlfriend.”

“Oh, yeah.” She was shocked that Kim would call her, especially since Ynema and Regina hadn’t been very close in a very long time.

“Have you seen Regina?”

“No, I’ve been out of town.” Mangum was shocked that LeBlanc had her phone number, her home phone number. She and Kim barely knew each other.

“Regina hasn’t been home in several days,” said LeBlanc, sounding worried.

Ynema, a protector, felt the need to calm her. “Regina goes home every now and then, and she doesn’t always tell people. Did you guys have a fight?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s probably just trying to get attention.”

Kim didn’t sound comforted.

“Hey, I’ll take care of it,” said Mangum. “I’m gonna come over to the apartment right now.” Ynema hung up the phone and went straight over to Regina’s.

 

 

Anita Morales reached for the phone and spotted an empty cocaine baggie. She glanced around. To Morales, the place looked like a freaking crack house. It disgusted her. She turned to Kim. “Get this shit out of here.”

LeBlanc moved quickly. There was a lot of shit she wanted out of there—blood, death, herself.

“I’m calling the police,” said Anita. She figured Hartwell had done something bad or wrong or illegal and had flown the coop by her own choice, by her own volatile temper. Certainly not death, not Regina’s death.

She expected Hartwell to walk through the door any minute, smiling that great big smile of hers, then, upon seeing a cop in her apartment, yelling, “What the hell is going on here?”

Anita, Jeremy, and Kim tossed sex toys and drug paraphernalia into a garbage bag. Kim reached under the couch and pulled out more drug paraphernalia—mirrors, straws, spoons. She threw those in.

Morales shook her head—it wasn’t any of her business what Regina did in her own apartment. “You know, Kim, Justin will probably come up as a suspect,” she said.

LeBlanc searched Regina’s desk drawer. God, she hoped she’d find some coke that she could sneak into her pocket. She searched the bathroom and stared at, and still worried about, that bloody-looking rust stain.

Barnes grabbed the garbage, walked down stairs, and heaved the toys and paraphernalia into the Château’s dumpster.

Anita Morales called the cops.

 

 

Officer Timothy Pruett received the call at 5:27 p.m. Soon he arrived at the apartment on South Lamar. Officer Pruett took out his pen and looked around the room. He watched Kim LeBlanc. She smoked like an out-of-control fire, one Marlboro right after another. But she didn’t say much.

He looked at Anita Morales and Jeremy Barnes. They, too, shakily smoked cigarettes. “What is your relationship with Ms. Hartwell? When did you last see her?”

Ynema Mangum and her girlfriend walked in. “I’m on Regina’s bank account,” said Mangum.

“I am, too,” said Kim. She kept her head bowed low. “Regina gave me a Pulse card.”

The friends told Officer Pruett that Hartwell had recently inherited $3 million.

“Is that blood?” said Pruett. He pointed his pen at a rust-colored smear on the marble sphere. The sphere covered several checks closest to the black, leather recliner.

Kim stared at the table’s black checks and white checks.

“It’s just a stain on the statue,” said Morales, not able to see the blood from where she sat. “It was already there. But Jeremy did find blood when he was cleaning the apartment.”

Pruett didn’t notice any other blood. “Just calm down. You’re probably overreacting.”

Act regular. Black checks, white checks, smoke a cigarette. Don’t look geeked out.
LeBlanc’s body seemed to be staring out the window, her back to everyone else.

“But her dog’s been left unattended for days,” said Anita. “And her makeup’s still here. She never goes anywhere without her makeup. She even brings her bag with deodorant over to my house.”

“Why can’t she just go out and buy new things, if she has all that money?” asked Pruett.

“That’s not the way she is,” said Anita. “She doesn’t go out and buy stuff for herself. And she calls me a lot, but no one’s heard from her since Thursday.” Anita stared at Kim.

Kim LeBlanc told Officer Pruett that she and Regina had been playing phone tag for days.

Anita still stared at Kim. “Kim, didn’t you and Regina get into a fight?”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t a big deal.” She sucked harder on her Marlboro, her face still away from the others.

“What did she say to you?”

“Everything will be just fine,” said Officer Pruett.

Jeremy Barnes was ticked. He thought the cop had a flighty attitude. Morales thought Pruett acted as though this were a waste of his time. Kim lit another cigarette and wept.

Barnes squashed out his cigarette. Between LeBlanc—her crying, her smoking—and the cop pissing him off, Jeremy was a nervous wreck. “I’ll be at my place if you hear anything.” Barnes got up and left.

“I’ll check Regina’s bank account,” said Mangum. “I’ll see if there’s any unusual activity.”

“Are you gonna at least take down our names?” said Morales to Officer Pruett.

He did. An hour to an hour and a half after he had arrived, Officer Timothy Pruett left the scene of the murder of Regina Hartwell.

During that hour, hour and a half, Kim LeBlanc polished off an entire pack of Marlboros.

 

 

Kim pulled out another cigarette. “Oh, what if something happened to her?” She cried hysterically.

Anita stared straight into Kim’s brown eyes. “I know y’all got into a fight. Regina told me.”

“Yeah, but that was nothing,” said LeBlanc, still not looking Morales in the eyes.

“You know,” said Mangum, “there’s money missing from her bank account.”

Anita watched Kim.

“Yeah,” she said. Kim hugged her knees. “I’ve been taking two or three hundred dollars a day from it.” She rocked herself.

“Why do you need three hundred dollars a day?”

“Well, Regina said I could just take whatever I need.”

“Regina made me steward of her bank account,” said Ynema, her voice firm. “I’m responsible. Stop doing that.”

“I should have called her,” LeBlanc cried. “I should have called her.”

Ynema Mangum and her girlfriend left.

 

 

Kim sat alone on the couch. She looked like a skinny, sad, frightened friend, Regina’s frightened friend.

Anita Morales walked over and sat down beside her. She put her arm around Kim. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’re going to find her. She’s going to be okay.” She patted and rubbed Kim’s back.

Kim LeBlanc shuddered and slipped herself off of the couch and onto the floor. She curled herself into an upright, fetal position and rocked.

Anita thought,
Oh, my God
.

Memories of Cancun flooded her mind. Anita, Kim, Regina—they’d all gone on the trip. There, Kim and Regina had both cried uncontrollably as the two had fought and fought and fought some more. There, Anita had bounced from Regina to Kim and back again, comforting each. There, Kim had accepted Anita’s comfort.