Chapter Two: Ouroboros
Foster flinches when Cal enters The Cube, a blur of flushed cheeks and startled movement at the corner of his eye. A naughty girl caught in the act. So convincing, even he can't tell where she ends and the con begins. A dangerous confusion. Holding the door open, he hooks his thumb over his shoulder, back the way he came. “Foster, out.”
She blinks like someone surfacing from a dream. Her embarrassed stare goes wide, adding surprise to the list of emotions competing for expression on her pretty face. No matter how many times he does this to her, she’s always stunned when it happens. And hurt. “But I haven’t finished yet. I-”
Her protest dies in her throat as he charges over to the table.
“Take this-” Yanking the purse from the back of her chair, he dangles the little leather bag bare inches from her nose. “-and run along.”
She won’t look at him. Her eyes burn into the designer prop as her features slowly go blank, wiped clean of emotion. Whatever she’s feeling now, it’s obvious she doesn’t want him to see. Disappointment slams into him, hateful and keen.
He nods toward the door, careful to keep his voice even. “Go on now.”
The overhead lights hum conspicuously in comparison to her silence. She takes the purse from him, slinging it over her shoulder and rising from her chair all in one smooth motion. Clearly offended, just too tactful to make a scene. Pride wells in his throat as she wordlessly pivots on those three-inch heels and glides out the door, head held high and boarding school posture perfect in spite of everything. Always a lady.
With his partner safely out of the way, he can give Tharp his undivided attention. The plonker has been watching their exchange with comically raised eyebrows, craning his neck to follow the twitch of Foster’s backside until the door obscures her from view. Cal hasn’t wanted to punch anyone so badly in months.
“You know,” Tharp announces, evidently tired of fading into the background, “I like that one. She has lots of…” He pauses just long enough for the innuendo to register. “…spunk.”
Cal wheels on him, grabbing his right arm and slamming it to the table. Almost daring the situation to explode into violence. But their guest seems to prefer taking out his aggression on defenseless women instead. His body remains loose and relaxed, non-confrontational.
“Was it something I said?” Tharp wisecracks. Just a heckler enjoying the show. Bastard.
“Don’t flatter yerself, mate. Just puttin’ things in order.” Thumping the loose EKG leads back in place with the flat of his hand, Cal rounds the table to claim Foster’s chair. The weight of his employees’ stares is a physical presence, right through the thick soundproof walls. He doesn’t give a damn what they think. “After all, you’re hardly the first man to make inappropriate advances on my partner.”
Tharp’s dark eyes crinkle in amusement. “Probably not even the first one in this room. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure meeting you, Dr. Lightman, but considering-”
“Why’d ya come here, Jerry?” Cal cuts the other man off, unwilling to let him think even for a second that he’s the one in control.
“It’s Jerald,” Tharp replies, his nostrils flaring. “And I’m not sure I understand the question.”
“Well…” Hunkering down, he rocks forward on his elbows, dropping his voice low. “If you already knew the police had shut down their investigation, why agree to this interview? You could’ve just told us to bugger off, stayed at home and snapped more of your naughty pictures, aye?”
“Curiously enough, your employee who called to schedule the appointment-Roker…? Toker…?-never mentioned that option.”
“But you knew it existed, right? You told Foster you spoke with your lawyer yesterday, but we didn’t reach you until this mornin’. So you knew we were just fishin’ with this interview, and you chose to show up, anyway. It just doesn’t make any sense. I mean, you were this close,” he holds up a thumb and finger, only a thin pinprick of light passing between their tips, “- this close-to gettin’ away with it. Why do something so incredibly stupid, Jerry?”
“Are you trying to trip me up?” Tharp laughs, attempting to hide his resentment behind a grin. “Does that actually work on some people?”
Cal returns the grin but doesn’t bother to hide his own resentment. He hates the athlete-cum-artist-cum-abuser, hates his cocky attitude and diamond-cut crotch jeans, hates that he walked into the interview of his own accord and, when it’s over, will walk out again. Most of all, Cal hates that Laura Friedt was accompanied by her two small children when she filed her complaint with police. “You’d be surprised what people give away when you chat ’em up. For instance, that thing you just did, answerin’ my question with a question…? It’s called deflection. It means you got somethin’ to hide.”
“Okay, look….” Sighing, Tharp signals embarrassment by looking down and away. In that one gesture, Cal gets a glimpse of who little Jerry was before he grew up and adopted the hypersexual persona. Someone shy and awkward, with something sick taking root inside. He looks up at Cal and smiles. “If you must know, I’ve been an admirer of your work for years, ever since that interview you gave Good Morning Agrestic. I’ve read all your books, followed your press. So when I got a phone call at the butt crack of dawn presenting me with the opportunity to actually meet you and your staff, I jumped on it. By the time I was sufficiently awake to consider what I’d done, it was too late.”
“That’s the truth,” Lightman wryly observes. “Am I supposed to be flattered?”
“You aren’t supposed to be anything,” he replies with a one-shouldered, self-effacing shrug Cal doesn’t buy at all. “I wasn’t trying to elicit a reaction. You asked.”
Unlike most people interviewed in connection with criminal cases, Tharp doesn’t make a habit of flinching away from eye contact. He doesn’t glance nervously about, or fidget in his seat. He just sits back and observes, choosing his moments. Cal stares down into the dead pools of his eyes and gets that eerie feeling again, as if he’s observing a cold, alien intelligence at work. It reminds him of when he used to take Emily to the zoo and they’d hurry past the monitor lizards, her entire hand wound around his index finger.
“Regular lit’l fanboy, are ya?”
Tharp smiles again, treating him to the full effect of those carnivorous teeth. “Something like that.”
“Aren’t you even the least bit worried, Jerry? I mean, what happens if, let’s say…” He raises his hand, palm out, pretending to ward off an argument. “Hypothetically, of course, but let’s just say I get it in my head that you’re not tellin’ the truth. What then?”
“Then I guess you’re not as good as they say you are.”
“That right?”
“That’s right.” Tharp raises his eyebrows and sticks out his bottom lip, affecting a look of mock-sincerity. “But don’t worry. I have faith in you.”
It isn’t Tharp’s faith that concerns him. Gritting his teeth, Cal crosses his leg ankle to knee and thinks about the promise he made to Foster regarding his ‘recent proclivity’ for hitting people. If not for Gillian, Tharp wouldn’t be sitting across from him as safe and smug as he is now. Too many promises have already been broken between them.
“Laura Friedt says you tried to kill her,” Cal says, circling back to the crime. Tharp isn’t the only one who can choose his moments.
“So I’ve heard.”
“So… what? You’re sayin’ she’s liar? Or maybe you fell and your hands accidentally wrapped themselves around her throat. That it?”
Tharp arranges his features into an indulgent frown. “Was that supposed to be a joke? Weird sense of humor you have there, Cal.”
“Explain it to me, Jerry. Enlighten me. ‘Cause I really wanna know.”
“What you want is a confession. I can’t help you with that.”
“What ‘bout an explanation then? Break it down inta lit’l bitty words so I can comprehend.”
One corner of Tharp’s mouth quirks in an odd, off-kilter expression Cal hasn’t seen before. “Something tells me you might understand more than you think.”
The quickening in Lightman’s veins never shows on his face. Nothing in his outward appearance reflects the tectonic shift he senses. Jerry wants to talk. Cal knows the type. All his life, he’s been able to bullshit his way out of trouble, and now he thinks he can just explain this away as well. Sorry, not my fault. The bitch was asking for it. Intent on giving the man enough rope to hang himself, Cal suggests a face-saving scenario. “You got carried away.”
“I almost canceled our date, she tell you that?” Tharp searches his face, watching him closely.
“No, Jerry. She didn’t.” It’s the truth.
“I found out she’d lied to me. Deep down, I knew right then she was trouble.” His gaze turns inward, reflective, and he shakes his head. “But I just couldn’t stay away.”
“Aren’t all women liars?”
He smiles, but it’s different this time. Collusive. “Some more than others.”
“What did Laura lie about?”
“On her profile, she claimed not to have kids. But the night we hooked up, she sent me a text saying she was running late because her babysitter hadn’t arrived. She couldn’t keep her story straight.”
“Kids a problem for you, Jerry?”
“I don’t waste time on mothers.” He blinks then resumes that cold, lizard-like stare. “I prefer to have all the attention on me.”
“You made an exception for her, though, right?”
“Like I said, I couldn’t stay away.” His eyes flick toward the door as one corner of his mouth twitches in a microsecond-long grin. Leaning in, he lowers his voice to a confidential murmur. “You ever have that problem, Cal? Staying away, I mean?”
“So you decide to see her, what then?”
Tharp straightens in his seat with an affable shrug. “I go to the hotel and wait. Once she finally gets there, we review the terms of our agreement.”
“Agreement…?” Another detail Laura Friedt conveniently omitted. Cal wonders how many others there might be.
“Look, in spite of whatever she did…” Tharp pauses to catch his eye, “…or did not tell you, we discussed everything beforehand. Ev-er-y-thing. Right down to the nipple clamps and blindfold.”
“You’re saying she asked to be choked?”
“Practically begged. Said she’d just gotten out of a bad marriage and was ready to celebrate with something other than the same boring, vanilla sex she’d had all her life.”
“And you were just the man to give it to her,” Cal surmises, twisting his mouth around the words.
“I wasn’t going to say no, I’ll put it that way.”
“See, there’s somethin’ that still bothers me, Jerry. What I can’t seem to wrap my head around is, if you’re so innocent, why’d ya take off when she din’t wakin’ up? Why not call 911 instead of walkin’ out the door an’ leavin’ her behind like some piece of trash for housekeepin’?”
“I panicked, okay?” Tharp’s right hand-the one that isn’t wired to the sensors-pushes through his carefully styled hair. “She had this hand bell she was supposed to ring in case, you know, things got too intense. But it never rang. I swear to you, the fucking thing never rang. The next thing I know, I look up and her face is…empty. No one home. And I guess I freaked out. I just gathered up my toys and ran.”
“Uh-uh. Wrong answer.”
Tharp frowns. “What?”
“I’ve seen the hotel’s security footage. You never ran, Jerry. As a matter of fact, you din’t show any panic at all. You seemed very calm under the circumstances. Like maybe you’d done it before.”
Something surfaces in the dark pools of Tharp’s eyes only to immediately re-submerge, there and then gone again, more of an impression than a microexpression. “Really? Because I was pretty fucking terrified.”
“Maybe you should look into actin’,” Cal replies, taking note of the suspect’s squared shoulders and puffed out chest-pride. “What happened next, Jerry? You thought she was dead, so you left the hotel quiet as a mouse and…?”
“My memory is a little hazy. Everything happened so fast… But I’m pretty sure I caught a cab and went straight to my condo.”
“You’re pretty sure you did? Or you did?”
“I did. Like I said, I’m hazy, but… yeah. I did. I went home.”
“What’d you do once you got there? Did you make any phone calls?”
He looks away and shakes his head. “No. I didn’t do much of anything, really. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I just kept replaying it in my mind. Over and over again. All my life, I’ve worked so hard…” A slight lift of his shoulder. “Anyway, I’d signed for the hotel room, so I knew it was only a matter of time before the police showed up. I got pretty drunk, and eventually I went to bed. I was still there when they kicked my door in.”
Cal chews thoughtfully on his bottom lip. Placing his crabbed fingers on the table, he slides them back and forth in a slow-motion shell game. “So what you’re saying is you’re guilty of reckless endangerment, not attempted murder.”
“What I’m saying,” Tharp carefully replies, “is that we were two consenting adults and things just got out of hand. I never intended to kill her. That was never part of the plan. I don’t know why she would think that.”
Even though parts of Tharp’s story don’t seem to jibe, Cal can’t sense any deception in that last statement. No leakage or change in the man’s voice, nervous tic or anything else he could point out to a jury and stake his reputation on. Just a vague gut reaction telling him this guy is bad news. Unfortunately, science isn’t based on gut reactions. It’s based on proof and, as much as Cal hates it, he knows he’s come up empty. Already wracking his brain for ways to mend fences with his partner, he pushes out from behind the table.
“Are we done here?” Tharp asks.
“We’re done, Jerry. Someone will be in to disconnect you in a minute. Then you're to walk straight out the door, and I never want to see you again. Got it?”
“Cal?”
“Yeah?” he tosses over his shoulder, not really paying attention. His mind has made another leap and now he can’t get it out of his head, the look on Gillian’s face when Tharp talked about tying her up. A fantasy, she once said. He never could read her worth a damn.
“Tell Dr. Foster I’m glad we got the chance to meet.”
Cal looks up to see Tharp smiling that collusive, off-kilter grin again, and his hands double into fists. Before he does something his partner will regret, he forces himself to leave.
Thanks for reading! All comments are welcome and appreciated.
Chapter Three: Chiaroscuro