Words Once Said...

A distinct sound of metal scratching against a fingernail screeched throughout the semi-lit dining room. All but one person pretended not to notice it. The host’s attention shifted straight towards her guest of honour. Catherine was staring into the back of her spoon while she scratched at the long neck, as if trying to rub off the dirt on the utensil. As soon as she realised the pair of eyes was on her, she stopped and dug the spoon into her soup. Maria looked away.

The guest beside Catherine stayed focused on his meal as if it was the most fascinating thing in the room. The only one safe to keep his gaze on. Catherine eyed Ryan and assessed his stream of consciousness. Interesting, this lettuce leaf is shaped almost triangular! At least, if I cut this end and this and…

“So, Ryan…” Maria finally said. “How’s the job search going? Found any bigger outlets yet? Or… or any you’re interested in?”

“I, uh… yes, there are few,” Ryan answered as he put down the knife. “Right here, in Vallago, but no one is hiring. ANTV is my best bet, for now. It’s cheap sensationalism, but they know when to be serious. Besides, it’s tough out there for, uh—”

“Philosophy students?” Catherine commented.

“…journalists,” he finished. “I’m a comms major, Maria.”

“But you sound like a philosophy student.”

Ryan rolled his eyes away from her. Maria took a sip of water, though not out of necessity. Her eyes moved left and right, up and down, until she saw Catherine stare at her from the corner of her eye.

“What about you, Cath—uh, Catherine?” Maria asked. “Are you still at, uh…”

“Still a detective,” she said, her jaw stiffened. “Inspector, but no one calls us that. Sounds too respectable. Same desk. Same… same department. No promotion in sight. No raise either. So… dead-end career. It’s nice to see a fresh new corpse every other day, though.”

“Interesting,” Maria uttered, gasping before she clenched her teeth shut.

“Very,” Catherine puffed with a big, sarcastic grin. “Three days ago, a man cut his wife open because he thought she was cheating. Real interesting.”

“I’m sorry.” Maria slowly shut her eyes and looked away.

“Stop it, Catherine.”

A fourth voice. After scowling at her supper for the entire conversation, Suzie finally raised her eyes at the woman sitting across from her.

“Stop what?” Catherine asked, her lower lip pouting out, trying to appear truly confused.

“You know how hard she’s trying. You should—”

“Suzie, it’s fine,” Maria objected.

“No, it’s not. Cathy, you shouldn’t be here if you’ve made up your mind not to respect the host.”

Catherine had no response as she sneered at Suzie. No, she did. Many responses, in fact. But she chose not to speak. Didn’t leave either. She thought it to be more effective to let Suzie reflect on her words. Words once said can’t be taken back. She was already picking at her steak more aggressively. Catherine knew Suzie, no matter how much the latter pretended otherwise. Lashing out at inanimate objects was her way of offsetting the shame she felt.

Ryan shut his eyes and returned to the reality where lettuce was interesting. Maria looked apologetically towards Catherine. Please forgive her—and me.

Each head in the room was once again down.

*************************

A rhythmic beating of a fleshy hammer against the armrest of a sofa. 116 beats per minute, 3 quarter notes. The drummer, restless and groaning, drowned out the silence with a show of his prowess. Perfect timing, through and through. The guitarist tried to hint with his eyes for him to stop, though the gesture was too subtle.

The keyboardist twiddled her thumbs over her lap, trying her best to avoid staring right at Maria’s large portrait. Everywhere anyone went, there was that photo. De Luca zoned in on her first. The behaviour of a guilty person if he had ever seen it. Fear of confronting their victim.

“It’s okay, Ms Moran,” De Luca said, making her the new focal point of the room. “There’s just some questions, that’s it.”

“I’m not—” she stuttered. The guitarist’s groan defused some of her nervousness. “I understand that! It’s just… Is this the right place to do so?”

De Luca started to observe the room as a whole. The crew was trapped in a small space with dull-red foam walls. A broad window divided their room from the recording booth. The detective sat on a sofa alongside the manager while the band members squeezed in on the opposite one. The drummer was up on the armrest.

“I would’ve preferred this happen at the station,” the detective said. “However, Mr Stiller here was unwilling to compromise. I’m not in the mood to argue, but this is the first and last accommodation I’ll make.”

The guitarist shrugged. “We still have work to do,” he said.

“I understand that, but…” Christie Moran turned her head towards the recording room. “It’s strange. It’s like her phantom is here. Multiple places. I see her singing Chances right there. I see her assaulting a large bag of chips right here, refusing to share at first. Then she sees our droopy faces and—”

“Christie, shut up,” Marlowe Stiller commanded. She obeyed. “We’re doing it here and now. You have five minutes before you have to leave. Can’t have you listening in on what we have, tonight.”

“Right—Marlowe…” De Luca straightened his back and leaned closer. “That attitude—I’m not having it. Call it arrogance or artistic pride, I don’t care. If I hear it again...”

Marlowe matched his glare. “Don’t take that tone with—”

“You’re not getting it,” De Luca said over Marlowe as he shook his head. “A woman is dead. Not a musician, not a Gyseian, not your goddammed friend or lover or whatever—a woman. A person who left behind a corpse for us to find. Ever seen a corpse, Marlowe? Ever smelled one? Takes the music right out of you. First time I smelled that stench, I vomited. Worse than rotten eggs. Or wet garbage. I smelled it this morning. Forensic specialist was opening up your vocalist to find poison. I don’t want to smell it again, kid. Never unless I have to. If, for that to happen, I need your ass on that sofa for the rest of your life, I’ll make it happen. If I need to have each of your guitars and mikes and whatevers... ripped end-to-end, I’ll do it. Do I have to keep going or will you be recanting that generous deadline?”

“That’s not what—” Marlowe sighed again, though a begrudging one this time. De Luca stared silently as the guitarist searched for the right words. A heavy, judgemental look. The look that ruled his statements out as empty threats. “I meant, it shouldn’t take that long. Locked room, hanging by the neck… That’s a clear case. Only her girlfriend had the other key, so—”

“Can we talk about that?” De Luca pointed his pen at Marlowe, flipping open his notepad with his other hand. “You were in a relationship with Ms Vegh, weren’t you? Care to give me a rough estimate on the timeline there?”

“There’s nothing to it…” Marlowe threw himself further back into the couch, jerking Christie almost out of her seat. She climbed back up as if it was nothing. “We started dating a few years back. She said she loved me. I... said it back. A month later, she said she wanted to end this. Next day, I see her kissing a woman on the stage as if they’d been together for months.”

“Are you saying she was unfaithful to you,” De Luca said, more like an affirming statement than a question.

“I think you already heard,” Marlowe said. “Everyone knows. That was the first observation the fucking tabloids made. She found excuses to disappear every weekend, and I’d stand in our room like a jackass, cancelling the plans I made for her, trying to save what we once had. She tried to deny it, but…”

De Luca assessed everyone else’s reactions. The manager tried to avoid getting involved. Die-hard fan Christie wanted to leap to the victim’s defence, but just couldn’t. Not at this. Bryan didn’t care one bit. All the drummer had to add was one question, asked while he stared at the imaginary drumset in front of him.

“How angry did that make you, Mar?”

Marlowe’s glare shifted at Bryan. He objected to the question, but De Luca didn’t.

“I wasn’t angry, you asshole. Annoyed, maybe. We were never too serious. No, she was pathetic to be around. That accent of hers gets tiring if you have to hear it all the time. I wanted her to get rid of her, but… you know how it is. Everyone knows what a hard life she’s had, and I didn’t want every headline discussing Marlowe Stiller: Public Enemy.”

“That’s disgusting, Mar,” Christie commented, with an expression to match. “How can you say things like that and still wonder why she didn’t want to be with you?”

“Nono, you’re right, Christie!” Marlowe straightened up and turned to the person beside him. Christie avoided looking directly at him. “I was the enemy! Maria is at the centre of everything! Everything that’s ever happened happened to her, and people are there just to serve her. Why not, after that scathing story of hers?”

Christie finally turned towards him and raised a finger. “If you talk about her like this one more time—”

“Let’s…” De Luca raised his pen again, pointing towards the ceiling this time. “Let’s talk about this story of hers. Ms Moran, I’d like you to answer this. You were one of the first people she shared her background with, right?”

“That’s right. She, uh… she worked at Piner’s, this little pub near the port. She tended tables and sang songs for tips. It was degrading, how they’d—I saw a sailor throwing a few coins behind her, so he could grab her when she bends down. And… she didn’t complain. Just… thanked him! Anyone who would hear this would think I’m talking about a different girl, but no. This was rebel-icon Maria Vegh. I bought her a lager and asked her to talk about herself. The way she talked; it was… No one had ever asked her that before. It was three am—I was tired and hungry and I needed to use the bathroom, but… When she talked, I couldn’t move.”

“Why’s that?”

“That was what she was like. When she tells a story, you… Every time she gulped down her drink, you knew she was finding the strength to stop talking. Her eyes were half watery and she tried to wipe them in secret. She knew it wasn’t safe. I could’ve told this to the wrong person, and… if I’d left, said, let’s talk tomorrow, I had a strange feeling she’d not be here, anymore. I endured it and… by the end, we were both sobbing.”

“Now, clarify something for me—you said you were there till three, but pubs are supposed to stop serving by one am.”

“It was the owner, there. He seemed to know Maria well enough that he left her there to close up. She did last call around twelve-forty and we sat after.”

“The owner…” De Luca mumbled as he jotted something down, right above a backwards flowchart going up from retirement—big band—small band. “Do you remember hearing something about her not common to the public anymore?”

“She… no. As callous as that was, she was careful not to expose anyone else. People who helped her escape and find a new identity in Vallago... She kept their names off her tongue. I know it wasn’t just soldiers, though. There were other people at play, here. A lot more. You can’t escape that country sneaking into a convoy, you need a bigger system than that.”

De Luca wrote again on another page. System? “I know some of the story after this,” he said. “It was only you and Mr Stiller here, doing both singing and playing your instruments. An acoustic guitar and a keyboard, am I right?”

“That’s right,” Christie said. De Luca looked at Marlowe for a moment. He was entirely unengaged, at least he seemed so. “An odd combo, but that’s all we knew. Maria arranged for us to sing at that pub, but no remuneration. Mar was… different back then, so he didn’t mind.” Christie looked at him too. This time, there was the slightest reaction on his face as he tried to look at Christie. “We performed ballads, shanties, anthems… It was unbelievable. Maria sang like an angel. I was thinking: Did these lowlife sailors think they were entitled to her?”

“Lowlives?” De Luca objected. “Why say that?”

“It was how they treated us!” she said. “They liked us so much, they thought they should pelt us with coins! Mar’s forehead was bleeding and we had to stop twenty minutes in. They said things that I… I don’t want to remember.” Christie’s voice became duller. “About me. About Maria. I was about to go back up, tell them through the mike to stop, but Maria asked me not to. Said it would only make things worse for us. For her. I knew I had to get her out of there, and that’s what I—we… did.”

“That’s a harrowing tale,” De Luca said with a nod. His words sounded insincere, but his tone didn’t. “Now, I don’t want to go on the offensive here, Ms Moran, especially after you had to relive such an awful memory. However, there are a few questions you need to answer me straight if you don’t want them brought up later. Am I clear?”

“Yes,” Christie said, a quiver in her voice. She looked once to her manager, who stayed as silent as he was throughout the interview.

“Okay. So, I need to learn about your son. You have a son, don’t you, Ms Moran?”

“I do.” She nodded peacefully. “Aiden—meaning little fire. He lives with his father in Vallago only. To be honest, I was hoping, now that we’re done, that I could buy a house near them.”

De Luca scribbled.

“You can’t live with them?”

“No. Colm—that’s the father—He and I aren’t close. Not even on great terms. I’ve made it clear I’m only doing this for Aiden.”

“Is he a bad father? A bad partner?”

“No, he’s…” Christie took a breath. “He’s alright. Flawed, but a good person. He just… doesn’t respect what I do. The life I chose to live.”

“Is he upset that you weren’t there for your son all these years?”

There was a short pause. Even Bryan flinched at the question, finally looking at Christie.

“That’s what it was. Aiden, he… he worshipped me. Watched every performance on the TV, even the after-hours kind. Colm didn’t like that one bit. Said that… that I don’t deserve half the love I get. Called me a bad mom. Told me to… Last time we talked, he told me to give up the keyboard and cook Aiden a meal, for once, or kiss him goodbye before school.”

“Hmm…” De Luca scribbled again. “How old is Aiden now?”

“Seven, but you’d think he was twelve or thirteen. Smart kid. Great memory.”

“Were you upset when Maria left the band? I mean—the financial hit alone could’ve been incredibly problematic. I’ve seen all financial records, and none of you have been good with managing your money, I’m sorry to say.”

“Not at all.” Christie shook her head. “I wanted to live humbly. Prove to Colm who I was.”

“You say that…” De Luca flipped to another page. “But I see an extravagant life in your portfolio, Ms Moran. Vacations, tours, expensive hotels…” He flipped another page. “Jewellery, clothes, cosmetics—none of it cheap. At least, none that I’d call cheap. I don’t see enough money in your accounts to buy your own home near Rosehill Avenue. What was your plan here?”

The detective knew this atmosphere. This expression. This silence that required unanimous participation. Everyone in the world would declare that the world is flawed. Less than half would admit to ever having faults themselves. But no one—not a single person he ever met owned their present shortcomings.

“Ms Moran, you’ve already placed a bid for a house in Rosehill, but you don’t have the cash, nor the credit. Who would pay for this?”

“Lay off her!” Marlowe snapped. “She’s bad with money. That’s it. Most people are. She didn’t kill Maria to get revenge. Nor does she gain anything from it. How would that work?”

“Quite easily, in fact.” De Luca opened another page of his notepad. “Ms Vegh had a sizeable insurance policy. The kind eighty-year-old men with a failing organs get. She wanted a considerable sum of it to go to the four people present in this room. And Ms Martin, of course.” Everyone but the manager widened their eyes. Bryan finally stopped his beating.

“Even me?” the drummer asked, his gaze growing distant as he realised how he sounded.

“Yes, Mr Vogler. Even you.”

“That’s not fair, we didn’t even know!” Marlowe yelled. “You think we—we coordinated some big scheme to…”

“Oh, no!” De Luca raised his open palm. “This policy is as good as void. No payouts for suicide. However, if—and humour me on this—if we were to believe she was somehow murdered for this large sum, we have to consider the precarious situation our culprit is in. They had to devise this near-perfect illusion of a suicide. Near perfect, not too good. It should only stay valid until we discover that Ms Martin—the biggest beneficiary of Ms Martin’s estate—had the only other key. Now, if I’m able to rule out suicide, I’d only have one easy conclusion. Only one person to blame. The only one who would be removed from the list of payees. While our culprit…”

Everyone in the band looked at each other as if they were trying to discover guilt inside that room. De Luca stared at each one as if he already had.