Maybe he did mean something to me.
Or maybe I cried over my heinous behavior at leaving his body without calling for help.
I unzipped the bag. Inside, a cylinder of Mitchum deodorant, a couple pairs of boxer briefs, and a white polo shirt. And there, lurking in the bottom of the bag, was a flyer for a gun shop called Tri-County Outfitters. My heart sank. How did I not see this coming? And why would he tell me to meet him at the office if he was planning to kill himself? Did he want me to find his body?
I dropped the bag and flyer and slid down onto the bed. I slipped my cell phone into the docking station and opened up my music. I hit play for an old Curtis Mayfield song, “You’re So Good to Me.” Mayfield’s soft falsetto vocals floated through my bedroom like lyrical dust settling on memories of me and Michael.
Embracing me this way . . . kiss my lips for taste . . . I can never get over, get over you.
As I sat on the bed, I stared at the empty spot beside me. His side. Michael had lain in this bed just a few nights ago. I placed my head on his pillow and inhaled, seeking the soft clean mint of his aftershave, the tangy smell of his sweat. When Michael touched me, it was like I didn’t have childhood scars or cellulite or an emerging midsection paunch. All my insecurities about those things simply melted away when I was with him. What was supposed to be a bit of harmless fun between two consenting adults was starting to cut deep.
And for the first time since I left Michael’s bloody body in that office, I wept. I lay on his side of the bed and cried with Curtis Mayfield still singing in the background . . .
I can never get over, get over you.
Chapter 6
The next morning was bright but bitter cold. The kind of deceptively sunny day that would make you run off and leave your coat at home if you didn’t check the weather first. I drove into the office with a goose-bumpy premonition sense of dread. I couldn’t explain it, but I could definitely feel it. I thought about calling in sick, but I knew it might raise more questions. Why would Ellice be so broken up over Michael’s death that she couldn’t come to work? or What’s she hiding? But what if that detective showed up again with more questions and suspicions?
I’m a big girl. I can handle this. I’m Ellice Littlejohn. Cool under pressure. Houghton had yet to get under my skin.
The few fitful hours of sleep I’d had the night before made me fuzzy and unfocused, like my brain was wading through clam chowder. I must have gone through a hundred iterations of why Michael wouldn’t kill himself. I knew him better than anyone else at Houghton. Suicide made absolutely no sense at all. Not the Michael Sayles I knew. But then again, he had a wife and two kids he’d managed to keep in the dark about our relationship. The likelihood was pretty high he could keep a secret or two from me as well.
I half listened to the radio banging out Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing.” The song ended and the DJ handed things over to a soft-spoken news anchor with the morning headlines: Yesterday morning, Michael Sayles, chief legal officer of Houghton Transportation, was found dead in his office of an apparent suicide. In a final blow, the anchor rambled off the additional commentary about the recent protests at Houghton, as if the two were related. Hardy was right. The media would link every bad thing about Houghton to Michael’s suicide. I clicked off the radio. I couldn’t bear to listen to another insensitive news report about Michael.
As I pulled into the parking garage, I noticed more protesters out front. Their numbers had nearly doubled since the day before and they were louder, too. Serious-looking brown faces like mine chanting, “Houghton hates Blacks . . . ! Houghton hates Blacks!” An uncomfortably repetitious ditty that could get stuck in your ear and nestled in your mind. A few passing cars honked their horns in support of the protesters as they drove by. The same guilty wash of shame flooded over me just like it did months ago when the protests began. Traitor. Turncoat. I collected a hefty paycheck every month from a company that rarely hired other people who looked like me. What would any of the protesters think if they knew I quietly worked at a place where they believed they were not welcome? Was I doing my part to help the tribe or taking ill-gotten gain from a corporate bigot?
Inside, the lobby echoed with a second day of frenzy in the aftermath of Michael’s death. Extra security guards in too-tight uniforms lurked around the lobby along with a couple of dour-faced police officers I recognized from the day before. Hardy and his security team did a pretty good job of holding the media circus outside the building, but there was little they could do with the unusual number of Houghton’s employees meandering and gawking out the window at the protesters and reporters.