A Storied Man

 
Herein are several people whose lives at first do not seem connected. Their paths converge unexpectedly. This is Part Eleven.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11

Part Eleven

Sitting in the surgery waiting room’s hard plastic chairs, Lori asked herself the question she knew her mother was thinking. Why did she care what happened to Doug? He barely had been a part of her life in the past, and after 10 years of forgetting him, suddenly she practically was forced into the strange world he inhabited. At least most of her friends who had given up their careers for men had fallen for relatively normal guys.

In a haze of determination she still did not understand, Lori had stood near the policeman who guarded Doug’s door, hoping to wear him down into letting her go inside. After her feet got sore without any hint of her plan working, she had given up the first round. Apparently her feminine wiles needed work, and she needed better shoes.

So, there she sat, waiting to see a man who it seemed needed more help than she could give.

A man with a slight, tight-lipped grin approached. He wore tan slacks, a brown and orange paisley tie with a burnt orange shirt, and stood more than six feet tall. He held a small spiral notepad in one hand and pushed dark brown hair from his forehead with the other.

The newcomer sat in the chair attached to the same end table as Lori’s. “Hello, I’m Detective Wallace Davies, Homicide. Is it okay if I ask you ladies a few questions?” He swept his dark brown hair off his forehead.

Nothing about him resembled the casually dressed detectives Lori sometimes assisted back in Ralston. That department didn’t have a separate homicide division, but she doubted that made a difference.

“You need to read us our rights,” said Lori’s mom.

Lori sighed. “Jesus H., Mom. He’s not arresting us.”

“Fine, then you do all the talking. This is your own deal, anyway. I’m not a part of it. And watch your language, young lady.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Breden, but I believe the victim died in your vehicle,” the detective said.

Lori’s mom pursed her lips, turned her head away, and held out her hand, palm flat and fingers straight.

“That means she’s finished talking, Detective Wallace.”

“That’s Davies.”

“Davy’s what?”

“My name is Wallace Davies.”

“Oh, sorry. To answer your question, yes, it was Mom’s car, but she just came to pick me up at the DART station.”

“Why were you transporting one…” he referred to his notes. “Doug McGruder?”

“He had some kind of attack on the train.”

“So you two were traveling together?”

“No. We just happened to be on the same train. I used to know him back at UHD. I think he had passed out drunk or something.”

“UHD?”

“University of Houston Downtown.”

Wallace wrote in his notebook. His eyelids closed halfway and his mouth gaped open as he drew in two quick breaths. He turned his head quickly and sneezed into the fold of his arm.

“God Bless you,” Lori said.

“Don’t you mean, ‘Jesus H.?’” her mother said.

Lori growled and stood. Why didn’t her mother just leave if she was going to be so difficult? “Detective, can we please go somewhere else to talk?”

“Sure. You want to grab a coffee in the cafeteria?”

——-

Wallace “Wall” Davies sat in The Gourmet Bean, a coffee shop adjacent to the hospital’s cafeteria. A man wearing a blue hospital gown sat at a nearby table, a tube from his arm leading to an intravenous drug bag hanging from a wheeled stand.

“I guess some people just gotta have their coffee,” Wall said.

Across from Wall sat a young woman who looked equal parts frightened and uncertain. He had seen it before. A guy she’s interested in gets wrapped up in a possible murder charge and she’s torn between spilling what she knows or covering up to give him a second chance.

“Detective, I want to tell you everything I know about Doug, but without my mom around. Some of it’s kind of embarrassing.”

Sometimes his first guess was wrong.

“Oh. Okay, Lori. I’m here to hear you.” He almost cringed after he uttered the phrase that one of his superiors had used during interviews. Now that he was the lead, he was doing some of the things he had sworn he never would.

“He told me on the DART this morning that he didn’t have this sensitivity to sunlight when we knew each other, but now that I’ve had time to think about it, things are making sense. Really adding up, you know? I mean, I didn’t think anything about it back in school, and I hadn’t even seen him since then.” She stopped and took a slow sip from her latte, cradling the large mug in both hands.

“I was walking on the sidewalk in front of the student center one night and this guy pulls up in his car. Doug. Out of the blue he says, ‘You doing anything tonight?’ We had a night class together the semester before, and I always thought he was nice and funny, but he had a girlfriend.

“I got in the car with him. He drove us to his duplex and we made out. It was like all of this pent-up attraction came out at once. After we went as far as I would on a first date we just hung out and talked all night.

“Everything was going great, and then he looked at his watch and said it was time for him to take me back to my dorm. Said he didn’t do sunrise on a first date. Too special, or something. After that I didn’t see him again.” She looked down at her latte and swirled the mug, seemingly mesmerized by the taupe liquid’s movement. “I just figured he decided he didn’t like me.”

Wall took another sip of his plain, black coffee. “Did he ever show any signs of being violent? Like he’s capable of what happened this morning?” he said.

“No, not that I saw. But there’s something he said in the car that’s been bothering me. I laughed it off at first, but it’s like all these things I knew about him back then add up with what I know now.”

“What did he say?”

“That he’s a vampire.”

Wall gulped down the rest of his coffee and banged the mug back to the table.

(to be continued)