Anderson's face switched from anguish to irritation. "The logical choice. Because my father is dead and I found him, that makes me a suspect. All right. I was at school all day. I teach at NYU. Please hurry and check that out so you can stop wasting your time looking into me and find the real killer."
Leo arched a brow. He said nothing to the small outburst nor did he voice his offence. He merely scribbled in his notebook before asking another query. "When was the last time you spoke to your dad?"
"This morning about seven-ish. I'd just finished at the gym and I had a lecture at eight thirty so I had to basically rush him off the phone so I could get to class on time."
"And your reason for coming by today?"
"Today is Friday. We have a long-standing dinner every Friday to catch up and the like. I mean, we don't get to talk all that much because of his being on the bench and my lectures and markings… I was late today—been running late all day. I shouldn't have been…"
"Don't do that. None of this is your fault."
"Then whose fault is it?"
Leo wanted to tell him it was his fault—that as a cop he should have known something was wrong but he licked his lips. "How did your father seem when you last spoke with him?"
"The same—looking forward to our dinner. He called me to remind me we had a date planned." Anderson chuckled softly, sadly. "I always forget things."
"And where were you, say, four or five hours ago?"
Leo noticed the hard way Anderson stared at him. For a while he thought he wouldn't answer but Anderson shrugged. "In a lecture. I told you I was there all day."
Leo made a mental note to check that out then closed the small notebook he always carried and shoved it into his pocket. Though he had more questions, Anderson looked so sick he thought if he kept him there any longer, the man was liable to pass out. Though he skipped his regular
don't leave town
speech, he did add, "I may have more questions later. Do you have someone to take you home? I don't know if you should be driving right now."
"I'll be fine. I can handle that. What about my father?"
"Well. The ME has to do an autopsy on him. After she's done, you can make arrangements to get him buried."
"Yeah…"
"Before I go—is your father a fan of flowers?"
"Flowers? Not really. He's allergic to quite a few of them—they make him sneeze, irritates his eyes, so he just stayed away from all of them the best he could. Why?"
"No reason. It's probably nothing," Leo replied, handing Anderson one of his business cards. "If you think of anything…"
Chapter Two
Maybe he was dreaming. Anderson sat in the front seat of his car in the parking lot in a complete daze. He was afraid to move, for any minute now he would wake up and his father would be staring at him with worried frustration at his inability to pay attention. Anderson hardly breathed. All he had to do was sit still long enough, the nightmare would be over, and he wouldn't have to be sad anymore. But a car flying by pulled him from his trance and the pain returned without mercy. When he finally got enough strength to leave the car, he walked through his front door, closed it behind him, and reached for a picture on his bedside table. He didn't pick it up but ran a finger over his father's forehead.
"What am I supposed to do now?" Anderson whispered then waited to see if the answer would come. When it didn't, Anderson sat on his bed in the darkened bedroom. As he stared straight ahead, he held the detective's card loosely between his fingers. What was he going to do now? He wanted to cry, to scream—anything—but his body had simply gone numb. His lips slipped open and his breath began leaving him in a hoarse sound. His chest pumped up and down as images of his father's dismembered body flashed through his eyes. Gritting his teeth, Anderson closed his eyes and bit back the growl that threatened to leave his body. He was not accustomed to such loss. He wasn't used to the sight of a dead body, let alone one that had been so disrespected as his father's had been. He couldn't deal.
Turning on the television didn't help any because news of his father's death was splashed all over the channels. Even CNN had it, which shocked him.
Reaching over, he grabbed the phone and held down the one key. There was a slight music and the phone began ringing.
"Hello?"
"Bee…" he replied.
"Andy?
Ni hô ma?
" Byung questioned in Cantonese.
Anderson's mind was too clogged to reply in the foreign language. Though he'd grown up with his best friend and learned the language fluently, sometimes he just couldn't bother with the complicated conjugations. "Dad's dead," he spoke in English. "He's gone, Bee."
"Whoa! Hold up." Byung's voice was riddled with confusion. "What do you mean, he's dead?"
"Byung please—I can't—I can't deal right now… I need you."
"All right. I'll be there. Just gimme a few minutes to put some pants on."
Anderson hung up the phone before Byung could and sat back against the bed staring at a picture of himself, Jazmon, and Byung. A sick feeling of selfishness soared through him for he knew chances were Byung had a shoot of some kind in the morning and needed sleep. But Anderson needed someone—he craved and ached for arms to hold him.
He wanted a drink—something hard—but he knew should he start, he wouldn't stop. He knew he didn't want to think about anything.
"Dude, you are nuts." Byung laughed when he tossed the football across the short space to Anderson. "There's no way your dad would ever agree to that. He wants you to become a cop or something like that."
"Well, it's not really about what he wants." Anderson frowned. "I mean, it's not like I'm going to tell him I want to quit school to become a male stripper named Stretch Marks."
To his utter shock, Byung broke out laughing as the football sailed towards him. The ball missed Byung by mere inches and spiraled through the air to land against a large tree in the backyard. "It's not that funny." Anderson smirked.
"Stretch Marks!" Byng explained. "Come on! That's comedic gold!"
"What Stretch Marks?" Jazmon's voice called from behind the friends. While Anderson turned to speak with his father, Byung kept on laughing.
"Hi Mr Williams." Byung stopped long enough to call while walking by the older man into the house. "Stretch Marks," he muttered just before disappearing into the house, his mirth continued to echo from inside. Anderson glared at the house. He shook his head with a chuckle then turned again to his father. "Dad, there's something I need to talk to you about."
"Sounds serious." Jazmon eyed his son. A hint of nervousness danced through the older Williams' eyes. "What did you do?"
Anderson grinned. "Nothing—yet. But seriously. I don't know how to tell you this."
"Just spit it out."
"Dad, I don't want to be a cop," Anderson blurted out. "I don't want to carry a gun. I don't want to chase bad guys or vice versa—none of that."
"All right." Jazmon's lips were pressed into a thin line. Together, father and son walked away from the house and towards the swimming pool a little further down. "What do you want to do?"
"Teach," Anderson explained.
Jazmon laughed. "There is nothing wrong with that," the judge said as he nodded his head. "I didn't want you to be a cop per se. I just wanted you to do something that will make you happy and make a difference. There's no better way than becoming a teacher. Hopefully with you in the classroom, I won't have to get any more young ones in my courtroom."
"I highly doubt that." Anderson smiled. "I was afraid I'd let you down."
Jazmon smirked—his big, brown eyes grew misty with love and mirth, "The only way you could let me down, Andy, is if you became a stripper named Stretch Marks."
Anderson's eyes widened in shock after his father's final words. He opened his mouth to speak but was left speechless. How could a person reply to something like that? His feet stopped moving but his father continued walking away, laughing.
That laughter was one of the things Anderson would always remember about his father. Even at sixty-five, Jazmon had a laugh so warm and contagious when he was having a good time, everyone wanted to be with him. It was a sound that made your heart happy when you heard it. It was steady, strong, and something that had lulled Anderson to sleep so many nights as a child. Before Patricia, his mother, died when he was a boy, Anderson would stay up long after his parents thought he was asleep. On Wednesday nights, he would listen to Patricia and Jazmon in their room, clinking wine glasses together and laughing softly as they whispered. After his mother's death, Anderson thought his world was over. He had his father then, but now his father was dead.
Banging on the front door pulled Anderson from his memory and he stood up. Wavering slightly on his feet, he hauled his body down the stairs and yanked the door open. Byung stepped forward and Anderson walked into his friend's body, pressed his face to Byung's neck and wrapped his arms tightly around him.
"I'm so sorry," Byung whispered. "I heard it all on the news on my way over. They didn't explain what happened."
Byung rubbed Anderson's back and in some strange way, it took just a bit of the ache away. Still he clung to the only rock he had left. When he stepped back, Byung cradled his face to peer into his eyes. "I know this is a stupid question but how are you feeling?"
"Like any minute now someone is going to jump out of a corner and tell me it's some kind of sick, practical joke."
"Oh, Andy."
The two discussed what happened in hushed voices until Anderson was all talked out. His throat was dry as if he'd swallowed sandpaper. He wasn't sure what to say next, so Anderson walked away, leaving Byung to enter the kitchen. He flopped against one of the stools. He rubbed his tired eyes and yawned.
"Have you eaten?" Byung followed.
"Byung…"
"That's your way of saying you don't want to talk about it anymore," Byung spoke up.
Byung brushed by him and pulled the fridge open. "Since I know I can't get you to eat anything much, how about fruit? Yes, that's what you'll eat. I want you to eat some fruit."
"Bee, I'm not hungry." Anderson frowned.
"I don't care if you're hungry or not." Byung put his foot down. "Now, you're going to eat. Then you're going to get some sleep. When you're up to it, you and I are going to sit down and you tell me what Pops wanted."
"Funeral arrangements and stuff?"
Byung nodded.
"They haven't done the autopsy yet."
"Yeah, but the decisions still need to be made—okay, we'll wait until then."
Moaning, Anderson nodded stiffly. He knew he would not win once Byung got that stubborn look into his eyes. "Fine," Anderson surrendered. He sat there like a perfect moron while his best friend silently prepared a fruit platter and placed it before him. He hesitated but when he looked up to see Byung eyeing him intently, Anderson picked up a grape and popped it between his lips.
"What did the cops say to you? Do you need a lawyer?"
"I doubt it." Anderson shook his head. It made him sick they were questioning him like he was a suspect. How could they even begin thinking that? It wasn't enough his father was murdered? How much more did they think Anderson could possibly take? Anderson chewed, swallowed then spoke. "They asked me the regular generic questions. I wanted to scream my bloody head off. I wanted to just—I feel so useless. I should have felt something was wrong, you know? I should have…"
"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," Byung interrupted while taking a stool beside him. "You can sit here for the next fifty years beating yourself over the head with all the things you can't change or you can go out there, light a fire under the cops' asses, and make sure they don't cluster-fuck this. You can't be a sobbing mess right now. I know you may feel like you want to curl up and die but you can't. I won't let you. Now eat. I'll find some orange juice."
Picking up a strawberry, Anderson couldn't help staring at it. Normally he would be the first person ready to devour them but as he stared at the fruit, he had no desire to see or eat anything red. Byung's words came to him once more and he inhaled before shoving the piece of fruit into his mouth. Byung was right. The best revenge was to live—but he felt so guilty being alive, breathing while his father sat in pieces in a medical examiner's fridge with a tag on his toe. No one deserved to die like that.
"Bee, do you remember dad ever having flowers in the house?"
"Uhm—flowers? What kind of flowers?"
"I don't know."
"Er—no. Pops was allergic to flowers, wasn't he? I remember once I brought you over some roses for your room and he couldn't stop sneezing. Why?"
"Do you think he could have found one he wasn't allergic to—that he was only allergic to some and not others?"
"I don't know—Andy, what's going on in that head of yours?"
Anderson shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe it's nothing. Just something the detective asked me. Can you stay?"
"Always." Byung nodded.
Anderson lay on his side, body half curled facing his best friend. He remembered the last time they lay like that he and his mother had just passed away. Clutching Byung's hand, the two lay awake, staring at each other all night and in the morning they rose together and sat on the balcony silently. The same situation caused them to share a bed again—sadness.
Blinking, he inhaled and his body shook. Byung reached for his hand and he gave it over without hesitation. They lay there in the same position until sun streamed through the window and the only reason Anderson got up was to call in sick to work. Thankfully he didn't have to explain what happened for they had it splashed all over the news. His dean told him to take all the time he needed and it would be explained to his students.
* * * *
But after being at home freaking out and losing his mind, Anderson returned to work the first chance he could.
When he walked into the class, the students went silent. He knew they'd heard what had happened. He bit down on his lower lip and inhaled to calm his senses before looking up. "Hi," he managed. His voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he moved to sit on the edge of his desk and faced the large lecture hall. "I'm sure most of you know what happened. And I know I probably should be home right now but if I stay home, I'm going to rip out all the hair I have and as you can see, it's not much."