Ava rose with a waver and walked toward me. She leaned my way and I thought her equilibrium was failing until her lips found mine. She tasted like lime perfume and her lips were cold. But her tongue was warm and we held tight as her hands stroked my back and kneaded my buttocks. Between the lime and vodka I smelled the heat of her need.
We half walked, half staggered to the dimly lit bedroom. I sat her on the bed and she nibbled between my neck and ear. Despite the circumstances I heard the amoral beast of my body howling.
'Wait here, darling,' I said. 'I want to take a quick shower. But first let me get your drink.'
'Oh, God, pleash hurry,' she said, and I wondered if she was referring to the shower or the booze. I brought her another thermonuclear blast of vodka.
I sat on the toilet seat and ran a cold shower for several minutes before climbing in myself. Fifteen minutes later she was sprawled and snoring. When I tugged the cover up to her neck, my knuckles touched the warmth of her lips, and I let them rest there. I had so far seen two Ava Davanelles, the first a joyless, brooding ghost, alert to slights and quick to anger, the second a sun-bright dazzle of the delicious, all smile and wit and sweet, laid-back laughter. Were both no more than fables from a bottle? If so, where between the extremes resided the true Ava Davanelle?
Was it the woman I saw in the hall outside Willet Lindy's office, her fists knotted tight and her face a white horror of conflict and struggle?
I should have felt anger and betrayal, not by the woman whose breath warmed my hand, but by myself. My self-serving need to understand and battle discord had drawn me to a place where I lacked knowledge or solution. I could not understand the situation, but since it had crossed into my life, I could not in good conscience turn and retreat.
Or could I? None of this was of my making.
I oversaw Ava's sleep for twenty minutes, then went to the deck and watched the stars assemble until their noise overwhelmed me and I went to bed.
CHAPTER 12
I once found Bear on his knees in front of the toilet, hand jammed in his mouth and tickling the back of his throat to jump-start the retching that pushed the hinge-toxins from his stomach. At 6:30 I awoke to the same sounds behind my bathroom door.
I knocked tentatively. 'Ava? Are you all right?' 'Give me a few minutes,' she said. 'I'm I'm ill.' A muffled moan. More gagging. I put bread in the toaster in case she needed something in her stomach.
Five minutes passed before the door opened, last night's ethanol glow replaced by the starchy pallor I'd seen at the morgue. Her eyes were wet and red. Beads of sweat covered her forehead. I'd opened the windows and the sound of the Gulf poured in.
'I, um, I'm so embarrassed,' she said. 'I must have the flu or something. I guess the drinks must have gone to my head.' She pushed strands of hair behind her ears with shaking fingers.
'You were pretty gone.'
'Flu,' she said. 'It's been going around at work.'
'Sure.'
'Uh, did we that is…'
'We were the epitome of propriety. You got tired, I steered you to the bedroom. I took the couch.' I hoped my collar hid the bite marks she'd sucked into my neck as I'd wrangled her to the bed.
Relief dropped her shoulders a full inch. 'I'm sorry to put you out, I I don't remember much. Didn't I just have two drinks?'
Groping through the blackout.
'Maybe three,' I said. 'Are you sure it's the flu?'
'I what do you mean?'
'I got the impression that you had a few pops before you arrived.'
'What?' A show of surprise. Moi?
I shrugged my shoulders 'An impression.'
'Are you saying I showed up drunk?' An edge to the question. I noticed her color was returning.
'I'm saying you got pretty blitzed for a couple light-light drinks, Ava.'
'Maybe they weren't as light as I asked for.'
Nobody does defensive better than a guilty alky. Her voice was getting stronger and her shakes were gone. 'I thought it was the flu,' I said.
She'd stopped sweating. Her eyes were clearing. They flared at me.
'Maybe that's just part of it. Maybe you got me plastered. Maybe you
'
'Maybe I'm the one who planted that stash of vodka in your car.'
Her eyes went saucer-wide. 'You looked in my…' Guilt and anger fought in her face and anger won. 'I think you're a bastard,' she hissed, grabbing her purse from the table. She blew by me and I saw wobble in the legs, smelled sweat and vomit and an astringent tang in her wake. The door slammed shut and seconds later came a grinding of sand as she fishtailed away.
I pretty much knew what I'd find before I went to the cabinet. I shook the vodka bottle and watched it bubble abnormally and heard a hiss as I unscrewed the cap. Watered. I checked the bathroom wastebasket and found a crumpled Dixie cup hidden at the bottom. It smelled as expected, making her morning passage easy to map: she awakened with the craving, pulled a cup from the bathroom dispenser, and tiptoed to the liquor cabinet to fill it. She replaced the removed vodka with water and returned to the bathroom to alternately drink and vomit until she absorbed enough alcohol to start the buzz. When the door opened she was already getting straight, if that's what you'd call it shakes leaving, eyes clearing, mind defogging. Right now she was working on the vodka under her car seat. Hair of the dog that bit you, it was humorously called. But I knew this dog. It didn't bite; it ate you whole, and there wasn't a damn thing funny about it. I gave Ava twenty-five minutes and phoned her home. No answer. I gave it another heart-pounding five before re dialing 'Hello?' she chirped a little too loudly, but pleasant and controlled.
Juiced again, but at least she was home. I gave silent thanks to whoever pulls the levers and gently hung up.
Harry and I headed toward downtown to interview a woman who'd known Deschamps both personally and professionally. I was in a funk and lying in the backseat with my arms tight over my chest, a doleful mummy.
Harry shook his head with regret. 'That pretty little doc, a drunk.
Sad.'
Like me Harry didn't use the word drunk as a pejorative; we both knew too many recovering alcoholics AA folks, mainly who easily referred to their drinking selves as drunks, alkys, booze hounds or whatnot. I figured it for a badge of courage, the guts to look in the mirror and tell the truth. Then get healed if you stayed honest with your reflection.
'When she gets found out it'll be her job,' he said. 'And she'll get found out.'
Harry was right; when Ava's alcohol abuse was discovered she'd be sent to a rehab program and reassigned to a lesser position, like filing.
Another pathologist would be hired. Ava'd eventually get eased out the door like a bulldozer eases aside a sapling. It'd be a fast track to the street Clair wasn't long on sympathy.
Harry spoke over his shoulder. 'What you figuring on doing about it, Cars?'
'Why would I be doing something about it?'
'You got a feeling for the girl, don't you?'
'I barely know her, Harry.'
He swung the car down a side street and jammed on the brakes. I felt the front tire bang the curb, roll up over it, fall back down. Harry parking.
'Come and sit up front, bro.'
