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“No,” said Helen, sounding half distracted.
Ed saw a patrol car and switched to speakerphone. He feared the cop might give him a ticket after spotting him with a cell phone in hand.
“The little Napoleon seems to be following me. He knew I was going back to school. Are you sure you never told him?”
“Don’t let him upset you. He’s out of our lives.”
He wanted to ask why Kenny claimed she wasn’t “entirely truthful,” but he held back for now. He assumed Kenny planned to provoke a break up and make him homeless, again.
“I wanted to kill him,” said Ed, lowering the music.
The traffic light turned green, and some redneck behind him blew the horn. Ed resisted the urge to shoot him the bird. The tires screeched, and the truck engine roared as it passed on the right. At that moment, Ed thought he heard a German-accented voice from his back seat say: “Lebensunwertes leben – life unworthy of life.” He didn’t see anyone in the rearview mirror, so he ignored it.
“Promise me you’ll tell me if Kenny ever contacts you.”
Helen scoffed. “I promise to put it on the growing list of your paranoid demands.”
Instead of yelling about her remark, he hung up. It wasn’t worth a fight. He doubted she would remember when she returned home anyway. After he parked in the garage, he rushed into their home to search under every lamp and table. He even opened the telephone receiver to look for listening devices. With no evidence, he blamed himself for allowing Kenny to crawl under his skin again.
The phone rang, and he expected to hear Helen’s voice. Instead, he recognized the voice of his father. “I regret we won’t be visiting. Your mother has the flu.”
Ed took the phone outside on the balcony and fixed his eyes on the busy traffic below, half relieved he wouldn’t have to see the disappointment in his dad’s eyes. “I understand. I’m sorry for being such a screw up. I’m ashamed I ran away. I never want to run from anything again.”
“We forgive you, and we’re proud of you for trying to get your life back together. Your friend, Kenny, told us you’re planning to go back to school.”
Ed squeezed the phone. “When did Kenny talk to you?”
“He called yesterday.”
Ed caught himself brainstorming for the perfect weapon, escape plan and alibi for Kenny’s murder. “Please don’t accept his calls. He has real problems, and he’s not my friend.”
“Don’t forget he saved your life and gave you a place to live.”
For a second, Ed returned to the suspicion that his parents were imposters. He doubted his dad would speak like this. He decided this suspicion was crazy and blamed illegal drugs and his head injury for this paranoia.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go now. I’ll call you back later.”
“Wait,” said his dad. “If you’ve got a second, I also called to talk to you about April. There’s something new.”
Ed gripped the wrought-iron balcony railing and looked up at the clouds. He wondered what could be new; April was as dead and never coming back.
“I planned to tell you this in person. Your mother and I want you to come home this week. A well-connected friend of mine said the cops might have a new suspect in the murder case. I don’t have a name, but my friend expects an indictment and a long public trial.”
Ed ran his hands through his hair. He felt another attack of heartburn coming and imagined rows of camera lights, flickering against his face. He doubted he could endure all the pressure and scrutiny, and he didn’t want to relive her death.
“Give me a few days to think about it.”
Ed ended the call and reentered the apartment. He wanted to get drunk, but he thought that would only count as hiding from his problems. Instead, he decided to go on a long jog and left Helen a note on the fridge. As he ran down the cracked sidewalk toward the zoo, he wondered how long it might be before someone knocked on his door with a judge’s order to return to Louisiana for interrogation.
He pictured himself stumbling over his words under a hard-white light, bombarded by intrusive questions: Hadn’t you and April been fighting that night, and hadn’t she mentioned second thoughts about the wedding?
Ed sprinted past the lion statues at the gates of the zoo and ran through rows of walking tourists to the section of the zoo with real lions. He breathed hard as he watched one of the 400-pound cats bask in the sun. He imagined the ferocious beast, tackling April’s killer and biting through the ski mask.
He jogged past the tiger’s area and smiled at the big round eyes of the three male tiger cubs to his right, so cute yet so deadly. He remembered how April often mentioned plans for raising children together. He wanted to punish her killer for wrecking this dream, even if it required his own discomfort in a legal court. Thirty minutes later, he returned to his apartment and looked everywhere for Helen, wanting to share his new plan to fly to Louisiana as soon as possible. He tried to reach her by phone, but his call went straight to voice mail.
He headed for the shower, looking down at his long-neglected guitar in the corner. His face tingled as he rinsed it under the shower jet, and the scent of the vapor invigorated him. He congratulated himself for resisting the urge to get drunk and finding a positive way to cope with stress. He also credited himself for deciding not to hide from the upcoming trial. He wanted everyone to know he never intentionally exposed April to harm.
He towel dried his hair in front of the mirror and dreaded having to see Kenny testify in a court room. When he tried to reach Helen again, she didn’t answer her cell phone. After two hours passed, he worried she might be hurt, so he called the local hospital to learn she might have admitted herself as a patient.
