Fatal Flaw Part 51

"You want to live your life turned around, wallowing in the past. Fine. Wallow. Think it through."

"Stop it."

"Think it through, Guy, and then tell me how true and perfect was the love you had with Hailey Prouix."

"I don't believe you. I don't believe a word."

"Don't take my word on it," I said. "Just think it through."

The questions I had just asked him were the same questions I had climbed the stairs of the SeaBright Motel to put to Dwayne Joseph Bohannon, and why I had wanted to go in there alone. At first I intended to trick him into a confession. That was why I had brought the tape recorder. But the sight of his gentle circling and self-flayed flesh had changed my plans. It wasn't a confession anymore I was seeking when I entered that room, but still I had questions that needed answers. I was hoping for some explanation other than the one I had developed, desperate for some innocuous answer that had been eluding me. Instead he showed me a scene different from what I imagined, more painful, more pathetic, more heartbreaking. It chokes me now to even conjure it.

Henderson, Nevada. A private room at the Desert Winds. Cutlip sits in his chair, sitting as tall as his withered frame will allow, staring down. Dwayne stands beside him. And curled on the floor, like a little girl lost, in tears, like a girl facing punishment, curled on the floor is Hailey Prouix. I remember her always so strong, in control, always the master of the situation, so I find this tableau incomprehensible. I had expected to find Hailey the manipulator, the plotter, the Hailey that I knew, but I believed Bobo, every word, and so she is on the floor, in tears, begging. Begging? Begging that he not demand this of her. Begging him to leave her finally alone. But Cutlip isn't listening, like he's never listened. You been a bad girl You been a bad girl, he tells her, like he's told her before, hundreds of times before. You done let it climb out of control. And now there's trouble, and someone need clean up the mess. He'll take ever thing we have, ever d.a.m.n thing. But I know how to handle p.e.c.k.e.rheads like that. You've been a bad girl, and once again I need clean up your mess. Like before. For twenty-five years that's all I done. But this is it, no more after this, I'm too tired, too sick. My love can only stretch so far. No, don't be going on like that. I always know'd what you needed before, and I know this time, too. Now, you tell Bobo here where he hides that gun you told me about. You tell Bobo what we need know and your daddy'll take care of it, just like I always done before. You done let it climb out of control. And now there's trouble, and someone need clean up the mess. He'll take ever thing we have, ever d.a.m.n thing. But I know how to handle p.e.c.k.e.rheads like that. You've been a bad girl, and once again I need clean up your mess. Like before. For twenty-five years that's all I done. But this is it, no more after this, I'm too tired, too sick. My love can only stretch so far. No, don't be going on like that. I always know'd what you needed before, and I know this time, too. Now, you tell Bobo here where he hides that gun you told me about. You tell Bobo what we need know and your daddy'll take care of it, just like I always done before.

Hailey Prouix.

Even before Bobo confirmed it, I knew in my heart that Hailey was part of the plot to kill Guy. A final sacrifice, a final offering to the destructive love, the Shiva of her emotions, that incomprehensible thing between her and her uncle that warped her and defined her at the same time, one final unspeakable act to end it once and for all.

She was so happy that last day of her life, so relieved. The night before, I was to be her alibi. She had expected to return home and find Guy dead on the mattress. Guy had said she was startled to see him at home, and I'm sure she was, having braced herself for the sight of her bloodied and dead fiance. And then, a.s.suming that Bobo had backed out of the killing, relief fell upon her like a prayer. Then and there she decided to leave Guy, to do the right way what she was letting Cutlip do the worst way-the troubles, the money, the scandal be d.a.m.ned. That was why she was so happy that last day, why our lovemaking was so joyful and expectant, why the possibilities seemed suddenly so verdant.

And so she had ended it with Guy, that very night, and was lying in bed with a fresh bruise and a fresher future, when she heard the front door of the house open, and she knew, immediately, who it was. Bobo. He hadn't given up, he had simply gotten the day wrong or, scared off by the traffic ticket, had delayed a day, not thinking it mattered. And now here he was searching for the gun. And now here he was coming toward her step by step. And now the past that she had thought she had shucked forever just the night before was climbing up the stairs.

It is impossible to know what was darting through her mind at that very moment. Sadness, fear, disgust, despair, relief? Was she thinking of her father and the way he deserted her those many years ago by his death? Was she thinking of the dark nights when her uncle crept into her room? Was she thinking of Jesse Sterrett and the way he was murdered and how she protected her uncle while she used her lover's death to get herself out of Pierce? Was she thinking of me? It is impossible to know what was darting through her mind, but we do know what she did as Bobo approached. She didn't shout, she didn't rise and send him away, she didn't pull Guy from the bathtub to protect her, she didn't call for the police. What she did instead was lift the comforter high over her head so that Bobo wouldn't know for sure who was beneath, so that Bobo would think it was the original target, so that Bobo would take the gun and fire into the mattress and end it all.

She wasn't the first Prouix sister to try to kill herself, but she was the one who succeeded.

There were moments when I had imagined I understood Hailey Prouix, and, to be fair, not all of those moments were in the depths of s.e.x when understanding flows like cheap champagne through the overheated synapses of the brain. There were moments when I felt a deep connection with her, moments when I believed I caught a glimpse of the interiors beneath her lovely sh.e.l.l. There were moments, G.o.d help me, when I thought the solution to Hailey's sadness might just be me.

And now, sitting in the dark on the steps of the house in which she died, sitting beside another of her lovers, all I knew with certainty was how little of her I understood. What is love when it is based on myth, on a false image, on the lies we tell ourselves? What is love when the imagined object of the emotion bears no relation to actuality? Can that even be love at all?

I didn't have any answers, but by believing I loved her I had convinced myself I understood her, and in so doing I had failed her. If I had the least inkling of what she'd been through, maybe I could have done something, said something, forced something, maybe I could have changed everything. But of course I did not. I had deluded myself that I understood, when in reality I understood nothing.

Nothing.

"Oh, my G.o.d," said Guy in a moan of recognition. He was thinking it through, we were thinking it through, and it would take us both a very long time.

About the Author.

William Lashner is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a criminal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice. His novels- is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He was a criminal prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice. His novels-Fatal Flaw; Bitter Truth; Hostile Witness-have been published worldwide in ten languages. He lives with his family outside of Philadelphia.

Also by William Lashner

Veritas

Hostile Witness