“Mr. Norman, are you ready to make a statement?”
“A statement? A goddamn—? You know what, fuck yeah I’m ready to make a statement. Here’s my statement: I’m spending my life in jail for some bitch who’s having some other dude’s baby. My fucking statement.”
“Duly noted. Mr. Norman, tell us about your relations with Cassandra.”
“Tell you what? Shit, I swear, seems the last what, six months before I got in here was all booze and bad sex. Same shitty dinners, same goddam conversation. I was always looking for something different, but that bitch—“
“Mr. Norman, stay on topic. We want to hear about your relations, what happened between.”
“And I told you, man, bad sex and booze. It was the same, a routine. My life went around like a goddamned record. You know, maybe I got drunk or she something, and I beat her. Sure, I’d slap her around sometimes. Bitch deserved it. I work all damn day, she wants to quit hers and me to get a better goddamn job. I fucking dropped out of college to date that dumb slut! Better job, right. I’m a car mechanic. You guys know that. You guys know that my dad was a car mechanic. My dad’s brother was a car mechanic. Their dad was a car mechanic. We were all car mechanics. And we all dated and fucked dumb blonde sluts. I was set to become the first Norman in college, fucking Schenectady County Community College, fucking S Triple C, and goddamned if she didn’t fuck me up—God she fucked me up something fierce.”
“Alright. But what was it like? You work all day, fix someone else’s problems, their car, and you come home, and what, Mr. Norman? What’d you do?”
Norman looked confused. “What’d I do? Shit, I told you man, I friggin’ worked my ass off—oh. I see. I see what you’re doing. Haha, nice job, joke’s on Georgie! Joke’s on fucking Georgie! Think I’m gonna slip up? I’m gonna lose my cool? I already fucking LOST my cool, man! It’s gone. No more cool for George Norman, no more cool like no more booze, no more bad sex, no more damned weed. Fuck, that’s all the bitch did…”
“We understand, Mr. Norman, but we need more. Why don’t you tell us about how you two met?”
“Met? We—“ Norman’s face softened some, his cheeks losing their tightness and swelling like a baby’s. “We—we, uh…” Energy drained from his blue eyes. “Hey man, it’s colder than MArtha fucking Stewart's cunt in here. Can I get some coffee?”
“Sure, yeah. Coffee.” The detective signaled to the one-way window.
“Yeah. You guys already got my DNA on file, bloody shirt and all.”
“Yes we do, George.”
“Alright.”
“So, Mr. Norman, we left off when you were telling us about how you and Nora Palk met.
“I wasn’t telling you nothing, man. It wouldn’t come. Too cold. Anyways…” His chest heaved a sigh. “December. It was December, 2002 and I can still remember that because I was trying to find a gift for my mom and her birthday is the 14th, didn’t want her nagging me. I wanted some perfume, some good Chanel stuff. She’d like that. Mom always liked smelling good. She could look like she just bathed in axle grease, but if she smelled crisp and sophisticated, it was like she was walking around with a stud hanging off each arm, you know? Always liked to smell good."
The detective nodded, smiled, and almost crooned.
Aw, does the little murder man have a soft spot for Mummy? Suck off, get to the point.
So at the department store, just walked out of the snow, light, fluffy stuff, and shook it out of my hair. I walked, must’ve walked a mile around the damned JC Penny’s trying to find the counter for that stuff, haha. But then I found it and I know I found it because Nora was sitting there like—like—Aw, I dunno, man, like an angel. Blonde hair spilling across her shoulder, smile on her face… Like some kind of Nicole Kidman, you know? Fiery. She was leaning forward, talking to some guy in a trench coat, guy like me. He must’ve been making jokes, had that cocky look on his face. But she just smiled and tossed her hair a bit. She flirted in a professional way. I liked that. She knew what she wanted. I wanted that kind of cool.” The Styrofoam cup was cold but he toyed with it, running his fingers around the rim and twisting it without looking.
The detective was fingering his holster. “Alright, so you met her. And when was your first date?”
“Jeez, you move fast. Alright, whatever. That day I saw her, I decided I was going to ask her out. But a girl like her would take some time to crack. So, you know, I can’t decide what I want, it has to be just the right thing, you only lean like that so I can see your chest—God, did I mention that? Her breasts drove me nuts. Perfect natural. Hey, I mean, breasts are breasts, right? Nah, not hers. Hers I wanted. I can grab a handful of Pam Anderson and get a hard on, but hers… I wanted to touch them. They looked so good to touch.” Norman realized what he was talking about. “Damn, so I teased her, teased her like I know those professional types like. Thought I could shake her into dinner, or her phone number or email or something. But it was all professionalism with her. Her and her damned job, selling perfume. I’ll tell you, it was like that was the only thing she really cared about. Huh.” He still fingered the empty Styrofoam.
“So I came back the next day. She was talking to the same guy, and the guy was telling her how beautiful she was and talking it up and blah blah your eyes, and your mouth… He dropped some line about angels. What a fucking joke! Angels. Then only time I ever called her an angel was— fuck, nevermind.
“Alright, so she finally suckered the guy into perfume. He bought it and immediately she turned to me ‘cause I was next, and called me up. I stepped to her and spread my feet and said to her right in the face, no bullshit: ‘You’re coming with me to dinner. We’ll talk, have a beer, and split the tab. No date.’ And she was something else, she turned, looked that other guy right in the face and said, ‘Yeah, sure. But it’s a date.’ And kissed me on the mouth. In the middle of everything!” Norman leaned back with a laugh.
Author's Note:
Here's where I skipped some stuff because my plot was starting to go stale with all the backlog and stuff. So you gotta tell me: what part of this story can you do without??? Anyways, continuing on:
"So you were at her house, middle of the day. Tell me what happened."
“She asked me to walk the dog. I uh… I grabbed the leash. Took the dog, walked out of the house. I took the short route, just enough to let the mutt piss, and headed back. When I got back the door was open. I dropped the leash and ran inside, heard her scream. I ran upstairs. Opened the bathroom door, and this guy was there, black jeans a black sweatshirt, and he had her wrist in his right hand and she was crouching away from him. He was saying, ‘Angel, no. Angelface. Come on, babe.’ Well, I just snapped. Fuck. I… grabbed his head, twisted it to one side as hard as I could, tried to break his neck, you know? But nothing popped, so I smashed his forehead on the countertop and his knees crumpled And then I turned him over so his back was propped up against the wall and I grabbed his hood in one fist and pounded his face with the other. Reached back, threw my weight forward into it, you know? And… and..." Norman sighed and shifted off his cramped buttock. "I can’t remember anything after that.”
“Did you call an ambulance?”
“I don’t know.”
“Operator records say you did. Did the paramedics say anything to you?”
“No, man, she was dead.”
“Did they say how she died?”
“I killed her.”
“Did they say so?”
“No, dammit, I just know. I just know.”
“Mr. Norman, you know she’s not dead.”
“Dammit, I KNOW!” He tore at his scalp as if his hair were trying to bite him. “It was that Angel guy! She was seeing him from the start, not two weeks into our thing! And when she gets fucking pregnant, he’s got to be a father, needs to be a damn father, and if he can’t share his son, then he’ll just take it. Fucker. Dammit. DAMMIT!” Now the table was trying to bite him.
“Mr. Norman, that ‘Angel’ guy is one Samuel Gursten, a man you know well.”
“I know that guy? No way. No way in hell. I don’t know him. I mean, the store, yeah, but I don’t—”
“You do. We have it on record.”
“I don’t know that fucker.”
“You do. And we have the evidence to prove it.”
“What? How…?” The detective smiled. His teeth splayed out, iron-bar straight.
“Mr. Norman, are you aware that you were adopted?”
Although it is still interesting how he seems to hate her so much now, but when he's talking about first meeting her he seems pretty happy about it, despite the fact that he has all this knowledge of what's going to happen between them.
