someone busts into your house bent on doing harm, you can shoot him to stop him, all legal and proper. But I didn’t just shoot Charlie to stop him; I shot him to punish him for all the things he’d done, and for all the things I had done to myself.
There was no jury in my case. My lawyer thought it would be better for just a judge to hear the evidence. Something about me not being a very sympathetic witness or whatever, plus Charlie’s family was pretty well-known in the area, a bunch of street hoods with connections to bigger criminal syndicates, and not many people wanted to get on their bad side. An untainted jury would have been hard to put together, in other words.
Judge Culpepper was a graying man in his late sixties, old-school Louisiana bred, born, and raised. He probably had a couple good ole boys as sons. He didn’t really care that Charlie was twice my size or that I had a history of bruises and broken bones documented by the local hospital. He saw those four extra shots for what they were: revenge.
And so I went down for manslaughter. I guess he used up a little bit of that self-defense my lawyer argued about to lower the charge from murder. Lucky for me, I wasn’t in prison for long before I was out on probation.
It all went down five years ago today. The anniversary of Charlie’s death has arrived once more, and I’m damn glad it’s falling on a Monday. I need to drown out the noise in my head with an avalanche of work.
The door opens from the other part of the room and Ozzie walks through, exiting his private quarters. His dog Sahara is on his heels, and just behind Sahara is tiny Felix. He’s some kind of Chihuahua mutt that May owns. The mutt doesn’t pay me any attention, always focused on his big, hairy girlfriend who’s ten times his size but just as in love with him as he is with her. Even dogs are better at relationships than I am.
“Morning,” Ozzie says.
I nod. “Morning. How was your weekend?”
“Good.” He walks over to take his seat at the head of the table. “You have breakfast yet?”
“Cereal.”
“Breakfast of champions.”
“Yup.”
The door Ozzie just entered through bursts open and May comes rushing into the room. As soon as she sees me, her face lights up.
“Toni! I’m so glad you’re here. You get to be the second one after Jenny to hear my good news.” She stops near the end of the table and claps her hands a few times before holding them out at me. “Look. Look, look, look!”
I stare at her hands, but all I see are manicured fingernails that are longer than they should be. She’s scratched me more than once during our hand-to-hand combat practice sessions.
“What am I looking at?”
She shakes her hands and thrusts them out farther. “Look! Look at my finger!”
My eyes bulge out a little when I finally catch on to what’s got her so excited. I suppose I knew this was coming, but to actually see it is another thing than just imagining it. “You have a new ring.”
She claps her hands and jumps up and down, squealing. “Can you believe it?” She goes to Ozzie and hugs him from behind, putting him in a loving headlock. “He asked me to marry him last night, the big lug.”
Oh well. His funeral. “Congratulations.”
May levels her gaze at me. “I want you to know that this will not change anything between you and Ozzie or between you and me.”
I scowl at her, not quite getting what she’s saying, but pretty sure I’m not going to like it. “What?”
Ozzie turns his head and looks up at May. “Would you mind getting me another cup of coffee, babe?”
She pats him on the head like he’s a Chihuahua. “Okay, babe. Coming right up.” She switches her attention over to me. “Do you want one too?”
I still feel lost. Maybe caffeine will help. “Sure.”
When she’s in the kitchen making noise, I lower my voice so we can speak semi-privately. “What was she talking about?”
Ozzie shakes his head and whispers back, “She’s worried you’ll be jealous. Just play along with it.”
I hiss out my annoyance. I’ve never had a thing for Ozzie and never will. She’s welcome to him; he’s way too bossy for my liking, plus he’s too big. He’d never hurt a woman in anger, but I tend to bring out