Gold, Fire & Refinement

Chapter Thirty-Two

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." ~Ernest Hemingway

Uniformed police officers were milling around inside the living room of a luxurious Las Vegas condo, and two plain-clothed detectives had Eva Pearl Brion cornered outside on the patio. They were questioning her, not arresting her. Still dazed and stunned by all that happened over the past several hours, in the moment, she was in shock. She wasn't nervous. Or anxious. She felt overwhelmed. Astonished and not feeling anything. But she knew the police were there for a reason. They were looking for drugs, Frank's drugs. Only she knew they wouldn't find any. Frank never kept drugs in the home they shared, and that's how she knew they wouldn't find any. 

They told her they were officers Larry Bartel and Gwen Gyllenhall. They were grilling her about Frank's drugs, about his use and his abuse of drugs. Eva had already talked to the male detective, and now the man looked on as the woman conducted a follow-up interview. 

"Ma'am, you say you lived here with Mr. Mallory?"

"I did," Eva said. "I mean, I do live here."

"Mr. Mallory, he was forty-two years old, and you?"

"I'm twenty-six. No, wait. I just turned twenty-seven. A month ago. In July."

"And he lived here with you until he left to go to the party on Friday evening?

"That's right. That's what he told me. He said he was going to a party." Feeling numb from head to toe, she dry washed her face with both hands before crossing her arms. She had just learned. The officers had just told her. The drug parties Frank had started going to, again—after swearing off drugs for more than three years, had finally caught up with him.

"And you did not go to the party with him. Is that right, Ms. Brion?"

"No. That's right. I didn't go." She and Frank had once attended weekend parties together. Parties just like the one he hadn't come home from. He always wanted her to go with him even though he knew there was no way she would ever use illegal drugs. But he always wanted her to go with him to parties. He liked showing her off. 

The parties usually started early in the day on Saturday and stopped sometime on Sunday when the last conscious person either passed out or fell asleep. At the last party Frank would ever go to, he was the last one to pass out. That meant he won; he was king of the party because he partied more than anyone else.

"Did you know Frank used drugs?"

The police woman was studying her face, probably wondering why she wasn't crying. "I knew," she said. "I kept begging him to stop. He wouldn't. But ... he never used them when he was here with me. He never kept anything here ... in our home. He used ... when he went to the parties."

"You told my partner Mr. Mallory was very angry when he left the condo on Friday evening. Do you know why he was so angry?"

"He wanted me to go with him. But I refused. I don't use drugs. I never liked going to those parties. It always made him angry."

"You worked for him though, right? For his escort service? Is that right?"

"Yes. But I hadn't worked much lately. That made him angry too."

"Why hadn't you worked much lately?"

"I'm in school. Enrolled in an online class at UNLV. I always have homework to do."

A look of surprise came on officer Gyllenhall's face. Eva decided her questioner didn't know that escorts, sometimes, went to college.

"Did he hit you on Friday? When you refused to go with him to the party?"

"Not on Friday. He was angry, but,"

"He didn't hit you again?" The detective stared at where she applied heavy makeup trying to hide bruises from the third and last of Frank's beatings.

"No. No. He didn't hit me ... again." She held the detective's gaze even though doing it made her feel self-conscious. Her bruises were deep and she knew they were visible ... even though she'd done her best to cover them. Like she did every day. Even though she and Frank had a fight before he went to the party, he stormed out of the condo the night before without hitting her. Now? She never had to worry about him ever hitting her again, because Frank didn't come home from the party. He died there, from a drug overdose.

"Did you call the police when he hit you before?"

"No," she said. "I did not."

Once the detectives and the police were satisfied there was nothing for them to find at Frank's home, they left. That's when it finally sank in for Eva that he would never come home again. He would never hit or kick or beat her again. He would never raise his voice or his fist at her, or do anything to make her feel like he would or could hit her anytime he wanted.

She had never wished Frank dead, but after the police cleared out, she realized she was glad he was gone from her life. It meant, without a doubt, he would never come home and hit her again. Sitting in a chair on the patio, not crying, as feeling started coming back to her, Eva Pearl realized all she felt ... in the moment, was a great sense of relief. Her freedom had come, finally, and it came the way Frank once told her it would have to come. Over his dead body. 

When she rose to go inside, she felt strength seeping back into her bones and into her spirit. She felt life returning to her from wherever it had escaped to a long time ago. As it came back, it was bringing along with it two very big questions for her to ponder. What was she going to do? And when was she going to do it?

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