New Orleans Noir

cigarette. We wrestled the body out, and lugged it into the dark house, which stank of decay and mold, rotting furniture scattered about as we made our way through it. We found the curving stairway to the second story, and carried him up. The first bedroom at the top of the stairs had a closet full of moldy clothing.
    “Okay, let’s just put him here in the closet,” I said, panting and trying to catch my breath. Chad weighed a fucking ton. “But put him down for a minute.”
    Phillip let go and the body fell to the floor with a thud. I had the body by the shoulders, and I staggered with the sudden weight. The tarp pulled down, exposing Chad’s head, and then I couldn’t hold him anymore, and he fell, dragging me down on top of him.
    “FUCK!” I screamed, looking right into Chad’s open eyes. His mouth had come open as well, and in the moonlight I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
    There are bruises on his neck. Bruises that look like they came from fingers around his neck, choking the life out of him. A chill went down my spine. What the fuck— I looked back up at Phillip. I could almost hear him saying again, You’ve said a million times that anyone can get away with murder …
    No wonder he hadn’t wanted to call the cops.
    It hadn’t been an accident. It hadn’t been self-defense.
    It was murder.
    And I’d helped him cover it up. I was an accessory after the fact.
    And even if I cooperated, testified against him, I might have to serve time myself. At the very least, author Anthony Andrews would get some very nasty publicity.
    Does he know? I thought, my heart racing. Can he tell that I’ve seen? It was awful dark, and I only saw because my face was right there by Chad’s.
    “Are you okay? Jesus, I’m sorry!”
    He doesn’t know I know . Thank you, God .
    Phillip grabbed me under the arms and lifted me up to my feet without effort. He started dusting me off. “Are you okay?”
    “Didn’t know you were so strong,” I said. I forced a smile on my face. “I’m okay.”
    “Don’t you want to put him in the closet?” he asked. “Or can we just leave him here?”
    “No, he needs to go in the closet, just in case. Let’s do this and get out of here,” I said, managing to keep my voice steady. I can’t let him do this, I can’t let him get away with this, but I’ve got to get out of here. Think, Tony, think, there must be something I can do …
    We shoved him in, standing up, and wedged the door shut.
    “All right, now we have to get rid of his car, right?” He gave me a smile. “This means so much to me, Tony, you have no idea.” He gave me a hug, almost squeezing the breath out of me.
    How come I never noticed how strong he is before now? Aloud, I said, “Well, maybe we could just leave it here after all.” I shrugged. “I mean, they probably wouldn’t think anything about it, really.”
    Phillip raised an eyebrow. “But you said—”
    “No, no, I know, we can’t leave it here.” I gave him a ghost of a smile and tried to keep my voice steady, even as I thought, I am alone in an abandoned house in an empty neighborhood with a killer. “I’m just a little—you know …” I tried to make a joke. “This isn’t exactly my normal Tuesday night routine.” I gave a hollow laugh. “No, we can’t leave the car parked out in front.”
    “Okay.”
    “We’ll leave the car in the Bywater,” I went on, my mind racing, trying to think of something, some clue, to leave behind. If they didn’t find the body, he’d get away with it, but how to tip them off and leave myself out of it …? “With any luck, the tires and everything will be stripped in a few days. If and when the cops finally find it, the body will be gone, and Chad will have just disappeared from the face of the earth.”
    “Won’t they check the house for bodies before they bulldoze?”
    “They already checked this house—they marked it as clear.” I’d picked the house for that very reason. I felt sick to my stomach. Oh, yes, the plan was clever. I’d outsmarted myself, that’s for damned sure. Tomorrow morning the bulldozers would level the place into a pile of rubble, and when the backhoe cleared it into a dumpster, if no telltale body parts fell out, that would be the end of it. Nope, Chad would be off to the dump, hopefully to be incinerated, and all Phillip would have to do was pretend he’d never seen or spoken to Chad again. Sure, they’d check his phone records and see that Chad had