THE LIFE LEFT: A GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER

by L. W. WEDGWOOD

  “You are going to end up in prison.”

  “I’ve got bills up to my ears. I’ve lost my last loved one. I’m about as much at home on the inside as I am on the outside. Don’t think that the risk of prison will get in the way of my debt to you. After all, I am an honorable man, you know?”

  He wanted to argue further, but at the same moment he realized that out of anyone, Henry may be able to help him with what was to come. He decided that he had no choice but to throw caution to the wind and see how far Henry’s help would go. “Can you get me some methamphetamine?” he said.

  “This is no time to be taking drugs, Bro. You have work to do.”

  “It is not for me.”

  “Then for who?”

  “Detective Boar’s mother is up there. She is in my way.”

  “…So, you gonna off her with meth. How you gonna do that?”

  “I am not going to give the meth to her. I am going to give it to Boar. His mother is an addict. It will look like she gave her son an overdose.”

  “How do you know she’s addicted to meth?”

  “I see the signs. It does not take much guessing.”

  “Still, it’s not a very nice thing to do to an innocent woman.”

  “If you met her, you would not think that way.”

  “What do you mean, Bro?”

  “I mean, Boar’s mother is the kind of woman who is guilty of something; probably many things.”

  “Something… many things? Bro?”

  “Something bad. And I know bad people when I meet them. Believe me.”

  “I can’t argue with that. But, Bro, are you sure about this?”

  “It is the only way.”

  “Oh… okay then. How much meth you need?”

  “How much will it take to kill someone?”

  * * * * *

  The speed at which Henry attained the methamphetamine surprised Abn. He knew it was easy to get the drug in New Zealand, but to have a bag in under an hour seemed impossible to him.

  It was just as well that Henry got the drug so quickly. With the package in hand, he had just enough time to ride back home, google search how to mix the stuff for a syringe and prepare the dose. The mix he’d prepared was four times the quantity necessary to kill even a heavy user.

  When he’d completed the concoction, he sat on the edge of his bed looking at the syringe. The murky substance within stared back with hypnotic effect. Sunlight filtering through his window reflected off the microcrystals in the solution, sparkling like tiny diamonds. He wondered for a moment how something so innocent looking could be so deadly.

  Tearing his eyes from the syringe, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was already after five o’clock. He had to move. The nurse had said that Boar’s mother would leave at six o’clock. But when it came to an addict’s schedule, nothing could ever be guaranteed. Therefore, he knew he had to get there early to make sure.

  As he made his way from the house, he felt a degree of relief that his mother didn’t call out to him. He knew she was there. Her car was in the garage. Normally, she would be in the kitchen cooking dinner at this time of the day.

  Not today.

  She had to be sleeping or busy on the phone in her room. He knew she’d been struggling with some of the funeral arrangements. And in her current state, her effort appeared impossibly exhausting to him.

  By the time he made it back to the hospital, it was nearly 5:30 p.m. From where he locked his bicycle, he watched droves of people swarming from the exit. He couldn’t decide if they were patients, visitors or workers. He hoped beyond hope that Boar’s mother wasn’t among them. Seeing her in such a mass of people would be impossible.

  The flow eased to a trickle over the next fifteen minutes. He spent his time glancing from his watch to the exit and back again. As six o’clock approached, he began to feel certain that he’d missed her. He’d have to risk it and enter the hospital soon. Otherwise, he’d miss his chance to be alone with Boar.

  But then, there she was. Moving, or much rather floating out through the exit, she appeared frail in every sense of the word. The Wellington wind caught her dress as she faced its full force. The light fabric clung to her bones. He’d seen healthier looking people in Mosul at the height of their starvation. She didn’t so much as glance in his direction as she left. Clearly, her focus gravitated to the need at hand.

  He moved the moment she’d vanished from sight. Timing was everything if he wanted the blame to be placed upon Boar’s mother.

  It didn’t take him long to make his way back up the ICU. And this time as he entered the unit, he felt happy to see the area empty of activity. Even the nurses on duty appeared to have taken a break.

  Flashbacks of the interlude with Henry’s son dominated his thoughts upon seeing Boar again. He forced them aside.

  It took only seconds to find the access point to Boar’s central IV line. Seconds later, he pushed on the plunger and the meth emptied into Boar’s body. Even before he removed the syringe, the detective’s body began convulsing out of control. Warning alarms on the surrounding machines immediately sounded.

  Abn felt the stare of the nurse before he saw it.

  He looked up from the syringe just as he placed its cap back in position. With Boar’s bed rattling and the alarms sounding, he couldn’t take his eyes from the nurse’s. He didn’t know how long they remained like that. All he knew was that he’d been caught, red-handed. Her eyes may as well have been two powerful magnets that he couldn’t decouple from.

  But he could see something in the nurse’s eyes beyond the incrimination he expected. Time seemed to stretch eternal until he realized the nurse’s eyes were not those of someone normal. They were the eyes of someone familiar with death, the eyes of someone not easily shocked. They were eyes he understood and something in them seemed to return that understanding. Those eyes were twin, blue oceans of clarity. The calmness in them shocked him more than the fact he’d been found out.

  The nurse moved. Their eyes remained connected as she rounded the bed and went to work on the machines. Silence followed. Boar’s body became still and added to this ensuing peace. Only the breathing apparatus and machinery from the others in the ICU broke through this fresh tranquility that now balanced on the edge of a potential superstorm.

  “Go!” said the nurse.

  Her eyes said much more than her single word did. Her eyes gave him the pass that he would have never anticipated. He held this eye contact as he backed away from the bed toward the exit. He knew he should feel a measure of fear, but fear seemed unable to have its way with him. Instead, he felt nothing but calm as he reached the exit and moved to the elevator. The nurse’s pardon stayed with him all of the way.

  * * * * *

  The warm wind touching Abn’s face as he exited the hospital did nothing to lift his spirits. He knew he should feel a sense of elation at getting away with murder. He did not. That emotion had all but deserted him on the elevator ride down. Now, all he felt was the need to get home.

  Then he remembered his mother’s condition. He remembered the news of Ed’s accident. He remembered Henry’s bloodied fist. He wondered if getting home right now would do him any good.

  “Abn Morrison!” boomed a voice.

  He stopped in his tracks. Detective Bell barred his path. He looked up into the eyes of a man gripped in the arms of grief, mixed with no small measure of rage.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “I’m taking you in, Son,” Bell said.

  Before he realized he was speaking, Abn’s words flooded out, “I did what you asked me to do. I did what you wanted.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The letter. I did what you said in the letter.”

  “I know what you did. I’m taking you in. We can talk about this down at the station.”

  Before Abn had a chance to argue, Bell herded him away with a firm grip on one of his shoulders. He wanted to protest. He wanted to run. But a mixture of confu
sion and shock left him mute and unable to resist. Bell had betrayed him. Or had Henry betrayed him? Had Bell written the letter like Henry had said? Or was it the other way around?

  Too many questions. Too little time to think. For the moment, he could at least feel grateful that Bell hadn’t handcuffed him.

  “Why are you taking me in?” he asked, fighting to regain control of the situation as they reached Bell’s car.

  “For murder.”

  “The murder of who?”

  He didn’t get an answer. He felt Bell’s hand move from his shoulder. A second later, he heard a crack, like the sound of a piece of dry wood being broken in two. He stood there for a few seconds, waiting for Bell to force him into the car. But Bell didn’t appear before him to open the door. The silence behind him continued until he could no longer resist the urge to turn around and see what had become of the detective.

  Bell lay on the ground before Abn. He could see that the detective wouldn’t be getting back up again. His neck had been bent to an impossible angle. The sight would have sickened the average person. Abn only felt confusion. Someone had broken Bell’s neck, but whoever had done so hadn’t hung around.

  Looking up from the body, he scanned the surroundings. Limited activity showed throughout the carpark. The murder of the detective had gone unnoticed.

  He looked for cameras. He’d made the mistake of being caught on video before. He wouldn’t let that happen again. Only two cameras could be seen. One covered the exit of the hospital, the other covered the carpark, but pointed away from him.

  Forcing his confusion aside, he stepped over Bell’s body and left the scene with as much grace as he could muster. The next thing he knew, he was seated on his favorite bench at Oriental Bay. The warm sea breeze blowing against his face offered a small comfort to his new situation. He scrambled for clarity. The only thing he understood for sure was that he couldn’t go home yet. He needed time to collect himself. He now had time to count the dead around him. They were piling up. In Iraq, this had been normal. Here, things were supposed to be different. Or were they?

  Was this life? Did you simply survive for as long as you could, while all of those around you fell? This had been his experience so far. He’d hoped that he’d left that part of his life behind. But here it was again, following him, hounding his every step.

  Pulling his sketchpad from his backpack, he flipped to a fresh page. What was inside of him needed to come out. The demons needed to be exorcized, given a new home. The blank page always promised that home. The blank page didn’t judge. It took in all who came, it took everything that came—the perfect host. Both a prison warden and a liberator, the blank page was the go-to hero that he knew would never forsake him.

  But nothing spilled onto the page today. He sat there, lost in time and thought, trying to let it all out. The bindings were strong on this one, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Eventually, he gave up. He would try again later. The light of day was fading.

  By the time he’d ridden home, his nerves had somewhat settled. Questions remained, yes. But for the moment, he was out of harm’s way. For the first time in weeks, he at least had a sense that the law wasn’t breathing down his back.

  He found his mother in the kitchen, standing over an untouched plate of food. She didn’t notice his arrival. Her eyes were glued to a small television above the countertop.

  “What is it, Mum?” he asked, sensing her tension.

  She didn’t answer him. He moved to get a better look at what she was watching. He was just in time to see a mugshot of Henry displayed on the corner of the TV screen.

  “It’s the hospice murders. An ex-gang member has been caught breaking into the detective’s house,” she said.

  “The detective working on the hospice case? The gang member was caught breaking into Detective Bell’s house?” he asked, feeling baffled by the news.

  “No, he was caught breaking into Detective Line’s house. He was armed. There was a struggle. Line managed to subdue the intruder and make an arrest.”

  “Detective Line arrested Henry?” Abn burst, immediately attracting a confused look from Jane.

  “Henry?” she asked.

  “The gang member. That is his name. They just showed it on the TV,” he lied.

  “Oh… I didn’t see that bit.”

  “I still do not understand. What does this have to do with the hospice murders?”

  “He has confessed,” she said.

  “What? Who?”

  “The gang member… Henry. He murdered all of those poor people in the hospice and new victims in the hospital today.”

  “New victims?”

  “Yes. The other detectives, too.”

  Feigning surprise as best as he could, he pushed for further information as the television went to a commercial break.

  “You mean Detective Bell?” he asked

  “Him too,” she said.

  “Him too what?”

  “Apparently, the gang member went into the hospital and murdered Detective Boar. He then came out and murdered Detective Bell…”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Both of the detectives… They’re dead…”

  “Murdered by that gang member?”

  “I have to go finish the preparations for tomorrow. I’ve laid out a suit for you. It’s on your bed.”

  “The funeral… It is tomorrow, of course…”

  “You forgot about Dad’s funeral?”

  “No, I did not forget. I was distracted. The murder of the detectives…” he said with a wave at the television.

  “Just be ready by ten.”

  “Okay,” he said as he watched her drift from the kitchen with fog-like fluidity.

  It seemed to him that, even here, death wasn’t taking a break. His mother may be alive, but she certainly wasn’t acting as if she was living.

  CHAPTER 27

  As he looked around, Abn decided that a horror movie couldn’t have portrayed a better graveyard scene. That morning had seen hard rain and wind. Now, the wind had gone, the rain had stopped and the noon sun extracted the remaining moisture from the ground. A display of fog, hugging the surrounding trees and graves resulted.

  The voice of the priest cast a disturbing spell on Abn as he stood watching the proceedings. The way in which the words carried through the assembled crowd seemed to hang with immense weight on each person who listened. Shoulders sagged, faces hung and eyes remained cast downward into the sullen earth. The sunlit but drenched surroundings of Karori cemetery only seemed to magnify the growing orb of gloom within him.

  Of the fifty or so people attending, he recognized no more than five. Who were all of these people? What sick fascination had bought them here? It all seemed so alien to him. Death, in his experience, had never invited such ceremony, such fuss.

  Each person present appeared to have their own way of enduring the event.

  There was his mother, who hadn’t said more than a few words to him that morning. Speechless with grief, lost in a world of her own, sobs intermittently burst through her hands covering her face. He didn’t know much about pharmaceuticals, but he knew enough to know that she had been heavily self-medicating. This was the only explanation for her recent behavior. His theory was fortified by the appearance of a prescription bottle he’d seen her access more than once that morning and at least once while the priest had been speaking.

  Jesse, a man who he’d only met that morning, had flown in from Texas. Jane had introduced him as her father. He could see little resemblance between the two of them. Tall and lean, Jesse looked like a half-starved mad dog with an expression to match. He wondered if this was anything to do with the boots he wore. He’d never seen anyone wearing cowboy boots before. Long, narrow and crafted out of what appeared to be some kind of reptilian skin, they came to a sharp, chrome point at the toe. How could a man’s feet fit inside of those? It had to be painful. Or maybe Jesse’s feet were deformed. This theory would match the rest of hi
s appearance.

  Then there was Michael and his father. Michael looked outright bored; his eyes intently focused on his shoes as he randomly kicked a toe of each into the wet earth. His father, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to stop texting on his phone. All the while, Jenkins stood attentively to their rear, scanning the crowd.

  Two men in particular seemed to draw the attention of Jenkins. These men stood west of the assembly, just beyond the crowd. They wore suits that didn’t say funeral. Abn didn’t recognize them at all. Jenkins, however, seemed to be very familiar with the men. And his stony glare said that his familiarity wasn’t of the nice kind.

  In a weird way, Abn found himself missing the presence of Ed. Now there was a man who could take the edge off a scene like this.

  As the priest’s speech drew to a close, more sobs erupted from beside Abn. He looked around to find his mother with her face in her hands again. It seemed to him as if she were trying to hold back the noise. But her sobs had their way. They burst from between her fingers, muffled yet disturbing. The priest raised his voice to be heard more clearly. She countered with a louder outburst. It went on like that for another minute or so until the priest finally finished and bowed his head in silence.

  Abn took this opportunity to make an attempt at affection. He put his arm around his mother. The gesture failed. She pulled away from him as if he’d touched her with a hot iron. He looked for an explanation. She avoided his eye contact and instead set about retrieving a handful of dirt to throw into the grave. As she did so, he noticed how unsteady on her feet she appeared. If Ed were here, even he would have been steadier after a full day’s drinking.

  As the dirt sprinkled from her hand, he imagined he were witnessing the final grains of sand falling inside an hourglass. Only, this was no hour glass and the sand wasn’t sand; much rather, it was the makeup of a human being’s existence in granular form.

  As her hand emptied, his worst fear became realized. She faltered on her feet for a few seconds before toppling head first into the grave.

  He froze in mute shock. And he wasn’t the only one. For several seconds, the entire assembly stood speechless at the spectacle.