“I’m sorry.”
The house smelled of loneliness—not bad, just empty—as if one person weren’t enough to stir the air around or make enough odors for the environment to notice.
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What if it did?”
I smiled and nodded, and thought how many times I had said those same words.
“We’re all alone anyway. I mean, really. Aren’t we?”
“We are.”
“Still, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
“I still can’t believe—”
She wobbled as her knees began to buckle and I stepped toward her.
“Hug me.”
I did.
Standing in the middle of her dim, sparsely decorated living room, I wrapped her in my arms and held her tight.
At first, small tremors ran through her, then she began to shake, then came the sobs, the deep anguished cries, and through it all I just held her. At a certain point, her knees buckled and she collapsed, pulling me down with her, but I never let go.
On the floor, I pulled her even closer to me, felt her tears and snot on my face and shirt. All I could do was hold her, so I did.
There is no sound more desolate, more disquieting than that of a mother mourning the loss of her child. A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because her children are no more.
After a very long time, her sobs turned to gasps, then to sniffles.
Then, as if suddenly and inconsolably embarrassed, she shrugged me off, pushed herself up, tried to stand, fell again, this time on top of me.
“Sorry,” she said. “For . . . everything. I’m a mess. I just . . .”
“You have nothing to be sorry about.”
“Will you help me up?” she said.
“Of course,” I said. And then I did.
“Tell me he didn’t kill himself,” she said when we were standing again.
“I don’t think he did.” She hugged me.
“Oh thank God for that. I know it sounds so silly. Doesn’t change anything, does it, but it means so much to me that he wasn’t so tortured, so desperate, so alone that he took his own life.”
“It’s not silly at all.”
She wobbled again, and I helped her over to the couch and eased her down onto it.
Laying her head back, she closed her eyes and began to breathe like she were falling asleep.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
Opening her eyes drowsily and squinting up at me, she shook her head.
In another moment, she was out hard, snoring and still half crying in her sleep. Scrounging around her small, sad house, I found a pillow and placed it under her head, and a blanket and draped it over her.
I then went into the kitchen to make her something to eat and drink.
As I rummaged around her kitchen, I saw a pack of cards in a catchall drawer. They were above a pad full of solitaire scores, which made me sad for Cheryl.
The kitchen was small, its appliances dated, its linoleum worn, the varnish of its thin, homemade cabinets fading.
I began to think about the significance of the king of hearts again.
Withdrawing the cards from the drawer, I spread them out on the countertop and looked through them. When I came to the king of hearts it hit me immediately.
I should’ve seen it earlier. It was so simple, so obvious. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t.
Unlike the cold-case decks, which featured a missing person instead of the king, this deck had the actual king—the suicide king.
The king of hearts is also referred to as the suicide king because he’s sometimes pictured holding a knife to the back of his neck or actually stabbed into his head. Originally, the king had an axe, but over the years, the head of the axe was dropped from the picture. What remains looks like a sword—looks like the king is either holding the sword behind or stabbing himself in the head.
With limited resources inside, the killer would have to use whatever he could find. The cold-case king of hearts had to stand in for the suicide king.
The message was simple. You think these are suicides, but they’re not. They’re murders. I’m smarter than you. I’m the suicide king.
“What’re you doin’?”
I turned around to see Cheryl standing in the doorway, wearing a thick, light pink terrycloth robe.
“Getting you something to eat and drink.”
“And playing solitaire?”
I laughed. “Trying to work something out. The king of hearts have any significance to Danny or to you?”
She shook her head and shrugged. “Not that I know of. Why?”
“No reason. Just a random, idle thought. Can you eat?”
“A little. Maybe.”
“Have a seat.”
“Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“No. For being here. For . . .”
She looked at me and our eyes locked. I nodded. “My pleasure.”
I thought she might start crying again, but she didn’t.
I stayed with her for another hour or so, then drove home.
Crawling into the warm bed with Anna felt like something I had meant to be doing my entire life.
She roused and we began to kiss.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For?”
“The use of that amazing machine,” I said.
“Anytime.”
“It was an incredible ride. Just what I needed. As I was riding back I got to thinking . . . it cost more than my home.”
“Our home,” she said.
“That’s sweet. We’ll find a better place to call our own soon.”
“I like it here,” she said.
“You’re perfect,” I said, and I meant it. “Whose perfume are you wearing?” she asked. “Cheryl Jacobs,” I said.
“Who?”
I told her.
“I just got out of a marriage with a man who cheated on me,” she said.
Oh shit. How stupid could I be? I didn’t even think about that. I wasn’t usually this thoughtless and unaware.
“Who dealt duplicitously with me in nearly every way,” she added.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t even think about––”
“It’s so nice to be with someone I can trust,” she said. “Such a great fuckin’ feelin’. I know you John, know your soul, know the force of your character. You didn’t think about it because you’re not a cheater. You were out there doing good––either as a minister or an investigator. It’s what you do. It’s all you do.”
“Still,” I said, “it was inconsiderate. Thoughtless. I’m sorry.”
She reached up and touched my face.
“I will never cheat on you,” I said. “Not ever. You can count on that.”
“I do.”
“And I’ll try not to make another rookie mistake like that again.”
“Come on,” she said, and I could hear a smile in her voice, “neither of us are rookies.”
“Why it’s all the more inexcusable.”
It felt like I had just fallen asleep, and maybe I had.
My phone began ringing. I fumbled to find it on the nightstand, Anna rolling over and groaning beside me. “You ain’t gonna believe this shit,” Merrill said. “That you’re callin’ me at this hour,” I said. “No, not that shit.”
“Then what?”
“Oh,” he said, as if just remembering something, “Sergeant Helms say tell you she found cards in the other inmates’ property. Say they were regular kings.”
“Thanks.”
“But that ain’t the shit you ain’t gonna believe.”
“Well, go ahead and get to that shit,” I said.
“Know how everybody say Brent Allen was hanging out with Phillips and Jacobs, how he sleep close to them?”
“Yeah?” I said, trying to talk softly. “Guess what the bitch’s nickname is?” I didn�
��t say anything, just waited.
“Go on and do it. Guess.”
“Too early.”
“His ass is known as the Suicide King.”
“What?”
“Told you it some shit.”
I laughed.
“Say the little fucker know everything they is to know about suicide. Say he tried a few dozen times too. I say, he ain’t trying hard enough.”
23
The laundry department at Potter Correctional Institution washed, dried, ironed, and folded the uniforms, towels, and sheets for some thirty-four hundred inmates every day of the work week. It was twice as big as any dry cleaners or Laundromat I had ever seen on the street.
Outside, the laundry building looked like all the other structures of the institution—nondescript gray cinder block with pale blue trim.
Inside, it was a large open space filled with huge commercial washers and dryers with a network of metal pipes and wires snaking along the steel structure supporting the unfinished ceiling. The building was also filled with noise. The hum of motors, the rush of fan-blown wind, the stamp of the press, the whistle of the steam, and the continual metallic slaps and clanks obscured every other sound made by the officers and inmates working among them.
“I knew you’d get around to me eventually,” Brent Allen yelled above the noise when Merrill and I walked up.
He stretched a shirt between the two steaming halves of the press and pulled the lever releasing the top onto the bottom one and the wrinkled cotton fabric between them.
“Oh yeah?”
He shook his head. “Shame about poor Danny.”
Brent Allen was a short, thick guy with a certain softness about him. His closely cropped brown hair stood on end and his copper eyes were dim, rimmed by puffy dark half-circles beneath them.
“What made you think I’d come see you?” I asked.
He smiled. “Come on, Chaplain. Don’t treat me like the rest of the tards ’round here. I deserve better than that. Everybody knows I’m the go-to guy for all things suicide.”
“You the damn Suicide King,” Merrill said. “One of ’em.”
“One?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“There are others?” I asked.
“How can you have more than one king?” Merrill asked.
“It’s a club,” he said. “Or used to be.”
“A club?” Merrill said. “What? Y’all play chess and shit?”
“A suicide club,” Allen said. “Long time ago. We haven’t even talked about it in—”
“Start from the beginning,” I said.
“A group of us formed a club. Called ourselves the Suicide Kings.”
This is it, I thought, feeling the buzz begin again.
We’re getting somewhere now.
“Who?” I asked. “Was Danny Jacobs in it?”
“It was a long time ago. Some of the guys have transferred. A few’re already out. I’m tellin’ you . . . we don’t even . . . it wasn’t even serious back then. Not really. And that’s been . . . I don’t know . . . years.”
“Was Danny in it?”
He nodded. “But I’m telling you—it didn’t mean anything back then. Means even less now. It has nothing to do with him or his . . . ”
“Who else? Phillips?”
“Yeah. Lance. Emile Rollins . . . ah . . . I can’t even remember who else.”
“Tell me about the club.”
“We all felt suicidal . . . I don’t know. We were like, fuck it. If we ever decide to go through with it, we could count on the others to help us out. Look after our shit. We made wills. Left each other our earthly possessions—even took out life insurance, but the policies had a suicide clause, wouldn’t pay if the insured committed suicide.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I told you. A while.”
“Be more specific.”
“Why?”
“The suicide clause on most policies is two years. If it happens after two years, they usually pay.”
His eyes widened as his eyebrows arched and his forehead wrinkled.
“How long’s it been?”
“About two years—but I’m sure they’ve all lapsed by now. We haven’t been paying them.”
“You didn’t think you should tell someone about all this after the attempt on Lance or Danny’s death?”
“Danny killing himself or Lance trying has nothing to do with a defunct club from a few years ago.”
“And if they didn’t do it to themselves?”
He stopped suddenly, holding the blue inmate shirt dangerously close to the press, the steam enveloping his hand. Squinting in concentration, he looked off into the open space of the laundry building.
“You think someone killed Danny?”
He had stopped squinting now, and his eyes twitched and blinked as he talked.
“Do you?” Merrill said.
“I hadn’t,” he said, closing his eyes completely for a moment. “But if someone was trying to kill Lance . . . then they killed Danny by mistake. What does Lance say?”
“That he didn’t try to kill himself,” I said.
To our left, a group of about seven inmates stood around tables folding towels, while behind us inmates were loading and unloading towels and uniforms into the giant washers and dryers, all under the careful supervision of the laundry sergeant.
“Oh, that’s a beauty,” he said, shaking his head. “Kill someone who’s attempted suicide before and make it look like suicide again. That’s fuckin’ genius. Who would suspect? I mean, think about it, if they hadn’t failed to off him the first time and left him to say that he didn’t do it, then no one would even question it. Especially in here.
Hell, I bet no one believes him as it is.”
His response to what I was saying was one of interest but not concern. If he cared for Lance or Danny, his fellow Suicide Kings, he didn’t show it, and the longer we talked, the more he twitched and blinked. He looked like someone with shell shock or a nervous disorder.
Across the building, I saw the colonel duck beneath the half-opened rolling bay door and enter the laundry. The sergeant cleared his throat and the inmates sitting on the gigantic blue sheet press stood up and acted like they were working. The inmates sitting behind the sewing machines couldn’t pretend to be busy because there was nothing on their tables to be sewn.
“Can you think of any reason anyone would want to kill Lance?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said with a half shrug. “Lots of reasons to kill people. People’ve killed over some pretty petty shit before—’specially in here.”
“Anyone in particular come to mind?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Any reason why anyone would want to kill Danny?”
Brent Allen’s inmate uniform looked new. Unlike the other uniforms on the compound, it wasn’t worn and faded from wear and washing. It was also military crisp without a single wrinkle, pucker, or gather.
“Not as many as with Lance,” he said. “Danny was quieter. Stayed to himself mostly. Actually, he’s the kind I’d suspect of a legitimate suicide.”
“Really?”
“You know much about suicide?” he asked.
He started pressing the shirts and pants of the blue inmate uniforms again, laying each garment down between the two small ironing board–shaped halves of the press, pushing the button, and waiting for the hydraulic press to drop, press, and rise again.
“Not enough to be called a Suicide King.”
He smiled. “Suicide’s sorta my hobby. It was a fad for the other members of the club, but for me . . . I probably know more about it than anyone. Want a quick class on it?”
I nodded.
“Well, first of all it’s all bullshit.”
“What is?” I asked.
“Everything,” he said. “Everything people think they know about it. Everything I’m about to tell you. First thing to know is we don’t know shit about it. Oh, the professio
nals say they do but they don’t. They don’t know why more people kill themselves than kill others. They don’t know why more women attempt it, but more men complete it. They don’t know why so few leave notes. They sure as hell don’t know what was going through the poor bastard’s mind at the end. Hell, I’ve tried it over a dozen times and I couldn’t tell you what was going through mine. And they can’t tell you why people choose to do it the way they do.”
As we continued to talk, Allen’s twitch moved out of his eyes, down his face, and into his body. Now he was shrugging his shoulders, slinging his arms, and jerking his head about.
Over the tops of laundry carts, some piled high with folded stacks of clean clothes and others with mounds of unfolded dirty ones, I could see Donnie Foster, the sergeant on duty in A-dorm the night Jacobs was killed, enter the building, look at us, and then walk out quickly, bumping into the inmates waiting to push the laundry carts back to the dorms as he did.
“Suicide’s not bullshit,” he said. “Everything else is. Suicide’s the only sane response to this painful, meaningless disaster we’re clinging to. For fuck sake, can you imagine a worse world? All we do is suffer and watch those we care about suffer. We lose everything—every single thing—including ourselves. How can any thinking person look at this cluster fuck of a world and conclude anything but that it’s the cruelest joke ever played on anyone. Ever.”
“How’d you do it?” I asked. “Huh?”
“How’d you try to do the sane thing?”
“Every way in the book,” he said. “And yes, there are books about it. Lots of ’em. We can’t have them in here, but I have ’em all at home.”
He unbuttoned the perfectly pressed left sleeve of his shirt with an unsteady hand and rolled it up. Long, uneven mounds of scar tissue like small worms beneath his skin ran along the bottom side of his twitching wrists. “Razor,” he said. He continued rolling his sleeve up to reveal the track marks on his arms. “Overdose.” He then reached up and tugged on his collar. Around his neck were rings of scars and bruises—old scars and new rope burns. “Hanging.” Carefully unbuttoning his neat, clean, crisp shirt, he exposed a thin white scar on his side. “Knife.”
Innocent Blood; Blood Money; Blood Moon Page 30