by Paul Cleave
“That’s why we didn’t go. We thought he was dead and, well, none of us was thinking straight. Did we make the wrong decision? Of course we did. But at the time Benjamin Hyatt was all I could think about. I was sure, I was so sure that if we called the police I was going to end up in jail. Or I’d be put into custody while they figured it out. And bad things happen to people in custody,” I say. “We needed to think about it. We wanted to get a lawyer first.”
“And now? Why don’t you go now?”
“Because now they’re not going to believe me.”
“They’re not going to put you in prison, Charlie. Not if you didn’t do this.”
“Won’t they? Come on, Jo, if they can’t find Cyris, then that only leaves me.”
“So what are you saying? That you want to find Cyris?”
“I’m not saying that,” I tell her, though I have been thinking that. Problem is I wouldn’t know how to go about it. “But he killed each of them in their own house, and I was in both those places too. They’re not going to believe me.”
“You think I do?”
“Don’t you?” I ask, turning toward her.
Jo looks down at her coffee cup. It’s the kind of body language only a blind person could miss. Her cup is empty, but there must be something awe-inspiring in it because she doesn’t look up at me for another minute.
“You don’t believe me,” I tell her.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then say you believe me then.”
“A year ago I would have believed you,” she says.
“Jesus, how can you make a leap from me beating up some guy who jammed his hand up your dress to thinking I’m capable of murdering two women?”
“I’m not making that leap at all,” she says, looking angry. “I’m saying that you’re not completely the man I thought you were.”
“I. .”
“I don’t doubt you had something to do with their deaths.”
I move back to the sofa. My coffee hasn’t got any warmer. “Something to do with their deaths. I can’t believe you,” I say. “I can’t fucking believe you would say that.”
“What am I supposed to think? You’ve come here out of the blue, you’re covered in cuts and bruises, you tell me you were with two dead women. If everything happened the way you said it happened, then you’d have gone to the police,” she says, summing up problem number one. I know problem number two won’t be far away. “That’s what an innocent man would do. So if you really are that innocent, then why are you deliberately making the wrong choice?”
Ah yes, the Real World. A world full of ghosts and monsters-and choices. I can’t go to the police because they’ll think I did it. Hell, even Jo thinks I did it. Cyris drove a metal stake into Luciana’s chest and then into Kathy’s, he killed each of them in their own homes. Somewhere during the night his insanity rubbed off on me. I slam my coffee cup onto the table so that its cold contents splash me. Jo jumps. “Are you deaf? They’ll put me in prison!”
“Calm down, Charlie.”
“Calm down? I am calm!”
“If you won’t call the police, I will,” she says, getting up.
I put both hands out in front of me as if to ward off her suggestion. “I’m sorry, Jo, I’m sorry,” I say, trying my best to sound it even though I’m not. “Please, don’t call them, okay? Please, not yet. I’m just. . fuck, I don’t know. Stressed. Confused. I mean hell, everything I know I should have done I didn’t do because. . I mean. . well, people can’t know what they’re going to do until they’re in that situation, and last night was. . was about as tough a situation as it can get. Please, just let me convince you.”
“Of what, Charlie? That this Cyris of yours exists? That you killed him too?”
And there lies problem number two. There lies the biggest reason for her doubt. I killed Cyris. I killed him with my bare hands and somehow that didn’t stop him. Didn’t stop him at all. Not in the Real World because there bad things happen. In that world bad people like Cyris can come back from the dead.
Of course I’m enough of a realist to know that’s not true, because the dead stay dead and that’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way the living prefer. I didn’t kill Cyris, I only wounded him, and in the process he became unconscious. I don’t know. Maybe he just played possum. I wonder what the outcome would have been if that knife had gone a few inches higher or lower. Would I be sitting here with cold coffee on my hand? Would I be sitting with Kathy and Luciana instead?
“He was a monster,” I tell her.
“Repeat after me, Charlie. There are no such things as monsters.”
I shake my head. “I’m not saying he came back from the dead. I’m just saying he’s a monster. Not the movie kind, but the real kind. Monsters are real people, Jo.”
“I’m calling the police,” she says.
“You can’t.”
“Just watch me.” She heads toward the phone.
I stand up. “Don’t, Jo. At least just let me walk out of here.”
She turns around. Puts her hands on her hips. She stares at me, and I was married long enough to Jo to recognize when she’s making a big decision. I say nothing. It takes her a few seconds, and in that time she stares hard at me before coming to her conclusion. “Okay, Charlie, you win. Just don’t involve me any further.”
“Come with me,” I tell her.
“What? Why the hell would you suggest that?”
I go to answer, but really I don’t know. It just came out.
“Leave, Charlie. Now.”
“Coming here could have put you in danger,” I say, and I say it as a reason for her to come with me, but when the words come out I realize they’re true. “Cyris will find me, and if he finds you he’ll kill you,” I say, the words urgent now. “No matter what you think, he is a monster, Jo.”
“Then I’m no safer with you, am I?”
“Are you going to call the police?”
“You’re a mess. You’ve taken a beating, your hands are shaking, you keep shouting.”
“I’m not shouting!”
“You are. Look,” she says, “why don’t you go home and we can discuss it tomorrow, okay?”
“I’m not shouting.”
“Okay, okay. Please, I want you to leave.”
“I’ll leave, but you have to promise me you won’t call the police.”
Hands back on hips. Another decision process. “I won’t.”
“Won’t promise or won’t call them?”
She tilts her head and stares at me, tightening her lips into a thin line.
I hold my hands out in front of me, this time trying to ward off her anger. “Okay. Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m going to leave.”
“I think that’s best.”
Not knowing what else to say, I end up thanking her for the coffee, which, in the context of the evening, feels like an incredibly dumb thing to do. She walks me to the door. I stand on the doorstep and look back at her. Maybe she’s right. Maybe the police would understand. But I’m picking they wouldn’t. I’m picking if I walk in there and tell them what I told Jo I’ll never walk back out. Everybody knows the police have a way of making people look guilty when they’re not. Everybody knows innocent people go to jail, innocent people who think the justice system will work for them, innocent people who lose ten years of their life for something they didn’t do.
Only running away isn’t the solution either.
“Charlie?”
What I need to do is find Cyris. That’s the solution. It’s like what Jo said earlier. If I can do that, then the police will know what really happened. It makes sense. Perfect sense. But how?
“Charlie?”
Put an ad in the paper? Put up a blog online? Social media? And if I did find him, what then? Would I really go to the police? I think about what I did to the man who touched Jo. What would I do to the man who killed those two women?
“Charlie!”<
br />
“What?”
“If you’re not going to go to the police at least get checked out by a doctor, okay? Despite everything, I’m worried about you.”
Worried about me. Yeah, sure she is. Worried enough to chuck me out without helping. I rub the huge bump on my forehead and instantly regret it. I nod slowly, then, feeling incredibly alone, I walk down the driveway to my car.
CHAPTER SIX
Feldman lives in a single-storey townhouse, twenty years old, maybe thirty, fairly similar to the place Landry lives in, really, which makes him feel sick. Not the kind of medicine sick of late, but more of a mental sickness-it’s bad enough he has to breathe the same air as that lunatic let alone have something else in common with him.
Landry parks right out front. He kills the engine and steps out of the car and sucks down a few deep breaths. He needs a cigarette. Badly. His hands are shaking. He decides he needs that cigarette badly enough that he leans back into his car and pops the glove compartment. There’s a brand new box in there. He bought it yesterday when he gave into the temptation, but had done well since then not to crack it open.
He lights one and leans against the car and stares at Feldman’s house. There’s nobody home. He can tell. Houses have a feel about them. He’s never been wrong about it. And this one feels empty. The curtains are closed and there are no lights on. There’s no car in the driveway. The lawns need mowing and the garden is in disrepair, but the house looks like any other on the street, well kept and reasonably tidy. Most killers have pretty average lifestyles. Steady jobs too. Sometimes they’re even living the family life-white picket fence and a four-door sedan. That’s what makes them so scary. They act human and they slot into society and since a young age they’ve known how to hide the crazy; they put it up on a shelf and only bring it out on special occasions. Like last night.
Landry can feel his lungs relaxing. His hands have stopped shaking. He gets a quarter of the way through his cigarette and decides that’s enough. He decides that’s a pretty good compromise considering the doctor wants him to completely give up. He drops the rest of it and uses his foot to stub it into the ground. He walks up to the front door and knocks loudly, but nobody answers. He considers asking the neighbors if they’ve spoken to Feldman, but doesn’t want to risk them alerting Feldman that he’s wanted for questioning. He walks around the house, peering through the windows, but unable to get an angle past any curtains. He pulls out the evidence bag from his pocket, the one with the piece of paper he took from the pad. He stands by the back door and uses his cell phone to dial the number from the pad. It’s a landline number, not a cell. He can hear the phone inside the house ringing. After eight rings the machine picks it up. He listens to Feldman’s voice. Is this the voice of a killer? Is this the voice of a man who can tear women apart? He doesn’t leave a message.
The next step is to go and get a warrant. A judge would give it to him too. Plenty of evidence to suggest Feldman needs talking to, that his house needs going through. At this time of the night the only judge he would be able to find would be a severely pissed-off judge.
No point in pissing off any judges.
No point in chasing Feldman if he’s not their guy.
Best for everybody, really, if Landry just makes his way inside to make sure. No harm, no foul.
He puts on a pair of latex gloves. He reaches into his pocket for a lock-pick set that he’s used in the past when the occasion called for it. He’s never been good at picking locks, and after fifteen minutes he still hasn’t gotten anywhere. He puts the set away and walks back to his car, then returns with a crowbar that he always keeps in the trunk. He wedges it in the door by the lock and gently applies enough pressure until pieces of wood splinter away, and then he’s inside, the air temperature twice as warm as outside.
He doesn’t switch on any lights. He uses a flashlight. He starts in the living room, which is where the back door has led. To his right the kitchen, to his left the lounge and the hallway, which no doubt lead to bedrooms and the front door. There are photographs on the walls, a man and a woman, he assumes the man is Charlie Feldman, his instinct is to assume the woman is somebody Feldman has killed, but of course it’s more likely to be a girlfriend or a wife. Only the house doesn’t have any feminine touches. In fact it looks like a woman hasn’t been through here since the day Feldman moved in. Everything is man-stuff, and it’s something else Landry and Feldman have in common. No pet, no plants, no bright colors. The lounge has a big-screen TV and a game console in the cabinet beneath it. There’s some artwork that looks generic, circles and rectangles mingling with squiggly lines and the occasional wobbly triangle. There’s a couple of B-grade movie posters, aliens looking mean, damsels in distress, and these Landry likes enough to think about taking home with him when this is all over. They remind him of the calendar at the last scene.
One bedroom is empty, another has been turned into a study, the third one is actually a bedroom. He looks through the study. There’s a computer on a desk, and on that desk are more photographs of the same two he saw out in the dining room. Another B-grade movie poster, a calendar with swimsuit models, a filing cabinet. He spends a few minutes learning about Charlie Feldman. He goes through things, he switches on the computer and reads some emails. Feldman is married but separated, probably to the woman that’s in the photographs. A woman by the name of Jo. Jo Feldman-who used to be Jo London, and who is possibly Jo London again. His emails from her go back eight years. That’s when they met. Six months ago he moved out of their house and came here. The emails don’t say why, but they refer to an incident at a bar. He writes down the date. It’s something he might follow up. After Feldman moved out, there were a few emails between him and Jo over the first two weeks, then that became one a month, but the last one was three months ago. There are a few emails from Feldman’s parents. Trivial stuff. Things about gardening, birthdays, outings, the price of food. Some jokes. Emails from friends. From work colleagues. Feldman is a high school teacher. He teaches English at a nearby school. Landry knows the school. Has arrested kids from that school over the years for shoplifting. Feldman has been working there for nearly ten years. He wasn’t dating anybody new. Didn’t have much of a social life. Looked like all he did was work, come home, and hang out with friends in front of his TV playing games. There are some games of golf scheduled in there, some tennis. No mention of Kathy. No mention of Luciana. No mention of his need to kill anybody. Nothing to make Charlie Feldman look guilty of anything.
He switches off the computer and goes through to the bedroom. The bed hasn’t been made. There’s a photograph of the woman on the bedside table. Feldman must still love his wife. In Landry’s experiences, once the wife becomes an ex-wife, there’s not a lot of love there. There are no women’s clothes anywhere. One toothbrush in the bathroom. Nothing to suggest Feldman wasn’t living anything other than alone. In the closet the hangers are mostly empty, others have been shoved to the far sides. It looks like Feldman left somewhere in a hurry.
He goes down to the kitchen and through to the laundry. The washing basket is empty. He opens the washing machine and finds a pair of shorts in there, along with a T-shirt, socks, and underwear. The wash hasn’t been put on. Everything is dry. The shorts are covered in blood. The T-shirt has plenty of blood on it too. He’s dealing with an idiot. At the very least Feldman should have washed these things.
The bloody clothes confirm what the pad suggested-Charlie Feldman was at the crime scenes last night. He drops the shorts and T-shirt back into the machine. He peels his own shirt away from his body, letting some air flow beneath it. He can’t remember ever sweating this much. For a moment he thinks of the dead woman, of the way her body pushed at the sides of the body bag, the way the bag looked too small to fit somebody who was so full of life, somebody with dreams and memories, somebody with a husband, with friends, with a career.
His cell phone rings, the sound breaking his concentration and making him jump. He looks at the
display. It’s Schroder.
“How you feeling?” Schroder asks.
“Not the best. Just getting ready to go to bed. What’s happening?”
“A lot’s been happening,” Schroder says. “We’ve spoken to about a hundred people. We’ve got more interviews scheduled for tomorrow. You’re coming in?”
“I’m not sure. I hope so.”
“We could really use you,” Schroder says.
“I know.”
A pause, and then, “Is there anything else going on? You seem a little off.”
“I’m just tired,” he says, staring at the washing machine as he talks. “That’s all. And feeling sick. Something I ate.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing.”
“We got a report of a car speeding away around five a.m., from one of the neighbors, but she didn’t see it. Just heard it.”
“Anything else?”
“Not yet. But there’s a lot to look at. I’m confident this time tomorrow we’ll have something to work with. Hope you make it in.”