The Killing Hour

by Paul Cleave

  The day is even better now that I’m out in it. I think that Landry probably would have liked it. I wonder what he’d be doing right now if he weren’t dead and pinned up against a log in the river, and then I feel a pang of guilt thinking about his last act, which was to save us. It’s possible he wasn’t such a bad guy. Possible under other circumstances I might have liked him. And probable he’d still be alive if I’d taken care of Cyris on Monday morning. Landry would have liked today. I’m sure of it. The bright sun, the warm wind, the essence of calm. Barely any traces of cloud adorn the sky. Long twin white lines float a few thousand feet high above me from a fast-moving jet. It’s a great day, the type you always want to wake up to. At least it would be if I’d stabbed Cyris in the heart and not the stomach.

  The handcuffs are still on the seat of my car. I hide them in the glove box. I still have a spare key for Jo’s car, and I try it in the ignition, but the lock is too badly damaged for it to fit snuggly. The screwdriver still works. At least I can still use the keys to lock and unlock the car. Being in Jo’s car mingling with other traffic is surreal. I look at drivers and pedestrians and I wonder what they think of me. Can they see who I am? Can they see what I’ve become? What I’m now fighting for? Then those thoughts are reversed as I look at their faces. Who are these people? I don’t know any of them. I don’t know what they’re capable of. Murder? Sure, statistically some of them have to be capable of that. But how do you know which ones?

  The trip to the bank takes me past flooded gardens and lawns with new swimming pools that suggest the sun hasn’t been out all day. The streets are bone-dry and make for safe driving. There’s no consensus about what to wear-some people are out in shorts and T-shirts, others in raincoats carrying umbrellas. I figure they’re all right. I park next to a beaten-up Holden with half of its hubcaps missing.

  The bank is a plain-looking building in a row of other plain-looking buildings in the middle of town, a few blocks from the police department and a few hundred yards away from the Christchurch Cathedral, a touristy church right in the middle of town. There’s a guy out front of the bank handing out sandwich vouchers. He hands one to me and it makes me feel hungry, almost hungry enough to eat the voucher. The glass doors open with a hissing sound. Potted palm trees guarding the entranceway almost reach the ceiling. A whole lot more potted plants are scattered around inside. Maybe it’s supposed to make the fee-paying customers feel more at ease. Me, I feel like I’m back in a forest. I look around for a river, but the closest thing is a water cooler in the corner. It has an out-of-order sign because somebody has broken the plastic tap. I wait in line. Earlier this summer, just before Christmas, this bank was held up. People were waiting in line then just like they are now. People were shot and killed. I look at everybody closely in case there are those in here who think holding up banks is a pretty good idea.

  It takes five minutes to get to the counter. I present my withdrawal slip to an old guy named George who will surely die before he retires, and even then still try to show up for work. His wrinkled face takes on a puzzled expression when he reads the amount on the slip, and he adjusts his bifocals to make sure he’s read the amount correctly as if the thick lenses have added an extra zero. Then he adjusts them again to make sure he’s seeing me correctly, as if the thick lenses have added an extra bruise. He asks me to step aside while he wanders off to chat to a few people, and a minute later a woman around my age comes from somewhere deep within the bank and leads me down a carpeted corridor into a small office.

  Her name is Erica, and Erica is the sort of woman I would be flirting with if I didn’t appear and feel half-dead and think the woman I possibly still love might be dead. The small cream office has no window so the only view is the single door we came through, an aerial photo of Christchurch hanging on the wall and a vase filled with plastic roses. I look at the photo and wonder where I was when it was taken. More people were alive then. On the opposite wall is a photo of a guy in his forties or fifties. It has his name and two years listed beneath him, one must be his year of birth, the other is last year-it must be the bank manager who was killed during the robbery.

  A long desk with a computer and stacks of paper and office clutter sits close to the middle of the room with a chair on each side. It feels like an interrogation room, and when she starts asking me questions to prove my identity I look around for two-way mirrors. I wait for her to ask where I was on Sunday night, but she doesn’t. I can see her desire to inquire about my bruises and cuts, but she can’t bring herself to do so. She keeps brushing her hair back behind her right ear in a nervous way. She knows something isn’t right, but what can she do? She can think and she can suspect. But it’s my money. A small necklace with a silver crucifix hangs around her neck. I feel like letting her in on the big secret.

  After fifteen minutes of signing papers Erica agrees to hand over my money. It takes the staff another fifteen minutes to get the cash from their vault, and they count it out in front of me in a timid way that makes me think that they think I might be one bad-hair day away from shooting them all. They pack it into a small linen bag. I look for the huge dollar sign on the side to make it more obvious, but don’t see one. I thank Erica, then before leaving, I take out the wads of notes and stuff them inside my jacket and pants pockets. It’s a tight fit.

  I walk a few blocks to the north, skirting around a crane and some cement mixers and several workmen who don’t appear to be doing anything. In Christchurch there are always workmen working on shops. All the time. I do what I should have done six months ago, and buy a prepay cell phone. Then I walk to a nearby army surplus store. The walls are painted camouflage green, which makes the building stick out more. Mannequins in the window are wearing desert and jungle uniforms. Plastic people off to war. I walk inside. The lighting is dim and the air is warm. Uniforms and outfits are hanging from wire coat hangers. Stacked all over the place are army storage containers with yellow and white lettering stenciled on them. Old medals in glass cases. Old gas masks. Old everything. I look at a counter full of knives. I find a hunting knife with a sharp blade and with ridges along the top.

  The guy behind the counter stands around six and a half feet and has large, flabby arms covered in White Power tattoos. He wears a black leather vest with a black T-shirt beneath it. The T-shirt says Guns don’t kill people. Grenades do. His head is shaved and he has a long, gray beard. A name badge attached to his vest says Floyd and it looks out of place on his huge chest. He tells me the knife is called a KA-BAR.

  I put the knife aside and keep looking. Floyd follows me around. It makes me feel uncomfortable. He asks if he can help. I tell him I’m after some fatigue gear. He shows me where it is. It’s new, not like most of the stuff in here. I wonder if anybody died in any of these uniforms. I pick up a vest with lots of pockets and army pants and an army jacket and boots too. I grab a pair of compact 8 x 20 binoculars that can fit in one of the many pockets in the vest.

  I put them with the knife then look through a small display of Swiss Army knives. I point to one that looks like it could do everything from repairing sunglasses to gutting a fish. He pulls it out and puts it next to the KA-BAR. The KA-BAR looks massive in comparison. I pull out my wallet. Floyd says nothing as he looks me up and down. He looks like he could break every bone in my body so I smile at him and make no conversation.

  “You going hunting?” he asks.

  “Yep.”

  “What you hunting for?”

  “Deer.”

  “Uh huh. The two-legged type?”

  I pay for the gear. He gives me my change.

  “No. The four-legged type.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “I’m thinking,” I tell him, “that it may be easier to shoot deer than stab them. Is that right?”

  “What kind of trouble are you in, mister?”

  I hand him five hundred dollars. “The kind that needs a gun. Where can I get one?”

  He stares at the money. Then he stares a
t me. “You’re about halfway to me telling you how that can be done.”

  I count out another five hundred and put it on the counter next to the first five hundred. He sweeps his hands across it and it all disappears. Then he gives me a name, tells me to go and see this guy tomorrow.

  “Not today?” I ask.

  “You need to go shooting deer today?”

  “No,” I tell him.

  “Then tomorrow will be fine then, won’t it.”

  He puts my purchases into a plastic supermarket bag. I thank him and leave.

  I get back to my car just as a traffic cop is about to give me a ticket. He’s a guy in his thirties who looks like he’s spent twenty of those years either lifting heavy weights or doing hard time. He looks up at me and before I can say anything, he says “Looks like you’ve had a tough day.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about I don’t make it any tougher for you? Next time put enough coins in the meter, okay?”

  I almost feel like hugging him, and it restores some of my faith in the city.

  I drive out to the airport and pull into medium-term parking, where Jo’s car can stay for the next few days, or where the police will eventually find it after I’m dead. The walls of the rental agency I choose are painted bright orange with blue racing stripes around the middle. The windows and glass sliding doors are covered in stickers and decals. I step inside and an assistant high on caffeine goes through the paperwork with me as I rent a late-model Holden, similar to the one I saw outside the bank. I figure driving around in my own car is a pretty dumb thing to do since Cyris knows it so well.

  I show the guy my driver’s license and he looks at me and then at the photo. I shrug. “Car accident,” I tell him.

  “Car had fists, did it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You should take out the insurance,” he says.

  So I take out the insurance. I sign the credit-card form and the guy tells me to keep the pen. I add the car key to my others.

  The Holden is a much nicer drive than my Honda and Jo’s Mazda, but it doesn’t make the situation seem any better. Just more comfortable. I throw my free pen in the glove box where it sits next to a map and a box of tissues and an instruction booklet. Back home I charge the cell phone. I change the outgoing message on my answering machine so it includes my new cell number.

  I’m about to make something to eat when suddenly I realize I don’t want to touch any of the food that’s in my house since both Cyris and Landry have been in here. Problem is I’m starving. I get back into my car and drive a few minutes to some local shops and spend a few minutes buying some food. I’m driving back home when the answer to one of my questions hits me. I’ve been wondering why Cyris didn’t take his two victims into the middle of nowhere. It’s because he wanted them found. He didn’t want them found at home, but he didn’t want them to be missing forever. He wanted them found side by side in a pasture by a common highway. He would have left the stolen van there with blood in it. Maybe he’d have left other stuff on the sidewalk, like some sliced up clothes. The cops would have searched the area. This way the motivation for the abductions and murders looks obvious-it looks like a sick bastard doing what he enjoys most. Cyris wanted them found.

  But not at home.

  Why?

  Jo would be able to figure it out.

  I get home. I carry the sandwich I bought through to the table and sit down. It’s chicken and cranberry and should taste great, but it doesn’t. I eat it simply because I need the fuel. There is something to all of this, something to the fact Cyris didn’t want them found at home. Why? Didn’t he want their husbands to come home and. .

  Suddenly I realize what didn’t fit well with the newspaper article I read yesterday! I stand up quickly and almost choke on my sandwich. The newspaper said Kathy’s body was found by her neighbor, but Kathy had told me her cheating husband Frank would be home before the morning to get fresh clothes. She seemed sure of it. If he did come home, why wouldn’t he have called the police?

  I drag this chain of questions around the dining room as I pace it. Is it reasonable to think her husband came home expecting to find her missing, and not dead? Just because he was due home and never called the police? It’s possible, but it’s equally possible he never made it home, that he stayed where he was and cheated some more on Kathy.

  Okay, so there are a few possibilities, but with nothing else to work with, I try to make these possibilities fit around the answer I want. And it’s not difficult. There was no forced entry. Cyris wants money. He even yelled out For the money. Kathy was supposed to be missing, not dead. I think he knew his wife was going to die that night. I think he came home prepared to call the police that she was missing, and when he found her sliced up in the master bedroom he didn’t know what to do. So he ran.

  I think back to what I told Landry about Cyris putting himself into a role to kill the two women. The police come along, they find the hammer and stake, and they think madman. They don’t think cheating husband. They think psychopath. They don’t think messy divorce.

  At six thirty I dress in my new fatigue gear. What I see in the mirror scares me. I slip the cell into one of the many pockets, the binoculars and KA-BAR and Swiss Army knife into others. The sun is low, its casual slide into the night almost complete. It’s now just a bright, blurry orange blob. Dressed like I’m about to go to war, and feeling it too, I walk to my car, pull down the sun visor and head toward the battlefield.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The sun sinks and my anguish rises.

  I stop at a supermarket and ignore the looks. A person dressed in fatigues is a common enough sight. People who have been beaten up are also common enough. It’s not often the two are combined. Normally the guy in the fatigues has given the beating. Stopping at the supermarket has never been so weird. It’s as if I’ve evolved beyond walking up and down aisles looking for pastas and cereals and bread. This kind of mundane day-to-day living is behind me. This isn’t where people go when death is all around them. I grab chips, doughnuts, a packet of cheese slices, and two drinks. I roll out a hundred-dollar note and the looks on the faces around me change. The girl working the checkout takes a small step back. She’s thinking I just mugged somebody. Or killed them.

  I pull past Kathy’s house at six fifty in my shiny, rented Holden and park six houses further down. There are no police cars. No police tape. Life has moved on. Death hasn’t, though. I can feel it waiting in the street watching me. The Mercedes I saw parked outside one of the neighboring houses is still parked in the same place. Maybe it’s broken down. The street is pretty quiet. I start waiting.

  I flick through the newspaper I bought with my snacks. The murders are still front-page news. No mention of Landry. I figure it’s too soon. The cops will be concerned. I’m sure Landry kept any information about me to himself. Had to, so he could execute me without fear of being caught. At least that’s something in my favor, I guess. I try to think if anything connects me to Landry’s death. My fingerprints are all over the cabin, which will match those at Kathy’s and Luciana’s houses. What else is there? Oh shit. There’s the piece of paper he showed me with my name and phone number surrounded by rubbed pencil. If Landry’s body is found the note will be discovered. But maybe it’s gotten so battered by the river it’s now useless. Or maybe it wasn’t in those clothes, but in the pocket of his jacket or pants, which Jo is now wearing. If she’s even wearing anything.

  My stomach tightens at that thought. The harder I try not to imagine her naked and pinned beneath Cyris, the more visual it becomes. I start sweating. I look for a distraction. I read the rest of the newspaper. I start on the crossword puzzle and can only manage to solve a third of it. The day goes from being light to dim to dark. The streetlights come on. An hour into my wait a dark Mercedes pulls into a driveway six houses ahead of me. Into Kathy’s house. I put the binoculars to my eyes and manage only a glimpse of the car before it rolls out of sight. I
start the car and move up to pull in behind the silver Mercedes. Does everybody on this street own one? I kill the engine. Wait patiently.

  I can see the right front of the house and the back of the Mercedes. I can’t see any movement inside the house or the car. There’s not much more I can do. I came prepared to wait for hours and now it seems I may just be doing that. I have to remain focused. Remain sharp. I have to trust everything is okay. If I believed otherwise I’d be believing there’s no point in carrying on.

  I start to grow restless, fidgety. The minutes slip by like lost nights. This is the first evening Landry has ever missed since being born. A few people are out and about. Some are walking dogs. Others are power walking, thrusting their arms in front of them in self-defense movements to stay fit. Nobody pays any attention to me. I probably look like a reporter. Or a cop. Both would have perfect justification to be sitting here. Both wouldn’t look out of place with cuts and bruises on their faces. I consider reading the newspaper again, but it’s too dark now. I want to get out and stretch a few of my aching muscles. I adjust my position in the seat. I look into the rearview mirror. My jaw where Landry hit me is getting darker. The swelling has gone down and the bruising has darkened. I run my finger along the line of the bruise. It feels soft, like a small balloon of water is trapped underneath.

  I look up at the sky and wonder if it will rain tonight. When my cell phone rings I can’t find it. I fumble through my vest pockets, forgetting which one I put it in, swearing every time my fingers come up empty. When I get to it I check the display. The number is blocked. I flip it open and answer it.

  “Why aren’t you at home, partner?” Cyris’s voice crackles through the earpiece.