Resolve

by Hensley, J. J.

  I felt cowardly even saying it.

  Shand stepped in. “You have connections to at least three dead bodies and you own a gun that happens to fire .357 rounds. The same type of round that killed your professor friend. If you were in our shoes, what would you think?”

  I knew what I would think. I knew what they were thinking.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Then help us out. Give us the gun.”

  “No. I’ve had enough of this. I want things to go back to normal.”

  “What’s normal?”

  “Not this.”

  Shand reached into his jacket and pulled out a hand clutching a neatly folded set of papers.

  “I was hoping you would just consent to this, but here you

  go.”

  He handed me the warrant. Some judge in this area had a very loose definition of probable cause. They were going to take my gun. I stood reading, wasting time.

  Hartz spoke from above. “Save us some time. Where is it?”

  I opened the front door and led the three men into the living room, turning the lights on as we walked. Sigmund greeted each one with a wet nose and attention-wanting whimper. His tail shot back and forth in sheer delight at having visitors.

  Quite vicious.

  I pointed to the pillow on the couch. Hartz donned a pair of latex gloves and retrieved two evidence bags from his pocket. “Got the box?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Yes.”

  Moving the pillow and carefully holding the murder weapon, he asked, “Expecting trouble?”

  “If you expect it, it never comes.”

  He unloaded the weapon, including the round in the chamber. He separately bagged the gun and the ammunition, barely taking notice of the bullets as they poured into the bag.

  “Normally I would never say this to someone, but you know how this works. You may be able to work out a deal. Get a lawyer and come in. The prosecutors around here are pretty levelheaded. If you give us some good reasons, you never know. Former cop . . . college professor . . . if you were painted into a corner or had no other way out . . .”

  “I told you, I didn’t do it.”

  “And all of this is just bad luck? People around you dying?”

  “The worst.”

  “Let me ask you this—why do you think anyone would want Randy Walker dead?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “What do you think should happen to the person who killed him?”

  Basic question. Guilty people downplay the punishment. A subconscious desire to be vindicated.

  “Them.” I said.

  “What?”

  “Them. I assume that the same person killed the police officer too, right?”

  “Okay. Them.”

  “The scumbag that killed Randy deserves something other than prison. And you shouldn’t even have to ask me how I feel about cop killers. Whoever killed that officer deserves the same fate in return. No question.”

  “I don’t suppose you would just want to tell us where you—”

  “It’s time for you to leave. Your cars are blocking my driveway. Good night.”

  Sigmund watched the taillights get smaller, and I sat back on the couch and counted my borrowed time. The clock was ticking and no amount of willpower could stop it. My hands were starting to tremble. It was all catching up to me. Everything comes back to you. It always comes back.

  I got up and poured myself a scotch to steady my nerves. I took a long pull from the glass and plopped down on the couch, placing my drink on an end table. Of all the things to worry about, I realized I hadn’t used a coaster. Kaitlyn hates water rings on the tables. Draping my arm over the armrest of the couch, I felt my way around the end table and found a magazine to put my drink on. Without looking, I expertly relocated my glass and slid the periodical closer to my comfortable reach.

  Silo. Jacob. Aaron. The other names of the condemned in Lindsay’s clandestine files. The message to Randy. V. Poor V. My gun on its way to some lab. Steven. The parking garage. Me on my way to the car. The blood-filled apartment. Where was Lindsay killed? Nobody knows. Probably ambushed like me. Like V? Stationary targets. Predictable.

  Like Brent said in his lecture. Like Brent said. He must have noticed the fresh bruise on my head, but he didn’t say anything. Why?

  Sitting up, I cupped my head in my hands. The clock—ticking. Feeling for my glass, I couldn’t quite reach it from that position. I turned and leaned toward it, afraid of spilling the warm massage. The wet ring left by my glass wrinkled the cover of the magazine.

  Not a magazine. The bubbled-up words on the page started the reaction. I closed my eyes tight. My mind pulled the trigger back slowly, the hammer yawned toward me and my thoughts began to focus. I lined the sights up. Focusing on the front sight, the back sights began to blur. Everything else began to blur. I could almost see it. Then the hammer dropped and the percussion of fire jetted me into recognition.

  Got it.

  The last tumbler fell into place.

  I had to talk to a person who I had all but forgotten, but regardless of what he said, I knew.

  I knew.

  Mile 21

  The road transforms from semi-continuous pavement to giant squares of chipped concrete on Bryant Street. From high above, it must look like oversized bricks were placed down, and if one became damaged, it could be lifted out and replaced. The old Buicks that were parked on each side of the street have transformed into affordable foreign cars with names that are made easy to pronounce for xenophobic American buyers.

  The pain is more than I anticipated. The sleep-deprived days prior to the race have piled on top of my battered head and chest, and it’s all catching up to me now. I have to speed up. The gap has to narrow and I have to make a move now. Each of my hands has been balled into a fist and the tension in my forearms tells me that I haven’t run in the relaxed way I should have. Too late to worry about that now.

  Catch up to him.

  Close in.

  Kill the architect of this house of mirrors and try to set things right. Feel the remorse later.

  If you can.

  It’s not paranoia if someone is really after you. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself every time I checked the mirrors. It had become a habit after Randy had followed me to V’s apartment. At night, detecting vehicular surveillance becomes more difficult when headlights on city streets are as common as fireflies in a meadow. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the tail if I hadn’t blown through a red light on Western Avenue. It was three cars behind me, and all I could discern was that it was a sedan. I couldn’t afford to let my adversary see where I was headed and who I was trying to find. It was too soon for him to know.

  In the movies, the pursued always screeches away and attempts to lose the pursuer. There is usually some elaborate chase where pedestrians have to jump out of the way and horns blare with hostility. This wasn’t a movie and I had had enough of the games.

  Slamming on the brakes, I caused all of the cars behind me to do the same. I opened my door and sprinted down the center line toward the sedan. I had expected the driver to attempt an escape by suddenly throwing the car in reverse and executing a three-point turn in the middle of the road. I was hoping either to reach the sedan and confront the driver, or at least be able to see past the headlights and confirm his identity before the car inevitably sped away. None of those things happened.

  My move was countered by the sound of acceleration, and the pursuing car’s headlights swiftly became larger and more daunting. The car sped forward, causing me to come to a standstill beside one of the cars I had forced to stop, and rethink my brilliant strategy. Leaping onto the hood of a yellow Mustang, I felt the toe of my right shoe catch the front the sedan. The force spun me awkwardly and I rolled off the hood of the car, and into the street, as the fender of the Mustang crunched from a collision.

  A stream of profanity came from the d
river of the Mustang and horns began to sound all around me. I stood up to see where the aggressor sedan had gone. With the headlights now shining in the other direction, I was able to get the make of the car, but I couldn’t read the plate or see the driver. I didn’t need to. Just as the car had reached me, I was able to see the hands on the steering wheel. Hands I hadn’t expected to see. Tiny hands with white knuckles that stuck out of an oversized coat.

  Ignoring the irate driver, I dusted myself off, got into the Wrangler and sped off. I still had to see someone. I would deal with the man who’d tried to turn me into road kill later.

  Mile 22

  Heavy breaths come at me from behind, and even at my accelerated pace, several people pass me. The last relay station is now behind me, and those fresh-legged competitors on this final leg of the relay are trying their best not to disappoint their teams. Worry creeps in as people continue to pass me, but then I catch up to a pack of four running the full marathon and I easily pass them.

  This straight stretch on North Neagley Avenue is the ideal place for me to make my move. Not slowing down at a water station, I snatch a cup of water from a young teen wearing a shirt that reads VIRGIL’S CHILDREN’S CAMP. Throwing the water into my face causes goose bumps to populate my sweat-covered arms. My strides lengthen and my breathing becomes deeper. For some reason I glance at the long scar on my forearm. Pain has a way of either making you focus or making you lose focus. This is the most focused I have ever felt.

  Pulling back into the driveway, I hit the button to open the garage door. When I saw the Ford parked there sloppily, I did a double-take and brought the Jeep to a quick stop. Lightly pressing the accelerator, I parked against one side of the garage as I worried about why Kaitlyn was home early. She wasn’t due back for a couple of days, but there was her car. I reached down on my belt to check my cell phone for messages and remembered that I had left the dead phone charging in the house.

  After the police left, I took a trip downtown to find the man who could fill in the last few blanks. He did, and now I had all the right cards. Nothing I knew would ever stand up in court, but it didn’t have to. It was good enough for me.

  I had missed my wife over the last few days, and turning the doorknob to go into the house, I imagined briefly what our reunion would be like. Surely, I would open the door and be met with my soul mate wearing a tight white blouse and dark blue jeans. Her hair would be disheveled in the most beautiful way I had ever seen. Her lipstick would be perfect and she would smell like vanilla. Before I could get both feet into the house, she would plant a passionate kiss on my lips and say, “No need for words. Take me upstairs and make love to me. I’ve missed you so much. I couldn’t stay away.” I would do so, and we would explore each other until late the next morning. She would tell me that she was lucky to have a man like me and I would agree wholeheartedly.

  I held on to that fantasy up until the moment I actually started turning the doorknob. What I was greeted with when she yanked the door open—nearly taking my hand off with the knob—was slightly less than I had hoped for.

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for hours! I saw the news! That’s the girl, right? Virginia Richmond? And Randy? Why was Randy there? They said he was shot! What happened? Are you alright? Do you know how worried I was? Why the hell didn’t you answer your phone? I caught a glimpse of it on the TV and I started driving home! Why didn’t you answer your phone? Why did someone kill that girl? Is it because of that flash drive? Did Randy have something to do with it? What happened to your hair? Are you bleeding? Is that a new bruise?”

  At least she was wearing a tight blouse.

  The deluge of questions dwindled to a stream and finally a trickle. I told her I was fine and took her by the hand into the living room. She sat on the couch with one arm pressed against the pillow that Detective Hartz had lifted a short while before. I paced through the living room and stayed silent. She could tell that if her usually articulate husband was struggling to assemble his thoughts into words, then something was definitely off.

  Sigmund took up a position at Kaitlyn’s feet and listened to inclemency settle around us. One of the most overused phrases in the English language has to be love of my life. But in this case it was absolutely true. From the moment I met her, Kaitlyn had been the most important thing in my life. She was my protection from having the empty pit of regret that so many people have when they take their last breath. I counted myself lucky to have wasted less than three decades before I found the greatest treasure I could ever have sought. To lie to her on this day would have been to lie to her forever. I couldn’t do that.

  I told her everything.

  I told her what I had done.

  I told her who was behind it all.

  Regret, hesitation, ambivalence—those were feelings I had repressed until then. When I saw her start to cry, that’s when the totality of everything hit me. I could tell she was half-crying out of concern for me and half-crying out of anger at the entire situation. I started getting choked up myself as I watched her accept the bitter realities one by one. What I had acclimated to over the course of a few weeks, I was now asking her to absorb in one sitting.

  She wiped her eyes and without looking at me, she asked, “You can’t come clean with the police, can you?”

  “No. I don’t have the level of evidence they need. Besides . . . too much blood on me.”

  “So, he’s just going to get away with it? All of this?”

  I tried to look out a window, but caught only my own reflection.

  “No,” I said quietly to her. Or to me.

  When no other sounds came from the couch, I turned and looked straight at her. She looked up at me with eyes that were wet stones, drying out in the desert sun. Our eyes latched onto each other for an immortal moment.

  She disrupted the visual exchange long enough to pick up the scotch I had left on the end table, and finish it off with an impressive swig. When they projected back in my direction, her blue-gray eyes were hardened steel.

  With the sincerity of a wrecking ball, she said, “You have to do it smart. You can’t get caught.”

  Taking a seat beside her, I told her my plan.

  Mile 23

  My shoulder throbs and my lungs burn as I summon all the energy I’ve tried to conserve by running at a slower than normal pace. Weaving around two runners who look to be on the brink, I take care to do it gradually enough not to attract attention. I don’t know these runners.

  I passed two of the men who were involved in this mess long ago. Neither is innocent, but neither of them is the one who set the wheels in motion. Slipping by people unnoticed isn’t difficult when the streets are wide and eyes are filled with sweat. I won’t be slipping by the next one.

  Far ahead in the distance, skating near the center line—there he is.

  He’s on the route.

  His guard is down.

  He shouldn’t have let his guard down.

  Around the time he comes fully into focus, I pass a sign announcing the irony of the situation. The uncomplicated marker tells me we’re passing through FRIENDSHIP.

  When the phone rang on Monday, I had been cooling down from a painful eighteen-mile run. The marathon was less than a week away, and although I hadn’t been able to train the way I would have liked, I felt I was ready. The voice on the phone was that of Beatrice Holbrook. With all of her usual pleasantness, she informed me I was reinstated and expected back at work the following day. Her words were more of a demand than an invitation, and I could tell she had really been hoping to speak to an answering machine.

  Not being one who wants to end calls on a negative note, in the most congenial voice I could muster I said, “Why, thank you so much Mrs. Holbrook. It is always wonderful to speak with you. And might I add, you look lovely today.”

  She cackled back, “What in the world are you talking about, Keller? You haven’t seen me today. And it’s Ms. Holbrook.”

  “Oh, it woul
dn’t be if I would have met you years ago, you sly minx.”

  She hung up. Rhetoric is a lost art.

  There had been no word about my gun. For a nationally publicized homicide, the lab must have rolled out the red carpet for its arrival, but I still hadn’t heard from the boys in blue. If I were them, I would let me sweat a while too.

  On Tuesday, I decided to skip stopping by my office, instead reporting directly to a classroom full of uneasiness. The messages I had left with the graduate student who had been teaching my classes had gone unanswered, so I asked the students in my first class where they left off. After a long, nervous delay, I finally got an answer and picked up the lessons from that point. The tautness in the class was unbearable. Several seats were empty and I had received email notices that a few students had dropped the course. The combination of the killings and my newfound reputation as Dr. Death was creating a less-than-optimal learning environment. Regardless, the semester would be over in a few days and perhaps everybody could step back and reset. From the thorny expressions I observed in the classroom, I concluded that it would probably be a good idea for me to get a fresh start somewhere else.

  After class, I went to my office and the sun beamed through my window as I tried to decipher some notes left behind by my timid substitute. The ink had smeared across the pages the way that happens when left-handed people write. It took me an hour and two cups of hazelnut coffee before I felt like I was up to speed. The next few minutes consisted of me deleting phone messages from reporters who wanted to get a comment from me. I had screened my phone calls at home since the story broke nationally, and persistent journalists had taken to calling my work number as well. I was only a minor part of the story, and not demonized in the least, but it was still an aggravation I didn’t need.

  While deleting the twelfth message, there was a knock on my door. Fearing that a reporter had decided to pay me a personal visit, I stayed seated and hoped for the best. Along with the second knock came a question.