by Paul Cleave
“Was I in the news today?” I ask.
“Did you even hear anything I just said?”
“The papers, Carl. Was I in them? The accident?”
“Not the papers, no,” he says. “The accident was too late for that. But you’ve been on the news all day.”
“Since this morning?”
“That’s what all day means.”
“Then why the hell aren’t you asking yourself the obvious question?”
“Which is?”
“Why would the guy who planted the hammer in my garage not take it back out after seeing the news? He must have known being in jail would clear me.”
I can tell from his expression that Schroder hadn’t thought of it. “Maybe he didn’t see the news,” he says.
“Come on, Carl, you know just as well as I do that these guys always read the papers and watch the news.”
He taps one half of the broken pencil against the table. “This is going to be a long night,” he says. “We’re going to get this sorted.”
“Then I’d better make myself comfortable,” I answer, and I lean back in my chair.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Schroder was right and wrong. Right that it was going to be a long night. Wrong about us getting it sorted. Landry showed up on cue, but their routine at trying to shake something loose from me was ruined by the murder weapon. It was planted, they both knew it, and that was the problem. They’d have had a better chance if they hadn’t found it. They held me long enough to go over the same questions and until they were satisfied the people going through my house had searched enough for, what I imagine, was evidence of what really happened to Sidney Alderman, evidence of what I suspected Father Julian was up to—only there was no evidence there. I could tell Landry was itching to keep me locked up, and that Schroder was tempted to go along with it, but in the end they had nothing to hold me on. Even the blood and dirt on my body I explained away as a bad fall while I was out walking trying to clear my head. Nobody bought it, but it didn’t matter.
When we’re done I’m escorted to the elevator by both Landry and Schroder.
“This isn’t over,” Landry says, and he’s right—it isn’t over. Somebody killed Father Julian, and that same somebody tried to send me to jail for it. I suspect that same somebody will be the man who killed those girls. I’m going to find that somebody.
When I get to the ground floor there are two officers there waiting for me. I follow them outside and I climb into the back of their car and none of us make any kind of conversation as they drive me home. We drive through the city. I stare out at the nightlife, people driving to or from work, to or from bars, to or from something better or something worse.
They drop me off in my driveway. They back away and this time there are no faces pressed up against neighboring windows to see what I’m up to. My house is locked up and I still don’t have my keys, so I go inside using the same busted window as before. Schroder never mentioned the window, and I guess maybe he figured out why it had been busted. My house isn’t any tidier since the police have scoured their way through it. The articles and pictures from the bedroom I’d set up as an office have all gone. All that are left are pinholes in the walls. The computer is gone, my notes are gone, even the whiteboard has been taken. Landry will trawl though everything and he’ll get me back in to answer more questions—maybe even later on today. But there is nothing in any of those notes about Sidney Alderman. Nothing about Quentin James.
I make some coffee, and the caffeine wakes me enough to realize I’m so tired I don’t even know what my next step should be. The coffee tastes good, but not good enough to consider making another. I stare at the glass on the counter, which is still full of bourbon. I think about tipping it down the sink, then I think about tipping it down my throat, and I don’t do either. I head down to the bedroom. Everything is messy. The mattress has been tipped up and thrown back on the base. All the drawers have been pulled out. The wardrobe has been opened and everything inside pulled out.
I head down to the laundry and check the washing machine. At some point the wash cycle stopped. The clothes I put in there are all done. There are bloodstains on some of them from the accident and from the trip into the woods, but those bloodstains are mine.
I take a quick shower. It feels like the best shower I’ve ever had, but I’m too tired to really appreciate it. Daxter stands in the bathroom and watches me as I dry off. When I’m done I feed him and he seems appreciative.
It’s almost six in the morning before I climb into bed. I reckon Landry and Schroder will probably be going through the same motions. I start to set the alarm, but in the end I can’t decide what time to set it for, so I switch it off. I bury my head into the pillows and try to get to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The house is full of warm colors and my neighbor’s face is frozen with cold emotion.
“What do you want to borrow my phone for, Theo?” she asks.
“Because mine isn’t working.”
“You think the police bugged it? They could have. They were there all night. That was one stupid thing you did,” she says.
“I know.”
“After you losing your little girl and everything. Real stupid.”
“Can I borrow your phone or not?”
Mrs. Adams stares at me for a few seconds without saying anything, and I can tell she’s really debating the issue. She doesn’t want me inside her house. This woman who looks like everybody’s grandmother and who brought cooked dinners to my house at least once a week for almost a year after Emily died. This woman who I would occasionally find weeding my garden or trimming some bushes because I’d been too tired or too busy or too lazy to do it. There was always a wave and a smile and a good word that things would be okay, that Emily was with God, that everything would be okay.
“I don’t know,” she says. “You could have killed her.”
“That wasn’t my intention,” I say, as if that could possibly excuse it. Just like it wasn’t Quentin James’s intention to kill my daughter.
Mrs. Adams doesn’t pick up on the comment, and instead stands aside. “Don’t take too long,” she says.
She stays a step behind me as I make my way through her house, as if suddenly she thinks I’m not only a drunk driver, but also about to steal one of the thousand knickknacks covering the tables and countertops. “Phone book?” I ask.
She sighs, and I have the impression that if she’d known in the beginning I was going to be this much trouble she wouldn’t have let me in. She rummages through a kitchen drawer and pulls out the white pages.
I call the hospital and ask after the condition of Emma Green. It turns out that’s the girl’s real last name—Donovan Green wasn’t faking it after all. The nurse tells me she can only give information out to a family member.
“Can you just tell me if she’s doing okay?” I ask.
“When are you guys going to learn you can’t just keep chewing up our time with questions all day long?” she asks.
“What guys?”
“Reporters,” she says, almost spitting the word out before hanging up. My guess is that if she knew who I was it would only have been worse.
I make my second call, this one to the morgue.
“It’s Tate.”
“Tate? My God, I heard about what happened. Are you doing okay?” Tracey asks. She’s the first person to have done so, and it feels kind of nice.
“Doing okay? I guess that depends on your definition,” I tell her. “Listen, I need to ask if you can help me out on a few things.”
There’s a few moments of silence, and I’m about to ask if she’s still there when she speaks up. “Tate, I’m sorry about everything that’s happened,” she says, “but you know I can’t help you on anything. Not just because of the last few days, but you stole that dead girl’s ring right out of my morgue. I had Landry down here asking me about it this morning and I didn’t know what to tell him.”
&nbs
p; “I’m sorry I had to put you through that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too,” she says, and I can picture her slowly shaking her head. “Because now I’m the one who’s getting a reprimand. This could end up being serious. For all I know, I could get suspended. Or worse. I gotta go.”
“Listen, Tracey, please, it’s important.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s the girl,” I say, “that’s all.”
“What?”
“I need to know how she’s doing. The hospital won’t tell me.”
“I don’t know how she’s doing,” she says.
“But you can find out, right?”
“You’re really pushing it, Tate.”
“Please. It’s important.”
She goes quiet again. This time I know she’s still there. I just wait her out. “Call me back in five minutes,” she says.
“I gotta come down there anyway. Put my name on the list. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Look, I can’t just—”
“Thanks, Tracey. I’ll see you soon.” I hang up before she can object.
Mrs. Adams doesn’t seem too impressed that I’m taking up so much of her time. Scattered across the kitchen are baking ingredients that must all have come together to form whatever fantastic-smelling thing is turning brown in the oven.
I make another call. My mother answers, slightly out of breath, as if she’s just run in from the yard.
“I’ve been trying to call,” she says. “Your cell phone isn’t switched on.”
“I lost it.”
“And your home phone is disconnected.”
“I forgot to pay the bill.”
“Is it true what the papers are saying?” she asks. “Please, Theo, please don’t tell me you did what they’re saying you did.”
“I haven’t seen the papers,” I tell her, “but yes, it’s true. I’m sorry.”
“I should have done more,” she says.
“What?”
“This is my fault,” she says. “I should have seen what was happening to you ever since the accident. But don’t worry, we’re here to help you now.”
“It’s not your fault. Anyway the reason I’m calling is—”
“Of course it’s my fault,” she says. “Your father and me failed you. We must have. I’m so sorry,” she says, which makes me feel even worse.
“Listen, Mom, it’s not like that. I’ll explain it better when I see you, but for now I want to ask if I can borrow a car.”
“A car?”
“Dad hardly uses his, right? And you two can share yours while I’m using it.”
“What’s wrong with yours? Oh,” she says, figuring it out. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“I’m not going to wreck it, Mom.”
“I don’t . . .”
“I’m okay now,” I tell her. “I promise. And I need this, okay? I need you guys to trust me.”
“Of course we trust you. But . . . but won’t they have taken your license off you?”
“They went easy on me because of my history,” I say, which is a complete lie. My license has been taken off me. If I get caught driving I’ll be heading straight back to jail. There’ll be fines. It’s the Quentin James factor.
“I’ll bring it over to you,” Mom says. “I’m sure Dad won’t mind.”
We both know that he will. I hang up the phone and hand the white pages back to Mrs. Adams.
“I wouldn’t be trusting you,” she says, then she offers me one of the muffins she’s just baked, as if some grandmotherly gene inside her can’t prevent her from reaching out. I grab one before she can change her mind, figuring it’s the healthiest thing I’ve eaten in weeks.
“You know, Theo, I don’t mean to sound hard on you, not after everything that’s happened, so please, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s never too late to pull yourself together. We’re always next door if you need some help along the way.”
I thank her for the use of her phone and for the muffin. She gives me another one to take home with me. If more people were as forgiving and as helpful, maybe we could cut away some of the cancer that has set into the bones of this city.
It’ll take my mother an hour to get here with the car, so I kill some time by going to buy a newspaper. I keep thinking people will notice me, that they’ll know who I am and what I have done, but nobody pays me any attention because my photo isn’t in the paper, only my name. The guy at the shop knows me, though, because I’ve been coming here for years. He looks at me, looks down at the front page, and looks at me again. He seems to search for something to say, and I think all his angry one-liners trip over each other and he ends up saying nothing. He even gives me the right amount of change. I get back home and read the article. It’s all about the accident. About me. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture. I read the article about Father Julian, but it doesn’t reveal anything I don’t already know. At least my name isn’t mentioned here—yet.
I switch on the TV and watch a couple of minutes of the morning news. Father Julian’s murder is the headline, and it looks like it’s going to be a busy day for the media. Casey Horwell gives a report. She talks about the murder weapon being found and she says where, offering my name as if she knew all along what I was capable of, her smirk suggesting she could see this coming even if the police couldn’t. I wonder how in the hell she found out where the weapon was found and who her source is. She talks about Father Julian’s tongue being removed. I get angry just looking at her, and have to turn the TV off or risk throwing the remote at it.
I start to tidy the house and do some more laundry. Then I spend a few minutes in my daughter’s bedroom. The police came through here last night, but they haven’t messed it up, just left things slightly askew. It reminds me of Father Julian’s office, the way everything is where it should be, but only just. The police here showed some respect. They searched this room and found nothing except a lonely shrine and evidence of an even lonelier parent. Daxter looks up at me from the bed. He follows me back down the house and I fill up his food bowl.
Six months ago I had a spare bedroom that seemed to be a magnet for all the crap in my life that I couldn’t seem to fit anywhere else in the house or garage. These days it’s an office—or at least was until last night. I sit down at the desk and drag a pad out from the drawer. I start writing down the names and the dates of the women who were killed. I start compiling as many of the notes as I can remember, but the last eight weeks have been a haze of alcohol, of guilt, of anger at the priest and at myself, and the small details have all slipped away, drowned beneath an ocean of self-resentment. I do the best I can with the details I remember, and I start to create another time line.
Just before my mother arrives, I head into the kitchen and pick up the glass of bourbon still waiting for me on the counter. I can’t bring myself to throw it out. I don’t know why. I put it into the fridge, then hide it at the back. When my mother arrives she looks around the house, unable to stop herself from commenting about the mess, the smell, the stuffy air, the broken window. She looks me over. The gash in my head has closed back up, but it isn’t pretty. The bruises on my face she attributes to the accident, the same way Schroder and Landry did. There is a huge bruise running down the side of my neck, and she can’t see the bruise across my chest from the seat belt. I have cuts all over my hands; the end of the finger bandage is stained with blood.
My mom is in her late sixties, but thinks she is in her forties and that I’m still nine years old. Her hair isn’t quite as gray as my neighbor’s, and her glasses aren’t quite as big—but I figure in ten years they’ll be a match.
“You need to go to a doctor,” she says.
“I’m fine. I’ve already been checked over.”
“Doesn’t look like they did a good job.”
She starts to tidy up. I tell her not to bother, but the only thing she doesn’t bother to do is listen to my requests. Mom tells me how disappointed Bridget w
ould be if she knew what was happening, not just about the drunk driving, but also the way I’ve been treating myself lately. I keep saying I know over and over, but she doesn’t seem to get tired of hearing it. After nearly an hour she lets me drive her back home and I keep the car.
“I’m also strapped for cash,” I say, “and I need a new phone. I hate asking, but can you help me out here?”
“There’s already some in the glove box,” she says. “We worry about you, Theo. More than you think. Are you going to come in and say hello to your father?”
“I don’t know. I guess that depends on how disapproving he is that I’m borrowing his car.”
“Then you’d best be on your way,” she says, grinning at me. She leans over then and gives me a hug, and for the briefest of moments I feel like everything is going to be okay.
When I get to the library I open the glove box and find an envelope with a thousand dollars in cash. She must have dropped into a bank on the way. She knew I didn’t forget to pay the phone bill, that I didn’t pay it because I haven’t worked in weeks. I suddenly feel like turning around and giving it all back—the money and the car—because I don’t deserve anybody to worry about me. But I don’t. There are too many dead girls, too many dead caretakers, and a dead priest all pressing me forward. Plus somebody out there tried to frame me for murder.
The library is warm and quiet. Plenty of people who live in different worlds from me are sitting down reading about worlds similar to the one I’m falling into. I find the newspaper sections on the computer and print out all the articles that mention the missing girls. There are the ones I got from beneath Bruce Alderman’s bed, plus the stories that have been in the papers since the girls were discovered. I spend the rest of the afternoon rereading these stories and printing them out. I print out the stories about Bruce Alderman’s suicide and about his father’s disappearance too. I end up with a stack of paper dedicated to the dead almost a centimeter thick.