A Long December

by Richard Chizmar

  “That it was.”

  “Terrible, just terrible…my heart goes out to that boy’s mother and father.”

  “Okay, Bernie, I think that’s it for now. I hope you won’t mind if I come back again if I need to.”

  “Of course not. You come back anytime, anytime at all. Now let me get that door for you. It’s old and kinda cranky sometimes, just like its owner.”

  “It’s okay, no need to get up. I can see myself out.”

  “No trouble, Detective, I’m already up. Time for me to get the newspaper anyway.”

  “Oh, one last thing, Bernie.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How about some of those chocolate chip cookies for the road?”

  “I knew it, I knew it. And you won’t regret it either, Detective. My daughter can cook up a storm.”

  “I bet she can.”

  “Here’s a handful for the road and a couple napkins so you won’t make a mess.”

  “Tha…thank you.”

  “Is something wrong, Detective? Is there anything else?”

  “I’m afraid so, Bernie. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me.”

  “With you?”

  “Mr. Thompkins, I’m placing you under arrest for suspicion of murder…”

  “Good work today, Ryan. Very good work.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. Dumb luck is more like it, though.”

  “Hey, sometimes luck is our best friend.”

  “Poor old guy.”

  “Thompkins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He murdered that little boy, Ryan. Don’t you forget that.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Doc Reyes said that Thompkins probably lost it sometime after his wife died. They’d been together over fifty years and the loss was too much for him to bear. His daughter told us that he practically became a hermit after that, barely left the house these past few months. Stopped talking to his neighbors, stopped going to church, quit the Senior Center, that sort of thing.”

  “It’s a shame. Probably a great guy before all this happened. Truth is, he reminded me a little bit of my Pop.”

  “Ahh, those are the tough ones.”

  “So what do we have for a timeline so far? Thompkins’ daughter stops by for a visit sometime yesterday morning. Stays until just after lunchtime. Later in the afternoon, Brent Warrick shows up, probably asking about odd jobs. According to his mother, he was saving for one of those new video games. You figure he invites the boy inside for some of those cookies, maybe the promise of a job around the house, and then something happens to make him snap?”

  “That seems about right.”

  “But it had to go down slowly, Lieutenant. Slowly enough that Brent knew something was wrong with Thompkins, knew he was in trouble. Slowly enough to give him time to write his name on that napkin. Time for him to write the word help right next to it—”

  “And then time enough for him to place the napkin back with the others.”

  “Smart kid.”

  “Not smart enough.”

  “His parents didn’t call the station until almost nine o’clock. They thought he was at a friend’s house all day. That leaves about six, seven hours—”

  “Six or seven hours for Thompkins’ mind to fry…for him to kill the kid, and then sneak the body out of the house and into the woods.”

  “The body was discovered…let’s see…at eleven-fifteen p.m., a five minute drive from Thompkins’ house.”

  “They’re searching the garage and car as we speak. Still nothing from the next-door neighbors?”

  “Nope. One’s on vacation at the shore. Other one was gone visiting relatives all day and didn’t return until after all the commotion started. About ten-thirty last night.”

  “So what do you think went down in that kitchen, Ryan? What do you think happened?”

  “Jesus…I don’t know, Lieutenant. Maybe…maybe he gives the kid some cookies and then just starts babbling, saying crazy things, scares him. Or waves a knife in his face. Or maybe he starts crying for his dead wife and then pow. Hell, I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this much, it makes me sick to think about it.”

  “Amen to that.”

  “Still nothing from Thompkins? He still not talking?”

  “Oh, he’s talking alright. Your sweet little old man…he swears he doesn’t remember a thing…”

  “Hello. Anybody home?”

  “Upstairs, honey.”

  “I’ll be right up.”

  “Hang on, I’m coming down. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  “Okay.”

  “Grab yourself a beer. I’ll reheat dinner and you can tell me about your day.”

  “Sounds good to me. And, boy, do I have a story to tell you…”

  THE POETRY OF LIFE

  I’m forty-eight years old and have been a music teacher for twenty-seven of those years, and I still believe there is no sweeter sound in this world than the sound of a child’s laughter.

  Sometimes, when I hear it, I stop and listen and almost wish I could somehow bottle it up to save for later. This might happen when I am teaching a class or shopping for groceries or walking past one of the two playgrounds that bookend the neighborhood in which I live. I’ll pretend to find a reason to stop—my shoelace is untied or perhaps I need to check the price on a particular can of soup—and I’ll stand there and close my eyes and just drink it in. That beautiful melody.

  Regrettably, I’ve never had any children of my own. Never married. Never found that kind of love.

  I came close once. A long time ago when I was attending university. But it wasn’t to be.

  I say regrettably, but only because of my deep affection for children. I have never once complained or second guessed my lot in life, not even during those infrequent long sleepless nights that sometimes come to me when I have no choice but to lay there and stare at the dark ceiling and fight my troubling thoughts.

  People often worry about me, that I am secretly sad or lonely or depressed. No shortage of pity for the spinster. But they needn’t be concerned.

  I have my books and my television and my students. An older sister in Florida who emails me jokes and cute videos of kittens. A four-year-old Border Collie named Ginger. No cats, yet.

  And then there is Shirley, my best friend and next door neighbor.

  Shirley is a beautiful black woman. Sixty. Widowed. Mother of two adult boys who live out of state and rarely visit. We take turns at each other’s houses several times per week. Playing cards and watching our shows. Sometimes we cook or share Chinese delivery. And while she will never warm my bed on a cold winter night, she warms my heart in a different way. I love her very much.

  Shirley is also a kind woman and always smiles when I talk about how hearing a child’s laughter fills my heart, how it fuels me. She is the one who first started calling it the poetry of life. We were sitting on the front porch one summer evening, drinking lemonade and doing crossword puzzles, and I fell in love with those words the moment she said them.

  The poetry of life.

  It was the perfect description of not only the sound itself, but also how I felt when I heard a child’s laughter. It was poetry. It was life.

  I even started using it in my classes. I invented a lesson plan where each student would think about what constituted the poetry of life for them and then they would write down those thoughts. Then I would help each student turn those thoughts into a song.

  Of course, many of the boys wrote about basketball or football or video games. And, of course, many of the girls wrote about their best friends or Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber. They were ten years old, after all.

  But there were also some surprises.

  Some poetry.

  One little girl wrote about sunrises and how they reminded her of the little sister she had lost a year earlier to cancer.

  Another girl wrote about flowers and how they helped her forget all the sadness and ugliness in the world.
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  Yet another wrote about spider webs and how if she stared at them long enough they looked like maps to her, maps to imaginary worlds.

  And then there was my favorite: the little boy who wrote about thunderstorms and how they sounded like music inside his head, how they filled his heart to the point of bursting.

  The poetry of life.

  But I will never hear another song now.

  Not after the message I received on my phone an hour ago.

  Not after what the school board has decided.

  I’d tried to call Shirley right away. Shirley had a way of calming me when my mind went dark and troubled. I called her twenty-two times, but she wasn’t answering.

  So I’d gone to the playground next. Thinking that if I could just hear that sweet sound one more time, it might bring me peace and guidance.

  But it hadn’t worked.

  The poetry was gone.

  I’d felt nothing.

  This not only confused me, it terrified me.

  And for the first time in my life, I felt truly alone.

  I have time to think all this as I pull into a parking spot and turn off my car and listen to the ticking of the cooling engine.

  I have time to think all this as I walk across the parking lot and into the school.

  I have to walk slow.

  The guns are heavy.

  A LONG DECEMBER

  Tuesday, December 3

  I woke to the sound of slamming car doors outside and saw flashing lights reflected on my bedroom window and ceiling, and thought one thing: Grant.

  But Grant was at school in Richmond, two hundred miles away, and the logical part of my brain, which was obviously a lot more awake than the rest of me, told me to relax: if something had happened to Grant, they would have called to tell us, not shown up at the house in the middle of the night.

  Besides, there were too many car doors slamming out there, and muffled voices now. Whatever was going on involved a lot more than just one vehicle.

  I rolled over in bed and looked at the clock on the nightstand—11:53pm—then glanced at Katy, snoring quietly next to me. She was usually a light sleeper, and I was amazed she was still out. I guess a couple glasses of wine and three hours of late night reruns of The Office will do that to you. Good for her.

  I eased out of bed, feeling the cold shock of hardwood floor against my feet, and made my way over to the window. The December night had left a thin coating of frost on the outside of the glass, and I used my hand to wipe away condensation from the inside.

  There were three police cars parked in my neighbor Jimmy’s driveway, two of them with their bar-lights still flashing. As I watched, an unmarked sedan and a police van pulled up to the curb. Two people quickly exited the sedan and walked across the front yard, disappearing from my sightline.

  I craned my neck for a better look, but I couldn’t see whether they had gone into the house or were merely gathered out on Jimmy’s front porch. Wide awake now, I could feel my heart thumping in my chest. What the hell was going on?

  As quietly as possible, I crept out of the bedroom and was halfway down the stairs when someone knocked on the front door. A single knock, not very loud.

  I didn’t even bother to look out the peephole. I unlocked the dead bolt and pulled open the door—

  And found a smartly-dressed woman standing on my front porch. She was tall and thin and had the reddest head of hair I had ever seen. She held up a badge and an identification card, and it took me a moment to realize she was talking.

  “…Anderson. I’m sorry to bother you.”

  I pulled my focus away from the shiny police badge and blinked at her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you Robert Howard?”

  The use of my name caught me off guard. “Yes…I am.”

  “My name is Detective Anderson, Mr. Howard. I’m sorry to bother you at this late hour, but it’s important I talk to you.”

  I leaned forward and looked past the line of shrubs that lined my porch. Jimmy’s front door was wide open, and officers were coming and going with focused intent.

  “What happened? Is Jimmy okay?”

  “Jimmy is your neighbor James Wilkinson, is that right?”

  “Yes. Is he okay?”

  Another police van glided to the curb, this time directly in front of my house. I noticed other house lights coming on up and down the street. Neighbors wearing robes and winter jackets starting to appear on front porches and gathering on the sidewalks.

  “When was the last time you saw James Wilkinson, Mr. Howard?”

  I had to think about it for a moment. “Let’s see…he was here at the house all day Thursday for Thanksgiving, and then I saw him Friday evening when my wife and I got home from shopping. He said he was going to visit some friends for the weekend.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since that Friday evening?”

  “No.”

  “Heard from him? A phone call maybe?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Did he mention where he was going or the names of the people he was planning to visit?”

  I shivered in the cold air and shook my head. “No, he didn’t. Can you tell me what’s going—”

  “We’re serving a search warrant, Mr. Howard. Your neighbor, James Wilkinson, has been charged with two counts of murder. He is presently a fugitive on the run.”

  I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “This has gotta be some kind of mistake, detective.”

  “Unfortunately not. I know this comes as a shock, but Mr. Wilkinson has been under surveillance for some time now. It was only through a combination of bad luck and incompetence that he escaped arrest this weekend. We’ve been watching his house for the past forty-eight hours in the hope he might return, but that hasn’t been the case.”

  “This is crazy. Who did he supposedly murder?”

  She ignored the question. “You have any idea where else he might have gone, Mr. Howard?”

  I pretended to think about it. “I have no idea. I still believe this has got to be a mistake. Jimmy’s a good guy.”

  The detective reached into her jacket pocket and came out with a business card. Handed it to me. “We’re going to need to ask you some additional questions, Mr. Howard. Tomorrow will be fine. Please call the office first thing in the morning. We’ll set up a time.” She turned away to leave.

  “Wait a minute. Talk to me about what?”

  She stopped and looked back at me. “It’s my understanding that you’re James Wilkinson’s best friend, Mr. Howard. Is that correct?”

  It suddenly made me nervous to admit the truth. “I guess so, maybe.”

  “That’s why we need to talk to you, Mr. Howard.”

  She turned and walked away in the direction of Jimmy’s house. I watched her go, then stared past her at the glow of the Henderson’s red and green Christmas lights across the street. Their twinkling reflections blended with the flashing police lights, washing the frozen trees and lawns in festive, holiday colors. It felt like I was dreaming.

  “Hey, what the hell’s going on?”

  I snapped out of my daze and looked down at Ken Ellis, my neighbor from down the street. He was wearing flannel pajamas and a robe. He stepped up onto the porch next to me.

  “Cold as a witch’s titties out here. What that cop say to you? Something happen to Jimmy?”

  I don’t know why I lied, but I did. “She just said that she wanted to talk to me tomorrow. Didn’t say what was going on.”

  Ken lifted his eyebrows. “She, huh? Chick cops are hot. She a looker?”

  “Umm, I didn’t really get a good look, Ken. She was in a hurry, I think.”

  “Well, I hope Jimmy’s okay, buddy. I know you two are thick as thieves.”

  You’re James Wilkinson’s best friend, Mr. Howard…

  Ken glanced back at the street. “Hey, there’s Marcus. Fat bastard finally woke up.” Already headed across the lawn, “I’ll catch you later, Bobby.”

  I flipped a wave
, walked inside and closed the door, relieved to be out of the cold and alone again.

  I started up the stairs, then hesitated and walked to the front window. I realized I couldn’t stop watching what was going on next door. And I couldn’t stop thinking: it has to be some kind of mistake. It has to be.

  I was still thinking those same thoughts fifteen minutes later when I watched the police officers walk out of Jimmy’s front door carrying two black body bags.

  “There’s just no way,” Katy said, her expression incredulous. “Jimmy can’t even watch scary movies! You remember how he acted when we put on the Poltergeist remake Thanksgiving night?”

  I nodded.

  “He was so spooked he made an excuse to leave early! No way. Jimmy couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “That’s what I told the detective.”

  We were sitting across from each other on the bed. It reminded me of the early years of our marriage. Sitting in bed together, eating pizza and talking for hours and watching crummy late night movies on cable television. It was about all we could afford, but it was enough. It was a pleasant thought to have on an otherwise shitty night.

  I had awakened Katy a half-hour earlier when I finally came upstairs. Feeling numb, I told her everything the detective had said to me, but I left out what I had seen from the downstairs window. After all, it was dark outside; maybe it had been a mistake.

  “You’re sure she said two counts of murder?”

  I nodded again. “I’m sure.”

  She looked down at her crossed legs, thinking, shook her head intently. “No, it’s got to be a mistake.”

  “That’s what I—”

  “Oh my God, honey, you’re going to have to call Grant in the morning. Tell him before it gets on the news. You know how much he loves Jimmy.”

  I did know. Jimmy was Grant’s godfather. His friend. His mentor. “I’ll call him first thing.”

  Katy got up and went to the window. Peered outside for a moment. Turned around and said, “If Jimmy’s a murderer, I’m Jack the Ripper.”