Pattern of Wounds

by J. Bertrand

  The fan revolves in lazy circuits overhead, and I toss back and forth on the empty mattress, warm despite the air on my skin. On the nightstand, glowing red from the digital clock, my SIG Sauer lies on its side, a round in the chamber, in case of a repeat visit from Dave Bayard. I don’t know for a fact it was him who broke into the house. I don’t know for a fact he kicked the bathroom door into splinters and would have sunk Knife #29 into my wife’s soft flesh. But in my sleep-addled mind, I’ve attached his name to the menacing silhouette.

  I wish he would come back. I wish he would make my job that simple.

  He could at least open up Simone Walker’s laptop and send me a message. I’m getting lonely here, and nothing would please me more than a candid photo of my unsuspecting suspect. If he’s back in the States—I’m sure he is—and holed up in the family home, then our early morning search warrant execution must have spooked him. He sent an email and we showed up on his doorstep or thereabouts. Too close for comfort. He couldn’t resist sending the second one, but he took the precaution of doing so from a public Wi-Fi network. Now even that must strike him as too risky.

  My laptop rests at the foot of the bed. After sitting up for an hour, checking email every few minutes on the off chance he’d overcome his shyness, I gave up and decided to get some sleep.

  But now I can’t sleep. The fan turns, my skin grows uncomfortably warm, sticky to the point of feverishness, and I turn the case over in my mind. And when I do sleep, when I slip into a restless, slit-eyed state that could pass for sleep, something Jack Hill said comes back to me, how Bayard’s son claimed he’d killed before. I see a machete-wielding shadow cutting its way through African jungles, and racing ahead, just out of the blade’s reach, the alternating faces of Wayne Bourgeois, the man I chased through the cemetery, and of my cousin Moody. The knifing shadow is sometimes Bayard and sometimes myself.

  Wake up. No more of this. Give me sleep, dreamless sleep.

  I close my eyes. When I open them, someone’s on top of me, pinning my arms under the weight of her legs. Tammy and her pillow, torturing and laughing, laughing and torturing. When I really awaken, there’s a pillow against my face. But it’s Charlotte’s and my only attacker is me.

  I crawl out of bed sometime around three and pad down the stairs, taking a bottle of water from the fridge. I sit in an armchair in front of the glowing TV, holding the bottle against my temple and then taking another swig.

  I’m alone.

  Alone in the house and alone on the case. In the past, even at my low points, there was always someone I could rely on. Once it was Wilcox. After that, for a short time, it was Theresa Cavallo. But they’re not with me now. If anything, they’re on the other side. And while Aguilar is as good a cop as any to take a statement or run through a checklist, he’s unimaginative, and as partners we keep pretty much to ourselves.

  When you’re alone, there’s no one else to tell you the things you don’t want to hear.

  So I tell myself.

  I’m not satisfied with Templeton’s version of events, and I know I’ll get nothing better out of Lauterbach. But according to the writer, someone else was there. Asking all the right questions. Overjoyed to be part of the process. She may have tried to suffocate me as a child, and the way she’s turned my cousin into a self-serving cause célèbre might disgust me, but the fact is, Tammy was there. And if I want the full story, she’s the only one to ask.

  I switch the television off and return the water to the fridge. Upstairs, I fall onto the bed, pushing my face into the pillow, and fall asleep.

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16 — 10:00 A.M.

  In my black funeral suit I could pass for a reject from Reservoir Dogs. All I need are the shades. After wearing my father-in-law’s wardrobe for so long—not my own yet, not in my mind—the fabric feels stiff, the squared shoulders like a set of football pads. In his dark jeans and windbreaker, Aguilar blends better with the other mourners, a small group of no more than a dozen, most of whom are dressed down despite the occasion. The morning fog has burned off, promising light gray skies. I get a few looks from other people as we slip inside the funeral home. They’re probably mistaking me for an undertaker.

  Beneath a wash of artificial light, the white casket gleams, half open in a foam of colorless flowers, the distant face of Simone Walker pale as the rest. The monochromatic tableau lends an inappropriate beauty to the scene. Her mother, Candace, sits between two larger women, co-workers judging by their single-minded devotion to her grief, which doesn’t touch them personally. A few rows behind, Joy Hill maintains her icy composure, eyes fixed on the coffin as if she’s afraid to look away.

  A prerecorded organ dirge fills what would otherwise be an awkward silence, harmonizing the whispers of a few young women near the back with the occasional sob from Candace Walker’s direction. Aguilar slips into the rear pew, unzipping his jacket. I advance down the center aisle to pay my respects. The jigsaw of stained glass in the arrow-slit windows casts colored rays across the empty seats.

  I nod at Dr. Hill. She takes no notice.

  Each of the women beside Candace grips one of her hands tight. Her lip trembles and a line of fresh tears travels over the swell of her cheekbone into the depression of her cheek. She looses a hand to wipe it away, then presses her wet fingers into mine.

  “Thank you for coming,” she says. “I know it means so much to her.”

  No stranger to grieving mothers, I whisper a few words of sympathy and pull away.

  At the casket, I gaze on Simone’s face. Its startling placidity and all the layers of makeup leave me with the uncomfortable feeling that regardless of my tireless efforts, I’ve never really seen her before now, and wouldn’t recognize her if she walked up to me on the street.

  I know her as symbol: the Victim. When we die, if there’s to be any recompense, it’s left to strangers to make. I know her only as a corpse, a medium for her killer to communicate through, a repository of evidence.

  As I return down the aisle, the back door opens and Sean Epps slips through. He hides a shiner behind his sunglasses and looks like someone stuffed his right cheek with cotton. He files down a pew toward the front, settling himself with a creak that draws every eye. None of the women seem to recognize him. Dr. Hill would, but again she doesn’t glance over.

  “Did you get a look at him?” Aguilar whispers. “I wonder what the other guy looks like.”

  “Yeah,” I say, thinking of Jason Young.

  The minister emerges from a door up front. He keeps a brief vigil at the casket, says a few hushed words to Candace. He takes his place behind the lectern and opens in prayer. The eulogy that follows is so full of platitudes and borrowed anecdotes that it’s soon clear he knew Simone no better than I did.

  Aguilar leans over. “Catholic funerals are better than this.”

  “I don’t think she minds.”

  The man tells a story of Simone’s childhood, a time she’d found her mommy upset about something and told her not to cry. He sentimentalizes the tale, making it sound like something that transpired between June Cleaver and a baroque cherub, and ends by gazing misty-eyed in Candace’s direction, saying, “Even as a little girl, she brought so much joy to her mother. She dried so many tears.”

  Candace sobs, prompting her minders to close in.

  The double doors open again, this time to reveal a tentative-looking man in his mid-to-late twenties, unkempt, with thick black eyebrows and a dense twist of hair. He looks around, keeping his hands buried in the pockets of his knit pullover. Seeing me and Aguilar, he creeps across the carpeted aisle and slides into the pew in front of us.

  I lean forward, whispering over his shoulder. “David Bayard?”

  He turns slightly, nodding his head.

  “Did you know Simone?”

  He seesaws his hand, then lowers it quickly, self-conscious in the funeral setting. “Not really,” he whispers. “Only by sight.”

  Several of the young women across the aisle glan
ce over. David freezes.

  “We’ll talk afterward,” I say, giving his shoulder a reassuring pat. “Thanks for coming.”

  When I sit back, Aguilar gives an imperceptible shake of the head. Whether it’s directed at me or at the Bayard kid, I can’t tell.

  We don’t accompany the mourners to the graveside. In the parking lot, I guide David Bayard Jr. toward our car. As a college student, I’d pictured him younger. As a scion of West University, I’d pictured him better turned out. Jack Hill’s description of him: a professional student. I’d pictured a young slacker, but there’s a calm intelligence in David Junior’s eyes, a self-possession overshadowed by his nerves.

  Fortunately, what Jack Hill said about his willingness to talk proves entirely accurate. I’d sensed as much over the phone when he returned my call early this morning. Anxious to talk. Ready to tell me everything he knows. The anger flaring in his even voice at the first mention of his father’s name. Silence at the news of Agnieszka Oliszewski’s vicious murder, which was news to him.

  “Sit tight for a second,” I tell him.

  He leans against the car, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched up like he’s freezing in the mid-fifties weather. Aguilar walks a few paces away to make a call. I motion for him to stick near David, then jog across the parking lot to where Sean Epps is getting into his car.

  “Mr. Epps, hold on a second.”

  He pulls the door shut and starts the engine.

  I catch up, rapping my knuckles on the glass. After a pause, the window buzzes down.

  “Cut the motor,” I say. “Step back out here.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I really gotta get going.” He keeps his jaw tight, speaking through clenched teeth.

  “I already asked you nicely, Mr. Epps. Don’t escalate the situation.”

  He kills the engine but leaves the keys dangling. I step back so he can climb out of the car.

  “Remove your glasses, please.”

  He complies.

  “You know what you look like?” I ask. “A man who got in a scrap with a jealous husband. You wanna tell me what happened to you?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Is that your final answer?”

  He thinks. He nods.

  “Because I saw a guy not too long ago that looks just like this. Beat up pretty bad. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  He shakes his head. He waits. “No,” he says.

  “Tell you what. I’m gonna have you do something for me.” I pat my pockets down, removing some plastic gloves. I peel them apart and shake one out until the palm opens up a bit. “I want you to take this glove and breathe into it. Go ahead.”

  “What?”

  “Take it.”

  He pinches the edge between two fingers, holding the glove away from him.

  “Breathe in it,” I say. “Like this.” I take a deep breath and blow.

  “What for?”

  “For a man in a hurry, you sure do drag your feet. Now go ahead and blow. Keep blowing until the fingers inflate.”

  He exhales into the limp glove, then hands it back. I cinch the opening with my thumb and forefinger.

  “Now, is there anything you want to tell me about Jason Young?” I ask. “Once I bring this to lab and run the tests, it’ll be too late for you to tell your side of the story.”

  He looks at the glove. He looks at me. He leans against the car and makes a moaning sound, covering his mouth with his hands.

  “Tell me what happened,” I say.

  “I don’t know how he found me.” He touches his swollen cheek. “The phone bills, I guess. He must have gone back through her calls and figured it out. All I know is, this guy wants me to show him a property, this house on Bissonnet that’s been on the market forever.”

  “You get there and what? He’s waiting?”

  Epps nods. “I let him through the gate, and as soon as I close it, he’s on me.”

  “He punched you with his fists?”

  He slides down the car, resting on his haunches, his hands half covering his mouth, like he wants to keep the words from coming out. “There were some bricks. Some loose bricks stacked inside the fence. I grabbed one. I had to defend myself.”

  “So you hit him?”

  “We struggled for a while, and then he just stopped fighting. He stopped fighting and let me beat him. And I couldn’t stop beating him.”

  “And afterward?”

  “I dragged him out to the curb.” His face convulses in a series of dry sobs. Then a preternatural calmness overtakes him. “I ruined everything, didn’t I? I ruined my whole life.”

  “Stand up, Mr. Epps.”

  He gets to his feet, bracing himself with one hand against the car.

  “When you leave here, I want you to call the police. Understand? I want you to call and make a statement. Ask to speak to whoever’s in charge of the investigation, and then tell him everything you told me. If you do that voluntarily, it’ll work in your favor. If you don’t—if I check back and you haven’t done it—then I’ll drag you in myself and frog-march you in front of the judge, and so help me he’ll dig a deep hole and bury you somewhere forever.”

  “No,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

  “This is a favor I’m doing you. You owe me for this.”

  He covers his dazed expression with the sunglasses, then slides clumsily behind the wheel, bumping his head on the doorframe.

  “Hand me your phone,” I say.

  He goes through his pockets, producing the plastic brick of a smartphone he’d brought to the interview room. I punch the numbers in myself, then hand it back to him.

  “As soon as my back is turned, you call.”

  “I will,” he says.

  I head back across the parking lot, not giving him a second glance. My stride is long, my muscles tingling with the old excitement.

  I noticed the injuries. I made the connection. I got the confession.

  Like a beat cop of old, operating on nothing but ego and sleight of hand. I was a wave of moral authority sweeping away everything in my path.

  At my approach, Aguilar perks up, sensing the change in mood. He glances over my shoulder and back at me.

  “What’s he doing?” I ask.

  “He’s on the phone.”

  I ball the glove in my fist, then toss it away. Aguilar looks at the glove, then back at me. Baffled. I choose not to explain myself.

  “You’ve finished the semester?” I ask David.

  He looks down at the pavement and shrugs. “My last final was yesterday.”

  “What are you studying?”

  “I’m supposed to be working on a dissertation.” He smiles. “But it keeps getting away from me.”

  Aguilar steps away for another phone call, still eyeing Sean Epps from across the lot. He exchanges a few words, then snaps the phone shut and gives me a look. Enough of the small talk. Time to get down to business.

  “Your father returned to the United States on Thursday, the tenth of December. Is that right?” I have the response from ICE in my briefcase, so I already know the answer. “He leaves the country on Sunday the sixth, the day after Simone Walker was murdered, and he comes back four days later. That’s four hours from here to New York and another sixteen hours to Nigeria with a stop-off at Heathrow, so let’s say twenty hours total one way. Then he turns around and comes right back. Does that seem strange to you?”

  “I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t keep track of him.”

  “But you know he’s back?”

  “I saw him this morning at breakfast. He said it was going to be a tight Christmas this year. He got fired from his job.”

  “Did he say anything about Simone? Or Agnieszka?”

  He shakes his head. “He didn’t say a word to me. My father kind of talks to the room, if you know what I mean. He went into his office for some kind of conference call. He’s trying to get a new company to hire him.”

  “But you’ve talked
to him about Agnieszka before, right?”

  He cocks his head. “She told me he was looking at her, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “What did you do when she told you?”

  “What did I do?” He blinks. “I didn’t do anything. I told her to be careful of him. I told her he’s a bad person. She wanted to complain, to call the police. I didn’t think that would be a good idea.” He pauses. “He’s killed people, you know?”

  He says it with a doubtful lilt in his voice, like he’s not sure we’ll believe him.

  “You told her that?”

  “He told me. It happened over there. In Africa. He said some guys tried to force him into the back of a car, and he stabbed them.” He stops. Wipes his hand over his mouth. “I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t doubt him for a minute. He has all these knives. He has a stone to sharpen them, and he’ll sit upstairs and you can hear the scraping sound. If it sounds crazy, well . . . he’s crazy. He likes to hurt people.”

  “Did he ever threaten to hurt you?”

  “He did hurt me. He did this to me.”

  David draws his left hand from his pocket and holds it up, fingers splayed. The ring finger juts crookedly, with a fat notch of skin missing near the knuckle, the surface covered in shiny scar tissue. A similar scar runs down the side of his middle finger, like someone flayed the skin with a sharp blade. I take him gently by the wrist, pulling the hand closer. He trembles at the touch.

  “How did he do this?” I ask, my voice shaking.

  He swallows.

  “How did he do it?”

  David snatches his hand back, hiding it away. “There’s a game he likes to play.”

  “With a knife.”

  He nods. “You have to spread your hand out. You stab the knife between each finger. Really fast. I couldn’t do it. I tried to go too fast and this happened.”

  “He made you do it?”

  “And then he laughed. He can do it very fast. According to him, you have to be a real man to do it that fast.”

  Aguilar beckons me over with a nod. I touch David on the shoulder, trying to reassure him, but he shrinks away ever so slightly. We walk a few paces off, far enough so he can’t overhear.