by Jason Starr
I was thinking about Jonah. How I didn’t want him to grow up without a father. How I wanted to be there for him.
Maybe these thoughts helped me garner a little more strength because I could tell that Ward’s grip on the knife was starting to loosen, and then it fell, clanging onto the floor.
As Ward reached for the knife, I tackled him, and we fell onto the floor. I’d lost control, acting impulsively. He tried to push me off him, but I took control, managing to flip him on to his back. I punched him in the face and heard something crunch. I punched him again and again, using both fists. For a few moments, I felt like I was outside myself, watching Jack Harper beat the crap out of Lawrence Ward. It had been a long time since Jack Harper had hit someone, and Jack Harper had to admit that it felt exhilarating, freeing.
I had my hands around Ward’s throat. I must’ve been squeezing for a while because his face went reddish purple, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. I didn’t stop squeezing though, telling myself that this asshole had cost me my marriage, my job, maybe custody of my son, and I told myself that if I just kept squeezing, if I didn’t let up, I could make all of my pain go away.
Then, when I realized I was squeezing the neck of a dead man, I let go.
My rage had turned to panic.
This isn’t happening … Maybe he isn’t dead.
No, his eyes were open and still. Definitely dead.
“Fuck,” I said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Pacing like a caged animal, I tried to figure out what to do. Run? Hide the body? Call the cops? All the options seemed bad, especially the last one. How could I possibly explain what had happened to the police? Even if I convinced them that I’d come to White Plains to get a confession from Ward, would they believe that he’d tried to attack me with the knife before I’d strangled him? Probably not. And, worse, I hadn’t gotten the confession from Ward. The only semi-incriminating statement he made was, You have no idea what you’re dealing with. On my recording, it would sound like I’d broken in and attacked him.
I stopped pacing, trying to focus. The room felt like it was wobbling and my spiraling thoughts made less and less sense.
I decided I had to leave, but first I had to cover my tracks. There were napkins on the kitchen counter. I wetted a wad of them and then wiped the doorknob and the floor around Lawrence’s body. I tried not to look at the body, holding my hand up in front of my face. Why was I getting a feeling of déjà vu? Cleaning up crime scenes was starting to feel like a bad habit.
Then I noticed blood on my arm from where Lawrence had cut me. It wasn’t a deep wound, but the blood looked like it might have dripped. Great, so now I’d be leaving blood behind, as well as hair fibers and God knew what else.
I was searching for a drop of blood somewhere on the wooden floor when I heard the police siren. Was it a coincidence, a police car headed somewhere else in the neighborhood? Or had someone called the cops on me? The neighbor, I suddenly remembered. He’d probably seen me force my way into Ward’s house.
I backed away, stumbling a little, but careful not to touch anything; like it mattered. I left the house and sprinted out to the sidewalk. The siren was getting louder. Not wanting to be too conspicuous, I walked as fast I could, with my head down slightly. At the corner, I turned right. I knew this was the general direction of downtown White Plains, but I had no real destination—I just wanted to get away.
At the next corner, I looked back over my shoulder and saw the speeding police car turn on to Lawrence Ward’s block. Coming from the distance, I heard another siren. This officially was not a coincidence.
To hell with walking—I ran as fast as I could, maybe faster than I’d ever run in my life. I just wanted to get away, put as much distance as I could between myself and the house. I told myself that I was making up the nosy neighbor story, the police could’ve been going there for many reasons, but this didn’t give me any reassurance. Even if no one had seen me in the house, the police would find plenty of damning physical evidence—including my blood. Even if the neighbor couldn’t ID me, there was someone who definitely could—the cab driver. When the cabbie heard about a body discovered in White Plains, he’d remember that he’d dropped me off at the house. This was worse than Sophie’s murder—there was much more evidence against me this time. I even had motive for wanting to kill Lawrence as I’d been telling Barasco for days that he had killed her. Barasco could easily create a story that I’d come to White Plains looking for revenge.
Gasping, I had to walk for a while. Up here I had no chance; if the local cops weren’t looking for me already, they would be soon.
The city—I had to get back to the city. I’d feel safer in crowds.
Using Google Maps, I saw that the White Plains Metro North station was about a mile away. I ran about a block, then slowed to a walk as the ambulance I’d heard zipped past me. Then I continued, alternating walking, jogging, and running. It was the longest mile I’d ever traveled. Finally I saw the power lines of the train tracks up ahead, and then the concrete, industrial-looking train station.
In the ticket area, I checked the schedule—the next train would arrive in twelve minutes. It was better than having to wait an hour, but time wasn’t on my side.
From a ticket machine, using cash, I bought a one-way ticket to Grand Central. Now I only had about twenty bucks left, but it really didn’t matter. The police had probably discovered the body about ten, fifteen minutes ago. If somebody had tipped them off about me, or they suspected me just because I was already a person of interest, then there would be a—what did the police call it? APB—yeah, an APB on me. One of the first places they’d check would be the train station.
While there were only a few people in the waiting area, I felt uncomfortable. In the state I was in, with my agitation heightened, I was afraid someone would notice me.
So I went up to the platform, toward where the back of the train would arrive, and where no one was waiting.
Okay, only eight minutes now until the train arrived. I was feeling a little better about my chances of making it back to the city.
Until I saw the transit cop arrive on the platform.
He’d come up the same steps I’d come up. He was stocky with thick gray hair and a mustache. He stopped near the middle of the platform and then turned in my direction. He seemed to be looking right at me, and then he began walking along the platform in my direction.
I had nowhere to go. There were no exits at this end of the platform—I’d cornered myself. I could jump onto the tracks, but if the transit cop had really recognized me, how far could I get?
So I stayed where I was and stared at my phone intently, as if pre-absorbed. My only chance was that he didn’t know who I was and was walking toward me for some other reason.
I heard his footsteps approaching, then saw him in my peripheral vision.
“It’s running behind.”
His voice had startled the shit out of me, but I tried to react naturally, unfazed.
“Sorry?” I said.
“The train,” he said. “Signal problems at Fordham. Everything’s behind.”
“Oh. That’s too bad.”
I continued staring at my phone, hoping he’d leave me alone.
“You live in the city?” he asked.
He didn’t seem to have any idea who I was, but, my luck, I had to meet a chatty transit cop.
“Yeah,” I said, hoping the one-word answers would give him the not-so-subtle message that I wanted to be left alone.
“Grew up in the Bronx,” he said. “Two blocks from Yankee Stadium. Man, that neighborhood’s changed. Back in the day, off season, the place was a ghost town. Now they got bars with fuckin’ happy hours there.”
I didn’t say anything, hoping he’d leave, pretending to be busy tapping out an email.
“You Yankees or Mets?” he asked.
Seriously?
“Sorry, I just need to send something,” I said.
“Whoa.” He sounded offende
d. “You don’t have to be rude about it. Just thought I’d tell you about the delays in case you wanted to know.”
“How long’s the delay?”
“Now you being friendly?” He sounded like a disappointed teacher. “Was a half hour before, but they got it cleared up. Should only be five or ten minutes.”
“Thanks,” I said.
He muttered something that included the word “nasty” and walked away.
I looked down the track, hoping to see the light of a train approaching, but there were no trains as far north as I could see. At least I’d gotten rid of the transit cop, but the exchange hadn’t helped my situation. If he got an APB on me, he’d remember me and my rudeness.
While I was staring at my phone, I figured I might as well Google myself, to see if I was a murder suspect. Nothing new came up in the results, but that didn’t give me much reassurance. It would take time before anything about Lawrence Ward’s death made it into the news.
Lawrence Ward’s death.
I’d been in such a frenzy to get away from the house, I hadn’t fully processed what I’d done.
I’d killed him. Actually killed him.
I’d had no choice. If I didn’t kill him, he would’ve killed me. But is that how it would look to a jury? I’d come to his house, and I had plenty of motive to kill him. Maybe I could make a case; maybe forensics would support my case. This seemed unlikely, though, what with a Legal Aid lawyer defending me. And what about Sophie’s murder? I’d still be on the hook for that, especially since the guy who could prove that I hadn’t killed Sophie was dead.
Then I had a thought that actually made me shudder. What if Lawrence Ward hadn’t killed his wife or Anthony? What if evidence at Anthony’s apartment implicated someone else? Then I’d just killed an innocent man.
One positive about panic—it helps time pass. A southbound train had appeared in the distance, and a couple of minutes later, it arrived at the station.
I boarded the nearly empty car and had three seats to myself. As the train pulled away, I stared out of the blotchy window, at the bleak industrial landscape, my thoughts swirling, thinking about everything that had happened since meeting Rob for lunch that day, to going on Discreet Hookups, to meeting Sophie, to becoming a murder suspect, to possibly becoming a murder suspect again.
“It’s insanity,” I said.
At least I was aware I was talking out loud, which meant I wasn’t insane.
Or did it?
At many times in my life I’d felt insane. Those times were usually associated with drinking, but could I blame everything on alcohol? Everyone in recovery knows that alcohol is just the symptom.
I’d killed Lawrence Ward, so maybe I’d killed Anthony and Sophie, too, and had just blocked it out. Maybe discovering two bodies didn’t seem like a coincidence, because it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe nobody was setting me up because I was the only killer.
I had to admit—it seemed as logical as any of my other theories. All this time I’d been telling myself that Barasco had some sort of vendetta against me, but maybe he’d been focusing on me for good reason. Hell, if I were the detective in charge of this case, I’d focus on me, too. I had been arrested before for assault, I had a history of violence, and I’d been at, not one or two, but three murder scenes, with motives for two. Maybe Sophie had threatened me, said she’d tell Maria that I’d met her on Discreet Hookups, so I’d snapped and killed her. See? It all made sense. That would explain why her blood had been on me, and why I’d been trying to convince Barasco that Lawrence Ward was the actual killer. Which led to my motive for killing Lawrence—so the police couldn’t verify his alibi for the first murder. It hadn’t been self-defense, as I’d been telling myself. I’d murdered him with the intention of blaming a “hit man.”
I had to get a hold of myself. I was starting to lose it—as I had those other times.
I took a deep breath, tried to focus.
Step two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
“Come on, God, if you really can restore people to sanity, restore me now.”
Just because I’d had crazy episodes didn’t mean I was crazy. I was sober now, I was a dad, I was a good person. I’d made some mistakes, but I’d gotten on a path, and none of that had changed when I’d met Sophie Ward.
But was this true, or was my belief that I wasn’t crazy just another rationalization? After all, I’d always been a master of rationalizing my bad behavior, so if I had snapped and killed a couple of people, why would I admit it to myself? I’d even blacked out before, had long and short gaps in my memory, so why couldn’t that have happened again? My past blackouts had been related to drinking, but had drinking been the real cause? Or maybe I had been drinking all along and had been in some kind of crazed state of denial all this time.
“Hey.”
“What?” I nearly screamed.
The conductor, a heavyset guy, was waiting for my ticket.
“Oh, sorry,” I muttered as I dug into my pocket.
“You okay, pal?”
“Yeah, fine. You just, uh, startled me.”
I gave him my ticket and he placed another one into the holder atop the seat in front of me.
He gave me a long look, then went and took the ticket of somebody behind me.
I still felt crazy, but that didn’t mean I was crazy. I was just caught in the maze, that’s all, but—I reminded myself—I’d been caught in mazes before and had always found my way out.
I had to keep searching.
* * *
Though my ticket was to Grand Central, I got out at Harlem. I was antsy on the train, felt trapped, and I had no real destination anyway. I just needed air; needed to move.
Wandering along mobbed 125th Street, I felt much safer and more anonymous than I had in White Plains. No one even looked at me; I could’ve been invisible. City people were so caught up in their own dramas that no one cared about mine—that’s what I told myself anyway.
I headed downtown on Lexington. After a few blocks, I checked the local news on my phone, to see if there was anything new about me.
There was—a few articles, but with the same content.
I read the headline: MAN FOUND DEAD IN WHITE PLAINS, SUSPECT AT LARGE.
There was only one paragraph, mentioning how I’d been a person of interest in the murder of Sophie Ward and now was wanted for murdering Lawrence Ward.
I was terrified—not for myself, because I knew the police would come after me—but for what Maria and Jonah would think when they found out. For Maria, it would just confirm what she’d already feared about me. I didn’t know what she’d told Jonah, but Jonah had to know that I’d done something bad in order for the school to ban me from seeing him. When this news broke, though, Jonah would be certain to hear about it, and he’d grow up thinking his dad was a killer, and who knows? Maybe he’d be right.
Crossing the street, walking slowly, feeling dazed, I knew I didn’t have much time. That transit cop in White Plains knew I had headed back to the city, and the conductor had seen me as well. Returning to Anthony’s apartment was out because Officer Singh knew I’d been there.
Every option led to a dead end; I was out of moves.
Or was I?
There was one way out of the maze—the option that had always been there. It had been my way out of trouble since I had my first drink when I was fourteen years old. Alcohol had never been the source of my problems, but it had always been my easiest escape.
And, wouldn’t you know it? There was a liquor store on the next corner. I went in, grabbed a bottle of Bushmills from the shelf, and paid for it, using almost all of my remaining money.
Knowing New York City was serious these days about enforcing the “open bottle law,” I went around the corner and ducked into an alley. I opened the bottle and drank as much as I could until my throat burned and I needed to take a breath. Drinking felt natural, like I’d never quit, and maybe I hadn’t. Maybe
those times at A.A.—my tearful speeches at my annual anniversaries—had been total bullshit. Maybe quitting had just been another lie I’d told myself that I wanted to believe.
* * *
“Hey, asshole … Hey, asshole.”
I opened my eyes, slow to realize that I was splayed in the vestibule of a building. A guy was pushing a door against the back of my head.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” I slurred.
I shifted enough for him to jimmy past me. He was Latino, maybe in his sixties.
“You better be outta here by the time I get back or I’m callin’ the cops,” he said. “Fuckin’ bums, cloggin’ up my halls.”
The guy left. When he got outside he was still yelling at me, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.
I still had no idea where I was, or how I’d gotten here. I remembered being in the alley, taking the swig of whiskey, and then everything had gone black.
Failure and self-loathing struck me with a lethal combination—I drank again, I got drunk. All the time, energy, and commitment I’d put into resisting alcohol for years—six years and over five months, to be exact—had been wiped out with one bad decision.
I struggled and finally got to my feet. I was still drunk, or at least buzzed, the whiskey odor on my breath. I had my phone and wallet with me and the keys to my apartment. I had to get home to have dinner with Maria and Jonah, and then get Jonah ready for school.
Then I experienced the jolt, the sudden light-headedness you get when you receive devastating news, as I remembered that I didn’t have a family anymore and was wanted for two murders. I cried—no, sobbed. I hadn’t cried like this since my dog died when I was eleven years old. But this was worse—much, much worse. I’d lost my whole family and the reasons why seemed absurd, fake, like they weren’t even my reasons. They had been the reasons of some other Jack Harper who’d inhabited my body for a while, but now the real Jack Harper was back, and I just wanted to have my typical, dull, semi-miserable life back. Maybe I’d been afraid to settle, felt I deserved more, but if I could go back, I wouldn’t complain because I’d know that if you make dramatic changes, things can get better, but they can also get much, much worse.