by Frank Zafiro
I walked as quickly as I could to my truck without appearing to be walking fast. When I got in the truck, I pushed both bags down on to the floorboards on the passenger side of the truck, fired up the engine and drove slowly away. I prayed silently that no one had seen me or thought to get my license plate.
In the distance, I heard sirens.
Halfway back to Tiffany’s place, I pulled in behind a Safeway. I took off Mick’s coat and threw it in the dumpster, keeping the torn remains of the dope baggie. After the coat, I threw in the bag of drugs and the money. I didn’t even think twice about it. I might have been a lot of things, but I wasn’t dirty.
I covered the two bags with garbage and drove away.
Tiffany smiled at me when she answered the door, but her smile faded when I slipped past her and made directly for the bathroom.
“What’s wrong?” She asked me. “You smell funny.”
I pumped some hand soap into my palm and began scrubbing.
“Aaron?” she asked, concern creeping into her voice.
I scrubbed at my hands, hoping to get them clean enough to pass a gunshot residue test.
“What happened?”
“Listen,” I said, rinsing my hands and drying them off. “This is important.”
“What’s important?”
I met her gaze and spoke very slowly. “I was with you all night tonight. Okay? I never left.”
“Aaron, what’s—”
“Don’t ask me any questions,” I told her. “Just say it. I was with you all night tonight.”
She stared at me, examining my eyes and my face. I knew she was looking for answers, but she wasn’t going to get any. Finally, she must have seen enough of Jared in my face or she got to thinking about the child support I paid every month and the twenty-five percent of my pension that was hers. Her mouth tightened and she gave me a brisk nod.
“You were here all night,” she said.
I threw my clothes in with some of hers and Sean’s and ran them through the wash. Then I went outside and dug another support post for the small deck I was building in her back yard. When the hole was deep enough, I mixed some cement and dropped some down into the hole. My .38 went in next, followed by the empty baggie, then some more cement and finally a four-by-four post.
By the time I made it back inside, it was almost midnight. Tiffany had changed into her robe, a white silky thing that hung off of her curves in just the right way. She held two glasses of wine.
“I thought you might need this,” she said.
I took the glass from her and downed half of it in one gulp.
“Are you okay, Aaron?” she asked me.
I thought about that. There were no cops at the door yet. This’d be the second place that they’d look for me, so I was reasonably sure that no one had seen me. Or at least, they hadn’t managed to get my license plate. If they had, the homicide detectives would’ve been here an hour ago.
Tiffany continued looking at me, sipping her wine. I reached out with my hand, still caked with dirt and cement dust, and stroked her cheek.
“I’m all right,” I said to her. “We’re all right.”
Later, our lovemaking was tentative and distracted. I couldn’t sleep afterward. Tiffany fell asleep in the crook of my arm while I stared at the ceiling. I kept thinking about Jean’s slack mouth and the blood that ran from it while she lay dying on the floor of her own kitchen. Kept thinking that maybe she deserved it, but that Sean certainly didn’t.
Finally, I drifted off around four in the morning.
I took Jared to practice the next day. Sean was already out on the field, playing catch with another boy. I was surprised to see him, but didn’t show it.
Stan sat by himself in the bleachers. He was hunched over and staring at his feet.
I’d rehearsed my lines in my head all morning and it was show time. I walked over and sat next to him.
“Stan?”
He looked up at me. His eyes were red and full of anguish. I pretended not to notice.
“I’m sorry but I got busy last night working on my ex-wife’s deck. I didn’t get a chance to check on Sean’s mom for you. I can do it after practice today.”
His features became angry. “Don’t bother,” he spat.
“Why?”
“She’s dead.”
I pulled my head back and gave him my best shocked expression. “Dead? What happened?”
“What do you care?” Stan shot back.
“I—”
“Goddamn cops are supposed to help people,” Stan said, his voice rising. “But you were just too busy. And now she’s dead.”
“Stan, what happened?”
“Fuck you!” he screamed. “Leave me alone!”
All the other parents turned and stared at us. I stood and walked away.
Jared practiced hard and I watched him from the opposite end of the bleachers. I avoided looking at Stan for the rest of the practice. I didn’t want him to see my fear. I didn’t want my house of cards to fall.
After practice ended, Jared trotted up to me, removed his cap and wiped his sweat with his sleeve. I tousled his damp hair. “Nice work,” I told him.
“Thanks, Dad. Can we go through the Dairy Queen drive through? Please?”
“Sure.”
We turned and headed to my truck. I saw a patrol car cruise by and my stomach clenched. A young rookie sat behind the wheel, his severe face fixed in stone. He glanced over, spotted me and gave a little wave. I couldn’t remember his name, but waved back nonetheless. He drove past without a second glance and my stomach eased a little.
“Hey,” came a voice from behind me.
I turned around reluctantly. Stan stood by himself. Most of the anger was out of his face. He motioned at Jared, then asked me, “Can we talk alone for a second?”
“Sure.” I handed Jared the keys to the truck and told him to wait for me in the cab.
“Hurry, Dad,” he said before he hustled off. “I’m thirsty.”
Stan motioned for me to sit beside him on the bleacher, so I did. He was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “I’m sorry. What happened is not your fault.”
“What did happen?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know much. The cops aren’t saying. It sounds like a drug deal that went bad, though.”
“What?”
He nodded. “Yeah. She was shot and killed.”
“Holy shit,” I muttered, trying to sound amazed.
Stan didn’t reply right away. When he spoke again, his voice cracked with emotion and he looked away. “How do I tell my boy that his mother is dead?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And then, because that didn’t seem like enough, I patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Stan’s shoulder hitched and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was crying.
“If you need anything,” I said and let it drop when I realized the futility of the words.
Stan brought himself under control, wiping his eyes. He stared off into the distance for several moments until he finally sighed.
“I thought it’d be easier,” he whispered. “But it’s not.”
We sat there for another minute or two, not saying anything. Then I patted his shoulder again, rose and walked toward my truck, where my son waited for me.
The Cleaner
The house didn’t look like the kind I’d expect someone to get murdered in.
The neighborhood wasn’t the wealthiest, but it was solidly upper middle class. All the homes on the block were owned, not rented, with carefully manicured lawns and three-car garages. I’m sure my van parked in front of the house looked out of place. But then, so did the two police cars. One was marked, the other was not.
A uniformed patrol officer stood at the front gate, slouched against the brick pillar and examining his fingernails. He’d watched me arrive, cast a mildly interested look at my van and once he read the side, went back to being bored. I was nothing for him to get excited a
bout. I was just there to clean up the mess.
I got out of the van and approached him. “The scene still being worked?” I asked.
He eyed me with a little disdain. “Why you think I’m still standing here?”
“Because they couldn’t find a rookie?” I shot back, hoping to break the ice.
He grunted at me and checked his watch.
“Any idea how long they’ll be?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “They’re detectives.”
I nodded like I understood what that meant, and I suppose I did. Most of the scenes I get called to clean up have already been released by the police, but occasionally I get a call when they’re getting close to finishing up. The call in this case came from the husband of the victim, a man named Gary Oster. His voice had been thick when he asked me if I could go over and clean up as soon as the police were finished.
“I just don’t want to see anything that will remind me of what happened to Camille,” he’d said, and his voice broke.
“I understand,” I told him.
“How can you?” he snapped back. “She was murdered! I found her! Dead!”
I apologized and his voice softened.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just…it’s been terrible.”
“I know.” Then, because I saw it on a cop show on TV, I added, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly, and hung up.
Now, standing at the front gate of the yellow Colonial with bright white trim next to a bored and slightly irritated cop, I decided to retreat to my van and wait for the detectives to finish working the crime scene so I could go in and clean. The patrolman watched me go without comment.
I sat in the driver’s seat with the windows down and enjoyed the spring afternoon. The air always seemed to smell sweeter in neighborhoods like this one. Like fresh cut lawns and mock orange. It was quieter, too. The chirping of birds, an occasional dog barking and the tik-tak of automated sprinklers was broken up periodically by the purr of a nice car rolling by, its occupants staring at the house and the side of my van.
Not like my neighborhood. Kids screaming, dogs yelping, garbage in the street, broken beer bottles on the pavement and the smell of old liquor, piss and desperate surrender in the air. That’s what I went home to every night. I’d park my van in my tiny, unattached, one-car garage and lock the door with an industrial padlock. If I didn’t, the windows would get busted out and the van would be ransacked by kids. All they’d find is industrial strength cleaning chemicals and tools, but that didn’t stop them. Everything in Felony Flats had a price, no matter how small.
I closed my eyes and soaked in the mid-afternoon sun. My house was a small post-war cracker box with one bedroom and a dingy bathroom. The rent was probably three times what the landlord paid for his mortgage and I gave up a long time ago when it came to asking him to fix anything. My business didn’t do so great, even for this area of the country, but I fixed the faucets myself anyway and paid the guy who fixed the furnace. It beat freezing during the winter.
The cop’s radio crackled and I snapped my eyes open. I hadn’t caught the transmission, just the drab monotone of the dispatcher’s voice. He didn’t reach for his radio, so I gathered the call hadn’t been for him.
I almost became a cop myself fourteen years ago. I was twenty-two and took some criminal justice classes at the community college. I never thought about what I wanted to be while I was growing up, but I knew after working at the aluminum works for a couple of years that I didn’t want to slag molten metal until retirement. Once I’d taken a couple of classes, I started thinking hard about it and realized that being a cop was perfect for me. I loved to figure things out, and that’s what cops did, right?
I aced the civil service exam and the physical fitness test. My oral interview went off without a hitch, so they sent me for the psychological and the medical. I started telling my friends and family that I was getting hired for the next academy. When I got the rejection letter in the mail, it came as quite a shock. The listed reason was that I had a heart murmur that showed up during the medical exam.
I appealed. They denied.
I asked if I could reapply. They said no. A heart condition like mine was a permanent disqualification.
So now instead of investigating crime scenes, I just cleaned them up.
I sighed and looked away from the cop who didn’t know how lucky he was.
Fifteen minutes later, a pair of detectives exited the front door. They met the patrol officer at the gate and he pointed toward me. I got out of the van and approached.
“Who called you?” the first detective asked, motioning at me with his Styrofoam coffee cup. He was of medium height with a touch of gray at the temples.
“Mr. Oster.”
He grunted, making me wonder if that was a technique they learned at the academy.
The smaller, older detective held out his hand. I took it. “Detective Browning,” he said. “You have some I.D.?”
“Sure.” I showed him my driver’s license and city business license. He examined both and handed them back.
“Don’t often cross paths with you folks,” he said. “You usually don’t get here till later.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes people don’t want to wait.”
I expected him to grunt, but he nodded instead and handed me a single key. “I was going to put this on the property book, but just leave it on the table by the front door.”
“Thanks.”
“You need me?” the patrol officer asked.
I started to answer no, but Browning beat me to the punch. “No, Glen, that’s fine. Thanks for standing by.”
Officer Glen grunted and strode off, all jingling keys and creaking leather.
Browning turned to me. “When did Mr. Oster call you?”
“Couple hours ago.”
He glanced over at his coffee-cupping partner. “Interesting.”
“How so?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed. “Ah, it’s probably nothing,” he said, but his eyes and his face said something different.
I wasn’t in a position to press, so I just nodded and returned to my van for supplies. As I loaded up basic cleaning items, I listened as the two walked away toward their car.
“Something isn’t right, Ray,” said Coffee Cup.
“Maybe.”
“I can feel it.”
“But can you prove it?” Browning asked him.
There was a silence and then the sound of car doors opening and slamming shut.
Something isn’t right. Two trained detectives were stumped and now I was going to get a shot at the crime scene.
I snatched my cleaning tray, slammed the van’s sliding door, hurried up the walk and went inside.
The house was silent except for the hum of appliances. I locked the heavy front door behind me with a loud, solid click. I turned and walked through the large entryway and into the living room where Mr. Oster said the murder occurred.
The living carpet was thick and a bright white. Even dried, the shock of dark red blood stood out against it. I paused in the doorway and took in the scene, just as I imagined the two detectives had done hours before.
Most of the blood was puddled near the fireplace. From the texture, I guessed that it would still be damp in the center beneath the dried skim on top. More blood coated the edge and top of the hearth. As I scanned the living room, I spotted smaller dollops of blood between the fireplace and where I stood in the entryway. A half-glass of wine sat on the small table next to a chair and an open book lay face down next to it. Small granules of black powder were scattered on the small table and on the wine glass, except for a clean strip where the forensics person had removed the fingerprint tape.
I tried to recreate the scene in my mind. Camille is sitting in the chair, reading and sipping wine. Then what?
The wine wasn’t spilled. The book was still where it had been carefully laid on the table. No blood near th
e chair.
This was no surprise attack.
So she was disturbed while reading and put the book down to investigate. By what? Breaking glass? I’d have to check around the house for a broken window, but I doubted it. She got up in an orderly fashion. Maybe a knock at the door?
My eyes fell on the blood pattern. Quarter sized drops at the edge of the carpet near where I stood, leading toward the fireplace. That’s where most of the blood was located. I peered closer and thought I could almost see impressions of a body pressed into the thick carpet. That’s where she fell. Where she died.
I imagined someone knocking at the door. Forcing his way in. Punching her, causing her nose to bleed. Knocking her backward until she fell and struck the back of her head on the hearth.
I nodded. It worked.
Almost.
Something bothered me about the distance between the blood on the hearth and the thick puddle in the carpet. I guess there was at least eighteen inches between the two, maybe a little more. How could that be accounted for?
I chewed on my thumbnail and imagined.
If she hit the hearth with her head…and the attacker grabbed an ankle to pull her to him before realizing she was out…yes, that fit.
I took a deep breath, pleased with how I worked things out. It would be nice to try and figure out who the murderer was, but without the forensic work the police did and access to all the interviews, that was virtually impossible. I could always follow the news coverage of the murder, of course, but the local paper wasn’t too reliable.
Satisfied, I broke out my cleaning gear and began soaking up the blood.
I spread the chemical soaked towel over the large puddle to shake loose the dried blood from the carpet fibers while I cleaned the small droplets. That took forty minutes of tedious scrubbing. Once I had the drops cleaned, I washed down the hearth. The dark stone wiped off easily.