A Study in Sin

by August Wainwright

“At first, McCarty only grumbled, still trying to catch his breath, but he quickly decided. ‘Three blocks down and one to the left, there’s a bar; I’ll point it out.’

  “ ‘You got it,’ I said, and when we arrived, I quickly told him that I’d be more than happy to wait on him, no extra charge or nothing. I said I needed to do some paperwork so it was no big deal. Asshole didn’t even thank me. By the time he came outside again, it had been dark for hours, but I was still able to see he was completely hammered; he barely made it to the car unassisted. Once inside, I turned to ask him where he would like to go next, only to find him passed out.

  “I drove us away from the bar and lit a cigarette to calm my mind. Have any of you ever wanted one thing, above all else, for such a long period of time that it completely consumes you?” he said, looking up at each of us, only to find blank stares as his answer.

  “Right, well, if you can imagine it, you might be able to begin to understand how I was feeling. I felt it was the culmination of my entire life, like it was what I was put on this Earth to do. I remember feeling like Claire and Jim were in the car with me, and it was reassuring. So I puffed at the cigarette and drove on. It was raining hard outside, when I pulled up to the abandoned house. I parked the car and got out to help McCarty who was still asleep.

  “ ‘I can’t see shit. Where are we? It’s dark. I can’t see. When did it start raining? You should have seen the bitch, I’ll show her, you can count on it –’ he said, as I held him up and took him inside. The guy across the street had been right; when I turned the handle, and gave it a shove, the front door opened. It really wouldn’t have mattered, I was determined to see the thing through either way, but it was nice to be in out of the rain. ‘Turn a damn light on,’ he said.

  “ ‘Sure thing, just give me a second,’ I said

  I had grabbed the flashlight I kept in the car and carried it with me inside. I flicked it on and leaned him up against the wall. Then I took a few steps back.

  “ ‘Stand up straight,’ I said to the man. ‘Tell me who I am. Look at me Patrick McCarty, and tell me who I am.’ I made sure the flashlight shined enough light on me for him to see.

  For a moment he only moved back and forth and tried to focus on what was happening. But then, his face changed, and I could see that he knew. He looked at me with a mix of surprise, drunken anger, and pure horror.

  “ ‘You,’ he said.

  “ ‘Yes, me,’ I answered. ‘Seventeen years; I’ve been following you for seventeen years. But it’s over now. And only one of us will live through this night.’

  I set the flashlight on the mantle and watched as he slumped against the wall. He stared at me with a terrified look on his face, like I was the evil madman of the two of us. And maybe I was; at the time, my heart was beating so fast and I was so hot, that I felt like I would explode. I didn’t even realize it, but part of the reason he was staring at me like that had to be because my nose had started bleeding terribly. I must have looked insane as I stood there shaking, covered in blood. He tried to run, but only fell to the floor. I pulled my knife and moved over to him, pressing it to his neck as he flopped over. He begged and cried for me not to kill him.

  “ ‘So you’re just going to murder a drunk old man?’ he cried.

  “ ‘No, not murder. All I’m going to do is poison a rat’, I said. ‘You are the only murderer in this room.’

  “With that, I removed a bottle of pills from my pocket. I had been keeping them with me after I found out where the two brothers were living, hoping that sooner or later, I would get a chance to use them. It was a funny game I was playing with those pills, though. I’m not sure what gave me the idea, but I had a thought that I would enjoy giving fate a chance to settle the score. It was an odd idea, I know, but once it was in my head, I couldn’t get rid of it. I showed McCarty the bottle and told him what was going to happen.

  “ ‘You and I are going to let chance decide,’ I said, showing him the bottle. ‘Half of these pills are poison and will cause an instant, and quite painful, death, while the other is completely harmless. The way I see it, I am pure, you are not; I am good, you are evil. You deserve to die, and yet still, you should be given a chance to live. Maybe you’ve repented for your sins, I cannot say. But we’re going to find out. You choose a pill, and I’ll choose one. We will take them together and let fate be our judge.’

  “At first, he didn’t reach for the pills, so I pushed the knife harder into his throat. We both chose a pill and swallowed. I sat down on the floor across from him and we waited. I’ve never experienced a more satisfying moment than the one when he felt the first pain inside of him. He curled into a ball on the floor and started to moan, and I remember laughing hysterically. He pulled at his stomach and scratched at his throat as I watched him fighting for a life that was already over.

  “I went to him and hovered above, pulling the ring I had carried with me for almost two decades. I shoved Claire’s ring in his face and held it there as he squirmed and contorted and the last of him fell away, content that it would be the last thing he ever saw.

  “Everything after was a blur. I looked down at him covered in blood and suddenly realized my nose had been bleeding the entire time. I felt incredibly weak; all I wanted to do was sleep. I’m not sure why, but I dipped my finger in the blood and went to where the light was shining with the intention of writing something on the wall that would tell whoever found him who this dead man was. I don’t know why, but when I went to put my finger on the wall, I instead pulled back the paper and wrote the word CAPITAL. When I stepped back and looked up at it, it made me smile. The next thing I remember I was putting the car in drive and pulling away from the house. All would have been fine, but later in the night, I reached into my pocket and realized I didn’t have Claire’s ring. I must have dropped it when I was over top of McCarty. So I collected myself and drove back.

  “Part of me was happy that I would get another look at the crumpled up man that had taken the only thing I had ever loved. I parked around the corner from the house, but when I came to the front, the police were already there and I thought I had been caught. The only reason they let me go was because I hobbled towards them and acted like I was a homeless drunk. The flashlight was still shining inside and I knew how careless I had been. Claire’s ring was gone, but it had been worth it to watch Patrick McCarty die.

  “The only thing left to do was track down the older brother. I stole a few hours of sleep in my car and changed into a spare set of clothes. My hope was that he would return here since his brother never showed at the airport. The sun was up when I arrived. I knocked at the door. It swung open. Unlike his drunken brother, Mike McCarty was always thinking, always on guard. I was hoping I could take him by surprise, but it turned out he needed only a second to realize who I was. He rushed towards me and we wrestled there on the porch until I grabbed my knife again and got the upper hand. I walked him inside and sat him down on the couch.

  “I told him what I had done to his brother, and that I was here to give him the same chance: choose life or choose death. When I reached into my pocket to get the pills, though, he leapt from the couch hoping to catch me unready. He never begged, never pleaded, never cried and said he didn’t deserve it. Instead, he fought. Stab after stab, he came at me. I must have sliced him in ten different places, but he never yelled out in pain, only grimaced and then came again. Finally, after we were both drenched in his blood, he made a last ditch effort. But he slipped on a small puddle of blood and the blade of my knife buried deep into his chest. Still, he didn’t say a word; he simply fell to the floor dead, a fiery anger still in his eyes.

  “And that’s my story. There’s little else to say. I decided I would finish my shift; if I called in sick, left early, and you guys eventually put two and two together, it would look pretty damning. When dispatch called saying a reporter needed a ride from the very address I had come from earlier in the day, I thought about running for it. But, the more I thought about it
, the more I didn’t really care if I was caught. I had done what I came to do; I knew I didn’t have much time left, and so what if I got arrested? I’d die before I was ever convicted. But even more than that, I was tired. So tired. When I pulled up and saw that you were the one that needed a ride, I smiled thinking I was in the clear and no one had a clue. You surprised me so much when you announced who I was that I lashed out without thinking – again, I’m sorry for that nonsense. And that’s the end of it. I understand you have to call me what you will, but in doing what I’ve done, I’m enforcing the laws of men; the same as you.”

  The four of us stood in silence when he had finished. Arruda tried his best to look annoyed, but it was obvious even he found the man’s story compelling. Lambert finally spoke up.

  “Come on,” he said, gently helping the man to his feet, “We still have to do our job.”

  Clery said nothing, only nodded.

  “Wait. I just want to know, the woman who picked up the ring, who was she?” Remy said.

  Aiden Clery smiled. “Ms. Moreau, I’ve told you what concerns me. I can’t speak to anything else. Maybe next time you should be a little more careful in your pursuits,” he said.

  Remy didn’t flinch “I suppose you are right. Good luck to you.”

  “And good luck to you,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  The Conclusion

  A few days later, Remy got a call from Lambert letting her know that Aiden Clery had died in his sleep. The guard found him in his bed when he was making morning rounds. Lambert said he looked peaceful, almost happy, in his final pose.

  Remy and I sat together in the living room of our apartment, the smell of freshly baked bread drifting up from downstairs, a Nat King Cole album on repeat.

  “So what did you think about your first case?” Remy said.

  I thought about it before I answered, but could only come up with one response. “It was exactly what I needed.”

  “I couldn’t agree more Jay. It turned out to be one of the more enjoyable cases I’ve had in a while. Pretty simple, all things considered.”

  “Well I doubt I’d call it simple –”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t, but when you look at the individual parts, what else could it be described as? When we arrived at the rowhouse, the first thing I noticed was the fleck of yellow paint on the curb. The curb was tall and it was obvious the paint had chipped from a door that rubbed against it when opened. The footprints, both inside and out, pointed to two men, one who was the victim, the other who was the killer. The killer was also taller and heavier than the first. Next was the victim himself, who had no visible wounds, yet based upon the look on his face, clearly knew what was happening to him as he was killed. In the pictures, there was the slightest faint of color in his lips, and the way he grasped at his insides immediately led me to the prognosis that he had been poisoned. I could tell the blood was not Cormack’s, but was instead from the other man. And as you figured out for yourself, it was due to a nosebleed, as it dripped in every place where the man stepped.

  “The main question then fell to ‘Why’? Why had this man been poisoned? The word ‘CAPITAL’ was on the wall, which could have been a misspelling of ‘Capitol’, but a political killing made very little sense. A political killing would have been swift, one bullet to the head; and we would have never caught the assailant. But this was clunky at best, there was emotion involved in this man’s death. I suspected it had been more a crime of passion than anything else.

  “Then Lambert showed me the ring that was too small to belong to either man. At that point, it was obvious the murder had been over a woman.

  “When we left for Officer Barrera’s apartment and stopped for coffee, I called Tiny at the lab and gave him Finton Cormack’s name and description, as well as the name of James McKeague, and told him what we were looking for. If you give Tiny someone’s name and an incentive to do real work, he will eventually tell you what the person had for breakfast on their twenty-first birthday. Most of what I can do with computers came from him. He’s very, very good at what he does.

  “It wasn’t long before he got back to me and told me that the two were actually named Patrick and Mike McCarty, and that they had come from Ireland years before. Interestingly enough, weeks before they showed up in Boston, the two were being sought for a brutal assault in Dublin. The man they assaulted was named Aiden Clery. Tiny also told me that Aiden Clery was once arrested, and later released, for a nasty street fight in Chicago. During that same time, Patrick McCarty, who was our victim Cormack, could be traced to Chicago as well. I was certain this was our man, so I started calling all the cab companies and until I found one who had a driver named Aiden Clery.

  “When I stepped away at the scene of the second crime, I called the cab company and asked specifically for Mr. Clery to pick me up at the address. I couldn’t say for sure whether he would show or not, so I was prepared to tell Lambert and Arruda what I knew. But he pulled up right on time, and with the pills as evidence, all the pieces fit together perfectly. Like I said: simple.”

  Nat King Cole started into ‘Nature Boy’ as I sat looking back at Remy.

  “Ok, if everything is so easily explained then tell me something else,” I said. “The first time we met, how did you know I was in the military?”

  “Easy,” she said, “You came in search of someone to share the costs of an apartment, yet, you were wearing adventure gear.”

  “Adventure gear? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You came in wearing Salomon hiking shoes and your clothes were all North Face. Now you tell me, who in DC walks around like they’re in the Appalachians, but can’t afford to pay rent?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Exactly. Your clothes were leftovers from a past life. In addition, when Sam introduced us, I noticed that you straightened your posture, which is normal of you ex-military guys. When you said your nerves acted up, I suspected it was from a service injury, the most likely of which would be military or police. I only decided on military after we shook hands and I noticed the tattoo sticking out from beneath the sleeve on your right arm; the tip of a dagger, a common symbol among military Special Forces. Taken as individual pieces, each gives only the slightest hint of a bigger picture. But when taken as a whole, yes, I would say it was quite simple.”

  I was impressed. Again. But the question about the military wasn’t what I wanted to know.

  “Why did you kiss me?” I said.

  She started to smile, but stopped when she saw the way I was looking at her.

  “To prove a point.”

  “What point?”

  “One I haven’t made yet.”

  “How about you make it,” I said, frustrated at her short answers.

  “Fire your therapist, Jay. There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need a shrink; what you need is a job. You’re not haunted by your injury, you’re just bored. You’ve lost what defined you; that tick in your arm manifests itself because you have no challenge in your life, nothing to pique your interest, nothing to offload any stress.”

  “The tick in my arm is from the issues with my nerves.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  We stared at each other, neither one of us willing to concede.

  “Here,” she said, handing me a pen. “You want me to prove my point? Take this; write down what I tell you.”

  I took the pen from her and grabbed a notepad off the table in front of me.

  “First, write your name,” she said, walking towards her desk on the far side of the room. “Below that, write down every address you can remember living at, the order doesn’t matter, just write as many as you can. Once you’ve finished with that, list the names of as many childhood friends as you – Jay! Look out!” she yelled.

  When I looked up from the notepad, a solid acrylic paper-weight was flying at my face. I barely had enough time to react, but instinctively, my left hand shot up and grabbed the weight before it
crashed into my teeth. I sat there, holding the smooth, heavy ball in my hand. Remy was standing in front of her desk, smiling a devious grin.

  I looked down at my arm and it started to shake. I almost dropped the paper-weight to the floor. I realized what Remy was trying to do, but she was wrong. This was one instance where she didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t. Did she? My arm hadn’t felt off until I had time to think about what had happened. When faced with a broken face, my instincts were to protect myself. Both my arm, and my nerves, did their job. Could the whole thing have been in my head?

  Her smile faded as my arm started to twitch. She walked towards me and sat down on the couch by my side.

  Her eyes locked on mine as she reached her hands out and took the weight from me, placing it down on the table. She gently took my arm, kneading at the muscles in my wrist and forearm, before moving up to the area around my elbow.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  She didn’t answer, her stare never wavered.

  “Remy, what are you –”

  “You have a problem. I’m going to fix it,” she said, emotionless, continuing to massage the muscles in my convulsing arm.

  Her touch was like a battery on my skin. After a few more seconds, Remy stood and pulled me up to join her. She silently led me to the corner of the room, behind the screens that separated her makeshift bedroom. We stood in front of each other, Remy never taking her hands away from my arm.

  “Sit down,” she said.

  I turned and looked at the bed, understanding what was happening, but not quite believing it. As I sat, I watched her move barefoot around the bed. It felt hot in the apartment, and I noticed beads of sweat on her skin and I saw the muscles in her thighs fire every time she took a step. My imagination ran wild with the countless number of ways in which I could enjoy those legs. At the moment, though, all I wanted was her touch back on my skin. A vision flashed in my mind of her running her fingers over every inch of my skin, massaging my neck and shoulders, gently pushing at the pain in my arm. I needed that touch.