by Paul Cleave
Jerry stays sitting in the car as Hans makes his way inside. The front door of the house is adjacent to the garage, so when Hans opens it Jerry can hear the conversation through the wall. His instinct that the police have arrived early is proven to be correct. They introduce themselves as Detectives Jacobson and Mayor. He’s sure they are the same two men who drove him into the police station. They tell Hans he must know where Jerry Grey is.
“What makes you think I know?” Hans asks.
“Because we ran the number he called from the SIM card he purchased, and that led us to you,” one of the men says, and that’s why they’re here so early. Neither Hans nor himself, nor Henry for that matter, made that connection. Jerry figures he’s lucky not to be in the back of a patrol car right now. Then he figures that may still happen depending on what Hans says.
“Yeah, he rang me,” Hans says, “and yes I picked him up from the mall. He was confused and lost. I rang his daughter and told her he was safe. I was going to take him back to the home, but then she gave us some news to make me realize we needed to head to the police station.”
Jerry’s heart sinks at the idea of Hans turning him in. Carefully he opens the door, making no sound. The idea he is innocent is taking hold, and he’s not going to let these people take that away from him.
“So he’s here at the moment then,” one of the detectives says.
Hans laughs. “Sorry, guys, but you’ve jumped the gun on that one. When I told him I was going to take him to you, he hit me when we were stuck at the next set of lights and jumped out of the car. He ran across the road and by the time I was able to turn the car around I couldn’t find him.”
Paused at the doorway between the garage and the hall, Jerry considers what he’s just heard, then slowly makes his way back into the garage.
“So you let him go? That makes you a bad friend,” one of the men says, but Jerry is thinking the opposite. The fact Hans isn’t betraying him makes him a good friend. The best friend he could have right now.
“No, it makes me a good friend for not hitting him back.”
“You knew he was wanted in connection with multiple homicides, and you didn’t feel any civic duty to call us and update us?”
“In other words why didn’t I do your job for you? Is that what you’re asking?”
“What my partner is asking is why are you bullshitting us? We know he’s here.”
Hans laughs again. “You guys have more of an imagination than Jerry, and if he was here, and you believed it, then it wouldn’t be you here, but an armed unit busting down my door.”
“So you won’t mind if we come in and take a look around?”
“Of course I mind. My parents always told me not to talk to strangers, and that’s what you guys are, right? Plus my lawyer would be against it. He would want you to have a warrant because that’s the way he thinks. I tell him he’s just being pessimistic, but you know, I’ve been to jail before because the police took advantage of me being such a trusting guy. I’d hate you to come inside and see something out of context and suddenly think the worst. I’m a by-the-book guy, as should you guys be. Do you have a warrant?”
“This isn’t a joking matter,” one of them says.
“I’m not joking. I’m telling you he isn’t here, and you’re standing on my property calling me a liar and asking if I mind having my rights violated. Now, I’ve told you what happened and I’ve been friendly about it, but now my patience is wearing thin. So, unless you have a warrant, we’re done here.”
“With your history, mate, you do know you’re playing with fire. Harboring a fugitive will see you back in jail.”
“He’s not a fugitive, he’s a confused man who doesn’t know what he’s done or what he’s doing, and right now he probably doesn’t even know where he is. Come back when you get a warrant.”
“It won’t just be us coming back,” one of them says, and then Jerry hears the door close.
There are retreating footsteps as the men head back to their car. He hears one of them say to the other, “I told you we should have just waited. This has gotten too personal for you.”
“The son of a bitch broke two of my fingers,” the other guy says. “Of course it’s personal.”
Jerry can’t hear the rest as they move out of range. Hans comes into the garage. He puts his finger over his lips to tell Jerry not to say anything. Then he walks to the garage door and listens, but by now the two cops have gotten into their car. They start it, back out of the driveway, and park on the road.
He heads back into the house, beckoning Jerry to follow him.
“If they’re parking outside, then they’re getting somebody else to take care of the warrant,” he says, keeping his voice low.
“I think people are already on their way,” Jerry says. “One of them had his hand in a cast, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I broke his fingers. I think they came here ahead of the others because they want the arrest.”
They walk into the dining room, and Hans unlocks the French doors that lead into the backyard. “In that case they’ll be here any minute, and if it’s the Armed Offenders Unit, they’ll be storming the place. You need to run, and right now.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“I have things I need to take care of here.” He hands Jerry a cell phone. “Climb the back fence and make your way through the neighbors’ house to the street. Turn left and when you get to the end of the block turn right. You got that?”
“I got it.”
“Say it back to me.”
“Over the fence to the street. Turn left, then right at the next intersection.”
“Keep walking in that direction and after two hundred yards there’s an alleyway. It leads through to a park. Head down there and stay hidden until I call you, okay?”
“What are you—”
“Just do it. Come on, let’s go. And if they find you, don’t you dare mention me, okay?”
They move quickly across the backyard, where the lawn is ankle deep and the surrounding garden is overrun with stinging nettle and weeds big enough to have developed inch-thick trunks. Jerry climbs the fence and drops to the other side behind a house that has a small inflatable pool, and a sand pit with cat shit littering the top of it. He thinks, he thinks, how did life get to this point? He makes his way around the side of the house and past a tricycle and a soccer ball to the street, breathing heavily already. He turns left and runs like Hans told him to. At the end of the block he turns right and keeps running and finds the alleyway. He’s halfway down it when he hears a car approaching. He turns around to see a patrol car passing by, but it doesn’t slow down and nobody in the car looks in his direction.
He reaches the park. One of the greatest things about this city, he remembers, is the number of parks. It’s why it’s called The Garden City, and not because of the amount of people getting buried in vegetable patches. Of course that’s the kind of thing Henry would quip about in one of his books. This park has a few people in it, some kids playing on the swings, another one on a merry-go-round, some teenagers smoking by the toilets with their hoodies shading their faces. Henry would quip about that too back in the day.
There are a bunch of trees lining the north side creating shade. He could go hide in there, but if people see him walking in it’ll raise suspicion. Then he sees it—a park bench right where lawn meets tree. He makes his way over and sits down. He feels exhausted. He gets the phone out and stares at the screen. He acts like he’s texting or checking the weather, the way people do when they’re alone in social situations and have a phone handy. His ankles are sore from the stinging nettle. He scratches at them and the relief is instant before getting worse.
The phone rings. “Hans?”
“You at the park?” Hans asks.
“I’m here.”
“Good. Stay calm. When the cops are done here, I’ll come and get you. I’ll have to drive around for a bit to make sure I’m not b
eing tailed, but hopefully I’ll be there in an hour or two. Do nothing. Just stay out of sight until I come for you, okay? Stay at the park, okay?”
“Okay,” Jerry says.
“Okay?”
“I said okay. I’ll sit here and wait for you.”
“Good. Don’t wander off, Jerry. In fact, why don’t you spend your time thinking about where else you could have hidden that journal? It’s important we find it.”
They hang up. Jerry stares at the phone and he sits in the shade as alone as ever, the police hunting him as his exhaustion grows deeper. He’s thinking about Eric the orderly, he’s getting a little sleepy, and he’s wondering if it’s possible Eric has done these bad things. He covers his mouth as he yawns. He tries to think about where else he could have hidden the journal, and there’s something there, a memory like a splinter in his brain that he can’t quite get to, but instead of focusing on that, he thinks about Eric. He yawns again, then suddenly snaps awake, unaware he was starting to doze. He sits up a little straighter. All he has to do is stay awake and wait for Hans. Then they’ll find Eric. He wonders what exactly it is they’re going to do to make Eric confess. He starts to doze again, telling himself to hold on, hold on.
THE REPRIEVE
Today is turning into one of the longest days of your life. This latest development is for you, Future Jerry, because you may not be dying today.
It’s hard to make sense of. It only unfolded an hour ago. Henry should be the one to tell it, but Henry’s job is to create. Your job, Jerry, is to tell it like it is. And here’s how it is. . . .
You completed the second suicide note. This one to Eva. The notes were neatly folded into separate envelopes, each one labeled and left on the desk where they couldn’t be missed. The trash bags were all taped in place, and you were moments away from Captain A finally having to abandon ship. You were sitting in the office chair looking at the couch wondering if the couch wouldn’t be better for what you had in mind, but it would mean shifting the trash bags and that really was just more stalling. Plus it would ruin the couch. No, the office chair would suffice, and really, what did it matter?
You weren’t going to use the pillowcase anymore. The idea of being found that way, of the photograph being leaked somehow, that in a few days it would be all over the Internet—Jerry Grey wearing a pillowcase on his head, look what a fool he has become—that was an idea you couldn’t stomach. You put the barrel of the gun into your mouth and your teeth scraped against it and you didn’t like that feeling either, so you decided to fire through the side of your head instead, and you were going to do it, then you weren’t, and then you were. It was like a switch being flicked on and off. Do it, don’t do it, do it. You thought about how some suicides fail, how the bullet changes path and rattles around the skull and makes a lot of damage but doesn’t kill. You put the gun back into your mouth.
You were looking at the Halloween photograph on your desk of Eva dressed up as a patrol officer from CHiPs when you pulled the trigger, but it was the bloody shirt, the knife, and the dead girl you were thinking about. It was always going to be about the girl.
Nothing happened.
The safety was on.
You were figuring how to turn it off when Sandra burst into the room. You dropped the gun on the desk and stood so quickly the chair rolled back, got caught in a crease in the tarpaulin, tipped over, and snagged the trash bag hanging on the wall behind it and ripped it down.
Thank God, she said, and her clothes were pasted to her body, sweat was dripping down her face and her cheeks were flushed. She was out of breath.
I just need another minute, you told her.
She marched towards you. She looked at the gun, then she took in the plastic bags and the tarpaulin and the horror of it all struck her and actually brought her to a stop. Her expression changed from one of relief to one of horror. Then she started to shake, and she made it to the couch and fell into it as much as she sat into it. She was no longer flushed. She was now ghostly pale. But she was still sweating, even more so, and panting.
I just need another minute, you said, because in that moment it felt like she was upset you hadn’t yet followed through with the plan.
She shook her head. Please, sit down with me, she said, and when you didn’t move, she held her hand out towards you. Please, Jerry.
You moved to the couch and sat, but didn’t take her hand. You had a mental connection with the gun because of what you almost went through together, and could feel it back on the desk waiting to be included in the conversation.
I had a phone call, she said. I’ve been trying to ring you. It’s why I ran back. To stop you. I’m . . . I’m so sorry I . . . I shouldn’t have left you like that to do . . . to do what you were going to do, she said, and she started to cry. You wanted to put your hand on her shoulder, wanted to tell her everything was going to be okay, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Things weren’t going to be okay, and let’s not forget, Future Jerry, that by this point in the game she was already screwing the baker and the alarm guys and who knows who else. Right there in that moment when you thought that, you need to know you also thought about the gun. For a second—not even that, but just a microsecond—two things happened. The first is you saw her pinned beneath the baker as he moved inside her, he was wearing his big baker’s white hat and it was ringed with sweat, his big baker’s white ass in the air. The second thing you saw was the gun, you on one end of it, the other spitting out bullets into Sandra’s chest. Two unpleasant thoughts, not even a microsecond, but there nonetheless.
Do you remember Mae?
From one of the books?
No. A few weeks ago you wandered off and got lost and confused and you knocked on her door. It was the house you lived in for a little bit when you were younger. Mae was—
Nurse Mae, you said, and you remembered her. You couldn’t remember the trip to the house, but you could remember being there, the tea and the chatting and then Sandra coming and picking you up. It was the day you were trying to dump the can of spray-paint.
That’s her, Sandra said, and she sounded pleased you remembered. Hell, even you were pleased. You allowed yourself a moment, a fantasy really, to imagine that the worst of the Alzheimer’s was behind you. Ahead were the five stages of getting better. She called to see how you were doing.
Why?
Because you went there on Saturday night.
I . . . wait. What?
I want to see the shirt.
Why?
Because I asked.
You pried up the floorboard and showed her the shirt. She didn’t look as unhappy as you’d have thought. You balled the shirt up and put it back, and then she explained everything. You can’t remember her words exactly. If Prick had been here with his video camera it would now all be up online to refresh your memory, but you can remember the gist of it.
At around three in the morning, Mae was woken up by a knock on the door. She opened it to find you standing there, and out on the street was a taxi you had arrived in. You had no money, and like the last time you had gone to her house, you were confused. She paid the taxi driver then took you inside. She told Sandra she thought about putting you back into the taxi and telling the driver to take you where he had found you, but the problem was she couldn’t know for sure where he had found you, or even that you wouldn’t just jump out at a red light and run for the hills. You sat at her kitchen table and drank a cup of tea and when she went to call Sandra, you asked her not to. This, of course, was after she explained you didn’t live there anymore, which by then you were figuring out. Your reason for not wanting her to call Sandra was simple—and you were able to show Mae just how simple it was by showing her the video of you ruining the wedding and what was left of your life. She agreed then not to call Sandra, but insisted that she call somebody. You told her about Hans. You had your phone. You made the call, and he didn’t answer, which was no surprise since it was in the middle of the night, so you left a message.
Mae sat up with you drinking cups of tea and you made small talk. The weather. Life. Music. She said you were fading in and out of the conversation, sometimes animated, other times you’d just stare ahead as if switched off. If any of this is true, Future Jerry, and there is no reason to doubt it, then it’s one of those events that didn’t cement itself into your memory banks. You were Functioning Jerry in the off position, and even though there were some on moments, none of them stuck. Hans called around five a.m. According to Mae, you insisted on meeting him out in the street.
When Sandra told you all of this, you closed your eyes and tried to picture it, and at first there was nothing, but then that changed and you could see yourself climbing into Hans’s car, but whether it happened exactly how you saw it, or whether you could imagine it because you’ve climbed into cars thousands of times, including his, you don’t know. If it’s true, you certainly don’t remember the drive home.
You were with Mae for several hours, Sandra told you. The news says Belinda was killed around three a.m. That’s the same time you were knocking on Mae’s door. The police keep saying they want to talk to anybody who saw anything that night, and want to talk to anybody who lived on her street who was awake around that time. Three a.m., Jerry, don’t you see what that means? If you had killed her before then, Mae would have seen the blood on your shirt. I asked her what you were wearing, and she said the same clothes from the wedding, from the online video. Then Hans picked you up.
You’ve spoken to Hans? you asked.
Not yet, she said. Something must have happened after he dropped you off, but whatever that was, it doesn’t involve Belinda. She was already dead by then.
Then whose blood is it?
Sandra went quiet then, because she didn’t have an answer. You were picturing the whole cycle again, watching the news, waiting for the phone call, waiting to see who else was dead.
But then Sandra did have an answer. And it made perfect sense. You haven’t spoken to Hans, she said.
That’s right.