by Devon, Gary;
“Jesus,” Slater muttered. He sat looking at the band of yellow, plastic police tape that marked off the entire area around Rachel’s house. He was thinking about the graveled driveway and his diamond—the countless thousands of rocks. “So where are we, then, Burris? Up the creek, without a paddle?”
“Not quite.”
It was twenty past nine, and the surrounding houses lay in a deep, slumbering silence. The sky was overcast. An occasional squirrel or bird darted among the trees, but no one ventured forth on the silent lawns. Reeves opened his door. “I want to clear this barrier before that girl comes home tomorrow.” He took the toothpick from his mouth; its end was frayed and splintered like a tiny broom—he flipped it out the window. “How about giving me a hand, before these neighbors get back from church.”
Slater felt a stony reluctance to do anything but stay in the car, but at the same time, he knew he couldn’t refuse such a simple request. Unable to shake the feeling that something more was going on with Reeves, he said, “Sure, all right,” and the two men got out of the cruiser, slamming their doors.
He followed the police chief across the shallow, grassy right-of-way toward the far corner of Rachel’s iron fence. “We’ll be getting organized here in a minute,” Reeves said.
What does that mean?
Reeves unclasped the larger blade of his penknife and handed the knife to Slater. “You can cut it down,” he said, “and I’ll roll it.”
Why did you give me the knife, Reeves? What’re you trying to do?
They started at the corner, Slater cutting the bindings and Reeves collecting the yellow tape in a loose roll. Working quickly along the front of the fence and across the driveway entrance, they turned up the near side of the perimeter lilacs. “Burris, are you sure about this?”
“Henry,” Reeves said, as they arrived adjacent to the porte cochere, “did you ever have something caught in your craw? Know what I mean? It always sits right about here.” He clamped the rolled tape under his arm and massaged the hollow at the base of his throat. “You can’t get it up and you can’t get it down and it never goes away. I drink a glass of water and it’s there; I have a sandwich and it’s there; I go to sleep and I wake up and it’s there. Do you know what that’s like? Well, I’ve got this murder stuck in my craw like a goddamned rock.”
“So what’re you getting at?” I can’t stop sweating, Slater realized. He could feel it, wet, under his arms like hot slippery paste.
A second cruiser pulled up behind Reeves’s and two younger patrolmen got out. “Henry, let me have that,” Reeves said and Slater handed over the knife. Now there were two additional cops coming toward him. What the hell’s going on?
“You guys get your beauty sleep?” Reeves chided, walking down the drive to meet them. “Looks like you could use some more. Here, take down this line, pick the place up a little.” So it was nothing to worry about; Slater felt a momentary respite. “Then you can go on to your regular assignments,” Reeves concluded, starting back. “Come on, Henry, let’s walk this through. I want you to look at this with me.”
Wait a minute. I can’t go through it again, Slater thought. I can’t. But with every step, he could feel himself drawing closer and closer to that place. A big drop of sweat trickled slowly through his hair, down his back. I shouldn’t be here. Why did I ever come here? Now it was too late: he couldn’t get away.
“A lot of little things just keep nagging at me,” Reeves was saying, but Slater was only partially aware of him. Everything was now filtered through his fear. “Nothing about this case makes sense. I have to believe there’s something I’m not seeing.”
“Which is?” Slater said.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell I’m looking for. There’s something out here though—there’s something; I know it—but I can’t find it.”
They had come to the wide gap in the hedge between Rachel’s driveway and the Malcolmsons’ backyard. Slater felt as though he were entering a zone of inescapable danger. “In case you’re interested,” Reeves said, tugging at an earlobe, “that’s where we found her—over there beside that graveled walk.”
It’s a trap. A breeze shook the bushes and Slater thought he could hear life surging from the house. It was a sound like a waterfall. What should I do? Time seemed to be speeding by him and he knew whatever he did, Reeves would not fail to notice. Can I bear to look? Or not?
“See? Where that trellis’s broken down.”
I have to, Slater realized. No time to deliberate. He lifted his head and looked roughly in the direction Reeves had indicated, toward the place where he knew Rachel had fallen. He reached his hand up but couldn’t stop it: he felt the phantom knife slash his throat.
“Christ, Burris,” he panted, “I don’t need this. Don’t forget: I knew Rachel. She was my friend. We used to live right over there, in that house across the street.”
“Sorry, Henry. I forgot about that,” the police chief said and a moment later he changed the subject. “Look at those starlings. Filthy, damned things.” When he stooped to gather a few stones, Slater noticed half a dozen or more of the brownish-black birds, sitting perfectly still on the trellises and arbor. Two were on the ground, pecking at the gravel among the broken-down clematis vines.
The birds fastened his eyes to the spot. Blood! The blood! It’s all over the place! Slater closed his eyes but the blood was still there. For an instant, once again, he could feel Rachel struggling at the ends of his hands. God help me! I’ve done it! I’ve done it!
“Hey, Henry, what’s the matter?”
Slater gasped with relief as reality flooded back—the graveled drive, the late morning sunbeams where all was sane and orderly. Reeves clasped his shoulder. “Say, buddy—are you all right?”
“I can’t help it,” Slater said, gulping a breath. “It’s this place. I was thinking—Rachel. I think—it’s getting under my skin.”
Reeves gave him a look of absolute sympathy. “Know what you mean,” he said. “Just try to take it easy. I never get used to it either.” Choosing a piece of gravel from his hand, he fired it at the birds. “She must’ve fed these starlings. I’ve always hated them; you couldn’t drive ’em away with a bazooka.”
One at a time, he sailed the handful of stones into the garden, the birds fluttering up when the gravel struck too close to them, and then resettling. “See what I mean? There must’ve been a hundred out here that morning, but they’re impossible to get rid of.” He slapped his hands together, knocking off the dust, and slid the garage door open on its creaking pulleys. Old and rusty, the red and brown station wagon sat before Slater like an unwanted dream. It brought to mind the last time he had seen Rachel driving it—the same evening that Sheila had flashed her fingers for him to meet her.
“What I’m going to tell you, Henry, has got to be strictly off the record.”
“Fine.” He was still having trouble controlling his voice.
“Between you and me, right?”
“That’s right. The way it’s always been.”
From inside the dark garage, Reeves said, “I’m out on a limb with this thing. The way I see this case is not the way anybody else sees it. Okay, the murder itself; that could be—that’s the kind of shit these convicts would do. But I keep going over it in my head, coming out here, trying to reconstruct what actually happened. Her car, for example. Why didn’t they take her fucking car?”
The sun had come out. Slater gripped the edge of the door frame, trying to stop his fingers from trembling. Reeves opened the doors of the station wagon and then he opened the hood. “They didn’t take anything,” he said. “Nothing was stolen. I’m not saying they’re logical; that’s not possible. But, Henry, they always steal things. One of ’em killed a guy for a fountain pen, but as far as I can tell, they didn’t even go inside the house. Buchanan’s purse was lying there, money in it; nobody touched it. Car keys. Car in the garage. That’s one of their favorite things—they get their rocks off stealing car
s.” He was poking around under the hood. “So tell me, Henry, does what I’m saying make any sense to you?”
Slater stepped into the dim garage to escape the sun. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “Maybe something scared them off.”
“That’s what Ellis says. That’s the official line.” Reeves had opened an old newspaper on the floor and was down on his back, examining the undercarriage.
“Burris, what the hell’re you looking for?”
“Just checking things out,” he said from the caverns of the engine. But Slater knew he was searching for something; anything. Reeves stood up, shaking his head over yet another small defeat. He wiped his hands on an old rag. He couldn’t have seen the shadow came to the open garage door—his back was turned. “Chief,” said the younger patrolman, “we’re outta here.”
“Go ahead,” Reeves said, going to retrieve his knife. He shut the station wagon doors, shut the hood. “Then, all of a sudden, this morning, it hits me. These convicts—they’re messy; they’re not slick. It’s the things they didn’t do that’re remarkable.” He walked past Slater, outside. “I swear, Henry, I can feel it. There’s just no way those convicts killed this old lady.”
Slater said, “So we stood in front of those cameras and told a lie.”
“No, not a lie, exactly. We gave them the official line.”
Staying behind Reeves, he stepped into the sunlight and had to block the white hot glare with his palm.
“There’re other things,” Reeves said. “The hour that it happened, for instance. Very unusual. I’ll bet you could count the number of murders that take place at seven A.M. in this entire country on one hand.” Waiting for his eyes to adjust, Slater lowered his hand to the garage door and slid it shut. The sky was so blue it seemed almost purple. He saw that Reeves was also shielding his eyes, staring at the ridge that ran behind the property. “No, sir. It will be a frosty day in hell before I’ll believe that those convicts did this thing.”
“So, who’s your suspect?”
“Jesus! I have to figure out what I’m looking for, first. Then I’ll worry about who.” He was still studying the landscape behind the garden.
He knows the killer ran back that way, Slater thought.
“I don’t mind telling you, though, I had a feeling about the girl’s boyfriend. But he’s in the clear.” Reeves turned, his hands on his hips. “Christ Almighty! Would you look at that!”
The yellow police tape had been left in loose untidy piles. “These guys wear me out! But what can you do?” He shook his head in disgust. “There’s an empty trash barrel back by the garage. Henry, if you’ll get this, I’ll go around front for the rest.”
“Okay, Burris, but then I’ve got to be getting back.”
He watched the police chief make a little detour around the corner of the house before he gathered up the piles of tape and started across the backyard garden toward the trash barrel. The cabbage roses had opened their colossal red blossoms and a delirious sweetness tinged the air. It brought back memories of their suffocating sweetness from years past. He thought he had forgotten the scent of love and death, but it came to him now, much sharper and richer than ever before. It was the smell of a place long shut away and uninhabited, strange, almost magical: it was the stench of an old woman’s dying perfume.
The smell of the roses only intensified as he crossed the garden. When he passed too close, several of the starlings flew into the air, scattering into the trees—at the periphery of his sight, he saw a spark streak through the sky. Quickly, he turned his head but it was gone. It had fallen like a shooting star. I’m still seeing things, he thought while one by one, the birds returned to their roosts.
He had trod this same ground Wednesday morning, in his getaway, and now it placed him close to the place where Rachel had died, within a few feet of the brick walkway where the crevices were filled with pea gravel. He looked over his shoulder, but Reeves was still out of sight behind the corner of the house. Slater felt the muscles in his jaws contract. He couldn’t stop wondering if Reeves had maneuvered him here deliberately.
He knows part of it, Slater thought. But it could be worse, a lot worse. Still, he knows something … he hasn’t told me everything.
As Slater dumped the tape into the barrel, one of the starlings pitched forward from the rose arbor. It swooped over his head and landed on the graveled path no more than a few feet away from him. “Get out!” Slater said, stamping his foot.
The bird hopped into the air, its wings flapping, and drifted back to the ground in much the same place it had occupied before. Eyes, black as onyx, stared fiercely at him, then in a quick tilt of its head, the starling scrutinized the path. The bird strutted over the gravel with its quirky gait, comically awkward on sticklike legs, tilted forward and pecked among the stones. The thought passed through Slater’s mind, What’s it after in those rocks? A spider? Again he looked toward the corner of the house and saw Reeves sauntering into view.
Come on, Burris, he thought, let’s get this over with and get away from here. But he knew he couldn’t appear too impatient. He shoved his hands into his pockets and the waiting went on. He looked around at the starling. Now it had something in its beak. He thought about motioning for Reeves to come on, but he didn’t even begin the gesture. The starling was dragging whatever it was along the rough surface of rocks. Again, Slater started to stamp at it, to frighten the bird away. Instead he carefully put his foot down and froze. A hideous moment passed when everything was caught in silence and immobility. The object in the starling’s beak gave off steely points of light.
Suddenly, there it was. It’s my diamond!
The hair stood on the back of Slater’s neck. For a split second, he remained motionless, flooded with joy and terror, his heart hammering so fast he could hardly breathe. He threw a wild, light-headed glance at the figure now approaching from across the garden. Slater thought, I’ve got to get it! He’s coming! He also thought, You can lose your life this way.
He leapt for the diamond, kicking at the starling.
“Get out!” he gasped. “Get out of here!” and the bird clattered to a hovering height in the air, unafraid.
He glimpsed the fading spark of facets in the bird’s beak. It was all he could do not to yell, It’s mine! Wings pumped downward. Slater swung at the starling and nearly hit it; he felt the turbulent air rush off its wing. Dislodged, the diamond fell, tumbling into the grass and he was on his knees, running his hands over the green blades.
Then he had it, in his fingers, in his closed fist. My God, I’ve got it, I got it, I got it!
Where’s Reeves?
His head shot up. It felt as though a steel wire snapped shut on his throat.
Standing on the grass, across the path two feet away, Reeves said, “What’re you doing? Henry, what’ve you got?”
The sun streamed down on his back. His eyes began to water with the glare and he squeezed them shut. Did you see it, Reeves? How long have you been there? What did you see? Slater knew he had to get himself under control. He dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to pull out of his fright, but the wire on his throat was choking the life out of him. He opened his eyes.
It’s nothing, he almost said, all the time thinking, Don’t risk it; you cannot risk it. He wanted desperately to throw his hands behind his back, like a child, and hide it. But he couldn’t.
Reeves chuckled good-naturedly. “Come on, Henry. Let’s see it. What’d you find?”
He’ll know for certain if you try anything, anything at all. There was nothing Slater could think to do, still he delayed the inevitable as long as he dared. My God! My God! My God! Trembling badly inside, he cleared his throat and pushed himself upright. “You won’t believe it,” he said, and it was tearing him up, “see for yourself.” Struck by his own grave mortality, fighting to hold himself still, he extended his hand and unfolded his fingers. He had grasped the diamond so tightly that it left a red indentation in his palm. “That damned bird had it.”
Reeves made a rush for the brilliant stone. “Jesus!” he shouted, his voice cracking with triumph and excitement, “look at that!” He took the diamond from Slater’s palm and held it to the light. “By God! Look at this thing, Henry!” Reeves laughed out loud. “We’re damned lucky you saw it. Wonder whose it is—who the hell it belongs to.” He continued to examine the diamond, then he tossed it in the air and caught it. “Don’t think about it, Henry,” he went on. “Maybe it was Rachel’s. I know you don’t think so and I don’t think so either, but we won’t know until I look into it.”
Slater’s only conscious thought was of Reeves jamming his hand into his pocket, with the diamond.
Reeves stuffed his armful of the plastic police banner into the barrel. With splashes of gasoline from a gas can in the garage, he set it ablaze.
Time no longer flowed around Slater but coiled upon him like a rope. The only real disaster that might have happened, already had. Seconds passed before he came to himself, standing alone in the driveway. He could still feel the diamond pressed into the palm of his hand. He hated Reeves with a strength he would never have believed possible.
Slowly, he backed toward the car, still waiting for Reeves but aware of every step as if he were walking underwater. It was then that he noticed the tiny sticks littering the gravel—the toothpicks chewed into little brooms lying all around him. Reeves had been here many times before. What does he know? How much does he know?
The police chief checked to see that all the doors of the house were locked and secure. Then, leaving the fire to burn itself out, the two men returned to the cruiser. Cars were passing now, the neighbors coming home from church.
They were on the interstate, headed back toward Rio Del Palmos, when Reeves said, “If I showed you the statistics on crimes like this, Henry, they would say that, nine times out of ten, the victim knew her assailant and that the murder grew out of some domestic dispute. So if I listen to that reasoning, then I have to believe that Mrs. Buchanan’s granddaughter knows … well, something. When I tried to talk to her that morning, she was incoherent. But now I’ve got to have a long talk with that young lady.”