The Gardener

by Maria Walton

  Katie went up to her afterwards.

  “Hi, I’m looking into your sister’s death, can I ask you a few things,” Katie said.

  “What is there to ask? It’s obvious. Money, hatred, jealousy all synonyms for one word – Richardson.”

  “Had things been rough between the two of them for a while?”

  “Rough,” Veronica said with a laugh. “She wanted to sell the house. Melanie was trying to get away from that asshole. They got a good deal on the house. She got a good loan on it. He’d had terrible credit – gambling at the Oak’s Card Club is what she said. Melanie had put the house on the market. Someone had put a bid on it sight unseen – It’s the bay area. She was coming down for a visit the day she died. I warned her about him when they got married but he had white teeth, tanned skin and seemed like he came from good stock. Look what a good breed got her.”

  “So you think he did it?”

  “She didn’t even know the Mexican. She couldn’t tell one wetback from another. Excuse me.”

  With that Veronica cut off Katie. Her black uniform merged into the rest of the small crowds. Many in the funeral party were crying. Katie could even see a small tear running down the face of Richardson. He was wearing black slacks, a black shirt and a gold chain. Katie watched the funeral party crowd around the coffin. When the box was lowered into the crowd it was Richardson who put the first pile of dirt on. He was also the first to leave.

  “I went to the funeral. Her brother, her parents they were weeping, her sister though, all she did was glare. I wasn’t even that close to the party and I could see and feel the intense wave of hatred coming out of her eyes.”

  “Staring at Mr. Richardson.”

  “Of course.”

  “The sister knew. The sister knew everything. The marriage had gone to seed a long time ago. He drank too much. Worked too much. She was unhappy and cut off. He didn’t allow her to leave the house. He read her emails. She constantly had to reset her phone password to keep him from prying.”

  “Okay so there’s the motive now but can you place him there?”

  “No but you can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that she hired a car, an uber to pick her up from her house to bring her to the airport. That uber was you. It was your blue Volkswagon bug. The one that is sitting outside right now. Same license plate and everything. “

  Vi didn’t like driving others around, it made him feel like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy, except he was Asian instead of black and his voice wasn’t as deep and throaty as Morgan Freeman’s. It was easy money. He didn’t think much of the ride at first. He’d gotten off of work at the shop and afterwards when Mr. Richardson had slid into the back seat still slightly splattered with blood Vi thought it all wasn’t happening. Life was sliding by him. It wasn’t something that he had control over.

  “Take me to the warehouse,” Richardson had said.

  “Uh not to the airport?”

  “No. Not to the fucking airport. Take me to the fucking bar.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “You see anything?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it might be worth your while not to have seen anything,” Richardson said. He took out his wallet and started to pass Vi cash. “We’ll stop at the bank as well.” And they did. Richardson took out several thousand dollars, more money than Vi would make working a month driving or working the mechanic job.

  “Ummm… how do you know that,” Vi said to Katie.

  “The receipt was on the phone and your car showed up in the surveillance footage from the bar,” Katie replied.

  “That’s interesting.”

  “What’s interesting is that you ended up giving Mr. Richardson a ride to the bar. What’s interesting is the repeated phone calls to Mrs. Richardson’s number from your cell. What’s interesting is finding out how much Mr. Richardson paid you off.”

  “I’m not guilty,” Vi shifted his eyes away from Katie. He didn’t like how intently she was staring at him.

  “I’m not accusing you of a crime that hasn’t been done before. You know where Esteban was? Why he didn’t have an alibi? It was easy to find out. I just got a hold of his phone. Anita hadn’t even thought to look at it. He’d had a mistress. A woman that sells horchata in the neighborhood. Anita knew her, I knew her, everyone knew her, not everyone knew about their affair. Esteban was willing to go to prison to keep Anita from finding out. He was guilty of cheating but innocent of murder.”

  “So….”

  “So you’re like Esteban, guilty of one crime while innocent of another.”

  “I saw him. I walked up to the door. I could hear him beating her body. I could see it through the curtains. He raised the bag of oranges and brought it swinging down on her. She just laid there. Not even begging. Not crying. “

  Vi’s father was a drunk. He liked to gamble with his uncles. When he lost though he took out his problems on his mother. She didn’t raise her voice at her husband. It wasn’t her place. Vi didn’t either. He would watch his mother get smacked by his father when his father had too many drinks, when his father had lost too much money.

  His father had stopped raising a hand to Vi when Vi was the same size as his father. The son’s eyes had hardened against his father and Vi had left the house early, much earlier than most other Asians. His sister though, she stayed. He tried to get her to leave but she stayed. He didn’t know why. It was painful for him. Vivian, his sister, would have the same bruises as his mother. He asked her why she didn’t leave home. She wasn’t a baby and she wasn’t married to their father. “It’s my duty as a daughter,” she said to Vi. “And it’s your duty as the oldest son to take care of the family.” He didn’t like being reminded of his duty. He didn’t like being reminded of his responsibility to his sister and mother who were constantly being beaten by a despot of a father.

  “I’m trying too, and that’s why I think you should leave,” Vi would tell her over and over. She stayed though. When Vi watched Richardson he thought of his father. He thought of his mother. He realized why his sister just stayed and watched like she was caught in some perverse bystander effect.

  The drive in the car had been in silence once the money had been exchanged. A dead weight hung on Richardson and Vi after the money negotiations were done. Before he got out of the car, Vi gave the white man some napkins to clean up with. Richardson dabbed at the blood on his face and cleaned himself off.

  “Mrs. Richardson was so broken. Mr. Richardson, he saw me looking and he came rushing out of the house. He demanded a ride and an alibi. He threatened me. He said that there was money in it for me, that if I talked that the entire police force would go after me.” Vi had begun to sweat. Droplets of water had formed on his forehead and slowly ran down his face like the legs of alcohol in their wine.

  “He’s not wrong there. The entire force would be riding your ass for sure. You’re not one of them.”

  “So what do you propose we do?”

  “The cops, the city, they’ll never prosecute one of their own. Richardson will never see a jail cell. What we need to do is get Esteban off. That’s what I was hired to do. That’s all I care about.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “One lie to replace another,” Katie said matter of factly. She poured herself another glass of wine and took a sip. Her lips reddened.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you will testify that you gave Esteban a ride from one workplace to another. That he didn’t have gloves with him. You’ll give him an alibi.”

  “But there are records. There is a paper trail,” Vi said pointing at the table. He took out his phone and pointed at it as well. “There were calls made. Money was taken out. It won’t take much searching to figure out that everything is a cover.”

  “Yes and Mr. Richardson and everyone else knows that if they look into it, it will just point back at the cops. They won’t want to do that. It will be
bad press. The Oakland Police Department already has enough woes and worries,” Katie rebutted.

  “You think that Richardson will go along with this?”

  “He has to.”

  “But if I flip it just means that I’m not a credible witness.”

  “You are not, but the paper trail will say otherwise.”

  “Did you know this all the time? When we met…”

  “Yes.”

  “How could you? Why would you? You’re blackmailing me.” Vi’s voice was pitched high with tension.

  “I’m rectifying things.” Katie’s was voice was level, and consistent. It was as if none of this bothered her at all.

  “Why did you sleep with me if you knew,” Vi was confused. It showed on his face. He didn’t know who he was talking to. He didn’t understand her motives. Why was she here with him?

  “I wanted to see, I wanted to understand what you were thinking about. I guess it’s like the scientist for the Stanford Prison Experiment. I wanted to know what you were thinking. How you were feeling.”

  “I’m not thinking about anything. I’m just thinking about survival,” Vi said.

  Vi didn’t mention the mounting bills from his father’s actions. The cost to care for his sister and his mother had gone up. His father had quit working but demanded the same household luxuries. He also demanded that Vi’s mother didn’t work, she needed to stay home and take care of him, Vi’s father had said. Vi didn’t mention anything about the pressure of his family -the way in which the tainted money might alleviate some of the suffering of his family. “I just needed the money.”

  “Which is why this is the best option. You can call the cop shop from here. Would you like the number?”

  “You said he wasn’t at the bar. You lied. I brought him there. You must have seen him later in the tapes.”

  “I lied.”

  “What makes us any different? What makes what you did different from me?” There was an anger to Vi’s voice. It was the same accusatory tone he used with his mother and sister when he demanded that they leave the house for good.

  “I didn’t supply a murderer with an alibi,” Katie replied calmly.

  “That’s just a matter of degrees. Esteban lied, Richardson lied, you lied, I lied, even Mrs. Richardson lied to her husband about what was going on.”

  “Life isn’t really a game of truth is it,” Katie said. She swirled around the wine in her glass. The liquid was thin and red waterfalls coated the glass.

  “Did you even want me? Or was that part of finding out about Richardson,” Vi asked.

  “I did and it so happened that you were wrapped up with Richardson.”

  “Which came first? Anyways, you don’t know anything about what’s going on with me. I had bills to pay. This was a good opportunity for me. I hope to God you didn’t fuck it up. I don’t want to have to work my entire goddamn life. I don’t want to have to foot other people’s bills. I don’t want to handle other people’s fucking responsibilities.”

  Vi waved down the waiter and paid the bill. His wallet was full of one hundred dollar bills. Katie raised her eyebrows when he set down two bills onto the table. Vi flushed with shame and then got up. His eyes showed his inner conflict. They looked everywhere but at her. It seemed as though if he looked at Katie again he would break.

  “It doesn’t repulse you?” he said standing above the dinner table. Their half eaten food was getting cold. The wine was gone and both of their lips were stained with red. Katie could see a tinge of purple on Vi’s tongue when he spoke.

  “We’re all criminals Vi. Some of us just commit larger crimes,” Katie said as Vi walked away.

  She sat there for a while thinking. Had she been to harsh on him? She didn’t know him that well. She’d known his body and there was a truth and integrity to the way that he touched her, the way that he spoke to her. Yes, he didn’t tell her the whole truth and nothing but the truth but who does. She’d known that he’d been an accomplice to some degree but she never told Anita about Esteban’s infidelities, didn’t that make her an accomplice to some degree? He’d left enough money for another bottle of wine so she ordered another one. She let the food sit but the alcohol continued to wet her throat.

  Esteban was let out a few days later. The bruises were still evident as was the rest of his injuries. His jaw was wired shut and he was out of work for weeks. Not that it mattered. Anita decided to sell the shop. She wanted out. Everything about Oakland had been cursed for her. Customers crowded in and out wanting to understand what exactly had happened. Rumors began to swirl as the truth was never made clear to anyone. The locals just knew that Esteban had been accused and that he was innocent. The slow simmer of anger that usually percolated in East Oakland was flaring hot.

  Anita, though, felt relief after deciding to leave. It was a changing point for her, a new beginning. A smile spread across her face with the contentment of a cat that has just drank a bowl of warm milk. “It’s been too much. America. It is not good for us. We have worked too hard here for this to happen and yet it does,” she had said to Katie. “Thank you so much though. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how it happened but, we are free.” It was as if a huge burden had been lifted off her –the weight of Esteban’s guilt.

  Esteban looked at Katie and let his eyes drop with the same sense of shame as a guilty dog. He took out his phone and sent Katie a text message. He still could not speak.

  The private investigator felt the buzz in her pocket and looked at her phone.

  “Thank you and thank you for not telling.”

  Katie nodded and walked out. She went back to her office with her meager pay from Anita and Esteban. It would be enough for the month to keep the lights on, to hopefully get another case. She looked at the news and saw that Richardson had gone missing. While official charges had never been made against him, she would make it look like Richardson had decided to fly the coop anyways and not risk the potential criminal case. Melanie’s family would decide to file a civil suit against him as well. If he won the criminal case he would surely not win the civil suit, Katie remembered the vindictiveness of Melanie’s sister. Everyone would think that a man like Richardson would flee.

  Katie started to dwell on her memories. She remembered Richardson and the jail cell. She remembered the pictures of Melanie’s body.

  She planned her night.

  The confrontation with Richardson was much easier. She’d laid in wait for him and sat outside of the cop bar for five hours listening to podcasts as the minutes turned to hours. She waited and she waited and she waited. Eventually he came out. Richardson stumbled back and forth swaying like the branches of a willow tree in a gusty wind. She followed him to his car and when he opened the door she swiped the back of his head with a blackjack. She pushed his body onto the passenger seat. It took her five minutes to get his bulk over. He reeked like a rotten distillery. She drove to the outer edges of town and pulled off a side street. Dragging his body to the side of the street was much more difficult. She did it though.

  “Wake up. Wake up,” Katie said slapping Richardson.

  “What, what,” he replied.

  “I said wake up.” Katie used the back of her hand on Richardson’s face.

  “Fuck,” Richardson groaned.

  “There’s gonna be more to say than just fuck.”

  “What? What the fuck? Where am I?”

  “Does it matter,” Katie replied.

  “Listen do you know who I am? I can have you arrested. Thrown in a cell for the rest of your life.”

  “Do you know who I am,” Katie told him. Darkness fell on her face. The moon was high in the sky and Richardson could see only her silhouette.

  “No.”

  “It’s better that way I think. Then you can’t tell.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You certainly won’t but maybe you can tell me something. Tell me why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you keep
her, why did you control her?”

  “She wanted to leave. I couldn’t let her.”

  “So because you were to weak to let her go you murdered her?”

  “I didn’t,” Richardson sobbed. “I didn’t.”

  “The driver. He saw you. You paid him to be quiet. Cops, they never get charged with anything. It’s always carte blanche.”

  “No. No. I’ll turn myself in.”

  Katie could smell the stench of urine. She looked down at Richardson’s leg. A small pool of piss was growing. It spread out from his crotch and down his leg.

  “She didn’t piss herself,” Katie said.

  “She deserved it.”

  “And so do you.”

  Katie took the bag of blood oranges out. The first swipe across his face pushed him to the ground. The second broke his nose. Blood started to pour out. Richardson started to cough and suffocate on his blood. Katie rose the bag of oranges high above her and rotated her core down bringing the bag of oranges crashing onto the police officer’s head. The oranges and his skull split open. The purple and grey mixed together into the darkness of the night.

  Her breath was the only sound. She took a large inhale through her noise and let it out through her mouth. I need to get rid of the body and the car, she thought. She grabbed the shotgun that was in the back of the car and shot at the gas tank. Liquid began to leak out onto the cement. It would have turned into beautiful rainbows of color if it had stayed that way. The gasoline smell filled her nostrils and she shot at the pool that surrounded the car and the corpse. It started to burn. The flames rose high, they were purple ad yellow and red. The lights danced towards the sky rising higher and higher. The stench of burnt flesh filled Katie’s nostrils as she walked away.

  It took her thirty minutes to walk far enough away to reach a 7-11. The fluorescent lights glowed when she went in. She bought herself a celebratory hot dog and a can of soda. There was no uber this far out of town so she called a cab, the old fashion way. When she finally arrived home she took a shower. The water was hot, smoothing out the aches in her muscles from lifting the heavy police officer to and fro.