I pulled myself together and yanked Searls the rest of the way down the pathway. Jean-Marc heard me coming and turned around fast. He raised the gun with one hand and leveled it at me. His hand was shaking, and his arm seemed loose, almost rubbery. But his narrow eyes—the eyes of a hunting bird, the eyes I had seen the night Augie had been beaten—remained sharp and quick.
“She pulled a knife on me,” he said. He seemed almost offended by the audacity. “She tried to stab me in the chest.”
“Give me the keys,” I said.
“She just grabbed the gun,” he said without apology. “Then she tried to fucking stab me.”
“Give me the fucking keys!”
He didn’t move at first. Then he looked past me at the people standing in the doorway. He lowered the gun slowly, then dug into his pocket and pulled out the set of small keys. He tossed them to me. I let them land on the ground by my feet, then picked them up and unlocked the cuff, slipping my wrist free from it. I hurried past Jean-Marc to the Saab.
I could see her from the edge of the curb. She was slumped over in the seat, her hands limp in her lap. The diver’s knife was on the floor by the pedals. I took a step off the curb and leaned in and saw that her head was turned sharply. There was a bullet hole just above her right temple and blood along that side of her body.
I knew immediately that Jean-Marc hadn’t been struggling against a knife at the time he shot his sister. He would have needed his left hand to press against her face and twist her head around so the right side would be exposed to the gun in his own right hand.
I leaned in for a closer look and saw that there were abrasions on Marie’s right jaw. They were the impressions left by his fingers.
Even though I already knew she was dead, I felt her neck for a pulse. I found nothing but a fading warmth beneath the tips of my fingers.
I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter anyway if they were opened or closed. Either way all I saw was black. I leaned out, turned, and stood face to face with Jean-Marc. The gun was still in his hand, the muzzle pointed toward the ground. I knew who he was and what he had done. I knew, too, that he was another creation of the Chief’s, that he was just like the Chief’s son, lofted by his own arrogance, unreachable, without conscience. But the actual son was nothing compared to Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc was the real beast. He had gotten away with murder. He had gotten away with worse. And he clearly had no doubts that he would get away with this, too.
He had the connections and the money to pull it off—regardless of the witnesses, regardless of the evidence. No one knew better than I what the rich got away with in this town.
I heard sirens coming from several different directions. They were in the distance still but closing fast. Jean-Marc casually tossed the gun past me and into the Saab. It landed on the floor by Marie’s feet. He peeled off his gloves and dropped them to the pavement.
I could feel my anger mounting. I could feel my heart pumping its poison through me. I could feel it rushing in the place of my blood.
Jean-Marc looked toward the sirens and listened without showing a hint of fear or concern. I realized then that there was nothing that I could do beyond the only thing there was for me to do.
The sirens were almost upon us. But I could barely hear them over the buzzing in my ears. I could barely think of anything past the fact that I was here all over again, that I was back in the presence of a rabid beast, that there was only one course of action left for me to take.
“You don’t look so good, Mac,” Jean-Marc said. “You look like someone just shot your only friend. Trust me, buddy, she wasn’t your friend. She wasn’t anyone’s friend. And between you and me, didn’t you find her a little less than enthusiastic in the sack—”
I exploded then, ducked low and rushed him, wrapping my arms around his waist and lifting him off the ground, then slamming him hard onto the sidewalk, landing on top of him with all my weight. I mounted him fast, both my knees on the pavement, my thighs locked tight around his ribs. He raised his arms to fight back and I slipped a lock around his left and twisted abruptly, breaking his elbow clean. He cried out and I repositioned the lock and twisted again, tearing the soft tissue in his shoulder. Then I abandoned that arm and sunk my weight onto his chest and let go with a flurry of punches to his face. Almost all of them connected and cut divots out of his skin. I heard voices from somewhere but I ignored them and hit till my hands hurt. Then I leaned in and held myself over him with my left arm and threw a flurry of elbow shots into his head with my right.
My rage was rushing through me like electricity. I heard more voices then. I heard people moving toward me. I heard keys jingling on belts, I heard hard shoes on pavement. I noticed blue and red lights in the trees. I realized then that I was ranting, but I had no idea what I was saying. And anyway, I didn’t really want to know.
I was still working Jean-Marc when I felt hands on me, grabbing me and trying to pull me off him. I shrugged them away. But then more hands grabbed at me and pulled me off him and to my feet.
I struggled against the hands holding me, shoving people away. I knocked someone to the ground. Then someone else. I knew by then that they were cops but I couldn’t stop myself. My rage wasn’t done. I tried to break free. I wanted to throw myself back on Jean-Marc. But too many hands had me. Still, I managed somehow to twist free of some and to pull those still clinging to me as I labored to get closer. I managed to maneuver the pack and put myself in range and stomped hard on Jean-Marc’s head with the sole of my work boot.
And that’s when the first nightstick come down on my head. The pack pulled me away again, and something jammed me hard in the ribs. I grunted and jerked my head in rebuttal, catching someone flush in the nose with the side of my skull. I knew then that after all I had done to avoid this, I was right where I wasn’t supposed to be, in the hands of the Chief’s boys, giving them the reasons they needed to take me out.
The nightsticks all came out then, jamming me, banging me. I took a few glancing shots across the head, shots that stung me more than they rocked me. Most of the blows came to my body and legs. I wanted to fight back but my strength was close to gone. My wits weren’t all that far behind.
I was determined not to fall to the ground with all of them over me. But my determination was weakening with each shot that came in. I felt my knees bending under the weight of their blows.
I was close to going down when suddenly I heard someone ordering, “Enough! That’s enough!”
But still more shots came, and I dropped down to one knee. The sticks were working my shoulders and upper back and arms. There was nothing I could do. The swarm was too tight. There was nowhere to go, no way out.
I dropped my other knee, then fell to my hands and knees. I took shots to the ribs, jabs that shifted my internal organs. I heard the same voice order with authority and anger, “That’s enough, that’s enough,” and it wasn’t long after that that the flurry of blows finally ceased and the swarm was no longer so tight around me.
I realized then that I was on grass, on the lawn in front of the Hansom House. I looked up, laboring to breathe, and saw Augie pushing at cops with his cane, shoving them away. They didn’t seem to know what to make of him. They looked to the Chief for his reaction. Then I saw Frank Gannon behind Augie. He, too, had his hands on a cop, pushing him back by the shoulders. Between the two of them was the Chief. He just stood there in the middle of it all and looked down at me.
I bunched together what I had and got to my knees. From there I was able to stand. It took a moment but I did it. I stood to face with the Chief.
There were patrol cars on the street behind him. Five uniformed cops were scattered around us. Their sticks were still in their hands, their chests heaving.
I looked at the Chief. I was wavering like a drunk. He looked at me for a while, then at Augie. There was something in the way they stared at each other, a kind of brief recognition, that led me to believe that they knew each other. Or maybe had once. Augie had gro
wn up out here. So had Frank. Had the Chief as well?
The Chief looked away from Augie then, turning to where Jean-Marc Bishop lay on the sidewalk. He looked down at him without expression. I watched the man’s profile till he turned back to me. His eyes were hard.
He said to me, “You give a guy enough rope and he’ll hang himself with it eventually.”
I didn’t say anything to that. The Chief nodded toward the Saab and said, “Did you see this?”
I nodded. He gestured behind me, toward the doorway of the Hansom House and the people in it.
“Did they?”
“You’ll have to ask them.”
The Chief stared at me for a moment more, then waved a uniformed cop over. The cop rushed to the Chief’s side. “Get statements from all these people over there,” the Chief said. He raised his voice and announced to the other uniforms around him, “This is by the books, gentlemen. Do we understand this? This is by the books. Dot and cross, dot and cross.”
The Chief took a step toward me. We locked eyes. His jaw was clenched shut.
“Get out of here,” he said softly.
I stared at him dumbly and didn’t move.
“Get out of here.” His anger broke through the tight clamp he held over it, his voice louder now. When I still didn’t move, he looked over my shoulder and yelled to someone standing there, “Please take your boyfriend and get him out of here.”
I looked back. Tina standing on the lawn several feet behind me. She looked frightened, unable to move. She looked from me to the Chief and then back at me.
The Chief regained his temper and said in a calmer voice, “Please, Tina, get him out of here.”
She walked to me then, her eyes blinking, her mouth opened slightly. She came up beside me and propped herself against me like a crutch, wrapping her left arm around my waist and draping my right arm around her neck.
But I still didn’t make a move to leave. I looked at the Chief as if the sight of him might help me understand.
He stared at me for a moment, breathing short through his nose. His face was set in a wince, as if the sight of me caused him discomfort.
“You did me a favor,” he said flatly, “and now I’m doing you one. Nothing has changed between us, nothing at all. Now get out of here, MacManus. Get out of my sight while I still have my dinner. Get out of my sight before I have a chance to change my mind.”
I still didn’t move. The Chief turned to Augie then and said, “Get this son of a bitch away from me.”
Augie started toward me. I saw Frank behind him, slipping through the crowd of cops and heading toward his Seville parked in the middle of the street. He wasn’t going to stick around. I didn’t really expect or want him to.
Tina tugged on my arm, then whispered, “C’mon, Mac.” I had nothing with which to fight her. Augie came up on the other side, and together the three of us turned away from the Chief and headed across the lawn toward the Hansom House.
My legs were shaky, my knees buckling a little with each step I took. Tina held her hip tight against mine, bracing me, holding me up. Augie’s arms were like tree limbs.
I had to stop for a second, to catch my breath. While I rested, I heard a car door close somewhere behind us. I turned and saw Long walking from a patrol car through the maze of cop cars on the street. He met the Chief. The Chief spoke to him for a moment, then walked past him. Long just stood there and did nothing as the Chief got into his Crown Victoria and drove away.
I looked for Marie then but couldn’t see her through all the cops gathering around the Saab. All I could think of was that I wished there was a way she could know how sorry I was. I wished there was a way that I could tell her that now. But of course there wasn’t. Of course she could never know.
“Mac,” Tina said. “Mac, c’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
I maintained my morbid watch, hoping for one last look of Marie. But Tina tugged at me gently and I turned to look at her.
“You’ve got blood on your hands, Mac,” she said. “We need to get you inside and wash it off.”
EPILOGUE
There was an early autumn that year, the August nights for the most part unseasonably cool. Some mornings it was even cold in my apartment. During my free time I did little more than watch over Elm Street from my three front windows. I watched as the days passed. Eventually I found work at the Mexican restaurant next door to the Hansom House, washing dishes and cleaning up after the cooks. Weekends I worked double shifts, from seven in the morning to well after midnight. The money wasn’t any better than what I was used to but it was all I was willing to do. I didn’t leave my block at the end of Elm Street for weeks at a time. Augie said there was shit going down in town and I didn’t want to know about it. I needed to play it safe. When I wasn’t working, I was home, at my windows; when I wasn’t at my windows, I was trying to sleep. This was as much life as I was allowed. It was all I wanted now.
I barely saw Augie. He made it clear enough right off that he was there for me if I needed him and then left me alone. I appreciated that more than anything. Augie knew the hurt I was in, had felt it himself when his wife was killed in Colombia.
Marie Bishop wasn’t my wife, but I had loved her, and she me, in our own ways.
Tina stopped coming around. School started, but of course it was more than that. We all knew that if it weren’t for Tina, if I hadn’t had to stop at the Hansom House that night to look for her, Marie Bishop would be alive and long gone right now. Tina was a kid and I tried not to blame her for Marie’s death. There was no way she could have known, there was no way she could have seen it coming. I knew that if she had she would have done things differently. But what happened had happened, and it was because of this that Tina stayed clear of me.
Eventually after a few months of my self-imposed house arrest I did venture off my block and into town. I hadn’t planned on it. It was my only day off from the restaurant and I stepped outside one afternoon and sensed a stillness in the air I hadn’t known in a long time, since last spring, since that night I came down looking for Augie. It seemed, this stillness, to be coming from the heart of town. This was the kind of East End day we locals lived for, that day when the tourists are finally, completely gone and the town, which had vibrated all summer long with crazy energy, goes suddenly quiet, like a ringing tuning fork pinched into silence between two fingers. I put on my denim jacket with the missing third button and walked the length of North Main into the village.
I looked south, in the direction of Village Hall, but I didn’t head toward that part of town. I had learned one thing, and that was quiet didn’t necessarily mean safe.
I walked west instead, past the IGA, walking with no real direction. A breeze brushed my unshaven face. The town was as silent as it was empty. Maybe it was this sense that led me to continue west. After a few minutes I was passing the cinema, where Long had picked me up and taken me to the Bishop home. At this point I was aware that I was heading somewhere specific, though I still wouldn’t admit to myself where that was. I just kept on, moving at a steady pace, heading into the breeze, deeper into the stillness. It wasn’t till I turned from Hill Street onto Halsey Neck Lane that I finally admitted to myself where it was I was going.
The Bishop estate, behind its hedges and gate, looked all closed up, the way so many houses here did at the end of the season. The gate had been chained but there was enough slack in it for me to squeeze through. I walked the gravel drive to the front door. I remembered being told by Marie’s father so long ago how that door, so heavy and ornate, had been rescued from a ruined church in France and brought over when the house was built in the twenties. I remembered passing through it as a boy freely, how it was never closed to me. I remembered how I had felt inside that house, running down its long halls or feeling the sun on my skin as I ate meals with Marie’s family in what their father called the open room. I remembered how the sun was made even more intense by the thick glass it shone though, glass that ran in long, narr
ow lead-lined panes from ceiling to floor.
I walked around to the back of the house. I felt safe within my connection to this place. I was no trespasser. I walked confidently and stepped out onto the patio and looked across Taylor Creek to the Dupont Sanctuary.
I walked down the lawn to its edge. I thought of winter coming, of ice. I thought of the body buried there, of the man Jean-Marc Bishop had killed out of perverse jealousy, of year upon year of frozen ground tightening its hold on those forgotten bones.
After a while I had enough of ghosts and memories, and enough of this silence, so I turned to head back up to the house. But I was stopped short by the sight of someone standing on the patio. I looked at him for a moment, then started back up the lawn. We stood on the slate and faced each other. There was a good ten feet between us.
He was in civilian clothes, slacks and a sport shirt and jacket. The shirt and jacket looked wrinkled. His face was like mine, unshaven, his eyes bloodshot and restless. Looking at him was nearly as difficult as looking at my own reflection. He looked to me precisely like what he was, which was a man who had lost it all.
“Came to savor the victory, MacManus?” he said.
“What are you doing here, Long?”
“I’m here to get a few things.”
“Isn’t it kind of late in the game to be tying up loose ends? Didn’t the FBI tear this place apart already?”
“It’s not loose ends I’m after today.” He paused. A breeze came up, carrying the smells of fall. “So I take it you’ve heard,” he said. “News travels fast in your neck of the woods.”
“Heard what?”
“That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To savor the victory?”
“What victory?”
“Someone cut Bishop in prison this morning. Cut his throat.”
I said nothing.
“Apparently,” Long continued, “he pissed off the wrong person. Can’t say I’m all that surprised. Of course, maybe it was something else. Maybe the Chief talked to someone who talked to someone, if you know what I mean.”
The Poisoned Rose Page 22