Monument Road

by Michael Wiley

  I turned away and walked into the hall, but then came back. I picked up one of the wrought-iron tables and heaved it through the glass. The heat rushed in.

  If that didn’t piss off the judge enough to make him want to kill me …

  I went into the living room and tipped over the couches and chairs. I walked along the walls, taking paintings from hooks and chucking them into a pile. In one corner, a grandfather clock ticked at the seconds as if it was chopping time into pieces. I let the clock stand.

  I circled to the back of the house and went into the kitchen. I swiped cans and bags of food on to the counters from the cabinets. No gun. I poured the silverware from a drawer on to the floor. No gun. I opened the oven, the dishwasher, and the refrigerator. No gun.

  Breathe, I told myself. Deep in, hard out.

  I went back to the front door and opened it. The sky was blue and hot. The lawn was green. A locust whined. A lawnmower hummed in another yard. My car waited for me where I’d parked it.

  I closed the door and climbed the stairs to the second floor. There were five bedrooms. The Skooners had fitted out the one closest to the stairs with a recumbent bicycle, a step machine, free weights, and exercise mats. They had bolted a large-screen TV to the wall. I went in, glanced around, and left.

  A linen closet separated that room from the next. I pulled the sheets, blankets, and towels off the shelves. No gun.

  The next room, I guessed, had been Josh’s. On a bookshelf, there were framed pictures of him – grinning into a camera with groups of friends, holding a redfish on a little motorboat when he was about sixteen and had long hair. I opened his dresser drawers, lifted his clothes, and set them back in place. I opened his closet and checked the shoe boxes that he’d stacked in the back. I went into the attached bathroom and checked the drawers and cabinets. I returned to the bedroom, lifted the mattress, and lowered it on to the springs. No gun.

  Andrew’s bedroom was across from Josh’s. The bed was unmade. A pair of jeans lay on the floor. The window shade was down. I opened the drawers and stirred the clothes with my hands. No gun. I checked the closet and under the mattress. In the bathroom, a deodorant stick and a toothbrush lay on the counter. A shampoo bottle stood open in the shower. No gun.

  At the other end of the hall, the judge had set up one room as a home office and another as a bedroom. I went into the office. He’d decorated the walls with awards and certificates of the kind that also hung in his courthouse chambers. Behind his office chair, he had a framed picture of himself as a young man shaking the hand of the first President Bush. I emptied the desk drawers on to the desktop. I took the folders from the file cabinets, threw them into the air, and watched the paper snow. I pulled the cushion from a daybed. No gun, no gun, no gun. I threw the desk chair against one of the file cabinets, and it rang like a bell.

  In the judge’s bedroom, a dark-wood headboard on a sleigh bed was upholstered with gray leather. A large photograph of the judge and his late wife hung on the wall on one side of the bed. A large photograph of the whole family – when Andrew and Josh were smiling toddlers – hung on the other side. A dresser with side-by-side drawers stood by a closet door. A large mirror topped the dresser. A chest, with five vertical drawers, stood by a window that faced out to the pool, the backyard, and the creek. A nightstand with two more drawers stood next to the bed.

  All those drawers.

  All those possibilities.

  I emptied the dresser first, dumping clothes on to the bed. Undershirts. Underwear. Pairs of socks.

  Then the chest. Shorts, brightly colored and creased. Golf shirts, the same. Swimsuits. Unopened packages of underwear and socks. A metal box full of old watches, pocket knives, and British and Jamaican coins.

  The nightstand last. A strip of condoms. A flashlight. A bottle of Advil. An elastic-banded sleeping mask. A book of art photography called Boys of Summer. Nail clippers.

  And – I grinned – a pistol. Black metal. With a rough, brown plastic grip.

  But my stomach dropped. The pistol also had a lanyard that passed through an eye at the bottom of the grip, as if you might hang the gun around your neck. And the barrel was as wide as a twelve-gauge shotgun shell.

  It was the wrong pistol. Not even a real pistol. A marine flare gun. Why would the judge keep it in a bedside drawer – unless to substitute for a pistol he no longer felt safe keeping there?

  I picked it up and threw it at the mirror. It missed, bounced off the wall, and clattered across the floor. I picked up the photography book to throw it too – it was one of those glossy art books that weighed two or three pounds, and if I couldn’t break a mirror with it, what good was it? But I stopped when the pages fell open. Boys of Summer was full of softcore, black-and-white pictures of boys in swimsuits from the 1930s and 1940s. The swimsuits hung loose over the boys’ hips. In group pictures, some of the boys looked as if they had erections. They draped their arms over each other’s shoulders, or their hands fell casually on each other’s thighs in the unaware way that some men might see as an unconscious or even conscious invitation to sex. The boys were skinny, and you could see the ribs through their skin. Several of them flexed muscles for the camera. The book spine was soft, the pages well thumbed. The judge must have spent many nights leafing through the pictures, looking for the incarnation of his dreams.

  The book was more evidence.

  And still not enough.

  It was erotic art photography. No court would call it child porn.

  I shouted, ‘Goddamn it,’ and threw it. The pages opened like a bird’s wings, and it fell to the floor.

  So I yanked the lamp off the nightstand and flung it across the room. The light bulb exploded against the wall.

  I stood, panting. I wanted to tear down the house.

  Then the phone in my pocket rang. I dug it out and answered. ‘What?’

  ‘What’s taking so long?’ Holt asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I thought we weren’t supposed to call unless we had an emergency,’ I said, and hung up.

  I went to the window and opened it. I sucked in the hot air and blew out hard. I stared at the sky. I stared at the creek water, slowly passing the backyard. I sucked in more air. An egret had perched on a piling at the end of dock, looking into the creek water for fish. Now it craned its neck toward the house and seemed to stare at me.

  So I went back and got the photography book. I threw it out the window toward the egret. It soared over a strip of lawn – and into the pool water.

  I left the room and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  The phone rang in my pocket.

  I looked in the refrigerator and found a carton of eggs, a half-full bottle of wine, plastic-wrapped lettuce, broccoli, and celery, cartons of orange juice and milk, cheese. The door rack held ketchup, a jar of pickles, Sriracha, and a squeeze bottle of mustard.

  The phone rang.

  I took the mustard and went back up to the judge’s bedroom. I lifted the mattress and spilled the contents of the drawers on to the floor. I stripped off the bedcover and sheets, leaving a quilted white mattress pad. Piss on the judge’s couch, Holt had said. Piss on his bed. Sign your name. Make him mad.

  I opened the mustard bottle and squirted. I wrote words that echoed in my memory – You did it. I wrote names of people I believed the judge had killed – Jeremy Ballat. Luis Gonzalez. Steven Bronson. Duane Bronson. Rick Melsyn. Darrell Nesbit. I added Thomas LaFlora since Skooner prosecuted him and got him sentenced to death. I wrote, With love, Lynn. Lynn Pritchard deserved to have a voice in this too. The words recorded a history of pain. They played in my head like a song. When I was done, I needed to sign it. So, across the bottom of the mattress pad, I wrote in big letters, Franky Dast. I knew that those words would also make the judge want to kill me.

  As I admired my work, the phone rang in my pocket again. I let it ring, and I went down the stairs and out the front door. I glanced at Higby’s house. He was gone.

  The inside of my ca
r was hot from the sun. As I pulled from the driveway on to Byron Road, sweat rippled on my skin and fell into my stinging eyes.

  As I approached Henley Road, I waved at the man in the Chevy Impala. He kept his hands below the dashboard and his eyes to himself.

  The phone rang again, and this time I answered.

  Holt sounded relieved. She asked, ‘Did you find the gun?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘OK.’ No surprise. ‘Why didn’t you answer when I called?’

  ‘I was busy.’

  ‘What took so long?’

  ‘I left the judge a detailed message.’

  I saw no stake-out when I pulled back on to the parking lot at the motel. Maybe that should have reassured me – the undercover cops were doing their job. I crammed the barrel of the pistol into my belt and went to my door. Although I knew that the judge must be completing his morning hearings, snug on his bench, and that he remained ignorant of my break-in, I fumbled the key in the lock and peered into my room before going inside.

  The room was quiet and dark and looked exactly as I’d left it. I kept the shades closed but turned up the air conditioner and turned on the TV. I sat on my bed and the images from an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit swam past. Whatever the characters said became background noise to voices in my head that whispered and argued. I switched the channel to a show called I Will Bless the Lord at All Times, then to Divorce Court, then to the noon news, and back to Law and Order. It was all the same to me. Then I realized I stank of sweat, so I turned on the shower. As the water cascaded over me, I thought, This will bury me. I fought off that idea, but it came around the back side and stung me.

  Through the afternoon, I watched Jerry Springer, The Love Boat, Judge Judy, Dr Phil, and People’s Court, and I couldn’t have repeated a word any of the hosts, guests, or characters said a minute after they spoke.

  At five thirty, Holt called and told me the judge was leaving the courthouse, apparently heading home. ‘You’re safe,’ she said. ‘We’ve got you locked down.’

  ‘Bad metaphor,’ I said, ‘but thanks.’

  ‘We’ll be with you,’ she said.

  When we hung up, I stepped outside on to the concrete walkway. Jimmy and Susan were smoking by their room, watching cars and trucks pass on Philips Highway.

  Jimmy nodded toward the road and asked, ‘What the hell is going on?’

  Maybe the cops weren’t staying as undercover as I thought. ‘What?’ I said.

  Susan said, ‘Drug bust, maybe. They’re fixing to nail someone.’

  I went back inside and called Holt. ‘You’re too visible,’ I said. ‘Everyone sees you.’

  ‘No one sees us,’ she said, like a baby hiding behind her hands.

  I used her words back to her. ‘Be smart.’

  I left the lights off, kept the TV playing, and sat on the carpet. I set the pistol by my leg. If the judge came through my door, I could shoot him in the chest before his eyes adjusted.

  But the judge didn’t come through the door.

  I watched the evening news and then prime time, and it was all a wash of faces and voices. Holt and I had agreed that the judge might come anytime from the moment he saw the damage I’d done to his house to the middle of the night, or he might wait for a day or two or even more, in which case we would need to change our plans.

  I’d known I needed to be ready for a long night, but as the sun set, my nerves acted up. Holt’s must have too, because at nine she called and said, ‘Anything going on?’

  I said, ‘I hope you would know if it was.’

  ‘I’ll send a car past the judge’s house to see if he’s there,’ she said.

  A little before ten, she called again and said, ‘We can’t tell for sure, but he seems to be out. Could be he’s getting ready. Could be he’s on the way. Could be he’s already near the motel and waiting.’

  ‘That’s a lot of different possibilities,’ I said.

  ‘We’re ready for them all.’

  Midnight came and went without the judge.

  I did pushups and sit-ups. I ran in place. I paced the room, from the door to the bathroom. I did more pushups. The TV said what it always said, but I kept it on for the noises of the living. At one in the morning, I called Holt and asked, ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I sent another car by the judge’s house,’ she said. ‘No lights. No movement. He’s out.’

  ‘Then, where is he?’

  ‘Be patient.’

  ‘I’ve never been patient,’ I said. ‘Even when I had nothing to do but be patient, I wasn’t patient.’

  We hung up, and I dialed Lynn Pritchard. At least I could talk with someone who was as full of fear as I was.

  Her phone rang and rang.

  That worried me. As far as I’d known, she always stayed in her house at night.

  I tried again. The phone rang eight times before I hung up. No answering machine. No voicemail.

  Something curled in my skin. I dialed a third time.

  After two rings, the phone clicked, and silence followed.

  ‘Lynn?’ I said.

  The phone clicked again.

  I yelled, ‘Shit,’ and dialed.

  The phone rang three times, and a man’s voice answered. ‘We’re busy right now.’

  Hearing a voice relieved me. Lynn Pritchard’s husband must have canceled his New Hampshire hunting trip.

  But the relief lasted only a moment.

  Because I recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

  It wasn’t the husband’s.

  Judge Skooner had picked up Lynn Pritchard’s phone.

  THIRTY-THREE

  I ran from my room to my car.

  Except for the streetlights, the night was dark and empty. The windless air smelled of exhaust and oil. I saw no cops or unmarked police cars, but as I turned the key in the ignition, two men, shouldering black rifles, emerged from behind the ends of the motel. I hit the gas and sped out on to the highway. Two more armed men came from behind buildings on the other side of the road, one of them yelling into a radio.

  I charged south, passing two pickup trucks and a delivery van. Two women in skin-tight yellow skirts stood on the highway shoulder, giving me big obscene smiles, and a hundred yards farther their pimp watched and waited.

  Then the phone that Holt gave me rang.

  I answered, ‘He’s at Lynn Pritchard’s house.’

  Holt had no idea what I was talking about.

  ‘Rick Melsyn’s sister,’ I said. ‘Duane Bronson’s old girlfriend. The judge is—’

  ‘What are you—’

  ‘I called her,’ I said. ‘The judge answered.’

  ‘Where?’ Holt said.

  A stoplight in front of me turned yellow and then red, and I punched the accelerator and hoped.

  I gave Holt the name of the Ponte Vedra street where Lynn Pritchard lived and described the house.

  ‘I’ll call it in,’ she said. ‘We’re heading there too.’

  ‘He’ll kill her.’

  Streetlights streaked the windshield like brilliant whips.

  ‘You’ve got to pull over,’ Holt said. ‘You’ve got to stop. If you walk in on the judge, what’ll you do? He’ll kill you too.’

  I could’ve answered. I could’ve told her that the judge was mine. I could’ve told her that there would be no me if I stopped now, that the possibility of my existence rested on my going to Lynn Pritchard’s house. Instead, I hung up. And I shoved the gas to the floor.

  Except for a single front porch light at the end of the block, the neighborhood around Lynn Pritchard’s house was dark. There were no streetlights, no landscape spotlights shining up at the fronds of the palm trees or the Spanish moss that hung from oak branches, no low pathway lights along the walks from the street to the front doors. The moon had set or hadn’t risen. If stars burned somewhere in the heavens, I couldn’t see them.

  I slowed and turned on to Lynn Pritchard’s driveway. A bright l
ight showed inside a second-story window. A warning and welcoming beacon. I stopped when my headlights shined on a gray SUV.

  I got out. Sirens were coming from somewhere, cutting the night. Lynn Pritchard’s babies wailed inside the house. But the yard outside was silent.

  I went to the front door – a slab of hardwood. I threw my weight against it.

  Nothing.

  I stepped to the edge of the porch by the concrete planters so I could build momentum. I ran at the door, hit it.

  Nothing.

  Then Lynn Pritchard screamed inside.

  I went down to the walkway and stared at the house. The light in the second-floor room seemed to flicker as if a fire was burning. The babies cried. Over the roof of the house, the night hung black and heavy. The curtained first-floor windows faced me like blind eyes. I pulled out the pistol and shot at one of them. The bullet made a hollow sound, as if the glass sucked the metal into it. I went to the window, ran my hand over it. A dimple sank in where the bullet had gone through.

  I ran back to the front porch. The concrete planters were full of soil and flowers.

  I put my foot on one of them, tried to budge it.

  Heavy.

  I tried to lift it anyway.

  Too heavy.

  Lynn Pritchard screamed. The sirens came closer.

  I tipped the planter so the soil and flowers tumbled out. I tried lifting it again.

  Too heavy.

  I lifted it anyway.

  I stepped off the porch, cradling it. I stumbled in the dark toward the window that I’d shot. I heaved the planter. It fell short – sinking into the grass – then tipped hard against the bottom of the pane. A fracture rippled through the glass.