by Jay Kerk
Every person knew when they should surrender, when they couldn’t fathom the fighting of what is real and what is not. Sometimes I felt a bit better, but then I’d hear a song or remember morning breakfasts, and it all began again. Some of my internal thoughts tormented me as though I fostered monsters inside. Smile, take the exit. It’s enough, you must pay.
I knew it was over for me, that I would die soon. I couldn’t keep going on like this. I couldn’t spend a day without drinking, and it made me weaker and weaker. Some people are afraid to admit they are suicidal, even to themselves, although the behaviors creeped in: distancing people who cared, alcohol, drugs and meaningless sex. The same things happened, but I showered more.
I tried reaching out to Will and Wanda. I had high expectations for my siblings who never called. After a few I’ll get back to you, in a meeting messages, I got ahold of Will. He said if we ever happened to be in the same city, we could meet. So, I said I traveled to his city on a business trip.
Let me see what you’ll say, asshole.
He said they had planned a vacation for the family and he hadn’t told me so to avoid upsetting me. It was understandable: they didn’t want me near their children.
I drove the car at high speed and closed my eyes for a few seconds. Then I tried closing my eyes for half a minute. I wanted to see if I could go off the road. I thought it resembled Russian roulette. I renamed it dancing with Lady Death.
Luke had called over the past month, but I never picked up. I had nothing to offer him and nothing to promise. He called again.
A text buzzed at 8:17: “Pick up. Thompson is dead and he left you a letter. Join me for the funeral.”
My suit looked ridiculous on me, it could have fit someone who weighed 70 pounds heavier. It rained, so a hat also hid my identity.
The letter contained a lot of good wishes and many instructions for staying sane. Importantly, Thompson wrote about how he thought I was innocent because I didn’t fit the profile of someone who would engage in a sexual relationship with his daughter, and that I didn’t have a second personality. He believed I hadn’t even been present in the house at the time of the murders and he recommended I focus on the healing progress, wait for a change in the investigation, even if that took years.
The letter meant a lot to me, it gave me hope, even if I had to wait a decade until I am reunited with Mathew. Dr. Thompson’s death upset me, and I felt terrible; I barely spoke to him. At least I expressed my gratitude at one point.
I cleaned the house a bit. I brought the board into the living room. I crossed out the word “hate” and underlined the words “sick loon.” I wrote something down and contemplated it:
Male. Middle age. Hate? A sick loon? A burglar (less likely). He has my semen. How the fuck did he get my semen?This was never a question the police or the private investigator had asked, but now I had to ask. If someone else had killed my family, then how did the sick bastard get my sperm? Could he be a garbage man who took a condom I used? I did a quick search and learned not all condoms on the market had a spermicide. A long shot, surely, but it could be a crucial lead.
CHAPTER 9:
SIN
I was on a mission to find a sick person. He might be someone close to us, whether through my work or Lisa’s, one of Lea’s classmates or friends, or someone from the neighborhood. The murder could not have been a fluke, a random act by a sick villain, or so I chose to believe. Someone targeted our family, planned the murder and was careful enough to leave a clean crime scene behind.
This person could also be Lea’s boyfriend.
I ran background checks of people we had known to see if their names were worth passing on to Danny Miller. So far, I’d found nothing. No one we knew had a violent past or a record of deviant sexual behavior, just a few traffic violations.
“You’re a hard man to reach, Mr. Stankovic. I’ve been calling you repeatedly,” Danny Miller said.
“Sorry about that, the pub preoccupied me,” I said, and we exchanged pleasantries. I wondered whether people still exchanged so many pleasantries.
“The handwriting from the note doesn’t match yours. However, as I mentioned before, it isn’t valuable.”
She tested the handwriting to prove I was the boyfriend and not the other way around.
“What about Mathew? Any updates?” I asked.
“We ran a new sign, and we’re still offering a big reward. I’ve gotten leads, but they check out. If someone took him outside the country, it might be worth the money for me to fly down south and check with people at the borders, maybe get in touch with the top smugglers. We might get lucky.”
In other countries, P.I.s could not do that, but it was possible and affordable here, so I told her to go ahead.
She had nothing else to report. The burner phone was a bust, and the enemy list didn’t even exist.
I went back to my notes and folders, and I came across old team photos from my firm and Cynthia’s eyes were all over me. We’d had an affair for about a year which we ended when Lisa intervened. I used to call Cynthia ‘My Sin’.
If you’d asked ten people, not all of them would agree that Cynthia was beautiful, but all of them would say she was an attractive and seductive woman. I thought she had a beautiful face, and I liked features other people didn’t appreciate—the too-small nose, the too-white face, and the too-big, light green eyes. Her silky long black hair covered part of her slender and toned body, and I had urged her to wear it in a way to expose her figure. She knew her strengths and her seductive powers. Heels with everything, even jeans. I used to joke that she wore heels on the treadmill.
People knew about us at work. When a guy asked her out and she politely declined. He told me, to my face, that he wondered why married men went out with women who were less attractive than their spouses. I told him to ask the HR if the question bothered him so much.
Cynthia loved to come over in the mornings after Lisa left home, and she caused problems. One day Lisa got angry when she discovered someone cut up her shoes with scissors, a few pairs. She knew I always had something going on, and she wasn’t proud of it, but she didn’t stop me. I said the cleaners must have done it, some disgruntled employee. I promised to let the company know, get us a refund, and never allow this person in our house again.
Lisa said, “Are you sure the cleaning people are responsible? What about Bigfoot? Aliens?” I didn’t want to fire her up anymore. That evening, she gave me the talk: “Don’t fall in love and ruin our family.” She said I could have minor affairs as long as she didn’t know about them and as long as no one got hurt. “…and please be safe. Don’t bring scum into our life.” I promised her. Nothing serious, only sex.
I spoke with Cynthia, and she said she was so jealous of Lisa and her life with me. She was angry at how I never stayed over and she wanted to enjoy falling asleep and waking up next to me. She promised she would pay us back for the shoes, as if we needed the money. I let her know I wasn’t happy at all, and I stayed away for a few weeks.
Then I made the same mistake and allowed Cynthia to visit, even to sleep over when Lisa and the kids were away. One day I got home, and Lisa waited for me at the dining table with an empty glass and a bottle of whiskey.
“Jason, please come sit down. This is for you. We need to talk.” She said in a firm voice.
Shit, what did I do this time? I admired my wife a lot. She was one of a kind, a leader with high self-awareness. She knew what she wanted, how to reach her goals, made the right compromises, and had her priorities straight.
“Sure. What can I get you?” I said.
“I am good. Sit.” She sighed. “I found this note in my drawer. My panty drawer.”
She slowly pushed the note across the table with two fingers, looking at me.
I read it: “Hey. From one woman to another, your husband is cheating on you. If I’d known he is married, I would have never come here with him. You seem to have a beautiful family, but honestly, you can do better than thi
s. You deserve better.”
I sighed. “I… I don’t know.”
“Yeah, right. Is it someone new or the same one from work?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. “Oh, please, Jason. Cynthia! Come on. Cynthia, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry, babe. I shouldn’t have brought her here. I’m sorry.”
“She’s in love with you. She wants me to leave you. Do you love her?”
“No. I love no one but you. You know that.” I answered sincerely. No one could match what we had. I would die without her; she kept me going. “You know that, no doubt.”
“But she loves you, and this is not what we agreed. I want an immediate solution. Do you hear me, Jason?” She was not joking. “Listen well, asshole, I will leave you and take the children with me.” I pursed my lips and looked down. “And probably break your legs before I leave or maybe choke you in your sleep.”
“Don’t say that,” I told her. “I love you and you love me, and what we have is irreplaceable. You’re angry. Tomorrow I’ll make us breakfast with the kids, and we’ll go back to our normal life. I’ll take care of this immediately. Whether or not she loves me, I don’t care. She knows our agreement was sex only.”
“Clean this shit up. You have a week.” Tears surfaced in her eyes, but her voice was unaffected. “If you had met her before me, you might have ended up with her, right? You rarely stick to one woman, but this has been ongoing for a year or longer.” She fell silent for a second. “Answer me, Goddammit!” she shouted.
“I guess so,” I said. “I’ll take care of it. I’m sorry.” I wanted to hold her hand, but when I reached out, she pulled hers away.
“Tonight. Go and end things with her tonight. Keep in mind that if I find out you’re still seeing her, I’m gone.”
She left the table without me agreeing to do that, but at that stage in our marriage, we just skipped straight to the implementation part.
I called Cynthia and went to her place that same evening. I explained what had happened, and I blamed her for the note. I told her we couldn’t meet any more and that it was for the best. I felt dreadful to end our relationship, but things had to be rectified for the sake of my family. Although personally, I knew my heart could hold more than one woman. I could be just as good to one as to the other, but my family needed my undivided attention.
Cynthia said she loved me so much and that she’d probably never be able to love anyone this much again. I told her we all have those thoughts, that they were normal, but she’d pick herself up again. She said she was going to quit her job because it would be too painful to see me at the office every day. I disagreed and said I would be the one to leave. At that stage, I rented a private office. At first, I only intended to work on a personal project for some time but then I grew comfortable doing what I loved, so I never went back.
Cynthia cried some more, and we slept together for the last time. She asked me if I wanted to leave Lisa and be with her. I clarified my feelings for her, them not being the marry-you-and-start-another-family kind. “Yes, they’re intense,” I admitted, but I added that leaving Lisa wasn’t an option. She eventually said she was happy to have known me, wished me the best and said there would always be a special place for me in her heart.
I thought twice before giving her a call after. She might have said I was a sick person, and that she didn’t want anything to do with me. She might have even said she had a boyfriend or got married. I had to think of myself. I couldn’t meet someone new, and I needed to be loved. She was really a great person, and I still cherished the memories of her.
I called.
CHAPTER 10:
GARBAGE BINS
“Hi. Who is this?” Cynthia answered my phone call.
Really? Now you don’t remember me? I didn’t change my phone number.
“This is Jason. How are you doing? Remember me?”
“Oh, hiii! I’m good. How are you? How is everything? Of course I remember you, new phone. Oh my god, long time. When did you get out?” I felt genuine sympathy in her voice.
“A few months ago. I’m good, ups and downs. The downs are pretty tough.” I was glad I could share this with someone. Even telling Luke proved hard. “It’s difficult, Cyn, you know. It crushed me. I still don’t know how to be normal. To top it off, I can’t find my child. Awful.”
“Oh, dear. I’m so sorry to hear that. Why didn’t you reach out to me earlier?” she asked in her trademark croaky voice.
“I don’t know, I was afraid, embarrassed. I’m just so happy to hear your voice. I want to see you. Can I?”
She didn’t respond.
“Hello, are you still there?” I asked.
“Yeah. Nothing. I’m emotional to hear you in this much pain, hon.” Her voice was brittle. She was crying, I guessed. “Pick me up at seven-thirty tonight. I have a new address. Got a pen?”
Finally, something to look forward to. She was one of a kind: smart, hot, and athletic. I’d never thought about it before, but I’d wanted Lea to be like her when she grew up.
I spent the day organizing the garbage man hunt, or not necessarily a garbage man but a man who went through our garbage. I called Danny up and told her to get me a list of people who worked in the neighborhood and to repeat the check on all my neighbors using a much larger radius. I instructed her to look at pedophiles.
When I went to pick Cynthia up, she said she wasn’t ready and asked me to come up. She was manipulative and smart, so the delay either meant that she didn’t want us to go out at all or she wanted me to see her place.
I had dressed casually so I could enter any place and wouldn’t look too fancy if we ended up at a bar. She opened the door wearing a long gray towel pinned under her armpits, and she put her hair up, the way I liked it. Knowing her, she had groomed herself to see me. She stepped out of the apartment and hugged me.
“Oh, god,” she said. “You poor thing. Oh god, oh god. I’m so sorry for your loss.” I hugged her back and fought the urge to cry. I thought to myself that no one had ever expressed remorse or talked about my loss. Everyone looked at me as a criminal. I cherished the moment.
“Thanks, Cyn. Thanks,” I said. My voice was cracking, I held my tears. “Let’s go inside. You’re in your towel, and you don’t want the neighbors to see you like this.”
We entered her awesome place—rustic meets modern. Every other item was wood, iron or bronze, and she had a large TV and a superb view. I put my hands in my pockets and heard the door close.
She hugged me from behind. “You’re not a big bear anymore. You’ve lost a lot of weight. Do you like the place?”
“You still have a great body. Yeah, I did. Unfortunately, I haven’t exercised these past two years.” I smiled in a silly way and held her hands against my abdomen. “The place is fantastic. Please tell me it’s not a rental.”
“No, I bought it. Two bedrooms. I’ll put on some clothes and we can head out.”
While dressing, she peeked out from behind the door while only wearing a bra. “Pour yourself a drink.”
“Thanks.” I wondered whether I should say I wasn’t supposed to drink, but I would have one wherever we were going.
She came back in a hot skin-tight black dress with a slit up to her mid-thigh and an open back. I didn’t know how her body could have possibly become better. Her breasts had always been a bit too big for her body, but she still fell into the super sexy category and not the vulgar one.
As we were about to leave, I checked her ass for the indentation of a thong, and she caught me. “I’m not wearing anything underneath, but don’t get any ideas. I have a boyfriend. It is serious.”
“I wasn’t asking,” I said. Her remark pissed me off.
“I know. I’m just here for you as a close friend.” She kissed me on the cheek.
The numerous guys who eyed Cynthia didn’t ruin the pleasant evening, for once I was happy that people weren’t looking at me. I had to think if they knew who I was.
Our discussion flowed smoothly. She told me about her progress at work and how everybody had reacted to my news. Most of them were nice, she said. They knew me well, and they knew I had nothing going on with Lea and could have never killed Lisa. It felt nice.
For an hour, I forgot my tragedy as we shared updates and news, discussed work and global economics. I admired her sharp intellect.
Then, we discussed the existence of psychopaths among the population. I argued that the government should have a plan to flush them out and abolish them, to prevent them from spreading and populating. She argued that people should know how to protect themselves, and that made things awkward for a bit.
We took a cab back to her apartment. She got out and blew me a kiss after we agreed to meet as much as possible, starting the following day with a jog.
Danny got back to me with a long list based on my request, and she waited for more instructions. I asked her to check their alibis, and she argued that it would take a lot of time and she didn’t have the manpower. She didn’t understand why I was doing this, but for her, the money kept coming in. I told her to add as many people on her team as she needed because I wanted her to deliver everything in one month and produce a short list of names.
I also gave her the names of a few people from work and asked her to check their alibis, just in case. I included Cynthia’s name. It made sense as she was an ex-girlfriend with whom I’d had an affair. Despite her being a woman and not fitting the profile, I suspected everyone; the police looked into the alibis of Cynthia and other colleagues, but there was no harm in checking again.
I initiated a healthy routine with Cynthia. We jogged frequently; we played squash and even went out a few more times. I told her about the last conversation I’d had with Lisa, about how she asked if I had met Cynthia before her. I had never shared that before. She confessed something that made me happy: she didn’t have a boyfriend. She just hadn’t liked the idea that I wanted her because I had no other choice.