by Paul Cleave
You didn’t care enough.
Was it worth it?
One statement. One question. I stare at a vase full of lilacs on the dining table and think about those words while watching a ladybug climb the stem, going about its day-to-day job but somewhat lost, maybe confused by the amount of light for this time of evening.
I start with the bedroom. There is fingerprint powder over plenty of surfaces. The forensic guys are working fast. Maybe they’re keen to get home or back to the other scene, or maybe they’re sensing more bodies to come their way tonight. The bed is made up and nondescript, the kind of flower-patterned duvet cover everybody’s widowed grandparent would sleep under. There’s a bookcase with a wide selection of books. A couple of potted plants, a painting of a landscape, and nothing in here to suggest why the owner angered somebody enough to stab him over and over. There are photographs on the dresser, the victim and his children, of grandchildren, photos this man would have looked at every night going through his bedtime routine. Nothing with his wife.
I put on the same pair of gloves from the last scene, only now they’re on inside out. I go through the drawers and cupboards, Schroder joining me a few minutes into the search, the smell of beer no longer as strong.
“Any theories?” he asks.
“Victim one was a lawyer,” I answer. “Maybe he upset somebody.”
“He hasn’t been a lawyer for ten years,” he says. “Why wait all that time?”
“Maybe the person he pissed off was in jail,” I say, “and just got out.”
“It’s possible, but our victim wasn’t a criminal lawyer, he was a divorce lawyer.”
“Some would find that more of a reason to want him dead,” I tell him.
“Victim two is seventy-eight years old,” he says, “but taught high school for forty years. Retired thirteen years ago.”
“Family?”
“Divorced. Two children.”
“That explains the photographs,” I tell him. “You check out who his divorce lawyer was?”
“It’s getting looked at as we speak.”
I look through an address book and find no mention of Herbert Poole. “Maybe they were friends long ago. Maybe Albert taught Herb’s kids, or Herb got Albert his divorce. You know the reasons for the divorce? Was his wife having an affair? Anything there that can lead back?”
“Jesus, Tate, we’ve been here fifteen minutes. Cut me some slack.”
I breathe out heavily. “Okay, point taken. I’m just throwing ideas out there,” I say. “And I’m out of practice. Any prints?” I ask.
“Yeah, lots of them, but we just gotta narrow them down. Could be none of them belong to our suspect.”
“Any witnesses?”
“Not yet, but we haven’t started canvassing yet.”
“What do you make of the messages?” I ask.
He shrugs. “One of them is a question,” he says, “and one a statement. Was it worth it? That could be anything. Could mean was his TV worth the thousand bucks he paid for it, or was the hooker he paid for last night worth the hundred bucks? Could reference anything.”
“Same with the statement,” I say. “You didn’t care enough. Probably means he didn’t care enough about somebody, rather than something. Anybody spoken with Herbert Poole’s kids?”
“Yeah. It’s on the list,” he says.
“It’s a long list.”
“And only getting longer.”
“So what do you want me to do? I’m not much help here looking at a dead man, and anything here will be found anyway. Put me to use.”
“Look, Theo,” he says, and here it comes, the thing that all evening he has only ever been a moment away from saying. It was only a matter of time. “I appreciate all the help, but right now it’s best if you just go home.”
“So that’s it? Thanks, Theo, for the ride?”
He holds up his hand. “Let me finish,” he says. “The boss is on his way,” he says, and I haven’t seen Superintendent Dominic Stevens in a few years and I know where Schroder is going with this. “He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes, and if he sees you here . . . well, you can probably kiss any chance of having your career back goodbye, and I can probably do the same for any chance of a promotion. You’re a civilian, Theo, he’s not going to like you being here, not right off, just let me get him aside and explain the situation instead of him just showing up and seeing you working.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” I say.
“I know you’re pissed off. Once I’ve spoken to him, I’m sure we can put you to use, and if we do, you have to follow some rules. You’re not a cop, you’re a private investigator, but you can’t bend the law, not if you want any chance of getting back on the force.”
“I’ll be a good boy,” I tell him. “I promise to behave.”
He doesn’t answer me for a few seconds, just stares at me long enough to let me know I’ve just pissed him off too.
“Okay, go home and get some rest. I’ll give you a call soon. If you can come back, I’ll let you know. Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning. And Tate, if you work on this I need you to do me a favor. I’m not kidding here, this time make sure you don’t kill anybody.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Caleb follows the taxi into town. If the girl is going to a club or a bar, there are going to be a lot of people around. That’s not going to work well. They pass a line of bars, where people who are students and plumbers and lawyers by day double as assholes by night. The music coming from the clubs and the other cars on the street is nothing like he used to hear before he went away.
The taxi slows up when it gets to Manchester Street, coming to a stop at every intersection, timing the red lights perfectly. Then it stops at a green light halfway down the street outside a stereo shop. It pulls over, and Caleb goes through the intersection and pulls over too. He watches the woman in the rearview mirror handing money over to the driver and then waiting for change. When she climbs out she takes a cell phone from her pocket and makes a call. Her short skirt doesn’t seem as short in comparison to some of the other girls on the street, the hookers on the street corners that walk past on her way to . . .
She stops walking. She stands on the spot, turning slowly, and then the cell phone is back in her handbag and is replaced by a cigarette, which she lights up. One of the hookers comes over to her and they start chatting. Caleb doesn’t get what’s going on. He knows how it looks—it looks like she’s standing on the corner waiting to fuck the next person willing to pay for it—but that can’t be. Only thing he can think of is she’s trying to help these girls. Ariel and her friend start chatting, and they’re both shivering because it’s so fucking cold and neither of them are wearing jackets. They’re smoking and laughing. On the corner opposite a car slows up and a girl over there approaches it and leans into the passenger window. A few seconds later she climbs in and the car disappears.
Another car pulls over to the same corner. It does a U-turn and stops next to Ariel and her friend. Both girls flick their cigarettes into the gutter, and it’s Ariel who approaches the car. He can see it all happening and it makes him feel sick. He can’t hear what she’s saying because the weather and the distance kills any chance of that. He waits for her to walk away, only she doesn’t, instead she opens the passenger door, throws a smile and a shrug at her friend, and climbs in. The car doesn’t move for half a minute as business is discussed, then it pulls away from the curb, goes through the intersection and past him, then hangs a right at the next corner.
He starts the car and follows.
The trip is a short one. The numbers on his odometer don’t even get warmed up. Half a block to the east and the car pulls into an alleyway. The lights switch off and nobody climbs out. The alleyway is so dark there is no room for any shadows, and the car and the people inside it are lost. He parks opposite and tightens his grip on the steering wheel and breathes hard and fast and his head spins and his hands—especially his right one—begin to ache. He lowers his f
orehead onto the steering wheel. He wants to head-butt it to make himself hurt. He takes deep breaths to try and calm the urge to vomit. The inside of the windshield starts to fog up. He wipes at it with his sleeve. He opens his mouth and closes it around the top of the steering wheel and bites into it. He wants to scream.
He picks up the knife. Sure, there are people around, not many—another hooker half a block back, a few people driving past, another couple walking the street—but he could probably walk right over to that car and spill a lot of blood before anybody called the police.
He puts the knife back down. It’d be stupid. He can’t afford to get arrested when he’s not even halfway done. There are teeth marks in the steering wheel. He stares out the windshield at a huge billboard overlooking the car. It’s for a travel agency, there are pictures of islands and water and people laughing and it’s the life he wants. He focuses on the billboard, staring at all the things he can never have. It only makes him angrier.
The car starts to back out of the alleyway and stops. The passenger door opens and the interior light comes on and Ariel climbs out. She closes the door without looking back and heads back toward the intersection. The car’s headlights flick on and it goes the opposite way. Ariel reaches into her handbag and comes out with another cigarette, fiddling around with a lighter as she walks. He can still see the car she climbed out of, it’s parked up at a set of lights.
He follows it.
He can’t help it. He looks at his watch. It’s ten-forty. This is going to throw him off schedule, but he still has all night. He should just carry on with the plan and come back and see Ariel later on tonight, try and time it for when she’s finished work.
It’s what he should do.
Only he doesn’t.
The scenery changes. They leave town and enter the suburbs. Some are nicer than others. He grits his teeth as he drives. They drive for ten minutes, finally pulling into a suburb full of middle-class homes, the streets empty, streetlights cutting circles of light into the darkness. The car slows. It pulls into a driveway. The automatic door begins to open. This is the kind of neighborhood you can’t hang around in for too long in a beaten-up car with a knife in your hand and not have somebody call the police.
Best make it quick.
He brings the car to a stop and brings the knife out from under the seat.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Make sure you don’t kill anybody.
Schroder’s words are rattling around in my mind as I leave the retirement home. He makes it sound like it’s become an occupational hazard for me.
The sky is dark with clouds and the night is lit up by the city and the life running through it. I head to the nursing home where my wife lives. I step through the main doors and into the foyer, warm colors and warm air enveloping me. It’s eleven o’clock and the nurse behind the reception desk smiles and asks how I’m doing. I tell her I’m doing okay. Visiting hours ended three hours ago, but the nurses know me well enough to let me in most hours unless I’m getting in the way.
I make my way to my wife’s room, looking for her nurse along the way, always hopeful that one of these days she’ll be there to greet me at the door with some good news. As it stands the news is always the same as the day before—which is no news. My wife’s condition doesn’t change and never will. When she isn’t sleeping, she stares straight ahead, enough synapses in her brain to make her chew when she’s being fed but not enough for her eyes to focus on anything, not enough firing synapses for her to smile at me and hold my hand, the vegetative state a permanent one barring a miracle or an advancement in technology, both of which I pray for.
I don’t see Nurse Hamilton anywhere, and I head straight to Bridget’s room. She’s asleep. There is a soft bedside table light and the curtains are closed.
A year ago I’d have brought flowers for Bridget, but a year ago I could afford them. Between the medical bills and my own bills, as it stands I’m only a few months away from losing my house. I don’t tell any of this to Bridget. If somehow she could understand I wouldn’t want her to worry. The drunk driver who put my wife into this condition should have been responsible for paying all the medical costs, but that’s not the way things work in this world. He never took responsibility, not until I took him into the middle of nowhere with a shovel and a gun and made him beg for a forgiveness I couldn’t give him. I pull up the chair next to Bridget and take hold of her hand and spend thirty minutes with her.
When I leave I’m hit by a tiredness that makes me aware I’ve been working since five in the morning, when I was driving around hotels looking for Lucy Saunders. And I’m not just tired either—because the thing keeping me from falling asleep and hitting a lamppost is the hunger pains, a hunger so strong it feels like it’s developed claws and is digging its way out from my stomach. So maybe it is a good thing I’m going home now, because I get to concede to the pain and pull into a drive-through at a fast-food restaurant. There’s a line of cars ahead of me and I keep myself entertained by trying to stay awake. Eventually I get to order something, and the guy who passes me my food looks like he keeps himself entertained by trying to eat every burger that isn’t sold by day’s end. I drive to a park and sit in the dark as one day ends and another begins. Mine is the only car around. My midnight snack is in pieces before I even get to take a bite, the burger also having absorbed some of the flavor of the small cardboard box. I get through it pretty quick along with the drink—ten bucks well spent because I feel more awake. I sit in the car and think about the two dead men, both retired, certainly a connection between them. These two might be the only victims or there may be more. Future victims, retirees maybe, the same thing linking them to an event in their past. The dots are there, but not clear enough to start connecting.
I leave the park as another car arrives. It comes straight at me with its lights off. I swerve out of the way and almost hit a tree. Maybe it’s another PI coming here to eat a burger or a couple of kids wanting to fool around.
I head back out into the wet streets, and as often happens to me at this time of night, I start thinking about my wife, and about my daughter, and I can feel my mood darkening. Sometimes, even three years after the accident now, I just start to cry. I don’t feel tired anymore, I don’t feel hungry—sometimes like this I don’t really feel anything. I wipe a finger at my eyes before they start leaking, and suddenly I’m compelled to go and see my little girl, to make sure she’s safe. I drive to the cemetery and park by the church next to another car. I make the trek toward my daughter’s grave in the misty rain, thinking about the two dead men and wondering what, or more accurately who, it was they had in common.
CHAPTER NINE
Caleb’s wife won’t appreciate the flowers. She hated him in the end, had to, otherwise she never would have left him. She acted like it was all his fault, everything, their dead daughter, all that blood he spilled at the slaughterhouse. He just couldn’t help himself, couldn’t she see that? It was his job to protect his family, it was his job as a father, as a husband, and as a man. If he couldn’t do that, then it was his job to make people pay. It’s basic genetics. So there are flowers for her and flowers for his children and God how he misses them, how he would do things differently if he could, how he’d make them safe.
Fifteen years—his son would have been fourteen, his daughter twenty-five. A multitude of possibilities—he could have been a grandfather, his daughter could have been a doctor or an artist, his son a straight-A student in school with dreams of playing in a band. With them dying so young, those possibilities remain timeless, endless.
The cemetery is cold and wet and his feet sink a little into the soft lawn as he stands motionless by the graves. Three graves in total, one of them empty and waiting for him. Then he can lie next to his children, murdered fifteen years ago, his wife murdered too by a bunch of people who didn’t care enough to make a difference. They were ignorant and lazy and stupid.
His wife hated him for what he did. The coroner said
she took over fifty pills. That’s a statistic he has to carry with him, one that shows how desperate she was to leave him. He was no use to her back then. He was in jail when she died, he’d gone there without a trial, having confessed to the police and to the courts, asking for leniency—after all he couldn’t control himself. Only he wasn’t given any. Instead he was given fifteen years and a week into that sentence his parents came to tell him his wife and unborn son were dead.
His parents. He misses them. Each of them died because of illnesses that are easy to get the more years you see after seventy. They used to come and see him in jail. For the first ten years it was every week without fail. Then age crept up on them and they’d miss a week here or there, then a few weeks in a row. He wasn’t there for them when they died. Wasn’t there to keep his wife alive. His family has died around him and all he can do for them now is check off names. The first time he even saw his wife’s and daughter’s graves was the day he came out of jail. He had to ask the priest at the adjoining church for directions.
“It’s always harder on the ones left behind,” Father Jacob had said.
“You couldn’t be more right,” Caleb had answered.
The cemetery could double as a maze. There are trees and hedges cordoning off sections of graves, plots cut off by archways and stone pathways. The church is hidden from the cemetery behind a horseshoe ring of trees, only the very top visible over them, though more becoming visible as autumn takes away the foliage. He looks at the gravestones and wonders how many people out here have similar stories to his own and comes to the conclusion none of them do.