Bath Haus

by P. J. Vernon

  “I killed Nathan. I killed him”—I draw in a stuttering breath—“because he was going to kill me.”

  “Are you aware Nathan and Olav had been in contact before your assault in Haus?”

  I tip my chin for yes but ask how they knew my plans that night.

  “Child-monitoring software on your laptop relayed Haus’s address,” she says. “Nathan flipped it to Olav. As for the when, your phone shares its location with Nathan’s.”

  “Also like a child.” A heaviness settles over my shoulders.

  “Toxicology measured a fatal concentration of fentanyl metabolites in Olav’s bloodstream. Cell towers confirm the devices of both men were at the same location when Olav died.”

  If police haven’t already, they’ll review everything Nathan prescribed. They’ll find the drug Olav was killed with. They’ll also find my forgery, and I swallow.

  “Text messages show they met twice,” Detective Henning goes on. “Once at a café in Columbia Heights an hour after Nathan withdrew five thousand in cash.”

  “Same price he offered for Tilly,” I say numbly.

  She’s quiet for a moment, then: “Second meeting was at a Motel 6 that Olav never left.”

  “How long?” I ask. “Between Nathan first reaching out to an escort and Haus?”

  “Few weeks,” she says. “Which might explain how Olav got work with your contractor so fast. He simply had more time than we thought. To watch your routines. Who’s in and out of the house. Garbage bins with junked bills out in the alley.”

  “Me flooding the bathroom was a lucky break.” And Darryl’s heart for vulnerable laborers, but I keep this to myself. Undocumented folks are far more likely to fall prey to the Olavs of the world rather than be him.

  “Circling back to tonight.” Detective Henning changes tracks. “The parents, Victor and Katherine. Each gave separate and strongly consistent accounts.”

  What would Kathy and Victor have said? I run through the events of only hours ago. Doing so feels cold, clinical. But detachment—and the apathy that comes with it—are self-defense mechanisms.

  Self-defense. Kathy would’ve stepped over Tom at the bottom of the second-floor stairs. Perhaps heard Nathan shove him. She’d have seen the blood dripping from his ear. The broken door. Nathan strangling me. The fear in my eyes. She would’ve witnessed all this transpire before I plunged sewing shears into her son’s neck.

  “I acted in self-defense,” I say. This is what happened and exactly what Kathy saw, but it’s certainly not the story either she or Victor gave police. “Not that it matters. It’s my word against theirs.”

  “In the early stages, you’re correct.”

  Another realization. This, this is rock bottom. Not after Kristian and the elevator. Not after forging a script stolen from Nathan. Real rock bottom holds a body count of two. Three if Tom doesn’t make it. Four if I count myself.

  “I’m a murderer, then.” Premeditated, of course. My motive depends on how inspired Kathy was when she crafted her statement. The woman makes an art of vengeance.

  “Their account of what happened on that island?” Detective Henning opens a folder. “I don’t believe it.”

  She fans pages across the tabletop like a poker hand covered in blue cursive. Vaguely familiar because Kathy Klein’s overwrought handwriting is on dozens of our holiday cards. Only ever addressed to a single person that sure as hell wasn’t me.

  “I appreciate you don’t think I’m capable of whatever they said.” A fresh cold climbs my back. “I’m sure everyone else will.”

  Detective Henning reaches for my hand.

  “They’re saying this was an accident.”

  57

  TYRE, IN

  When something bad has teeth in your heart, you can either tear free or die.

  And there’s no pain worse than deciding to live. Ripping your thumping, beating self out from clamped jaws—that kind of hurt doesn’t stop with scar tissue. Maybe it dulls as decades pass, like folks say, but the pieces of flesh you leave behind never grow back.

  One vice at a time, I tell myself as I flick a spent cigarette into a pothole puddle.

  NA’s just wrapped up and the only chapter in Tyre meets inside my old high school’s gym. Not my favorite place, but it’s harder to repeat mistakes when you keep bad memories close.

  For the same reason, I carry a certain empty pill bottle around like a talisman. I grip it tight in my pocket and start the long walk home. A morning rain shower has the air smelling leafy and good. Blackbirds bicker in tree branches, and I watch my step on the same busted sidewalks I’ve traveled most of my life.

  There is one memory I won’t cross paths with here. The drugs in Hector’s luggage and a slew of felony priors landed him in South Carolina’s penal system. He’d barely made it past that jetty before running into a convoy of inbound police courtesy of Nathan’s father.

  Speaking of police. My phone buzzes and the incoming name ramps up my pulse: Rachel Henning, Det Sgt, MPDC.

  “Henning here. You busy?”

  “No,” I answer. “Just headed home from a meeting.”

  “Glad to hear you’re going again.” When someone like me says meeting, we never mean in a boardroom. “Your case officially closed today. Thought you’d like to know. This never relieves people like they think, but take some time with it. You’ve got my number if you have any—”

  “The video,” I interrupt. “What about that investigation?”

  “As I understand it, FBI’s had trouble ID’ing other victims. Leads can still turn up—but the reality is, violence often goes unresolved. I suspect Olav chose men with that in mind. Guys no one would miss.”

  “I’m only different because he didn’t choose me.” My hair catches in a breeze. “Nathan did.”

  She’s quiet for a second or two, then: “Look, I’ve got to jump on another call. Reach out if you need me, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “You sound good, Oliver. Stick with the meetings.” Before hanging up, she quips: “Only thing as dangerous as drugs to an addict is a million bucks.”

  A hell of a point given Nathan’s will. I was sole beneficiary, which the Kleins shockingly did not contest. Quite the opposite: I was awarded a Career Development Grant from the Klein Family Foundation. When the award letter arrived, it contained a nondisclosure agreement—and a prepaid return envelope—in exchange for my fifty-grand “grant.” The price of keeping Nathan out of the papers. No statements, no media. Should New York or Washington tabloids call, no comment.

  I turn onto a meandering street pushing at the edge of town. In more than one yard, cars sit—unmoved for years and decaying like rust-belt fossils on the ryegrass.

  Grief isn’t the right word for how I feel about Nathan, his death, and my hand in it. Of course, when folks ask, I use the word grief. But Nathan’s face isn’t what my mind conjures. I grieve the idea of Nathan. Of our home and the veneer of normalcy. I grieve a loss that’s not real, and therefore unable to be lost.

  When I think of Nathan, I think about prescribing myself painkillers under his name. I think about hiding those pills. I think about holding the bottle in my trembling hands, and I think about those horrifying seconds before I swallowed one after another after another.

  And then I think about how I didn’t.

  I come to the start of a gravel driveway. It crosses a drainage ditch and ends at a small Cracker Jack box of a house. Baby blue with white shutters. Two flower boxes—each decorated with Mom’s hand-painted magpies. Tilly’s eager barking starts long before I make it to the front porch.

  I also think about how in that excruciating moment—with an urge so deep in my bones it brought me to tears—I did the right thing. And I think about how maybe, just maybe, that means I can do the right thing a second time.

&n
bsp; I slip my house key in the dead bolt but stop short of unlocking it. Instead, I pull my plastic talisman from my pocket and read its label for the thousandth time. Before opening my own front door to my own home where my own mistake-riddled life starts its next chapter, I think about when I turned this very bottle upside down—and the tiny slice of something good inside me that did it.

  The truth is supposed to set you free, but sometimes it’s not the truth that saves you.

  Prescribed by Dr. Nathan Klein.

  It’s the lies.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Though we likely haven’t met—and perhaps never will—I hold an undeniable truth about you, Reader, deep in my heart: You belong in books.

  Characters who look like you, live like you, and love like you belong in books. Our experiences, our communities, our lives with all their richness and depth and soul are the very things stories are made of—and I owe a profound debt of gratitude to those who read this story and told this queer writer in no uncertain terms, You belong in books.

  My heart is full of love and gratitude for my editor, Rob Bloom. You saw something in this story before I did. And because of your skill, patience, and endless encouragement, I now see it, too. You’ve gifted me with an experience beyond words and dreams.

  Doubleday feels like family, and I can’t quite capture how grateful I am to have been warmly welcomed. I’m humbled by the immeasurable talent given so generously by Jillian Briglia, Tricia Cave, Todd Doughty, Chris Dufault, John Fontana, Kathleen Fridella, Michael Goldsmith, Tyler Goodson, Nora Grubb, Bill Thomas, and Lauren Weber. You each gave life to this book and changed mine because of it.

  I’m forever indebted to my friend and literary agent, Chris Bucci. Your advocacy is relentless and inspiring, and your belief in me sustains my own. I live my dream because you empower me to. Likewise, I remain grateful to my book-to-film agent, Katrina Escudero. I’d be lost without your guidance and support.

  To my critique partners Amina Akhtar, Lise Brassard, Kelly J. Ford, and Sarah L. Johnson: Thank you for always pushing me to push my boundaries. A great deal of thanks is owed to Adrienne Kerr. The moment I read your kind note was the moment I decided this story had a shot. To the community of writers and friends who give selflessly and stay ready to celebrate with fiery abandon, thank you. Cristina Alger, Ed Aymar, Sam Bailey, Renee Bennett, Chris Bohjalian, Paul Campbell, Matt Coleman, Shawn Cosby, Craig DiLouie, John Fram, Kellye Garrett, Stephanie Gayle, Dee Hahn, Robyn Harding, Wendy Heard, Penny Jones, Chris Marrs, Kimmery Martin, Hannah Mary McKinnon, North Morgan, Emily Ross, C. J. Tudor, Eddy Boudel Tan, and John Vercher—thank you for sharing advance praise and for bringing so much joy to my life.

  I’m thankful for my parents, Mark Vernon and Mary Stokes, who nurtured a mind able to challenge barriers and ignore limits. For my cousins, Kristen Holt and Misty Stathos, who love me no matter who I love. For surgeon extraordinaire and friend, Anuradha Bhama, who lent her knowledge to the plot—any creative medical liberties or mistakes are entirely mine.

  Above all else, my deepest well of gratitude is reserved for the love of my life, Barry Hwo. We did it, Barry. And this book is ours for the rest of our lives.

  So perhaps, Reader, you and I have never met, but we both belong in books—and perhaps that’s where we might meet after all.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  P. J. Vernon was born in South Carolina. His first book, When You Find Me, was published in 2018. He lives in Calgary with his husband and two wily dogs.

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