Trace the Dead Eye Page 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DENOUEMENT
I assembled them in the parlor.
I remember it all clearly.
It started with the maid, the stupid, frightened maid, whose evasive eyes revealed more than she let on. She searched for help and found none in the faces of the butler, cook and chauffer, who were only too happy to have her take the fall...
No.
The police, that was it. It had to start there. They were tough, but I was tougher; demanding answers, demanding truth. I searched for clues on the corpse, evidence on the evergreens. I jutted out my chest to show them—I showed them—who was boss…
No, no. Not the police. It began with...
...the ambulance, of course, that's where the answers would lie. While the medics methodically and mechanically went through their routines, I snooped, scanning documents, testing samples, uncovering sheets while looking for motives and meaning in life before the door closed for the last time and took away what was left.
There was the question of grass...
The sorting of clues...
The manipulation of maids...
The narrowing of suspects...
The final summation as I drew the web closer to contain the murderer within his own words while the audience applauded and I took my second encore amidst the cries of the dead...
The grass was dripping...
The neighbors...they were questioned...the ambulance came later...no, earlier...they were first. I remember it all clearly.
There was a shooting. Tina was incoherent. There was the question of neighbors. Someone had seen someone.
You couldn't clean it up fast enough, someone said with a laugh, as it ran down the curb into the gutter...
...and they all came marching out of the flood to get out of the blood, boom, boom, boom...
Tyler...
Shots were fired.
I remember it all clearly.
Shots were fired and the neighbors scattered and Tina screamed and the police came and I assembled them all in the parlor...
The parlor was first...
No, the gun shots first while neighbors watched, police were fired, something happened...
Tina was remarkably calm.
Tyler...
Jim wasn't questioned, being dead and all, but there was always later.
I had it under control.
Something happened...police were fired...no, shots were fired...shots were returned...they were the wrong size...
hahahahahahahahahahha...
...the car swerved...it was still on the fence...the ambulance was called...
...why did they take so long?
The merciful ambulance opened its doors to let the demonic scavengers escape, pouncing on their prize, then poking, peeling, laughing, joking…didn't they understand? Cameras appeared and jockeyed for position, filming, recording, zooming in as they scraped my heart off the fence. Didn't they understand? There had been something there seconds before and now...God, get them out of here, get them away, keep them away!
...and they all came marching...
I couldn't brush them away, I couldn't scream them away. I couldn’t fight them off.
...out of the flood, to get out of the blood, boom, boom, boom...
Boom, boom, boom! I’d shoot them if I had a chance, I’d kill them if I could. They were like suffocating gnats, giving no rest, invading nostrils and lungs until you could only pray to die, if one could find such peace in life...
Tina was remarkably calm.
Shock, someone said, commenting on her restraint. I was in shock because of her restraint, and her words, spoken so calmly I almost believed her; about the man who had broken in being the same man who had shot her husband--check the gun--and how he had come back for her. There were promises of ballistics and questions hushed out of respect to be asked later. She was remarkably calm.
'What happened?
He broke in, and...
Do you know him?
No, I've never...
He broke in--
Yes, and had a gun and threatened me.
He tried to rape you?
Yes. He hit me, and was saying something about my husband.
Your husband?
Yes. He was...murdered not long ago...
Yes, we know. He was a private investigator.
And this man...he was saying he wanted what my husband owed him.
Owed? As in money?
I guess so. I don't know. I've never seen him before.
Did your husband owe many people money?
I don't know. I hope...not many. I didn't know much about what he did.
So this man--
He said he came to get what was owed him, and if he didn't get it he'd kill me just like he killed my husband.
He said that?
Yes. He put his gun in my face and said it was the same one he used to kill my husband.
Go on.
Then he laughed and said it would only be right since that was my husband's gun.
He said that?
Yes.
Was it...your husband's gun?
I don't know...I didn't know he even had one.
How would he have gotten a hold of it?
I don't know...I didn't know he even had one.
Go on.
Then he...
He tried to rape you?
Yes. He said...it was to make up for the money he was owed.
Anything else?
No. I guess I blacked out. I have to see my son, make sure he’s okay...
Yes, someone will...talk to you...take you to him.
Am I done?
Yes. We’re done. Thank you. We'll run ballistics on the weapons to see if one of them matches the gun used to kill your...
I'm sure it does...I hope it does. It will put my mind to rest to know...to know what really happened that night.'
I heard it all from the sticky blacktop, giving silent agreement to the words because I could do nothing else. Then they all began to leave, one by one, driving past, driving through, driving over...
…out of the flood to get out of the blood...boom, boom, boom...
And then it was dark and the neighbors went inside with their families. Windows glowed orange like the moon, or maybe it was the moon reflecting the windows. I began to crawl with blackened fingers to that spot, that sacred spot, where my son had died.
There was a large splotch of blood, still moist from the settling dew, and I lay my face gently down upon it, first one side then the other, and let it coat my skin.
It had been him, it had been his life. It had coursed through his little body, through his heart and back again a million times. It had begun with nothing, a drop, a drop of my own blood that had multiplied and multiplied and multiplied until it sustained his life through all the days and nights when I wasn't there.
Now, at the end, the only thing we had shared together, our blood and the blood of all the generations before, was disappearing and would soon be gone with the evaporating dew and the hot sun and the harsh wind and the hungry ants. It was the last thing that touched his heart, the last piece of me that touched him, and now it was the last remainder of my existence. It cried out in awful, low groaning, and its pure emptiness was more than I could stand. I clasped my hands over my ears, fingernails biting into my scalp, screaming for it to cease. The blood from my hands dripped into my ears and made its way inside my brain where it whimpered, looking for response. I lay in a ball, begging for it to go and leave me in peace as my soul curled up within me.