Ben Winters - Countdown City

I hear him just at the moment I see him, slumped on a landing at the top of the stairs, moaning.

“Hey,” he says dimly, his voice thick. “Someone there?”

Jeremy Canliss is collapsed with his back against the bannister, hovering above me on the stair landing, the outline of a man against the darkness like a ghost caught halfway to heaven. The little ponytail is undone, and his hair is greasy and lank, framing the small scared face. His eyes are twitching and sorrowful, his cheeks red and flushed, like he’s nothing but a kid with a crush, a kid with a crush on Martha Milano.

A long-barreled rifle with a mounted scope, the gun he used to shoot Brett Cavatone, lies next to him on the floor, the barrel facing the wall, the handle jammed awkwardly under his left buttock.

“It’s Detective Palace, Jeremy.” I say it strong, barreling my voice up the stairs. It feels good, just the action of raising my voice, dipping into that powerful tough-policeman register. “Stay right where you are.”

“You’re like a monster, dude,” he says, light amusement coloring his strained voice. “From a monster movie. The man who would not fucking quit.”

“I need you to stand up, please, and put your hands in the air.”

He laughs and mutters, “Cool, man,” but stays where he is, his head rolling a little on his neck. It’s like he’s the last man at the frat party, abandoned by his brothers to sleep it off on the landing, maybe tumble down the steps.

I have no authority. I have no gun. I take a step up, toward the killer.

“Where’s Martha, Jeremy?”

“I do not know.”

“Where is she?”

“I wish I knew.”

I take another step.

“Who’s N.?”

“Nobody,” he whispers, laughs. “It stands for ‘nobody.’ Funny, right?”

I’m not laughing. I take another step, getting closer. He’s still not moving.

“Why did you do it?” he asks me, petulant, childish.

“Why did I do what, Jeremy?”

“Go and get him. I told you not to do that. I told you.” He looks at me with genuine bafflement, puzzled and sorrowful. “I just wanted my chance, you know? I just wanted a chance with her. I just needed her to be alone, so I could talk to her, so I could make her understand.”

All this I already know. After he created his forgery, tore out a page from Martha’s hot-pink cinnamon-scented diary and crafted the incriminating passage, he “discovered” it and passed it on to Brett.

Jeez, man, I don’t know how to tell you this… this was just, like, lying open… in your house… I’m sorry… I’m really sorry .

Any husband would have been skeptical, would have confronted his wife, demanded an explanation, hoped for a misunderstanding. Except for Brett: the husband who wanted to go, who wanted his marriage to be over, for the contract to be abrogated so he could go off and do God’s work in the woods.

“He didn’t even love her,” Jeremy says, shaking his head, looking up at the ceiling. “You know? He didn’t even love her. I love her.”

“Where is she?” I ask him again, and he doesn’t answer.

Another step and now I’m halfway up the flight of steps, almost within lunging distance of that damn rifle. I picture the physical motions—one last quick leap upward, push the suspect to the left with the force of my body, grab the rifle from under his body with my right hand. I don’t have a right hand.

“Where is she, Jeremy?”

“I told you. I told you I don’t know.”

“That’s not true.”

I’m trying to keep my voice even, be calm, be cool, let him know that he can trust me, but inside I am exploding with anger at this foolish child and his stupid useless violent love. A year and a half ago all of this would have been a postadolescent crush, a daydream about a buddy’s wife. But in Maia’s shadow it’s blossomed like nightshade, become a crazed obsession, a murderous plot.

He licks his lips, brings a hand up and rubs his face. I’m starting to get the very strong impression that the kid is high as a satellite, that he’s drifting somewhere out of radio’s reach.

“Martha?” I shout, loud, and get no reaction—not from Jeremy and not from some distant corner of the house, not from any closet or crawl space. “Martha, it’s Henry. I need you to yell if you can hear me.”

“Shut up,” Jeremy says sharply, suddenly, anger clouding his voice. He shifts on the steps and grabs the butt of the rifle. The scruff of a beard, the sad little-boy face. “She’s not here . I wish she was here, but she’s not.”

He says the words so quiet and soft, I wish she was here, but she’s not , and I get very cold, like my insides are an underwater cavern suddenly flooded with frozen sea.

“Is she dead now? Did you kill her, Jeremy?”

“No. I just wanted to talk to her.”

“You went to get her. This morning?”

“Yes.” He nods, mouth slack and open.

“What happened, Jeremy?”

“Nothing. She was gone.” He looks at me, helpless, confused. “There was some man there, I saw him—”

“Cortez. You attacked him. On the porch.”

“No… no, he was inside. Martha was gone. I didn’t understand. I left.”

“That’s not true, Jeremy.” I shake my head, speak gently, coaxing. “What did you do to her?”

“I told you, she wasn’t there.” He twitches and yelps, rising quickly, improbably, to his feet. “I told you. I love her.”

He stumbles toward me, the gun raised, and I take a step back on the stairs, putting up my one good hand in front of my face as if I could catch a bullet, like Superman, pluck it from the air and throw it back at him. A year and a half ago, I would have been a detective, interviewing suspects—except not even. I still would have been a patrolman, looping Loudon Road, picking up shoplifters and litterbugs.

“Jeremy—”

“No more,” he says, and I say, “No, please—” and he’s waving the thing in a wide arc as he comes down the steps, now the barrel is aimed at the wall, now at the floor, and then at me, right at my face.

My heart flutters and dives. I don’t want to die—I don’t—even now, I want to keep living.

“Wait, Jeremy,” I say. “Please.”

There’s a bang at the bottom of the stairs, as loud as a firework, and Jeremy’s eyes go wide and I whip around to see what he sees. The wind carried open the splintered door, flung it aside to reveal Houdini on the porch, staring stone-faced into the house, silent and cruel, eyes unwavering and teeth bared, sides flecked with ash and mud. The dog is lit from behind by the roaring furnace of the prison. Jeremy shrieks as the dog glares up at us, yellowed and ferocious and strange, and I leap up the three steps remaining and press my left forearm into Jeremy’s throat to pin him to the wall.

“Where is she?”

“I swear—” He’s struggling to breathe. Staring goggle eyed over my shoulder at the dog. “I swear, I don’t know.”

“Not true.” I tower over the kid. I’m leaning into his throat with the blunt object of my arm, and it’s killing him and I don’t care. “You saw Cortez coming and you smashed him with a shovel.”

He gasps, squeezes out words. “I don’t know who that is.” He struggles, breathes. “I would not hurt her.”

I stare at his terror-stricken eyes and try to think. She waved me away, Cortez had said, she treated him like a Jehovah’s Witness. Why did she do that, dismiss her protector? And she had a suitcase, he said, she was waiting for someone. Not Jeremy, surely—but who? I’m thinking about the timing of this—what day was Brett shot and when did Jeremy get back from shooting him and what time this morning did Martha tell Cortez to leave her be? The world is spinning, days and events spilling over one another like loose marbles in a bag.