Tom Piccirilli - The Last Kind Words

“This isn’t the way to do it, Terry.”

I couldn’t imagine dumping him in the ocean or burying him on some construction site under a thousand gallons of cement. “Leave him in Sheepshead Bay? I can’t do that.”

“It’s the safest way. We can’t keep him on our property.”

“I can’t let him go. He needs to stay at home.”

“You’re going to get caught.”

“That’s better than the alternative,” I said.

She shook her head. “I’ll be an accessory, damn you.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll keep you clear of it.”

“You’re not thinking straight. You can’t even lift him.”

“Yes, I can.”

But she was right. I got him into a seated position, hooked my arms under his, and dragged him to the back door. I managed to push his body to the top step of the porch, hunch down under it, swing his arms over my shoulders, heft him up behind the knees, and get him into a dead man’s lift. It was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I carried him through the woods, his lips pressed against the back of my neck. Gases gurgled and escaped his mouth like muted curses.

JFK followed, sniffing at Grey’s ankles. I dug a grave behind the log where Mal and I’d had our lengthy conversation. The ground was soft from all the rain. It was easier than putting in fence-post railings. It wasn’t going to be deep but it would be deep enough for the time being. It took me only a half hour. I rolled Grey’s corpse in. At the last second, just before I threw the first shovelful of dirt on top of him, I grabbed the photo from his jacket pocket. I didn’t know why I wanted it, but I felt strongly that I had to keep it. I covered him over quickly but well and shifted the log over the grave.

When I was finished, I started back to the house. JFK stared at the muddy spot until I called him to me. Halfway through the woods, I had to stop to vomit. I was feeling light-headed and feeble. Dale met me on the back porch. She’d changed into a summer dress. She looked beautiful and very young and innocent.

“Gilmore’s here,” she hissed.

I used the backyard hose to wash the dirt off my hands and spray the sweat from my face. I opened the jacket and looked down at the red-stained towels wrapped around my belly. The blood was starting to soak through but you couldn’t really tell with the black denim.

“Did you finish cleaning inside?” I asked.

“Yes, but-I hurried. I might have missed something.”

I doubted it. She was too sharp for that.

“He’s got a pizza,” she said. “He does that sometimes. Brings food for when they play cards.”

“It’s okay, just go tell him that Dad isn’t here.”

“He knows you’re home. He saw your car. It’s got the bloody towels and sponges and some of my clothes in a bag in the trunk. That window in the living room is broken. I cleaned the blood off and closed the curtains over it. And the front screen is busted to shit.”

“Tell him Butch did it. You broke up with him and he came here and kicked the door in. I beat the crap out of Butch and sent him home.”

She nodded. One side of her mouth lifted in a pained half smile. “Good thinking. In case there’s any blood left around. Or on you.”

“I’ll be inside in a minute. You split.”

“No, I’m not leaving you alone,” she said.

“You’ve done enough, Dale. I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”

I couldn’t say any more. This was family. These were the things of which we do not speak.

She went inside. I put on my game face. I knew I didn’t have much of one, but I made the effort. The pain meds were wearing off and my belly burned. Every time I moved a little, I could feel my skin splitting further. I waited another minute, then followed her in.

Dale had cleaned the place up fine. You couldn’t tell there had been a fight in the living room. You couldn’t tell a man had died here. Gilmore was sitting at the card table, holding a slice of pizza, the box open and turned to the seat opposite. He looked up at me and said, “Thought we could share a pie. You hungry?”

“Starved.”

I got a couple of beers out of the fridge. I checked the clock. I hoped my parents would be gone at least another half hour. The thought of facing them weakened my resolve. I sat down, passed Gilmore a bottle, and he gave me that fucked grin.

I wondered if I should play up to him, smiling and kicking back, wasting time until he got his fill of the Rands for the night and took off. But looking at his teeth I was overwhelmed with rage. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to scream. I picked up the beer and pressed it against my lips and drank deeply and tried to fight off the urge.

“Your old man went out?”

“To dinner with my mother.”

Gilmore nodded like a proud father whose son has just gone off on his first date. “Good for them. I keep telling them they should do that kind of thing more often. Spend time together out of the house.”

He really did think of himself as some lost begotten son. I wiped my mouth and said wi;, “What’s the word on Mal’s murderer? Anything yet?”

“It’s an ongoing investigation.”

“You bastard. You actually said ‘ongoing investigation’ to me?”

He quit grinning. “I’m not on the case. And even if I was I couldn’t tell you anything pertinent. You know that.”

I nodded. This had nothing to do with cards, with friendship, with checking up on my father. Gilmore was reaching out. He couldn’t do it with his wife and kids, so he came here. Pizza is what you had on family nights.

“How’s your father holding up?” he asked.

“As well as can be expected.”

“He seems like the rock, rugged, solid, but your mother is really the strong one who can handle the serious hurt. She holds it all together. Your old man, he’s a little softer than you might think.”

“Because he takes photos of your family for you? Because he crept my old girlfriend’s house?”

“He told you about that?”

“No.”

“But you found out anyway.”

I wasn’t in control and I knew I was going to make a bad mistake. Maybe I already had. Gilmore’s expression could mean anything. I reached over and slid a slice of pizza out of the box and chewed a hunk off. My stomach surged with bile, but I kept eating.

He wasn’t a fool. He saw me sweating. He could sense the bad news coming. The question was whether he’d follow up or let it drop. He scanned the room. He checked out Old Shep. He eyed me carefully and I kept on chewing.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“Your asskicking scraped me up pretty good.”

“Dale said you got into it with her boyfriend.”

“Nothing major.”

“It looks like he did some damage.”

“It’s tough to make a stoner see reason.”

“A lot of people refuse to see reason.”

He took a last bite of his crust, then sat back and stared at me. His shoulders shifted a little. I fed the rest of my slice to JFK and cleaned the grease off my fingers. I saw that I’d left the slightest dab of dirt under a pinky nail. Then I took another slice. I forced myself to down it bite by bite. I thought of Grey out there in the mud. My brother would be dead in three days. My sister and I would share this sin for the rest of our lives. I heard the faint sound of metal snapping against metal. It was Gramp playing with the switchblade.

Gilmore pursed his lips. “You’re in trouble. You can talk to me, Terrier. I can help you, if you want. You’ve been looking in all the wrong places for a killer. I can imagine what you’ve found. Or what you think you’ve found. I heard about you pulling a piece at Danny Thompson’s place. That was really fucking stupid. A Rand with a gun-I never would have believed it. What if he comes after you?”