Jess Lourey - October Fest

“I know you met him there later, and you killed him, and I’m glad you did, baby. He was a prick. An absolute prick.”

All the air in the room grew heavy and dropped to the ground, making it difficult to breathe. I was sure Brad had overplayed his hand. Kenya was as still as rock, her eyes black and wide, her mouth a stiff red slash across her face. She was either going to laugh in his face or slice it off and eat his nose with a dessert fork. “He wasn’t. He wasn’t a bad man at all.”

“What?” Her voice was soft, and Brad, who I could hear still fooling with his computer, didn’t hear her the first time.

“I was just going to tell him how he was right, and my mom was an alcoholic, and she did take bribes. I had the evidence, and I could have just handed it to him. But she would have squirmed her way out of that. She walked away clean from everything. And so he died. Hammy helped me.” She laughed, and it sounded like wind through a skull.

“Hammy?”

She reached onto the table behind her for her purse, and then a puzzled look crossed her face, quickly replaced by a serene smile. “He’s my gerbil. He’s not here.”

“He helped you to suffocate Webber? That’s what I don’t get. I don’t get how a little thing like you could kill a guy.” Brad was talking fast, and I could tell he was beginning to feel anxious.

“I gave him one of my mom’s sleeping pills, all crushed up in wine. It made him slow. When his back was to me, I hit him with a hotel chair. That didn’t kill him, so I took the bag out of the bathroom garbage and tied it around his neck. Shooting the Queen was even easier.”

Brad’s voice shook. “Well, it’s done, and that’s what’s important.” Not as important as me spending the extra $1.23 on the 90-minute tape, apparently, because that’s when it ran out. The record button popped out as loudly as a firecracker.

Kenya jumped, startled. “What was that?”

Brad attempted a clicking sound in his throat. “Beatboxing. A new thing for the band. You like?” He continued to wheeze and chirrup like a tractor straining up a hill.

She shook her head slowly and held her arms out, her purse still clutched in one hand. “Come hold me.”

God save him, Brad did. Now they were both in my line of sight. She wrapped her arms around him and dipped her head into his chest. “I’m guilty,” she whispered. “I did it. I killed Webber and I shot my mom.”

Brad laughed uncomfortably but didn’t push her away. Her purse fell to the ground, and in her hand and behind his back was a gun. I choked.

“We could go out like Thelma and Louise,” she sighed, slowly raising the barrel of the pistol to the back of his neck.

I powered through my fear and yelled. Kenya staggered back and pointed the gun toward the closet door. Without time to think, I stood and pushed it open and found myself staring into the bottomless black barrel of her pistol. The whole scene felt slow-moving and ridiculous, way more watery and surreal than in the movies. It didn’t have to end this way. But Kenya’s eyes were lit by crazy, and the three of us were not walking out of here. Her finger clenched against the trigger. Brad whimpered but didn’t move. This must have felt as inevitable to him as it did to me.

And then the front door exploded.

“Everybody down!”

Deputy Wohnt led the charge but two plainclothes officers were directly on his heels. I was still partially in the closet and obliged immediately with the command. Brad also dropped to the ground and then scurried past me so he was fully in the closet.

Kenya did not respond. She studied the three men, guns drawn, their breath coming in adrenaline bursts, exactly like she’d studied me the first time we’d met at the side of the stage on debate day. She was a hawk, recording every detail before deciding whether they were worth her attention. Her gun had been hanging at her side but she drew it slowly up, swiveling the end toward her face. I lunged forward to grab it, but Wohnt was quicker. He fired a single shot at her right shoulder and she dropped her weapon and crumpled.

One of the officers moved swiftly to retrieve the pistol and the other called for an ambulance on his shoulder unit.

“Are you okay?”

Wohnt had crossed the room in three strides. He made a move to reach toward me but stopped abruptly, turning back to focus on Kenya. He flipped her over. Her eyes were open and she was shivering. There wasn’t much blood, even when he ripped her shirt open to get a clear look at the wound. “I need a blanket and a clean towel.”

I followed his orders as best I could. My legs were shaky but they carried me into Brad’s bedroom and then bathroom. I was distantly relieved to see the latest issue of Juggz and Huggz on the sink next to his toilet. I hurried back and handed Wohnt the cloth. He staunched Kenya’s wound and covered her with the blanket. When the paramedics arrived moments later, some color had returned to her cheeks.

They hauled her out, and Wohnt and the remaining officer stayed behind. Wohnt turned to me, fire blazing in his eyes. He shoved me onto the couch and stood over me. “This the sting?”

At first I couldn’t meet his gaze, adrenaline and shock swirling dangerously fast in my stomach. Then I remembered that discomfort and indignation were close cousins and I shot to my feet, jabbing him in the chest with my finger. “I asked for your help but you weren’t interested. Said my gerbil turd theory was stupid. Said that wasn’t enough to go on.” I walked angrily toward the closet, knocking Wohnt out of the way. I leaned forward and snaked my arm down the back of still-cowering Brad’s shirt. A loud ripping sound followed by a sad squeal from Brad, and I had the tape recorder in hand. “Here. Why don’t you see if that’s enough to go on.”

Wohnt’s eyes were glittering dangerously. “What will I hear if I listen to this?”

“Kenya confessing to killing Webber. And her mother.”

The other officer came up behind Gary and clapped him on the shoulder. “You were right about her.”

They exchanged a look, and I couldn’t read either damn one of their faces. Hysteria and rage vied for position in my cluttered head. “Right about what? Right that you should listen to me more? Right that I was right and you were wrong?”

My voice went a little screechy as the reality of what had just happened closed over me. “Right that all the men in my life are either too good for me, dead, or fiberglass statues?”

“I’m not too good for you!” Brad said from the closet.

“Shut up.” I shoved my hands on my hips. “Right that you can get me to confess to Watergate with that cop stare of yours, and that I’m an eyelash shy of a nervous breakdown and that I would have been better off moving to Siberia than Battle Lake and that I’m going to die a lonely old cat lady?”

Gary was vibrating ever so slightly, and I thought he was going to yell at me before I realized he was laughing.

His back-up shook his head in wonder. “Yup, absolutely right.”

“I think he meant that Wohnt was right that you’re about as lucky as a three-legged cat,” said Mrs. Berns.

“What does that even mean?” I couldn’t believe how lovely she looked in the white wedding gown. It was two weeks since her car accident, and although the bruises on her face had faded to the color of dirt smudges and she was still crutch-bound, she glowed. The dress was shamelessly white and flowing and fitted at the top to display more cleavage than I’d ever seen on her. As her matron of honor, something she insisted on calling me given what she referred to as my “geriatric” sex life, I was at the Senior Sunset curling her hair and helping her with her makeup. I didn’t know how to do either so she mostly shooed me away and took care of business herself, as usual. She insisted I fill her in on every speck of what she referred to as the “Gerbil Turd Sting.”