Steven Womack: Dead Folks' blues

“You, Walter?” I was still dazed by it all. It was the one option I hadn’t considered.

“It was her idea, damn it! She put it together.”

I looked at Rachel. She stared at Walter with an expression I’d never seen before. An expression of pure, distilled fear.

“We’d been having an affair for about a year,” he continued. “She was going to divorce him after I made partner. Big bucks in being partner.”

“Then you didn’t make partner,” I said.

He moved his eyes from her to me. “Yeah, that’s right, Harry. I didn’t make partner. Rachel and Conrad were falling apart, the marriage dead. In debt up to their eyeballs. The money almost gone. I’m in deep, too, man. Don’t you see? This was the way out. For both of us.”

He motioned with the gun, his hand shaken by a quick tremor. “Both of you, sit down. Now.”

I looked at Rachel. Her eyes bulged in terror. She backed into a chair, then sat without taking her eyes off him. I came around the other side of the table, sat as well.

The pistol looked small in his hand, the way it must have looked to Mr. Kennedy. It was the last thing Mr. Kennedy saw in this life; I didn’t want to have the same experience.

“Why’d you do Mr. Kennedy?”

“Who?”

“The black guy in the Lincoln, the one who worked for Bubba Hayes.”

“Hell, I’d forgotten his name. I knew he was following you. I didn’t know what he knew. But then he started following me as well. Not all the time, but enough to make me think he knew more than I wanted him to. Then I caught him parked out in front of Rachel’s house one night when I was coming out. I knew he had to go.”

I shook my head slowly. He hadn’t even remembered the man’s name. “Jesus, Walt. Did you have to kill him?”

“He was getting too close, damn it!” he yelled, his hair falling down on his forehead. “He brought it on himself.”

He reached up, loosened his tie with his one free hand, the pistol pointed at us the whole time. He was sweating now, perspiration dripping down his face. All I could think of was that I didn’t want to the sitting at some goddamn kitchen table.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why’d you bring me into it?”

Walt grinned, but it was a painful grin, his lips pulled back like a dog baring his teeth. “That was Rachel’s idea, too. When I told her you’d lost your job at the paper and had become a detective, we both got a good laugh out of it.”

Pained, I looked over at Rachel. She turned my way, but couldn’t bear to look at me.

“You were our backup,” Walter said. “We figured the cops would never suspect Rachel if she had the alibi and also hired a P.I. We never figured you’d be smart enough to figure this out. Kinda broke a few patterns on us, buddy.”

I looked at Walter, his face glistening, tight, and I realized at that moment how much he hated me. For whatever reason and from whatever source, Walter Quinlan hated me. I’d never seen it; even now, didn’t understand it.

“I didn’t break any patterns, Walt. I didn’t figure anything out. I just thought I had. Actually, I’ve been blind to a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Rachel said.

I looked at her. Her face had a look of resignation, as if she no longer had the energy to be afraid, or to even care.

“Me, too,” I said quietly.

“Isn’t this touching?” Walter sneered.

“What happens now?” I asked.

“Well, we can’t leave things the way they are, can we?” His voice was cold, the voice of a stone killer. “No, we can’t do that at all. Let me see … Harry finds out you killed Connie. Confronts you with it. Maybe he’s blackmailing you. Yes, I like that. And so will the newspapers. You kill him. Then, in a fit of hysteria or guilt, you take your own life.

“Star-crossed lovers to the end. Oh, yes, the papers will love it.”

Rachel gasped. “No, Walter-”

“He’s right, Rachel. It has to be this way, doesn’t it? It’s the only way.”

He smiled at me again, a little softer now. “I’m glad you understand. Stand up, you two. We need to go back to the bedroom.”

He motioned with the gun. I stood up, glancing out of the corner of my eye at the mess spilled out onto the kitchen table from Rachel’s fanny pack. Lying in the pile of tissues, gum, keys, and a couple of wads of paper, was the stun gun.

If I could just get to it.

I tried not to stare at it, hoping with every breath that he wouldn’t see it. If I could only get to it…

I slid my arm over the table as I stood up, scooping the stun gun up into my right coat sleeve. All I had to do now was get close to him. My chest felt heavy, my heart thumping away helplessly.

Rachel sat there, frozen. The lines in her face were suddenly deeper, her eyes popping.

“You’re serious,” she whispered.

“Stand up,” he ordered. “Now.”

Then I heard it. Far away, at first, but louder by the second.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“What’s what?” he demanded.

“That. Listen.”

We stood silent for just a moment. “What is it?” Rachel asked, looking at me. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was deus-ex-freaking-machina. Whatever, I was going to play it for all it was worth.

“Sirens,” I said. “Hear?”

The unmistakable high-pitched whooping grew even louder.

“You call the cops, Walter?” I asked, mustering as much calm as I could.

“Shut up, damn you! Move, upstairs!”

“It won’t work, Walter. They’re coming. I don’t know who did it, but they’re coming.”

“My God,” Rachel said.

“Move!” Walter yelled. He came around the counter, was barely a foot away from me. I turned, my back to him, Rachel just beyond me facing the hallway. I uncupped my hand; the stun gun slid into my palm. I took a step, then dropped and spun, my hand on the button. I jumped for him.

Something hit the back of my head and exploded in searing heat and pain. Thought: oh, hell, so this is what a bullet feels like. Only it wasn’t a bullet. It was the butt of the gun.

I felt the stun gun go into his gut, my finger mashing the button so hard it hurt. He screamed, jerked. I felt his arm slam down on my shoulder.

Then next to my left ear, the gun went off. It was a bellowing, sharp, excruciating crack, followed only by the echoing silence of a battered eardrum. I felt him go limp on me, then fall.

I was dizzy, nauseous, lying on top of Walter the same way I’d fallen on top of Conrad. I hyperventilated, my heart in my chest, my breath shallow, short, rapid gasps. I reached up and took the pistol out of his hand.

The sirens blared outside, but they seemed softer now that I was only hearing them out of one ear. Tires screeched from just beyond the living room behind us.

I struggled to get up, but I was dazed, the nerves in my legs a light year away from my brain. I couldn’t move very fast. Nothing worked. There was a ringing in my head.

I tried to speak, but nothing came out.

I rolled off him, the gun in my hand. I turned. Rachel was on the floor, her back against the wall, staring at me.

A red splotch slowly widened in the middle of her shirt.

Time hung like that for what seemed an eternity, the adrenaline flooding my body breaking everything into microseconds. I tried to yell again, dropped the pistol, scooted over to her.

Her eyes were glassy, fading fast.

I took her hand. It was turning cold. She opened her mouth. I pulled her to me, my arms around her shoulder. I pulled my left hand away from behind her. It was covered in blood.

There was a long red smear on the wall.

Behind me, there was the crash of a door splintering, then the pounding of booted feet. I felt somebody behind me, then arms all over me, pulling me away from her. I fought, yelled. Nothing happened.