J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“What did you say?”

“Is he gone?”

She’s bleeding from one nostril. There’s blood on her legs, too. At the doorway, the nephew makes a sound. He stares at the girl, then at me.

“Is this your mama?” I ask.

“My mama ain’t no whore.” He goes back to his room.

Gene hobbles in as I untie the girl’s wrist. He pulls a blanket over her, then goes back into the hallway to call an ambulance. The girl rubs her hand. She sits up, pushing her legs over the edge of the bed. She looks no more than seventeen, eighteen.

“I gotta get going,” she says. “I’m gonna be in trouble.”

“Just sit still. There’s an ambulance coming.”

She tries to stand, but she can’t. I brush a sweat-damp curl out of her eyes and she recoils.

“You gotta let me go, mister.”

From the hallway, Gene snaps at her: “Don’t make the man repeat himself.”

The girls goes docile, tugging the blanket around her, and I feel like giving Gene’s knee a kick. I step back from the bed, realizing that all this time I’ve been treading on the girl’s torn clothes. I bend down and start to gather them, but there’s no point. A couple of joints are stubbed out in the ashtray under the lamp, but there’s something more powerful in the girl’s system than weed.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I tell her.

“I am not.”

The ambulance arrives, along with an NOPD patrol car. Gene stays put in the hallway, hiding his limp as he gives the uniforms a rundown. During the course of questioning, the suspect fled. Instead of pursuing, we secured the scene to ensure the minor’s safety, and in the course of this discovered the girl. One of the uniforms recognizes her and goes over while the paramedic is taking her vitals.

“Remember me?” he asks. “I ran you off the corner last week.” He looks at me, noting the state of my clothes. “She’s got a couple of priors for solicitation, but she’s all right.”

“I’m gonna get in trouble,” the girl says.

“Don’t you worry about that, Cher. Just let the doctor have a look.”

Gene motions me out of the room. In the yard, he checks his watch and gives me a gloomy look.

“You gonna write on this, or am I?”

“Your patch, your lead.”

“I knew that was coming.” He hobbles over toward the back of the ambulance. “Let’s see if there’s anything stronger than aspirin in here.”

“Gene.”

“Just kidding,” he says, throwing up his hands. “Let’s get going. Those boys can handle everything from here on out.” He rustles in his pockets and tosses me the truck keys. “You’re gonna have to drive, I’m afraid.”

Back on his patio with a homemade ice pack resting on his knee, Gene slurps the dregs of his fourth or fifth beer, tossing the bottle into the yard with a sigh. Beside me the grill still radiates heat. I stretch out, legs crossed at the ankle, feeling childish in Gene’s oversized sweat suit. My clothes are slowly revolving in his dryer, all except for my jacket, which hangs from a peg near the front door.

“Not bad for one day, huh?” he asks. “If you’d known when you got up this morning you’d interrupt a rape in progress-maybe worse-and chase some degenerate through the St. Louis cemetery, I bet that would have put a spring in your step.”

“At least I know now why he ran.”

“We’ll pick him up soon enough.” He reaches into the cooler for another bottle, finds there aren’t any, and stares longingly toward the kitchen. “You gonna make me get up?”

“What do you make of those letters?”

“I think better with a cold one in hand.”

“That’s a lot of trouble for Fauk to go through, don’t you think?”

“Some people don’t like their mail being read. If there were five of those envelopes, at least one of them must’ve gone to his people, whoever arranges the payments. That’s how they’d know the others were sent. I could check with the carriers and see who made a delivery to that address, and where it came from. . if you’ll do me a little favor and refill the cooler.”

I ignore him. “I think I know where those fat envelopes were going: Brad Templeton.”

“The writer?”

“He let slip that he’d been in contact with Fauk, and he’s the one who primed the Sheriff’s Department with all these supposed serial killer victims.”

“And you think they came straight from Fauk.”

“Maybe. Something did.”

“Now will you get me a beer?”

“This appeal has been a long time coming. Somehow they managed to get the DNA evidence to disappear so it can’t be retested. Then they planted the serial killer theory-or at least got the ball rolling, trusting Templeton’s creative mind to connect the dots. Before tonight, I assumed they cooked up this false confession angle, too. Now I don’t know.”

He shifts in his chair. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You admitted it, didn’t you?”

“Now listen here, brother. You and me just turned in a sterling piece of police work, and in record time, too. Don’t go ruining the moment.”

“It was special, you’re right. But did you not sit in that very chair a couple hours ago and confess to beating a confession out of someone?”

“A guilty someone.”

“What about Donald Fauk? He was guilty.”

“Are you for real, March? You’re honestly gonna ask me if I forced a confession from that man? You and me both know he was dying to give it up. That guy was touched in the head, and he was only too happy to admit what he’d done.”

“Did he admit it to you?”

He glances away.

“Gene, don’t lie to me.”

“Listen, while you and your partner were gone, you think I sat with the man and asked what he’d been up to? In case you don’t remember, there were more pressing concerns at the moment. Does 9/11 ring any bells? Excuse me if I don’t take a piece of wife-murdering scum like Fauk too seriously on the same day somebody flies jets into the Twin Towers. I guess I lost a little perspective.”

“So he didn’t say anything to you?”

“It’s been ten years. I don’t remember what was said.”

“But something was?”

He throws the ice pack at my feet, sending half-melted cubes skittering across the concrete. The chair creaks under his weight as he rises.

“You’re worse than fish,” he says. “You stink from day one.”

He goes inside, slamming the door behind him. A tiny slice of moon hovers in the sky overhead. In the far distance the lights on a jetliner twinkle red. I wait for him to come back, but he doesn’t. I relax and let my eyes close.

There’s no point in staying longer than I have to. First thing in the morning I’ll make the drive back to Houston and try to forget this little episode ever occurred. Gene’s confession. The cemetery. The prostitute on the bed. It takes a toll, seeing all that. Like Charlotte said. My legs are like rubber, my arms sore, my neck and shoulders tight from carrying unseen weight. I could sleep right here under the hiding moon if I didn’t know Gene would be back any moment, flush with bottles, holding himself up to me like a mirror. A reflection of what I might have been, and what in the eyes of the people closest to me I am either becoming or already am.

“Last chance,” he says, coming through the door and depositing a bottle in my lap. The cap is already off, sloshing amber fluid onto the sweats.

I lift the bottle, measuring its heft in my hand. Before he can stop me, I send it spinning across the yard, thumping to a halt at the base of the fence where the contents gurgle out into the grass.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14 — 4:46 A.M.