Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

“Let me explain.”

“This is an awful place to die,” he says, and he looks around it as if he’s seeing it for the first time. “This useless shack in the middle of nowhere. You want to know what it was built for?”

I don’t answer him. I don’t need to.

“The guy’s name was Martin Rhodes. He was a pretty normal guy to everybody who knew him. Had a girlfriend he was engaged to. They owned a house together. They knew their neighbors, they had lots of friends. He was an artist. A sculptor. Used to make swans and shit out of blocks of ice for weddings. He was a pretty talented guy.”

“I remember,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I thought you would. He was all over the news. It’s the ice sculpting thing that people remember about him more than what he actually did. They remember that before they even remember his name. It was six or seven years ago now. So this is his cabin. This is where he brought his girlfriend when she no longer wanted to be his girlfriend.”

“There’s another guy, his name is Cyris,” I start, and he holds up his hand to stop me.

“Her name was Vicky. He tied her up and put her in the trunk of his car. That’s a long drive in that condition. A real long drive. That alone could have killed her. There used to be a bath right there,” he says, pointing to the far corner behind me. “No plumbing, just an old tub that suited the décor of this place. He kept her in the trunk while he carried buckets from the river that runs about a minute west of here. It had to be close enough so he wouldn’t have to walk far. He filled the bathtub with freezing cold water and he held her down in it. You want to know why?”

“This is a mistake,” I say, but he’s off somewhere, living in the past.

“He didn’t like the fact she was moving on without him. So he drowned her. And then he revived her. And drowned her again. He had her up here for six days, drowning or coming close to drowning her, and reviving her until she couldn’t be revived anymore. We found him when he came back into the city. He led us here. He’d put her back in the bath. He said he was cleaning her. We took the bath away as evidence and left this cabin standing. You want to know why?”

“I understand why you think-”

“It wasn’t cost-effective. That’s what they said. Didn’t want to pay anybody to drive up here with a sledgehammer and knock this shithole down. I haven’t been here since then. And I haven’t seen anything as sick until now. So when you say you understand, that’s bullshit. You don’t understand anything other than how it feels to cause pain.”

“I get it,” I say. “I get your world-has-gone-to-shit story, and maybe you’re right. Everybody hates somebody, nobody likes anybody, people fight for no reason or for every reason. It’s front-page news every day. I get it. But you’re making a mistake here. I haven’t killed anybody.”

“Q and A, Feldman. You get that? I ask, you answer. So let’s start with a fairly simple one. You think you can handle that?”

I say yes and he seems happy.

“Who has the gun?” he asks.

“You do.” It’s a big gun. No missing it.

“Who here is the officer of the law?”

“You are,” I say, though at the moment that’s a rather fine distinction to make.

“Who’s wearing the handcuffs?”

“I am.”

“Who’s on trial?”

“I am.”

“So who’s asking the questions?” he asks.

“You are.”

“So you would be?”

I shrug. “Answering,” I say.

“Are things clear enough?”

“They’re way too clear,” I tell him.

“Good, so you’ll shut up unless I’ve asked you something.”

He lifts the shotgun, crosses his legs, then replaces it. The barrel points at the wall. His hands are shaking slightly. We both notice this at the same time. I want to tell him he’s not only drawn the wrong conclusions, but also painted an entirely wrong picture. I want to tell him he’s a lunatic. I raise my left hand to my jaw-my right follows because of the handcuffs. I move slowly because I don’t want Landry misinterpreting any movement as an attempt to attack him. My jaw is throbbing. I’m lucky he didn’t dislocate it.

“I’ve brought a Bible along, Feldman. It’s in my bag. I’d offer it to you to swear upon, but I think it would be pointless.” His eyes narrow and he sweeps his hand through his gray hair. “I know what it’s like to no longer believe in God and I can’t imagine you ever did.”

I’m thinking the same thing. My life seems to have gone back to that game show, only now up for grabs is the opportunity to kill me, and it seems everybody is banging on their buzzer to have a turn. I wonder who the game-show host is then realize it’s my new friend Evil.

Landry crouches forward in his chair. “What do you believe in, Feldman?”

“A fair trial.”

He gives what sounds like a nervous laugh, then starts picking at a stain on his right knee, but only smudges it wider. He keeps itching at it then looks up at me, expressionless.

“You’re nothing more than a stain, Feldman.”

He reaches into the duffel bag and rummages around beneath his clothes and pulls out a wooden stake. I recognize the craftsmanship. He must have picked it up when he went back into my bedroom. He waves it back and forth, his eyes following it as if out of all the wooden stakes he’s seen this one has to be the nicest. Eventually his gaze moves back to me. There is no doubt in them. I can’t imagine anything I say will make him think I’m innocent.

“Which one did you murder first?” he asks.

“Why? It doesn’t matter what I say. I keep offering to tell you what happened, but the only thing you want to hear is the version you’ve come up with.” He doesn’t answer. I listen to the rain. It’s still heavy. I wonder if I’ll be dead before sunrise. “There’s nothing I can say that doesn’t make you angry.”

He keeps staring at me. Then he just nods. “Okay, Feldman, you make a good point. I said you’d have a fair trial, and that’s what I’m going to give you. So think of me as the prosecuting lawyer with a whole bunch of questions. So let’s start with the question I asked you, and we’ll see where that goes. And then we’ll see what the judge has to say.”

The rain is pouring heavily on the tin roof. The inside of the cabin is damp, his skin feels clammy, his feet cold, and he feels sick at being in a place where such depravity took place. He feels sick too sitting opposite this piece of human trash.

He is starting to feel a little nauseous. When was the last time he ate? It takes him a few seconds to figure it out, which is a few seconds longer than it should have taken. It was the fries from before. He should have eaten the damn burger too. He’ll pick one up on the way home later. Maybe two or three of them.

The cabin felt just as damp last time he came out here, even though that was in the middle of summer. It’s amazing that after all these years his memory of the scene is so intense that he could almost close his eyes and use muscle memory to get around, his limbs knowing where to go. It just proves the worst thing you ever see will stay with you the longest. That girl in the bathtub died hard. Harder than anybody else he can think of.

Now that he’s here, he has to admit to himself that there are doubts starting to creep in. He’s never killed anybody before. He’s wanted to. Who hasn’t? As a cop, he’s wanted to do it more than most people. He’s had chances. There have been people he’s chased down that he could have put a bullet into, but chose not to. He’s annoyed that the anger that fueled him all the way out here seems to be disappearing. He needs to get it back. He thinks of the way Kathy and Luciana were cut open.