Paul Cleave - The Killing Hour

But not at home.

Why?

Jo would be able to figure it out.

I get home. I carry the sandwich I bought through to the table and sit down. It’s chicken and cranberry and should taste great, but it doesn’t. I eat it simply because I need the fuel. There is something to all of this, something to the fact Cyris didn’t want them found at home. Why? Didn’t he want their husbands to come home and. .

Suddenly I realize what didn’t fit well with the newspaper article I read yesterday! I stand up quickly and almost choke on my sandwich. The newspaper said Kathy’s body was found by her neighbor, but Kathy had told me her cheating husband Frank would be home before the morning to get fresh clothes. She seemed sure of it. If he did come home, why wouldn’t he have called the police?

I drag this chain of questions around the dining room as I pace it. Is it reasonable to think her husband came home expecting to find her missing, and not dead? Just because he was due home and never called the police? It’s possible, but it’s equally possible he never made it home, that he stayed where he was and cheated some more on Kathy.

Okay, so there are a few possibilities, but with nothing else to work with, I try to make these possibilities fit around the answer I want. And it’s not difficult. There was no forced entry. Cyris wants money. He even yelled out For the money. Kathy was supposed to be missing, not dead. I think he knew his wife was going to die that night. I think he came home prepared to call the police that she was missing, and when he found her sliced up in the master bedroom he didn’t know what to do. So he ran.

I think back to what I told Landry about Cyris putting himself into a role to kill the two women. The police come along, they find the hammer and stake, and they think madman. They don’t think cheating husband. They think psychopath. They don’t think messy divorce.

At six thirty I dress in my new fatigue gear. What I see in the mirror scares me. I slip the cell into one of the many pockets, the binoculars and KA-BAR and Swiss Army knife into others. The sun is low, its casual slide into the night almost complete. It’s now just a bright, blurry orange blob. Dressed like I’m about to go to war, and feeling it too, I walk to my car, pull down the sun visor and head toward the battlefield.

The sun sinks and my anguish rises.

I stop at a supermarket and ignore the looks. A person dressed in fatigues is a common enough sight. People who have been beaten up are also common enough. It’s not often the two are combined. Normally the guy in the fatigues has given the beating. Stopping at the supermarket has never been so weird. It’s as if I’ve evolved beyond walking up and down aisles looking for pastas and cereals and bread. This kind of mundane day-to-day living is behind me. This isn’t where people go when death is all around them. I grab chips, doughnuts, a packet of cheese slices, and two drinks. I roll out a hundred-dollar note and the looks on the faces around me change. The girl working the checkout takes a small step back. She’s thinking I just mugged somebody. Or killed them.

I pull past Kathy’s house at six fifty in my shiny, rented Holden and park six houses further down. There are no police cars. No police tape. Life has moved on. Death hasn’t, though. I can feel it waiting in the street watching me. The Mercedes I saw parked outside one of the neighboring houses is still parked in the same place. Maybe it’s broken down. The street is pretty quiet. I start waiting.

I flick through the newspaper I bought with my snacks. The murders are still front-page news. No mention of Landry. I figure it’s too soon. The cops will be concerned. I’m sure Landry kept any information about me to himself. Had to, so he could execute me without fear of being caught. At least that’s something in my favor, I guess. I try to think if anything connects me to Landry’s death. My fingerprints are all over the cabin, which will match those at Kathy’s and Luciana’s houses. What else is there? Oh shit. There’s the piece of paper he showed me with my name and phone number surrounded by rubbed pencil. If Landry’s body is found the note will be discovered. But maybe it’s gotten so battered by the river it’s now useless. Or maybe it wasn’t in those clothes, but in the pocket of his jacket or pants, which Jo is now wearing. If she’s even wearing anything.

My stomach tightens at that thought. The harder I try not to imagine her naked and pinned beneath Cyris, the more visual it becomes. I start sweating. I look for a distraction. I read the rest of the newspaper. I start on the crossword puzzle and can only manage to solve a third of it. The day goes from being light to dim to dark. The streetlights come on. An hour into my wait a dark Mercedes pulls into a driveway six houses ahead of me. Into Kathy’s house. I put the binoculars to my eyes and manage only a glimpse of the car before it rolls out of sight. I start the car and move up to pull in behind the silver Mercedes. Does everybody on this street own one? I kill the engine. Wait patiently.

I can see the right front of the house and the back of the Mercedes. I can’t see any movement inside the house or the car. There’s not much more I can do. I came prepared to wait for hours and now it seems I may just be doing that. I have to remain focused. Remain sharp. I have to trust everything is okay. If I believed otherwise I’d be believing there’s no point in carrying on.

I start to grow restless, fidgety. The minutes slip by like lost nights. This is the first evening Landry has ever missed since being born. A few people are out and about. Some are walking dogs. Others are power walking, thrusting their arms in front of them in self-defense movements to stay fit. Nobody pays any attention to me. I probably look like a reporter. Or a cop. Both would have perfect justification to be sitting here. Both wouldn’t look out of place with cuts and bruises on their faces. I consider reading the newspaper again, but it’s too dark now. I want to get out and stretch a few of my aching muscles. I adjust my position in the seat. I look into the rearview mirror. My jaw where Landry hit me is getting darker. The swelling has gone down and the bruising has darkened. I run my finger along the line of the bruise. It feels soft, like a small balloon of water is trapped underneath.

I look up at the sky and wonder if it will rain tonight. When my cell phone rings I can’t find it. I fumble through my vest pockets, forgetting which one I put it in, swearing every time my fingers come up empty. When I get to it I check the display. The number is blocked. I flip it open and answer it.

“Why aren’t you at home, partner?” Cyris’s voice crackles through the earpiece.

“Didn’t want you changing your mind and deciding to kill me instead.”

Cyris says nothing as he thinks about it. So I say nothing. A minute goes by in which it seems we’re setting a trend.

“You got the money?” he asks.

“I got it.”

“Fifty grand.”

“What?”

“You’re pissing me off, buddy. It’s fifty grand now. It’s not free to dial a cell phone.”

No, but it doesn’t cost ten thousand dollars either. “I only have forty.”

“Forty will only get you eighty percent of her, and I decide which eighty.”

At least he’s sharpening up. “Fine,” I finally say. “Fifty grand.” This isn’t going to come down to money. It’s going to come down to me killing him.

“Meet me back out at the cabin.”

“No way.”

“What?”

“We three go out there and only you come back. Tell me if I’m wrong. It has to be somewhere more public.” I’ve been giving it some thought. “The pier. New Brighton.”