Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake

“What do you want from me, Bruce?” I lean back, keeping my arms out so my hands don’t leave the table. “Just tell me.”

“I need a cigarette,” he says, and reaches into his pocket.

“I have a no-smoking rule in here,” I say, and when he pulls his hand back from his pocket it’s empty. He doesn’t complain.

“I’ve never killed anybody,” he says, after a few seconds of staring down at his shaking hands, one of which is wrapped tightly around the gun. “I know you think different, but it’s the truth. I have proof. It’s underneath my bed. I could take you there. You could talk to my father. He knows the truth.”

“Uh huh.”

“But you wouldn’t let me take you there, would you?”

“No.”

“You don’t believe me at all, do you?”

I fight the temptation to shake my head. “Why don’t you give me a few more details first?”

“There’s no point. You’ll never believe me. And I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Then why bring me back here? Why go through all of this?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with them dying. Nothing. But I buried them-I had to. The girls, they deserved that. And now,” he says, “now their ghosts will leave me alone, and you, you will take me seriously.” My heart races as he twists the gun and jams the barrel beneath his chin. It’s almost as frightening as having it pointed at me.

“Wait, wait,” I say, and my instinct is to reach out to stop him, but I keep my hands flat on the table. “Listen to me, listen, Bruce.”

He relaxes the gun for a moment, looking at me as if I must be an idiot not to understand him, but it’s just enough of a moment to make me believe there’s a chance neither of us has to die here. Not much of a chance, not long enough of a moment.

“Why did you take the bodies out of the graves? What did these girls deserve?”

For a moment he looks confused, as if he can’t find the right words, then suddenly his face becomes calm and relaxed as some perfect clarity washes over him, and I know it’s the clarity of a man who has made peace with his decision, and that there is nothing I can say or do to avoid his next step.

“For dignity,” he says, “they deserved the dignity.”

The gunshot rings in my ears. I smell cordite and burning flesh long after the pink mist settles, long after pieces of bone and brain are buried into the ceiling above him.

It’s a life moment. One of those snapshots of time that never leave you, never seem to fade away. In fact it’s the exact opposite-the colors, the imagery, the detail, they don’t dilute, they grow stronger, clearer; the moment becomes more powerful over the years while others slowly disappear. The smell-the smell of cooking flesh, the coppery smell of blood, the gunpowder, the stench as his bowels let go, the sweat. The air tastes hot, it dries out my mouth and makes my tongue stick to its roof. All I hear is a ringing sound that seems as though it will never diminish, as if it too will only grow more powerful.

It’s a life moment. I sit still, I stare ahead, I take it all in. I don’t know if there are others in the building. Don’t know if the gunshot has already been reported. Blood has formed thick splotches on the ceiling. They seem to hang there, motionless, unaffected by gravity. Bruce Alderman’s body also seems to hang there, the hand still on the gun, the gun still pressed into his neck. The front of his shirt is clean, not a speck of blood on it. His hair is messed up, the bullet forming a volcano shape in the roof of his skull. And still he sits there, as I sit there, motionless, staring at each other, a life moment for me, a death moment for him. Time has paused, as if in a snapshot.

Then it begins again. His hand, still gripping the gun, falls away. It hits the top of his thigh, slides into the arm of the chair; the gun clicks against it and falls onto the carpet. His head drops down, his chin hits his chest; the gunshot hole in his skull is like an eye staring at me, the blood falling through it, giving the impression it’s winking at me. Blood-matted hair falls into place and blocks the view. Blood pools on his shirt. It starts to pull away from the ceiling, droplets that form stalactites before breaking away and raining down. They pad softly into the carpet, make small thudding noises on the fronts of his legs, the back of his neck, the top of his head. It drops onto my shoulders, onto my arms, onto my hands that are still on the desk for him to see. He stays slumped there, this dead weight in my office chair, then slowly he tips forward, he gains momentum, then his forehead cracks heavily into the edge of the desk, jarring his head upright as his body falls, keeping him balanced for a moment longer, the back of his head almost touching his shoulders, his face exposed and his empty eyes staring at me, before he continues down to the ground where he lies in a clump that five seconds ago was a person but is a person no more. He lies on the gun, and still I sit here, watching, waiting: perhaps someone will come along and tell me that this is what I get for following up a line of questioning into an investigation that isn’t even mine.

The pink mist slowly settles; the smell of the gunshot starts to fade, replaced by urine and shit; and the ringing in my ears slowly dulls to a shrilling noise.

I stand up slowly, as if any sudden movement might cause him to pick the gun back up and try prefixing his suicide with the word murder . I move around my desk to the body, careful not to step in any blood. I think of his last words. They deserved the dignity . He wanted me to take him seriously, and he succeeded. Only problem is I still don’t believe he’s innocent. Shooting himself in my office isn’t the action required to prove innocence over guilt; if anything, it helps suggest insanity over sanity. I’d have told him this if I’d been given the chance.

I crouch down and put a hand on his shoulder. Without rolling him, barely without touching him, I go through his pockets.

There is a small envelope that has my name written on it, only he’s spelled it wrong. In the bottom of the envelope is a small key. I’m about to sit it up on my desk when I see the blood mist has coated the surface. I fold the envelope in half and tuck it into my pocket. I go through the rest of his pockets. I find car keys and a wallet; I find tissues, two packets of antacids, a broken pencil, and one of my business cards. I leave them where they are.

I use my cell phone to call the police because my office phone is covered in blood. I ask for Detective Schroder, but get transferred through to Detective Inspector Landry. I’d rather not talk to him, but I’m not running high on options. I tell him the situation as if giving just any old police report. Before I finish I ask him to bring coffee.

“Jesus, Tate, this isn’t my first homicide,” he says.

“You mean suicide.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He hangs up.

I sit on the ground out in the corridor, putting a cushion between me and the wall so as not to stain it with the blood splatter on my jacket, and lean back. I think of what Bruce told me. Why kill yourself if you’re not admitting any guilt? How could anybody possibly believe he buried those girls, but had nothing to do with their deaths?

I pull the envelope out of my pocket. The key looks a little different from others I’ve seen, and I can’t identify it. There are no marks on it, no numbers, no letters. It could be for a house, a lockbox, a safe, a boat-could be anything. It’s just one more item that I’ve taken from somebody today. The ring is still in my pocket, and the wristwatch is still on my desk. I head back into my office and slip the watch into a plastic bag before dropping it into my pocket. This whole area is a crime scene now and I don’t need awkward questions. I take out the key and put it onto my key ring so it looks like one of mine.