Paul Cleave - Blood Men

I don’t hear Schroder’s response-his voice is low and forceful, and when the warden responds his voice is low and forceful too. I try my best to listen in to what they’re saying, but can’t pick up much except a couple of names, one of which I’ve heard before. Their quiet argument goes on for a few minutes, and when the warden reemerges from the cell, he’s no happier as he storms past me, followed by the two prison guards he brought with him, cheered along the way by some of the prisoners.

The two detectives keep searching my father’s cell as if there could be a dozen hidden compartments, and after thirty minutes they come up with nothing. In the end they walk out dejected, like they were hoping for a reason to arrest my dad all over again. We’re escorted back out the same way we came in.

In the car Schroder lays out the facts. There are no suspects in my father’s case-except for the fifty men who piled on top of him. It seems unlikely that figure will be narrowed down, and even more unlikely they’ll try to narrow it down. When my dad wakes up he may be able to help-but until then there’s not much they can do.

I remember what my dad said yesterday when he gave me that name. He knew he was putting himself in danger. I think after twenty years he’d had enough of this place, he’d seen his son again, he’d seen an opportunity to be a father, and that was the best he was ever going to get.

We pass a couple of media vans going the other way, racing out toward the prison; news of my dad has already hit the city. It’ll be on the news tonight, the prison as a backdrop, and I’ll be on the news tonight and in the papers tomorrow too. They’ll probably accuse me again of killing my wife. Of course that’s just journalists being journalists, not caring if they turn my life upside down for the chance of a story. Each year the competition gets edgier and edgier, compelling them to give up their ethics-and tonight they’ll be speculating on how far the apple really fell from the serial-killer family tree.

We reach my street and there are no media vans parked anywhere. They’ll arrive though, with their cameras and lights and makeup kits. Landry is driving. He pulls up outside of the house and I climb out.

“Hang on a sec, Bill,” Schroder says to Landry, then follows me out. “You can make our lives a lot easier, Edward, if you tell me what you and your father discussed. You probably don’t see it, but it could go a long way toward catching the people who killed your wife.”

“What makes you think that’s what we were talking about?”

“Far as I can figure, there’s plenty for you two to talk about-but with the timing the way it is, it’s pretty obvious he was putting together a list of names. Look, Edward, you better think long and hard about what you want to do next,” he says. “See, it doesn’t look good for you. You go and see your father yesterday, and today one of the men who robbed that bank is dead. Then today your father gets a hit put out on him.”

“I can’t help that.”

“I know you can’t, Edward. But you’re not seeing the big picture,” he says.

“And what’s that?”

“I’m not saying you killed our victim last night. We’ll know soon-there was enough blood at the scene that somebody thought they could clean up with bleach, but they didn’t get it all. We’ll run it against your father’s, check for DNA markers-that way we don’t need a warrant for your DNA. So we’ll know about you for sure, soon enough. The problem you’ve got is that I’m not the only one who thinks you were there. They tried to shut your dad up before he got more names. That means they’re going to want to shut you up too. You’re going to drown in the mess, Edward, unless you start helping us.”

“You’re wrong,” I say, thinking about the small concrete cells, the other men inside them, and spending the next ten years there. “There’s another alternative.”

“Oh?”

“These people killed their own man for whatever reasons. Drugs, money, some weird gang-loyalty thing, whatever. They killed him, and that means they have no reason to come after me. They know I’m innocent.”

“I certainly hope for your sake that’s what happened,” he says.

I open my mouth to answer, but am not sure how. I think about Sam and I think about the cells, and I think the best solution for everybody is if I take my daughter and leave. Today. Get the hell out of this city. Out of this country.

“The blood will tell us if you were there last night. You can save yourself a lot of pain by telling me the truth. You sure you want to play it this way?”

I don’t answer him.

“Then you better watch your back,” he says, then turns and heads to the car.

I head inside. It’s a beautiful day but I close the door on it. Nat and Diana were going to take Sam to the park today, so right now they’re probably pushing her on a swing or making sure she doesn’t fall off a slide. They don’t have a cell phone. Well, they do, but they use it differently from the rest of the world-they only switch it on when they need to make a call, the rest of the time saving power, a habit I think most people in the retirement generation have. I try the cell phone now but it’s switched off.

I try their home number on the chance they’re home, but nobody answers and they don’t have a machine. They’re at the park or the pool or the mall. When she comes home, what do I do then? Tell Schroder the truth and live the next ten years of my life the way Dad has lived the last twenty? I can’t do that, but I also can’t take the chance of Sam becoming a target. I hate the idea of leaving my wife behind, but she’ll understand. She’ll want what’s best for Sam-and what’s best for Sam is somewhere like Australia or Europe. Last night was an accident, but Schroder will never believe that. There will be no more accidents, though. The police have a name, they have a starting place now, and they’ll find the rest of the men who killed Jodie. Those men will be put away for eight or ten years and that’s the best I can hope for. There will be future robberies, future victims, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

Making the decision to leave is hard in some ways, easy in others-but once it’s made there’s no reason to delay. I know how guilty that’s going to make me look. Damn it, I should’ve taken the money from Kingsly’s house, to make this move a whole lot easier. I move around the living room but don’t dwell on the fact that soon I’ll never see this house again, my in-laws, this festering city that took my wife. With this in mind, my neighborhood is different-darker, everything gritty, it’s now the kind of place where only one bad day separates it between suburbia and a war zone. I walk to the sidewalk and search up and down the road for the sedan I figure will be there. It’s about fifty meters away, dark grey, two shapes behind the window, too far away to see their faces. They’re going to babysit me, they’re going to report every move I make to Schroder-which means I might make it to the airport but not on board a plane.

I drive up the street, watching the sedan in my mirror. It doesn’t move, not until I reach the intersection, then it pulls out from the curb. I go around the corner. Twenty seconds later the car comes around the corner too. I’ve never been tailed before, and I don’t know whether the driver is doing a good job or a bad one. Then I realize it all comes down to whether or not he cares about being seen. Schroder probably figures if I know the tail is there I’ll be less of a problem for them. Fewer people will die.

I drive past an old miniature golf course that was brand new when my dad took me for the first and only time, when I was a kid. All the shine and color has drained from the signs over the years, the Wild West theme now just looks wild, as weeds and moss gradually pull the signs down into the earth. There are a couple of cars in front, but I can’t see anybody playing through the wire-mesh fence. I still remember vividly Dad and me walking from one hole to the next, miniature water hazards and ramps all encompassed by a miniature ghost town, writing down our scores with miniature pencils. It was a simpler time back then, I guess. Smaller in a way.