Chris Mooney: The Killing House

‘It’s okay,’ the Clouzot woman said. ‘I know you’re scared. Think about Rico — how excited he’ll be to see you.’

The lamps on both nightstands had been turned on, giving the room an intimate setting. The shades and curtains were still drawn. Her husband was still dressed in sweatpants and his ratty old grey Yale T-shirt; he still lay spread-eagled on top of the white ruffled coverlet, his wrists tied to the copper-plated headboard and his ankles to the bedposts. He couldn’t speak; a strip of duct-tape was fastened across his mouth. He mumbled behind it, glaring at her, his hazel eyes wide with terror.

‘Just a few more steps,’ Marie Clouzot said. ‘That’s it, you’re doing great.’

The left side of Barry’s face was swollen. Had the Clouzot woman hit him, or had it been her partner? At five foot eight, Barry wasn’t a big man. She could have easily dragged him up here by herself, Theresa thought dimly. Sweat had soaked through Barry’s T-shirt and matted what little remained of his greying hair. She saw where the rope had cut his skin. Bright drops of blood dotted the white pillowcases. This morning’s bandage was still on his reedy and nearly hairless forearm. She had gone with him to the dermatologist’s office. A mole had changed colour. The doctor had taken a biopsy, and Barry had convinced himself that he had stage-four melanoma.

‘Almost there,’ Marie Clouzot said, edging Theresa closer to the side of the bed.

Seeing the bandage made what was happening very real somehow, as did the item that had been left on the nightstand: the heavy cook’s knife taken from the kitchen’s butcher block, the German Wusthof with the fourteen-inch blade she used to carve the holiday turkeys and hams. It was within arm’s reach.

Pick it up, that pragmatic voice screamed at her. Pick it up and kill her.

No.

You can do it, Terry. You have to do it.

I can’t. They’ll kill Rico.

The opportunity had passed. The Clouzot woman had let go of her grip and moved away. Theresa rested her thighs against the edge of the bed to keep from falling, her heart beating so fast she wondered if it was going to explode inside her chest.

Pretend to pass out, that pragmatic voice said.

She’ll wait, Theresa answered. Either that or she’ll hit me with the Taser and just walk out.

You don’t know that. Goddamnit, Terry, you have to try something.

Marie Clouzot, standing at the foot of the bed, reached into her handbag and came back with a small digital camcorder, one of those tiny Flip Video models.

‘Whenever you’re ready, Mrs Herrera.’

‘Ready?’ Theresa repeated.

‘For your confession,’ Marie Clouzot said. ‘I want you to tell your husband what you did.’

What I did? What is she talking about?

‘Don’t be shy, Mrs Herrera. You might not remember me, but I’m absolutely, positively sure you remember your former life in Philadelphia.’

Theresa felt frozen in place. A new fear bloomed in her stomach, and for a moment it replaced her thoughts of Rico and what was happening — unfolding — right now inside her bedroom.

‘Yes,’ the Clouzot woman said, and smiled — a bright and joyous Christmas-morning smile. ‘You remember now, don’t you?’

Theresa swallowed. She didn’t know what to say and she had to say something.

‘About… that. I didn’t know what — ’

‘Don’t tell me, Mrs Herrera, tell your husband — and look at him when you speak. If you don’t, Rico goes bye-bye.’

The Clouzot woman brought up the video camera. Theresa forced her attention on to Barry. He gawked up at her from the bed, confused and frightened.

Theresa had been married to him for nineteen years, and not once during that time had she ever considered telling him about Philadelphia. The woman who had been born and lived in the Northeast — that person was dead and buried. Speaking about it to anyone, for any reason, wasn’t allowed. Theresa had told no one, not even Ali Karim. He could turn over every rock on the planet, and there was no way he would never find out who she really was.

And yet Marie Clouzot knew. She knew.

How? How did she find out?

‘Tell your husband who you are, and what you did,’ Marie Clouzot said. Her left hand held the camera steady as her right hand dipped into her coat pocket and came back with a compact 9-mm. ‘I won’t ask you again.’

Theresa began to talk — haltingly at first, and then her words gathered steam. Every word she spoke felt like another hot coal stockpiled in her stomach. She got past it by thinking of Rico — Rico alive and waiting for her.

When she finished, Theresa felt a hollow beating inside her chest. She still didn’t know who Marie Clouzot was, but she had an idea.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to add, Mrs Herrera?’

‘Yes.’ Theresa’s voice sounded far away, and strained. She cleared her throat and, steeling herself, spoke louder. ‘I want to apologize to you. As for what… happened, I didn’t — ’

‘You have one minute to make your decision.’

Theresa blinked, confused. ‘Decision?’

‘I want you to pick up that kitchen knife and cut your husband’s throat.’

Theresa said nothing. She had nothing to say. That pragmatic voice had nothing to say. Her mind felt as vacant as an abandoned house.

Marie Clouzot had to raise her voice over Barry’s muffled screams. ‘Kill your husband, and I’ll bring you to your son. If you don’t kill your husband, I’ll kill you, and then I’ll leave and kill your son. Are you familiar with slow slicing?’

Theresa didn’t hear the question, still in shock by what the woman had said: Cut your husband’s throat.

‘Slow slicing is a form of execution developed by the Chinese,’ the Clouzot woman said, reaching into her pocket. ‘You use a knife to cut away portions of the body over a long period of time. It’s death by a thousand cuts.’

‘I… I can’t…’

‘Can’t what, Mrs Herrera?’

‘I can’t go through with this.’

The Clouzot woman placed the wrinkled snapshot of Rico on Barry’s stomach.

‘You have fifty-three seconds left to make your decision, Mrs Herrera.’

‘I want to help you,’ Theresa said. ‘Please, let me help you.’

‘Forty-nine seconds.’

Barry was screaming, thrashing.

‘We can come to some sort of… accommodation,’ Theresa said. ‘Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about how I can help — ’

‘Forty-three seconds.’

Theresa saw her son’s frightened gaze staring up from the photograph lying on Barry’s stomach, and she saw her son staring at her from the photographs on the walls and bureau — Rico as a baby and as a toddler, each picture showing a boy with a round, brown face and a mop of unruly black hair; a gap-toothed smile and, along the right temple, a strawberry-coloured birthmark the size of a dime.

‘Thirty-nine seconds, Mrs Herrera.’

She stared at the photograph on Barry’s stomach. Rico was alive. Her son’s life depended on her next decision — a horribly cruel, life-altering decision.

Was her husband’s life worth it?

Don’t let them take me back there, Rico had said.

‘Thirty-seven seconds.’

I can’t take it any more. Please, Mom. Please help me.

Theresa grabbed the heavy cook’s knife.

Barry screamed from behind the tape. He screamed and thrashed, the rope cutting deeper into his skin. Blood trickled down his wrists.

‘You have twenty-two seconds left.’

God forgive me, Theresa thought, turning the knife in her hands, just as a pair of car headlights flashed across the drawn blinds.

Malcolm Fletcher parked the Audi at the bottom of the long driveway leading up to an impressive brick-faced Colonial, the home of Dr Bernard Herrera and his wife, Theresa. It was a few minutes past seven, and a light snow had started to fall.