Joe Lansdale: Cold in July

I nodded. I didn’t regret what I had done, just hated that I had been forced to do it.

“I had to kill a man once,” Price said. “In the line of duty. But it was tough getting over. To be honest, you never quite get over it. If you’re human you shouldn’t. But you can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Ann had gone into the bedroom with Jordan, who had finally awakened to the sounds of the police poking around. She was keeping him in the back so he wouldn’t have to see the dead man.

Dead man.

I glanced at the couch where the man had been sitting, at what I imagined was the indentation his body had made, but knew truthfully was a permanent impression formed by long wear and weak springs. There was a messy swipe of blood on the cushions to mark his passing, and the stuff on the wall and across the landscape looked in that odd moment like a wild abstract painting.

I remembered how the justice of the peace had come in looking sleepy-eyed, wearing a pajama top and jeans with one pants leg stuck down in a cowboy boot, the other pulled over. He pronounced the man dead and grumbled about how even small towns should have coroners. He went away then, and the police checked the corpse over, took photographs, and two men from the funeral home carted off the body.

I looked at the wall some more, and the blood mess no longer looked like a painting, but like someone had tossed some rotten tomatoes against it. That thought made me woozy, and I dry heaved because there was nothing left inside me to throw up.

I took a deep breath, but that didn’t help. It contained the sour aroma of stale vomit and the coppery smell of blood.

“Better sit down,” Price said.

“I’m all right,” I said.

“Sit down anyway.”

I guess my face had gone white. Price helped me to a chair and squatted down beside me.

“Should I get you some water?” he asked. “Something?”

“I’m all right. Do you people know this man by any chance?”

“Quite well. Name is Freddy Russel. Small-time guy. Did burglaries from time to time, mostly in this area, which is where he’s from, I’m sorry to say. Been in and out of the joint, just like his old man. You did the creep a favor.”

“Sure.”

“You’d be surprised. Sometimes guys like that get careless on purpose, just hoping to get caught, get back to the joint where it’s easier for them. Or maybe they hope for something a little more permanent. Like a bullet.”

“He wasn’t trying to get killed when he took a shot at me.”

Price smiled. “Good point. So much for backyard psychology.”

“Thanks for trying to make me feel better. It’s decent of you.”

“Like I said, I been through this. Listen, you think you could come down to the station? Let me get a formal statement? Won’t take long. Patrol car will take you and bring you back. We’ll leave a patrolman here with your wife and boy. She can come in tomorrow sometime to make her statement.”

“All right,” I said. “Let me tell Ann and I’ll get dressed.”

It was easy. I told Price the same thing I told him at home, except it was more detached now, as if it had happened to someone else and I had witnessed it from a distance.

The room where he took my statement smelled of stale cigarette smoke, but that was the only thing that fit my image of a police station. The room looked more like an insurance company office. I had seen too many damn television shows and movies, expected dust, cobwebs, empty coffee cups, half-eaten pizza and too much light.

There wasn’t much in the room in the way of furniture or decoration. Some citations on the wall, a file cabinet, a neat desk, a typewriter, paper in the roller, and Price behind the keys. In fact, Price and I were the only ones in the room.

It took twenty minutes for me to tell it again, top to bottom.

“What now?” I asked.

“Not much,” Price said. “It’ll go to the grand jury. They’ll look over your statement, your wife’s, mine, then they’ll No Bill you. You won’t even have to go to court.”

“You’re sure?”

“Open-shut case of self-defense. He broke in with intent to rob, took a shot at you. Your gun was legal. He’s a known crook, you’re an upstanding citizen in the community. We haven’t any reason to suspect you of anything. It’s over. Except for your gun. We’ll keep it a while, until you get the No Bill, then we’ll return it. I’ll have an officer take you home.”

· · ·

When I got home the policeman who had stayed with Ann nodded at me and went away with the other officer. I sank down in the living room chair and looked at the couch. I didn’t think I could ever sit there again. I determined that tomorrow I would have it carried off and buy a new one. I wanted to get rid of that bloodied landscape too and have the wall repainted. Christ, I felt like moving, and would have if I could have afforded it.

Ann sat on the edge of the chair and put her arm around me. “You okay?”

“Okay as I get. Go to bed, honey. I’ll come along.”

“I’m going to clean up a little… before Jordan gets up.”

It occurred to me what she meant, the wall, couch and painting. She just couldn’t put it into words.

“Is it all right if we do?” I asked. “Evidence and all. Won’t the police mind?”

“The officer told me any time we wanted to clean up to go ahead. They’ve taken photographs, done all they intend to do.”

“I’ll help.”

· · ·

We got a plastic bucket of warm, soapy water and rubbed the couch down, threw the painting away, and wiped the wall as clean as we could get it. The couch was ruined. The blood had soaked into it, turning it dark in spots, giving the room a faint odor to remind us of what had happened.

We cleaned up the carpet and put baking soda down to get rid of the smell of vomit, and it helped a little. When we were finished, I poured the soapy water into the kitchen sink, watched it swirl darkly down the drain, tossed away the rags we’d used and sprayed some air freshener about.

I don’t know why, but the freshener struck me as funny in a grim kind of way. I kept imagining a commercial for air freshener where the announcer was saying how it covered up not only the odor of fish and onions, but blood, brains and vomit as well.

Ann showered and I washed up in the bathroom sink, feeling like Lady Macbeth struggling with her damn spot, even though there wasn’t a drop of blood on me.

Death in reality certainly wasn’t like television death.

It was nasty and it smelled and it clung to you like a bad disease.

Self-defense or not, I didn’t feel like Dirty Harry. I just felt bad, worse than I had ever felt in my life.

“Let’s go to bed,” Ann said. She was stepping out of the shower and she looked good. Thirty-five years had been kind to her. Her breasts sagged a little maybe, but the rest of her was nice and the breasts were nothing to run me off. She was my woman and I loved her, and I knew she was offering herself to me. I could tell by the way she moved as she pulled the shower cap off and let her long blond hair fall like a shower of light onto her shoulders, by the slightly exaggerated stretches and the way she slid the towel slowly up her long legs and moved it seductively over her damp pubic hair.

She smiled at me. “We can snuggle, you know?”

“I’m not really sleepy,” I said stupidly.

“So, we can snuggle a lot. Sleep later.”

“We can try that,” I said. “Go ahead, and I’ll be to bed in a moment. Got a few things to do yet.”

She finished drying, stepped into her panties, extending her legs through them nicely. It was almost enough to excite me, even after what had happened earlier. Almost.