Dave Zeltserman - Killer

“I don’t understand what you’re asking,” I said, genuinely confused.

His smile turned patronizing. “If what you’re telling us is true, that you saw the two men standing outside a liquor store and you knew they were about to rob it, why would you get involved? I’m sorry, Mr March, but from what I’ve read about you, that doesn’t make sense.”

“How am I supposed to answer that?” I asked. “Are you saying that I’m incapable of doing something decent?”

He scratched the back of his head as he thought about that. “Yes, I guess that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s not believable, Mr March, that you’d stick your neck out the way you did, nor is it believable that a man of your age and slight build could disable and overpower two armed men in their twenties, especially, as you claim, two men hopped up on crystal meth.”

“What’s hard to believe is you accepting this meth head’s story. Have you tested these two punks for drugs?”

He didn’t answer me. Just kept smiling his polite, grim smile. I took a deep breath and fought a losing battle with my anger.

“Why would I have two guns with me?” I heard myself asking him. “What the fuck was I doing with them, trying to force those two punks to take them off me to commit an armed robbery? Then what happened, they refused and I beat them up? Christ, use some fucking brains. If any of that were true – if they were such innocents – why wouldn’t they take the guns from me and hold me until the police arrived? Talk about your shitbrained fairy tales. You really think there’s a chance the other brother will tell the same story, at least if he isn’t prepped?”

“You have quite a temper, don’t you, Mr March?”

I closed my mouth. I understood then that he was only trying to get a rise out of me, trying to get me to say something that could be used later against me. It wasn’t worth saying another word to him.

He waited patiently, and only when he realized I wasn’t going to answer him, he continued, “To answer your question, I don’t fully believe Jason Mueller’s story, just as I don’t believe yours. The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle. If I had to guess, you recruited these two brothers for the liquor store robbery, then had some sort of falling out with them at the last minute and things turned violent between you. But if that’s the case, we’re never going to find that out, and given your extremely violent past, their version of the events has to be considered more credible. While it would be nice to lock all three of you away, I’ll settle for sending you back to prison, Mr March. Or should I call you Leonard?”

I saw the way it was going to be then. If the other brother, the one I knocked out cold, had any smarts, he would claim a temporary loss of memory rather than risk contradicting his brother’s story. As insane as it was, I could very well end up going back to prison for the one decent thing I did in my life – and they’d send me for the maximum sentence they could. I should’ve gotten a good laugh out of the whole thing, but instead I felt sick to my stomach thinking how this was going to be played up in the papers and how justified my kids were going to feel in writing me off for good. I felt even sicker knowing that I would never see Sophie Duval again. Absently, I started massaging my throbbing shoulder while Fallow stared at me as if I were some sort of bug that he had pinned down under a magnifying glass.

There was a knock on the outside door. Fallow looked away from me, annoyed. He got up and had a quick conversation with whoever it was outside the door, then left me alone. While I sat in the room, I slipped into despair. It didn’t make much sense for me to feel that way. It wasn’t as if I had that much going for me on the outside; a few more chance encounters with Sophie before she would bring up her book idea and I would turn her down, the slim hope that my kids would give me a break and meet with me. That was really about all I had, but the thought of losing it still sent me sinking into utter blackness.

I don’t know how long I was alone. Maybe a half hour, maybe longer, but when the door opened again a different cop walked in. This one was bulkier with a face like a bulldog’s, his hair silver, his suit more expensive. He looked uncomfortable as he cleared his throat and introduced himself as Captain Edmund Gormer.

“I would like to apologize for any inconvenience that has been caused you,” he muttered in a rumbling voice. He looked past me, unable to meet my eyes, his voice sounding as if he hated every second of what he was doing. “We had to clear up a confusing situation, but that has been done, and as captain of this precinct I would like to thank you for doing your civic duty today, both in thwarting a felony and in apprehending two dangerous criminals. I believe these are yours.”

He handed me my wallet and cell phone. So either the other brother was stupid enough to give a statement instead of claiming a loss of memory, or a witness had come forward to corroborate my version of the story. I kept a stoical exterior. I wasn’t going to show this cop shit.

“What about the bottle of aspirin your cops took off me?” I asked. “That Roy Scheider lookalike patrolman of yours injured my shoulder when he handcuffed me behind my back.

I need those aspirin.”

His skin color was a muddled gray as he told me he’d find out where my aspirin was. He cleared his throat again, and with a false smile that badly contradicted the glumness in his eyes, he told me there was going to be a press conference soon at which they were going to explain my heroism to the media. “We would like you to be there to answer their questions,” he added half-heartedly.

I shook my head. “I just want to get my aspirin and get the hell out of here.” While I told him this I had looked through my wallet. I stared up at him and told him a hundred and fifty dollars was missing. “Fuck it, maybe I will speak to the media after all,” I said.

Alarm showed in his eyes. “I’ll look into this,” he said. “Please wait here.”

Nothing had been taken out of my wallet, but I figured a hundred and fifty was more than a fair price for the ordeal they had put me through. Less than ten minutes later Captain Gormer returned handing me a new bottle of aspirin and a hundred and fifty dollars. All I could imagine was them sending out a squad car with the siren on to buy me the aspirin. I opened the bottle with my left hand, dumped a couple of tablets into my mouth, then asked Gormer whether the media was camped outside. He told me they were.

“Is there a back way out of here?” I asked.

He nodded, relief in his eyes. “I’ll have a patrolman show you the way,” he said.

I should’ve asked Gormer how they were able to corroborate my statement. I had assumed it was either Thomas Mueller fucking things up for him and his brother or a witness coming forward. It turned out it was something else entirely, and it creeped me out when I saw what it was.

I was sitting in a bar having a few Michelob drafts and trying to get my nerves under control when the news came on and a video was played that had been sent to them anonymously earlier in the day. The video showed it all; from when I stopped to watch the Mueller brothers outside the liquor store, to me running across the street and everything that followed until the police showed up. It would’ve been impossible for the police to have twisted that video to support Jason Mueller’s statement, and I should’ve been grateful that that video existed, but I couldn’t help feeling a queasiness in my gut realizing that someone had been following me without me realizing it. Not only following me, but videoing me.

Several of the other bar patrons had started staring at me as they recognized me from the video. When they showed my prison photo and talked about my recent release from prison and my violent history, more eyes turned my way. After the photo, they cut to a press conference where Captain Gormer talked about my heroism, all the while looking like he had a tooth that needed pulling. The bar became deathly quiet, the only sound coming from the TV set. No one spoke a word to me. The bartender stood off to the side looking increasingly uncomfortable as he tried to catch glimpses of me without meeting my eye. I sat silently drinking my draft, the tips of my ears burning hot. When I finished I got up and left, feeling all eyes in the bar following me out the door.