Brian Freeman: Immoral

"Stop!" Serena screamed.

Stride tensed, waiting for Bob to fire, expecting to feel the air sucked out of his chest.

Serena's bullet blew Bob backward onto the floor. The gun spilled harmlessly from his hand. He landed hard, his eyes wide open and terrified. He gurgled, unable to breathe, and foam and blood sputtered from his lips. His whole body twitched, his limbs rocked by spasms.

Serena scrambled from her knees and ran to him.

Bob had enough strength to lift his head off the floor and contemplate the wreckage of his chest and smile. Blood was filling his lungs. He tried to speak, but the words died in a rattle, and his jaw went slack. His eyes flitted between them, his pupils giant and black.

"Cordy!" Serena shouted as the trailer door burst open. "Get an ambulance!"

But they both knew Bob would be gone before they heard the sirens.

Stride realized he was watching the mystery die with him.

He sat in the backseat of Cordy's car, the rear door open, his legs outside. For the first time in months, he felt the craving for a cigarette, and he rubbed his fingers together as if one were lit in his hands. He felt a trickle of sweat on his neck, dripping to the back of his spine.

Twenty yards away, two internal affairs detectives, looking cool as snakes even under the relentless sun, grilled Serena about the shooting. Her beautiful face was stoic-void of emotion, no hurricane churning inside her. Stride knew better. He had seen the delayed reaction among cops in Duluth, even tough veterans who had seen plenty of bodies, all killed by someone else. Firing your weapon, taking a life, watching someone die at your hands, was devastating. It sent cops into therapy. Some left the force.

Then came the second-guessing. People who weren't there, who hadn't experienced those terrible moments, felt entitled to question your judgment.

All Stride could do was sit tight and wait his turn, then tell them what it was. A good shooting. Unavoidable.

The ambulance had arrived too late to do anything but attend to the corpse. He watched as two orderlies maneuvered a stretcher through the doorway of the trailer. Bob's body lay beneath a white sheet, with a bloom of red in the center where the blood seeped into the fabric. A dusty breeze erupted from the desert floor, picking up a corner of the death sheet and fluttering it in the air like a flag of surrender.

Stride found himself staring at Bob's bony, lifeless leg and at the old sneaker that clung to his foot. The heel of the shoe winked at him like a bloodshot eye, oval and pink.

In that moment, Stride felt the world grinding to a halt, all the noise and motion winding down like a music box, until he could hear only the raging sound of his breath and feel each beat of his heart thumping like it could break through his chest.

Stride half expected the body to bolt upward from the gurney. He expected Bob to point a skeletal finger at him and cackle like a magician who has seen his audience gape at his latest trick.

But this was no trick. There was no mistaking the sole and the red oval in the center of the heel, worn pale from four years of use. Bob was wearing Graeme's shoes.

The shoes that left Graeme's footprints at the barn. The shoes that went missing when Rachel disappeared.

Stride stood frozen, his brain trying frantically to catch up with the reality in front of his eyes.

A moment later, he knew.

It had been a frame-up all along. Rachel stole Graeme's shoes. They were in the plastic bag she carried from the house. And that man-the dead man under the sheet-wore them. He had been there that night in Duluth.

Stride leaped up, running across the crusted ground, startling the attendants with the stretcher. He ripped the sheet down, revealing Bob's face, his dead eyes still wide open.

"Hey, what the hell!" the orderly complained.

Stride felt the man grab his shoulder, and he wrenched away. He bent down, inches from Bob's face. The odor of death, blood, and waste wormed into his nostrils. He stared at Bob, hunting for the truth. I know you.

He whirled around, seeing Serena out of the corner of his eye. He could feel her reading his thoughts, seeing his fear. Thank God, she didn't say anything, didn't react She pulled her eyes away before the other cops turned his way.

Right behind him, a voice said, "You okay, man?"

"Cordy!" Stride hissed. He dragged the young detective away and got in his face. "You said there was an old photograph. Before he looked like this. Do you have it?"

"What, of the dead guy? Sure, sure, man. Lavender gave it to me. Figured we could sweat him with it."

"Let me see it."

Cordy dug a plastic evidence bag out of his loose pants pocket, and Stride grabbed it out of his hand. The glare of the sun blinded him. He squinted and couldn't see through the plastic. Not hesitating, Stride tore it open and threw the bag away.

"Fuck it, you can't-" Cordy began, but stopped when he saw Stride's face.

Stride held the photo as if it were on fire.

"No, no, no, no," he murmured, not believing what he saw, feeling his mind spin out of control, and wishing the dry cracks in the desert earth would split apart and swallow him up.

Stride took a sip of cold coffee from a Styrofoam cup. His impatience was growing.

He stared through the floor-length windows and watched tourists wilting in the heat as they scurried between rows of rental cars. The thunder of another plane landing at McCarran rumbled overhead, rattling the walls. He saw the early evening shadows lengthening minute by minute.

The glass door banged. One of the rental agents waddled in, sweating, from the huge parking lot. Her thick fingers clutched a plastic clipboard.

"How long?" Stride called.

The agent stopped and propped her hands on her hips. Her bare ebony midriff ballooned from between powder blue sweatpants and a white concert T-shirt. "Do I look psychic to you? I told you, they were due in two hours ago."

"Do the guys outside know to hold it?" Stride asked. "I don't want them cleaning the car before we get to it."

"Tan Cavalier, Texas plates." She rattled off the license number. "Soon as it comes in, you get first crack at it, honey. So sit tight."

She disappeared into the back office behind the counter.

Serena sat nearby on a metal chair, her elbows propped on her knees. Her black hair fell messily across her face. She pushed herself up wearily and came up behind Stride, kneading the knotted muscles in his neck.

She leaned forward and whispered, "We don't have to do this."

"I do. I need to know."

Serena sighed. "Whatever you want."

Stride knew she was right. It was better to walk away. He knew what they would find when the car came in, and when he had the truth, he would wish he had left the mystery back in the desert to die with Bob.

But he couldn't stop. The photograph had led him here. From the desert to the airport to the rental agency, following the trail that had been left for him. It was so obvious that he wondered if it had all been laid out that way for him to find.

Serena borrowed his cup of coffee, took a drink, and made a face. "Oh, man. Two words for you, Jonny. Star. Bucks."

Stride couldn't help but smile.

"That's better," she said.

"Look, you don't need to worry about me," Stride told her. "I'll be fine. You've got your own shit to deal with."

"You mean, because I killed a guy? Because I just spent six hours reliving it five hundred times with IA? Just a day in the life."

"Ha."

Serena shrugged. "They'll make me talk to a shrink. It'll be like old times. I'll cry later." She looked down at her shoes, which were still dirty with dust and blood. "You want the truth, Jonny? It was easy. Too easy."