James Patterson - Murder House

After a while, the pressure comes off his chest, and he is being tugged by all four limbs. Then he is lifted off the ground and thrown down onto one of the large woodworking tables.

“Keep his arms out, boys,” one of them says. Noah is hardly conscious as his arms are spread out, palms up. Men climb onto the table and sit on each of his forearms, while two others sit on his shins. He is completely pinned down.

By the time he feels the prick of the nail on the palm of his hand, he is unable to even cry out. He looks through the fog, through the tiny slits of his eyes, and sees Eric Wheaton poising the nail over his right hand, a hammer raised above his head.

When the hammer comes down on the nail, it’s like a drilling rig finding oil, blood spurting into the air. Noah lets out an animal cry and his eyes go to the ceiling. They do quick work of it, nailing both hands to the wooden tabletop, while Noah focuses on a single thought.

Let me die, he prays.

“Almost ready, babe?”

I flip the page, then flip back, reading through police reports and investigation summaries and cross-referencing trial transcripts.

“Babe?”

“Um. Yeah. Almost ready.”

Well, not so much. I’m sitting on the bed, feet up, doing work. But I can get ready fast.

Matty pokes his head into the room. He’s wearing a new Hugo Boss sport coat and cologne of the same label. His hair is freshly slicked back from his shower.

“What are you doing? You haven’t even showered?”

“No, I — sorry,” I say. “Just reading.”

“Reading what? Christ, Murphy, do you ever stop working? And that comes from someone who works on Wall Street.” He walks over to the bed, where I’m sitting with the transcript on my lap. Matty reaches for the stack of paper I’m reading, revealing the solid-gold cuff links on his sleeves.

“This is the guy who killed your uncle? The ‘Surfer Jesus’ guy?”

“Yeah.” I look up at him. “Just checking something.”

“Checking what? That guy went down, what, four months ago? What is there to check?”

I shrug. “There was a shooting at Bridgehampton School a long time ago. Halloween of ninety-five.”

“And that has what to do with what?”

“Noah was arrested for it.”

“Noah,” he says. “Now you’re on a first-name basis with the guy.”

“I pulled the file yesterday,” I say. “Let me run this by you, okay?”

“Hurry.” Now he’s at the bedroom mirror above the dresser, checking himself over, fixing the collar of his new shirt.

“Fifteen people were shot that day in the southern playground,” I say. “Noah was on the east end of the yard, by the trees. Of the fifteen shot, about eight of them were hit within thirty feet of where he was standing with his BB gun.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Another seven were walking up to the school but farther away, farther west.”

“Oh. Okay.” He smoothes his hair, looks himself over once more, and reaches a favorable conclusion.

“They were more like sixty, seventy feet away. One of the kids on the farther west end, a kid named Darryl Friese, took a BB in his eye.”

“Yeah? Wow.”

“His left eye.”

Matty doesn’t answer. He walks into the bathroom and runs the water. When he walks back out, wiping his face with a hand towel, he nods at me.

“You still aren’t in the shower,” he says.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Sure I am.”

I’m tempted to ask him what I said. But that would embarrass both of us.

“If Darryl Friese was walking north up to the school, and Noah was shooting from the east, how did he hit Darryl on the left side of the face?”

Matty tosses his shoulders. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care, either. He finishes with the towel and gives me a sideways glance. “I’ve seen this guy Noah on TV,” he says. “Handsome dude. Should I be jealous?”

“Matty—”

“Who’s better-looking, him or me?” he asks.

“Are you kidding me?”

He points at me. “That’s a nonanswer. You think that guy’s got something on me? He doesn’t make seven figures, does he? C’mon, Murphy, give it up,” he says, grabbing my ankle. “You like that guy more than me?”

I move my leg, forcing his hand off my ankle. I get off the bed and walk out of the room. He follows me down the hallway.

“What? I was listening. But Murphy, what’s your deal? That thing was a lifetime ago. I mean, I know you miss your uncle, and I’m sorry and all that—”

“That’s very sweet of you,” I deadpan.

“—but seriously, you gotta snap out of this. You’re turning into a real drag.”

I stop and spin on him. “Am I?”

“Yeah, you wanna know the truth. You are.”

I take a step toward him. “This is the guy who killed my uncle. I’m trying to understand him.”

“Why? You trying to get closure or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, can you get ‘closure’ when we don’t have reservations at Quist in... now it’s twenty-four minutes,” he says, checking his watch.

“I can still get ready,” I say.

“Yeah, you’ll wash your hair and tie it into a ponytail and throw on something too casual for where we’re going. God forbid you try to look hot when I’m in town. God forbid you put on some makeup and spend more than two minutes on your hair. You’re this... you’re the hottest woman I know, but it’s like you don’t give a shit about that.”

I narrow my eyes to get a better look at this man named Matt Queenan. “I don’t give a shit about that,” I say. “Did you just figure that out?”

“Y’know, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, princess.” He wags a finger at me. “A lot of women would want to look hot for me. You think I don’t get overtures all the time? Every day? You think there aren’t a dozen women who’d jump at the chance to date me?”

“Oh, I’m sure there are hundreds, ” I say, not hiding my sarcasm. “You’re the great Matty Queenan! You make seven figures a year! Why don’t you go find one of those women tonight?”

I return to the bedroom. As I pass him, he grabs my arm. “You know what, I think I will,” he says through his teeth.

I yank my arm free and give him a forearm shiver to the chest. “Don’t grab my arm.”

“Don’t fucking push me,” he says, knocking me back into the wall.

My Irish up now, I lean in and punch him right in the kisser, connecting with his teeth and feeling his jaw crunch. “Is that better?”

He stumbles backward, unprepared, touching his mouth and then checking his fingers, finding blood. “You fucking bitch . Nobody hits me.”

I shrug. “Hit the road, Matty,” I say. “Or I’ll hit you again, a lot harder.”

“Yeah?”

He moves at me, but I feint toward him and he backs off. He’s a lightweight. He knows I could take him. He couldn’t handle the embarrassment.

“Have a nice life in this shithole town with your shithole job,” he says, turning to leave. “I’ll have another date by the time I get back to Manhattan.”

After Matty drives away, I throw on a baseball cap and head to my car. I don’t feel like being around here, smelling his lingering cologne, thinking of him. My nerves are still rattled, but I know, in my heart, that I wasn’t going anywhere with him. It was going to happen sooner or later.

I try to avoid the knowledge, also buried deep within, that I’m probably not going anywhere with any guy, that I’m not cut out for a relationship. I always rolled my eyes at the cliché of the cop who’s married to the job, but now I can see the merits of the stereotype. It’s not that I don’t care about anything besides my job — it’s that the job doesn’t let you leave. You see death and misery and suffering, and you don’t just click that off when you go home; it doesn’t wash off in the shower or vanish with a lover’s embrace. You are polluted, toxic, and so you hold back so you don’t infect someone else with the poison. You keep part of yourself segregated, hidden.