“It’s here. It’s here. Silent. Waiting. Voices, or a rush. Julie, don’t let it see you. Don’t let it...”
Julie felt her hands dart out and cover her ears. There was the buzzing and behind the buzzing it was like there were whispers and in the whispers was Brenda’s voice, urgent and throbbing, beating like a drum. “Julie, Julie, watch out. Watch out.”
She felt her arms fling out and shove Brenda, who staggered backward and curled into herself, and Julie ran to the bedroom door and saw Bob was sleeping still and the sounds of his breathing were so peaceful. But there was Brenda behind her.
An awful feeling came to her as she watched Bob. She felt like this was something Brenda was doing to Bob. She felt like Brenda might be the dark thing.
“Don’t, Julie,” Brenda was whispering. “Don’t go in. You’ll bring it in there.”
Julie backed up and turned around and her hand swung out and cracked against Brenda’s face and Brenda’s eyes stuttered shut and open and something broke and Brenda paused and Julie stood still, her hand shaking, and the pause stretched and the hurtling look in Brenda’s eyes was gone.
“Julie,” Brenda said. And she didn’t say anything else. There was a coolness in her face, a sudden calm. And there was a knowingness to it, like she could look at Julie and see everything.
“I have to go,” Julie said. “I have to go home now. Don’t I. I have to go home now.”
Brenda stared at her and nodded.
“Do you want to come with me, Brenda? I think you should come with me.”
But Brenda gave a half-smile and turned and walked toward the bedroom. She could see the flash of white sheets as Brenda slipped into bed beside Bob, who let out a forlorn sigh.
Julie grabbed her handbag and walked over, stopping at the bedroom door. “It wasn’t me, Brenda.” She wasn’t even sure what she meant. “I didn’t bring it...” Her voice trailed off.
Brenda, hair falling over her face, lying there, looked at her but didn’t say anything.
It was two weeks later, the day after the murder, when she called the police. Everyone in town was talking about it. Everyone had seen Bob, at all his places. Bob and his friend John, the one the police knew did it. Everyone was getting called in or getting visits. Carl told her to make the call or it could be worse. This was right before Carl started up with the hostess at Bobbie McGee’s and before she got into that new scene, the crowd that hung out at that dance place in Phoenix. The detectives came by and asked a lot of questions. They showed her pictures and it was terrible seeing them. Why do you have to show me these? she said, and seeing him lying there, nearly as she’d left him the week before, lying on his bed, eyes closed, but with that dark mass streaking from him, across the sheets.
For weeks and weeks she replayed it all in her head. It usually started with a dream, and the dream was always the same and it always began with her walking toward him in the Registry lounge, and that look in his eyes, like he was expecting her.
It wasn’t long after that she drove by Brenda’s place and saw new people living there. She asked around at the Safari, the Camelback, Chez Nous, Bogart’s, the modeling agency in Phoenix. One night, a regular at the Registry told her that she’d heard Brenda went to Mexico to make a film and was killed in the desert.
It was his face she remembered, long after. Brenda had said it was so blank, vacant, or transparent, like glass, knocking light and shadows off everyone. Or maybe it was a mirror. But that wasn’t how it was to her. In her head now, he was right before her, his eyes filled with things, cluttered with them, with desperation and darkness and loss and, now she saw it, surrender. It was as if he was waiting for it, for her. She knew that somehow he was.
Author’s note:[1]
Part IV
The cry of the city
Dead by Christmas
by David Corbett
Tempe
I’ll tell you what ruined my marriage, and it wasn’t gambling or drink or chasing skirt. Our son, Donny, was walking home from a friend’s house when a LeSabre blew the stop sign, ran the poor kid down in the street and dragged him twenty yards, then fled the scene.
Seven years old, Donny was. And he fought, or his body fought, half the night, until the ER surgeon came out with that look on his face, to talk with Barb and me.
All I remember of the next two weeks is I went on a mission — horning my way into the loop as every department in the valley tracked down the driver, even tagging along when the arrest came down in Apache Junction. They put two men on me, to make sure I didn’t take my shot as they dragged the guy out. His name was Phil Packer, an insurance adjustor with a DWI sheet ten years long, bench warrants in four counties — he’d been hiding in his girlfriend’s trailer.
After that, every time Packer shuffled into court from lockup for a hearing, I was right there, front row, eye-fucking him and his wash’n’wear lawyer. None of which made a difference, of course, nor was it anything close to what Barb or our baby girl needed from me. That wasn’t part of the mission.
My wife called me out on all that one night — it was late, she’d had a few, her face streaked with mascara from sitting in the dark with a bottomless cocktail and her son’s ghost. Melodie, the baby, lay asleep in her room. I’d been out in the car, driving around, something I did a lot.
Seeing me there, Barb stood up and tottered closer, into the light. Her eyes were puffy and raw. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” She had that tone.
I said, “I had to finish up some work.”
“No. I called. You left hours ago.”
I had a lie ready. “A CI called, he wanted to meet. They didn’t tell you?”
She laughed acidly, inches from my face now. “You’re such a coward.”
Looking back, I think of the things I might’ve done, might’ve said, but all I could come up with in the moment was, “How many have you had?”
“Not nearly enough.” She shoved the glass into my hand, a dare. “You know, Nick, disappearing isn’t the same as dying.”
I remember feeling cold all over. “You’re not talking sense.”
“You’re jealous of Donny.” Her eyes, glistening in the light, turned hard. “Somehow you think staying away is going to make me miss you. The way I miss him. Christ. Are you honestly that pathetic?”
Some scientist should measure the speed at which shame turns into hate. I’ll never forget that sound, never forget the feel of the glass shattering in my hand or the sight of her crumbling in front of me, no matter how much I try. There’s some things “sorry” won’t cure, no matter how many times you say the word, or even how much you mean it.
It’s said that only one in five marriages survives the death of a child, and maybe I should take comfort in the numbers. Regardless, it was my divorce that turned me into a workhorse, not the other way around.
This was the early ’90s and I’d rotated into robbery, great place to get lost, the numbing paperwork, sixteen hour days if you want them. There were four of us from different departments — Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa — meeting once a week to share intel. We’d had twenty restaurant take-downs around the valley the previous six months, all the same guy. He came in at closing, when the back door was propped open by the kitchen crew — that’s when they dragged the rubber mats out to the parking lot for the nightly hose-down. Meanwhile, inside, the money was getting counted and bagged for deposit.
The robber wore dark coveralls, gloves, a ski mask, and he always slipped in and out within minutes, which meant he knew the business. Brandishing a snubnose, he’d prone out the manager, tie him up with plastic cuffs, the kind they use for riot control, then snatch the night deposit. Right before leaving, he’d grab the manager’s wallet, dig out the driver’s license. “You’re gonna say some wetback did this,” he’d whisper. “I know your name. I know where you live.” Even after we found out the guy was white, we still had vics swearing to our faces he was Mexican.
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