Nothing. He already has more than any jury would need to convict.
Are you sure? Are you really that sure? Or are the pills fucking with you?
He flicks his cigarette butt toward the fireplace, only managing to get half the distance required. He pulls out the packet and lights another. He’s sick of this. He wants to go home. Wants to retire. Wants never to have heard of Charlie Feldman. “I want to hear it in your own words.”
“Hear what?”
He sucks in a deep breath. The air is cold and tastes of mildew and cigarette smoke. “Just tell me the truth. Things’ll be easier on both of us. We can get this over with.”
“I’ve been telling you the truth.”
“Which one of them did it to you, Feldman? Which woman was the lucky one to give you that nice bruise on your forehead?”
“Look, Detective, what you’re doing is crazy. Think about it. You’ve brought me-”
“Shut up, Feldman,” he says.
“Just think about what-”
“Are you deaf? The comic deaf man? Is that it?”
Jesus, why is he even bothering looking for a confession? He ought to just do what he came out here to do. Go home. Get drunk. Sleep it off. Get drunk again in the morning. Get drunk every morning between now and the end. Staying drunk might turn all of this into a very bad dream.
“What about the door to my house?” Feldman asks. “You know somebody broke in. You know somebody trashed my room. Why would I cut her breast off and leave it on my bed? Why would I let you inside knowing that? If I was going to kill somebody I’d hide all the evidence.”
“I’m the one who broke into your house, Feldman.”
Feldman cocks his head and pulls back a little. “What? You did all that?”
“I broke in last night. Your house was fine. You must have come back after then and done all that damage. And you wanted a souvenir, Feldman. Your type always does. And your type is always so Goddamn cocky you never think we’re going to show up.”
“Why would I trash my own house?”
“Because you knew we would find you. You trashed it in an effort to draw attention away from yourself. You think by saying all this nonsense it diverts suspicion away from you. That’s what you were counting on if you ever got caught. Come on, Feldman, I’m getting sick and tired of your bullshit.”
“You’re saying-”
“Here’s what I know, Feldman. I know you’ve lied to me. You told me you didn’t know these two women when you did. You told me you weren’t at their homes when you were. You have a stake similar to the kind used on them. You have a body part in your house. Your clothes were covered in blood. You admitted that you kidnapped your wife. Your name and phone number was found on a notepad next to one of the victims. Only they weren’t victims, were they, Feldman? They deserved it. They mocked you or rejected you or looked at you funny. Or did they simply forget to smile when you stood in line behind them at the supermarket?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
“What?”
“You keep saying you’ll hear me out, but you won’t. You have your mind made up.”
“I said I’d hear you out, and I have. I didn’t say I was going to believe whatever bullshit you came up with.”
“I’m not going to confess to something I didn’t do,” Feldman says, “and that’s what you want to hear, isn’t it, so you don’t have to feel so guilty about shooting me. It’s not going to happen. I didn’t hurt those women. My wife is safe. If you’re waiting for me to tell you what you want to hear, then you’re wasting your time. I’m not playing your game anymore. You may as well go ahead and do whatever it is you came out here to do.”
“Fair enough,” he says. He stands up and points the shotgun at Feldman. Think, Goddamn it, think. You’re a police officer, your job is to uphold the law. Is that what you’re doing? It is? Well, why don’t you take a look at yourself?
Keeping the shotgun level he moves to the door and slides it open. The cold wind sweeps into the cabin, chilling Landry to the bone. It chills his mind too, and in these few frozen seconds he hates himself for what he’s going to do before the night is over.
No. No, no, no. He’s gone through this already, he’s gone through this and justified it.
Sure you’ve justified it. But you’re hiding something too, aren’t you? The change of clothes. The Bible. You knew where tonight was always going to go. It’s not that you came out here with no plan. You came out here with a bad one.
He looks over at Feldman. The anger is starting to return, but not all of it is directed at this murderer, yet to direct some of it at himself is detrimental. He hates Feldman. He hates Feldman because all of this is his fault. He hates Feldman for forcing him to do this.
Worst of all, he hates himself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
There’s no blood on my chair or on any of the walls or on the pine-needle stained glass door, so maybe Landry was telling the truth when he said he hasn’t been out here since finding the dead girl in the bathtub. Or maybe he’s lying and isn’t in the habit of shooting people indoors. Things would be easier for him if he took me for a walk in the woods.
“You’re going to feel empty when Cyris is found,” I say, looking up at him. “You’ll never be able to forgive yourself for killing an innocent man. Will you turn yourself in when that happens?”
He doesn’t answer me, just stands next to the door with both hands on the shotgun. The look on his face suggests he doesn’t want to be out here either. The gun reminds me that I’m just a homicide in progress, tomorrow’s statistic, I’ll be a story in the news. Read all about me. My heart is pumping so loudly I can barely hear the rain. My stomach is so weak the fluids inside have created a cesspool of fear that makes me want to throw up and soil myself at the same time.
I’m going to die.
It’s the worst knowledge anybody can ever have, even though we know it all our lives. We just don’t know when-but when you do know when it’s a lot worse. Especially when that time is only a few minutes away.
“Come on, Feldman. It’s time to go,” he says, and he’s the one who sounds as if he’s been defeated.
I try to get to my feet, but the angle of the chair and the way I’m buried in it makes things difficult, as do the handcuffs. The springs in the chair cut into me as I wiggle forward. I fall back into the chair on the first attempt, and I look up at Landry expecting him to either be laughing, or be mad, but he’s neither. He’s just staring at me the way people stare at movie credits they’re not really reading. When I finally get to my feet I’m puffing, but it’s too cold in here to sweat. He gestures me toward the door where I pause looking out at what Mother Nature has to offer me on my final night, which isn’t much. The wind is racing in and gripping us both tightly. My legs are shaking from fear and cold and my teeth are starting to chatter.
“No jacket?” I ask.
“I’m sure you can survive without one.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the funny one.”
He thinks about what he’s just said, then shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Can I at least make an appeal?”
“Yes.”
“Then I want to say-”
“Appeal denied,” he says. He reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes. He offers me one.
I didn’t say it before, but I say it now. “Those things will kill you.”
He smirks at my comment, then slowly shakes his head. “Goddamn it, Feldman, don’t you ever shut up?”
“I can’t help it,” I hear myself saying, and I really can’t. “But I guess now’s as good a time as any to try one.”
He tosses me a cigarette and I hurt my wrists plucking it from the air. I’ll smoke the whole lot if it will buy me some time. “Light?”
He throws the lighter. This guy is taking no chances. He’s not going to get anywhere near me. Early in the evening I was intimidated by his authority. Now it’s the gun that demands my respect. I hold the cigarette tightly between my lips, raise the blue lighter, fumble with the catch, then light the end. The flame works, but the cigarette doesn’t.