“You pick up his feet.” Reznick went to the head and scooted the rolled-up body around so it was lying across the pier. “Okay, you ready?”
Anna went to the foot of the bundle. She bent her knees, clutched the canvas, tried to lift it. With a big grunt, she tried again. She could only raise the legs. Reznick raised his end. The middle sagged.
“C’mon,” he said, “we’ve gotta be able to give it a little swing.”
They both tried harder and managed to raise the middle just a bit, just enough to swing it back and forth a couple times before tossing it in. They did not toss it far.
Reznick quickly swept up the flashlight and turned it on, sent the beam searching for the bundle, found it.
The current of the Sacramento River swept the rolled-up body away and twirled it around for a long moment. For just that moment, it danced on the water’s surface, bobbing up and down and spinning around like a wobbly top.
Reznick’s gut became icy and frozen. For a moment, he was afraid the body was not going to go down.
Then, as if suddenly realizing it was too heavy to float, it sank out of sight and disappeared as if it had never been there.
Reznick bent down, picked up the knife, and threw it hard out into the river.
They returned to the trailer in unit five and Reznick locked the door and pulled it closed, then closed the screen. He carried the duffle bag in which he’d put the flashlight and the wet, bloody gloves, and duct tape.
“I hope Kendra’s not awake,” she whispered.
“What are you going to tell her if she is?” Reznick said. “How are you going to explain the fact that you’re covered with caked blood?”
She sighed. “I have no idea.” She turned to him, fidgeting nervously and wearing a deep frown. “Look, Marc… I-I can’t thank you enough. What you’ve done… you’ve saved my life.”
“We’ll see. You’ve got one thing in your favor. He runs a bunch of porn websites, and he takes pictures and videos of a lot of women. Porn pictures and videos. He could have been the victim of any angry husband or boyfriend, or even an angry woman. The field of possible killers is big. They’re liable to talk to you, the cops. They’ll talk to everyone in the park. You’ll just have to keep your cool when they do.”
“Yeah. I… hope I can.”
“Well, I think we’re through for the night, Anna.”
She released a long, trembling sigh. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me. You owe me big-time after this. And one day soon, I’ll collect.”
Reznick could not tell for sure in the dark, but it seemed a curious frown passed over her face.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, if you say so.”
Reznick turned to go back to his trailer to close up his shed, throw away his bloody work gloves, and take a long hot shower.
Anna went to her trailer. The door was still open. She looked through the screen door and listened.
Kendra was still lying on the couch, snoring softly.
Dexter stood at the door, scratching on the screen.
Anna opened the screen and let Dexter out. He dashed down the steps and went out in the yard. Anna waited while he did his business. When the dog was finished, he came back up the steps and went inside, and Anna followed him.
She quietly went through the living room and hurried to the bedroom. She found a clean tank top and pair of shorts, then went to the bathroom. She pulled the shower curtain aside, reached in, and turned on the shower. Then she turned and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink.
She looked like something out of a horror film. She looked like Carrie after the prom. She looked almost as if she had bathed in blood. It was all over her. Her T-shirt hung on her, heavy with blood. Her hair was matted with it. It covered her face like some kind of exotic cosmetic mask. It was on her arms, and when she looked down, she saw it on her legs. It was caked now, thick on her, like a second sticky skin.
Anna wondered what she was going to do with the clothes. If she had a fireplace, she would burn them. Instead, she would put them in a bag, then put the bag in a garbage bag, and put them in the bottom of the big green garbage can outside.
She peeled the clothes off of her like dead skin. When she got into the shower, the hot water felt so good, she started crying again. But she cried silently. She pressed her lips together until they were white and held back the sobs, still unable to believe what she had done that night, that she had taken a life.
But he had deserved it, she felt no differently about that.
The blood looked black in the bottom of the shower as it swirled around the drain and was sucked out of sight.
Afterward, she dried off with a towel and put the tank top and shorts on. She looked at the flip-flops – they would have to go, too, because they were coated with blood. She went to the kitchen barefoot and got a brown paper bag from under the sink, took it to the bathroom, and stuffed the clothes and flip-flops into it. She went into her bedroom. There was a stapler in the top drawer of her night stand. She got it, folded the top of the brown bag over, and stapled it closed. She replaced the stapler, slipped into her slippers by the bed, and took the bag outside and put it in the big garbage can. Back inside, she went to the kitchen and took the mostly full white garbage bag from the can under the sink. She tied the bag closed, then went to the bathroom and got the garbage in there. She carried the bags out to the green garbage can outside and dropped them in on top of the brown bag containing her bloody clothes.
Back in the trailer, she got herself a beer. She stood by the open refrigerator, enjoying the chill from it, as she drank it.
It felt good to be so clean again. But she was still stained. It was a stain that would never go away. It was the stain of having slid a blade into a man’s gut again and again. The stain of spilling his blood. The stain of ending his life, no matter what he had done to deserve it. She suspected that stain would never go away. Part of it was now knowing how it felt to stick a blade into a man. She could feel it now – the blade pressing the flesh, then piercing it, then sliding in deep, then being twisted. It was a feeling like no other, and it would be with her forever.
She thanked God for Marc Reznick.
But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me, he’d said. You owe me big-time after this. And one day, I may collect.
Anna wondered what he’d meant by that. How did he expect to collect? Did he expect her to give him money? What did she have that he would want? Her? Did he mean he would want to sleep with her? It was the only thing she could think of that he could be implying. She decided she would not be averse to such an arrangement. Marc was a handsome man, and if he wanted to sleep with her, she would not argue or complain. The more she thought about it, the more she decided that was probably what he meant.
“Mommy?”
Anna closed the refrigerator and went into the living room.
“What, honey?” she said.
“Mommy, my finger hurts.” Kendra was sitting up on the couch and her face was tightly screwed up in a look of pain. She held her left wrist with her right hand. “It’s throbbin’ real bad and making my whole hand hurt.”
“Well, it’s been awhile since you’ve had a couple pills. Let’s get you a couple more, okay?”
“Okay.”
The orange bottle was on the kitchen table. Anna went to it and shook out a couple pills. Then she put them in her pocket and went to the counter. She took a slice of bread from the loaf, put it in the toaster, and pressed the lever on the side.
“I’m gonna make you a piece of toast to eat with the pills so you don’t get sick, okay, hon?”