Dominion

by Greg F. Gifune

  “I’m not criticizing you, man. I’m only trying to help.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it. Even if it sometimes seems like I don’t.”

  “You should probably tell the cops about this.”

  “What am I supposed to tell them? Some guy called and asked about my wife?”

  “Well, with the circumstances around Lindsay’s death and all, yeah, why not? That dude was garbage, who knows what other kind of shit he might’ve been connected to?”

  Daniel had spent months trying to erase the pictures of the man who had run her down from his mind. “I could be wrong but I don’t think this had anything to do with the guy that…” He attempted to finish the sentence but could only manage a slight choking sound.

  “It probably doesn’t,” Bryce said. “But it is possible.”

  “What if this guy on the phone was from Ohio but visited here at some point, or comes here on business maybe?” The idea grew stronger and more specific in his mind. “What if he knew or came across Lindsay somehow, but didn’t realize she’d died?”

  “Could be, I guess. Hit and runs happen all the time all over the country, it’s not like Lindsay’s death made the national news, and it sure as hell wouldn’t have run in Ohio either.”

  “Maybe he saw it on the news before he left the state. Her name was released two days after it happened. He could’ve still been here. It also made the Globe, the Herald and a handful of smaller newspapers in the suburbs.”

  “OK,” Bryce said patiently, “but you’re forgetting something. They announced on the news and in those articles that she’d been killed. So if he saw the news reports here, he would’ve known she was already dead. Shit, even if he knows her somehow or meets her or whatever and he leaves the state before she’s killed, why would he call months later and say she’s alive? Why call and taunt you like that? He could’ve just asked for Lindsay, or better yet, if he did know her, why not just call her cell or work number? Why call the house at all? No, sounds to me like this guy—whoever he is—was purposely fucking with you for some reason.”

  Daniel felt himself deflate. Bryce was right. “Who the hell would do this?”

  “Doesn’t matter, the bottom line is you’ve got no idea who this guy is. You don’t know what he wants or what he might know. Could be nothing, could be important. And that’s why you should probably think about telling the cops.”

  “God Almighty,” Daniel sighed, “what next?”

  “Is there some reason why you don’t want the cops to know?” When Daniel offered no response, Bryce reached across the short distance separating them and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you haven’t been cool with going to talk to somebody about all this, but maybe you really should look into that.”

  Daniel stood up. “You think I imagined this?”

  “Did I say that? I only meant maybe you should see someone and—”

  “Why does everyone keep throwing that at me?” He suddenly felt suffocated in the cramped office. “For Christ’s sake, my wife’s dead. I’ve lost the love of my life and I’m trying to get my head around it and figure out how the hell I’m supposed to live without her and now I’ve got this bullshit going on. Some guy calling me and saying she’s still alive and all you can say is, I should go see a fucking shrink?”

  “Calm down.” Bryce stood as well. “Take a couple deep breaths. I also said you should call the police. If you don’t want to do that or go see a shrink then don’t. Do whatever you think is best, all right? But…”

  “But what?”

  “But do something. There are things you need to face, Danny, things you need to work through somehow. You can’t spend the rest of your life pretending they’re not there or that they’ll all just go away on their own. You understand what I’m saying to you?”

  The anger in Daniel’s face and posture slowly dissipated, and eventually he nodded and looked away. “You’re right, I…”

  “Look, Marie’s working until closing tonight,” Bryce said, rescuing him. “Forecast on the news this morning called for a few inches of snow before nightfall, so it’ll be slow today. Nothing she can’t handle by herself, and besides, if anything monumental happens, she can always get me on my cell.” He leaned over and switched the lamp on his desk off, further darkening the already dim room. “Let’s get the hell out of here and go get some coffee. We’ll hang out a while then go have something to eat, maybe a couple drinks. How’s that sound?”

  “I don’t know if I’m up for it.”

  “Well get up for it.” Bryce smiled and slapped him playfully on the back. “Come on, what you need is food and hooch. We’ll go get fat and drunk then kick back at your place for a while and figure out your best move from here. And who knows, that prick might call again.”

  “And if he does?”

  Bryce’s smile slipped away. “Then we’ll be ready for him.”

  FIVE

  It was nearly eight o’clock by the time Daniel and Bryce returned to the brownstone. The snow had started a few hours before, showering the city with beautiful fluffy flakes, but the storm had been a delicate affair to that point, with accumulation amounting to virtually nothing.

  They had gone to one of their favorite coffee shops a few doors down from the bookstore then hit a bar on Beacon Street. Eventually they grabbed a taxi and headed to the North End for dinner at an Italian restaurant they’d gone to numerous times in the past. Bryce attempted to keep it light throughout, and Daniel knew he’d purposely not brought up the phone call or anything even remotely related to Lindsay the entire time. Though at various points in the evening it made for awkward silences or forced small talk, Daniel followed suit and did his best to let it all go, if only for a little while. But the moment they walked through the brownstone door it all began to creep back, an elephant hiding in the corner they could no longer ignore or pretend wasn’t there.

  While Bryce made his way directly to the bathroom, Daniel checked the answering machine and caller ID for any messages or incoming calls.

  Both were empty.

  With equal parts disappointment and relief, he stood staring at the digital zero on the answering machine, mind still working a number of scenarios.

  “Trying to will the phone to ring?”

  Daniel turned and saw Bryce standing in the kitchen doorway. “No calls.”

  With a nod, Bryce went to the freezer and pulled out a full ice tray. “Then since I just made room in my bladder, I say we continue drinking heavily and with total disregard for our health or general welfare.”

  Both men had several drinks throughout the course of their outing, and though neither were drunk, neither was now entirely sober either. They left the kitchen and made their way to the living room, where in one corner there resided a modestly stocked caddy-style bar. It had been a gift several Christmases ago from Lindsay, but since her death Daniel hadn’t kept it up as he had in the past.

  A vision of Lindsay pushing it into the living room on Christmas Eve flashed through his mind. He remembered the big red ribbons she’d tied to it, and how she’d been wearing the same silly Santa hat she insisted on wearing every year. And he remembered her eyes, so beautiful and full of love.

  Daniel moved to one of the windows on the far wall, turning his back to hide the pain on his face.

  Bryce selected a bottle of vodka and two glasses then broke the ice cubes loose from the tray and began making them drinks. “Still going to your sister’s place for Thanksgiving?”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said absently.

  “I’m going to my parents—always a joy.”

  Daniel watched the snowflakes beyond the window without comment. It was so beautiful out there, he thought. It had no right.

  “I’m not really into it, but if I don’t go I’ll never hear the end of it,” Bryce said. “So I’ll just have to suffer through one more year of explaining why I haven’t remarried yet. Then even before dinner ends we move on to criticizing me for giving up my job to open the boo
kstore. By the time everyone’s done eating and the second football game comes on, my mother bitches at me from the kitchen while she does the dishes—gifted multi-tasker that she is—and my father becomes one with his favorite recliner, falls asleep and proceeds to snore and fart for the remainder of the day. Oh yeah, it’s a treat. I’d sell tickets if I thought I could get away with it.”

  “Are you bringing the kids this year?” Daniel asked.

  Bryce had been divorced for a little over five years, and though the divorce had taken quite a toll on him, he saw his children as often as possible, and it seemed to Daniel that he remained a good father. His parents still lived in the western part of the state, where he’d been born and raised.

  “No, Maggie’s doing a big spread so they’re staying home with her.” He walked to the window, handed Daniel his drink. “Just as well, really. Kids should be home for Thanksgiving, and that’s their home, there with their mother.”

  Daniel took the drink. “You know Lindsay and I were less than three years away?”

  “From what?”

  “Having our own kids,” he said quietly. “Lindsay always wanted children—we both did—but she wanted to get her career solidified first. We agreed that thirty-five would be the cutoff. Whether our careers were exactly where we wanted them or not, by the time we were thirty-five, she’d be pregnant. My parents were older when I was born, and I knew if we waited any longer than that we’d be too old to enjoy them. Sometimes, when I think about what happened, I realize it wasn’t only Lindsay’s life that was stolen, but my chance at being a father too, and her chance at being a mother. Christ, I’m mourning children I never even had.”

  Both men were quiet a while, sipping their drinks and watching the snowfall.

  “I know you’re still too close to this—hell everyone is—but it’ll get better, Danny. Eventually, it will, trust me. The pain you’re feeling now, it’ll—”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said, raising his glass to him. “Thanks.” He knew Bryce meant well, and though he hated to admit it, he was probably right. In the weeks right after Lindsay’s death Daniel had barely been able to function at all, and though he was still wracked with pain, getting through each day had become somewhat easier. He still had a long way to go, and he realized he might not ever reach his ultimate destination, but if nothing else he knew he could count on Bryce to be there for him if need be. Of course he also knew this had been very difficult for Bryce as well. After all, Bryce had known Lindsay nearly as long as Daniel had, and he’d loved her as a friend for years. They’d been best men at each others weddings and an ongoing part of each other’s lives for more than a decade. They’d all once socialized as couples, until Bryce and Maggie’s divorce, when Daniel and Lindsay took Bryce in and helped him to start again. He’d lived with them for almost a month before he accepted the fact that he and Maggie would not be reconciling. When he got his own place, he still spent most of his time at Daniel and Lindsay’s home, and though they had been friendly with Maggie as well, and bore her no ill will during or after the divorce, both were closer to Bryce than they were to her, and it was that friendship that continued. Daniel remembered numerous long nights helping Bryce get through it all, and how Lindsay had several long talks with Bryce right after the divorce as well. They’d both done their best to help him heal, to support him and to be there for him, and now Bryce was trying to do the same for him. Still, it often seemed Bryce was never sure what he should do or say, what his exact role should be or how he should advise his oldest friend—if at all, and Daniel couldn’t fault him for that. But he simply could not yet consider life beyond Lindsay, or anything even remotely resembling true happiness without her.

  Bryce raised his glass and gently tapped Daniel’s. He opened his mouth, as if to make a toast, but seemed to think better of it and instead brought his glass back to his lips and took a long sip.

  After a lengthy silence, Daniel said, “I know I need to face and deal with some things about that night. I keep telling myself that eventually I’ll be able to.”

  “Danny, listen to me.” Bryce finished his drink with surprising speed then strode back to the bar for another. “First of all, give yourself a break. It’s only been a few months since Lindsay was killed.”

  Killed. How Daniel hated that word. Every time he heard it a flood of hideous images entered his mind and refused to leave. Pictures of Lindsay—so small and delicate—smashed and destroyed and dead in the street, left there like trash.

  “In some ways you’re doing remarkably well,” Bryce said. “I’m just saying that the longer you let these things sit and fester the worse they’re going to get. I know you’ll never totally heal, but at some point you need to at least stop the bleeding.”

  Bleeding was the perfect analogy, Daniel thought, because that’s exactly what it felt like, as if he were slowly bleeding to death, and all the life, hope and passion that had once resided within him was gradually slipping free, spiraling off into nothingness. So much smoke from a recently snuffed candle, he thought, trace remnants of what had once been flame slipping through his fingers, as impossible to capture and hold as a gust of wind. “No matter what I do, Bryce, nothing can ever free me from this.”

  “I don’t think anyone who knew Lindsay will ever be free of it either. I miss her too. I always will.”

  Daniel turned from the window. The look of pain on his old friend’s face was unmistakable. It reminded him of the wake, when at one point he’d emerged from his own agony long enough to see the devastation played out across the faces of Lindsay’s parents, and how that realization made him feel something akin to guilt. He sometimes behaved as though the real point of Lindsay’s death—if not principally the only point—had been the effect it had on him, and moments like these forced him to realize that his pain, while specific and uniquely his own (he was, after all, her husband) was neither singular nor something experienced in a void. And what about her, what about Lindsay herself? She was the one that lost her life. She was the one that had been murdered. No matter what amount of pain he or anyone else experienced, at least they were still alive to feel it. Lindsay was dead and buried. She’d never feel anything again.

  “Can I ask you something flat out, Bryce?”

  “You can ask me anything.” He looked at the glass in his hand as if he’d only just realized it was there. “Come on, it’s me.”

  Daniel joined him at the bar. “What do you think she was doing there that night?”

  “What do you think she was doing there?”

  “Cut the shit and answer the question.”

  “I’m serious,” Bryce insisted. “You tell me.”

  Daniel powered down the remainder of his drink in the hopes that it might elicit the courage he needed to continue. “You said I needed to deal with these things.”

  Bryce began mixing himself another drink. “I was thinking more along the lines of you talking to a professional. I’m not sure I’m qualified to—”

  “Goddamn it, I don’t need a fucking doctor!” Daniel slammed his empty glass onto the bar with such force it partially spilled Bryce’s fresh drink. “I need a friend I can trust to level with me. That’s what I need right now.”

  “Yeah, that and a Valium drip,” Bryce muttered. “Christ.”

  Daniel grabbed a rag from one of the bar handles, wiped up the mess then tossed it aside. It landed on a nearby couch. “It’s just, don’t tell me I need to face things and then get cutesy when I try to.”

  “Fine, I’m sorry, all right?” Bryce took a long pull from what was left of his drink. “Let’s go over what we know for sure then. Give me the rundown.”

  The list was fresh in Daniel’s mind. He’d run it through his head a million times since Lindsay’s death. “We know Lindsay’s car was parked at the mall by itself in a space on the highway side because that’s where it was found,” he began. “We know there were four lanes of state highway there, two going one direction then a median strip followed by two more lan
es going in the opposite direction. We know the approximate time of the incident was between nine-thirty and nine-forty-five. We know the police determined that Lindsay had been crossing back to the mall parking lot when she was struck, not crossing away from it to the strip mall on the other side. We know the police told me that the section of parking lot her car was found in is one of the few areas not monitored by mall surveillance video. Far as everyone knows, there was only one eyewitness to the crime, a passing motorist on the opposite side from where she was found called 911 but didn’t actually stop and was never identified, never came forward.”

  “People see crimes and turn their back every day, nobody wants to get involved,” Bryce said. “At least the guy had the decency to make the call. If it hadn’t been for him they probably still wouldn’t know who did it.”

  Daniel nodded. That motorist had gotten a partial plate listing on the car that hit Lindsay, and that, coupled with some paint from the car they recovered from her body, allowed the police to identify and match the car that hit her. Eventually, that led them to find the man responsible. “Except for that one witness,” he said, “that stretch of highway was empty when it happened.”

  “Right, or if anybody else did see it, they didn’t report it.”

  “Regardless, the mall closes at nine, so it was already shut down for almost an hour when this happened. And by then the little strip mall across the street would’ve been closed too. Traffic in that area would’ve been minimal.” He captured a small bit of ice from his drink and chewed it noisily. “So, for whatever reason, Lindsay parked her car at the mall, walked across four lanes of highway then at some point turned around and walked back.”

  Visions of sitting in this very room that night, waiting for Lindsay to come home, invaded Daniel’s memories. He’d used his laptop a few moments earlier, and then he’d opened the Chinese food and had just begun watching television when that awful phone call came. He slammed shut his eyes until it all faded to black. “What the hell was she doing there?”