Cause of Death

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Cause of Death Page 17

by Laura Dembowski


  “Just give me a straight answer,” I say. “Can’t you do that instead of answering my question with a question? It just feels so vindictive.”

  “I just . . . this whole thing, it’s just been odd. I wanted to be honest with you. I thought you’d appreciate that. I guess I hoped it might make you be honest with me, too.”

  “About killing Lana?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I won’t tell them, if you just admit to me that you did it.”

  I look at the floor and then back up at him, having composed myself enough to answer without sounding like he did just moments ago. He does deserve to know the truth before it’s too late for him.

  “That DNA was from a fight we had,” I say. “That’s it, I swear. I didn’t kill her.”

  “A knock-down, drag-out fight? Come on, Maggie, really?”

  “It happens.”

  “No, Maggie, it doesn’t fucking happen. Not between you two. Not in suburban neighborhoods like this. It doesn’t just happen.”

  “How could you turn your own wife in with no more evidence than a feeling? If I acted on every feeling I had, our lives would be a hell of a lot different.”

  Dave stares at me. He’s making a decision about what to tell me. I’m eager to hear what he has to say, but I know it probably won’t be the truth. Regardless, I’ve made up my mind: We’re done, and so is he.

  “I can’t explain it, Maggie.”

  He sits down on the stairs and starts to sob. The pain he’s managed to keep from the surface pounds back like a vicious migraine. “You killed our baby, our daughter; I know it. You made it look like she hanged herself, but she didn’t. You drugged her and fought with her and then killed her.”

  “There were no drugs in her system,” I say defiantly.

  “Okay, you just suffocated her, watching her fight the whole time until her body went limp in your arms and then you hanged her from the ceiling.” Dave spits on the floor.

  I don’t know what to do or say. I shake. I can’t talk. I sit down on the cold wood floor. I can’t stand anymore. Tears begin flowing from my eyes as well.

  “What have you done to us?” I manage to spit out with rage, sadness, and panic, a terrible combination that when mixed with the salty taste of tears and the bile creeping up my throat makes me feel like I too am dying.

  “It’s not me, Margaret, it’s you. What have you done to us? Huh? What the fuck have you done to us?”

  “What if I didn’t do it? Do you ever think about that?”

  “Then the police will find that out.”

  I manage an angry laugh. “You think the police always find the truth. Are you that stupid?”

  “It was worth the risk. Lana was my everything, and my soul tells me you took her from me. The moment I thought that, I didn’t care what happened to you. I made the best decision for me. The best decision for Lana. To say that I really care what happens to you would be a lie.”

  Suddenly he’s not crying, but I can’t stop. If he has no faith in me, then what chance do I have? It hurts my heart to think that he doesn’t believe me, to think he could believe I killed our daughter, my own flesh and blood. Sure, things with Lana didn’t exactly turn out like I wanted, but that doesn’t mean I killed her.

  I just wanted her to stay in the area. Settle down with a nice man. Have a family. I could be the doting grandma I always thought I would be. Things would be happy, normal, perfect. Lana ruined it all by moving away, and even though she came back, she was starting to pull away again. And in doing so, she clearly got herself into some kind of trouble that she felt she couldn’t tell me and Dave about.

  Dave gets up and continues his walk up the stairs. This conversation doesn’t feel finished, however, and I can’t just let him walk away from me. Not after saying those things. Not after accusing me of murder.

  “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I say softly, not moving from my position on the floor.

  “To grab some things. Then I’ll head to a hotel and be out of your way. We can sort the rest out later. Not that my whereabouts are really any of your business.”

  “We need to finish our conversation,” I say.

  “What more is there to say? Someone killed our daughter, and I’m terrified it’s you.”

  I plant my hands on the floor and push myself all the way up, struggling to gain and maintain my balance the entire time. My legs manage to carry me to the base of the stairs. I grab onto the railing to steady myself, then I traverse one step at a time until I am just one away from Dave. He towers over me, but I somehow feel comfortable in his shadow.

  I reach out to touch his arm, but he swats me away like a bug.

  “Don’t touch me, Margaret. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even come near me.”

  For some reason, I have this sudden urge to convince Dave that I didn’t kill Lana. It’s hurting me that he thinks I could have done such a thing. I grab at his hand, and he swiftly turns around and grabs my wrist tightly. It takes me by surprise and I lose my balance, but I use my free hand to claw at the wall just enough to steady myself.

  “How about we just end this now?” Dave prods me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You killed Lana, so I’m gonna kill you.”

  I chuckle. Sweet, innocent Dave isn’t going to kill me. Of all the ridiculous things to say.

  My laugh must make him mad because he grabs my throat. I am even more surprised by this turn of events. Panic fills me. I don’t really want to die. Though I realize I don’t have a whole lot to live for, dying seems extreme.

  My instincts kick in after just a moment and I start fighting with everything I have in me. I try pushing on his chest, but Dave is stronger and bigger than me, and I’m getting nowhere fast. It doesn’t help that we are on the stairs and both of us are struggling to maintain our balance and not tumble down, possibly leading both of us to an ironic and untimely demise. Maybe that’s exactly the end we deserve, turned against each other by our actions.

  I suddenly recall that I’d intended to confront Dave today, and out of fear for my well-being, I figured I should have a plan to protect myself should the need arise. Dave, like just about every other human being to walk the face of the earth, has a defensive streak. I had expected him to do something unexpected. I’d gone over all the scenarios I could think of, everything from him packing a bag and leaving, to calling me names, to trying to kill me. (Telling me about his mistress was a surprise, but it’s only thrown me off by a negligible amount.) In preparation for any threat to my life, I’d hidden a knife in my pocket.

  It’s not like we have a lot of murder-worthy knives lying around our kitchen. In fact, most of our cooking knives are dull as hell. Dave keeps saying he’ll sharpen them, and then he gets distracted. If I tried to do it, he’d just criticize my efforts.

  I’m hoping the dull knife in my pocket is sharp enough to do the job. I reach in and fish around for it. My panic grows as I can’t find it. Finally I check my other pocket and pull it out. I’m hot and gasping for air. I know I need to do this soon or I won’t be able to take action of any kind.

  I hesitate for a moment. Sure, I knew I might have to kill Dave; clearly, that’s why I have a knife in my pocket. But I don’t want to kill my husband. I loved him and he loved me, and then everything changed. Why did things have to turn out this way? When we were young and dumb we just went for it and thought everything would work out. Apparently we were wrong. I am a lot of things, but a killer is not one of them.

  Dave sees the knife in my hand. I figure he might loosen his grip on my throat, but instead, he tightens it.

  “Let go,” I manage to gasp. It hurts my throat and my head. Everything is throbbing and shaking. I can feel myself growing weaker.

  “You don’t have it in you. Killing Lana was easy for you, for some reason, but you won’t do it again.”

/>   I’m even more hurt that he thinks I would have had an easy time killing our daughter. How could he say such a thing? In a moment of pure adrenaline, my last gasp before taking a mighty fall, I plunge the knife as hard as I can right into his throat. Relief fills me when it sinks in. The skin around the knife is pulled taut, and torn, already starting to bruise, more gruesome than the stab wound itself.

  His hands fall away from my neck. I fall to the stairs and catch my breath, gasping for air, treasuring the oxygen that is filling my lungs. I hear Dave moaning a little, but for the moment I can’t look. I am focused only on my breathing, on making sure air is getting into my lungs and that my trachea hasn’t been permanently damaged, leading me down a more painful path to death than I was just a few moments ago.

  After my fear that I am about to die subsides, I look at Dave. He is grasping at his throat, but blood is still spurting out. I wonder how long it will take him to die. I wonder if he’s in pain, or simply shock. I wonder if he’ll be able to save himself by holding his hand over the wound.

  And then he goes and pulls out the knife.

  “Nooo,” I say, as a reflex, feeling as though I am in slow motion, my hand reaching out to his leg. When the knife comes out, blood sprays everywhere. I know it will only be a matter of moments before he is dead. Doubts fill my mind, but second-guessing will do me no good right now. Dave is gone even if I call 911 right at this very moment. It amazes me that even though I was prepared to kill Dave if the need arose, my instincts to save him still kick in, outweighing any other desires in my body.

  Whether I can ever convince anyone I didn’t kill Lana no longer matters. I now have blood on my hands, permanently. I have killed another person, a decision that will forever affect the rest of my life. It is not something I can take back or change. I have to reconcile myself to it and learn to accept and live with my decision—one I made only to save my own life. This is what I will tell anyone who wants to listen. There is no point in trying to pin this on someone else. No point lying, creating some elaborate story that the police will poke more holes in than a block of Swiss cheese. I killed Dave, but I can explain why without flinching, because I will tell the truth.

  I stay on the stairs and watch in horror and curiosity as Dave starts to fall to the stairs. His hand drops the knife. I cannot look away. I’m not even sure I want to look away from it. I want to see, perhaps only to make sure he won’t come back from the dead like in a movie; turn on me; kill me.

  After a moment, his eyes close, and then I see his chest stop heaving up and down. I want to check his pulse, but I wait a few more moments. Suddenly I am fearful of every single noise I hear. The creaks of the house. The car horn from down the street. The birds singing outside. I turn my head left and right, fully prepared to see a ghost, but I see nothing. It is just me and my dead husband.

  Finally I work up the courage to touch him. I feel around his neck and wrist. Nothing. No pulse. No breath. No heartbeat. He’s gone.

  Bye, Dave.

  Chapter 18

  Margaret

  I call 911 because I really don’t want to dispose of Dave’s body. Besides, I killed him in self-defense. He was about to kill me. It’s a miracle, really, that he didn’t. I am a miracle. I’ve always known I was special, but now there is no doubt in my mind; I am meant to be alive.

  The police are at the house in a flash. Bet they know the way by now. They knock and yell and then pound on the door. When I open it, mere milliseconds before the police break it down, I’m disappointed, though not surprised, to see Detective Hutchinson standing there. I’m sure she uses her detective senses to perceive when there is an incident at my house, which for the record, there have been far too many of lately. I never thought I’d be a part of so many police investigations, and yet here I stand, a mere bystander, as the officers walk into my house.

  I’m distracted, thinking about how much cleaning I’ll have to do once they leave, when Detective Hutchinson taps me on the shoulder.

  “Mrs. Moore,” she’s saying. I look at her—blankly, I fear—because she looks at me with concern. “Why don’t we sit down?” she says in a soothing tone. “I think you might be in shock.”

  Could she be right? Am I in shock? I suppose it’s reasonable that doing something as violent and frightening as killing another human being—while fighting death, no less, one you’ve spent most of your life loving, or at least living with—could throw one into shock.

  The mere suggestion that I am in shock puts me into a mental fight, trying to save myself from this malady. I am stronger than this. But then I look around the room, police officers everywhere, Detective Hutchinson sitting on the sofa next to me, and I realize no one is on my side.

  Dave’s gone. Lana’s gone. I’ll call Beth if they give me a phone call, but she’s too busy with her own problems to be there for me all the time. She’s already put her life and marriage in jeopardy once; I can’t really expect her to do it again. Plus, now that there’s no denying I’ve killed someone, she won’t want me around her kids. Even if it was self-defense, even if I’m never charged, I wouldn’t even want me to be around kids.

  Beth can’t go to jail either. She won’t do anything to put herself at risk. Framing old Detective Kirkpatrick was one thing, but defending me against any crime, let alone murder, seems an unreasonable request. Our lives have been ruined. There’s no sense spreading the wreckage.

  “He was choking me,” I say, looking at the floor.

  “We’ll talk about all that down at the station,” the detective says.

  “Do I have to go to the station?”

  “Yes, but I’ll have the paramedics check you out first.”

  She reaches for my neck. I flinch, fearing she may choke me, even though I realize that’s rather unlikely. Her hand barely brushes my neck as she says “You look in pretty bad shape.”

  I imagine I do look bad, but if it’s possible, I feel worse. Much worse.

  I turn my head when I hear a ruckus. I wince because it hurts so badly, but continue my gawking mission. They are removing Dave’s body. Seeing it, covered with a neon-yellow plastic sheet, finalizes the events of the past hour in my head. Really, it finalizes the events of the past few months, or years, or maybe our entire lives.

  “I bet you don’t have many cases like this,” I say to the detective.

  “For a little suburban city, you’d be surprised.”

  “I never thought things would turn out like this,” I say, and I mean it.

  Who wakes up in the morning and thinks their life will turn into a mess of police investigations, accusations, blood, death, and murder? Who plots out their life when they’re in their twenties and thinks, I really want to end up killing my husband and fighting to stay out of jail? If people like that exist, they need some serious help. I just wanted to be happy, like everyone else. Now, many things are up in the air. I know one thing for sure: I need to get out of this mess.

  “Most people don’t think the cards will fall as they do. Not even me,” Detective Hutchinson says.

  I wonder what that means. I figured she’d have an attitude, since she thinks I killed two people now, but she doesn’t. Maybe she feels bad for me. I feel bad for me, but really, I don’t deserve anyone’s pity or well wishes. Nor do I want them. I want to be left alone. If I go to jail, I’ll have plenty of alone time, and if I don’t, I’ll move on, make friends, fall in love again.

  “So you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us, Detective?” I ask, slowly gaining back some of my composure now that Dave’s body is gone.

  “I didn’t say that,” she says, not willing to give up much information, snapping back into detective mode. I really want to know more about her. Perhaps once things calm down I can look into her life to entertain myself, now that I’m all alone.

  Dave’s blood managed to spill all the way down the stairs and trickle over the sid
e, down to the wood floor below. The carpet is soaked through, and though there’s a chance it could be saved with some professional cleaning, I’d rather have it torn up and replaced. The pool of blood on the hardwood floor, so dark it’s turned black, is blending in with the stain of the wood. That should clean up rather easily. Just some rubber gloves and bleach and good old-fashioned elbow grease.

  I’ll want to make the house as presentable as possible, because I already know I want to sell it. I very nearly open my mouth to ask Kate—I feel like we’re on a first-name basis now that she’s given me a glimpse into her life—if I have to disclose the house’s past when I sell, but I fear she may find it too soon for that topic to come up, and end up holding it against me.

  I can’t imagine anyone not immediately thinking about selling a house in which someone has been killed. Dave was the only thing stopping me from selling after Lana’s death, and now that he’s out of the way, I only need a realtor. After that, some heavy-duty cleaning, and perhaps a little time to pass so everyone can forget about what has happened in the house in the event that they go online or follow the news. Then I’m out of here.

  In the meantime, once I’m cleared to leave the country I’ll just take another vacation, or flee, if the need arises.

  We sit in silence. I focus on my breathing as well as Kate’s. She’s taking deep breaths and sighing, with the occasional yawn. I want to look at her and tell her it’s okay to yawn; it’s boring just sitting here, I get it. I wonder what’s going on, why we aren’t leaving. The officers will be traipsing through my house collecting evidence for at least the next twenty-four hours, and I would like that paramedic exam she spoke about earlier.

  She’s trying to sit still, trying so hard, I can tell, but it’s difficult for her, as though she’s a little kid, squirming in a doctor’s office seat, waiting to get the appointment over with.

 

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