Blue Avenue

by Michael Wiley

  What had happened since then? Mainly, as far as he was concerned, I’d talked with Don Melchiori who’d all but told me that Terrence had murdered Belinda and the others – and then I’d talked to Godrell Graham who’d told me the same thing and then had warned me to keep my hands off Terrence and let everything play out. Would Melchiori or Graham tell Terrence that I was coming after him? If Graham was to be believed, he had no love of Terrence. But he might use him to punish the men and women who’d killed his daughter. Would Graham call Terrence to warn him about the conversation we’d had? If so, Terrence’s fear of me would make sense.

  A phone call from Graham would also explain the house fire. If Terrence thought that I was coming after him, he might think the best way he could clean the house of evidence would be to burn it.

  I called across the clearing, ‘Why did you light the house on fire?’

  No response.

  ‘Did you burn your collection of pictures?’ I asked. ‘Or did you bury them in your backyard? I’m guessing you hid them. I’m guessing you couldn’t give them up.’

  After a long silence, he said, ‘I see why my mom was afraid of you.’

  The words hit me like a boot. ‘She wasn’t afraid of me.’

  ‘Did she call you when we moved back south?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted more to myself than him.

  ‘She didn’t tell you about me and when we moved back she didn’t let you know. I wonder why, unless she was afraid.’

  ‘I hurt her a long time ago,’ I said. ‘I let her down. She didn’t get over it. Neither of us did.’

  ‘That’s not all of it.’

  ‘You weren’t there,’ I said.

  ‘But she told me about it. I know what you did to your friend Christopher with the stone. Was he the first person you tried to kill? It took my mom a lot of years to forgive you for that.’

  ‘I did that for her.’

  ‘I know all about you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re confused, Terrence.’

  ‘Hell, I probably know more about you than you do,’ he said.

  ‘You know nothing.’

  Hours passed. The moon set in the west and the sky turned black except for faint light from the stars. I couldn’t see Terrence across the clearing. But now and then he made a noise in the dark, and the trees and the swamp absorbed the sound. I couldn’t see my own feet or legs and felt myself dissolving into the dark as if by morning the swamp surrounding the grass clearing would suck in all that had ever been of me. I no longer felt I knew who I was, no longer felt it was important that I should know.

  I stood in the darkness and went after Terrence, determined to kill him or die at his hands. The turf was soft under my feet. Swamp mud had dried on my pant legs and clung to my ankles like boots. I moved slowly and silently and smelled my own vinegary sweat and nerves. I crept closer, looking for a deeper darkness. Then I realized I was standing on a spot of trampled grass and Terrence was no longer there.

  I spun.

  He was swinging the branch at me. I raised my arms too late. The branch clubbed me below the ear and for a moment afterward the shadow of Terrence stood in front of me, panting. Then I fell through the dark.

  I landed face down and waited for the club to drop again and crush my skull. I waited, powerless to get up, and I didn’t beg Terrence to spare me and didn’t pray to God to take me when I died. The idea of dying in a clearing of the woods gave me no peace and I waited for the inevitability of it.

  But a killing blow never came. I listened. Terrence was splashing through the swamp. My eyes cleared. His branch lay by my side. I pushed myself to my hands and knees, got up and staggered, sick to my stomach. My head spun. I stumbled across the turf to the edge of the clearing, grabbed a tree and stumbled into the swamp after Terrence. My throat burning, I ran, following the sound of Terrence’s splashing footsteps. Branches raked across my arms, body and neck. Oily leaves pressed against my cheeks. There was life in the swamp that could poison me or tear me apart and I didn’t care.

  Another night seemed to pass in the swamp before a gray dawn began to brighten the trees. Wisps of fog hung above the black water. Leaves and scum floated on the surface. The branches of sweet gum trees, cypress and loblolly pines dripped with dew. I stepped into a hole, tumbled forward and got back to my feet, slick and filthy. The fat waists of the swamp trees, blistered with lichen and pink fungus, funneled outward into the water. Terrence ran and stumbled as though the devil were after him.

  The swamp became shallow and we crossed a muddy flat, dropped into knee-deep water and climbed a sandy bank. Terrence ran through the trees until he came to a chain-link fence, after which lay an RV park, a flea market and then the Interstate. He climbed the fence and as he jumped to the ground I caught up and we stared at each other for a moment with only inches of air and interlaced wire between us, and in his scratched, filthy face I knew I was looking at an image of my own. A small laugh escaped from my throat and seemed to scare him. He ran and I climbed the fence and went after him,

  No one was outside in the RV park. We ran down a concrete aisle past quiet campers, bicycles, potted palms and plastic tables littered with beer bottles. At the end of the aisle a deteriorating sign said Welcome – Pecan Park Flea and Farmers’ Market. Three yellow-and-blue metal sheds, each a city block long, were closed, their metal garage doors pulled down, blue plastic tarps tied over the openings. When the market opened, J&J Blades would sell cane machetes and Samurai swords and other vendors would sell boiled peanuts, bootleg martial arts videos and automobile tires shined with Armor All until they gleamed like hot, wet asphalt. On weekends a Ukrainian immigrant would set up a table display of hollow-glass swans filled with colored water.

  Terrence ran between the sheds and out on to a grass parking lot. Another chain-link fence stood between the lot and an embankment to the Interstate. He scrambled over the top and up to the highway shoulder.

  Cars and semi-trailers shot past. To the east the sun was rising, orange and enormous. As I climbed over the fence and started up the embankment, Terrence tried to cross but a Landstar truck blasted its horn and he dodged back to the side. He ran toward the oncoming traffic, tried again and got to the median, where he climbed between the guard rails.

  ‘No more running,’ I yelled.

  He climbed over the other rail.

  ‘You’ve got to face me sooner or later,’ I yelled.

  A gap appeared in the traffic between us. I ran toward him. He stepped into the highway on the other side. A car blew its horn and shifted lanes to avoid hitting him. I cleared the first guard rail and he tried again. He got across the first lane and most of the second. Then a red convertible, its roof down, its headlights on as if to focus on a target, clipped him. He flew twenty or twenty-five feet and landed on the roadside gravel.

  The convertible pulled to the side and other cars and trucks stopped. Terrence wasn’t moving. Men and women dressed for the workday surrounded him, two calling 911 on their cell phones, and I walked over and joined them. Terrence lay face down, his left arm stretched beside him, a broken bone sticking through the skin. I watched his back for breathing and saw none. My stomach turned.

  Then he moved his good arm and the crowd gasped. He pushed himself on to his knees, the fabric of his pants torn and bloody, and rose unsteadily to his feet. The driver of the convertible, a blonde woman in her twenties, wearing beach shorts and a bikini top, cried and reached for him, and others moved close as though he were a hatchling who might need their help to stand, but he stumbled away from the circle until he reached a blue sedan that was idling on the roadside. He leaned against the trunk and everyone moved toward him but he stood on his own and stepped back into the highway. He went to the driver’s door and climbed in. The owner of the car seemed uncertain what to do and, by the time he decided Terrence didn’t belong in the car, Terrence had locked it, shifted into drive and hit the accelerator.

  I looked around frantically for another car but none ha
d been left running. ‘I need a car,’ I yelled, and everyone backed away from me as if I were the monster who’d made the morning bloody.

  Some got in their cars and drove away. Others waited for the police. I sat on the highway shoulder and wept.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I lay on an exam table in the ER at University Hospital. A young black nurse had cleaned my cuts and abrasions and a Pakistani doctor was checking me a second time for the concussion Terrence had given me with the branch. Two uniformed police officers stood outside the exam room. They hadn’t arrested me but they’d ridden in the ambulance and had stayed within a few feet of me since arriving at the scene on the Interstate.

  The doctor shone a pen light into each of my eyes and asked the questions you ask when you think someone might have a brain injury. ‘Do you know your name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What is it, please?’ he said.

  ‘I’d rather not tell you.’

  ‘Why?’

  Because, from what Charles had told me before Terrence had broken my phone, the officers outside the room would slap handcuffs on me, but I still hoped I could walk out of the hospital and pursue Terrence. I said nothing.

  The doctor’s expression remained neutral. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Forty-two.’

  He nodded. ‘Your birthday?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘Well, would you like to tell me what hit your head?’

  ‘A large tree branch,’ I said.

  ‘And how did your head meet this large tree branch?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  He sighed. ‘I believe this is a mild concussion, not that you’re helping me to be sure. You should avoid drinking alcohol for three or four days and of course avoid any illegal drugs. Take it easy, rest, sleep well.’

  ‘May I leave?’ I asked.

  He smiled, tightlipped. ‘If you can persuade the police officers to let you go.’ He left without another word.

  The nurse appraised me. My legs were caked with mud, my clothes soaked with swamp water. I smelled like sulfur and decay. ‘Honey, you’re a mess,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have someone you can call to bring you clean things?’

  ‘If I can get to a cab I’ll be all right.’

  The exam room door swung open and the nurse said, ‘Sorry,’ and seemed to mean it.

  Daniel Turner stepped in. He looked at me for several seconds and said, ‘Jesus, you’re a sight.’

  ‘Morning, Lieutenant,’ I said.

  ‘What the hell’ve you been crawlin’ through?’

  ‘Worse than you can imagine.’

  He shook his head. ‘You look it. Smell it too.’

  ‘Are you here to arrest me?’ I asked.

  A faint smile appeared on his face. ‘Now why would I do that?’

  ‘Because you think you’ve placed me at Melchiori’s house and Aggie’s room.’

  ‘Yeah, I want to hear about all that,’ he said.

  ‘And because yesterday at Belinda’s house you sent two deputies after me.’

  ‘That was when I thought you were responsible for all kinds of nastiness that I now know you had nothing to do with.’

  ‘So you finally figured out who did it?’

  He looked at the nurse. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all, honey,’ she said, but in her eyes I saw a disdain for Daniel and a protectiveness for me that neither of us had earned. ‘Make yourself at home,’ she said and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Daniel turned to me. ‘Terrence Mabry blamed you for the fire. He said you and Charles Tucker threw Molotov cocktails through the windows. But when he left through the closed garage door I decided we should take a closer look. We found the remains of some bottles of gas but anyone could’ve thrown them, including him. We also found clothesline that matches the line that the killer used on Belinda and the other women. We found plastic bags that match. And we found some of the filthiest pictures you’d ever want to see, including one of Ashley Littleton. We’ve issued a warrant for his arrest.’

  I considered all he’d told me. ‘So I’m free to go?’

  ‘There’s still the matter of who shot Don Melchiori,’ he said.

  ‘You know it wasn’t me,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid of guns.’

  ‘So you say. What about Aggie?’

  I looked him in the eyes. ‘What about her? I haven’t seen her since your fellow officers talked to us behind the old Chevy dealership.’

  ‘What worries me is no one else has seen her either. But we’ve got a motel room with blood on the mattress and an eyewitness who saw you going into the room.’

  ‘I don’t know about a bloody mattress and I’m betting that any eyewitness you found at a motel where Aggie would be staying wouldn’t be worth much.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘What’s happening with Terrence?’ I asked.

  ‘We found the car that he stole in the parking lot at the Avenues Mall. There was plenty of blood. We’re guessing he took another car though we haven’t received any reports of one stolen.’

  ‘He took the owner with him?’

  ‘That’s the worry right now. But all the witnesses say his arm’s in bad shape. He’ll need to get help for it sooner or later.’

  I thought about him enduring the pain and fears of trudging through the midnight swamp. ‘He may take some time before popping his head up.’

  ‘We’ll be waiting for him when he does,’ he said.

  The air conditioning and bright lights of the exam room made me shiver. I asked, ‘So why did you come here to tell me all this?’

  ‘I figured I owed it to you.’

  I didn’t think anyone owed me anything. ‘You had good reasons to suspect me.’

  ‘But I did more than that,’ he said. ‘I told Susan she should leave you. For her own safety and Thomas’s.’

  I knew that Susan would’ve made the same decision on her own but anger flooded my belly all the same. So I changed the subject. ‘How’s Bobby Mabry?’

  ‘Second- and third-degree burns on his arms and legs. The doctors say he’ll survive.’

  ‘He’s had to survive a lot in his life.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘Some men seem to be born that way,’ he said and he seemed to be including me. ‘Susan and Thomas are outside. You want to see them?’

  ‘What are they doing here?’

  ‘I called them,’ he said. ‘I thought I owed you that too.’

  I wasn’t ready to face them but I said, ‘I’d like to see them.’

  He stepped into the hall and waved them over, then left with the two police officers who’d stood sentry.

  Susan wore a blue floral-print cotton dress and carried a small duffel bag. Thomas wore khaki cargo shorts and a white T-shirt. They looked freshly bathed. Thomas came to the exam table and though I was filthy I pulled him to me in a hug. Susan stayed by the door. ‘Hi,’ I said to her.

  ‘Hi.’ She sounded almost shy. ‘I brought you new clothes.’

  ‘Come here,’ I said.

  She did. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be. Why?’

  ‘I thought you did it,’ she said.

  I felt a weight in my stomach. ‘Why would you?’

  ‘You go out at night while we’re sleeping. You aren’t … normal.’

  I looked at Thomas. ‘What do you think?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Did you think I was killing these women?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  I said, ‘I think I’m normal.’

  Thomas laughed – at me, with me, I didn’t know which – and then Susan laughed too. She put her fingers tenderly on one of the scratches on my face. ‘How are you feeling?’

  My head ached. My arms and legs were sore. I was exhausted in body and spirit both. ‘Hungry,’ I said.

  We went to the Metro diner and I ordered eggs, bacon, toast and pancakes. After my night in the woods, sitting and calmly eating break
fast with Susan and Thomas, surrounded by men and women dressed in clean clothes and having polite conversations, felt dizzying, a scene from another life. When I pushed back from the table Susan said, ‘Are you going to tell us about it now?’

  I gazed at her. She looked like she had nothing to lose from me any more and that made me think I had nothing to lose either. I turned to Thomas. ‘To begin with,’ I said, ‘you’ve got a brother. Or a half-brother. His name’s Terrence Mabry.’ I asked Susan, ‘Did Daniel tell you about that?’

  She shook her head though the news didn’t seem to shock her.

  So I told them more than I’d ever told anyone other than Charles. I told them about falling in love with Belinda when I was just two years older than Thomas was now. I told them that my friend Christopher had assaulted Belinda’s brother Bobby, that I’d failed Belinda by letting Christopher walk away from what he’d done, and that I’d lived with that knowledge for all my adult life. I told them about meeting Terrence for the first time after Belinda’s death and of coming to think that he must be responsible for his mother’s and the other women’s deaths. I told them about chasing him through a waking nightmare in the swamps and woods north of the airport.

  When I finished I looked from Thomas to Susan.

  Thomas said, ‘Wow.’

  Susan said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you,’ I told them both.

  Susan raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve said that too often.’

  ‘I want you and need you,’ I said. ‘Both of you. Like no one else in the world.’

  Susan and Thomas dropped me off at home and left again to get their bags from the hotel where they’d stayed the previous night. Inside the house, the motors on the air conditioner and refrigerator hummed like insects. They were familiar sounds in a familiar place, but in my exhaustion I felt out of sorts, out of myself, a man wearing another man’s clothes, an impostor in his house. I walked down the hall and stopped at the kitchen door. Through the back windows the sun was glinting off the swimming pool water and the quarry pond beyond. The grass was dark green and cool to the eyes.