by Paul Cleave
“I’m sorry,” Jerry says, shaking his head a little. “I don’t know why I’m here.”
“That’s why I’m here, Jerry, to get things cleared up,” Tim says, and he shifts the pad a little closer and picks up the pen. “Tell me everything you remember, starting with that lump under your eye. Who hit you?”
Jerry tells him everything he can about the two policemen, how they think he killed the girl in the photograph. He tells him about the car ride, getting handcuffed and punched along the way. He tells him they’re trying to convince him Sandra is dead, and then stares silently at the lawyer, waiting for a confirmation he doesn’t want, and that confirmation comes in the way his lawyer drops his pen, sighs, and looks down at his hands for a few seconds.
“I’m afraid that it’s true, Jerry. Did they tell you how?”
This time the news isn’t as big a shock, but it is just as hard to hear. He opens his mouth only to find he can’t answer.
Tim carries on. “She was shot. You . . . you didn’t know what you were doing,” he says. “It’s why you’re in a nursing home and not in jail. You weren’t of sound mind enough to stand trial. It was an awful, awful thing, and nobody is to blame.”
Jerry thinks that’s a stupid thing to say. Nobody to blame? So what, the gun just magically appeared in the house, just magically pointed itself at Sandra and went off? He knows who is to blame. It was Captain A. These people have known about Sandra’s death for a year, but for him the news is fresh. For him she’s only been dead half an hour. He puts his hands over his face and cries into them. The world goes dark. He thinks about Sandra, the good times, and there are no bad times—there never were. All those smiles, all the times they’ve laughed, made love, held hands. His chest feels tight. The world without Sandra is a world he doesn’t want to be in. He doesn’t know how he can cope without her, even though he has for the last year, though that wasn’t coping. That was forgetting. He pushes away from the table and throws up on the floor, the vomit splashing and hitting his shoes. His lawyer stays where he is, probably figuring he can’t charge any more than he already is so there’s no point in patting Jerry on the back and telling him everything is going to be okay. No point in risking getting anything gooey on his suit. When Jerry’s done he wipes his arm over his mouth and straightens back up.
“The disease is to blame, not you,” Tim says. “I’m sorry about Sandra, I really am, and I’m sorry about what happened to you, but we have to talk about today. We have to talk about Belinda Murray. Go over again everything that happened today,” he says, and he picks the pen back up and positions it over the notepad.
Jerry shakes his head. The smell of vomit is strong. “First tell me about Sandra.”
“I’m not so sure that’s going to be helpful.”
“Please.”
Tim puts the pen back down and leans back. “We don’t know, not exactly. Do you remember the wedding?”
“No. I mean . . . yes,” he says, and the wedding he can remember, but not what happened to Sandra. He ruined the wedding. “Is that why I killed her? Because of that?”
“Nobody knows. The disease was progressing quickly by that point. By the time the alarms were installed all through the house, you—”
“What alarms?”
“Sometimes you would wander,” he says. “Sandra hid your car keys so at least you couldn’t drive, but you would sneak out of the house and you would disappear, so she had to get them in.”
“Really? I would sneak out?”
“The alarms were for your protection. If you tried to leave, she had a bracelet that would notify her. If Sandra went out, she would take you with her, or she would call somebody to come over. By then she was taking time off work to look after you. You didn’t like how it made you feel.”
“I would have felt babied,” Jerry says.
“The problem is you used to sneak out the window. Alarms were going to be put on those too after Sandra found out, but then . . . well, they were scheduled to go in the same day she died. The problem now, Jerry, is that it shows a pattern of escape. The police are going to think that you killed this woman, then killed Sandra because she figured it out.”
“I . . . I couldn’t have done it. Any of it.”
“The police don’t know exactly what happened. They didn’t even find the gun. You were tested for gunshot residue and none was found, but you showered several times over the days between her death and you calling the police.”
“How long?”
“Four days,” he says. “Because your office was soundproofed, nobody heard the gunshot. The other forensics were hazy. If there was blood splatter on your shirt, it was hidden by the fact you sat in your wife’s blood for considerable stretches of time, holding her. When you did call the police, you confessed. We don’t know why you shot Sandra, Jerry, we just know that you did.”
Jerry wonders how many times over the last year this news has been broken to him, then he thinks of Eva telling him that Sandra left and was filing for divorce, not wanting to tell him the truth, wanting to spare him unnecessary pain. It hits him then as to why his daughter calls him Jerry, and not Dad. Not because he messed up the wedding, but because he killed her mother. He imagines sitting on the floor of his office, a smoking gun in one hand, holding his dead wife in the other. He imagines it the same way he’s imagined dozens of other deaths over the years, deaths that have made it between the make-believe pages of his books. What he wouldn’t give to have Sandra’s death be make-believe.
“Why can’t I remember killing her?”
“The doctors believe you’ve repressed the memory because it’s too traumatic for you. Bits of your life are going to come and go, but they believe it’s unlikely that will be one of them. Your doctor thinks you just may never remember it. I’m sorry, Jerry, I really am, and I don’t want this to sound awful, but we really need to focus on why we’re here. Tell me what you told the police.”
Jerry buries his face in his arms as he thinks about Sandra, and if it’s true, if he did hurt her, then what does anything else matter? He should pick up the lawyer’s pen and, if the door is unlocked, run among the desks threatening to stab somebody until they put him down and end this nightmare.
“Jerry, come on, we need to work on this, okay? I’m sorry about Sandra, but now we need to concentrate on you. You need to work with me if we’re to get you out of here.”
“I don’t care if I get out,” Jerry says, talking into the table.
“Well you should, because if you didn’t kill this girl, and the police believe you did, then the real killer is going to get away with it. Is that what you want?”
Jerry looks back up at him. He hadn’t thought of that. The smell of vomit seems to be getting stronger. He shifts in his seat for a better angle, trying to block the smell somehow.
“Wait here a minute,” Tim says, and he steps out of the room. He’s back thirty seconds later with a janitor. The janitor brings in a mop and bucket and takes care of the mess, and a minute later Jerry is alone again with his lawyer and the room smells a little better. “Tell me everything,” Tim says.
“Okay, okay. Let me think,” Jerry says, and he takes a few deep breaths and he tries to push thoughts of Sandra aside and focus on today. He sniffs and wipes his eyes then runs through everything. He doesn’t think anything in his story changes, but how can he possibly know? He’s the man who can’t even trust himself. He starts talking. Tim takes notes along the way.
When Jerry’s done, Tim says, “I spoke to Nurse Hamilton before I came in. She says it’s common for you to get confused between reality and fiction. She says there are days where you think things in your books are real and you’ve done them. She says you sometimes confess to killing your neighbor when you were at university. She says you were so adamant about it that they looked through old news reports and they spoke to Eva about it, but it just didn’t happen.”
“I remember her,” Jerry says. “Suzan.”
“She doesn’
t exist, Jerry.”
“I know. I mean I remember her in the books.”
“And Belinda Murray? Do you remember her too?”
Jerry takes another look at Belinda Murray, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t picture her in any context other than this photograph. She seems far less real than Suzan. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Do the police have any evidence I hurt her?” he asks. “Any DNA?”
Tim shakes his head. “Doubtful. They already have your prints and DNA after Sandra’s death. If there’d been a match in the system it would have come up eleven months ago. Could be your confession is the only lead they’ve had, that they weren’t able to get anything from the scene.”
Jerry thinks about that. He remembers Mayor asking him in the car if he thought he could outsmart the police, whether crime writers thought they could get away with murder. Is that the theory here? “I didn’t do it. That’s why they’re not finding any evidence of me at the scene.”
“Was there a history back then of you doing other things you don’t remember?”
“You mean other than killing Sandra?”
“There was a report last year of your neighbor having an obscenity spray-painted across the front of her house. Do you remember that?”
“What neighbor?”
“Mrs. Smith.”
Jerry shakes his head. He can remember the neighbor, but not what Tim is talking about. “I remember somebody pulled her flowers out.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Tim says, “but she believes you were the one who spray-painted her house.”
“Then she was wrong.”
“There’s another report from four days later. Mrs. Smith’s car was set on fire. You don’t remember that?”
He thinks back, but there’s nothing there—no neighbor, no car, no fire. “No.”
Tim taps the pen against the table. “Okay, here’s the way I see it. Do you watch the news?”
“Sometimes.”
“And read the newspapers?”
“Sometimes.”
“Good. We’re going to get the detectives back in here now and we’re going to tell them what we think is going on.”
“Which is?”
“Which is not only do you confuse your books with the real world, but also news reports too. You have an overactive imagination. You can’t switch it off. We’re going to tell the police you have confused the news story with your own reality the same way you confuse your fiction with your reality. We’re not going to answer any questions because you have no memory of the event and can’t help with any answers, and any questions they ask at this point may only end up having you confess to a reality that never happened. We get through this, then we can get you out of here and back home.”
“Back home or back to the nursing home?”
“To the nursing home.”
He taps the photograph. “I didn’t hurt her.”
Tim puts his pen and his pad back into his briefcase. “Wait here for me, Jerry, I’m going to go and talk to the detectives alone. I’ll be back shortly.”
“They were going to bring me a gin and tonic,” Jerry says.
“What?”
“The detective asked if I wanted a drink. He said he’d get me one right away.”
“Okay, Jerry. Wait here and let me see what I can do,” he says, and then he slips out the door and once again Jerry is left waiting in the interrogation room, thirsty and all alone.
DAY FIFTY-ONE
Your name is Jerry Grey and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with you except for the fact you can’t remember spraying a word you shouldn’t mention across the house of your neighbor. Here’s the thing. The shake. The rub. The lowdown. Future Jerry, you don’t know for a fact you did what they think you did. Just because you hid a can of spray-paint in your office doesn’t mean you used a can of spray-paint on your neighbor’s house. After all, there are kitchen knives in the kitchen, does that mean anybody stabbed over the last twenty years was stabbed by you? The can is a holdover from days of Renovation Past, just as there are other paints stored in the garage. The plan after finding the spray-paint in the hiding spot had been to dump it. That much you remember. Toss it into a dumpster in town somewhere. The problem with that scenario is Sandra took the keys off you so you can’t drive anymore. She took them last night. She said you may not realize it, but sadly you’re starting to slip a little. She said she’s taking them off you for your own safety, and for the safety of others on the roads. It hurt. But you know the truth, you know why she’s really taking them. It’s to control you. Don’t do this, Jerry. Don’t do that. It’s all you hear these days.
The police never came back yesterday, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. You had to get rid of it, or face life without parole, spending your days breaking rocks in the sun. If you couldn’t drive, you could at least walk. Nothing illegal about that. Neighbors weren’t going to look out the window and go Oh, there’s Jerry, off to dump incriminating evidence.
So that’s what you did.
At least started to do. Until Captain A became involved.
There’s a park three blocks from here, which you thought was far enough away to dump the spray can because the police, after all, weren’t looking for a murder weapon, and any radius they searched would probably be within twenty feet of the house. Now, looking back, the whole thing seems silly and there never was any real need to dump the can in the first place. The police were never going to get a search warrant—the crime hadn’t made the news and nobody had been hurt. It was, for all intents and purposes, not a big deal.
You left the house with your small gym bag that holds a towel and a water bottle and nothing else, but on that day (that day is still this day) it held nothing but the facts, ma’am, and they were facts you needed to dispose of. Across the road you could see Mrs. Smith’s house baking in the sun, the letters being burned deeper into the wood, the temporary undercoat to mask the letters thin enough for them to already be bleeding back through.
You reached the park. Often there’d be kids playing there, but not then because it was school hours. You sat on a bench (and do you remember that time you were meeting Sandra and Eva here years ago? It was ninety-something degrees and sweat was pouring off you, you had big sweat rings on your shirt and your forehead was gleaming, and you got here first and while you waited one of the mothers came up to you and asked you to leave, that your type could all rot in hell—and then you said, What, struggling authors? She said No, kiddie fiddlers, and before you could answer, Sandra showed up). You were feeling exhausted. You’d been awake most of the night, your mind racing with what you may or may not have done. There was a trash bin a few feet away, and you had come here thinking it was a good place to dump the spray can, you were a little sleepy, then you were thinking what if somebody found it, and then . . .
Then you weren’t thinking anything. At least not the Jerry Grey you me us we used to be. There had to have been some awareness, though, because you weren’t hit by any busses, you didn’t take all your clothes off, you still had your wallet and hadn’t tried to shoplift bags and bags of cat food, so you were still functioning, just at a different level, at a Jerry isn’t home at the moment so please leave a message level. A sleepwalking level. Captain A steered you to your parents’ old house. You even went as far as trying to open the door before knocking on it. That’s what you were told by the woman who now lives there—a woman who wasn’t your mother.
You can’t remember the conversation, but Henry, the man whose name doesn’t appear on the phone bill but does on all the books, can take a pretty good stab at it. Henry?
Jerry was confused. Jerry fucked up. Jerry is as mad as a hatter.
Thanks, Henry.
So there you have it. Thankfully (and ain’t that going to be a word we’re going to look out for in the future? Thankfully it all worked out okay, thankfully you didn’t really have dementia) the woman who now rents that house you showed up at was a nurse
at the Christchurch hospital, and she recognized that you were confused, you were scared, she could see who was really driving, and she took you inside and told you everything was going to be okay, she sat you down and made you a cup of tea. You asked why she was living in your house. She asked who you were, and you were . . . a little unsure, but you had your wallet, it had your driver’s license (Sandra in all her Let’s control Jerry wisdom at least didn’t take that off you), and once your name was out in the open you became Functioning Jerry, at least a little, and you told her where you lived. She asked if you had your cell phone, and it turned out you did. She called Sandra at work. Sandra said she was on her way. In that time you were plied with biscuits to go along with the tea and a story of the neighborhood, including a murder that happened there a long time ago. Did you remember that? No, what murder? It had happened twenty years ago, maybe even thirty, well before Mae (that was the nurse’s name—Nurse Mae) had moved onto the street. In fact Mae had only been living in that house for six months. She was around your age, and you envied how sharp she was.
It’s strange that’s the house you went to. It’s not where you grew up. You lived a few miles away in a similar looking house on a similar street, a different neighborhood, even a different school district. You lived there from the age of three (which you can’t remember) to the age of twenty-one (which you can remember), and your parents both lived out their lives in that house. But when you were nineteen a young permit driver was showing off his fast new car to his fast new-car buddy, lost control, and drove that thing through your front yard and into the side of your house. The guy driving the car broke his back, and his friend was on life support for a week before they turned off the machine. Your family was unharmed, but did have to find somewhere else to live while the insurance company searched for a loophole (the house wasn’t covered for automobile accidents) before admitting they had to pay, and then the builders . . . well, you know what builders are like. So your family rented this other house for three months that turned into six while the family house was rebuilt, and why you returned to that particular house and not where you grew up is a mystery, but Captain A deals in mysteries, doesn’t he?
