Murder, Mayhem & a Fine Man

by Claudia Mair Burney

  “So, now you want to be good? Now you want to preach?” He placed the key in the door and opened it for me. He let out a stream of expletives that would ensure his need to go back and do a little more bargaining with God.

  I peered around him. Written across my living room wall, in large red letters, were the crudely written words “You belong to me.”

  Chapter

  Thirty

  JAZZ SLAMMED THE DOOR closed before I could go in, and wasted no time getting his Sig Sauer from his shoulder holster. He also took out his cell phone and handed it to me.

  “Call 911, and get back downstairs. I’m going in to see if it’s clear.”

  I grabbed that man and locked lips with him so fast that it made my head whirl.

  Or maybe it was the head injury.

  “Oh, now you want a kiss?” Jazz shook his head. “You know what? I can’t handle you at all. You are completely out of control.”

  “I’m scared. I wanted to kiss you in case we die.”

  “Get downstairs, woman.” He crossed himself, saying, “God help me.”

  I left, dialing 911 because we really did need God’s help, and the police.

  I heard him open my apartment door and yell, “Police. Come out with your hands up.” Then a shot fired, a thud, and quiet.

  I know. He told me to stay back, but honestly, people were shooting in there.

  I turned around, moving as fast as my sore legs would carry me. I stepped inside the apartment as quietly as I could manage. My heart thudded so hard I could feel it in my throat. Again, I saw my new wall mural. He wrote that with my thirty-dollar-a-tube lipstick. I knew shock and fear can make a person think strange things. That was my strange thought.

  Jazz lay on the floor—alive, thank God. My attention was quickly diverted to more important matters. He clutched his thigh and grimaced in pain.

  “You’ve been shot,” I said, louder than I intended.

  “Yeah, and I don’t think it was Benny Hinn this time.”

  He still held his .38. I snatched the Sig from him before he could stop me.

  “Are you nuts, Bell?” he hissed.

  Apparently I was. I headed toward my bedroom, still weak, my head throbbing, and Jazz scrambling after me.

  I wasn’t Catholic, but I crossed myself, too.

  God help me, indeed.

  Chapter

  Thirty-one

  AND LEAD USnot into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

  I had a new appreciation for the Lord’s Prayer. And for the Twenty-third Psalm.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.

  My heart beat like a machine gun firing. I was scared to death, but if Gabriel was in my bedroom, I was going to stop his reign of terror if it killed me.

  But Lord, please don’t let it kill me.

  As I walked into my bedroom I heard a click, then a strange girl/man’s voice, “I knew you’d return to me.”

  I glanced at my closet. It was open, and I could see a pair of feet hanging out.

  What a surprise.

  Gabriel sat in my closet, tied up and gagged among my work suits and shoes. Susan Hines, however, stood in the corner, packing more than my decorative bean pod. She had on a hideous white, sequined Elvis jumpsuit, her red hair chopped off in a style my mother would say made her look like a truck driver. She sported awful sunglasses—the kind the King of Rock and Roll loved. I found it disturbing how easily she pointed her gun at my head. I could just see my mother at my funeral, wagging her finger at me, tsk-tsk-tsking, and saying, “I told you not to work with crazy people.”

  Susan’s voice brought me back to the present. “I don’t want to hurt you, Amanda,” she said in her fake man voice.

  “Then you might want to point that gun away from me.”

  “I didn’t hurt your friend, and I won’t hurt you.”

  “You shot him.”

  “I could have killed you both. I heard you when you opened the door.”

  “I know you heard me.” I’d spoken too loud on purpose. I’d wanted whoever was in my place to know that I’d arrived. It was me they wanted, not Jazz. “But you didn’t shoot me.” I took a chance and hoped I’d called this next part right. “What do you want from me, Gabriel?”

  She nodded, as if she knew we had an understanding. “Put the gun down, Amanda.”

  Suddenly my visions of heroism returned to the realm of fantasy where they rightfully belonged. I lowered the gun to my side; after all, I didn’t want to let go of all the power I might have. Maybe I could distract her from blowing my head off and keep Jazz’s gun by asking her probing questions like “Why is Gabriel tied up in my closet?”

  “He is not Gabriel.”

  Okay, take it easy.

  “Why is that man tied up in my closet?”

  “Because he is evil. He is an imposter.”

  Good answer, albeit understated.

  I needed to see if Susan’s psychosis obliterated her sense of self, or if she was still hanging on. I was careful not to call her name yet. “You said you loved him.”

  “I do love him,” her girl/man voice cracked, “but he hurts. The real God is love.”

  Good. Susan is still fighting in there somewhere.

  I nodded toward the man sitting on top of my pumps, including the blue suede Donna Karans. That whole “don’t step on my blue suede shoes” thing wasn’t lost on me, but who has time to chuckle at irony when they’re about to be killed by a psychotic Elvis impersonator impersonator? I took another chance at reaching the real Susan. “That fake Gabriel does hurt. Did he hurt you?” I kept the Sig Sauer at my side. I didn’t dare point it at her. Not yet.

  “He hurt all of us: Jonny, Damon, Elisa, Catherine, and Faith.”

  I wanted to see how much she knew. “Who is Catherine?”

  “Catherine belongs to me. She is with the children. We’re going to go to her when we are done here. The imposter told me Faith is dead—he killed her in the apocalypse.”

  “What about Beryl?”

  “Beryl is dead, too, but I don’t care. She was evil like he is.” She jerked her head toward Gabriel.

  Susan truly was, as Jazz would say, a nutjob, but I had to agree with her. Beryl was evil.

  “The imposter told me that when he saw that you and Elisa were gone, he knew you’d called the police. So he gave the women the sacrament, and locked them in the house. But he was too big of a coward to stay and die with them. They are in hell because he took their lives.” She gave Gabriel a withering stare. “He is not God. I saw that when he started to hurt the babies.”

  I needed to keep talking to the Susan who wasn’t presently the King of Rock and Roll, though I still didn’t think she was ready for me to call her by name.

  Be careful. She’s already shot Jazz.

  God help me.

  I also prayed that God would keep Jazz out of harm’s way. I couldn’t hear what Jazz was doing, but somehow I knew he was watching us, waiting for the right moment. At least I hoped he was. “You’re right. He is not God. How did he hurt the babies?”

  “He said he was loving them, but it hurt them. He said they wouldn’t feel it, because it does not yet appear what they shall be. I’m going to free them. You, too, because you wanted to help me. We’re all going to paradise.”

  “Did you write on my wall?” With my good lipstick?

  “Yes, Amanda. You are mine. Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

  I so did not want to go anywhere with Susan. “In paradise?”

  “Yes. Like Jonathan and Damon. They had communion with me, and now they are in paradise waiting for me to return. I am their God. I am the true messenger. I am Gabriel.”

  While I was glad to see she’d had a verbal breakthrough, and was now speaking with no apparent hesitation, it was clear to me that she was also experiencing a serious bout of complicated bereavement. It happens when a person grieves the loss of someone so profoundly that they bec
ome the person they lost in their mind. She grieved the loss of the Gabriel she once loved, and then she became him; only, in her mind, she was a better version of him. She was also angry with him, not to mention suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome, not to mention psychotic. I felt so sorry for her. I really did, but I didn’t think it was in my best interest to partake of the communion she was knocking people off with.

  She came over to me, still pointing the gun in the general direction of my head. It occurred to me that perhaps I’d made a big mistake confronting someone who had just shot a man and killed two people.

  “This imposter,” she said, pointing with her free hand toward Gabriel, “came to get you. He had your purse and your keys, but I was watching out for you. I’ve been watching you since I left the Rock House.”

  I shuddered, feeling weak from exerting myself so much after being in the hospital for days. Not to mention feeling weak from the freaky notion that someone had been stalking me.

  She came closer, still pointing the gun at my head. She stank of the same chemical odor Gabriel’s house reeked of. I scanned her face and eyes to confirm it. In a flash of anger I thought, Man, if she’s been smoking crank in my apartment, I sure don’t appreciate it. True to the drug energizing her, she rattled on in her imitation Gabriel voice. “You are kind and good, so I knew you would look for Susan. I hid in the woods behind the house. I saw when you went in. I stayed all night waiting for you.”

  She began jumping up and down all over my bedroom. “I am God. I am God. I am God.” I could feel goose bumps ripple over my flesh. Stay cool, Bell. Nice and easy. Don’t let her see how scared you are.

  She needs a mother.

  Whether that thought was instinct or a little bit of wisdom from above, I couldn’t be sure.

  What would you say to her if she were your daughter? The words “your daughter” brought a stab of pain, sharp and penetrating. My daughter.

  I mentally shook myself. Don’t think about the baby now, Bell. Play Mommy to this lost girl.

  How would I know how to be a mother? I never got the chance. My gut knotted when I thought of it. I forced my brain to focus. I spoke softly, hoping a little piece of Susan would hear me. “Susan, sweetheart, what else happened? Tell me, honey.”

  She stopped bouncing and slowly turned to me.

  My legs trembled. I hoped I hadn’t said too much. “What else, Susan?”

  My tender voice seemed to soothe her—the poor, love-deprived soul. What had happened to her? Had he lured her to his house with empty promises like Adam’s? Or had he or his flunkies snatched her off the street, like Elisa? Whatever the case, I had the feeling that Susan was determined to retrieve the love she had lost by any means necessary.

  She lowered the gun. Her shoulders sagged, as if the weight of the gun and the Elvis clothes were too much for her. She took off the King’s ugly sunglasses and placed them on top of my chest of drawers.

  “I was sleeping in the woods when I smelled the smoke. He ran out of the house and I followed him to his car.” She didn’t even try to disguise her voice. I had Susan back. But I didn’t know how long she would stay.

  She laughed, an empty, shallow sound. “I caught up with him and told him I still wanted to be with him.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he would think about it. He told me I would go through a period of testing. If I passed, and am truly his, I can be with him. He told me that you belong to him, too. He was coming for you. He had your purse and your keys.”

  “Why didn’t he take my Love—my car?”

  “He didn’t want the police to find him in a stolen car. He said they wouldn’t understand that he is God.”

  “That man told you all of this.”

  “Yes.”

  She’d responded well to my questions, and even let the gun hang to her side, but she hadn’t let it go. It’s not over, Bell. Not until you get that gun from her. Don’t rush.

  “What happened then, sweetheart?” I managed a smile for her.

  “I brought him here in my car, and it pleased him that I was obedient and told him where you live. I pleased him in every way he wanted. He said he might take me back.”

  She pleased him in every way he wanted? I reminded myself to buy new sheets…a new bed…maybe a new apartment.

  “He told me he wanted to start over. Only, instead of seven, maybe it could be the three of us reigning together. He said we’d be the Trinity. But then he got mad at me, and…” Her voice dropped off, and she squeaked like a small animal. Tears welled in her eyes. “He punched me.” With her left hand she touched her sequin-covered stomach. “I’m going to have his baby.” Tears trailed down her face. “He is evil, and he must die.”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” I said, and I meant it. She, Elisa, myself, we belonged to the same awful club—the three of us trapped in heart-stripping grief.

  I pulled my thoughts away from that truth and focused on another: I had to get her to give me the gun. The crank made her unpredictable.

  “Susan, how did you overpower him?”

  “He was coming down off his high. He had to sleep, and I convinced him to trust me. I took care of him here, and we waited for you to come home.”

  I looked into her face. She was somebody’s little girl, looking tiny in the Elvis Presley jumpsuit that sagged off her body.

  “He wanted to get high. You had some pain pills in your medicine cabinet so I gave him what you had.”

  Five pills left over from having a wisdom tooth removed.

  “He went to sleep, and I tied him up and took his gun.”

  Smart, crazy, and fortunate: a bad combination.

  “He told me what he did to you. I waited so you could kill him,” she said, like a little kid happy to offer up her own great treasure to another more deserving.

  My mind urged me not to buy into this, but her words clutched my heart, now pounding wildly in time with my ragged breathing… You…could…kill…him.

  Kill him.

  Kill him.

  Kill him.

  I could feel my pulse in my throat. The two small words now seemed incarnate. They’d grown arms to grab me…push me…pull me… where?

  Where you’ve been afraid to go for seven years.

  Those words “kill him” pushed my feet deep into my plush carpet, electrifying me with cold, hard hate. Like the shattering screech of an animal about to take its prey, those words tore through me, hungry for release.

  Kill him.

  I rocked back on my heels, trying to deny my urgent need to pounce on him…on Adam. The dizzying thoughts assaulted me. I felt drawn toward something stronger than myself. Susan looked wild-eyed and nervous. The gun trembled in her hands.

  “Susan,” I said, trying to restrain the monster inside me that was struggling to be free. I drew upon the Mommy voice, keeping it steady, hoping it would help calm both of us. “I’m so sorry you’ve suffered so much. Come here, sweetheart.” I kept Jazz’s gun at my side, its muzzle pointing to the floor. I took the biggest risk of all. “Come to Mama,” I said. She walked slowly into my opened arm.

  I stroked what was left of her red, ragged hair and shushed the sobs racking her small shoulders. “Give me the gun,” I whispered to her. Susan didn’t protest, nor did she surrender her weapon. I thought I’d try to gain a little more leverage.

  “I want you to give me the gun, and then we’ll do what we have to do to the imposter.” I knew what I’d said was vague. It had to be.

  “I can’t give it to you, Mama; I’m scared.”

  “I know you are. You can trust me, Susan, honey. I have never hurt you. I want to help.”

  “But I need to rid the world of this vermin,” she said. She kept her head nestled in the crook of my neck and offered a halfhearted gesture toward Gabriel.

  Almost there.

  “You know what, honey? I think you sent your friends to paradise to protect them.”

  She pulled away from me, and her eyes w
idened as she nodded. “I did. I did.”

  “I think you should tell the imposter how you feel.”

  She looked confused. “Tell him?”

  “Yes. Absolutely. You don’t want to go to paradise carrying that kind of baggage.”

  I sounded like Dr. Phil on LSD. “He’s tied up in the closet. He can’t hurt you. Tell him how you feel.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, her voice her own again, tiny and vulnerable.

  “He can’t hurt you. Look at him. He’s completely vulnerable. Harmless. He can’t even talk to you. Tell him, Susan. It’s okay. You can trust me. You don’t want to go to paradise with someone you don’t trust, do you?”

  She shook her head no, and I drew her closer into my embrace. I clasped my hand around the gun. She loosened her grip and surrendered it to me.

  I tucked the gun into the waist of my pants, trembling because the hardest part was over.

  I walked her to my closet. “Tell the man how he hurt you.”

  She cleared her throat and looked down at him. “You hurt me. You hurt my insides, and you beat me up.”

  Me, too, my heart cried in recognition.

  I chastised myself. Don’t think of yourself right now. This isn’t about you. “Keep telling him.”

  “I trusted you. I just wanted to be one of God’s children, and you said you would help me be one.”

  Me, too.

  I couldn’t seem to shake that niggling thought. I heard Jazz creep into the room. “Keep going, Susan.”

  She kicked him. “I hate you.” Her attention never wavered from him once she started telling him how she felt. “I hate you,” she screamed.

  Me, too.

  “Go on,” I urged. I felt Jazz’s presence behind me, but I didn’t look at him.

  Susan continued her tirade. “I wanted you to take care of me and love me, but what you did wasn’t love.” She kicked him again, and a circle of urine stained the front of his pants.

  The sight gave me too much pleasure.

  God, have mercy.

  Another memory assaulted me.

  I lay battered, and my dead baby girl lay as a precious bundle between my legs. She was tiny. I was so badly beaten, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t pick her up. I see her in the palm of Miriam’s hand. My baby. My little girl.