The Paper Shepherd

by Olivia Landis

  “Hey, Officer Franklin, in here,” a voice called from down the hall. Jack stepped around the victim, lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, and walked toward the voice. One of the two younger officers was in a smaller bedroom, the only other furnished room on the second floor besides the master bedroom.

  “You think it was robbed? It looks like it was tossed pretty good.” Jack surveyed the room. It did look like someone had packed and moved out in a hurry. The bed was still present, but without linens. There were just a few garments left in the closet, a few dropped on the floor, and hangers everywhere. Half the drawers to the dresser were missing, the other half pulled out to different extents. Jack ran his hand through the dust on the dresser.

  “I would say no one has been here in four years,” he said, trying to sound speculative. “Don’t waste your time. The person who lived in this room is long gone.”

  “What ever you say, boss,” the younger officer said, and walked back toward the crime scene. Jack lingered in the room for a moment, trying to gather any remaining energy from the life that used to live there. His eyes scanned over the room looking at old discarded sweaters, dusty books, a fashion magazine tossed half way under the bed. He tried to imagine the young life that used to reside inside these walls—study here, sleep here, dream here. When he looked in the mirror a familiar face stared back it him. No, he thought to himself. He reached up and grabbed a photo that had been stuck in the frame of the mirror. He looked at it closer. It was a picture of his son, young, clean shaven, happy. Jack looked beyond the photo to the dresser where something had fallen—something that had been wedged behind the photo. It was a paper doll of a shepherd from the nativity scene Jack and Eleanor had purchased years ago. But, over its face was glued a cut out photo of Max’s face, cut in the shape of a heart. Jack’s stomach quivered. He heard footsteps in the hallway and stuffed the photo and paper doll into his pocket.

  “Boss, the ambulance is here to pick up the perp,” the younger policeman said.

  “Fine. Make sure you send someone to the hospital,” Jack ordered hastily. “We don’t want this guy getting away.”

  Four hours later, reports written, and the suspect questioned at the hospital, Jack sat at his kitchen table drinking a beer. The woman whose clothes they had found at the crime scene was found walking up the highway shocked, confused, and wrapped in a blanket. She confirmed what the police already suspected—that the assailant was her husband who had shot the victim in a jealous rage after finding her at the victim’s house. It was an open and shut case.

  It was four AM. Eleanor had gone to bed hours earlier. There was no point in going to bed and waking her up now. She would hear the news in the morning. Jack reached into his pocket and took out the photo he had swiped earlier. Removing evidence from the scene of a crime, he thought to himself. Is this what I’ve come to? But, the photo was not evidence of any crime… At least not this crime. It had nothing to do with the murder. It would only serve as fodder for the Hectortown rumor mill. In a city of only 35,000, news traveled fast, and usually was wildly inaccurate. He didn’t need anyone to know his son’s picture was in the house where a murder had taken place. He didn’t care anymore how it would affect Max, but Eleanor had been put through enough already without having to suffer anymore embarrassment on her son’s behalf.

  Jack held the photo in his trembling hand. There were strange black marks on the front. Jack soon realized that they were from where marker had seeped through from the back. He turned it over in his hands. Maxwell and Tiar Franklin, it said, hearts for the dots over the i’s. Jack’s heart sank. He turned the photo back over and looked at the two faces staring back at the camera. They were so happy, as though no bad thing could ever happen to them. Now one of them was missing, swept off the face of the earth four years earlier. The other was a bitter, cold young man with dead eyes who couldn’t tolerate a simple conversation with his parents. What happened? he asked himself. What in the hell happened? Jack closed his eyes, trying to hold back the tears welling up there. He put the photo back in his pocket with the paper shepherd. There was no reason to show it to Eleanor. She had suffered enough already.

  The sky was blueberry pie filling, deep bluish purple, barely letting a ray of light escape. Renee awoke and looked out her window, wondering why the sky was so dark. She turned over in bed and looked at the clock. 4:03. Her alarm would not go off for another three hours. Why am I awake? she wondered. As if to answer her question, the phone rang a second time. Renee sat up and put the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello?” she said sleepily.

  “Is this Terra Alfred?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Who is this?”

  “Ma’am, this Officer Harding, Hectortown Police department.”

  Renee felt a temporary twinge of panic. What in the hell did I do this time? But, the officer had said Hectortown. She hadn’t been there in over three years. Which meant.... she already knew what the man was going to say. Her uncle was dead. The only question in her mind was how.

  “This is Tiar Alfred,” she answered. “What happened to my uncle?”

  What had happened to Henry Alfred was shocking by Hectortown standards, and yet did not surprise anyone. He had been shot in his bed by the husband of one of his patients. There was no question as to the identity of the killer, as he was found 10 feet from the victim, knocked unconscious with the murder weapon still in his hand. The patient herself had disappeared, but not before knocking the husband over the head with a tacky 2-foot reproduction of Michelangelo’s David in Dr. Alfred’s bedroom. It was an open and shut case. The police assured Renee they did not need her to come in for questioning. She was notified only because she was his next of kin. His parents had long since died, as had his brother. His sister lived outside the country and they had no contact information for her.

  Renee slowly processed this information. It was Monday. Her last final was tomorrow. She had not planned on going back to Hectortown before graduation the following week. She hadn’t planned to go back ever. Now she would have to make that trip to tie up loose ends. She wasn’t sure her 1986 Honda Civic was up to the challenge, but she would try. Hectortown, Renee thought with trepidation. The name itself was so large and intimidating. Renee felt her heart speeding up just thinking it… just like she had when her father first told her she was moving there when she was nine years old. Hectortown. But, I’m not a little kid any more. She reflexively resorted to the therapy techniques she had learned over the past two years with Dr. Colton. Why do I think it’s so scary? She asked herself. Can they kill me? No. Can they take my limbs? No. Can they keep me from going to veterinary school? No. So, what am I afraid of? She closed her eyes and sighed. She knew exactly what she was afraid of. She would have to face her friends and be embarrassed by her former job. She would face the Franklins and be crushed by the look of disappointment and betrayal on their faces that she had left them and lost her way and never so much as called. She would face all of them knowing she had let them down. She had left them so confident that she could handle life on her own and she had been wrong.

  No, not wrong, she thought to herself, getting out of bed and putting on a bathrobe. You’re still here and you’re still on your feet. You are going to veterinary school. You’re still on your feet and you did it all by yourself. It doesn’t matter if they like how you did it. You did it. Hold your head up high. Anyway, you won’t be there long. Renee got dressed, her thoughts racing too fast to let her go back to sleep. She dug through a pile of dirty laundry and found her wallet. In it, near the back with receipts and movie ticket stubs from years earlier, she found the business card of an attorney, Henry Saxon. He was Dr. Alfred’s fallen guardian angel and coconspirator for every evasion from justice, earthly or cosmic. Looks like he fell asleep on the job this time, Renee thought to herself. He had an office on the southern edge of town near the whiskey mill which always smelled like burning peat.

  Renee stuck the card with a magnet to her refrig
erator. She couldn’t call for another few hours. She put on a pot of coffee. Her pathophysiology book was still open to the page where she had left off the night before. She sat down in front of it but was too preoccupied planning to concentrate on the pictures. I’ll just go, get everything done, and be back in a few days, she thought. If I bump into Jen, maybe I’ll eat lunch with her, and that’s it. They can’t do anything to hurt me. They can’t stop me from coming back to Brighton. I’ll just be gone a few days. Then I’ll come back to Brighton and go to vet school. Nothing will change that. Nothing can change that. Can it?