Barely a Crime

by Robert Ovies

  Marie sat as far away as she could, squeezed at the other end of the couch with her arms crossed. “Stop staring at me,” she said at last.

  “You didn’t know about it, did you?” Brenna said. “Until today.”

  Marie stared at a copy of the Smithsonian magazine on the glass-topped table that was past Brenna and to her right.

  Upstairs, Crawl’s voice shouted something behind a closed door.

  “Crawl told you about it, didn’t he?” Brenna said.

  On the cover of the magazine was a pink flower that looked like a cartoon character with its mouth open, revealing its round black teeth. It was, the headline on the cover said, a flower in American Samoa. Marie wished she was in Samoa. She wished she were anywhere in the world but here.

  “He would,” Brenna said. “That would be like him.”

  Marie’s mind had not stopped bouncing back and forth between terrors. She was still trying to wrestle with the fact that her uncle, and her aunt too, had actually done this to her. She was feeling, she decided, what a rape victim must feel. Worse than that, what an incest victim must feel.

  She felt so dirty and so ashamed, even though she knew that she hadn’t wanted this, didn’t invite it, didn’t even know about it, hated it with everything inside of her. That was terrifying in itself. What if she would never be able to shake this feeling, not for the rest of her life? That possibility was even more frightening.

  Brenna said, “So, when this is over, you can just get it aborted.”

  Marie didn’t answer. She wouldn’t have an abortion. Even if she did, she thought, who would she be aborting? And that brought her back to one of the deepest fears about the pregnancy. What if her uncle—who was a genius, she didn’t doubt that—had really done it right, so that she really was carrying the clone of the man on the shroud? And what if the man on the shroud really was Jesus, as so many people believed? How could she live with aborting the clone of Jesus?

  “It might not even be growing, you know?” Brenna said. “Could be it’s dead already. Who knows the way clones might go?”

  Marie responded softly, without meeting Brenna’s eyes, “I don’t need advice from a murderer.”

  “I’m not a murderer.”

  “You’re a murderer.”

  “Nobody meant for that to happen and you know it.”

  “You’re a murderer.”

  “Nobody here is a murderer.”

  “You are. And they are too.”

  “Well, you go to hell, little girl.”

  Marie pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  It would be easier if it died. But she couldn’t be the one to kill it.

  Whatever happened, though, she would not stay with her uncle. It would all come out to other people, she was sure of that, but even if it didn’t, she couldn’t ever live with him again. And if she didn’t live with him, where would she go, especially if everybody knew about the pregnancy and was watching her to see what she would deliver?

  Terry came to mind again, but she was afraid to think about him now. Later. Not now.

  She felt like a freak show, with the curtain ready to go up.

  Nightmares on top of nightmares.

  She felt sick and lowered her face to her knees.

  Why did she think these people would even let her live, with her knowing about Aunt Leah? Her and Uncle John, both. They knew the killers’ faces, and now they even knew their first names. And her uncle must know more than that. They would be able to pick them out for the police, for sure.

  She raised her eyes. “You killed Leah,” she said, “and you’re going to kill us too.”

  “No, we’re not,” Brenna said. But she moved her legs uncomfortably and shifted the weapon from her right hand to her left, and her eyes didn’t seem as certain as her words.

  Suddenly Marie raised her chin high. Her eyes widened with alarm. She exclaimed, “Oh, God,” and leapt from the couch to bolt for the hallway on the west end of the room.

  Brenna jumped to her feet and charged after her, shouting, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m throwing up.”

  “Stop! I’m going with you!”

  But Marie had already slammed and locked the bathroom door.

  “Crawl,” Kieran said, still refusing to give it up, “if you were lying someplace dying, and Mary, the real mother of the real Jesus in the Bible, was alive and right there with you, and she still had Jesus growing in her belly, and she wanted to pray to God to make you well, wouldn’t you at least let her try it?”

  “Pray for me?”

  “For you, or for Michael, yes. It’s the same DNA in the girl as on the tapes, only there’s more of it every minute by ten billion times. Isn’t that better than a piece of tape?”

  But before Crawl could respond, they heard Brenna kicking at the bathroom door downstairs and screaming, “Crawl! Kieran! She’s in the bathroom and there’s a window in there!”

  And then, two shots, fired quickly.

  Crawl shouted at Kieran to stay with Michael and rushed past him as fast as he could; jerking from his limp like a marionette.

  “She just got up and ran,” Brenna shouted as Crawl started down the stairs. Her chrome-plated automatic was flapping like a flag. “She just ran!”

  “Go out the back. Along the lake.”

  “I shot the lock but she was already gone.”

  Crawl charged for the front door. First he shouted, “Go!” Then he said, “Wait. There’re flashlights in the truck and the car. Come with me.”

  It was raining lightly, but the wind was strong as Crawl ran out of the house, strong enough to bend the tops of the trees and power thick clouds fast across the face of the moon. He squinted and ran for the truck. Brenna was right behind him.

  Suddenly, there she was: the girl, all ready to be taken.

  Crawl saw her first. She was in the pickup, her head silhouetted in the rear window. He didn’t believe his eyes at first, but it was Marie, all right. She had been ducking down as if she were looking for the keys that were still in Crawl’s pocket, but now she was up again in full view and her door was flying open.

  He closed the ten yards that separated them, reaching her just as her left foot hit the ground.

  Marie heard him before she saw him. She turned her head and cried out sharply, and she lunged back into the truck, kicking at him in the open door. He tried to grab her ankle, but she was kicking too fast and too hard. She had hurtled across the bench seat, and, still kicking, groped for the passenger-door handle, screaming, “Help me!”

  But Brenna was there on the passenger side, right in front of her and cursing as she yanked open the passenger door.

  Marie screamed and twisted backward again, but Brenna grabbed her by the hair with her left hand and pulled hard.

  Marie cried, “Let me go!” and pounded at Brenna with both fists as she tumbled out of the pickup.

  Brenna pulled Marie’s hair straight down in front of her, forcing the girl’s head down, then she jammed her right arm, with her gun still in hand, across the back of the girl’s neck and leapt on her, letting her weight drive her to the ground.

  Marie kept shouting, “Let me go! Let me go!”

  Crawl reached them and grabbed Marie’s wrist with his left hand, twisting it. “Get off her,” he snapped at Brenna. “Get her on her feet.”

  Together, they forced Marie to her feet, but she yelled and kicked Crawl hard in his lame leg just above the ankle, and then, just as hard, kicked him in his knee, sending him falling back into Brenna with a vicious cry.

  Marie twisted and jerked her hand as hard as she could, tearing herself free.

  Brenna reached for her, but Marie was too quick, swinging around the tailgate, nearly falling, then racing into the darkness of the road that led away from the house.

  Brenna flew around the tailgate in pursuit.

  “This is faster than you, girl,” Crawl shouted, and he fired once into the air.

/>   The power of the explosion instinctively slowed Marie. For just a second, she threw her hands up to cover her head, then she glanced back to see Brenna charging after her and broke again into a dead run. She screamed involuntarily—a short, quick scream—and then the only sounds she heard were her own pounding feet and her own pounding breath.

  Crawl fired a second time, and then a third.

  The doctor had already positioned Michael on his left side in anticipation of the stomach catheter. Now he stood facing Kieran and his automatic with the catheter tube in his hand.

  He was rigid.

  Kieran said, “Get the catheter in.” He waved the automatic once and added, in a bitter whisper aimed at no one, or at everyone and everything, himself included, “Son of a bitch.”

  The doctor turned to Michael and, grim faced, inserted the catheter into the dying man’s stomach.

  “Your friend gave his intentions away,” he said, eyeing Kieran and speaking quietly. “He told you I’d kill to avenge my sister, but he was really saying, that’s the way he thinks. Because that’s what he intends to do. He’s going to kill Marie, and me too, to avenge his brother.”

  Kieran said, “You don’t believe it’s really Jesus either, do you? Why the hell did you do this to her if you don’t even believe it yourself?”

  Gravity was doing its work. Both the catheter tube and the bottom of the silver pan were pooling dark red.

  “You can save an innocent girl, Kieran. A pregnant sixteen-year-old girl who hasn’t hurt anyone. Does that remind you of anyone?”

  Crawl’s first shot boomed from the yard outside.

  The doctor flinched, but recovered.

  Kieran stared at him coldly.

  The doctor slowly twisted the cap from a small brown bottle of antiseptic solution. He began to rub Michael’s ribs with the rust-colored liquid. He said, “The next world war—you can keep it from ever happening, Kieran! By one act of courage on your part, spears will turn into plowshares. The lion will lie next to the lamb. The next plagues, averted. No one’s father getting killed. No one’s sister dying alone and in misery. No one losing their lives to alcohol or drugs, ever again.” He looked fiercely at Kieran. “And in addition to heaven on earth for everyone, for you, personally, seven and a half million dollars and a singular chance for your atonement before God and before your own heart and soul.”

  Kieran was holding his breath.

  The doctor sensed it. “You can have it all. Salvation, falling like rain.”

  Kieran shook the words off. “You’re a liar going in, you’re a liar now. If you really believed it was Jesus, you would have let the blood save Michael.”

  The doctor shook his head. “No,” he said. “If I really believed it was Jesus, I would rather die, and see my niece die, too, than put his precious blood into the hands of someone as corrupt as Crawl Connell.”

  He put down the swab and picked up his scalpel.

  Crawl’s second shot sounded, then his third.

  The doctor pressed his eyes shut and held them closed tightly for several seconds. He was perspiring. He opened his eyes and murmured, “I have to make the incision now. I have to try to close off any ruptured vessels around the broken ribs.”

  “God, man,” Kieran said softly, stepping forward. “Are you saying you do have the tapes, after all?”

  “No. I buried them in the woods and can never find them again.”

  “You’re lying about this, too.”

  The doctor raised his eyes. “I’m not lying when I say you can bring salvation to the entire world. I’m not lying when I say you can have the money and I’ll let you go and never pursue you again. I’m not lying when I say you can take the red-haired girl with you if you want her, that the only one you have to leave is Crawl.”

  “But he doesn’t want the bloody tapes!” Kieran shouted. “What the hell would he want them for? He doesn’t even care about the money anymore. I know him. All he wants now is to get his brother back!”

  “You don’t understand him at all,” the doctor said coldly. “All he wants now is not to have to live with the knowledge that he’s killed his brother the same way he was responsible for killing his father.”

  Kieran stared, taking in the doctor’s words. “And what do you want?” he asked bitterly. “Is it really peace on earth? Or is it being Dr. John Cleary, almighty creator of the Second Coming of Jesus? Setting off the bomb. Bringing down a kill zone.”

  With Crawl’s second shot, Marie slowed. With the third, she stopped.

  Her hands were clamped tightly around her ears. Her shoulders were hunched. Her legs were trembling. She began to cry quietly.

  Brenna caught up to her, but she didn’t take hold of her. And she didn’t curse again. She didn’t even speak to her. She just stopped beside her after a last slow stride, breathing hard, and then she began to circle her.

  As Crawl came up behind them, she slid her arm around Marie’s shoulders and said softly, like a mother, “Now why did you go and do that? We really aren’t going to hurt you, love. We just want some of your uncle’s money.”

  The front door banged. Crawl shouted from the foot of the stairs, “How is he?”

  The doctor’s head swiveled like an owl’s.

  “He’s okay,” Kieran called, drifting toward the doorway. “We’re making progress. Did you get her?”

  “We got her.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m just going to have a little heart-to-heart with her about her behavior. I’ll be right up.”

  The doctor shouted, “Are you all right, Marie?” He moved toward the door, but Kieran waved his weapon, blocking his way.

  “I’m not hurt,” Marie answered.

  “Don’t worry about her,” Crawl shouted. “You worry about my brother.”

  “So get the damned incision going,” Kieran whispered loudly after another ten seconds of silence. “He’ll be up in a minute.”

  The doctor stood iron faced and silent next to Michael, staring at Kieran.

  Kieran snapped, “On with it!” He jerked his gun like a pointer, trying to direct the doctor’s attention back to Michael.

  Still no words, no movement.

  Kieran stared, taken back by the look in the doctor’s eyes, by the distance, by the deadness. His eyes looked as if they had turned to tar.

  Like a hand slipping through a curtain, the terror reached for him slowly at first. Then, as his mouth opened weakly to speak again, it rushed at him. It rammed his chest and stole his breath even as a thin “Oh, Jesus” escaped his lips.

  He moved around the table, his heart hammering. He pressed his index and middle fingers against Michael’s neck and held them there for a full twenty seconds. Then he let them slip away. He felt sick. He said softly, in a stranger’s voice, “Is he dead?”

  Silence.

  He looked at the doctor. “Is he dead?”

  The doctor said, “No one could have saved him. Not here.”

  “So he’s dead?”

  “Yes. He’s dead.”

  Kieran took a slow step backward. “And you can’t do anything? You can’t bring him back?”

  The doctor still hadn’t moved. He said in a voice like a recording, with no hint of human touch or emotion, “You know what will happen now, don’t you? You know it will happen in cold blood and with cold pleasure. Evil within evil within evil.”

  17

  Crawl was in a hurry to take it all in. He saw the mask on Michael’s face and the rust-colored antiseptic smeared on his brother’s ribs and the doctor holding his scalpel and Kieran standing nearby with his gun hanging at his side. He rushed to the foot of the table, saying, “How is he? What are you going to do?”

  Kieran said, “He’s going to close off any vessels bleeding around his ribs. He has to make an incision.”

  Crawl looked shaken. He leveled his gun at the doctor. “By God, you be careful what you cut, you hear me?”

  “He sedated him,” K
ieran said. “To make sure he doesn’t feel any pain.”

  Crawl turned to face Kieran and, as if with a sudden curiosity, he suddenly reached for Kieran’s weapon. “Let me see that, just for a second,” he said.

  Kieran drew his hand away. It was instinct. “Why?”

  Crawl shook his head with agitation. “Just let me see something.”

  He reached for the gun again, this time taking hold of it.

  Kieran released his grip. “What do you want to see?”

  Crawl stepped back and raised his own automatic, pointing it at Kieran’s midsection. “Don’t fight me on this, Kieran,” he said. He slipped Kieran’s automatic under his belt in the middle of his back, out of sight.

  Kieran took a long step forward, reaching for Crawl. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Crawl’s automatic came up higher. “Do. . . not. . . fight me on this.” When Kieran stopped, Crawl added, “Give me your other gun.”

  Kieran stared at the muzzle of the automatic. Then he nodded and handed over the gun in his belt. “Just tell me what the hell you’re doing.”

  The doctor stiffened. “What have you done to my niece?”

  Crawl swung his weapon slowly, aiming it at the doctor’s chest. He said nothing.

  The doctor glanced once at Kieran and moved backward.

  “I had to take Brenna’s gun too,” Crawl said to Kieran. “I don’t trust her. You shouldn’t either. All she’s done is fire the thing every chance she gets, and that was the third time the girl got away from her. The first two times, back on the road. I got her the first time; she was nearly all the way into the woods before we got her back the second time. Honest to God, three times now.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “Well,” Crawl said, “I can’t have you going soft, with her begging you, all teary-eyed, ‘Oh, please, Kieran, let me have your weapon. He took mine,’ and you goin’, ‘Well, sure you can. Don’t want to see you cry, now, do we?’ That’s how you’d go. I can’t risk it, is all it is. It’s nothin’ to worry about.”