Six Crime Stories

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  "I'm sorry," she said as the elevator doors closed. "I love you."

  Tom was too busy coughing up blood to reply.

  *****

  For five endless days, Tom lay on the sofa with the television on and imagined the things Ignatius Mayflower would make Sydney do. It was about all he could manage, as he was having trouble breathing and was growing steadily weaker from his illness.

  And it drove him crazy. He couldn't sleep for worrying about her.

  What would the billionaire ask her to do? And how far would Sydney be willing to go?

  With her husband's life on the line, Tom was afraid she might go far.

  He thought of Mayflower on his balcony, looking out over the beautiful gardens...with Sydney on her knees between his legs, her face in his lap.

  Tom imagined her naked with Mayflower in a vast, luxurious bed...or with Mayflower and another woman, or two or three or more. Or with Mayflower and other men, doing things. Having things done to her.

  Enjoying it in spite of herself.

  Tom pictured her carrying a gun into a darkened room, as he had, and killing a man. Or killing a woman. He imagined her doing it with a knife, or sprinkling poison powder in someone's drink...or killing a man while having sex with him in a hotel room or the back of a car or on stage in front of an audience.

  Enjoying it in spite of herself.

  And the worst of it was, at the same time that he was repulsed and enraged at the thought of her being used sexually or forced to commit some murderous act, part of him couldn't stop hoping that she would come through. That she would comply with the billionaire's wishes and come home with the cure.

  He hated himself for thinking like that. For being so selfish that a part of him would be willing to live at the cost of his wife's suffering.

  For wanting her to save his life whatever it took.

  For wanting her to prove she loved him as much as he loved her.

  *****

  On the fifth night, he took a sleeping pill--three of them, actually--and finally managed to get some rest. It was a deep, dreamless sleep that stretched long into the next morning, a sleep as heavy and black as death itself.

  When he woke, he saw garlands of tinsel hanging from the ceiling fan.

  Turning his head, he saw the dancing Santa on the dresser and candles in the windows. Rolling over, he saw the artificial Christmas tree in the corner, strung with lights and hung with ornaments.

  Tom's heart skipped a beat. The decorations could mean only one thing.

  Sydney had come home while he was asleep.

  Forcing aside his lingering grogginess, he swung his feet to the floor and sat up on the edge of the bed. "Sydney?" he said, peering through the doorway and listening expectantly for some sound of her. "Honey?"

  There was no reply. "Sydney?" he called out again, but there was still nothing. Not even a sound.

  Maybe she had come home and gone back out again to go to the store.

  Tom turned to check the time on the digital clock on the bedside table...and frowned. A manilla envelope was propped in front of the clock, leaning back against the lamp.

  And the envelope had his name on it, written in black marker in Sydney's cursive scrawl.

  Tom undid the envelope's clasp and folded back the flap. As soon as he had it open, Sydney's favorite perfume wafted up at him.

  Reaching inside, he drew out a clear plastic baggie full of fine white powder. Relief flooded him; she had brought back the cancer cure, after all. She hadn't let him down.

  Placing the baggie on the sheets alongside him, he reached back into the envelope...and found another

  powder-filled baggie. It was the second dose, he realized, the one that would make his recovery complete. Somehow, she had managed to get both doses in a single visit, instead of coming home with the first dose and having to return to Mayflower for the second.

  Tom laid the second baggie atop the first and reached back into the envelope. He slid out a single sheet of Sydney's stationery, covered with more of her familiar scrawl in blue ink.

  "Dearest Tom," she wrote. "This is the hardest letter I've ever written. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

  "Mr. Mayflower gave me your cure. He gave me all of it at once. Please take the first dose as soon as possible and take the second dose one week later.

  "I'm so glad I could help you, Tom. I love you so much! I want you to live!

  "But you were right about him, Tom. He did ask me to do something terrible."

  Tom's mouth got dry, and his stomach clenched. His hands shook a little as he continued to read.

  "It's something that will last for the rest of my life," wrote Sydney. "In order to save you, I can never see you again.

  "There's no other way. If you ever try to find me, he'll have you killed."

  Tom was seized by a coughing jag. He sprayed blood on the note but couldn't tear his eyes from the terrible words as he hacked.

  "I'm so sorry," wrote Sydney. "It's so hard to go through with this, but I'd rather be apart from you than let you die. I'd give anything for you, Tom, even our life together.

  "Please don't hate me! I love you, Tom! I love you!

  "Goodbye! I'll love you forever!

  "Love, Sydney."

  Tom tried to read the note again, but his cough was too severe. He doubled over on the bed, eyes filled with tears, and sprayed blood all over himself and the floor.

  Wracked with rage and sadness and physical pain, he looked at the powder-filled baggies on the bed, the miracle cure paid for by his wife's sacrifice. The thought of being healed didn't hold the same appeal for him anymore.

  He had lost the woman he loved. She might find suffering...she might find happiness...but she would never return. If he tried to get her back, he would be killed.

  And yet...

  And yet, he reached for the baggies anyway, scooped them up and hobbled to the kitchen to make tea. If he had to die, and he had the option, he would rather do it later.

  He would rather do it for a good reason.

  *****

  The First Detect-Eve

  The Tree of Knowledge didn't exactly teach us everything we needed to know...like what to do with a dead man's body, for example.

  From experience, we knew that when an animal died, its body would rot and stink after a while. We'd figured out it was best to burn or bury them, but I guess we still thought people were different. The Voice had told us we would die someday, but it never really sank in until we finally saw a dead man.

  My dead son, that is. Sweet, beautiful Abel, the light of my miserable life.

  When we found him, lying out in the field, we just didn't know what to do with him. To tell you the truth, we didn't even realize he was dead at first. He wasn't breathing, and he wouldn't respond when we shook him and spoke to him, but we weren't too bright back in those days. Maybe he was just sleeping soundly. Maybe he was in a trance. Maybe it was some kind of magic. Anything was possible back then.

  I figured it out before my husband, but that didn't come as a surprise. Adam had his good qualities, don't get me wrong, but when God was handing out brains, he kind of got an early model, if you know what I mean. Not to mention that he was drunk a lot of the time, including that particular day. Unfortunately, he'd discovered the joys of fermented grapes before learning how to work out his problems constructively.

  Let's just say, ever since we got thrown out of Eden, Adam had his share of problems.

  Anyway, once I finally got it through my head that something bad had happened to my boy, I got upset. My husband was no help, of course, because he was convinced Abel would wake up at any moment. There I was, in more pain than I'd experienced since Abel's birth, just crying my eyes out...and Adam insisted on carrying Abel back to his bed at our camp so he'd be comfortable for the rest of his nap.

  After which, Adam proceeded to stretch himself out on his own bed of straw to sleep off the grapes.

  So I was left alone to mourn for
my dead son, and it was terrible. Keep in mind, this was the first time I'd lost a loved one...the first time anyone had lost a loved one, in fact. These days, I've had a lot more experience with that kind of thing, which still doesn't make it easy, but it's never been as bad as that first time.

  I cried and screamed all afternoon and all night. Sometimes, I'd calm down a little and sit there in a daze, like nothing had happened...but then, I'd look at my dead boy again and remember everything in a rush, and I'd start right back up again with the weeping.

  Once, I pretended to convince myself that Adam had been right, and Abel was just sleeping after all. I knelt beside my boy and caressed his hand, calling his name in the darkness.

  This, of course, accomplished nothing. The crying caught up to me again, worse than ever.

  I think I cried for three days straight. My husband chimed in on day two, by which time Abel's body had started to stink...but thanks to his stockpile of rotten grapes, Adam never went as far as I did. Before I knew it, he was snoring on his bed again.

  As for me, I eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion. By the time I keeled over, my stomach ached, my throat was sore, and my eyes burned like open wounds.

  Miraculously, when I awakened, I wasn't sad anymore. I was angry.

  Furious would be a better word. More than anything in the world, I wanted to find out who had done this to my boy.

  And do the same to him.

  *****

  That much was clear to me, even then. What had happened to Abel was no accident.

  At first, it wasn't obvious, because of the way he'd been killed. It wasn't like someone had stabbed him with a sharp object or bashed his head in with a rock. There was no blood, no gaping wound.

  But his throat was bruised purple and crushed. There were two circular bruises in front, on either side of his windpipe, the size of fat grapes. Or thumbs.

  Though I'd never seen the evidence of a murder before, I recognized it for what it was when I saw it.

  *****

  When the worst of the crying had passed, I told Adam to dig a hole for Abel's body. It seemed fair at first, because I'd been doing most of the suffering...but it left me to take care of the body, which turned out to be the harder job. There is nothing so horrible, I found, as tending the body of your own dead child.

  Abel was fifteen winters old and taller than I was at the time, but as he lay there on the straw, I could only see him as the tiny baby I had cradled in my arms. He had been so gentle and pleasant as a baby and had never grown out of it, unlike his brother. After leaving Eden, I had thought I would never be happy again...but Abel had made me happy.

  And now, his perfect face was crawling with insects. In Eden, where all creatures lived in harmony and death never came, I had never imagined that insects could do such terrible things to one of us.

  Crying again, I rolled him into a cow hide so I wouldn't have to look at him anymore. Adam dragged him to the hole he'd dug and pushed him in, then covered his wrapped body with dirt.

  When he was done, we stood by the mound of earth and held each other. He started to say a prayer, but I told him to keep it to himself, which he was kind enough to do. I wanted no part of praying to the Voice; none of this would have happened, I thought, if the Voice hadn't driven us out of the Garden in the first place.

  It was the first, and worst, funeral I ever attended, though we didn't think to call it that then. It was the first funeral in the history of the world.

  *****

  That night, as I sat in front of the campfire Adam had built before passing out drunk, I went over the possibilities in my mind. The list of possible killers.

  As you might expect, it wasn't a long list. There were only three people in the whole world back then that we knew of, and I knew that I hadn't done it, so that left Adam and my other son, Cain.

  Cain, who had been conspicuously absent since before the death of Abel.

  Now, when it comes to understanding murder, I certainly wasn't as sophisticated as I am nowadays...but I still realized that Cain's disappearance could not be a coincidence. This left two possibilities which to me were equally bad.

  Either Cain had been involved in Abel's murder...or had been murdered himself.

  Either way, nothing but misery lay ahead for me. There I was, the first mother in the world, and one of my darling children had killed the other. Or both were dead at the hand of another. Either possibility made me shudder with dread.

  If only I'd known back then that in this violent world of ours, such fates are not uncommon among the children of any woman.

  Sometimes, I wish that I could whisper back along the years to myself. "The world is much worse than you think," I would tell her. "This is nothing compared to what you have yet to face. It will pass."

  In a way, I think it would be a comfort to her.

  *****

  Of course, though I had absolutely no doubt that Cain had some role in Abel's murder or was a victim himself, I likewise knew he wasn't the only one who could have been involved.

  I didn't want to believe my husband could have done it, but I had to admit I hadn't been watching him every minute of the day when Abel was found dead. We had worked together in camp for much of the morning, but he had gone off for a while to harvest berries in the forest. We found Abel not far away, so I thought it was possible that Adam could have killed him in the time we were apart.

  Thinking back, I remembered how troubled Adam had been since our departure from Eden. He had agonized over disobeying the Voice, had prayed and prayed for forgiveness...and become more and more depressed when forgiveness never came. He had used the grapes to forget, but it never lasted long; he never seemed to get over losing his perfect little world.

  So I knew he hadn't been in the best state of mind lately. Plus, I couldn't ignore the fact that he had tried to kill a son once before.

  Oh, it had been innocent enough, believe it or not...but I still couldn't get it out of my head. Back when I was pregnant with our first child, we'd both thought I was terribly ill; neither of us had really understood what was happening to me. Then, when I gave birth, the blood and screaming drove Adam crazy. When Cain squeezed out of me, all bloody and slimy, Adam didn't have a clue at first that this was his baby. He picked up a rock, and I swear he meant to kill this awful looking thing...until Cain started crying. At which point he dropped the rock.

  But still. Anything was possible back then. We were just making it up as we went along. Maybe that was how it was supposed to work; maybe it was natural for a father to kill his son. Or for a brother to kill a brother.

  Which isn't to say I was willing to let the killer off the hook, whoever he was. Not by a long shot.

  *****

  That night, as I slept, I dreamed about the Garden for the first time I could remember in ages...only this time, Abel was with me instead of Adam.

  Fruit hung heavy on every branch, fruit the likes of which I've never seen since leaving Eden. We picked it and ate it and lay in the soft grass under the sun, naked and innocent. Animals came right up and stretched out beside us, unafraid; birds landed on our knees and sang in sweet voices, and I understood every word of their songs.

  Tiny angels fluttered down with gossamer wings and fed us honey and cool water. Abel picked flowers of red and yellow and purple and wove them into a garland for my hair.

  It was perfect, just as I remembered, in every way...so much brighter and bolder and richer than anything I'd known in the rest of the world. No pain. No fear. No murder.

  But still, I noticed one thing missing.

  Abel stopped weaving the garland and looked up, listening to something that I couldn't hear. He spoke, but not to me, and I understood at once.

  He could hear the Voice, and I could not. In the old days, it had whispered often in my ears, warm and strong and reassuring. Musical. Tender.

  Loving.

  But now, when I needed most to hear it once more, when I needed it to comfort me just this one
time, when my boy was there in my dream but lost in life and whoever had killed him was someone I trusted and loved if not the fruit of my own womb.

  I heard nothing. Not even in a dream.

  And I knew, as Abel listened and laughed and spoke to the air, that as much as it had cost me, what I had done, as much as it had cost all of us

  I would do it again.

  *****

  The next morning, I went back to the field where we had found poor Abel. I was looking for something that would help me understand what had happened, anything that might tell the story or even a little bit of it.

  When Adam and I had found the body, neither of us had searched the area. I had been too upset upon realizing Abel was dead...and to Adam's mind, Abel was still alive, so what need was there to look further? Either that, or Adam was the killer and didn't want me to see anything that might tip me off about his involvement.

  It was because of that possibility that I lied to Adam when I went back to the field. I told him I was going off by myself to bleed like I sometimes did...like I did every so often since leaving Eden. It was a good excuse, because he didn't like being around to see it.

  At first, nothing unusual caught my eye in the corner of the field where Abel's body had lain. The grass that had been pressed down beneath him had sprung back up, so even the place where he had fallen was hidden now...though I would never forget that exact spot no matter how overgrown it became.

  I got down on my knees and ran my hands through the soft green blades, looking for a trace of Abel or anyone else. For a long time, I combed through the grass, squinting at the earth beneath it...and found nothing.