A Perfect Crime

by Peter Abrahams

  Enough. A digression, although at the speed his mind worked it probably lasted less than a second, and therefore cost him nothing. Data. Start with the time: 6:30. Sixthirty! Was it possible that Francie and her boy were still on their way, might walk in at any moment? Roger hurried to the door, stuck his head out, saw nothing but snow, falling straighter now, and less heavily; heard nothing but the wind in the trees, lower in tone. But, yes, it was possible. Roger glanced around the kitchen. Could he somehow clean up, hide the body, hide every trace? Probably not. Was it in his interest? Why would it be? It wasn’t even in his interest to turn off the lights, in case the following question lay waiting for him in the future, in a courtroom, for example: Who turned out the lights? No. Simply get out and get out fast. And if they were coming? Roger didn’t know. Then he thought: what if Whitey was even at this moment crawling to the gate? Simultaneously-it could still happen! Not as planned, but in essence. If only he could be lucky just once in this goddamned life. Roger took the ax and went outside.

  He made his way across the river to the western bank, toiled up the snowed-in lane through the meadow. Snow fell, but lighter now, and the wind was dying. Wouldn’t Whitey’s tracks still be visible if he’d gone this way? Roger shone his light back and forth across the meadow, saw snow unmarred all around.

  He reached the gate: locked. Beyond it sat one car, covered in snow but a minivan from the shape-not Francie’s car, as he would have known at a glance had he come from this side, but Anne’s. Could Whitey be curled up behind it, or possibly inside? Roger unlocked the gate, walked around the car. No Whitey. But inside? More than unlikely, almost impossible. But if Whitey was inside, then at least he could control the damage by simply finishing him off right there. It meant leaving evidence because he would first have to brush snow off the window. Decision: Roger stood by Anne’s minivan, following long and complex ramifications through his mind. Then he brushed a swath of snow from the windshield and shone his light inside. No Whitey: just an open road map on the front passenger seat and a shopping bag from F.A.O. Schwarz in back. Were children involved? Roger didn’t recall. He scooped up some snow, tossed it on the bare glass. It wouldn’t cling for some reason, though he tried and tried. No matter. The falling snow would do the work, as it would cover his own tracks, tracks he saw clearly in the beam of his flash. He relocked the gate and started back to the island, failing to notice until he was almost there that the snowfall had stopped.

  No snow, therefore tracks, L.L. Bean tracks, therefore-what? Process, process, process, Roger instructed his mind. But instead of processing, his mind writhed. “How much fucking data do you need?” he said aloud, perhaps shouted. Nothing came, not a wisp of an idea. This had never happened before. His mind had always risen eagerly to any challenge. Now challenge had become torment. No Whitey, no more snow, Anne dead, the cottage all red inside. Therefore? Nothing. No response. “Think,” he said, and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand, hard.

  Nothing.

  Roger walked back across the river and onto the island, avoiding the circle of light around the cottage. He leaned against a tree in the shadows, waiting for an answer. Perhaps a mind as powerful as his had powers that couldn’t be completely understood and so couldn’t be completely commanded, like some supercomputer approaching the realm of artificial intelligence. A calming thought. Roger relaxed slightly, shone the light on his watch: 7:00. Would they be coming now? No. They had a hot thing going, but not so hot they’d venture out on a night like this, with the prospect of so many clement nights lying ahead. Therefore-and just as Roger felt his mind come to life at last, felt it really readying itself to think-he realized he had seen not only his watch in the flashlight’s beam but something else as well. He switched it back on, swept it across the snow, saw dark stains on white.

  Little stains, like ink drops on blotting paper, but these, he saw as he knelt in the snow, were red, not blue. They’d melted down into shallow pits, the red congealing now, still slightly wet. He took off his glove to make sure of that, touched the red with a fingertip, felt the wetness. After that he plunged his hand into clean snow, rubbed, rubbed, rubbed it off. At the same time his mind was spooling out lines of programming.

  Subject: damage control. Datum: Whitey bleeding, perhaps to death. Task: to make sure he did so. Then came a mental leap, too swift to follow exactly, although he half caught images flying by: pattern of blood drops, unmarred snow by the gate, the snow-covered pickup parked at the lookout. Knowledge.

  The next moment, Roger was on his way back across to the east side of the river, ax in hand, properly gripped near the head, blade down. Yes: Whitey curled up dying in a parked car; Roger had picked the wrong vehicle, that was all. He reached the east bank, scrambled up the ridge, grasping at tree branches, up over the top, onto the lookout. The pickup was gone.

  And the hood of his own car had been brushed off, to identify it, of course. Therefore: Whitey and he weren’t… a team anymore. Roger darted around the car, checking the tires-unslashed. The only sign of Whitey’s mental state was the smashed-in rear window. Not good enough, Whitey. Roger unlocked the car, got in. Where would a Whitey-type go in these circumstances? The answer came at once: home to Mama. Not good enough either, Whitey. Roger started his car, backed out of the lookout. In the headlights, snow was falling again, falling hard. His tracks, the brushed windshield of Anne’s car, any other evidence left behind-all would be gone forever in a matter of minutes. This was a tidying-up operation, and nature was helping. The murder of Anne would be a perfect crime, just not the perfect crime he’d had in mind. Roger considered Columbus, bold discoverer of what he hadn’t been looking for. That was one similarity they shared. But Columbus’s greatest accomplishment had been in crossing that uncrossed ocean for the first time. After that the voyage was easy. The lesson: as long as he emerged tonight immaculate, he could deal with Francie at his convenience, like Columbus on a later trip, or Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa. At the same time, he felt an inner stirring, deep in his brain, in the heart of its very core, that some route toward his original goal still existed, a route involving Whitey. If he could make contact with it, draw it to the surface, examine for feasibility and refine for deployment, all before finding Whitey, then he might have to prolong Whitey’s life, or prolong it even more, to be accurate, since Whitey had already exceeded his allotment by almost an hour. Otherwise he would merely tidy up, as planned. This was more like it: he was doing what he did best, what he’d perhaps been born to do-ordering disorder. As he turned south on the lane, Whitey’s treadmarks not quite filled in with snow, Roger caught a glimpse in his rearview mirror of the cottage glowing on Brenda’s island. He prepared his reaction to news of the tragedy.

  Drip drip. Lawton Ferry, 97 Carp Road. A dump. Whitey knocked on the door. Why would he ever think this was home? He’d never even been inside. He knocked again. Come on, you stupid bitch.

  “Who is it?” A high, shaky voice, but hers: Whitey knew that at once from the way it grated on him.

  “Open the fuckin’ door.”

  Pause. “Oh my God.”

  Click. The door opened. A thin old woman, bent and ugly, stood there gazing up in his direction, the centers of her eyes milky where they should have been black. “Oh, Donald,” she said. “You’ve come home at last.” She held out her arms.

  “Are you nuts?” Whitey pushed past her, went inside, glanced around. A dump, and a stinking one.

  She closed the door, followed him, sliding along crabwise, her head at a funny angle.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said.

  “This is only how I can see just a teeny little. Around the edges like. Don’t work for TV at all, but I can’t say I miss it. Have you any idea the kind of filth-” She stopped, her face averted, but maybe seeing him semiclear from that angle. “Oh, Donald, has something happened?”

  “Why would you say a stupid thing like that?”

  “But you’re bleeding. Aren’t you? Aren’t you bleed
ing, Donald?”

  “That matters to you? Acting like you never seen blood before?”

  “What do you mean?” she said. He started down the hall to the back of the house. She twisted her head frantically, trying to get him in her field of vision. “It’s all the fault of that ungodly psychiatrist. I hope he burns in Hell for a thousand years.”

  “Shut up, Ma,” Whitey said. “Where’s the sewing stuff?”

  She started to cry: same old cry, like fucked-up crows. He went back into the front room.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  She wiped her eyes, her snotty face, on the back of her hand. “You said Ma, Donald.”

  “So?”

  “It’s been a long time.”

  “You’re out of your mind, you know that? Now, where’s the sewing stuff?”

  “Sewing stuff?”

  “I don’t have time for this. The sewing stuff, in that basket thing.”

  “My sewing basket? The wicker one handed down from Granny Nesbit?”

  “Just tell me where.”

  “But, Donald, I don’t sew anymore. Haven’t for years. I can’t see the TV, never mind for sewing. I’m having eye difficulties, or haven’t you been listening?”

  Whitey wanted to smack her, smack and smack and smack, but he was too weak, hurt too much, and it wouldn’t get him the sewing stuff any quicker, if at all. So he just took her by the wrist, and squeezed a little, family style. “I don’t want you to sew. I’ll sew. Just get me the basket.”

  “But what’s torn, Donald? I knew you were hurt, just knew it.”

  “No one’s hurt. A little fender bender is all.”

  “A fender bender? Cross your heart?”

  “Every time.”

  She disappeared in her bedroom, returned with the sewing basket. “What’s there to drink?” said Whitey, taking it.

  “Tea, of course,” she said, “and some Pepsi.”

  “I mean a drink.”

  “Like alcohol?”

  “Yeah. Alcohol.”

  “But you always liked Pepsi.”

  “I want a fucking drink, for Christ sake.”

  “None of that here, Donald, not since I joined up with the Redeemer Church. Have I mentioned them? And I really wish you could see fit not to take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  He was already in the bathroom at the end of the hall, closing and locking the door. A stinking little bathroom. He turned on the light, looked at himself in the mirror. Blood, and plenty of it. Someone was going to pay.

  Whitey found gauze and a roll of tape in the cabinet, also a bottle labeled Vicodin. Wasn’t that one of Rey’s favorites? He swallowed the three or four remaining tablets, took off his jacket and shirt, began to bandage himself. A long slash across his gut, a puncture in his chest that he picked a sliver of long green glass from-and that reddened the bandages almost right away-others. But they’d heal, no problem. The worst was under his chin, where a big flap hung down like a goddamn bullfrog tongue, dripping red in fat round plops: no bandaging that.

  As Whitey opened the sewing basket, he remembered the bullfrog he’d speared through the head down on the I-95 median. Now, what the hell was that supposed to mean? Like God was watching from up in the clouds or something? He’d done nothing wrong on the median-thought it was a snake, remember? He’d killed the wrong thing, was all. And out on the river just now, he’d been put in an impossible situation, done what he’d had to. When the going gets tough, the tough get going “What’s that, Donald?”

  “Get the fuck away.” He listened for her retreating footsteps, heard them.

  — and he was as tough as they come. He found a satin thing, cushion or whatever it was, full of needles, selected the thinnest, threaded it with beige thread, to blend with his skin, tied a knot in the end, got to work. Whitey had seen it done before, between periods in his last season. A skate blade had sliced his forearm, right above the glove, and the beery-breathed doc who came to all the games had sewn him up in the dressing room. Whitey stitched the chin flap back into place, hissing from time to time, but getting it done, making himself whole again; he was no fucking bullfrog.

  He put his shirt and jacket back on, went into the kitchen. She was standing in the middle of the room, squeezing her hands together.

  “Where’s that Pepsi?” he said.

  “In the fridge, Donald. Are you all right?”

  Whitey popped the can open, sat at the rickety table, drank. It hit the spot. He liked Pepsi.

  She came closer, hovered. “A bit to eat, maybe?”

  He wouldn’t have minded, except for the smell. “What stinks in here?” he said.

  She sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”

  “What’s the matter with you? It’s like a goddamn shithouse.”

  She sniffed again. “Maybe it’s the Kitty Litter. I’m not strong enough to carry it out anymore. And Donald? You know the awful part? Harry’s gone.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The cat.”

  Gone as far as the barn. Maybe he’d tell her, maybe not.

  “I must have mentioned our marvelous cat,” she was saying. “On the phone, wasn’t it, at that New Horizons place? And now you won’t be meeting him. Isn’t that the way? He disappeared the day that man came to visit. Vanished.”

  “What man?”

  “A sort of preacher man, but not with the Redeemers. He said a prayer for you.”

  “Huh?”

  “A beautiful prayer- please hear this prayer for our beloved Donald — I made him change it from Whitey, such a silly nickname- and help guide him in useful ways.”

  “Are you making this up?”

  “No, Donald, that’s what he said. The most beautiful prayer I’ve heard in my entire life. How could I forget?”

  “Guide him in useful ways-is that what he said?”

  “Don’t shout, Donald. My hearing’s perfectly fine. It’s the vision that-”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Oh, some time ago.”

  Smack, smack, smack, but only in his mind, even though he was feeling a little better now, what with Vicodin and Pepsi. No smacking Ma. “Where was I?” he said.

  “Where were you?”

  “Yeah. When this visit happened.”

  “Why, down there at the New Horizons establishment, naturally. And I wanted so much for you to meet Harry. He was the smartest little-”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Gingerbread, I guess you’d say, although-”

  “The man, asshole-what did he look like?”

  Her forehead got all cross, the way it used to: kind of funny now, with her eyes like that, and no belt buckles possible. “Look like?” she said.“I’m afflicted with vision problems, or can’t you get it through your thick skull?”

  Not that funny. Smack. He did it then, but who wouldn’t have? And it felt good; why hadn’t he done it long ago? He picked her up off the floor, sat her at the table. “What I’m trying to find out, Ma-I know you like when I call you Ma-is would you know him if you heard him again?”

  Ma repositioned her dentures, gave him one of her hateful looks, but not so hateful now with no eye power behind it, and said, “Honor thy father and mother.”

  “Accidents happen. Would you know him if you heard him again, yes or no?”

  “You could try saying please.”

  “If I do you won’t like it.”

  One of the best things he ever said. It silenced her. At last she hung her head-oh, why hadn’t he done it long, long ago? — and said, “I’d know him.”

  “’Cause why?”

  “He talked fancy.” She sniffled.

  “Fancy?”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Fancy. Like with Harry. Harry has these long claws. The gentlest possible cat, but long claws. And this preacher man said they gave him an inadvertent scratch. Inadvertent, Donald. Now, who on God’s earth talks like that?”
r />   Whitey knew the answer to that; he didn’t know what or why, but he knew who. He was nobody’s fucking bullfrog, nobody’s… puppet. Did Roger really think of himself as the master? Whitey would see about that.

  First things first. It took him no time to find his mother’s purse, pocket what was in it, walk out the door without another word, a six-pack of Pepsi in his hand.

  Lawton Ferry, 97 Carp Road. No pickup: an unpromising deficiency, but not definitive, and because not definitive, Roger took the ax with him when he left his car and went to the door.

  He knocked.

  “Donald? Is that you?”

  “A friend of his.”

  Pause. “I know your voice.”

  “I’m your friend, too.”

  Pause. How slow people were. “But how could you be Donald’s friend? You don’t know him.”

  Slow, and they didn’t even get there. “I prayed for him. Doesn’t that make me his friend?”

  “I don’t know.” Pause. “Harry disappeared the day you came.”

  “But he’s right here, by the trash can.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “As I live and breathe.”

  Pause. “Are you sure it’s him?”

  Roger described the animal as he remembered it.

  “Merciful God-it’s Harry!”

  “Why don’t I bring him in?”

  “I’d be obliged.”

  “Here, kitty,” said Roger into the night. “Kitty, kitty, kitty.”

  The door opened. The woman had a split lip, far too insignificant to account for all the blood Roger saw-on the kitchen table, the counter, the refrigerator, down the hall to the back.

  “Have you got him?” said the woman, her sightless eyes gazing up at him. He didn’t like seeing sightless eyes again so soon, therefore was a little gruff perhaps when he said, “He’s absconded once more.”

  “I don’t understand,” the woman said. “Harry,” she called, leaning outside, “Harry.”

  Roger went past her into the house. He followed blood down to the bathroom; formed meaning from gauze, tape, needle, thread; returned to the kitchen; saw the open purse, a hideous object made of shiny green plastic; made meaning of it, too.