by Moriah Jovan
“ . . . fourteenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Sandra Jenson.
“ . . . fifteenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Justina Phillips.
“ . . . sixteenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Octavia Mitchell.
“ . . . seventeenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Patty Davis.
“ . . . eighteenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Loretta Jones.
“ . . . nineteenth count . . . ”
“Not guilty.”
Maureen Givens.
I still sat, numb, thinking about those nineteen women, two of whom were girls who hadn’t even reached puberty and four more not even eighteen.
“All right, Mr. Parley,” Judge Wilson intoned, his voice weary. “You’re free to go. I’d like to thank the members of the jury for their service.”
CLAP!
Judge Wilson heaved himself out of his seat and trudged to his chambers, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed.
The jury box emptied under armed supervision, as those people would need armed escorts to get out of the courthouse, past the reporters, and home safely.
I couldn’t even react when the defendant, after clasping his attorney in a jolly bear hug, walked by me and gave me a hearty clap on the back.
“Ya did a good job, son,” he said, his voice full of the merriment and charm that convinced women he was a decent man. “Just not good enough.”
I swallowed. Hard.
He laughed his way down the aisle to the courtroom doors where armed deputies would escort him off the courthouse property to his car and see that he made it home alive, to keep him from the mob that wanted to lynch him, like it was 1840 or something.
The courtroom was empty.
I couldn’t move.
The crime scene photographs flashed across my mind.
“Knox?”
I closed my eyes at the sound of that voice and breathed a sigh of almost-relief. I could barely hear her footsteps, but then she was there, that familiar perfume in my nose. She ran her fingers through my hair and I took a deep breath, the way she’d taught me. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Focus.
Visualize.
“How can I help you?” she murmured.
Make love with me.
My eyes popped open. It was the first time I’d ever really thought it and meant it. I’d said it before, naturally, then laughed. Made her laugh. As a joke. Because, even though we slept together occasionally, the thought was just so . . . strange.
So impossible.
Where had it come from?
“Giselle,” I whispered, unable to speak any louder; I simply wasn’t capable of it. I’d spent my voice doing what prosecutors do. “What would you do if you were the one sitting here?”
Her hand stilled, then slowly fisted in my hair, her knuckles hard against my scalp.
She slid the list of names out from under my hand and picked it up.
“LaVon Whittaker,” she read in a tone I’d never heard for myself, and I shuddered. The answer was right there, in her voice. “She’s still alive, right?”
I nodded.
“Evie Winslow. Samantha Rodriguez. Donna Franklin . . . ” And on and on and on she went until the last name faded into the silence of the darkening courtroom. Then she flipped the piece of paper back onto the table, retrieved her other hand from my hair, and said, “Well. I guess I’ll get going.”
“No.”
She stopped. “No?”
“No.”
I looked up at her then, into those ice blue eyes just like mine, into that pale chubby face I knew so well, surrounded by all that strawberry blonde frizz she’d never been able to tame. She pursed her lips. Took a deep breath through her nose. Held it. Stared at the table. Released it through her mouth.
“I take it you aren’t going to Dallas in September after all, then?”
My chest caved in.
Dallas.
The temple.
To take out my endowment, like I should’ve done when I was nineteen.
She knew.
She was the only one who could have known, would’ve been able to see it in my face, the idea taking root the instant that irreparable hole had been shot through the heart of my case—
“I guess not.”
She cleared her throat. “Do you . . . want some . . . uh, company?”
“No.”
She squatted awkwardly beside my chair. “You don’t have to do this, Knox,” she whispered.
“What would you do?” I repeated, returning her look, not backing down.
“Okay, but you don’t have to do it alone. Let me help you.”
“What. Would. You. Do.”
She bit her lip.
Looked away.
“There’s a— Um.” She cleared her throat again. “There’s a man I know. At the barbershop on the corner of Belmont and Truman. He’s expecting you.”
I grasped her to me tight and she began to cry.
I only wished I could.
* * * * *
Neither of us spoke.
When I dug in my pocket for money, the barber waved it away and flashed a sign at me. I didn’t know if that meant he had already been paid or if he didn’t want to be paid. It was one of those things I probably would never know and didn’t need to anyway.
He let me out the back door of his shop as silently as he had let me in and I walked up the alley and the six half-blocks to 17th Street, where I’d parked in the rec center lot. The merchandise hung heavy in my pocket and I realized just how long it had been since I’d owned something like it.
Held one.
Used one.
I was so out of practice.
Empty your mind.
I emptied my mind.
Then think about the pictures.
I dug a Polaroid out of my pocket, swiped from my case file long ago, when I had used it as a locus as I prayed for guidance while I prepared for trial.
Please, Heavenly Father, guide me so I can get a conviction. Please let me get justice for these people.
I looked at that poor woman, laid out bare, bloody, broken.
I choked.
Put it back in my pocket. Not now.
I’d failed her.
Recite the victims’ names.
Jamie McElroy Anita Sterling Susanna Chase Valerie Nottingham Penny Hendricks Christy Madison Sharon Gentry Charlene Lawrence Allison Martino Cindy Trusdale Gabriela Jorge Sandra Jenson Justina Phillips Octavia Mitchell Patty Davis Loretta Jones Maureen Givens
Think about your weapon.
Glock nine-millimeter.
Visualize it.
Matte black.
Feel it in your hand with your mind.
My hands gripped the steering wheel as I drove west, then north across the Broadway Bridge, up the Broadway Extension, I-29, past KCI.
Remember, there’s no safety on a Glock like on a revolver or a rifle. The trigger will catch about a third of the way through the pull. You have to pull through that all the way the first time. Do it fast and don’t hesitate.
I pulled off I-29 in Chouteau City, like it was daylight, like I was going to work.
Like I’d go to work in a few hours, as if nothing had happened.
There’ll be a round in the chamber, so whatever you do, don’t draw the slide or you’ll jam it.
I felt it in my jacket pocket, still heavy against my hip.
Don’t get fancy. Don’t get arrogant. Don’t go for a long-drawn-out vengeance or try to get some Scooby-Doo confession. Just do the job and leave.
The light turned green and I drove slowly into the trailer park, past the Whittaker trailer where his car was parked, though not for long, I was sure. I didn’t really know how long I had, but I went back to the courthouse and parked in my usual spot.
Nothing unusual about that; I’d been pulling late nights and overnights for the last year.
I shook out my keys, unlocked the courthouse doors, gave my usual salute to the usual half-asleep deputy, and jogged up the stairs as usual—
—and promptly stole through Nocek’s office to his back staircase and sneaked out the back way, keeping to the shadows and attempting not to let the world know how loudly I breathed.
I ran all the way back to the trailer park, where his car sat empty, waiting for him to leave his lover’s house.
It was an old junker, a yacht. Its locks didn’t work. I slipped in the back seat and hunkered down on the floor, covering myself up with the blanket I knew he’d have there.
Because I knew his habits.
Don’t let your anger get the better of you. Keep it cold. You’re just doing your job.
One way or another.
Breathe in your nose and out your mouth. Slowly. Relax.
I must have relaxed myself right into a doze because the next thing I knew, the yacht was shaking slightly, the car door squeaked open, and low chuckles came my while when he got in and shoved the key in the ignition.
“Stupid cunt,” he muttered.
Track where you go in your mind.
I’d expected him to go straight home, but he stopped to get gas—
—and was damn near assaulted by the good citizens of Chouteau City who might have done my job for me had there not been a couple of state troopers in the parking lot, on break.
Screams, obscenities, shouts, and threats.
Apparently, the troopers waded into the mêlée to break it up, but it seemed to me a half-hearted attempt on their part.
“Get lost, asshole,” one of them growled low. “We’re watching you.”
He laughed heartily, as if the trooper had told a good joke, but he drove off without getting gas and then he hissed, “Shit” to no one.
And then we turned toward his home, down a long country gravel road, then left onto an equally long gravel driveway. I knew that because I knew everything about him.
I hope you’ve thought this through.
No.
For once.
Because if I had, I wouldn’t be here right now.
The yacht shook and shuddered as first the rusty door creaked open and then he struggled to get out of the seat and then he slammed the door closed behind him, muttering all the way about his plans for the night being interrupted.
I had him.
It was possible there were others out in the woods with the same intention, but that only meant I’d know who not to charge in the morning.
He turned when I opened the car door; I don’t know if he saw who I was or not, but I felt his smug arrogance turning into . . . something else.
Fear.
“Who’re you?” he barked before he could see my face in the intermittent moonlight.
Empty your mind. Focus.
I bored the barrel of my Glock into his forehead and said, “Get on your knees.”
He caught me off guard when he did exactly what I told him to do, when he began to blubber like a little kid caught stealing candy from QuikTrip.
No theatrics. You’re there to get the job done.
“Look, Hilliard, I’m sorry, you know— I didn’t mean to get all up in your face today in court, really—”
“Do you think that’s why I’m here?” I asked, feeling rage swell up in me, a killing rage, a rage I had never known.
Don’t let your anger get the better of you. Anger destroys your focus and makes you do stupid shit. Just get the job done.
I couldn’t help it.
“Do you want to live?”
“Yes. Yes! I got grandkids, yanno?”
“So did half the women you killed.”
“Look, I’ll move away. Anything, just— Put the gun down now, son. You know what’ll happen to you. You’ll go to prison and won’t they just love you, all young and pretty, big blond boy that you are.”
Don’t let him speak. He’ll rattle you. Just get the job done and get out. One shot.
“Beg.”
He paused a beat. Changed his tactic. “Ah, son, now look. If you ain’t shot me yet, you ain’t gonna.”
I shot him in the left thigh.
He howled. The gunshot echoed around the woods and rang back at me.
I shot him in the right thigh.
He fell to the ground and rolled, curled up in a ball and began to cry.
“Get. Back. On. Your. Knees.”
“Don’t kill me,” he sobbed as he struggled to his knees. “Please don’t kill me. It ain’t my time yet and I cain’t—” He struggled more, the hole in his thigh gushing. “I cain’t—”
“Put your hands behind your head.”
“Hilliard, boy, I—”
“On your knees. Hands behind your head.”
He struggled. I allowed him to struggle, to cry like a little girl.
Then he was on his knees, barely, and his hands were locked behind his head, sort of, and he looked up at me, his face filled with desperation and lit by the moon as the clouds moved, as if it had been perfectly timed for my little stage drama here.
“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” he panted and cried, terrified.
Empty your mind. Pull the trigger all the way through the catch. Fast, firm, once. Don’t stop.
It’s a different thing to know that a shooter will end up with his victim’s blood on him than to feel the warmth and smell the copper and hear the ringing in your ears yourself.
I had never felt so cold in my life as I did looking down at Tom Parley’s body, the back of his head blown off, but his eyes open, his expression frozen in supplication for mercy.
Don’t think about it. Empty your mind. Keep the gun and get away as fast as you can.
I dropped the gun back in my jacket pocket, grabbed the blanket I had hidden in, then turned and jogged back up the long driveway to the country road. I stopped short when I saw a car on the side of the road, dark, quiet, looking for all the world as if it had been abandoned.
The engine came to life. The door swung open, the interior glow the only light other than the moon.
She said nothing, but held her hand out for the blanket and helped me smooth it over her car seat that she’d already wrapped in plastic.
I got in.
Closed the door.
She remained silent as she zipped down the road in the dark, headlights off, then west with the lights on, away from town and only a mile to Kansas.
By the time we crossed the state line, I was freezing. My teeth were beginning to chatter and I drew the blanket around me. She turned off the air conditioning and rolled down the windows. In June in Missouri—well, Kansas—it was hot and humid enough that it should have warmed me up, but I knew I was going into shock.
She knew it, too.
I could never have done this on my own and I was stupid for thinking I could.
She caught I-435 south and carefully eased off the accelerator, being very careful not to attract any attention by speeding. She had her radar detector on and it seemed a very, very long time before we got to I-70 and headed back east into Missouri, then into downtown Kansas City.
She parked at the freight dock of her bookstore and got out, came around to my side, helped me out. I was still freezing, shaking.
What have I done?
“Shhh.”
She helped me to the concrete stairs where there was a railing I could hold onto to climb them.
I murdered a man.
“Shut up.”
I have no hope now.
“Let the Lord worry about that. Watch my hands. Concentrate on what I’m doing. Don’t think about anything else.”
I did that.
She shoved a key into the lock over the freight elevator buttons, pulled it up, then shoved another key into the button pad. The elevator whirred to life. She used a third key to open the gate, then pulled on the strap
of the doors. She maneuvered me into the elevator, kept her foot on the door, closed and locked the button pad. She closed and locked the gate, then closed the elevator doors. The floor shifted, jerked, protested as it pulled us up through the shaft.
I still shivered and she wrapped her arms around me.
Riding Giselle’s freight elevator had never seemed such an arduous and painstaking and long process before, and I pondered that a while. It was a good thing to ponder: Did it need repairs? Did it need replaced? I couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t have taken care of the elevator the way she took care of everything else at Decadence. Surely Maisy or Coco would have noticed how slow and decrepit it was . . . ?
I don’t know or remember how I got to the bathroom, all stark white with yellow tile accents, yellow towels, yellow flowers, yellow candles and I realized—
“Yellow. Your favorite color is yellow.” Shouldn’t I have known that?
She thunked me down hard on the toilet lid and turned to start the shower.
“Giselle, I think I’m going to hell.”
“We don’t believe in hell,” she said shortly as she knelt at my feet and took off my Nikes.
“Well, not that burning lake of fire thing, but still—”
“Knox, be quiet. You’re in shock. I’ll be right back. Stay right where you are. Don’t get up, don’t move, don’t fall over.”
Silly girl.
Don’t fall over while sitting on a toilet seat.
Ow! Shit!
“Knox!”
She helped me back up onto the toilet seat and shoved a half gallon jug of orange juice in my hand. “Oh, thank you!”
“Have you eaten today at all?”
I shook my head as I gulped. I’d forgotten to.
“All hopped up on adrenaline. Your blood sugar’s in the tank, to boot.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” I quipped, but she slapped me upside the head and started taking the blanket away from me. “I’m cold, Giselle.” I knew I was whining and I didn’t care. I was cold, dammit.
“Knox, we have to get this off of you. You’re soaked in blood. C’mon, please,” she said, pleading. “Drink your OJ and let me get this stuff taken care of.”
I looked at her then, really looked. “Your face is wet.”
She sniffled and ran the back of her hand across her nose. “Yeah, I know.”
“Okay. Weird.”
She seemed so . . . sad . . . and I couldn’t figure out why. I had to think about that a while because it wasn’t like her to not tell me why she was sad, but I figured if it would make her happy to see me shiver, then that’s what I’d have to do.
