by John Rector
“He was talking about moving.”
“Where?”
“No idea.”
Julia sipped her coffee, then held it in both hands and stared into it. “Is he seeing anyone?”
Veronica laughed.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I think he’s worried you’ll end up marrying the guy,” Veronica said. “Then he’ll be part of the family.”
“Who said anything about marriage?”
“Pete’s not the same as you remember,” I said. “You need to stay away from him.”
“Does this have to do with the trouble he got into?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, maybe.”
“Because that was a long time ago,” she said. “And didn’t you just say that everyone should be allowed one big mistake when they’re young?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You don’t have to protect me.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “Just not Peter, OK?”
Julia ignored me, turned to Veronica. “You should have us both over for dinner after they make up. Or at least give him my number.”
“This isn’t a Goddamned joke, Julia.” My voice came out harsh, but I couldn’t stop it. “Stay the fuck away from him.”
Veronica and Julia stared at me.
No one spoke.
After a while I said, “I’m sorry. Long day.”
“Apparently.” Julia reached across the table and pulled my coffee cup away. “Lay off the caffeine for a while, big brother. It was a joke.”
I nodded and tried to smile.
I wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come.
We finished our coffee in silence.
THAT night, after Julia had gone, I went into the kitchen to wash dishes. We had a small TV mounted under one of the cabinets, and I flipped it on for background noise while I worked.
I’d made it through most of the dishes when Veronica came in and leaned against the counter, her arms folded across her chest.
“That went well,” she said. “Especially that part toward the end.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“I never thought of you as the protective-older-brother type.”
“I’m not.”
Veronica stepped behind me and leaned against my back, wrapping her arms around me. “What exactly happened between you and Peter?”
I felt myself tense.
“It’s obviously bothering you,” she said. “You know you can talk to me.”
“We’re just in different places in life,” I said.
“That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I don’t know.” Veronica hesitated. “What did Julia mean? Pete got into trouble?”
“When he was in foster care,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”
“What did he do?”
I stopped washing and turned to face her. “He had this dog. Well, it wasn’t really his. This ratty-looking stray lived in the alley behind the house. Pete would save part of his meals and sneak the food out to it every day. He loved the thing.”
“What happened?”
“The dog was always around,” I said. “He’d come in through a hole in the broken fence, and I guess his foster father got tired of cleaning the shit out of his yard. But instead of fixing the fence, one night he put a bowl of antifreeze out next to a plate of scraps.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Pete found him the next day. Dying. His guts coming out both ends.” I looked at Veronica. “He snapped.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything at first,” I said. “He waited until his foster father was asleep, then he took the gas cans from the garage, poured gas all over the main floor, and he burned the house to the ground.”
Veronica stared at me, silent.
“Everyone got out,” I said. “But Pete was removed from foster care. There were psych evaluations, medication, all of it. In the end, I think they chalked it up to what happened with his dad.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You know that’s why he started painting?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It seemed to take the demons away,” I said. “At least for a while.”
“What do you mean, for a while? Is he dangerous? Because if he is—”
“No,” I said. “All this was a long time ago.”
I watched her, hoping she believed me.
“Does this have something to do with why you stopped talking to him?”
“Pete isn’t the person I thought he was,” I said. “That’s all it is, and that’s the truth.”
Veronica watched me for a moment before she moved away and grabbed her wine glass off the counter. “I think you should talk to him. Try to work out whatever it is.”
I reached for the dishtowel and dried my hands. “I thought you of all people would be happy about this.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You hate Pete.”
“I do not.” She paused. “OK, he’s not my favorite person, but I don’t hate him.”
“Then what is it?”
Veronica looked away, shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I miss having someone to complain about all the time.”
I laughed. “Is that it?”
“No.” She smiled. “I can just tell it’s been on your mind. You haven’t been yourself for the past few weeks, and I don’t like seeing you unhappy. If that means having Peter in our lives, then there are worse things.”
I kissed the top of her head. “I’m fine, and I’ve made my decision about Peter. It’s for the best, so don’t worry about me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Veronica stood for a moment, looking up at me, then she leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to take a bath. Come up and join me?”
“I need to finish the dishes.”
She looked past me to the sink. Then she pressed into me, kissed my neck, and worked her way up to my chin. “I think they can wait, don’t you?”
I felt the heat of her breath against my skin, her legs moving against mine. The answer was clear.
I dropped the dishtowel on the counter and picked up my water glass. “Let’s go.”
She took my hand and started leading me out of the kitchen. I turned back to shut off the TV and stopped.
On the screen, a blonde reporter stood in the wind outside a well-lit brick building somewhere downtown. The image was a familiar one, but what caught my eye was the tagline at the bottom of the screen.
Overcrowding in city homeless shelters.
“Evan? What are you doing?”
“Just a minute,” I said. “I want to see this.”
Veronica was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re kidding, right?”
I turned up the volume.
The blonde reporter said: “...not only this location, but several other shelters in the metro area are facing overcrowding after the body of Carol Vandertye, a thirty-seven-year-old female, was found beaten to death on the shores of the Platte River, a little over a mile from where we’re standing tonight.
“Ms. Vandertye is the third victim discovered in the last two months, and when I spoke to the shelter’s director, he said no one feels safe on the streets after dark, and—”
I felt Veronica’s fingers on my neck. “Evan?”
I dropped the glass, and it shattered in the sink.
“Shit.”
Veronica stepped back. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“Let me help clean it up.”
She reached in, but I stopped her.
“I can do it.”
“I’ll help, it’ll be easier if we—”
“Christ, Veronica, I said I’ll do it!”
Veronica looked up at me and exhaled, quick and sharp. “OK,” she said. “You do it.”
She turned
and walked out.
I wanted to go after her, to reach out and catch her before she was gone, but it was too late.
On TV, the blonde reporter was interviewing people at the shelter; each one looked tired and stretched thin. I watched them speak, one after the other, but it was just noise, and nothing sunk in.
My mind was someplace else.
Someplace dark.
THE next morning, I drove downtown and parked outside Peter’s apartment. The warehouse district, deserted at night, was now crowded with people and the heavy sounds of trucks moving along the busy streets.
I went around to the front of the building and climbed the steps to Peter’s door, knocked, waited. There was no answer, so I knocked again, harder this time, then pressed my ear against the door and listened.
Silence.
I stepped back and ran my hand along the top of the doorframe, searching for the spare key. At first, I thought Peter might’ve moved it, but then my fingers touched something cold and metal. I grabbed the key, unlocked the door, and went inside.
“Pete?”
No answer.
I closed the door and stood for a moment, listening to the silence of the room. Even though not much had changed since I’d lived there, I was struck by how unfamiliar the apartment felt. It was like seeing it again for the first time, and something about it bothered me.
I moved around the room, running my fingers over the furniture. There was no dust, no dirt on the floors; even the windows were spotless. I didn’t like it. It was too clean. Peter had always been neat, but never like this.
I walked through the apartment, checking closets, cabinets, desks and drawers, but I wasn’t sure what I was trying to find. If my suspicion was right, and Peter was responsible for that woman’s death, I wouldn’t find evidence of it lying around his apartment. Peter was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid.
I went back to the living room and sat on the couch to wait for him. I thought about what I was going to say when he came home. I’d stayed up most of the night thinking about it, but now that I was here, in his apartment, it all seemed pointless.
Why did I want to talk to him?
I thought about it for a long time, but there was only one answer, and it wouldn’t go away.
Because all of this was my fault.
It was my decision not to go to the police that first night. It was my fault. I was the one who got rid of the bat and his clothes and coached him on how to act around the cops, how not to draw attention to himself.
I’d shown him how to be invisible.
If Peter killed that woman, she was dead because I allowed it to happen.
This realization sank into me, and I couldn’t shake it. I turned it over in my mind, again and again, but there was no way around it.
My chest felt tight, and my stomach cramped until I was sure I was going to be sick. I leaned forward, closed my eyes, and waited for the feeling to pass. When it finally did, I got up and opened the window leading out to the fire escape.
The sharp sounds from the street bled into the room, loud and familiar. I leaned my head out and breathed deep, letting the city air clear my head and settle the emptiness growing inside me.
I was still leaning out the window when I heard footsteps outside the door, and a key turn in the lock.
I turned around as Peter opened the door and stepped inside. He was carrying two white plastic grocery bags in one hand and holding his keys in the other, the green rabbit’s foot dangling loose.
“Evan?”
I stepped away from the window, feeling some of the strength come back to my legs. “We need to talk.”
Peter stared at me, a deep line forming between his eyebrows, then he nodded and closed the door behind him. “The spare key, right? I forgot all about it.” He slid the deadbolt in place, and then moved past me to the kitchen and set his grocery bags on the table. “You haven’t returned any of my calls.”
“Was it you?”
“Was what me?” He opened the bag and took out two steaks, a rainbow of peppers, and a bottle of red wine. “I don’t know what to say to you. You’re mad, I get it, but—”
“I saw the fucking news, Pete.”
Peter stopped unpacking and looked at me, silent.
“It’s everywhere,” I said. “A killer preying on the homeless. A woman’s body found floating in the river—”
“And you think it’s me?”
“Tell me it wasn’t you,” I said. “Tell me someone else killed that woman they found in the river.” I paused, watching him. “Please.”
Peter shook his head and turned back to his groceries. He started unpacking and didn’t say anything.
Something bitter crept up the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard. I wanted to say so much, but all I could manage was one word.
“Why?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying.”
Peter laughed then turned to face me. “Why are you here? Are you feeling guilty?” He stepped closer. “What’s done is done. Let it go.”
“I thought I did,” I said. “I let it go that first night. I let it go after what you did in the train yard. But I can’t do it again. I can’t stand by while you—”
“While I what?”
I paused, not believing the words forming in my head. “I can’t stand by while you kill innocent people.”
“Innocent?” Peter stared at me for a long time, and then he laughed and shook his head. “Go home, Evan, before this gets bad.”
“How much worse can it get?”
Peter stopped laughing. His face turned hard. “You’d be surprised.”
“Just tell me it’s not true.”
Peter looked down at the kitchen table and ran his fingers over the scarred wood surface.
“Pete?”
“You don’t get it,” he said. “And I’ll never be able to make you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“The way she looked at me,” he said. “She knew what was happening, Evan. It was all right there in front of me. I saw it in her eyes.”
I felt the air rush out of me, as if I’d been punched in the chest. The room shifted around me, and I backed up into the living room and slumped onto the couch.
Peter followed, leaning against the wall. “I’d never seen her before in my life, but in that moment, I owned her. I was in control, and she was mine. I knew her better than anyone else in the entire world.” He paused. “And she knew me, the real me.”
I held up my hands, stopping him. “We can get you help.”
Peter laughed. “Go home, Evan.”
“This isn’t you,” I said. “Where did this come from?”
“It’s always been part of me, and you know it.”
“No,” I said. “Not this. I didn’t know about this.”
“Then why did you come running over here when you saw the news?” He motioned to the window. “People get killed out there every day, but you didn’t think about that. You came straight to me. Why?”
I started to speak, but I didn’t have an answer. All I knew was that I didn’t want to hear any more. I couldn’t.
I got up and said, “I’m leaving.”
Peter watched me cross the living room toward the door. Before I walked out, he said, “What are you going to do now?”
“What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Nothing,” Peter said. “You’re supposed to do nothing. You go on with your life, and I’ll go on with mine.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“You think it’d be easier to go to the police? Tell them what happened? You think if you come clean about all of this it’ll just go away?”
I didn’t say anything.
Peter stepped closer, his eyes never leaving mine. “I know how your mind works, Evan. You think all of this is your fault, that you should’ve listened to me and called the police that first night. But it’s not your fault.”<
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“We should’ve called the police that night,” I said. “I never should’ve talked you out of it.”
Peter smiled. “It wasn’t exactly hard to do.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the words didn’t come.
He was right.
Peter watched me for a moment, then said, “Go home. Go back to your life with a clear conscience. This has nothing to do with you. I won’t call you again.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can.” Peter stared at me. “There’s too much on the line. You won’t go to the police.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you know they won’t believe it was just the one, and because you know what it will do to Veronica when she finds out what’s been going on.”
Veronica.
I hadn’t thought about Veronica, and for a second I let myself imagine what she’d say. It wasn’t good, and I pushed the thought away, fast.
“Go home, Evan.”
“You have to stop,” I said. “I can’t let this go on.”
Peter shook his head, smiled. “You don’t have a choice.”
THE weekend passed in a blur. Veronica spent it making last-minute arrangements for her trip to Vegas for Wendy’s bachelorette party, while I hung around the house, dazed, thinking about Peter and what I needed to do.
Eventually Veronica noticed, and when I came in from loading her suitcase into the car, she took my hand, pulled me close, and asked, “Are you OK?”
I kissed her and told her I was, but it wasn’t good enough. She wouldn’t let me go.
“Is it work?”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”
“It’s something. You’ve been so preoccupied the last few days. I’m worried about you.”
I told her again that I was fine, and for a while, she seemed to accept it. I finished packing the car, and then we both climbed in and I drove her to the airport.
Halfway there, Veronica turned to me and said, “It’s Peter, isn’t it?”
“What’s Peter?”
“The reason you’re so distracted,” she said. “It’s this fight you’re in with Peter.”
“It’s nothing, I promise.”
“You can talk to me,” she said. “You can tell me anything.”
