through a kaleidoscope.
I reached for the doorknob like a lifeline and made it out into the warm air. The bell jangled, and then I was outside in the blaring sun. I felt blinded, on display, ashamed. It was a feeling I hadn’t known so closely in many years.
I got to the truck, took out my keys, and then stopped myself. I went back to the restaurant, got my papers from the stool in the kitchen, and slithered back out, not saying a word to Abraham. He didn’t say anything to me either.
I started the truck up and backed out of the space slowly, not being quite too sure of my movements, and how true they would be. My hands were shaking.
I started driving toward the center of town, toward the buildings and the radios and the police and the people, but I couldn’t do it. I made a left and went down to Old Sherman Road, driving slowly.
I took Old Sherman west, and then it curved around and started going north. After a few minutes of driving, I passed my block and just kept going. I made the full loop around town, just like Bill Parker used to do before he was killed. It was then that I realized that some part of that man that I had killed had become a part of me, because here I was doing my worrying on that long and winding road.
I pulled over on the shoulder.
As if everything prior had been shock, I realized, as in it truly hit me, that Pearce had been wiped out, butchered, ripped apart, maimed unrecognizable, and that it had been me that had done it to him. I felt the parts of his body that were still in my stomach react to the coffee I’d drunk, and it twisted me up inside.
“Martha,” I said out loud without thinking to.
I squeezed my eyes shut and bit my hand.
“Martha, are you okay?”
I was being invaded by a memory of his.
I saw it all through his eyes. Rushing into the living room from the office, and there she was on the couch, holding her belly. She had that one wrinkle on her forehead—a deep crease that only existed when she was hurting. The sunlight was pouring in through the windows.
“She kicked,” Martha said.
I sat next to her and placed my hand on her belly. I felt my baby’s power as it shifted an arm or a leg, as it kicked out.
In the truck, I screamed out loud.
Tears spilled down my face. I couldn’t hold them back. Everything I had built for myself, this whole cardboard life that—even though I didn’t know it until that moment—meant everything to me, had been pulverized with one man’s death. I didn’t know how it had happened, but there wasn’t a solution, no magic words to turn back the cruel hands of time. The wolf had betrayed me. I had killed an innocent man. I had killed my one friend.
TWELVE
On the way home I passed a liquor store. I hadn’t been in the place in years, but before I had the house it was like a home for me, just like the bars were. I was messed up. All I could think about was having a drink or two or twenty to dull the pain I felt inside. The stuff was poison, but God had never made a more effective salve for people like me.
I stopped the truck outside the liquor store, knowing damn well what Pearce would say about this if he were still alive.
I didn’t go in.
I came home and locked the door behind me. Checked all the windows. The sun was pouring in through all my curtains, it was that powerful. It was like God was shining the floodlights on me, saying, “There he is.”
I turned on my little black-and-white television, and all that came through was a garbled wall of static, alien shapes moving through the rough snow. I twirled the rabbit ears around in a circle and finally found a position for them in which I was at least able to receive the audio clearly.
I guess there was a news conference in progress. I didn’t know if it was the one Pearce had mentioned—the one the feds had been orchestrating in some kind of attempt to set a trap for the Rose Killer.
It wasn’t.
I saw a wall of reporters outside of the police station on the other side of town. On the bottom of the screen was a scrolling message: OFFICER KILLED.
“This is Linda Roth reporting from outside the Evelyn Police Department,” the lady with the microphone said. “Details about the death of Detective Daniel Pearce are scarce, but to reiterate what we already know, we take you back to the studio.” A man appeared in a newsroom.
“Detective Daniel Casey Pearce,” the man said, “was one of Evelyn’s finest. Born in 1964 to Carol and Herbert Pearce, he attended school here in Evelyn, graduating as valedictorian from Stephen Bailey High School in 1982. Upon receiving his diploma, he entered the United States Air Force. He came back home to Evelyn in 1985.”
I reached for my side. It felt like it was on fire.
“He immediately joined the Evelyn Police Department, and through years of hard work and a strong work ethic, quickly became one of the force’s most decorated officers,” the man continued. “In the fall of 1991, he earned his gold shield after his involvement in what has become known as the Starling Street Hostage Crisis.”
Two men had gone into the jewelry store to rob it. Someone tripped the silent alarm, and it quickly became a hostage situation. Pearce was the responding officer. He put both men down before his backup arrived. Not a single hostage was injured in the short gun battle.
“Daniel Pearce is survived by a sister, his wife, and his unborn baby girl. He was twenty-nine years old.”
These were the bare facts about the man who saved me. The man I killed. I felt like the careful balance between life and hell that I had worked so hard to keep up over the last few years had crumbled just like that and just so quickly that I didn’t even know where the pieces went. I didn’t know what to think.
They cut back to the intrepid news lady on the street.
“At sunrise this morning, Daniel Pearce’s body was discovered on what is known as the Crowley property here in Evelyn, about a mile north of Old Sherman Road. As we have reported, this is the same site where, just a short time ago, the body of Gloria Shaw was found murdered at the hands of the serial murderer known only as the Rose Killer. Detective Pearce, in a joint effort with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was conducting surveillance at the scene of this brutal crime. Now it seems that tragedy has struck twice here in Evelyn, and we can only hope that these two deaths are unrelated. We take you now to the PD conference room. Bill?”
They cut to a crowded room in the precinct.
“Bill Hagmeier here, where Captain Louis Thorpe is about to read a brief statement, and answer a few questions about this tragedy.”
A man with a shock of white hair climbed the steps to the podium at the far side of the room. He was decked out in his dress uniform with about twenty-five pounds of medals pinned to his chest.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Evelyn,” he said in a deep voice, reading from a sheet, “and members of the press, at approximately five-forty-five this morning, the body of Detective Daniel Casey Pearce was discovered on the property of the Frederick Crowley family on the north side of Evelyn.”
“Who found him?” someone shouted.
“A resident on the property, and that is as specific as I am going to get at this time. The authorities were notified forthwith and …”
“How was he identified?” someone else shouted. Someone else yelled, “Is it true that the body was dismembered?”
More shouts rose.
The captain silenced them all with a sharp bang on his pedestal, a closed fist raining down on the board the microphones were attached to.
“He was identified by his shield. The investigation is in its earliest phase, and … Detective Pearce was … he …” and then he broke down, right up there in front of the world. The press jumped on him like vultures.
“Was it true his body was found beheaded?” they asked. “Is it true that it was a bear? Is it true that shots
