“I’m here about Julia,” I said.
“Julia’s dead,” he replied. He made a noise, half clicking and half sucking, with his cheek.
“I know,” I said. “And I know you were involved.”
He snorted. “Involved all right.”
“What does that mean? What happened?”
He glared at me. “You a reporter? Cop? Lawyer?”
I had been leaning toward him, but now sat back in surprise. “No, of course not. I fix bikes.”
He shook his head, a slight sneer on his lips. “Women shouldn’t do that sort of thing. Can’t fix anything worth a damn.”
I felt the old defensiveness rise in my throat.
Was he falling asleep? His eyes were closed, and his head seemed to nod forward.
I raised my voice: “How did she die? What happened?”
His head was still down, and now he seemed to be wheezing.
His head snapped up. “I killed her, you fool. You stupid woman, I killed her.”
When I tried to speak, my throat was so dry the words got stuck. I tried again. “You did kill her? You did it?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
“But-the note? And the photo, under the wallpaper?” I heard the wail in my own voice. “I found them. The truth, you said. You both knew the truth.”
Henry Lewis chuckled, a wheezy sound, reedy and almost boyish. “That was just my little joke,” he said. “Julia and I were the only ones who knew. Everyone else thought they knew-but they never knew why, or how. And they never knew what I knew: she deserved it. She knew it too, knew I was gonna do it and knew she deserved it.”
He shifted, settled back into his chair.
“I’d been seeing this little yellow-haired gal on the side.
Sally or Sara or something. Anyway, she’d been good to me, real good. Better’n Julia ever was. Me and Julia were high school sweethearts, got married, I went to work. Dumb kids. We didn’t know nothing. After we got married, well, Julia just about froze up. In bed she was nothing, just laid there, and she kept a terrible house. She hated it here, y’see. She hated the rain in the winter, hated the dampness. I told her we’d leave, but after we got married I started working for the railroad, and the money was too good to give up. I told her we were staying put. She didn’t like that, and she just froze up on me then. When she wasn’t froze, she was crying. When she wasn’t crying, she was screaming. Man has a right to his house, to some peace and quiet. And Sally moved in a few doors down, and she was three years younger than Julia, still in high school. Pretty, sweet. Sally liked a man with some spending money. Julia found out. I told her I had a right to a girl who wanted me. She said she’d divorce me, take all my money, get me fired. All this crap.”
He paused. I couldn’t say anything. There was no sound from outside, either.
A cough, and he began again. “One day I came home from work and killed her. Hit her on the head with a frying pan.” That wheezy dry chuckle. “She went down in a heap. I remember the blood came from her head here”-he pointed to a spot above his left ear-“like it was a drinking fountain. I wiped off my fingerprints and dropped the frying pan and ran outta there to pick up Sally for a movie. When I came home, I called the police and said I’d just found her like that, and that I hadn’t been home at all that day cause I’d been out with my girlfriend. Sally backed me up-pretty girl, but dumb as dumb-and they could never prove a thing.”
“So the truth was that…?”
“The truth was that I killed her. She knew I was gonna do it, right up until I did it. And then she was dead and by God she really knew it. She wouldn’t ever cross me no more.” The chuckle again, and now its thinness sounded like wires rubbing against each other, scraping and raw. “Some people thought it was me, sure enough, but couldn’t no one ever prove it. And no one ever knew how much that bitch needed killing.”
I could feel the tears begin in me, the pressure building in my eyes and my sinuses. I swallowed, and my spit seemed to grate along my throat.
“What’s so funny about that?” I asked. “How is that a joke?”
He just wheezed and shook his head some more. I felt the hair on my arms stand up, but I forced my face into impassivity.
“None of my other girlfriends or wives ever tried any of that shit with me again,” he said at last. “Expect they heard about Julia and knew they’d have to shape up. Buried two wives, had girlfriends the whole time. They knew how to keep quiet.”
“You kept cheating?” I asked. I took pride in my voice’s evenness.
“Hell, I’m a man, ain’t I? All men cheat.”
“Mine doesn’t,” I said.
Henry Lewis laughed out loud, a choking sound that brought up something from deep in his lungs. “He cheats,” Henry Lewis said. “You ain’t caught him, but he cheats.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
The wheezing chuckle now, with a shake of the head. “Little girl, you ain’t know shit about men. You and Julia, thinking you can tell a man what to do, how to act. No one can! That’s what makes us men.”
“Why are you telling me this? If they never caught you, why are you telling me this now?”
“Maybe just cause I feel like.” He gave me a hard look.
“You come in here with your little purse and your expensive haircut and the way you pretend you belong here. You ain’t here. None of you are here. It’s like a play for you folks. And maybe I just feel like reminding you it ain’t. Now get out. I’ve got better things to do than teach you how the world is.”
I stood up, smoothing my pants with my left hand. I gave him a hard, long look; he returned part of it, then turned away. Not scared. Bored. He had killed her, and he didn’t even try to deny it. I suppose no one could touch him now, more than fifty years later. Who would believe me, anyway? He started reading a
I watched him for a moment.
“You’re Julia now,” I hissed. He looked up, turning a page. I walked over to him, ripped the magazine from his hands, and tore it in half. The paper was all twisted in my hands.
He didn’t move, not even his face. That same bored look. He wheezed when he breathed, and his knuckles seemed too big for his hands. The whites of his eyes looked dull, like overcooked eggs. I was panting, my breath like sandpaper in my throat. He gave me another second of that vacancy, then closed his eyes and folded his hands on his chest, as if he were going to sleep. I dropped the mangled magazine, turned, and walked stiffly out of the house, banging the screen door behind me. I could still hear him wheeze.
Josh was sitting at the dining room table at home, going over swatches of paint. I saw shades of eggplant spread out before him. Very tasteful, all of them. They were for the living room; we were hoping to paint next week. He looked up at me. He was wearing his oldest jeans, the ones all torn up at the hem that my mother thinks make him look like a tightwad. A piece of a leaf perched on top of his brown hair.
“How’d it go?” he asked me, his hands flat on the table now.
“He did it,” I answered. I took the seat opposite Josh. “He admits it, doesn’t even care anymore. We bought a fucking murderer’s house. One who lives all of fourteen blocks away.” I could feel the heat in my eyes, the quiver trying to move my chin.
Josh shrugged. “We bought the house, we bought the house,” he said. “Anyway, Lewis is an old coot now. He can’t do anything to us. And if he tried, I’d fix him.” Josh grinned at me. His teeth were so white, so very white, that I thought I could see my reflection in their gleam. Like a dog’s teeth, constantly wet and shining. He stood up, walked over to me, and gave me a quick one-armed hug.
Then Josh swept out of the dining room; I heard him rooting around the fridge, pulling something out. A pop, a fizz. A can of beer, then. The drink gurgled going down his throat. I heard the backdoor open, then close. Maybe he was sitting on the back porch. Maybe he was just standing in the kitchen.
