He logged off as the words echoed and reechoed in his head:
61
Zack was shaking uncontrollably by the time Sarah dropped him off. Very little was said during the ride. She apologized several times, and he nodded acceptance. But it wasn’t her fault.
Nor was his mind on resentment or anger or disappointment. He wanted to say something conciliatory, sensing that she felt blameworthy. But it wouldn’t come out, constrained by the singular emotion that made his chest pound and his ears click and his mouth turn spitless with dread. He muttered a good night and jumped out of the car.
And he knew why.
And like a force of gravity, that knowledge yanked him out of the car and up the stairs to his apartment.
He tried stalling the pull by drinking a glass of warm milk and slipping into bed. He even fingered what was left of the Lunesta and Haldol in the dark, his body feeling as if it had turned into a giant cardiac organ, throbbing wildly.
He shook away the voice and popped the pills with the milk. Then he rolled over and tried to shut down his mind.
Impossible.
He tried to focus on absurd things like floating through the air, sailing across Boston. He ran pi to fifty places twice. Nothing. It was still there, pulling at his brain like a bungee cord. And he knew it wouldn’t let up until he knew for sure.
But it was now or tomorrow or the next day.
He threw off the covers and padded out of the bedroom and into the other room, where he stumbled to his desk and flopped into his chair.
Years ago, when he got his driver’s license, his mother had said that she had to go to Mount Auburn Hospital for a procedure. He’d pressed and pressed until she’d revealed that she had a lump in her breast. For days he’d prayed that it not be malignant. As he sat in the dark, all that rushed back.
“Don’t let it be,” he said to the dark. Then he turned on his laptop.
Shaking, he clicked on Google and wrote in the name. He got two dozen hits. But at the top was an item from the
The body of Mitchell Gretch, 34, of Cedar Road, Manchester, was buried yesterday in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Manchester. He was found bludgeoned to death four days ago on Bolton Road, lying in a pool of blood. He had apparently been attacked with a tire iron while fixing a broken muffler pipe on his automobile.…
Gooseflesh shot up his torso and across his scalp.
Thirteen years ago, Gretch was exonerated from a murder charge of Jacob Kashian, from Carleton, MA, but that case was dismissed by the judge for insufficient evidence.
Coincidentally, his alleged accomplice in that homicide, William Volker, died last week from an accident in his home in Waltham, Massachusetts. Local police have ruled out foul play.
Manchester police believe that Gretch was murdered by an unknown assailant who used the tire iron from Gretch’s 1992 Mitsubishi sports car.
Police have named no suspect or suspects and say they are continuing to investigate the circumstances of Gretch’s death.…
As if on autopilot, he Googled William Volker. Instantly a dozen hits came up, at the top of which was an article from
Zack’s brain could barely register what he was reading. Jake’s other killer. He didn’t have to double-check on the dead hit-and-run woman. He knew.
62
“Volker and Gretch killed my brother. And the woman was Gretch’s cousin—one of their witnesses who claimed they saw nothing.” Zack handed Sarah the obituaries he had printed up.
“What?”
It was sometime after two in the morning, and he had called her to come over, terrified at his discovery.
“And these were the same people you saw in your NDEs?” she said as she read them.
“Yes.” Photographs were included with the obit. “I recognize them.”
“Maybe it’s just bizarre coincidences.”
“What, that my brother’s killers got murdered and I was there each time? Sarah, I saw them. I felt their deaths. I was there. Jesus, I’m either losing my mind or I killed them.” He had been drinking a glass of warm milk and had to hold the glass with two hands, he was shaking so badly.
Sarah looked at the obits. “I don’t believe either.”
“But that tetrodotoxin is lousy with side effects,” he said. “What if I blacked out and went after them? Killed them and don’t remember anything?”
While she read the printouts, he moved to the sink to steady himself, looking into his glass of milk and thinking that maybe he had lost his mind—that maybe the combination of head trauma, the coma, and the zombie anesthesia created some weird brain damage that had turned him into an insane stalker bent on vengeance. He had had nightmares throughout his life like anybody else. But these had been like no others—intense, brutally vivid, and through the eyes of someone else—of that he was almost sure.
Sarah’s voice jarred him back into the moment. “But this says Volker died on June tenth. That’s when we were at Grafton’s. A neighbor says he always worked out after supper.”
“Yeah, and we left around nine. I could have gone over there after we split and killed him … and blocked it from my memory.”
“But he lived in Waltham. Even if you took the T, it would take over an hour,” she said. “Do you even know where he lived?”
“Yes.” Volker moved from Allston to Waltham after the court decision. Zack’s mother hadn’t wanted to know where, but Zack had looked him up. And even before he’d gotten his driver’s license, he’d fantasized about driving to Volker’s apartment and firebombing it while he slept. Later he would sometimes drive over and follow Volker to work or the supermarket or to friends’ places. “I had my bike, and it’s only seven miles down the river.”
“Do you remember doing that?”
“No.”
“Not exactly something you’d forget,” she said. “Remember pedaling home?”
“No. Just walking you back to your place.”
Sarah picked up another obit. “This says Gretch died in Vernon, Connecticut, on Saturday the twenty-fifth, eight days ago. Do you remember where you were?”
“The library.”
“Can you verify that?”
“I checked out a book.” From his desk he pulled out a collection of essays on Mary Shelley. The slip inside gave the date and time—same date as Gretch’s death.
“What time?”
“Four eighteen.”
“There you are. A motorist found him around one in the morning a hundred miles from here. There’s no way you could have biked down there.”
