Trailer Park Noir

He put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. “Positive,” he said. “Get your clothes on.”

“But I thought we were – “

”Get your clothes on,” he shouted.

Kendra flinched and her smile shattered and she stumbled backward.

Reznick immediately regretted snapping at her. He stepped over to her and put his hands on her shoulders again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve got a bad headache. I didn’t mean to bark at you like that. Get dressed and go home, and we can get together tonight while your mommy’s working. Okay?” He tipped forward and kissed her forehead.

Her smile slowly returned. “Okay,” she said. “I… I had fun today.”

“So did I. You’re a beautiful, incredible girl, Kendra.”

She smiled and bowed her head in embarrassment. “I’ll get dressed now,” she said in a whisper. “Hey,” she said as she dressed, “you wanna coupla my pain pills for your headache?”

Reznick nodded. “Yeah, I’ll take you up on that.”

Kendra carried Dexter home and Reznick followed her. He got a couple codeine pills from her, then went back to his own trailer. He drank them down with a glass of water, then went to the recliner and stretched out, turned on the TV.

He frowned the whole time. His lips were pressed together tightly. He couldn’t get those images and sounds out of his mind. All the blood. The smell of the blood. The reek of fecal matter. Those milky, staring eyes and that yawning mouth – as if it were trying to scream one last time but had no voice, no breath.

Reznick got up and paced for a while.

He went to the refrigerator, took out a cup of blueberry-flavored yogurt, and ate it. He tossed the cup into the garbage, washed the spoon, then paced for a while.

Outside, the wind continued to blow. Even as preoccupied as he was, he could hear the trees whooshing in the wind overhead outside.

Conan went to the screen and walked in lazy circles, then sat facing the door.

“Need to go outside, boy?” Reznick said. He opened the screen door and Conan shot out of the trailer.

He tried to leave the screen door open, but the wind slammed it around, so he closed it and listened for Conan’s scratching as he continued to pace.

Open eyes… open mouth… open abdomen… glistening black guts… wet, farting sounds…

Conan scratched at the screen door and yapped once.

Reznick let the dog in, then closed the screen door. He closed the door halfway, leaving it open to create a draft.

He went to the kitchen and found the bottle of vodka. He got a glass from the cupboard, some ice from the freezer, and poured some vodka over the crackling cubes. He put what was left of the vodka in the freezer. He took the glass to the living room and stretched out on the recliner again. He let the vodka stand on the lamp table for a while and chill.

He browsed the TV stations for something to watch and settled on an old movie with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. He watched the movie for awhile, tried to immerse himself in it.

Finally, he took the glass from the lamp table and took a sip. Then a gulp.

“Aaahh,” he sighed, looking at the glass with its beads of sweat dribbling down the sides. “It’s good to have you back.”

Twenty-Four

The day had been hell for Anna.

It had been next to impossible for her to think straight all day. She could not get her mind off the previous night. The events of the night haunted her, at times scorched the inside of her skull with their screams.

You’re a murderer, she thought again and again. Sometimes it was a nagging whisper, and sometimes it was a thunderous bellow that deafened her for a moment.

All day she had felt like someone with attention deficit disorder. But she did her best to hide it, and she was pretty sure, as she drove home, that she’d pulled it off.

At the wheel of her car, her hand relived the sensation of stabbing Steven Regent. Her ears heard the blade going in again and again.

She jerked her head back and forth, shook her thoughts up.

Anna stopped at the trailer park’s entrance to see if Kendra had gotten the mail. She had not, just as she’d promised. Anna got the mail – junk and bills – got back in the car, and drove to her trailer.

Inside, she found Kendra asleep on the couch with a game show running on TV. Anna decided not to wake her. The codeine pills made her very sleepy. It seemed the cut – which had been quite severe – had taken a lot out of her, as well.

Anna changed into shorts and a T-shirt, then got a beer from the fridge, sat down at the kitchen table, and lit a cigarette. She closed her eyes and went through it again. Her right elbow rested on the table, her hand up, the cigarette between her first two fingers. The cigarette trembled there in her shaking hand as it all happened again in Anna’s mind. The string of smoke that rose from the cigarette jittered in a zigzag pattern as her hand shook.

She realized how much she owed Marc Reznick. She would be in a huge mess without him – and he could be in a huge mess because of her. But throughout the day, it had begun to dawn on her that Reznick now had a terrific amount of power over her. She realized that, if he wanted to, he could destroy her with an anonymous tip to the police. So far as Anna knew, no one even suspected that Steven Regent was dead yet. But there was a bloody, gory mess in his trailer, and if he wanted to, Reznick could point the police straight to it. But why would he? He might be getting himself into some pretty deep shit, too. Unless he simply denied it. He’d covered his own ass pretty well all along. He was a detective, he knew how to do that. She only hoped he never decided to take advantage of his position over her.

She was hungry, but she didn’t feel like cooking. It was too hot to cook. She grabbed her purse and went out to her car. She drove down to KFC and got dinner for her and Kendra.

The wind made traffic lights bob and sway. Trees and bushes bowed to its strength as Anna drove home. Her car was buffeted on the road by the hot, suffocating gusts.

Back in the trailer, she put her purchase on the counter.

Kendra stirred on the couch and slowly sat up, rubbing one eye with a knuckle.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Anna said. “I just bought dinner. Kentucky Fried Chicken sound good?”

“Yeah. How was work, Mommy?”

“It was good. How was your day?”

“Okay. I slept a lot. My finger hurt real bad, so I took the pills, and they make me sleepy.”

“I know they do. How’s your finger?”

“It hurts again.”

“Well, let’s eat and maybe you’ll feel a little better. Have you eaten today?”

“I had a peanut butter sammich.”

Anna took the two dinners out of their bags and removed the plastic covers, then put them on the table. “Dinner is served.”

Kendra got up and shuffled to the table. “You gonna dance tonight?”

“Oh, yeah, I have to after missing two nights.”

“You’re gonna let me stay here, aren’t ya?” Kendra said. “I mean, I didn’t even go get the mail today, and I’ve – “

”I noticed that, and I appreciate it. Yes, I’ll let you stay here tonight.”

“Thank you, Mommy.”

They ate without speaking for a while, but not in silence. The wind battered the trailer and branches creaked overhead.

“Did Marc come over today?” Anna said.