“He killed Mal,” I said.
“No…”
“And Rebecca Clarke. He was sick… the Alzheimer’s… it… he-”
“No, it can’t be. Not Mal! Grey would never do that!”
“He couldn’t help himself.”
“Oh no, no… bullshit! Maybe it’s you who’s crazy!” She stared at the drying streaks of blood smeared up her forearms. “Maybe we both are.”
There was no reason for her to believe me. I was practically a stranger, whereas she’d seen Grey every day of her life. I’d done hardly anything to make her think of me as her older brother. I’d done nothing to make her believe in me. I looked and acted more and more like Collie. She already had one lunatic brother. She had to be wondering if she had two.
JFK wouldn’t come near us. He sat on the rug and stared at me with a harsher judgment than I’d ever felt before.
Dale’s eyes flashed with theories and blazing possibilities, trying to put it all together. I propped myself up against the wall, hands clutching my belly. I was leaking fast. I explained everything as quickly and quietly as I could. What I knew and what I suspected. If she didn’t buy it, she’d ca will the cops and that would be that.
“He was gushing blood,” she said. “I killed him.”
“You saved my life, Dale.”
She dropped her head back, the tears tracking down her face. I knew what she was thinking. I was thinking it too.
“Oh Jesus, oh God, poor Dad… poor Daddy. What’s Dad going to think? What’s he going to do?”
I struggled to get up and couldn’t do it on my own. She eyed me closely. She would always look at me like this from now on. She would never be completely sure of me again. The tears shimmered and slowed.
“Terry, you’re bleeding.”
“Not so bad.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Go get bandages.”
“Bandages aren’t going to stop this. You need to go to a hospital. We have to call the police.”
“No. Help me up.”
She did. I rested my weight on her and she groaned beneath me. She helped me to the bathroom. I tore a couple of towels into strips and made a bandage to knot around my stomach. The wounds hurt, but the black burden of what we’d done blunted everything else. The guilt was just beginning for us. I was drenched in cold sweat. Dale lathered up in the sink and washed Grey’s blood off, then helped me to clean up as well as I could. I found some outdated pain meds in the cabinet and popped a handful.
There was a lot to take care of. We’d already had too much tragedy in my family. My old man wouldn’t be able to handle losing another brother. He was about to lose his oldest son in three days.
Grey was going on the long grift. I wasn’t much of a forger, but I wasn’t going to have to be. Grey’s letter would be short and to the point. I had been gone for five years. Grey could vanish for a few himself. It was a better ending than the truth.
I opened a closet door and found an old black denim jacket. It was tight and hurt like hell to put on, but once I had it buttoned up, constricted against the shredded towels, I felt a little better. I picked the butterfly blade up off the floor and stuck it in my back pocket.
I checked the window. There was blood on the cracked glass. We had to do something about that. I examined the screen door. The latch was broken and would need to be replaced. The jamb looked fine. My old man would be glad to get out his tools. He wouldn’t even be curious. I could tell him I stumbled. I could tell him I got angry and kicked the door in. One stupid story was as believable as another.
“What are you doing?” Dale asked. “What are you going to do?”
“I need you to clean the house. Ma and Dad are out at dinner.” I checked my watch. “We’ve still got a couple hours.”
“They don’t go to dinner.”
“They went tonight, Dale. You’re going to clean the place. Put everything back the way it was. Wipe the blood up.” I pointed to the living-room window. “There too. Change your clothes. Throw everything bloody into a plastic bag and put it in my trunk.”
She looked over at Gramp. “Poor Old Shep, he saw it all. He filched the blade. He saved my life.”
“Both our lives.” Henimpl wouldn’t have snatched Grey’s knife if he had any doubts. “He’s still in there someplace.” I put my hand to his stubbled cheek. “Thanks, Gramp.”
Dale glanced at the corpse on the floor. “What are you going to do with Grey? We need to call… I mean… we can’t just-”
“I’ll take care of him.”
“Terry, no.” She reached up and took me gently by the collar, forced me to look into her face. “You can’t. You’re not going to-”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Not this too.”
“Yeah, this too.”
I blitzed out the back door and got a shovel out of the shed. I looked off at the woods. A shiver went through me so violently that I had to slap the shovel down into the dirt and prop myself up with the handle. I walked back in and Dale was smoking a cigarette.
“This isn’t the way to do it, Terry.”
I couldn’t imagine dumping him in the ocean or burying him on some construction site under a thousand gallons of cement. “Leave him in Sheepshead Bay? I can’t do that.”
“It’s the safest way. We can’t keep him on our property.”
“I can’t let him go. He needs to stay at home.”
“You’re going to get caught.”
“That’s better than the alternative,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’ll be an accessory, damn you.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll keep you clear of it.”
“You’re not thinking straight. You can’t even lift him.”
“Yes, I can.”
But she was right. I got him into a seated position, hooked my arms under his, and dragged him to the back door. I managed to push his body to the top step of the porch, hunch down under it, swing his arms over my shoulders, heft him up behind the knees, and get him into a dead man’s lift. It was possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I carried him through the woods, his lips pressed against the back of my neck. Gases gurgled and escaped his mouth like muted curses.
JFK followed, sniffing at Grey’s ankles. I dug a grave behind the log where Mal and I’d had our lengthy conversation. The ground was soft from all the rain. It was easier than putting in fence-post railings. It wasn’t going to be deep but it would be deep enough for the time being. It took me only a half hour. I rolled Grey’s corpse in. At the last second, just before I threw the first shovelful of dirt on top of him, I grabbed the photo from his jacket pocket. I didn’t know why I wanted it, but I felt strongly that I had to keep it. I covered him over quickly but well and shifted the log over the grave.
When I was finished, I started back to the house. JFK stared at the muddy spot until I called him to me. Halfway through the woods, I had to stop to vomit. I was feeling light-headed and feeble. Dale met me on the back porch. She’d changed into a summer dress. She looked beautiful and very young and innocent.
“Gilmore’s here,” she hissed.
37
I used the backyard hose to wash the dirt off my hands and spray the sweat from my face. I opened the jacket
