reminded John of one of the sixth grade teachers at work, Mr. Travers, who’d stand in the hallway and yell at the kids no matter what they did. He would gesture with his coffee and yell things like “Stay to the right!” and “This is not a locker period.” The talk in the teacher’s room centered around the Master’s Degree he held in education or how many times he’d brought a kid down the principal’s office in a day. John would try to ask what Travers was teaching that day, only to get ignored.
John closed his eyes.
“So,” the cop said. “Why’d you kill those people?”
“Kill those—No, that wasn’t me. That was Frank.”
The cop pulled out a chair, put his coffee and notebook down on the table, and then sat, wrists resting against the corner of the table. He breathed through his nose hard, as if John was frustrating him already. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a pen.
“All right. I’ll play. Who’s Frank?”
“He’s my… well, I guess he’s a friend. I was following him tonight, I thought he was cheating on his girlfriend.”
The cop scribbled on the paper, and John could tell he wasn’t actually writing anything. Just like a student who was trying to look like he was working.
“Frank Carnathan,” John said, exhaling the words as if he’d just been running. He shouted out Frank’s address.
Now the cop actually started to write. “How do you know this Frank Carnathan? You said he’s a friend?”
John took a deep breath. The cop was actually listening. “He’s my friend’s—my ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend. I saw him sitting with some girl at a Starbucks a few days ago.
He’s weird; I don’t trust him. So tonight, after my own girlfriend broke up with me and I decided…”
The cop looked up. “Your girlfriend broke up with you tonight?”
Did she? Why does he keep saying she did? “Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?” Come on, John thought. Let me tell you about the trail of bodies Frank left around tonight. The ones I can’t get out of my head. Every time I picture them, I want to throw up.
“Are you okay with the break-up? Did it surprise you? Did it piss you off?”
John’s mouth tasted sour and dry again. It seemed like the saliva on his tongue was drying up or creeping back down his throat. He felt as if his body was imploding.
He knew where the cop was taking him with these questions.
“No! I didn’t kill them. They were going to kill Frank and me. They were going to shoot us. Frank just took them out. He told me it was us or them. He shot them. He shot them!”
John’s hands flexed into fists and pulled against the chains of the cuffs. The metal dug into his wrists, sending electric charges up his arms. He pressed his feet flat into the floor. The chair squeaked back a few inches on the ground.
The cop leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Easy, buddy. Easy,” the cop said.
“I’m not lying to you,” John said. He was out of breath. “I didn’t kill anyone. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could be dead right now.”
“You said they had guns, these guys. There weren’t any guns found at the scene. Nothing. Just the bullets in their chests.”
John saw them again. Saw the fire exploding from their hands. Saw their own bodies explode in red. He swallowed hard.
“How can you think I did it? What’s going on here? I’m just a teacher. I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have followed Frank. I should have stayed home. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it. The wrong place. That’s all it was. I was in the wrong place. Let me go. I’m getting a lawyer.”
“Okay. All right.” The cop’s hands were held out before him now, palms out.
“You have to help me,” John said. His ears felt warm. There was pressure at the sides of his temples.
There was a knock on the door behind them. The cop got up and walked over to the door. John tried to breathe through his nose.
Don’t pass out.
When the cop opened the door, a man handed him a piece of paper. The cop read it and then looked up at John.
The cop put his hands on his hips and twisted his neck as if he was cracking it.
“Tell me what happened tonight.”
“I did.”
The cop slammed his hands down on the table and leaned across it. Some coffee spilled over the top of his cup.
“Tell me.”
John took a deep breath. The right to remain silent. That’s all he had left. He’d said too much already.
“I —”
“Yes?”
“I need to wait for my lawyer.”
The cop stood up and picked up the coffee and notebook. He guzzled the coffee, then said, “Fine.”
****
Two hours had passed and still no Michelle. No lawyer. John had already counted the tiles on the floor—trying to do anything to occupy his mind. He was also pretty sure the odor in his cell wasn’t shit. That didn’t solve the problem of what it was.
Distraction didn’t help. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. There weren’t any guns at the crime scene? He saw them. He kept seeing them in his head. Every time he saw them, he’d come close to losing it again.
He sat on the cot and brought his knees up to his chest. The burning in his wrists from when they’d taken off the cuffs had finally faded. What was he involved in? He couldn’t get the blood out of his brain. Just like the water. The last time—the only time—he’d ever seen someone die before tonight, the only image he’d remember was water.
****
They were at their aunt’s in Freehold, Mom and Dad with their wine and beer. Uncle Roger was behind the grill. Smoke twirled into the sky. True to form, Uncle Roger had found sausages no one had ever heard of. When they were driving down the Parkway, Mom and Dad were promising hot dogs and hamburgers. Uncle Roger was always trying to be original.
That didn’t really matter to John. The sun was beating down, making the concrete hot to the touch of his foot. The pool was warm for once. Hannah was pushing down her swimmies, trying to get them off. John sat on the steps, filling his plastic water gun. He heard the thump of one of the plastic swimmies hitting the ground behind him. Hannah always managed to free herself of them.
“Keep those on,” he mumbled, knowing Mom or Dad would yell. The last thing he wanted was them coming over here. Once this gun was filled, he was going to sneak over and spray them all.
