Marked

EIGHTEEN

The noise is driving her crazy.

The hammering, the drilling, the sawing — she can’t hear herself think. It was going on most of yesterday, and it was going on when she had breakfast this morning, and now it’s lunchtime and it’s still going on. What the hell is he doing in there?

Nicole pours the remainder of her still-steaming coffee down the drain and places her cup in the sink. She walks across to the door leading into the garage, then pauses.

It’s gone quiet. Eerily so. She puts her ear to the door. Nothing. Not even the shuffling of Steve’s feet. She presses her head harder against the wood. Holds her breath. .

Whirrrrr.

She leaps back, afraid that a drill bit is about to come straight through the door and into her skull. Angrily, she flings the door open and steps inside. Ready to confront him.

Only she can’t speak.

She can’t talk because of what she sees here. This is not the garage she was expecting. All of its contents have been pushed to one end. In the center of the space, Steve has set up his workbench. A length of wood lies across it, and on top of that is a saw and a retractable tape measure.

But what really grabs Nicole’s attention here is the shelving. Miles of it. Or at least there will be when Steve has finished. Almost every square inch of wall space now has brackets running up it, and some are already supporting wooden shelves.

Steve is standing at the wall separating the garage from the kitchen. He is holding a cordless drill. There is masonry dust and wood shavings all down the front of his coverall and on his face. He looks blankly at his wife as if to say, What’s the problem?

‘Steve,’ she says. ‘What are you doing?’

‘The place is a mess. It needs organizing. I want it neat and tidy.’

She stares at him, incredulous. ‘You want. . What about what I want? Were you planning to consult me on this major change to our property?’

‘Nicole, don’t wig out over a few shelves. You never come in here anyway. Anytime you want something you send me in here to find it. Takes me hours sometimes, going through all that stuff.’ He gestures behind him at the boxes and crates and bicycles and gardening equipment. ‘This way we’ll be able to find things instantly.’

Nicole moves into the center of the garage and looks again at Steve’s handiwork. She’s not convinced that all these shelves are necessary. Not at all sure that they have enough items in here to fill them.

She turns to look at the possessions they keep in the garage, and notices that Steve seems to have divided them into two piles, one larger than the other. She steps closer to the smaller pile. Opens up one of the boxes. It’s full of old auto magazines.

‘Steve, what are the boxes on this side of the garage?’

He turns to face her, the drill still in his hand. ‘Things we can throw out. We don’t need them anymore.’

She nods, but something tugs at her. Whispering to her that something isn’t right here. It’s in Steve’s body language. It’s in his voice. Awkwardness. Anxiety.

She opens another box. Peers inside. Her heart stops. She faces Steve again, sees the guilt on his face.

‘Steve. Please tell me you’ve made a mistake.’

‘What?’ he says, but she can tell that he understands her exactly.

‘Some of Megan’s things are in this box. In this pile that you say is garbage.’

‘I didn’t say they were garbage. That’s not the word I used.’

‘You want to throw them out. What the hell else do you call stuff you’re throwing out?’

‘I. . It’s all really old stuff, Nicole. Stuff we never look at anymore. Stuff you probably don’t even remember keeping. When’s the last time you asked me to dig out any of those things, huh?’

She glares at him. Her eyes blur. She wipes away the tears.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she says. ‘Megan has been dead for what seems like five minutes, and already you’re throwing away her stuff. How could you do that? How could that idea even occur to you?’

He shifts his gaze away from her then, and she can tell that he’s lost the argument. He knows that what he did is wrong. Probably knew it when he set up the two piles. But he did it anyway. What she can’t comprehend is why.

She hopes he will explain. She hopes he will apologize and say that he didn’t know what he was thinking, and then he will cry and they will talk and they will start to come to terms with their grief.

But instead, when he looks back at her there is anger in his eyes. ‘Nicole, we have to move on. The only way we’re going to survive this is if we move on. Megan is dead, and we have to accept that.’

She takes a step toward him. ‘No, Steve. You have to accept it.’

‘What do you mean?’

She waves her arms to indicate the space around them. ‘All this! The way you’re keeping so busy. The way you won’t come near me. The way you won’t talk. The way you’re pushing Megan’s things away from you. You’re in denial, Steve. Can’t you see that?’

He shakes his head, and his lips twist into a sneer. ‘That’s crap.’

‘No. No, it isn’t. Take a look at yourself. Tell me this is normal. Tell me you’re acting exactly the same way you did before Megan was taken from us.’

‘Of course I’m not the same. Nothing is the same. I’m just trying to cope, Nicole. You do it your way and I’ll do it mine. Is that okay with you?’

She goes back to the box and takes out one of the items. A swimming trophy. A shiny shield set upon a polished wooden plinth. One of the first things Megan ever won. She carries it over to Steve and holds it up to his face.

‘This is Megan, Steve. It’s not just a memory. It’s what she was. And it’s all we have left of her. If you think you’re coping, then fine. But don’t you dare, don’t you dare, throw anything of Megan’s away. Not a trophy, not a photograph, not a school report, not even a drawing she made when she was two. Because if you do, if I find that a single possession of hers has gone missing, then I’m going missing too. I’m taking Megan’s things and I’m walking out of this house and I’m never coming back. Do you understand me?’

He looks at her for some time, and she tries to work out what’s going through his head. Is he ashamed? Or is he steeling himself for round two?

‘I hear ya,’ is all he says. Which tells her only that he doesn’t want to continue this conversation. It’s a nothing answer. A cop-out. She feels her own anger growing. She wants to slap this man, to bring him out of this semi-conscious state he has imposed on himself.

But then suddenly her rage is elbowed out by pity. This is her husband. Megan’s father. He wasn’t responsible for her death. He didn’t ask for this. And he can’t deal with it. That’s not his fault either. He is strong in so many ways but he can’t handle this. What is so wrong with that? What is so weak about a man who cannot accept the loss of his only child, his beautiful daughter?

She takes a step closer. She wants to hug him. Wants him to hug her. She reaches out a hand and touches it to his arm.

‘You’re hurting,’ she says. ‘We’re both hurting. We need to help each other. Nobody else can do it for us.’

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. She hopes that a whole lot more will follow that breath. Some tears. Some release. Some emotions other than hate.

‘I should finish these shelves,’ he says.

She nods. She closes her eyes and then opens them again, and a tear falls.

She walks over to the shelving. Puts Megan’s trophy on one of them. Turns it slightly so that it is square on. She steps back and lets the metal reflect the light into her eyes.

‘It looks good there,’ she says. ‘Don’t you think?’

He doesn’t answer, and she steps out of the garage and closes the door softly behind her. She waits for a while, then puts her ear to the door. She remains poised there, her fingers on the handle, praying for a cry of anguish or at least a rhythmic gentle sobbing.

Hearing nothing, she walks away.

He’s crazy.

Has to be.

Nobody throws themselves through a panel of glass like that. That only happens in the movies, where they use fake glass. The real stuff is dangerous, man. It can cut you to ribbons. It can slice through your jugular or another artery, or it can take part of your face off, leaving you permanently disfigured. Nobody in their right mind would risk that.

Which is kinda the point, really. Because Proust isn’t in his right mind, is he? Anyone who could do what he did to those girls has to be certifiable.

Or desperate.

What? No, surely not. Nobody could be that desperate. Sure, Proust is afraid of me, but not as shit-scared as he pretends to be. That’s for show. That’s for the likes of LeBlanc and anyone else who’s willing to act as an audience. Proust is clever. He knows what he’s doing. He’s devious and manipulative and crazy. And that makes him dangerous as fuck.

And let’s not forget guilty. Let’s keep that on the list. Because he is. This act of his is all a smokescreen, designed to hide the real story here. Which is that Stanley Proust murdered those two girls. That’s what I need to hang on to. That’s what I need to make others see too.

‘Cal!’

It’s Tommy LeBlanc who interrupts his thoughts. He’s just come into the squadroom, and he’s standing there with his legs apart and his hands twitching at his sides like he’s a gunslinger calling out his sworn enemy.

‘Lemme guess,’ says Doyle. ‘You wanna talk.’

‘Yes, I want to talk. That okay with you?’

Doyle starts to rise from his chair. ‘Lead on, Macduff.’

He follows LeBlanc out of the squadroom and into the interview room along the hallway. LeBlanc closes the door. He marches across to the window, then back again. Then back to the window, all the while refusing to look Doyle in the face.

‘This an exercise class?’ Doyle asks. ‘I forgot to bring my gym shorts.’

LeBlanc halts and turns angrily on Doyle. ‘This is no joke, Cal. What the hell were you thinking? You promised me you would keep away from Proust.’

‘Uh, no I didn’t. You said I should keep away. I never agreed to that.’

‘Didn’t you even think to keep me in the loop?’

‘You weren’t here when I decided to go see him.’

‘Jesus Christ. I went to the washroom. I was gone for all of five minutes.’

Doyle shrugs. ‘What can I say? I make snap decisions.’

LeBlanc shakes his head. Paces up and down a little more.

Says Doyle, ‘How is he?’

‘Proust, you mean? You really wanna know? He’s dead, Cal. He didn’t make it.’

Doyle tenses. He stares in disbelief at LeBlanc. Proust dead? No. He can’t be. It can’t end like this.

‘What? No. He can’t be dead.’

‘No, he’s not fucking dead, Cal. But isn’t that what you wanted to hear? Don’t you want him taken out? Wouldn’t you love to see him lying on a cold slab in the morgue?’

Doyle feels a stab of irritation. ‘All right, Tommy, that’s enough. I don’t like being told what my thoughts are, and I don’t like little pranks like the one you just pulled on me. You got this all wrong.’

‘Have I? Have I, Cal? Tell me how I should see this. Tell me what I should think when I see you attack Proust, ripping his shirt off like that. Tell me what conclusions I should reach when you come back from seeing Proust with a huge shiner under your eye, and he ends up with broken ribs and missing teeth. Tell me what I should imagine happened when Proust comes flying through a glass door and you’re the only other guy in the room, and then you continue to assault him. What kind of picture should I be seeing here, Cal?’

‘Not the obvious one. I know how it looks, but it’s phony. Proust jumped through that door. He must have seen you outside and then he ran into his apartment so that I would follow. When he heard you come through the front door he started yelling and then he dived through the glass.’

‘Uh-huh. And the bruises? The fractured rib?’

‘I don’t know. He threw himself down some stairs. He picked a fight in a bar. I have no idea. But I didn’t do it. That I do know.’

‘Then how come it looks so much like you did?’

‘Because that’s what he wants you to think. He wants you seeing him as the victim instead of the perp. He wants your sympathy. He wants me off his back.’

‘Pretty extreme way of doing it, don’t you think?’

‘Absolutely. But we’re not talking normal here, Tommy. Proust is a man who gets his kicks from torturing young girls. That makes him not right in the head. But he’s also a fucking genius. You remember that tattoo on his chest?’

‘Yeah. What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Looked pretty real, didn’t it? Proust coming out of his own chest. That’s what he’s good at. Making pictures that look real but aren’t. He makes people see what he wants them to see. You see a helpless victim, in fear of the cops. I see a murdering sonofabitch. Same guy, though, Tommy. Same guy.’

LeBlanc rubs his chin while he considers this. ‘I don’t know, Cal. I want to believe you, I really do. But you’re not making this easy for me.’ He pauses. ‘I heard a lot of things about you when I came to this precinct, Cal.’

‘That’ll be Schneider singing my praises again, huh? That guy loves me.’

‘Him, but others too. They said a lot of bad things. They said you were a dirty cop. They said-’

‘Yeah, well, Schneider and his buddies can go fuck themselves. They can-’

‘See, now that’s what I mean.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘That’s why I can’t understand you, Cal. All of this stuff with Proust, it suggests they’re right, you know? It says to me, Hey, maybe this guy really is a dirty cop after all. And if you’re not dirty, Cal, then you have to be one of the stupidest cops I’ve ever known.’

‘If you’re giving me a choice, I’ll settle for stupid.’

‘I’m serious. It’s like you have a self-destruct button you have to keep pushing. Take your relationship with Schneider, for example. Did you ever try taking him and his pals for a pizza and a beer and just explaining things to them? You haven’t, have you? They say something negative and you react instantaneously. You blow them off, without a thought for the consequences, without even considering that you’ll have to work with these guys for years to come. And then there’s how you are with me, your partner. All this sneaking around behind my back, again not even caring about how it affects me or the case. You’re not a one-man band, Cal. You have a partner. You’re part of a squad. Why do you insist on forgetting that?’

‘You’re beginning to sound like my mother.’

‘Well, maybe you should listen to your mother a little more often. I may be younger than you. I may be a less experienced detective than you. But Christ do I seem to be a whole lot more aware of what’s going on than you are right now.’

The two detectives lapse into silence for a while. LeBlanc paces some more. Says, ‘Jesus!’ to vent a little steam.

‘What are you going to do?’ Doyle asks. ‘You taking this to the lieutenant?’

‘Would you blame me if I did?’

‘Actually, no. You should do what you think is right.’

‘Well, that’s the fucking thing. ’Cause I don’t know what’s right anymore. You’ve got my head so screwed up, I don’t know what I should be doing.’ He pauses again. ‘You do know, don’t you, that all it will take is one word from Proust to drop you in the biggest pile of crap you ever saw?’

‘Did he say it was me, after I left?’

‘No, he didn’t. But if he does, I won’t be able to contain this, Cal. I’ll have to tell the boss what I saw and what I heard.’

‘Proust won’t say anything.’

‘What, are you going to make sure of that? Is that what you’re telling me, after all we’ve just discussed?’

Doyle sighs. ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. Proust won’t accuse me because he knows it’s not true. He’s not sure he can get away with saying it was me. And he also doesn’t want cops looking too closely at him, not with him being a murderer.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘About me not hurting him, or him being a murderer, or him not putting in a complaint? Doesn’t matter — the answer’s the same to all of ’em.’

LeBlanc studies Doyle for a while, narrowing his eyes at him. ‘Tell me, Cal. How do you know all this? With such certainty, I mean. So far we’ve got nothing on Proust. Not one shred of evidence that says he’s bad. How can you be so damn sure you’re not wrong about him?’

Doyle thinks about this. ‘I know Proust. I’ve spent a lot more time with him than you have. I’ve looked into his eyes. I’ve looked into his soul. These homicides are his work, Tommy. I’d stake everything I have on that being true.’

‘Yeah, well, you may have already done that,’ says LeBlanc. He turns away from Doyle and heads for the door.

‘What happens now?’ asks Doyle.

LeBlanc halts and faces Doyle again. ‘We prove you’re right about Proust. We work the case. But by the numbers, Cal. I can’t work the way we’ve been working anymore. You want to carry on treating me like I don’t matter, then fine. But I won’t take it lying down.’

He reaches for the door, but again Doyle stops him.

‘Do you believe me? About me not being involved in what happened to Proust?’

Now it’s LeBlanc’s turn to sigh. ‘Like I said, I want to believe it. Crazy as the story sounds, I think I could probably make myself believe it. But you know what? There’s one thing getting in the way.’

‘What’s that?’

‘What you said a minute ago about looking into Proust’s eyes? Well, I looked into your eyes, Cal. When you had your hand around my throat in Proust’s place? I saw things in your eyes that terrified me. At that moment there was no doubt in my mind that you were capable of doing some god-awful things.’

And, with that, he leaves the room.

He’s naked in front of the bedroom mirror again.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

Ha! Fairest! Look at you! Look at that wreck of a man staring back at you. It’s Halloween in a coupla weeks. You don’t even need a costume.

He has pulled off some of the Band-Aids. Too soon. Blood is trickling down his face. Coursing over the purple-blue flesh. There were healthier-looking specimens in the Michael Jackson Thriller video.

He tilts his head to the left, then the right, studying his features. He likes this look. He has undergone a metamorphosis. He is not what he was.

He has some more stitches, but most of the cuts were superficial. That cop — LeBlanc — took him to a different hospital this time. He knows why. LeBlanc was trying to protect his friend and colleague.

‘Doyle.’

He says the name out loud. And smiles.

It was painful, going through that door. He doesn’t deny that he felt the pain. Mostly in his cracked rib rather than because of the cuts. The cuts are nothing.

The pain, too, is nothing. He has mastered pain. He feels it, but he can choose to ignore it. That is the power he has discovered.

‘Do you believe me, Doyle? Do you believe you can’t hurt me?’

Proust slaps his own face. Hard. So hard it stings. He slaps it again, and again. A wound on his cheek opens up and more blood flows. It drips onto his chest.

He looks to his side. There is a dresser there. And on the dresser, a small pair of nail scissors. He picks up the scissors with his right hand, puts his left hand on the dresser.

Without hesitation he plunges the point of the scissors into the back of his hand. He yanks the scissors out, stabs it again into his flesh. And yet again. A cry escapes his lips and pink-stained froth bubbles out of his mouth.

He brings his damaged hand to his face and examines it. It trembles, and blood gushes from its wounds. He makes animalistic keening noises as he watches his hot blood run down his arm. His eyes blur with tears, and then he is laughing or crying or both.

‘You see, Doyle?’ he says to his mirror image. ‘You cannot hurt me. You cannot win.’

He is stronger than Doyle now. In fact, he feels almost invincible. He can survive a severe beating. He can jump through glass without serious injury. What’s next? How much stronger can he possibly get?

And there are other forces within him that are yet to be released. Doyle doesn’t suspect this. He doesn’t know what he has unleashed. Well, he will find out soon enough.

Doyle started this.

Stanley Francis Proust will finish it.