The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes

Thirty-five

He went to the bathroom, came back, sat down, picked up a gun in each hand. Took turns trying them in different positions. In his mouth, angled up and back, poised to send a bullet through the palate and into the brain — and, as with George Otterbein, out through the back of the skull. Pressed into his belly just below the solar plexus — much easier now, with his own hand and his own stomach, than when he’d propped up Otterbein’s unconscious body and wrapped his own hand around Ashley’s limp hand and helped her dead finger squeeze the trigger.

That wound hadn’t been enough to kill George, that’s not what it was for, and it had taken another blow to the back of the head to keep the man unconscious. Then he’d manhandled him over to the staircase, stuck George’s index finger in the abdominal wound and wiped it imperfectly.

He unloaded the Taurus, reloaded it with George’s fingerprints on the shells. Got his prints on the gun butt as well, including one from the bloody index finger. Then he’d used his own finger to force George’s thumb on the trigger.

And he’d dipped his own finger into the belly wound so that he could inscribe George’s confession on the wall. He remembered that famous case, some loony leaving messages on a mirror, Stop me before I kill more, but that hardly applied, and in the end he’d settled for God forgive me.

Fat chance.

George’s blood, but his own finger. So who then was the one seeking divine forgiveness?

Consciously, he’d been doing nothing more or less than staging a scene. But on another level...

He clamped his eyes shut, blinked the thought away. Both guns now, one in the belly and one in the mouth, and could he summon the nerve to work both triggers at the same time?

And what would Radburn and his merry men make of that?

No appetite.

At one point he went to the kitchen. There was a single English muffin left, and he split it and toasted it. Buttered it, took a bite, and the process of chewing and swallowing seemed too much of a chore, and pointless in the bargain.

Tossed it. Watched some TV.

Half an hour into the movie, he had a look at the computer. The screen had gone dark, but he touched a key and saw the open Word document.

I did it.

Nothing to add, nothing to subtract. He watched the rest of the movie and went to bed.

The third day was more of the same. He didn’t even try to eat, just sipped some water when he was aware of thirst.

Late in the day he went out of the house for the first time, but only to walk out onto the dock. He stood there looking out at nothing, then went back inside.

Went to bed again, woke up again.

And everything was different.