The Killing Hour

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I wake up in the afternoon into a dark world full of sunshine and without the aid of ghosts. My room is stuffy with stale air and my head is full of bad dreams. I can’t believe I’ve slept so long. There is a second-maybe even two-where everything is as it should be. That honeymoon moment where you wake up and all the bad shit doesn’t exist, and then the honeymoon ends and you remember your wife has been kidnapped, you saw a man shot apart the night before by a shotgun, a cop tried to kill you, and you spent an hour burying a dead woman’s breast while talking to a ghost that isn’t really a ghost, but a manifestation of your guilt.

I climb from beneath the blankets. The cold hot water bottle is on the floor. I have slept on a bed that less than a day ago held a body part. The storm has passed and when I look out my window it’s as though it never happened. I wish I could say the same thing about everything else in my life. I stare out at the warm day and wonder how much longer summer can really last. Maybe we can bypass autumn and go straight to winter. For that matter, maybe we can bypass winter too. And spring.

My body feels okay until I try to walk. When I do, my jaw starts throbbing. I can barely turn my head, my neck is so stiff. Yesterday I looked and felt like I’d been hit by a car. Now it feels like I’ve been hit by a bus that has reversed back to hit me again. Every muscle in my arms, legs, and chest is tender. I turn on the radio and tune in to a news bulletin. Some woman talks about the police investigation, but she says nothing new. The same old guy who gave yesterday’s weather report comes on and says it will be fine all day. I wonder what he means.

I stagger through the house and head for the bathroom. I stand in the shower for twenty minutes trying to loosen up. I’ve been spending way too much time lately showering. Too much time in the woods. Too much time bitching about why life can’t be better, why the Real World must be so Goddamn real. I study myself in the mirror when I get out. My jaw is puffed up and swollen. My neck is dark blue on the left. My eyes are bloodshot. The bump on my forehead isn’t looking any smaller. I study the back of my head with my fingers. Several valleys and mountains there from my journey down Cold River. It’s like following a map to hell.

I’m looking at a man who has been both beaten up and beaten, but enough is enough, and that’s where I am right now. Somewhere deep inside I’ve just pulled a giant lever, not so much an on and off switch as a one-armed bandit and five bars with the word hate have all landed in a row. I hate that I can never be the same Charlie I was a week ago, and that saddens and scares me. I hate Cyris, and I wonder what I’m capable of doing about that. Murder? I close my eyes and pull the giant lever inside my mind. Bells and whistles and alarms all start going off inside of me. Yeah, murder is now within my capabilities. Murder will be as easy as riding a bike. I sense other things are within my ability now too, but I’m too scared to keep pulling on that lever to find out.

The beaten man stares back at me and what seems like pity fills his eyes. The man looks like he isn’t sure what I’m going to do. He looks concerned for me as though he’s worried I might start screaming and take my rage out on the world. He offers no answers, but he looks ready to start laying blame.

“I’m no longer going to be the victim,” I tell him.

He nods. He must think that’s a good thing.

I get dressed. I walk through the house, opening up the rooms and staring out windows as if all the answers lie outside in the fresh air and warm sun. My study is still a mess, broken parts still forming piles around the room. Ideas of what to do next start firing at me from dark corners of my mind. I keep following them, one in particular is starting to take shape. More than one, actually. Each minute that goes by is a minute Jo has to spend with Cyris. Each minute that goes by is another one in which she could be dying.

Beneath my computer desk is a small set of drawers, three in total, all still intact. The bottom is a filing drawer. I pull it open and start flicking through the partitions. It takes some time to find the one for my bank. They’re all out of order. Cyris has gone through them as I figured he had: this is where he got the idea of the forty thousand dollars from.

The whole concept of a revolving mortgage is simple. It’s basically an overdraft where you can draw out the money you’ve paid in. I’ve paid forty thousand dollars off my mortgage and that’s how much I can now access. I bought this house ten years ago. When I met Jo and we began living together, I kept my house and put it up for rent. I had one family living here for five years until they moved out, and another family was here for two years until I asked them to move out because I needed to move in.

I push the statements aside. It doesn’t matter how much money I have. Money can’t buy you happiness. It can’t buy life. And no amount will stop me from killing the son of a bitch.

It is after three o’clock and the sun has peaked in the sky and is starting its long, slow spiral down toward a new day on the other side of the world. Ideally I’d like to be there to see it, there with Jo.

Okay, Action Man, it’s time to act.

I find my wallet and everything inside it is wet. I take out my credit cards and my driver’s license. I use a hand towel to dry them, then leave them on the bench in the sun. I go into the bathroom and do what I can to turn the broken Charlie Feldman into one who will fit back into society. I smile a pained smile then add some cologne and some hair gel. I load my wallet back up and head outside.

The day is even better now that I’m out in it. I think that Landry probably would have liked it. I wonder what he’d be doing right now if he weren’t dead and pinned up against a log in the river, and then I feel a pang of guilt thinking about his last act, which was to save us. It’s possible he wasn’t such a bad guy. Possible under other circumstances I might have liked him. And probable he’d still be alive if I’d taken care of Cyris on Monday morning. Landry would have liked today. I’m sure of it. The bright sun, the warm wind, the essence of calm. Barely any traces of cloud adorn the sky. Long twin white lines float a few thousand feet high above me from a fast-moving jet. It’s a great day, the type you always want to wake up to. At least it would be if I’d stabbed Cyris in the heart and not the stomach.

The handcuffs are still on the seat of my car. I hide them in the glove box. I still have a spare key for Jo’s car, and I try it in the ignition, but the lock is too badly damaged for it to fit snuggly. The screwdriver still works. At least I can still use the keys to lock and unlock the car. Being in Jo’s car mingling with other traffic is surreal. I look at drivers and pedestrians and I wonder what they think of me. Can they see who I am? Can they see what I’ve become? What I’m now fighting for? Then those thoughts are reversed as I look at their faces. Who are these people? I don’t know any of them. I don’t know what they’re capable of. Murder? Sure, statistically some of them have to be capable of that. But how do you know which ones?

The trip to the bank takes me past flooded gardens and lawns with new swimming pools that suggest the sun hasn’t been out all day. The streets are bone-dry and make for safe driving. There’s no consensus about what to wear-some people are out in shorts and T-shirts, others in raincoats carrying umbrellas. I figure they’re all right. I park next to a beaten-up Holden with half of its hubcaps missing.

The bank is a plain-looking building in a row of other plain-looking buildings in the middle of town, a few blocks from the police department and a few hundred yards away from the Christchurch Cathedral, a touristy church right in the middle of town. There’s a guy out front of the bank handing out sandwich vouchers. He hands one to me and it makes me feel hungry, almost hungry enough to eat the voucher. The glass doors open with a hissing sound. Potted palm trees guarding the entranceway almost reach the ceiling. A whole lot more potted plants are scattered around inside. Maybe it’s supposed to make the fee-paying customers feel more at ease. Me, I feel like I’m back in a forest. I look around for a river, but the closest thing is a water cooler in the corner. It has an out-of-order sign because somebody has broken the plastic tap. I wait in line. Earlier this summer, just before Christmas, this bank was held up. People were waiting in line then just like they are now. People were shot and killed. I look at everybody closely in case there are those in here who think holding up banks is a pretty good idea.

It takes five minutes to get to the counter. I present my withdrawal slip to an old guy named George who will surely die before he retires, and even then still try to show up for work. His wrinkled face takes on a puzzled expression when he reads the amount on the slip, and he adjusts his bifocals to make sure he’s read the amount correctly as if the thick lenses have added an extra zero. Then he adjusts them again to make sure he’s seeing me correctly, as if the thick lenses have added an extra bruise. He asks me to step aside while he wanders off to chat to a few people, and a minute later a woman around my age comes from somewhere deep within the bank and leads me down a carpeted corridor into a small office.

Her name is Erica, and Erica is the sort of woman I would be flirting with if I didn’t appear and feel half-dead and think the woman I possibly still love might be dead. The small cream office has no window so the only view is the single door we came through, an aerial photo of Christchurch hanging on the wall and a vase filled with plastic roses. I look at the photo and wonder where I was when it was taken. More people were alive then. On the opposite wall is a photo of a guy in his forties or fifties. It has his name and two years listed beneath him, one must be his year of birth, the other is last year-it must be the bank manager who was killed during the robbery.

A long desk with a computer and stacks of paper and office clutter sits close to the middle of the room with a chair on each side. It feels like an interrogation room, and when she starts asking me questions to prove my identity I look around for two-way mirrors. I wait for her to ask where I was on Sunday night, but she doesn’t. I can see her desire to inquire about my bruises and cuts, but she can’t bring herself to do so. She keeps brushing her hair back behind her right ear in a nervous way. She knows something isn’t right, but what can she do? She can think and she can suspect. But it’s my money. A small necklace with a silver crucifix hangs around her neck. I feel like letting her in on the big secret.

After fifteen minutes of signing papers Erica agrees to hand over my money. It takes the staff another fifteen minutes to get the cash from their vault, and they count it out in front of me in a timid way that makes me think that they think I might be one bad-hair day away from shooting them all. They pack it into a small linen bag. I look for the huge dollar sign on the side to make it more obvious, but don’t see one. I thank Erica, then before leaving, I take out the wads of notes and stuff them inside my jacket and pants pockets. It’s a tight fit.

I walk a few blocks to the north, skirting around a crane and some cement mixers and several workmen who don’t appear to be doing anything. In Christchurch there are always workmen working on shops. All the time. I do what I should have done six months ago, and buy a prepay cell phone. Then I walk to a nearby army surplus store. The walls are painted camouflage green, which makes the building stick out more. Mannequins in the window are wearing desert and jungle uniforms. Plastic people off to war. I walk inside. The lighting is dim and the air is warm. Uniforms and outfits are hanging from wire coat hangers. Stacked all over the place are army storage containers with yellow and white lettering stenciled on them. Old medals in glass cases. Old gas masks. Old everything. I look at a counter full of knives. I find a hunting knife with a sharp blade and with ridges along the top.

The guy behind the counter stands around six and a half feet and has large, flabby arms covered in White Power tattoos. He wears a black leather vest with a black T-shirt beneath it. The T-shirt says Guns don’t kill people. Grenades do. His head is shaved and he has a long, gray beard. A name badge attached to his vest says Floyd and it looks out of place on his huge chest. He tells me the knife is called a KA-BAR.

I put the knife aside and keep looking. Floyd follows me around. It makes me feel uncomfortable. He asks if he can help. I tell him I’m after some fatigue gear. He shows me where it is. It’s new, not like most of the stuff in here. I wonder if anybody died in any of these uniforms. I pick up a vest with lots of pockets and army pants and an army jacket and boots too. I grab a pair of compact 8 x 20 binoculars that can fit in one of the many pockets in the vest.

I put them with the knife then look through a small display of Swiss Army knives. I point to one that looks like it could do everything from repairing sunglasses to gutting a fish. He pulls it out and puts it next to the KA-BAR. The KA-BAR looks massive in comparison. I pull out my wallet. Floyd says nothing as he looks me up and down. He looks like he could break every bone in my body so I smile at him and make no conversation.

“You going hunting?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“What you hunting for?”

“Deer.”

“Uh huh. The two-legged type?”

I pay for the gear. He gives me my change.

“No. The four-legged type.”

“Okay,” he says.

“I’m thinking,” I tell him, “that it may be easier to shoot deer than stab them. Is that right?”

“What kind of trouble are you in, mister?”

I hand him five hundred dollars. “The kind that needs a gun. Where can I get one?”

He stares at the money. Then he stares at me. “You’re about halfway to me telling you how that can be done.”

I count out another five hundred and put it on the counter next to the first five hundred. He sweeps his hands across it and it all disappears. Then he gives me a name, tells me to go and see this guy tomorrow.

“Not today?” I ask.

“You need to go shooting deer today?”

“No,” I tell him.

“Then tomorrow will be fine then, won’t it.”

He puts my purchases into a plastic supermarket bag. I thank him and leave.

I get back to my car just as a traffic cop is about to give me a ticket. He’s a guy in his thirties who looks like he’s spent twenty of those years either lifting heavy weights or doing hard time. He looks up at me and before I can say anything, he says “Looks like you’ve had a tough day.”

“Yeah.”

“How about I don’t make it any tougher for you? Next time put enough coins in the meter, okay?”

I almost feel like hugging him, and it restores some of my faith in the city.

I drive out to the airport and pull into medium-term parking, where Jo’s car can stay for the next few days, or where the police will eventually find it after I’m dead. The walls of the rental agency I choose are painted bright orange with blue racing stripes around the middle. The windows and glass sliding doors are covered in stickers and decals. I step inside and an assistant high on caffeine goes through the paperwork with me as I rent a late-model Holden, similar to the one I saw outside the bank. I figure driving around in my own car is a pretty dumb thing to do since Cyris knows it so well.

I show the guy my driver’s license and he looks at me and then at the photo. I shrug. “Car accident,” I tell him.

“Car had fists, did it?”

“Something like that.”

“You should take out the insurance,” he says.

So I take out the insurance. I sign the credit-card form and the guy tells me to keep the pen. I add the car key to my others.

The Holden is a much nicer drive than my Honda and Jo’s Mazda, but it doesn’t make the situation seem any better. Just more comfortable. I throw my free pen in the glove box where it sits next to a map and a box of tissues and an instruction booklet. Back home I charge the cell phone. I change the outgoing message on my answering machine so it includes my new cell number.

I’m about to make something to eat when suddenly I realize I don’t want to touch any of the food that’s in my house since both Cyris and Landry have been in here. Problem is I’m starving. I get back into my car and drive a few minutes to some local shops and spend a few minutes buying some food. I’m driving back home when the answer to one of my questions hits me. I’ve been wondering why Cyris didn’t take his two victims into the middle of nowhere. It’s because he wanted them found. He didn’t want them found at home, but he didn’t want them to be missing forever. He wanted them found side by side in a pasture by a common highway. He would have left the stolen van there with blood in it. Maybe he’d have left other stuff on the sidewalk, like some sliced up clothes. The cops would have searched the area. This way the motivation for the abductions and murders looks obvious-it looks like a sick bastard doing what he enjoys most. Cyris wanted them found.

But not at home.

Why?

Jo would be able to figure it out.

I get home. I carry the sandwich I bought through to the table and sit down. It’s chicken and cranberry and should taste great, but it doesn’t. I eat it simply because I need the fuel. There is something to all of this, something to the fact Cyris didn’t want them found at home. Why? Didn’t he want their husbands to come home and. .

Suddenly I realize what didn’t fit well with the newspaper article I read yesterday! I stand up quickly and almost choke on my sandwich. The newspaper said Kathy’s body was found by her neighbor, but Kathy had told me her cheating husband Frank would be home before the morning to get fresh clothes. She seemed sure of it. If he did come home, why wouldn’t he have called the police?

I drag this chain of questions around the dining room as I pace it. Is it reasonable to think her husband came home expecting to find her missing, and not dead? Just because he was due home and never called the police? It’s possible, but it’s equally possible he never made it home, that he stayed where he was and cheated some more on Kathy.

Okay, so there are a few possibilities, but with nothing else to work with, I try to make these possibilities fit around the answer I want. And it’s not difficult. There was no forced entry. Cyris wants money. He even yelled out For the money. Kathy was supposed to be missing, not dead. I think he knew his wife was going to die that night. I think he came home prepared to call the police that she was missing, and when he found her sliced up in the master bedroom he didn’t know what to do. So he ran.

I think back to what I told Landry about Cyris putting himself into a role to kill the two women. The police come along, they find the hammer and stake, and they think madman. They don’t think cheating husband. They think psychopath. They don’t think messy divorce.

At six thirty I dress in my new fatigue gear. What I see in the mirror scares me. I slip the cell into one of the many pockets, the binoculars and KA-BAR and Swiss Army knife into others. The sun is low, its casual slide into the night almost complete. It’s now just a bright, blurry orange blob. Dressed like I’m about to go to war, and feeling it too, I walk to my car, pull down the sun visor and head toward the battlefield.