Blood Music (3 page)

One night when John was seventeen a group of his friends went to somebody's apartment, the parents weren't home, and it was in the building in Fresh Meadows. On the nineteenth floor. After they'd been there awhile somebody said, hey, it's a nice night, let's go up on the roof. We can look at the stars. And John walked up the staircase where the rape and murder couldn't have happened but it did happen.

It was easy to get up to the roof. Nobody had ever locked the door. That hurt John, that nobody ever bothered to make sure the roof door was locked even after his mother was raped and murdered up there.

Everybody was high, and nobody knew about his mother. John wished he could remember her better. He looked around the roof under the crescent moon; he wondered which corner it had happened in. There were no stars. For some reason he was sure it must have happened in a corner. He drank a lot of beer. The moon got farther and farther away. He and his friends sat leaning against the low brick wall behind the door—was it here? If it were daylight would he see the faint stains of blood that eight years of weather had failed to erase? He drank and drank. He had read once when he was a little kid that the vibration of a sound never stops unless something stops it. If you bang on the side of a lamppost that hollow sound it makes will go on and on forever unless you lay your hand against the cold metal and kill the sound. John had always imagined that the sound just moved farther and farther out into space, forever. Were his mother's screams still echoing somewhere out in infinite space, in the dark, alone? What could he grasp to stop them?

The crescent moon was moving when John decided to take a walk along the edge of the wall. Dirty white cement, about a foot wide. He looked at the moon while he walked. Everybody thought it was hilarious. He spread out his arms and thought about flying. What would it feel like to fly? What had it felt like to fall? He used his arms as rudders against the sticky summer-night air, and he leaned way out over the edge of the wall. Like a bird flying. It was such a long way, there were toy cars and toy trees and a make-believe sidewalk down there. There was even a white car. He thought that if he fell the act of falling would be frozen forever, he would be falling forever, like a sound, above the toy trees and the toy cars and the make-believe sidewalk.

His girlfriend grabbed his ankle. He almost did fall then, he really thought he was going to fall. He never forgave himself the look on her face. He never told Cheryl.

Cheryl had grown up quiet in that quiet house. She was so afraid of worrying her father that she barely let herself make friends; she was always in by nine. Cheryl was plain, the kind of plain that becomes beautiful once you fall in love with it, but nobody had ever fallen in love with it. Cheryl went to school, she came home. She volunteered with child burn victims once a week. She went to the movies alone. She saw
Raiders of the Lost Ark
eighteen times when it came out. John thought that that's what she thought she was, or hoped she could be: the professor who took off her glasses and changed her hat and all kinds of wonderful, exciting things would happen to her.

In the last year she'd gotten a low-level job at a travel agency and made some friends, loud people, the harmless kind of wild. She was thinking about joining the Peace Corps. Of taking all her love and dedication and quiet efficiency and capacity for wildness somewhere nobody knew her and just inventing herself there. John was proud of her, but he told her that he didn't want to think of how much he was going to miss her when she was gone.

He had helped his father change her diapers after his mother died. His father didn't know how to do it. John knew how; he had watched his mother. Cheryl laughed when he tickled her belly button when the diaper was off. She was never going to take off her glasses now, and no one was ever going to run his fingers through her long, thick, honey-blond hair.

John stood in a narrow place, above a great abyss. His father had fallen. John could fall or he could fight. His mind was very clear as he sat at the kitchen table looking out at the crab-apple trees in the backyard. His father had fallen. He would not fall. But to keep his balance he had to have a goal. He had to have something to grasp. If he didn't, he would hear Cheryl's voice until the day he died.

He would find the man who raped and murdered his sister. He would look into his face. He would silence forever the sounds that lingered behind that man's eyes, because only he had heard them, and only his death would silence them forever.

T
hey were going to have company tonight. They had company so seldom, what with Pat's hours now, and the baby. Gail and Philip, friends of Zelly's from high school, and Greg and Lizzie; Pat and Greg had once been partners in a moving business, Two Men W/Van.

It was Zelly's idea to have them over, no reason except the May weather. She felt awfully isolated sometimes, with only the baby and the newspapers for company. And her mother. Zelly had nine brothers and sisters but they were scattered across the country and she'd been out of touch with most of them since the baby. That was her litany. Nothing was the same since the baby. Even her husband. He didn't touch her as often—but she tried not to think about that. He was so nice otherwise. And of course he was working so hard. That was another part of the litany: he was working so hard for her and the baby. Even in the honeymoon of their love they had not stayed awake till dawn; it didn't occur to her now to make love in the middle of the night when he came home. She even felt a small conventional guilt about making love at all with the baby in the house, and although she'd never said anything she sensed Pat knew.

But now his neglect of her was like a small, unidentified lump in her breast: she didn't know if it was going to get better or if it was malignant. Or if there could be a simple surgical procedure and then the lump would be gone.

She and Pat were cutting vegetables in the kitchen. Pat was good that way, he'd help out if you asked him to. Not if you didn't ask, but she didn't expect that. Nobody expected that. Zelly was trying a recipe from
Gourmet
magazine. Her mother had gotten a sample copy in the mail, and Zelly thought the Monterey Jack-jalepeño-cilantro raviolis looked awfully good. And they didn't seem too hard; most of the time when friends came over she made a pasta dish or chicken but she felt like trying something different.

Mary was playing with some pots on the floor at their feet. “In the park today the mothers were talking about that woman who was killed,” Zelly said as she skinned cucumbers.

“What woman?”

“Up on Stevens campus two months ago. Somebody there knew her. She used to bring her baby to that park, you know? On Tenth Street.”

“You didn't know her?”

“Not really. I met her once. I didn't go to that park. I was going to Church Square until two weeks ago. But I didn't like the mothers there. And last time this two-year-old kept coming up to Mary and trying to hit her.”

“Was it a boy baby or a girl baby that woman had?”

“It was a boy. God, Pat, it was in the Jersey papers for a week.”

“You know I don't read about things like that.”

“I know. Just the baseball and the book reviews. There's a killer loose practically in our backyard, in case you're interested—”

“I'm not. The Yankee game is on tonight, you know.”

“You told me six times. You and Greg are going to ruin my dinner by putting on the baseball, aren't you?”

“Not during dinner. You're going to ruin dinner by talking about this murder nonsense, aren't you?” But he was smiling. Mary did a drumroll on a pot and hit her hand and cried.

“You know it's the only thing anybody ever talks about these days,” Zelly said as she scooped her up. “When Son of Sam was in New York in the seventies—”

“I know, I know. I was there. All the brown-haired girls wore kerchiefs or cut their hair, and nobody talked about anything else.”

“Well, I can't tell our guests what to talk about!”

“But that's all you talk about yourself. Why couldn't I have married a girl who's into stamp collecting? Birdcalls? Coins?”

“Or at least the Yankees.” Zelly laughed.

“At least.” And he smacked her ass lightly. She was pleased he'd touched her; she leaned over, about to pat his rear in return. “I just can't believe,” he went on, “that anybody would expend so much energy on such a silly topic.”

Zelly's outstretched hand went stiffly to her side. He was just ragging her, like everybody else. Everyone teased her about her fascination with serial killers; they always had; when she saw her brothers and sisters at Thanksgiving or Christmas it amounted to a tribal ritual to tease her about it. Now she prickled defensively.

“Silly?” Mary had stopped crying and was back on the floor trying to stick a stalk of celery through the little metal handle on one of the pots. “Silly? When there's a pychopathic killer running around the streets—”

“I doubt very much that he's actually running around the streets at this moment.”

“At this moment he's probably driving around. Serial killers spend a lot of time driving around their territory, fantasizing and reliving their crimes.”

Mary was hitting Pat's pants leg over and over with her celery. “Here's somebody who spends all her time reliving her crimes,” Pat said, kneeling to pick her up. She laughed delightedly and hit him in the face with the celery. “Maybe tonight after everybody leaves you and I can spend some time fantasizing.”

“You make fun,” Zelly said, “but it fascinates me.” She felt a pang of unhappiness or anticipation. He talked like that—but usually he just talked. She wished she knew if he meant it. She wanted to say something back, something light and sexy. “I can't stop people from talking,” she said instead.

“Well, I wish you could,” Pat snapped suddenly, harshly, and the baby started to cry in his arms. “We shouldn't have even invited people over, this is going to ruin the whole—oh, take her. Honey, I'm just tired. I can't wait till everybody goes home and I have you all to myself.”

“And the baseball all to yourself.” But she was pleased.

“Of course. I love to think about baseball. Maybe later you can give me a reason to think about baseball. Here, I'll take her. What were you crying about, Mary-girl?

“I'm sorry I snapped at you, honey. I just want to relax tonight. I don't want to listen to a lot of amateur detectives go on about why the Slasher this and why the Slasher that and a lot of crap about his mother or something.”

“There isn't always a problem with the mother. They almost never find out why they really do it.”

“No more, okay? And he's not going to come over tonight and tell your dinner guests why, either.”

“Oh, he isn't? And after I invited him specially.”

“He'd love your hair.”

“As long as you love my hair.”

“I do. Anything more for me to peel? I feel like I'm on KP duty.”

“Just the onions for the salad.”

“I know something else I'd rather peel.”

He joked too much; she didn't want to be disappointed later. She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Later,” she said. “Now we have to cook.”

M
ary had gone down like a lamb, and everybody had liked the raviolis. Zelly had never tried anything quite that ambitious before. Maybe she would subscribe to
Gourmet.
Now she was stacking plates, flinching every time a piece of china banged sharply against the deep porcelain sides of the sink. All through dinner she'd been afraid somebody would start talking about the Slasher and irritate Pat again but nobody had. She could hear voices in the living room. When she turned on the water it was too hot and she burned her hand. Then she was just washing the dishes.

Zelly had made coffee and now Greg and Pat would be waiting for the baseball game to start, and while they waited they would discuss the abstruse particulars of the game so dear to men. Lizzie and Gail would be talking about their jobs. When Zelly came back into the room they would talk about how they wanted to quit their jobs and do what Zelly was doing, staying home and taking care of a baby. Philip would probably be talking with the women.

When Zelly turned the water off the voices from the living room came on suddenly, as if she'd flicked a volume knob on too loud. “—afraid to go into the city,” Gail was saying. Coming into the room Zelly looked over at Pat but he was looking determinedly into space.

“Just in time, Zelly!” cried Philip. “They're playing your song!”

“I was just saying that with these Slasher attacks it's getting so I'm afraid to go into the city at all,” said Gail.

“I wouldn't worry,” Pat said, “you're not his type.”

“That's right,” said Zelly. “He goes after women with blond hair.”

“Like you, Zelda,” said Pat, laughing.

“I hate it when you call me that. And I know like me. I don't even feel safe here in Hoboken.”

Lizzie leaned over toward Zelly. “What's that nail polish?” she asked.

“Rosewood,” Zelly answered, waggling her fingers. “From the QuickChek.”

“You think that murder at Stevens was the same guy?” Philip asked.

“I told you, Zel, if you're worried just don't go up there,” said Pat.

“That's easy for you to say,” Gail said.

“I think the weird part is the staging,” Zelly said. Pat was looking at her but she didn't pay any attention.

“What's staging?” asked Lizzie.

“Staging is when the killer leaves the body in such a way that not only is it certain to be found, but he's making a statement in the way the body is first seen.”

“You mean like a tableau?”