What Doesn’t Kill Her (11 page)

I consider leaving the body near her door, but that seems too obvious. While I want her to know I’m thinking of her, there’s no reason to be boorish.

Fairview Park is less than a mile from both her apartment and St. Dimpna’s. Close enough to make my point, and nice and quiet at this time of night.

I pull to the curb, extinguish the lights, then the ignition, before sitting and watching. The neighborhood is quiet. These are working-class people and will be up early to get to work. By now, nearly all of them are asleep. My only concern is the lonely soul out walking a dog or the insomniac who thinks a stroll in the cool air may make him drowsy.

Once I’m satisfied that Clare and I are alone, I get down to business. She has moaned softly once, and she may be close to coming around. I doubt she will regain lucidity before it is too late to matter for her. God has passed his judgment on her already—mine is simply the duty to carry out that sentence.

I get out of the car, go around to her side, and remove her from the passenger seat. Still no sign of another soul as I walk into the darkness of the small park, Clare slung over a shoulder. When I’ve reached the tiny grove of trees that passes for nature in this area, I drop her to the ground. She lands on her back, a tiny whimper emerging, but no movement.

Even in this darkness, it’s clear this is not Jordan. For tonight, she’ll do. Kneeling next beside the unconscious sprawl of her, I wipe stray strands of her dark hair from her face. In a cheap way, she is pretty. My arousal is returning, so I
concentrate on my work. Removing the hunter’s knife from its scabbard in my waistband, I close my eyes, picturing the exact pattern of stab wounds I lavished upon Jordan’s mother. That should provide resonance, and a nice reintroduction. Showing Jordan I haven’t forgotten how cooperative her mother was, sacrificing herself. The woman thought she was protecting her daughter, when in reality what she did was deliver her to me.

Just as I raise the knife, Clare’s eyes drift open. They seem hazy and I can’t tell if she’s aware or not, though her body heaves at the first blow, ejaculating blood, then jerks a little thereafter, spurting more blood, but soon it is like stabbing a bag of grain, and bags of grain don’t bleed. The knife follows the pattern of Jordan’s mother. It performs its duty with divine guidance, as He works through me to hand down his justice. Technically, I suppose, I have taken her life. But He has taken her soul.

After, I lean over her, panting, unaware I had worked so hard, and from my exhilarated exhaustion, one might think I had followed my worst instincts and committed fornication upon this creature. But I have maintained control. To be with anyone but Jordan, from here on out, would be a sin, and I stay on the other side of sin.

I wipe the blade clean on Clare’s clothing, then put it back in its scabbard in my waistband. I take off the latex gloves I have been wearing since arriving at Clare’s building and wrap them and the chloroform rag in the raincoat. This package I will drop in a sewer or Dumpster later.

For now, it’s time to go.

But not until I’ve said a prayer for Clare.

Amen.

“Jimmy was just about the best older brother a girl could hope for,” Jordan said. “I could share any feelings, any secrets with him. He kidded me, sure, but he’d been through so much himself.”

Tears welled and Jordan stopped, swallowed, glancing around the circle at the encouraging smiles and nods of the Victims of Violent Crime Support Group.

“He’d been through a lot,” she said, “’cause, well, ’cause he was gay. It was something he hid for a long time, and I was the first one in the family that he… came out to. He was so afraid I’d be disappointed in him. But I didn’t care. And neither did Mom or Dad. He was just Jimmy… kind, loving.…”

A box of tissues was passed her way and she used them, dabbing her eyes, blowing her nose, everyone just waiting.

Finally Levi asked, gently, “Did you see him?”

Jordan’s head jerked up. “Huh? What?”

“The killer. Did you
see
him?”

It had all been so positive, so shockingly easy, talking about her mother, father, and brother. As if she and a girlfriend on a sleepover were in her darkened bedroom, on a comfy bed, leaned back talking about wonderful times, the way you might before drifting off to sleep after a fun day.

But the door to the rest of the house was cracked open, the light a bright vertical slash, and what was waiting out there, the horror of all that, she couldn’t face, much less share.

She could not open that door.

Chin lowered, Jordan said, “That’s all I have to say right now.”

Dr. Hurst’s expression was kind and so was her voice as she said, “Jordan, I know it’s difficult. You’ve done very well, sharing the positive memories. But we need to push past those, and face—”

Jordan shot her a look that melted the doctor’s pleasant expression into pale blankness.

Before the situation could deteriorate, the woman who seemed to be friendly with David, and was now seated across from Jordan, spoke up: “I’ve been trying to make myself talk about
my
family, too. Thank you, Jordan, for giving me the courage.”

All eyes turned to her.

“I’m Kay,” the woman said.

A little taller than Jordan, her naturally red hair with some streaks of white, Kay was about the age Jordan’s mother would have been. What had once very likely been a striking figure had plumped up some, and her pretty face bore lines that gave it a perpetually melancholy expression that smiling didn’t entirely erase. Her eyes were big and blue behind bifocal lenses with dark-blue plastic frames.

“My sister, Katherine, and brother-in-law, Walt Gregory, died two years ago.”

The group listened in respectful silence, the keen interest and sympathy of everyone quite obvious to Jordan.

“I went over to their house for dinner,” Kay said, “but when I got there, no one answered. The doorbell just rang and rang…”

Though she occasionally glanced around the circle, her eyes briefly drifting past Jordan, Kay didn’t seem to see any of them. Her voice never changed pitch. She might have been reciting a poem or sharing a recipe.

“When I tried the door, it was unlocked. I didn’t think anything of it, really—Katherine might have been in the kitchen, using a noisy appliance or something, and Walt could have been watching the TV in the den. So I just went inside. But Katherine wasn’t in the kitchen, Walt wasn’t in the den, they weren’t anywhere downstairs.”

Next to Jordan, David fidgeted.
No one else here had heard this story,
she felt,
but
he
had.
The toe of the writer’s sneaker was grinding at the tile floor like he was trying to stub out a cigarette butt.

“I called and called, but no one answered,” Kay said. “Just my own voice a little bit. They had a huge great room with a vaulted ceiling and the echo just seemed to bounce around in that big empty space. But after that… just silence. There had to be an easy explanation. They’d forgotten I was coming over, maybe, or got called away. No reason, really, to be uneasy, or scared. But I was. I was.”

This woman had felt the same kind of fear that Jordan had, on her own terrible night.

“Finally,” Kay said, swallowing, “I worked up the nerve to go upstairs.…”

The tissue box made its way around to the speaker. She nodded thanks, took one, and instead of using it to dab at tears, wound it around her index finger, unwound it, and wound it again as she continued.

“They were on the bed, holding hands. They each had a single bullet hole in their temple, and a pistol was on the floor, next to Walt’s side of the bed.”

Kay was shaking a little now, the tears coming, the tissue finally finding its purpose.

“The police called it murder slash suicide,” Kay said, then, with a nervous, embarrassed smile, seemed to have found her composure. A moment later, she began weeping uncontrollably.

Jordan rose and crossed to the woman, vaguely aware that all eyes were on her, but for the weeping woman’s, whose face was buried in her tissue-held hands.

“Jordan…” Dr. Hurst began.

The sound of the doctor’s voice caused Kay to look up. When she did, the younger woman bent over and awkwardly wrapped her arms around Kay and held her close.

The older woman, still crying but less savagely now, clung fiercely to Jordan, who hugged her back, even harder.

When the tears subsided, still in the young woman’s embrace, Kay looked up at her. “That was… was very kind, dear.”

After a tiny smile and tinier nod, Jordan straightened and walked back to her seat and resumed her previous rather stiff posture, as if nothing had happened.

Dr. Hurst said, “Jordan, as Kay said, that was a very kind gesture… no, not gesture, but impulse. What prompted you to… express yourself in that way?”

The look Jordan gave the doctor was a withering one. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be an impulse, would it?”

This seemed to momentarily stun Hurst, but a few small smiles blossomed in the circle, including David and Levi.

Later, outside in the sunny coolness of the early spring afternoon, David—with Levi tagging along—approached Jordan. Kay was lingering nearby as well, but didn’t join in.

“Sometimes Hurst just doesn’t get it,” Elkins said.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Not everything has to be discussed. You saw somebody crying, it touched you, you showed a little support, end of story. Not everything needs to be analyzed.”

“Or,” Levi said, hands in his jeans jacket, “
psycho
analyzed.”

“I guess she’s just trying to help,” Jordan shrugged, not quite believing she actually said that.

“We’re gonna get some coffee,” Elkins said. “Wanna come?”

“I don’t think so. Thanks.”

Levi said, “Aw, come on. You kind of owe me one.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. You scared the ever-lovin’ piss out of me last week. I thought you were gonna tear my head off.”

Jordan smiled a little. “Sometimes I overreact.”

“Not that you aren’t cute enough to hit on. If I was into that.”

David gave her half a grin. “Come on, kid. You’ll love the place.”

The coffee shop, a couple of blocks away, had been renovated from an old bakery. The counter where Jordan ordered her coffee was a display case that dated back to that original purpose, filled with baked goodies that once upon a time would have called out to her. She used to have a terrible sweet tooth. The night she lost her parents, it left. Jordan figured Dr. Hurst would have some windy explanation about the meaning of that; but to her it just meant empty calories she didn’t have to worry about.

She took her coffee over to David and Kay, who were already sitting at a high-top table near the shop’s front window. The writer gave her a nod, and Kay added a warm smile, as Jordan sat down. Of the dozen or so tables and booths, maybe a third were full. Levi had been just behind Jordan in line, and caught up with them.

David, she assumed, wanted to talk to her about the similarities between the murders of his family and hers. Maybe not tonight, maybe this would be socializing to lead up to that, but she felt that was what this was about.

She didn’t know anything about Levi’s situation—
similarities between his tragedy and theirs,
she wondered?—but she assumed that Kay was joining them only because David seemed to be her ride.

Jordan was glad they had avoided a booth. Sharing a side with somebody might make her uneasy. Having her own chair, her own space, made this easier. The skinny skater boy sat down next to her, the aroma of his caramel-Frappuccino-whatever invading her space in a much more welcome way.

Levi managed to find room to open his laptop on the small table and fire it up.

“First, let me introduce myself,” he said. “Levi Mills.”

There were no last names in group—she only knew David’s was Elkins because of his status as a best-selling thriller writer.

Levi was holding out his hand.

Jordan didn’t take it. “Sorry. Germaphobe. But my last name’s Rivera, if that helps.”

Kay said, “Isenberg is mine,” and nodded and smiled.

“I think you know who I am,” the writer said.

“Right.” She bounced her eyes from David to Levi. “We’ve been in group together three weeks. Let’s skip the b.s. What’s this about?”

Levi, his fingertips resting at the bottom of his keyboard, said, “I think you know. Your case.”

“My case? You mean, my family getting butchered?” The words came out with a little more attitude than was probably necessary.

He held up a hand in a stop gesture. “
Case
is just a way to reference the crimes. It doesn’t really speak to the greater impact those crimes had on you. Or the ones that impacted me… or David… or Kay.”

These three people, like her, had been through ten kinds of shit. Chagrin flushed her.

Jordan said, “You’ll have to excuse me for being such a complete bitch. I haven’t been on the outside very long. I have the social skills of a biker on meth.”