Hummingbird Salamander(77)

When it came time to kill Shot, I thought about using a gun. Accident. Or maybe something more imaginative. Something that didn’t include his name. But I didn’t like that any more than drowning, which felt too on point, too clearly like an act of revenge. Beyond that, I didn’t put too much thought into it. I believed at the time that the less thought, the less evidence there would be. The less evidence written on my face. Hidden in my body. That I could answer any questions from the police more honestly. Is that true? I don’t know.

Some people get more kindly as they shed memories. Not Shot. It seemed to hone and focus the worst of him while leaving fewer landmarks for him to find his way home. So his rages lasted longer and had even less point. So his abuse became harder to predict and thus to endure. I want to say Ned’s murder accelerated his condition, but that may just be me telling a story. Me wanting the story to match up in some symbolic way. Or just me wanting Ned’s death to have made an impact.

In the end, I confronted Shot, drunk, on the path beside the barn, because it was out of sight and because I didn’t feel I had a choice in the moment. But he saw my intent and ran into the barn looking for a weapon. But I’d removed the hoe, the pitchfork, anything he might have used. So Shot climbed the ladder, and in the end, I pushed him off the roof and he cracked his skull wide open. Before he had much of a chance to cry for help.

A surge of emotion erupted from me in the act. I had thought it might be dispassionate, but it was too physical for that, too personal. Using what I’d learned as a wrestler. But also because, in those final moments, I saw all of Shot. I saw the truth of him laid bare. That there wasn’t much difference between who he’d been before the sickness and after. And that there was enough of him left to know what was happening to him.

Which I was grateful for, that mercy. Because I would not have wanted to kill a stranger.





[81]


Hillman’s wound looked fresh, but the blood on the floor had begun to dry. The police could pull up any second. No time for anything other than looting the room, looting Hillman. I can’t say I was sentimental or respectful.

No suitcase. Just toiletries in the bathroom. I put my gloves back on and awkwardly searched his body. Nothing except a pack of gum in his shirt pocket. His wallet lay on the floor in a spackle of blood, next to a riffled-through backpack. I took both, wiped down the doorknob, and got the hell out.

The car engine barely turned over and then kind of sputtered to life. The car dealership was a no-go, but I doubted I could make it back to the houseboat. And I didn’t know how to hot-wire a car.

So I took a chance. Although, by then, what was taking a chance versus taking an opportunity? Another few months like this and it wouldn’t even seem like a risk. It’d just be another thing I’d done.



* * *



I pulled up outside Nora’s workplace. She was the office manager for a life insurance company. I could’ve waited there, in the corner of the parking lot, half hidden by a huge green truck covered in mud. Maybe she would’ve come out before the end of business. Maybe not.

I cut the engine. That car wasn’t ever going to start again. I got out, stood on the curb of the pathetic gray-beige strip mall that stank of some cheery pesticide. A few wary red-winged blackbirds on migration sipped from a puddle of water by the road.

Text Nora? No, I didn’t think so. No guarantee she wouldn’t alert whoever had set me up at the dealership. But the bank kiosk next door had a fire alarm, so I went and pulled that instead.

There came that weird hesitation built into the rituals of emergency. That moment of indecision when people just sit or stand, wondering, “Is this real?” Is it real? When no reassurance came, employees began to spill out the front doors into the parking lot.

Even a rote emergency takes away the ability to notice other details. I lurked behind a concrete column surrounded by potted plants until I saw the familiar blouse, the large glasses, the awkward stride. Then I came out, smiling like an old friend, my arm quick around her shoulders to guide her to the side, amid some polite blather of conversation. So great to see you. In the middle of this wonderful fire drill. Imagine bumping into you here.

I had her around the corner, behind the column before Nora had a chance to react, to resist. Before anyone else could really notice.

I could tell from the fact she was even there that she didn’t know her husband was dead. Didn’t yet register I was dangerous.

“Don’t shout, don’t scream, don’t do anything but smile and nod. I have a gun. Pointed at you.”

At least Nora didn’t insult me by pretending.

“What do you want?”

A hardness to her features that made me think she’d have been perfectly capable of taking care of a cheating husband herself.

I smiled. “I want your keys to your car and also your car. Which you will not report to the police as stolen.”

“I can’t just—”

“Shut up. Give me the keys.”

“I left the keys in my office.”

“No, you didn’t. No one does that.”

A glare, but also a tiny wobble. A tremble to the lips.

“Or, we can go to the police and I can tell them how you tried to get me killed. Whoever paid you to approach me.”

She tried to take a step back, but I had my hand clamped to her shoulder. She registered, then, that blood on my gloves had smudged onto her blouse.