Goodnight Blackbird (6 page)

W
hen Jacqueline turned onto her street that evening, Kevin's SUV was at the curb in front of the house.

She drew in a deep breath. He was as persistent as a bill collector. She was pretty sure now the black SUV she and Darren had seen that night was Kevin's.

They got out of their cars at the same time, suburban gunslingers at an emotional high noon.

"What's up?" she said, trying to keep her voice light and polite.

Kevin's face was carefully blank. "Working late?"

She let them into the house. "Got a deadline I have to meet."

"That must be why you didn't answer your office phone. And your cell. You're very focused."

She looked at him. He was goading her. The man she had once thought of as the ideal husband, a man who never forgot an anniversary and who bent over backwards to understand her and cater to her every need like the world's best
maître d'
, that man was now trying to goad her into an argument.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Were you with your new boyfriend?"

Forget about politeness. If he wanted a fight, he would get it. "I can't believe you. You're following me and acting like a goddamned stalker—"

"I'm acting like a husband trying to understand his wife. Any time I try to get close to you now you just push me away. And now you're screwing around with this guy."

"'Screwing around with this guy'? Not that I have to explain anything to you, but he's not my boyfriend and we're not screwing around. He's barely even a friend. He's someone I know."

"Looks like you're getting to know him quite well. But that's not really why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"I called my friend Josh Culberson. He's going to help me get started on the divorce paperwork this week."

She stared at him, trying to gauge what she felt. It was like sending a bucket down into a well that was nearly dry. Maybe this was a natural side effect of getting older, but all her emotions lately seemed weak, diluted. Even her anger.

"Okay," Jacqueline said.

"That's all you have to say. Fifteen years together and all you can say is 'Okay.'"

She sat down at the kitchen table. "Maybe it's for the best."

"I hope so. I can't keep living this way. I can't keep living with that look on your face every time you see me."

"What look?"

"Like you can't wait until I leave. Like I'm a depressing black cloud over your life." Kevin stood in the doorway to the living room, looking through the patio door at the empty pool.

It pained her to admit it, but Kevin was right. It wasn't his fault, it was just the way things were. When Jacqueline looked at him now, all she could see was the funeral, the days when she couldn't get out of bed, the night when he packed up all of Michelle's toys and clothes into three big boxes, his hands trembling and his cheeks slick with tears. A therapist she had seen had warned her that the loss of a child often blew marriages apart like a grenade. You would have thought that something like that would bring a couple closer together—like survivors in choppy waters, desperately clinging to each other as the currents got rough. But it wasn't that way at all.

"His name is Darren," Jacqueline said, wanting to level with him and let him back into her life a little, "and he's just someone I ran into. We have... some things in common. It's not sexual. I've only talked to him a few times—"

"You know what, I don't even want to know. Okay? I don't want to hear it."

"Okay."

"What's going to happen is this. Josh will get the paperwork rolling. We'll split all the joint assets. I don't want this house. I'm going to sign a quit-claim deed, which means only your name will be on the title. You'll have to go to the bank and try to refinance on your own if you want to keep living here. But I'm not going to keep paying out on this place. I have my own place and it's not cheap."

Jacqueline did the arithmetic. Was he kidding? Her salary was only $32,000. The mortgage was for $390,000, more than $1,600 a month, and that wasn't including things like food and keeping the goddamned heat on. "There's no way I can afford to stay here," she said softly.

"Then we'll just have to sell. If necessary, I can short-sell it for less than the mortgage, if the bank will go for it. Neither of our credit scores will take a hit."

"You're trying to kick me out of here."

"I'm trying to do what's fair and practical. What is
not
fair is me paying both rent on an apartment and the mortgage on a place I don't even live in anymore while my wife runs around with some other guy. Do I pick up the tab for everything in your life now? I'm sick of writing the checks while you keep shooing me out the door like some nuisance."

"I'm sorry I've treated you that way."

"If you can refinance, great. If not, we'll sell it and split the equity. It won't be much, but it'll be something. Use it for a down payment on someplace else."

"You know I won't be able to refinance. You know what I make."

"Then I don't know what to tell you. But I know what Josh told me—once this goes before a judge, he's gonna order the house to be sold if you can't afford the note."

She was silent for a long time. "I think you're enjoying this," she said at last.

"Look at me," Kevin said. "Do I look like I'm enjoying anything right now?"

O
n Thursday, July 2, Darren spent much of his lunch break on the phone. His first call was to a floor refinisher. Darren's quixotic attempts to rid his carpet of the ketchup graffiti—grim evenings spent on his knees with half a dozen different eye-watering sprays—had accomplished little besides creating a pinkish blob the size and shape of a baby rhino. He finally surrendered and pulled up the carpet. The oak flooring underneath seemed to be in decent shape despite a few water stains.

The second call was to Miriam Huntsmeyer, the real estate agent who'd originally sold him 1661 Shadeland. "I'm thinking of selling it," he told her.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. Aside from the ghost infestation."

"Ghosts. Oh please. There are no such things. It's the wind. It's other stuff. People get so goddamned superstitious with places like that. That house is beyond perfect." Miriam was an aggressive, chain-smoking old broad who, Darren recalled, existed in a constant state of stress and unhappiness. If you said it was a nice day, she would say,
Nice day? Are you kidding? Could it be any hotter? I got pit stains the size of a Chrysler minivan. One more degree and I'll have a stroke and those ungrateful kids of mine will be fighting over who gets to haul my jewelry to the pawn shop. That's your nice day
. After the foreclosure crisis of the last few years and the subsequent implosion of home values, Darren was surprised she hadn't impaled herself on one of her FOR SALE signs.

"If it's so perfect, you'll have an easy time unloading it," Darren said.

"Look, if you're serious about this, we'll set up a time to get it reappraised. Then I'll give it the once-over to see what needs to be spruced up before we go to market. But if you think you'll be able to find a jewel like this again, you're insane. You're killing me, Darren."

"Actually, I saw three listings in the paper today for places ten grand cheaper than mine. More square footage, too."

"Crack houses! All of them."

"You just don't want to try to sell this place again, do you?"

"No one has any money. Don't make me try to push this turd again. You are physically killing me, Darren."

The third call was to Liz Neumann, who had been quoted in one of the newspaper articles on the shootings. She had been a friend of Jerry McAvoy's wife. The two women had worked together in the accounts receivable department of Metro Printing downtown. A quick Google search told Darren that Mrs. Neumann still worked there.

"I'm sorry to bother you at work," Darren said, "but I was hoping I could maybe set up a time so I could talk to you about Shannon McAvoy. I live in their house now, and I had a few general questions about them."

Liz Neumann's voice was icy. "Why do you want to know?"

"Like I said, I bought their house after... after what happened, and I'm just curious. The paper said you knew Shannon. I was hoping you could tell me about her. About what kind of person she was."

"Mr. Ciccone, not that this is any business of yours, but Shannon was a good, decent woman. She had dignity. Even with all she had to put up with from Jerry, with his manic-depression and his self-pity, she always came to work and did her job. She was just a lovely person. She collected donations for the company food drive and even drove me around for a week after I had my cataract surgery. She never complained, never said a curse word, never let anyone see the pain she must have been going through, living with that... that crumb."

"Did you know Jerry McAvoy?"

"Not well. But I could see what kind of man he was."

"What kind was that?"

"Damaged. Needy. A man with a raging inferiority complex. Shannon brought him to one of our office Christmas parties once. It was at this nice restaurant out in Beachwood, and Jerry was the only one there without a tie. He was mortified. He wouldn't let it go. He looked like he wanted to cry. He kept apologizing. A better man would have made a little self-deprecating joke about the whole thing, but not Jerry. He was humiliated, and it just made us all uncomfortable. It was just a tie, for God's sake. I felt so bad for Shannon. She just wanted to have a nice evening but once again she had to play emotional nursemaid to that man."

Darren was taken aback by the hostility in her voice—but then again Jerry McAvoy was a murderer. Compassion for him would be in understandably short supply. And in many ways Liz Neumann's reaction to Jerry was natural. Father Baricek had said it himself: what you put out into the universe, the universe often gave back to you. If you thought of yourself as a loathsome barnacle on the hull of humanity, eventually other people would take the hint and see you that way too. Emotions boomerang—especially the bad ones.

"Men like Jerry are all pretty much the same," Liz Neumann said. "They feel powerless and castrated by the world, so what do they do? They drink. They buy guns. The chip on their shoulder gets bigger and bigger. And they're just looking for any excuse to fight back and show the world that they have power. Like demented little bullies on the playground."

Darren thought,
I have been half in love with easeful Death
. "Maybe the killings weren't about power. Maybe he thought it was mercy."

"What are you talking about?"

"Maybe he thought that life itself was so toxic that he needed to spare his family from it."

"You're sympathizing with him."

"I'm just trying to understand him."

"Instead of trying to understand a pathetic murderer, why don't you show a little respect to the wife and daughter he killed and try to understand them. They deserve to be remembered. Not Jerry." Liz Neumann hung up.

Don't ever let that bitch in this house again.

Never complained, never said a curse word.

Darren wasn't sure if any of this made things clearer or not.

"The anger seems feminine to me," Khabir said the next day at Harry Yarborough's retirement party. The party was at a faux Irish pub a few blocks from the office. As usual, Darren and Khabir were the two least social people there. They hung back by the jukebox, watching everyone else have a good time. "The thing didn't raise a fuss about the priest. But it noticed Jacqueline. Obviously it felt threatened. It's sort of like my mom and her sister. After two minutes in the same room together they're throwing things at each other and the phrases 'backstabbing bitch' and 'cheap worthless slut' start coming up with increasing frequency."

They watched as Annie Burlana, the old crone who thought Darren typed too loudly, buttonholed anyone in the vicinity so she could yammer on about her son, who just got an internship at some insurance company and was making $22 an hour. "Christ, why don't you tell us how many sit-ups he can do," Khabir murmured, too softly for Anal Rub to hear. "You know, we've been here half an hour and not a single girl has tried to talk to me."

"Try smiling. You tend to glower."

"I do not glower," Khabir said, glowering. "I liked Jacqueline, by the way. Major hottie. She has an air of sophistication and worldliness."

"You'll get no argument from me."

"A woman like her deserves to have a man like me make gentle, yet passionate, love to her every night."

"Thanks for the image. I think my appetite will come back around Thanksgiving."

"You two dating yet?"

"Just friends," Darren said. "And she's still technically married." He watched the younger women from accounting form a giggling, boisterous cluster around Tad, the young guy from engineering who looked a little like Brad Pitt crossed with Adonis. Darren, who looked like nobody crossed with no one, felt that old familiar pang of sadness. He was too old to register on the girls' radar but too young not to care.

Something Khabir had said wormed its way back to the forefront of his mind. "You said it felt threatened by Jacqueline. Why?"

"Jealousy." Khabir looked at him as if Darren were the stupidest person in the world.

"Why would it be jealous?"

"Obviously because it's fond of you. Jealousy is the dark underbelly of love, my man."

Rob Lancaster was painting the front of his house around six the next evening when Darren visited him. His house was just four blocks from Darren's own.

"Mr. Lancaster. Thanks for letting me talk to you."

"Not a problem." Gaunt and grey-haired, Lancaster looked more like a humorless Puritan minister than a high school English teacher. His paint-spattered
Simpsons
t-shirt, however, suggested a man who perhaps viewed the world through Vonnegutian glasses. He ambled down the porch steps, wiping his hands on a paper towel. "I'm not sure what you're after. And I'm not sure if I should be talking about former students like this."

"You don't have to answer anything you don't want to," Darren said. One of the newspaper articles in the aftermath of the shooting had the reactions of friends and associates of the McAvoy family. Lancaster, who had been seventeen-year-old Rachel McAvoy's English teacher at the time, was one of the people interviewed. "I'm just interested in what kind of person Rachel was."

The narrowing of Lancaster's eyes was almost imperceptible. "And why do you want to know this?"

"Like I said on the phone, I live in their house now. I'm just curious."

"Just curious."

"There've been... incidents in the house since I bought it."

"Incidents."

Darren wondered how the word ghost would go over with this man. Despite his
Simpsons
t-shirt, Lancaster had the air of a man who did not suffer fools gladly, and Darren was feeling very foolish at the moment. "It would take way too much of your time to explain," he said, "and I'm sure somehow your opinion of me would suffer in the telling. But rest assured, I'm not a kook. I don't even read my horoscope."

Lancaster took a sip from a bottle of water. His face was grim. "I don't disbelieve in ghosts, in case you're worried I'd laugh at you. Assuming that the incidents you're talking about are of that variety."

"They seem to be."

Lancaster sat down on the bottom step of the porch and picked some dried paint off his old tennis shoes. "It broke my heart when Rachel was killed. She was a very sweet person. Very gentle. At first glance you would have thought she was the sort of shy, meek girl who would just slip through the cracks of life. I guess on the surface she was. She wasn't popular and outgoing, didn't have boys trailing after her all the time. Although I'm sure she could have. She was a pretty girl. But shyness can make a person radioactive.... Humans are by nature social creatures, and being in the presence of someone whose life doesn't revolve around parties and gossip can be off-putting for most people. So they leave you alone."

"Did you talk much to her?"

"A bit. She was in my senior English class. A very good student, a very thoughtful writer. She was also in my homeroom as a junior. Very often she would be the first one there in the morning. Sometimes we'd chat. For those few moments she'd be so animated and charming, as if she couldn't get the words out fast enough. The meek, silent Rachel would be gone and out came this funny, intelligent, latter-day Dorothy Parker. We'd talk about books, about anything under the sun. I asked her once if she was going to Homecoming. She said absolutely
not
—high school boys were far too immature and bourgeois. Bourgeois! I'm sure she would have had a different attitude if she'd been asked, though."

"What else do you remember?"

"She was artistic, I remember that. The Drama Club put on a production of 'The Masque of the Red Death' for Halloween and she helped design the masks for the actors. They were very striking, very elegant and Old World. She also loved ballroom dancing. Who would have thought a girl of this generation would be into that. But she was."

"Ballroom dancing?"

"One of the phys ed teachers, Sheryl Krantz, organized a dance club for some of the girls after school. She raved about Rachel being so graceful at the waltz. Had a boy ever asked her to a dance, she would have shone, I have no doubt about that."

Darren had the image of gawky teen girls waltzing unsteadily with each other in a gym, stealing suspicious glances at the one girl among them who moved confidently and fluidly, a throwback to a bygone era. Ginger Rogers in stonewashed jeans.

"Another memory I have," Lancaster said, "involves me personally. One time after I sprained my ankle slipping on some ice in the parking lot, I spent about a week hobbling around on this ridiculous crutch, like an overgrown Tiny Tim. Even I thought I was a pretty ludicrous figure. One day in homeroom a couple of the other girls were giggling at me behind my back. You know the way girls are at that age. Well, next thing I hear is Rachel, who rarely ever spoke in class, practically yelling, 'Why don't you shut up? No one made fun of your mother when she broke her leg, Caitlin!'"

"Sounds like she might have had a little crush on you."

Lancaster poked idly at the edge of the lawn with a twig. The expression on his face was hard for Darren to pin down. It was like a detached, emotionless sadness, though that seemed to be a contradiction in terms. When old men are sad it's as if they're feeling an existential sadness for the whole world. "Maybe," Lancaster said. "Maybe."

Darren did not know what else to ask him.

"The day after the killings I walked around like I was in a dream," Lancaster said. "That's no exaggeration. A few police officers were sent to the school to talk to us, ask us about Rachel, ask us what we knew about her dad. For days the police kept coming. By then it had already come out that Mr. McAvoy had gotten fired from his job and had emotional problems, and in fact his medication seemed to be making him worse... but it was as if even the police couldn't accept such a mundane explanation. It was like they thought there had to be something more."

Darren thought of something he'd read in the paper just yesterday—a ten-year-old boy in Texas had been lured by two older boys into a construction site, where the two older boys proceeded to pelt him with bricks until he was knocked unconscious. The boy died of head injuries eighteen hours later. Why did it happen? The proximate reason, according to the district attorney, was that the two boys wanted the pocket video game the other kid had brought to school. But the truth was that there was no
why
. Tornadoes, plagues, shooting sprees, pedophilia, Rush Limbaugh—you'd go mad trying to look for logic or purpose in horror. The truth was that logic, reason and love were tiny aberrations in the universe—meager, fast-fading sparks in an everlasting night.