Night Work (32 page)

It was over in less than a minute. When she was dead, he laid her down on the kitchen floor. He did it gently, like she was asleep and he didn’t want to wake her. He put her ankles together, then folded her arms across her chest. Then he closed her eyes.

He stayed kneeling on the floor, looking down at her. There was no expression on his face. No hint of regret. Nothing at all.

“Finally,” he said. “After everything she’s been through … She’s at peace. She looks beautiful now, doesn’t she?”

I didn’t know what to say to him. I couldn’t imagine any combination of words that would make sense. “You …” I finally said. “What are you?”

“I’m the caretaker,” he said. “I look after her. I keep her happy.”

“You killed her.”

“No,” he said, finally looking up at me. “You did.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You came back here to this house and you killed her,” he said. “Just like the others. It’s a shame I got here too late.”

“No.”

“She was already dead when I found you here.”

He picked up the rifle.

“You tried to attack me,” he said. “I was defending myself.”

“No. It won’t work.”

“It’ll work just fine. They’ll eat it up. Everything will be resolved quite nicely.”

He put the rifle against his cheek. He pointed the barrel at my chest. This is it, I thought. This is where it ends.

“With a rifle,” I said. One last idea. “You’re going to tell them you had to use a rifle to stop me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll untape you. You were all over me.”

“That’s not what I mean. You’re going to tell them you came in and found me strangling her, so you had to … what? Go find a gun and come back?”

He put the rifle down.

“It doesn’t work,” I said. “The whole story falls apart if you use that gun.”

I tried to move my weight forward. If I could get a run at him, drive my head into his face or his body … It was my last chance. If Howie and Shea weren’t coming back, if it was just me and Maurice for a few more seconds before he killed me with his bare hands …

One last chance.

“You’re always thinking,” he said. “That’s what I like about you.”

Get on your feet, I told myself. One smooth motion. Dip your head and drive.

He stood up just as I made my move. I didn’t have a chance. He was too fast, too strong. He flipped me right over, chair and all. One last shot of pain in my
wrist as he came down on me. One last breath as he wrapped his hands around my neck.

I looked up at him, at his calm, smiling face, thinking, This is the last thing that Laurel saw on this earth. She saw this and then there was nothing.

Voices. The sound of wood breaking, glass shattering. More voices, louder now. A blast of light. One final roar drowning out everything else.

Maurice’s face gone now, replaced by Howie’s. Looking down at me. My best friend since forever.

Then nothing.

It was a perfect day to burn down the city.

The Redcoats came up the Hudson River, apparently on their way to meet up with the rest of the British forces in Saratoga. They docked their boat on the Rondout Creek and began fighting their way up the long hill to the center of town. The men defending the city had had a week to get ready for this day, camped as they were in Forsythe Park, dressed completely in period clothes, apparently right down to the scratchy wool underwear. They had drilled every day, putting on their exhibitions of gunsmithing and noisemaking, filling the air with campfire smoke in the evenings. But in the end, all that preparation, they would only be able to put up token resistance.

I sat in the second-story window above the gym’s door, squeezing a tennis ball in my left hand. Part of my physical therapy, now that the cast was off. It was a fine Saturday in October, the kind of day that sells houses in the Hudson Valley. Dry and cool, the leaves all turning at once. I watched the Redcoats marching up Broadway, the street temporarily closed to allow their advance. A small crowd of people was gathered
on either side, watching them make their way uptown, toward the old stockade district, where the original state capitol building once stood on an October day just like this one.

I waited for the whole procession to pass by. Then I went downstairs. I touched Laurel’s picture as I passed it.

Anderson was in the gym, watching Rolando shadowbox in the ring. He hadn’t found a sparring partner for him yet. I knew better than to nominate myself, even after my wrist got better.

I stood there and watched for a while. I put my good arm around his shoulder. Then I went outside.

The crowd was long gone, a few stragglers trying to catch up to them. If they didn’t hurry up, they’d miss the whole thing.

I spend a lot of time walking these days. I still won’t be able to box for a while. But that’s okay. My mind is quieter now, maybe the only good thing that came out of all that time I spent locked in the hot shed. I don’t have to jump rope or hit the speed bag all the time. I don’t have to crank up my crazy music to drown out everything else inside my head.

I see Howie and Elaine every Sunday night now. We have dinner and we sit out on the porch, looking down at the Rondout Creek. They’re trying to have a baby. I get more detail on their attempts than I probably need.

Detective Shea calls me up once in a while, just to see how I’m doing. As it turned out, he was the one
who turned the car around that day. He was the one who sensed that something wasn’t right.

It was the evening gown Mrs. Gayle was wearing. A black evening gown in the middle of the day. That’s what tipped him off.

After all we’d been through, it was Shea who ended up saving me. He told me it was the least he could do. As for Detective Rhinehart, well … I haven’t heard a word from him.

I walked past the high school. Everything was back to a regular rhythm now, at least on the weekdays. The kids were in school where they belonged. I knew that for some of them, it would be a brief refuge from everything else that was waiting for them when they got home. A few hours of order before they went back to the chaos. I saw a few faces looking out the window. I stopped and watched them watching me.

It feels like it’s time to go back to work. It’s the one thing that still makes sense to me, despite the hours, despite the low pay. Despite the heartache. The only question is where, because I’m not sure if I can stay here in the Hudson Valley after everything that happened. Three more women were killed here, two years after my own Laurel was taken from me. In the light of day I can tell myself it wasn’t my fault, but in the middle of the night when I wake up in a cold sweat, I feel the one true thing that I’ll never be able to avoid for the rest of my life. They were killed because of me.

I’m not sure if I can stay. I’m not sure if I can leave, either. I was born in this town. I grew up here, went to
school here. I got in big trouble here and found a way to put it behind me forever. I met my best friend here. I came close to real happiness here. After Laurel was gone and everything seemed lost for me, I found the only reason to keep living right here in Kingston, New York.

I looked up at the school one more time. My kids. My clients. My knuckleheads. I walk these hallways, looking after them. I chase them down these streets. I go to their houses in the morning and drag them out of their beds. When I have no other choice, I allow them to be locked into a cell for a while, hoping that this might be the one last thing that will save them.

If I go somewhere else, I know there will be another probation officer to look after them. I don’t have to feel like I’m just walking away.

Yeah, a smart man would leave this place, start fresh somewhere else, far away. A man with any sense would do that in a minute.

Far behind me, I heard the cannon shot. The rebels were trying to defend the city. No matter how many times they reenact this day, they always lose. The Redcoats send the men of Kingston fleeing into the countryside. They burn the whole place right down to the ground.

I kept walking. On a beautiful October day, I walked as far as that day felt like taking me.

Then I turned around and headed back home.