Confessions (16 page)

“One odd thing in the collection plate,” he says. “I put it in your room.”

*  *  *

Jimmy G’s statement harkened to a simpler, more intimate time in church history, when congregations were small and offerings to sustain the ministry in the form of cash or check were placed upon a single plate that was passed among the faithful. At St. Mary’s, presently, a cadre of ushers will, at the appropriate time during mass, move up the aisles with large baskets held at the ends of short poles. Attendees will reach from the pews and deposit their offerings, usually sealed in an envelope, atop the pile building in the baskets.

There is a sealed envelope on my dresser when I reach my room, passing Father Taylor’s where the soft slosh of wine being drizzled into a glass is apparent even behind his closed door. I should be concerned about him, or more concerned, and possibly not a distant brethren to him as Jimmy G is to me, but when I see the envelope such thoughts disappear. It is one which would usually contain an offering, and upon it is, in large, bold letter the word PRIVATE is printed. Below that my name, penned in leaning cursive.

I take the envelope in hand, and peel back the flap that seals it, a single piece of folded note paper within. Opening the top fold I begin to read…

Michael, I know it will be difficult to understand my actions, but it simply has to be this way. At heart I am a coward, afraid of causing pain.

Chris

‘
I left you something…
’ It plays back to me, the rain drumming around us in the courtyard outside the hall, and I puzzle over this. Her words, in print now, a vague echo of what she stated to me face to face. Why would she leave
this
?

And then the bottom fold tips down. There is a postscript…

PS Eddie Kleisner at the Tribune didn’t have anything, but did say he’d never seen a homicide investigation go so cold so fast after the guy in charge retired.

I lower myself and sit on my bed, reading through the postscript several more times before looking up from the note. There is no overt substance in what Chris has relayed from her friend at the
Trib
, but there is…something.

‘
…the guy in charge…
’ That was Dave Benz. When he retired soon after Katie’s murder, just a few months if my memory serves me right, the investigation clearly continued. It would have to, even if my parents and I were not getting updates as frequently. It would have to. Wouldn’t it?

She was the daughter of a former cop. A brother officer. They take care of their own.

‘…go so cold so fast…
’

I crumple the note in my fist and hurl it toward the wall, its lightness dragging the wad to the floor short of impact. From the bed I nearly leap to my feet, grabbing the edge of the door in one hand, ready to slam it as every muscle in my body tenses. A painful tightness that leaves me shaking for a moment until my hold on the door eases and I slowly close it, my head tipping forward, hot flesh to cold wood. My eyes close and, quietly, I begin to cry, tears falling like errant drops of rain which have slipped past some cover. They peck at the floor near my feet.

There is no one reason. No two, or three, or twenty. I cannot quantify or identify what has gutpunched me at this precise moment, and in a way I suppose that is indicative of what overwhelms me—the lack of knowing. For days I have been seeking the greater truth of Katie’s murder, in ways I would not have imagined, down paths and with effects not a soul could have convinced me were fathomable just a week ago, and I am not only lacking any tangible answer—I am burdened by new questions. New wonderings. Doubts.

The door knob clicks as I twist the lock set into it and back away, drawing a sleeve up to dry my eyes. I want no intrusion to my room. My space. This night I can take no more. No more Chris pulling back, or strangers in strange cars seeking me out. No James Estcek or Dave Benz or Father Taylor or Tim or Jimmy G or…

…anything.

The bed catches me as I collapse backward onto it at an angle, all energy seeming to evaporate from my being as my head hits the mattress. I stare upward through slowly blinking eyes, the ceiling swimming. I don’t want to think, or wonder, or plan, or act.

I want to stop. For a while. I want to go back and not know. I want Katie’s loss to be mystery again. A random horror that can be put away behind obligations and activity and willful blindness.

Sleep grants my wish and swallows me with tears still stinging.

*  *  *

Be careful what you wish for.

I do not consciously think this, but in some corner of my subconscious I am certain that the neurons which fancy irony are firing on overdrive.

The sleep that has come, that has taken me from waking thoughts of all that weighs on me, has brought with it dreams. Seconds, minutes, hours…I have no idea how long after slumber envelops me that the swirling depths of sleep begin to spin colors and movement and sounds into faces and places and words, but that curtain of restful emptiness at some point is yanked fully away like a bandage being ripped from a festering wound.

COLD!

I feel it to my core. Wherever this dream has dragged me I am infected with a chill that bites me to the bone. Some rational part of my sleeping self seems to play detective in the background, with snippets of commentary to give structure to what I am experiencing.

…
so cold so fast so fast so cold so cold
…

The nonsensical construct of some actuality prattles around as a vision rises. One I do not want to harbor. I try to scream to drive it off, but still it comes, Katie’s murder as crafted by Dali.

I am so cold…

She walks into the market, her killers already there in this version, their guns drawn and at the ready as she walks nonchalantly past. They stare at her and bring their weapons to bear. Taking aim as she stands there perusing wine, the white Northwestern tee she wears soon to be drenched in her own blood.

…
you can’t scream too cold quiet shhh here it comes
…

The taunting voice, some mix that shifts queerly between male and female, is right. I cannot scream. I am not there. A witness only as Katie turns now, and faces her killers, eyeing them without fear, the whole of their heads and bodies hidden beneath heavy clothing. Thick hoodies over baggie jeans, with hands gloved against…

*  *  *

“Cold!” I scream the word as I bolt up from my angular position on the bed, the covers unconsciously drawn around me as I slept, possibly to ward off the phantom chill that, if not real for me, was real for her.

Feet scurry fast outside my door, Tim’s voice rising softly beyond in hushed concern. “Mike, you okay?”

The light is still on. The clock’s bluish numbers, blurring and sharpening as my eyes adjust to the waking world, tell me it is just after one in the morning. My heart is racing, the
thud-thud thud-thud
a cadence I feel against my spine and low in my throat.

“Mike?” The tone is more urgent, rising above hushed as Tim taps on my door now. I could answer him. Could assure him that I am fine. That it was just a dream.

But it was not, and I am not. For certain what I have just experienced began as nothing more than a release of images and sounds and sensations, real and conjured, into the captive cinema of the sleeping self. What it became once realized is nothing short of revelation.

I stand quickly, energized, grabbing a proper coat from the closet before opening my door, Tim’s fist about to rap against it once more. He eyes me, puzzled at the manic state which clearly grips me, and for an instant it seems as though he thinks I may be sleep walking.

“Sorry if I woke you,” I say, looking past him to the dim hallway and the stairs beyond. “I have to do something.”

I start past him, but he puts a hand on my chest, keeping me in place. For a moment he says nothing, appraising me, the friend he has known for years, as if confronted with some sudden stranger. “What’s going on? Something’s not right.” I begin to offer a reply, but he cuts me off, the hand against my chest shifting so that a single finger stabs me there firmly for emphasis. “Don’t say it’s nothing. We’ve never fed each other bullshit. Don’t start now.”

Just hours earlier I had told him I preferred not to tread this ground. Between then and now I am certain his worry toward me has simmered. Possibly he knows of the envelope left specifically for me. For certain he heard my outburst as dream exploded into startled awareness. His mind is spinning scenarios of things terrible and forbidden, and from me he wants, at least, recognition that he is not so far off base that any bond between us would seem suddenly shattered.

“Tim, I want to tell you,” I say. His tensed expression seems to fold in on itself in some mix of resignation and disappointment. The latter, mostly. “But I wouldn’t know how right now. That’s the truth.”

He nods and eases his finger away from my chest, eyeing me for a moment. Searching for something, anything, to offer the explanation I will not. “Can I ask where you’re going? At this time of night?”

This question I can answer. To an extent. “To see a friend.”

*  *  *

A few seconds after the third ring of the doorbell I see light beyond the peephole in Chris’s door. Like the first time I ventured here the brightness is blotted out as she peers through at me, though this time the darkness lingers. Perhaps as she stares at my distorted image, confirming it is me. More likely, though, she is deciding through the fog of sleep yanked away whether to open or not.

After a brief hesitation, when I am about to say something in hopes of gaining her ear, if not entrance itself, the latches click in quick succession and the door opens. Not fully. Just enough that her form, long robe pulled tight, fills the space between door and jamb.

“I know it’s late,” I say. There is no smile about her. Just a sad warmth, as if confronted by a joy some prescience has assured her will inevitably twist toward pain.

“It’s early,” she corrects me. Just words, they are, not a true observation meant to set some error straight. Sound to fill the silence, because in silence the possible can be imagined. Some threatening reality she will allow no quarter in her thoughts.

“I need you to come with me,” I tell her, and her brow folds down. Possibly she expected me to confront her with the note she had left. The why and what behind it. Instead a request hangs before her, though with the wording used she might rightly classify it—and I would not argue—a plea. “Please.”

For a moment she considers this, and in that brief span I note the slightest sheen filling her gaze. “This is about her?”

I nod. “You’re the only person…” The turn of phrase to follow trips me up. ‘…
I can trust?
’ ‘…
who will understand?
’ In the end I realize there is no completion to the statement. There is just the fact it has been said, and the hope that some connection does exist which will engage her. “I found something.”

“What?” It was she who, independent of any knowledge of James Estcek or Eric Ray Redmond, had suggested that something about Katie’s murder did not make sense. By implication I am confirming, if not adding to her suspicion.

“Let me show you.”

I do not expect the door to be slammed in my face, and it is not. She opens it fully and stands aside. “Come in and wait. I’ll get dressed.”

*  *  *

Near three in the morning I pull my car to the curb in front of a five story Beaux Arts beauty, windows set into its classical facade reflecting stars that the parting weather has revealed. Chris looks up at the building from the passenger seat, a solemn wondering about her as she fixes on a vaguely ornate stone balcony jutting from the third floor corner nearest the lake, miles distant but still visible if one leaned just enough over the edge and looked up Darnell Avenue. Which Katie did, thrilling and terrifying me on my first visit.

“She loved that apartment,” I say, and Chris turns toward me. “Did you ever see it?”

“Just once.” Her gaze hardens, annoyed and puzzled. “Why did you bring me here, Michael?”

“Come on.” I open the driver’s door and step out, the icy night closing in around me. Chris watches me for a moment, then joins me outside. In a few hours the horizon to the east will cycle through blues and grays and oranges as morning comes. But now it is cloudy black with flecks of heaven peeking through. And we are alone looking across the hood at each other.

“It’s forty degrees,” I say. The display in my car confirmed this as we pulled up. “Are you cold?”

“I’m okay,” she says. Layered against the chill I do not doubt it.

“Take off your coat,” I say, more suggestion than direction. She hesitates for an instant, but not out of rejection. There is an awareness in her eyes that this is leading somewhere, and she slips out of her coat. She lays it on the warm hood of the car, thin sweater and matching hat between her and the night now. Already she is drawing her arms close, crossing them against her chest for warmth.

“You sure it’s forty?” she asks.

“What’s under your sweater?”

Instinctively she glances down. “Tee shirt.”

I come around the car and stand with her on the sidewalk, holding a hand out. She hesitates not at all, dropping the hat in my hand before slipping the loose sweater over her head and giving me that as well. Her arms go fast across her chest again, for modesty’s sake as well this time, no bra between the tee and her skin.

“You’re going to clue me in to the point of this before I freeze?”

I step close to her. “Would you walk sixteen blocks in this weather dressed like that?”

The answer is so obvious is seems to confuse her that I even ask it. “No.”

“It’s forty degrees,” I begin to explain. “The night Katie was killed it was mid thirties.” I raise my free hand and point away from the lake. “Tyler Street is sixteen blocks in that direction. She had no car, no coat. Just a tee shirt like you. And she walks a mile to a market to buy wine?”

Nothing is said for a moment. The chill seems to leave Chris, her gaze tracking off in the direction I am pointing, mind chewing on what I have shared with her.