Trust No One (37 page)

“Why did you come here?” Hans asks. “You’ve remembered where the journal is?”

“No,” Jerry says. “I don’t even know why I came here.”

“Do you know where it is?”

Jerry nods. “The guy in there has it. The new owner of the house. Gary Somebody. It’s in there somewhere. That must be why I came back.”

“Then we need to go in and get it,” Hans says.

“She called the police,” Jerry says, looking down at Mrs. Smith.

“She said that?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then we don’t need to worry about her getting cold because they’ll be on their way.” He pulls Jerry back in the direction of the street. “If we have to, we can come back later.”

They reach the car. It’s not the same car Hans was driving earlier. It isn’t until Jerry is sitting down and putting on his seat belt that he realizes they’re not alone. Eric the orderly is slumped across the backseat, eyes closed and softly snoring.

You don’t know what’s going on, but Sandra is dead and Sandra is dead and Sandra. Is. Dead.

You must have fallen asleep and when you woke there was a gun in your hand and why is Sandra dead? What happened? You must have shot her because there’s a hole in her chest and her body is cool and it must have been a while ago and—

You don’t know.

You don’t know.

The Madness Journal, now more important than ever to get your thoughts down. Important to write and remember. But write what? You don’t.

Know.

What happened.

Jerry doesn’t know. Henry doesn’t know. Jerry and Henry are similar sounding names and you don’t know if you’ve ever noticed that before but. You must have, really, and Sandra is dead in your office and. She’s lying on the floor and. There’s blood all around her, it’s leaked. From holes. In her chest and her eyes are open. Open, she’s staring at me as you write and you.

Don’t know what to do. Since the police aren’t here it means she was shot in your office and nobody heard anything, which makes sense because that’s where she is, that’s where the blood is, and.

Think. Think, Jerry.

Think and remember.

What do you remember?

Nothing, but a quick look back into the Madness Journal tells a sorry story of a man taping trash bags to the walls and sitting in the chair and the safety stopping the gun from going off and then Sandra arriving, but you me us we don’t remember what you spoke about but it’s there in the journal and you’ve read it and you called Hans, you called him six hours ago, and the cat died years ago, but you still tried to buy cat food for it, which was way before the baker fucked Sandra and you fucked the wedding and you need to call Hans again to see if he did come around and if he did you need to ask what you spoke about and you need to know what made you angry enough to.

Shoot.

Sandra.

With the gun you were supposed to shoot yourself with, the gun that is on your desk within easy reach right now.

Jerry fucked up. Jerry got confused. Jerry . . .

Shut up, Henry, for the love of God, please. Just. Shut. Up.

Your brain feels like it’s bleeding. Like it’s swelling. Like it’s going to explode. You need to call Hans. He will know what to do. Somebody writes
bitch-whore
on your letter box? Then call Jerry. But a dead body you need to make disappear? Well now, Hans is your guy.

But you don’t want to dispose of a dead body. What you want is for this not to have happened. Since it has happened, all that’s left is to go back to Plan A—to shoot yourself in the head
sans
pillowcase.

Have you done this? Have you done this awful thing?

You don’t know. Surely you would know if you had. Wouldn’t you?

Jerry messed up. Jerry is a coward.

Shut up, Henry.

You need to call the police. You need to.

You don’t know. What to.

Do.

You don’t.

Know.

You want to wake up and find none of this has happened.

Bad news—Sandra is dead.

Bad news—Sandra is dead.

“What the hell?” Jerry says.

“I’ll explain on the way.”

“On the way to where?”

Hans starts the car. They leave Mrs. Smith and her neighborhood—Jerry’s old neighborhood—behind, the houses flicking by, houses he used to see every day but can no longer remember.

“What do you remember?” Hans asks.

“Five minutes ago none of it, but now I remember most of it, starting with waking up today in that woman’s house. I remember finding the park you told me to go to, and waiting for you. I . . . ah, hell, I think I must have fallen asleep. Then next thing I knew I was at my old house.”

“I spoke to you a few times,” Hans says. “I thought the police might be tailing me, and I figured it was too risky to come and pick you up right away. I went online. The nursing home has a website because everything has a website, and aside from telling the world what they do, the site also tells the world who is doing it. They have a whole section with the staff there, including brief biographies. There was only one Eric there. I called you back and you were even more determined to question the guy. The way you were explaining it . . . it was making sense. Made sense to at least talk to the guy, right? But it made even more sense to go through his house when he wasn’t there, and see what I could find.”

“So why is he in the back of the car?”

“Because it didn’t work out as planned,” Hans says, and does it ever? Certainly not in any of Jerry’s books, Jerry thinks. “After getting his name online, a phone book gave me his address. Then I gave a buddy of mine a call. I drove to the mall, and I go in and meet him in the bathroom and give him my car keys, and he gives me his, and two minutes later he’s pulling the fire alarm. Everybody ends up moving outside, and in the sea of people I get rid of anybody following me. I head out into the parking lot and then I drive to Eric’s in my buddy’s car. This, by the way, is Eric’s car.”

Hans says it all so matter-of-factly, as if this is the norm, and Jerry guesses for Hans maybe it is. He glances back over at Eric. There is duct tape holding his hands behind him, and more duct tape covering his eyes.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Hans says, and Jerry isn’t so sure. He’s also feeling less sure about the whole idea Eric could be guilty. “I gave him a shot, probably similar to the stuff he’s been giving you,” Hans says.

“So how did you go from wanting to search his house to having him sedated in the back of his own car? What happened?”

“What happened is I knocked on his door and I figured, you know, if he answers I can ask him some of those questions.”

“And he answered?”

“No. Which made me figure he wasn’t home.”

“You broke in?”

“Of course I did. I go inside, thinking that if he’s a writer, he probably has an office, and an office is a good place to start looking. Only he’s in there on his computer with a set of headphones on. He hadn’t heard me. He sees me, and he recognizes me right away because I’ve been to see you at the nursing home a number of times, and—”

“You came to see me?”

“Of course I did, buddy. Back to the point, Eric sees me because his desk is facing the door, and he jumps to his feet, and because he knows who I am he does the addition very quickly and figures out why I’m there. Or at least he thinks he knows. He doesn’t even say anything, but he throws a coffee cup at me, then comes charging at me. He doesn’t even get a shot in,” Hans says, smiling at Jerry. “Before I knock him onto his ass. He looks up at me, and he looks angry, and worried, and I tell him I’m there because he killed those girls. He tells me he has no idea what I’m talking about. I tell him I know he was framing you, but he shakes his head and tells me I’m making a mistake. He tells me you’re a psychopath, so then I kick him in the head. He’s out cold and I’m getting ready to tie him up when I notice his wedding ring.”

“He’s married?”

“Yeah. There are photographs on the walls of his house to prove it. So I figure the best thing to do is get the hell out of there. I tidy up the mess so the wife won’t think bad thoughts the moment she gets home, then I drag him through to his car and throw him in the back. I don’t want him to wake up, so I head to my car because I have a couple of shots in there—”

“Shots?”

“Shots to make sure he stays asleep.”

“Your buddy had them in his car?”

“No. I took them with me. They’re there for option number three, remember? One shot puts you to sleep, and that’s all I gave Eric. But enough shots . . . well, you go to sleep and you stay asleep. I give Eric one, and I’m on the way to pick you up from the park when I phone you. That’s everything. Now we have to go somewhere and question him.”

Jerry isn’t sure what to say. It all seemed like a good plan back when Hans and Henry were bouncing around ideas the same way Henry would bounce around ideas with his editor. It all seemed possible at the time, but seeing Eric unconscious in the backseat changes the game in a similar way it would if Jerry walked into his publisher’s office dragging in a dead prostitute and a serial killer and pitched the plot for his next book. There is a world of difference, Jerry thinks, between making shit up and making shit happen.

“Jerry? Earth to Jerry?”

“Yeah, I’m still here,” Jerry says.

“You zoned out.”

“I’m okay.”

“He’s guilty, right?” Hans asks.

“Is he?”

“He’s the one who told the police you confessed to him. And somebody drugged you, right? It’s either that—or you really did sneak out of the home and walk twenty miles to single out a woman you had never met. Plus he knew. The moment he looked at me, he knew he’d been found out.”

“What if he wakes up?”

“He won’t,” Hans says. “Not yet.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just know.”

“So where are we going?”

“I know a place,” Hans says, and of course he does.

The day is getting darker. Even though he doesn’t like Mrs. Smith, he hopes somebody has found her already. At the end of the month daylight saving time will kick in and the days will get longer, but right now there isn’t much light past six thirty. Hans has to turn on the headlights. Traffic isn’t too bad because rush hour was over an hour ago. The quality of the neighborhoods degrades the further they go, until they enter one in which every fence is tagged and the sidewalks have cracks with more weeds pushing through than there is grass on front lawns. They park out front of a two-story house that has no front garden, just a huge slab of concrete taking up the entire yard, patches of oil scattered across it, a hopscotch layout created by duct tape in the center. There’s a
For Sale
sign nailed to the fence that must be fresh since there’s no graffiti on it, or maybe there’s an amnesty on
For Sale
signs. The amnesty doesn’t stretch to the rag doll that has been nailed beneath the sign, a roofing nail going through the middle of the doll’s face, giving her a metal nose the size of a quarter.

“Wait here,” Hans says, and he turns off the headlights before getting out of the car. Then he leans back in. “I mean it, Jerry. I’m only going to be gone a minute, but don’t wander off, okay?”

“Is that meant to be a joke?”

“It was meant to be, but halfway through it stopped being funny.”

Hans walks up to the front door reaching into his pocket along the way, then he’s in the dark and Jerry can’t see what he’s doing, but he knows his friend is most likely picking the lock, something he’s always thought is a cool trick for his characters, but something he’d never be able to do in real life.

You can do it,
Henry says, and Jerry decides it’s neither here nor there.

A minute later Hans is heading back. He’s wearing a pair of thin leather gloves. He glances at the doll on the fence, and Jerry wonders if he’s conjuring up the same kind of images that Horror Book Henry would have thought back in the days when fiction and nonfiction were two completely different things. In another universe, that doll could pull the nail out of its own face and carry on doing what it was doing before somebody assaulted it.

It’s awkward getting Eric out of the back of the car. He’s heavier than Mrs. Smith, and Jerry is sure he’ll have a sore back tomorrow from all this lifting. But they get Eric upright, and then they get him up the driveway and past the wide open door and into a hallway. Before lifting him, Jerry took Eric’s glasses off and put them into his pocket for safekeeping. It’s dark inside and Hans manages to point his cell phone light ahead as they walk, giving Jerry a brief rundown along the way.

“Used to be a drug house,” he says. “It was just small-time stuff, mostly just a couple of guys selling weed to partying teenagers, but the guys were informants for the police, so the police let them do their thing as long as their thing didn’t go beyond that, but of course it went beyond that because they got into some beef with another couple of guys a few blocks away, and next thing you know the average life expectancy in the neighborhood drops substantially. Nobody wants to buy in this neighborhood, and nobody wants to buy a house where a couple of dealers got themselves nailed to a wall, and the cops never did find their dicks.” Jerry looks concerned, and Hans laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m kidding. They did find them. Anyway, that shit was months ago, and nobody ever comes by here, and the police have no reason to. Not while it’s empty. Come on, let’s get this guy upstairs.”