When the elevator doors opened, he met a boisterous group of blue-shirted men from the print room, but they took no notice of him. By the time the elevator rested on the ground floor, he was alone. A young, bespectacled black security guard at the window waved him past. The guard had allowed Dawit into the building without identification, or even signing him in, because he had seen him with Jessica before.
“’Night, man,” the guard said. “Wife ain’t back yet?”
“On her way home,” Dawit shrugged.
“’Bout time, I guess, huh?” the guard laughed.
Dawit had the minivan today, which he’d parked at the curb just outside the service exit. Jessica had driven the smaller red Tempo, the family’s second car, which they usually exchanged according to need. He left the plate of food on the seat beside him, turned on the engine, and coasted out of the newspaper’s main lot toward Biscayne Boulevard.
The newspaper had four or five parking lots, he noted. The one closest to the building was full and had a guard on patrol, even at this hour, but the outlying lots were deserted. Nearly deserted. It was only when Dawit identified a faded green Ford Mustang parked alone in the lot nearest Biscayne that the thought began to take form in his mind, with clarity.
The Mustang was Peter’s car. Dawit knew it because he’d seen it so often parked in his own driveway. He and Peter had even discussed it at length; it was a 1968 model, and Peter was the second owner. The car was somewhat abused, and had long ago lost its luster, but it was still a striking machine.
Hardly a second had passed before the thought became a plan.
Dawit drove two blocks past the lot and turned onto a side street lined with empty parking meters beneath coconut palms and yellow poinciana trees. He turned off the minivan’s engine and headlights. Then he reached behind the seat for his toolbox, which he hadn’t moved since tuning up Jessica’s mother’s car.
Dawit had perfect vision. He needed little light. His fingers deftly traveled without haste across his tools in their compartments. He passed up his screwdrivers, his bolts, his chisels. He stopped when he found the linoleum knife.
He clasped the thick handle and ran his fingertip across the wide blade, which was hooked at the tip. He’d used this knife to cut the new kitchen linoleum he’d installed the year before. Flooring was difficult to cut. The blade was sharp.
He had found his tool. Next, he slid on his work gloves.
Dawit left his keys in the minivan’s ignition and closed the door, careful to leave it unlocked. Then he began a quick pace toward the parking lot, where Peter’s car was waiting.
He marveled at the work of Providence; that tonight, of all nights, Peter should be working late. That his car should be parked in an unguarded empty lot, impossible to miss. He had searched his mind for answers to no avail, and suddenly they were displayed before him with the simple logic of physics or mathematics. All of the variables were in place.
Was this not simply a fulfillment of his Covenant? Wasn’t Peter bringing Jessica, and perhaps others, that many steps closer to learning the truth about his Life gift?
The driver’s side door of the Mustang was locked, which surprised Dawit. He remembered Peter telling him one of his door locks no longer worked. Was it the passenger’s side, then? Yes. He opened the door, and a faint light went on inside.
Immaculate, except for a few papers on the passenger’s seat. No camouflage, unfortunately, but perhaps he wouldn’t need it.
Dawit flipped the seat forward and climbed into the cramped backseat, closing the door behind him. The bucket seat clicked when pulled back into place. In darkness, Dawit crouched as far down as he could across the leather. It smelled of mildew down there, perhaps from some long-ago rainstorm, but Dawit grasped the knife and ignored his nose. He was satisfied that he was hidden.
How odd, Dawit thought, that he felt no fear. He’d felt none with Rosalie, and he felt none now. Surely he must have felt nerves at one time, a time he’d forgotten, but all fear had left him now in association with this particular task.
Exactly twelve minutes passed before Dawit heard a footfall on the concrete beyond the parking lot’s gate. Then he heard a scraping of soles on loose gravel, closer yet, until jingling keys signaled that his prey had come to him at last.
Peter unlocked the door, tossed his briefcase to the passenger’s seat, and climbed inside his car. He slammed the door behind him. Dawit was keenly aware of Peter’s human presence now, the scent of his perspiration and sweet-smelling cologne. This is a man, Dawit reminded himself. You, too, are a man. This made them brothers, and he must respect this, Covenant or not. Peter had no immoral designs on Jessica. He only cared for her deeply, wanted to help her, much as Dawit did. There must be no joy in this.
For some reason, Peter sat still without slipping his key into the ignition. The closed vehicle was filled with a palpable, nearly physical, silence. Their shared presence mingled, at some level, knowing. Knowing.
If he wanted to, Dawit realized, he could give this mortal the scare of his life with the mere whisper of a word. They would both laugh heartily and allow this moment to drift behind them unlived. In those three to four seconds, knowing that he was presented with this choice, Dawit felt giddy with power.
Peter did not turn around even when Dawit sat up behind him. Instead of staring at the movement in his rearview mirror, Peter’s gaze was directed at his steering wheel, reflecting. His bent form and submissive countenance seemed to be saying I know why you are here, what you must do, and I accept my fate in your hands.
Whether or not this was only in Dawit’s imagination, it granted him the instant’s resolution to swing his right arm around, almost as if to hug Peter, and sink the knife’s hooked blade into the soft of his throat. Peter’s entire frame froze and his head sank back slightly as he made a strangled sound. Dawit, using all his strength, carved the knife across the length of Peter’s neck in a swift motion, through his larynx, his thyroid cartilage, his taut muscles. He felt warm blood seep through his glove, touching his fingertips.
Only now, through pure instinct, did Peter’s hands fly to his throat, as if to try to pull the knife free. Dawit helped him, yanking the hooked blade loose from his torn flesh. Peter bent over the steering wheel, his chest hitting the rim but missing the horn. Blood from his opened arteries was spraying forward, painting the windshield red. Dawit felt hot droplets across his own face, even sitting behind Peter. Then, with an unpleasant gurgling sound, Peter thrashed backward in his seat, his weight giving Dawit a severe jolt.
“Be still. Let death come,” Dawit whispered, feeling for him. He’d had his own throat slashed twice by lucky opponents, and he could well remember the astonishing horror of it, to be mortally wounded while fully conscious, unable to speak. Even to one who would reawaken, death was a traumatic surprise.
“Let it take you,” Dawit breathed, close to Peter’s ear.
As if in response, the horn sounded feebly as Peter’s elbow brushed across the wheel and he slumped to a prone position across the passenger’s seat. Peter’s body spasms and twitches now were only nerve impulses, Dawit knew. He had killed again.
Dawit had no time for reflection. He glanced at his shirt and found it spotted with blood, and his right glove was damp and heavy with it. The smell of blood was so thick in the car, it was nearly smothering. Dawit strained against Peter’s weight to push the passenger’s seat forward and reach the door handle. With much effort, he climbed out of the car. Squatting beside the vehicle, he took off his gloves and hurriedly unbuttoned his shirt, using it to wipe his hand as clean as possible, then his face, and he wrapped the knife and gloves inside the soiled cotton.
The night air filled his lungs, replenished him. Some blood still clung to his skin, but not nearly so much as he’d feared. The smell was behind him, in the car, in Peter’s tomb. Dawit heard traffic passing on Biscayne Boulevard just beyond the trees, but no one was in sight except, in the opposite direction, a few employees walking
into the newspaper building from a closer parking lot.
As he crept in darkness toward his parked minivan, he pulled off his undershirt and wrapped that too around the bloody weapon. These would have to go in the backyard toolshed for now, until he could dispose of them somehow. Maybe in the river? He opened the van door and searched the floor for something he could wrap them in. A wrinkled plastic Publix shopping bag was shoved under the backseat. He fit his bloody bundle inside, put the bag next to Jessica’s dinner plate, and started the engine.
Only 10:38. He would be home in fifteen minutes, or less, and he would beat Jessica with time to spare. That would give him time to shower. It would all work fine.
When traffic was clear at the stop sign, he drove off. He turned on his radio and found jazz playing on the public station. Billie Holiday was singing “Crazy He Calls Me.” He turned the volume up high and sang along, surrendering his thoughts and deeds to the cleansing power of the music.
Peace. Yes, peace. In music, he found peace.
11
Running and running and running.
Jessica was lost in an exhausting dream about being chased with Kira. Kira was running far ahead of her, and Jessica flung out her arm to try to catch her. But she was too late, too late. Mommy, Kira called back to her over her shoulder, are there good monsters, too?
Jessica flipped over, waking, when David pulled his arm from beneath her to grab the ringing telephone. She felt agitated, not rested. It wasn’t dark, as she’d believed. The sky, through their open curtains, was shedding its ink-blackness for the mingled gray and pink of new daylight.
“What time is it?” Jessica asked grumpily.
David shushed her, patting her leg beneath the blanket. “This is her husband,” he was saying to the caller. “Who is this? … Okay, one sec. Jess? Honey, it’s Sy Greene.”
Jessica glared at the oak grandfather clock ticking against the wall across from their bed. She thought she’d left her days of being awakened by her boss long ago, back when she chased fire engines and was eager to please.
“Does that clock say six?” she asked with disbelief. “I know it’s not somebody calling here at six o’clock.”
“Ten ‘til,” David said, dangling the receiver near her face. “Honey, phone … Please?”
Jessica took the receiver. She didn’t have a chance to say anything. She heard a muffled sound that she didn’t recognize. After a moment, she realized with numbing trepidation that her boss was sobbing into her ear.
PART TWO
Spider
12
At the start of her fourth month carrying Kira, in the bathroom, Jessica struck a deal with God: Make this bleeding go away, make it all right, and I will serve you for the rest of my life. No more of this half-ass church only on Sunday stuff. She vowed she would teach Sunday school, she would tithe, and she would never again think an un-Christian thought about anyone.
God, please just give me this baby.
She and David hadn’t known, at that time, whether the child was a boy or a girl. But Jessica did know she had passed her first trimester, supposedly out of the woods for miscarriage, so she’d begun visualizing a real baby instead of a faceless, fragile embryo. When she stroked her stomach, she was stroking a child’s head. If she felt a movement, anything at all, she spoke to the baby in response.
Is that you? You’re growing, baby, aren’t you?
So it was really the child, not she, who was bleeding.
Jessica was about to take a shower before going to work when she saw the brown spots of blood on her toilet paper. She wiped herself again, and this time the blood was clotted and fresh. It was red.
She screamed for David, and he came. He told her later he’d never been more scared, but she didn’t see it in his face. He hugged her, giving her a robe, telling her it was okay, telling her not to cry. He called the obstetrician. He drove her to the hospital, rattling off assurances. “You’re not in pain. You’re all right. They’ll fix it, Jess,” he kept saying.
As it turned out, her placenta was hanging a bit too low. The doctor warned her that she would have to lie flat on her back for the next few days because he couldn’t correct the condition. It would have to correct itself. If she hemorrhaged, he could not save the baby.
That was the first time Jessica, as an adult, really felt the fresh horror and helplessness of what it would mean to lose a person she was close to. In the moments her doctor described what was wrong—in the time between his warning about hemorrhaging and his reassurance that it was a common condition and she would probably be just fine—she felt a cruel randomness poised to slice away a part of her psyche.
And the question came: Why would God do this?
Because her faith was weak, she decided later, as she rested. Her faith was so weak and bare, it was ready to shred at the first sign of trouble. Feets, do your thing. She needed to trust Him. He wouldn’t let her crash into the wall; He would steer her around.
And, yes, He had. Kira was the living proof.
“That’s not me,” Kira insisted, wrinkling her face when she saw a photo of Jessica holding a bright-red newborn in a hospital bed. Kira had started emphasizing words in sentences, enjoying the sound of her own conversation. “That’s a Gremlin.”
“Sure is a Gremlin. A Gremlin named Kira Alexis Wolde.”
“Is that me?” Kira asked, pointing to the grainy photograph of a baby whose face was buried beneath a straw cowboy hat.
“Yes. You were about eighteen months old there,” Jessica said, flipping to the next page in the photo album. “And here, you had just turned two. This is at Grandma’s.”
“The sailor dress!” Kira said. She dug through the pile of photos at the foot of Jessica’s bed and found one that matched.
“Good work, Kira,” Jessica said. Her daughter’s eyes followed her fingers as she lifted the page’s plastic sheet to fit the new photograph beside the one already there. The pictures were similar and had been taken the same day, with Kira in a navy sailor dress, which Bea had just bought her, playing on a rocking horse.
The photo albums had been a two-day project, and this was the last one. She’d filled five large albums so far. The piles of photographs in shoe boxes she and David kept under the bed were dwindling. David was the main photo junkie; he rarely went anywhere without a camera, and he had the walls of the house papered with framed photographs of family trips and backyard barbecues—him, Jessica, Kira, Teacake, and poor Princess.
The immersion in photographs and memories was a welcome sanctuary for Jessica. The photos showed her Kira’s remarkable development from a wrinkled newborn to the thin, cinnamon-skinned child she was now. She had a round face, and her forehead sloped like David’s. Working on the photographs with Kira was a simple pleasure Jessica had come to bask in.
“Are we almost done, Mommy?”
“Yep. Soon.”
“Then you’ll get up?” she asked, trying to crawl against Jessica’s abdomen to snuggle beside her.
“Not-uh. Don’t do that when I’m trying to work,” Jessica said crossly. Kira’s sudden movement had made the plastic crinkle; Jessica lifted the sheet back up, straightened the photographs on the page, and smoothed it carefully with her palm. The photos weren’t quite right, angling toward one another. She’d wanted them to be just right, damn it.
“They’re straight,” Kira said.
“No, they’re not. You call that straight?”
“Uh-huh. Will you get up when we’re done, Mommy?”
At two in the afternoon on a Saturday, Kira was dressed in denim overalls, her hair combed for the day. But Jessica was still in the faded Jacksons’ Victory Tour T-shirt she’d slept in, propped up in bed with crumpled sheets, and two or three paperback books lying facedown around her—James Baldwin, Jane Austen, Susan Taylor. David had found the battery-operated black-and-white TV, the one she’d bought after Hurricane Andrew knocked their power out for four days, and set it up for her on top of the bureau. She ha
d no plans to get up. “I’m still tired, Kira,” she said.
“You’re always tired,” Kira whined. “I want to see the movie about the big dog. Daddy said.”
“Well…” Jessica said, squeezing her hand, “ … either you can wait until I’m not tired anymore or you and Daddy can go. And I’ll stay here.”
“That’s not going to work,” Kira said with exasperation, a grown-up-sounding phrase Jessica figured Kira must have picked up from David.
David’s voice came from the doorway. “Kira? Let Mommy rest. She said she’s tired.” He was changing the washers in the bathroom faucet. He’d stuck his head in and was gone just as quickly.
David’s words silenced Kira, but her face was in full pout.
“I’ve told you about that. Don’t make that ugly face,” Jessica said. “It’s okay if you and Daddy go. I’ll be here.”
The truth was, Jessica wanted to see the movie. She really did. She wanted a tub of popcorn, and she wouldn’t mind sitting in a darkened theater all day. But she wanted to do it alone. It would take too much energy to go on an outing with David and Kira at this moment. Her mind was frayed, in retreat. Lately, half the time she adhered to her family, cleansing herself with them. Then, just as suddenly, she’d had enough. She would prefer silence now. Small silence. And she would genuinely miss them, an ache, until they came back.
Maybe it was because the tears always followed a step behind her solitude. Any solitude. In the shower. On the toilet. Sitting alone in the backyard, watching the herons fuss over the water. The pain was still raw and the tears were always there; usually, they were only in hiding.
Nothing in her life, even the death of her father, had prepared Jessica for the murder of Peter Donovitch.