After Midnight

9
THE LOST DETAIL

So many little details to think about.
And if you don’t think about them, too bad, tough toenails, you’re done for.
Just don’t kill anyone. That’s my big advice to you, if you’re reading this. I’ve heard that books are supposed to be meaningful and help a person gain insights into themselves, or life, or something. So maybe that’s what you should get from my book—don’t kill anyone or you’ll be sorry.
Of course, I guess any person with half an ounce of sense knows that already.
The bad part is, even if you know better, you might end up doing it anyway.
Like me.
I sure never set out to split open Tony’s head. It could have happened to anyone. It’s all a matter of circumstances.
Just like we’re all at the mercy of our genes—which pretty much decide everything about how we look and act and even what diseases we’ll probably get—we’re also at the mercy of circumstances.
All of a sudden, WHAM! and we’ve killed someone.
You might be pretty smug and sure you’ll never do it, but just try popping out of your house in the middle of the night and finding a stranger on your doorstep about to grab you. See what happens then.
See what you’d do.
It’s you or him, and you figure he’s there to rape or kill you.
If you don’t get him fast, he’ll get you.
I bet you’d whack him if you could.
And then what would you do, after he’s splayed out on your lawn as dead as a carp?
I know, you’d call the cops.
And ruin your life.
The thing is—do you want the straight scoop?
Even if you’re a goody-two-shoes who has never been in trouble in your life, you’ll be walking into a nightmare if you bring the cops into the picture. For one thing, maybe the courts won’t see the killing as self-defense. You might get convicted of murder or manslaughter and end up in jail. But suppose you make out fine with the legal system? They either don’t hit you with criminal charges at all, or you get acquitted. Great. Congratulations. But what about the friends and relatives of the guy you killed?
Ever hear of a wrongful death lawsuit?
Ever hear of revenge?
I think about stuff like this.
I bet you’d think about it, too, if you ever killed somebody.
Even by accident.
You’d sure better think about it. Do you really want to call the cops? Especially considering this: if you don’t call them—and you’re smart and lucky and have the guts to do whatever it takes—the whole situation might go away.
Just like it never happened.
Me, that’s what I wanted.
I wanted it to go away.
I would’ve done anything to make it go away, and that included making a return trip to Tony’s car in the parking lot. I hated to go back, but I had to.
With a simple push of a button, the tripometer’s wheels would spin to 000 and the cops would lose their best clue about where Tony got killed.
I was sure glad I’d thought of it.
On my way to the parking lot, I tried to think of any other details that needed my attention.
I came up with nothing else in connection with Tony’s car or apartment. Just set back the tripometer, and leave.
But several details would need to be taken care of, back home.
I made a mental list of them.
1. Immediately retrieve the saber from where I hid it in the bushes.
2. First thing in the morning, check the lawn carefully and clean up any remaining blood or debris. Whatever little pieces of Tony I might find in the grass (and there shouldn’t be much) could go down the garbage disposal in Serena’s kitchen.
3. Make sure to clean off the glass door where the stranger made his mess. (This had nothing to do with covering up Tony’s death, but was for my own peace of mind.)
4. Clean the saber and return it to its proper place on the living room wall.
5. Get rid of Tony’s stuff. If suspicion somehow ended up falling on me, I’d better not get caught with his jeans, shirt, wallet, shoes, etc.
That was all I could think of.
But I felt as if I must be forgetting something.
I kept going over the list in my mind, wondering what I’d missed.
And came up with:
6. Check the street in front of the house, just in case. He’d parked there. Maybe he’d dropped something.
7. Check the driveway.
Hell, check everywhere. And double-check. Make sure there’s absolutely nothing that might lead anyone to think Tony was there, or that anybody’d gotten killed.
That should cover it.
But I still had an uneasy sensation that I’d forgotten a very important piece of evidence.
What could it be?
Maybe nothing. Have you ever started off on a trip feeling absolutely certain you’d forgotten something? Maybe you’d neglected to turn off the coffee pot, or you’d left behind your swimsuit or toothbrush? But you can’t think of what it is, so you don’t go back? Then it turns out that you hadn’t forgotten anything at all?
I’ve had that happen to me.
Just as often, though, it turns out that the feeling was right and you did forget something.
Anyway, I still hadn’t thought of it by the time I arrived back at Tony’s building.
Then I had bigger things to worry about, such as being seen in the parking lot. I’d been lucky, last time. Going back down would be pressing my luck. Tempting fate. I didn’t like it.
But I did it.
Dripping sweat, breathing hard and trembling, I walked to the bottom of the driveway. Nobody seemed to be around, so I ran all the way to Tony’s car. I stopped beside it, huffing, and dug the keys out of my pocket. Then I unlocked the door, opened it, leaned in and stared at the dashboard.
A tripometer!
He did have one, and it showed 14.2 miles.
Divide it in half, you get 7.1 miles.
Almost certainly, that was the distance to Serena and Charlie’s house.
Tony had set his tripometer.
My God! I thought. What if I hadn’t thought of it?
Reaching into the car, I stabbed the reset button with my forefinger. The numbers spun back to form a row of zeros.
The evidence was erased.
With the hanky, I wiped the front of the button.
Erased?
Something about that word.
I locked and shut the car door and wiped its handle.
Erased.
Backing away from the car, I looked around. So far, so good. I headed for the driveway ramp, walking fast.
Erased?
Why did that word stick in my head? Should I erase something? Was there an incriminating note that needed to be…?
The tape!
I chugged my way up the driveway.
That’s it! The audio tape on Serena and Charlie’s answering machine!
How could I possibly have forgotten about that? It had Tony’s message on it, all that stuff he was trying to tell Judy.
The dead man’s voice on a tape in Serena’s home.
My God, how could a detail like that slip my mind?
At the top of the driveway, I hurried over to the sidewalk. Once more, I’d made it away from the parking lot undetected. Plus, I’d erased the mileage from the tripometer and I’d remembered the lost detail—the message tape.
Simple enough to get rid of that.
I added it to my mental list of things to do at home.
Erase it right away, tonight, as soon as you get back. Bring in the saber, then erase the tape. Maybe destroy it entirely, just to be sure. Burn it.
Leaving Tony’s apartment building behind me, I walked to the corner of the block. There was no traffic in sight. I jogged across the street, then slowed to a long, easy stride.
Pace yourself, I thought. It’s more than seven miles. That’s a pretty good hike.
Should take less than two hours, though.
What if Tony taped the call?
I felt a flutter deep inside.
If he did…
He didn’t, I told myself. Nobody does that.
Most people don’t, anyway. It would be a very strange, abnormal thing to do. Illegal, too, unless you tell the other person about it.
But if he did record it, he’s got my address on tape. My voice and my name, too. The minute the cops search his room, they’ll find out everything.
BUT PEOPLE DON’T TAPE THEIR CALLS!
Of course they don’t. And only a fool would return to Tony’s in order to destroy a tape that doesn’t even exist.
But might.
I’d have to actually go inside the building, break into his room…
I’ve got his keys.
But the risk! For nothing! For a tape that doesn’t exist.
I continued walking, determined not to go back for the non-existent tape.
And I wouldn’t have gone back, either.
I would’ve kept on walking home, but all of a sudden, from thinking about tapes and answering machines and telephones, something popped into my mind that made my insides go cold and squirmy.
Redial.