Blood Men: A Thriller

I take off my clothes and lay them on the bed next to Jodie’s. A more creative man might study the bloodstains and find patterns in them, shapes of animals or boats, but all I see is my wife as she lay on the ground bleeding. They’re ruined. I roll them into a ball, then find myself coming to a complete standstill. I stare at them for a while. The cuffs are the bloodiest, then the arms, then the front. One of the buttons is missing. There isn’t any blood on the back at all. I straighten them out and hang them up.

I take a long shower, blood streaking off my skin, the penguin shower radio quiet as it watches me. I stare in the mirror at the large bruise on my face from the blow I took. The skin is slightly torn up, and one of my eyes doesn’t open fully—which I hadn’t even noticed until now. I don’t want to know this man anymore because this man got his wife killed. I picture it all happening over and over. I think about the bank teller, the way the shooter leveled his gun at her. Then I think about the 4 percent chance I came up with earlier when figuring the odds of Jodie being the volunteer, and realize it’s a false statistic since there wasn’t any probability involved. There would have been, if I hadn’t shouted out. If I’d kept quiet then Jodie would have had as much chance as anybody of living or dying—but I took that chance and turned it into a certainty. And why? Why the hell did I shout out? Schroder said it was to save somebody. Maybe that was it. Maybe I thought I could make a difference. Only thing I know is I was as surprised as everybody else—it didn’t sound like me and wasn’t the kind of thing I thought I’d ever do. Probably not the kind of thing anybody thought I’d ever do—the son of a serial killer trying to save a life. Well, Mission Accomplished. That woman is alive and Jodie is dead—I traded one life for another. This is what it’s like to play God, I suppose—but without the ability to do any good.

When the phone rings it turns out to be a reporter. So does the second call. And the third. Before taking it off the hook I phone Nathaniel and Diana—Jodie’s parents. Nat answers and he’s already crying before I can say much.

“I don’t really know what to say, Eddie,” he says, his voice close to breaking. I’ve never heard him cry before. Nat, this solid, near-retirement-age man who could break a man in half, is weeping into the phone, he sounds like a child. “But we’ve been talking, and we think, we think that both you and Sam might, um, might be best staying with us tonight. Then she can stay with us tomorrow to give you a chance to . . . to get things organized.”

“I don’t know. I think I need her here. All I know is that I have to hold her and tell her everything is going to be okay.”

“It’s not going to be okay.”

“What the hell would you have me tell her?” I ask, the emotion on its way, pissed off at Nat now—but of course he doesn’t know what to say or do either, he’s just trying his best. “That our lives are going to fall apart?”

He doesn’t answer.

Five seconds go by. “Shit, I’m sorry, Nat,” I say, and I exhale loudly. “I didn’t mean . . . I . . . hell, I don’t know.”

“None of us know.”

“I’m going to come and get her.”

“Are you in any state to look after her? Think about what’s best for her, Eddie. Come and stay with us tonight. It’s for the best. Then, then tomorrow you can . . . we can, together, we can . . .” He doesn’t finish.

“She doesn’t know yet, does she,” I say, my heart sinking even more.

“We wanted to tell her. And we were going to, but . . . I don’t know. It’s not that it was too hard, it’s . . . well, we thought you’d be the one who’d want to tell her. Diana and me, we thought it was best that way, if we were all together when we told her. For everybody.”

“You did the right thing,” I say, and I can hardly breathe now, it feels like a golf ball is lodged down my throat. “I’m on my way,” I say, and I hang up then take the phone off the hook.

My car isn’t here. Jodie’s isn’t either. I phone a taxi company and a woman with no patience answers the phone and snaps at me, asking where I am and where I want to go.

I can’t seem to get any words out.

“Yes? Yes? You want to go somewhere, don’t you?” she says. “Or are you wasting my time?”

“Umm, I, I . . . I don’t know,” I say.

“Weirdo,” she says, then hangs up. I take a moment to gather my thoughts before calling another company, and this time I’m able to put sounds to the names of the places.

“Somebody will be there in ten minutes,” the woman says. “Have a nice day,” she adds, and I almost burst into tears.