You asked if I thought you’d killed the girls. Not people, but girls. That means you already know that when the other bodies are identified, and the matching coffins dug up, there are going to be women in there. The only way you could know that was if you put them there.’
He doesn’t answer. Just stares at me, his hand shaking a little, his options racing behind his jittery eyes. I hope he’s not coming back time and time to the one where he pulls the trigger. Maybe that was his plan all along, and he’s had it from the moment he climbed into my car. He partners up his free hand with the other one to steady the gun.
‘What do you want from me, Bruce?’ I lean back, keeping my arms out so my hands don’t leave the table. ‘Just tell me.’
‘I need a cigarette,’ he says, and reaches into his pocket.
“I have a No Smoking rule in here,’ I say, and when he pulls his hand back from his pocket it’s empty. He doesn’t complain.
‘I’ve never killed anybody’ he says, after a few seconds of staring down at his shaking hands, one of which is wrapped tightly around the gun. “I know you think different, but it’s the truth.
I have proof. It’s underneath my bed. I could take you there. You could talk to my father. He knows the truth.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘But you wouldn’t let me take you there, would you?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t believe me at all, do you?’
‘Why don’t you give me a few more details first?’
‘There’s no point. You’ll never believe me. And I knew you wouldn’t.’
‘Then why bring me back here? Why go through all of this?’
“I didn’t have anything to do with them dying. Nothing. But I buried them — I had to. The girls, they deserved that. And now,’ he says, ‘now their ghosts will leave me alone, and you, you will take me seriously’ My heart races as he twists the gun and jams the barrel beneath his chin. It’s almost as frightening as having it pointed at me.
‘Wait, wait,’ I say, and my instinct is to reach out to stop him, but I keep my hands flat on the table. ‘Listen to me, listen, Bruce.’
He relaxes the gun for a moment, looking at me as if I must be an idiot not to understand him, but it’s just enough of a moment to make me believe there’s a chance neither of us has to die here.
Not much of a chance, not long enough of a moment.
‘Why did you take the bodies out of the graves? What did these girls deserve?’
For a moment he looks confused, as if he can’t find the right words, then suddenly his face becomes calm and relaxed as some perfect clarity washes over him, and I know it’s the clarity of a man who has made peace with his decision, and that there is nothing I can say or do to avoid his next step.
‘For dignity,’ he says, ‘they deserved the dignity’
The gunshot rings in my ears. I smell cordite and burning flesh long after the pink mist settles, long after pieces of bone and brain are buried into the ceiling above him.
chapter twelve
It’s a life moment. One of those snapshots of time that never
leave you, never seem to fade away. In fact it’s the exact opposite — the colours, the imagery, the detail, they don’t dilute, they grow stronger, clearer; the moment becomes more powerful over
the years while others slowly disappear. The smell — the smell of cooking flesh, the coppery smell of blood, the gunpowder, the
stench as his bowels let go, the sweat. The air tastes hot, it dries out my mouth and makes my tongue stick to its roof. All I hear is a ringing sound that seems as though it will never diminish, as if it too will only grow more powerful.
It’s a life moment. I sit still, I stare ahead, I take it all in.
I don’t know if there are others in the building. Don’t know if the gunshot has already been reported. Blood has formed thick
splotches on the ceiling. They seem to hang there, motionless, unaffected by the gravity. Bruce Alderman’s body also seems to hang there, the hand still on the gun, the gun still pressed into his neck. The front of his shirt is clean, not a speck of blood on it.
His hair is messed up, the bullet forming a volcano shape in the roof of his skull. And still he sits there, as I sit there, motionless, staring at each other, a life moment for me, a death moment for him. Time has paused, as if in snapshot.
Then it begins again. His hand, still gripping the gun, falls
away. It hits the top of his thigh, slides into the arm of the chair; the gun clicks against it and falls onto the carpet. His head drops down, his chin hits his chest; the gunshot hole in his skull is like an eye staring at me, the blood falling through it, giving the impression it’s winking at me. Blood-matted hair falls into place and blocks the view. Blood pools on his shirt. It starts to pull away from the ceiling, droplets that form stalactites before breaking away and raining down. They pad softly into the carpet, make small thudding noises on the fronts of his legs, the back of his neck, the top of his head. It drops onto my shoulders, onto my arms, onto my hands that are still on the desk for him to see.