I couldn’t be sure the cops would use the word “ratted,” but I figured that would be about the gist of it.
Maybe it made more sense to stop fighting with the railing. Maybe it made more sense to stay handcuffed until the police arrived. How likely a suspect was I when I was left handcuffed at a murder scene? I was a victim too, although I had to admit I’d gotten off a little bit better than Martin Benson.
Of course, the only problem was, we hadn’t both been victimized by the same person. Being handcuffed by Trixie would no doubt lead police to suspect that she was also responsible for Martin Benson’s murder.
Trixie did, after all, have some familiarity with the apparatus to which Benson was secured.
What a fucking mess.
I twisted my right hand around to look at my watch. Coming up on 2:30 p.m. Trixie had been gone at least half an hour, maybe more. Just how far away was she planning to get before she called someone to rescue me?
It hadn’t occurred to me then that she might actually have called someone right after leaving the house. That she might have called someone who would need thirty minutes or more to get here.
Finally, around 2:45, there was a hard knock at the door.
“Down here!” I shouted.
Another knock.
“Hey!” I shouted. “In the basement!”
I thought I heard the door open, and then a voice, tentatively, called out, “Hello?”
I think, of all the people Trixie could have called, Sarah would definitely have been my last choice.
I went to say something but the words caught in my throat for a moment. I guess, for a fleeting instant, for nothing more than a millisecond, I must have thought I could keep Sarah from finding me handcuffed in Trixie’s basement only a few feet away from a dead guy strapped to a cross with his throat cut open. But it only took the briefest of moments to realize there was no way out for me that didn’t include immense dollops of shame and mortification.
“Sarah!” I shouted.
“Zack?” Sarah sounded scared. “Zack! Where are you?”
“Just listen to me first, okay? Okay? Just stop and listen!”
“Zack, what’s happened? Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Sarah, stop! Are you stopped?”
A pause from upstairs. “Okay, yes. I’m not moving. Zack, Trixie phoned. She told me to come out here, that something had happened and—”
“Sarah! Listen to me!”
“Okay.”
“First of all, I’m okay. I’m going to need your help, but before you come downstairs, I have to prepare you for what you’re going to see.”
“Oh my God. Don’t tell me you’re trapped in some sort of leather thing. You’ve been coming to Trixie, paying her to—”
“No, Sarah. Please just listen and don’t interrupt. I’m not hurt, but I am handcuffed to the stair railing and I need you to get the keys.”
Even from where I stood, I could hear her intake of breath upstairs.
“But Sarah, what I have to tell you is, I’m not exactly alone down here.” I took a breath of my own. “I’m down here in the midst of a…I’m in a crime scene, Sarah.”
“A crime scene.”
“A man has been killed, he’s been murdered, and I’m down here with his body.” I paused. “It’s very, very…bad.”
From Sarah, almost a whisper: “Who is it, Zack?”
“Martin Benson. The reporter from the Suburban. Somebody’s…oh man.”
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay. Are you ready?”
Sarah paused a second before she said, “I’m ready.”
And then she appeared at the doorway at the top of the stairs, assessing my situation in a glance. She came down the steps slowly, and as she was able to see more of the room, she saw Benson at the far end of it.
“Dear God,” she said. She stayed on the last step, next to me, as if putting a foot on the floor would be an admission that what she was seeing was really true.
“The keys are right there,” I said softly, nodding at the table a few feet away. “If you give them to me, I can get these off and call the police.”
“Zack, his throat’s been slit clear across.”
“I know. The keys. Hand me the keys.”
She was holding it together fairly well, considering. She’d been a police reporter back in her early days and had seen the odd corpse here and there. Usually after the police had arrived.
She looked at the keys on the table. She’d have to put both feet on the floor to get there. As if she were putting her toe into icy cold water, she came down the last step and approached the table hesitantly. She delicately picked up the keys in her fingers, turned, and handed them to me.
“Your wrists are bruised,” she said as I struggled to work the keys into the openings. It took a minute or more for me to get the cuffs off my wrists. I didn’t bother to remove them from the railings. Perhaps, if they stayed there, it would bolster my version of events when the police arrived.
“Come on,” I said, leading Sarah up the stairs. “Let’s get out of here.”