I close my eyes, and the smell of pine takes me back to our little house in Logan Park and the Christmas trees we put up every year. Jenni always insisted on the real thing, its scent filling the house, its branches decorated with a hodgepodge of ornaments that we had collected over the years, ornaments that held a special meaning for us: our first Christmas together, souvenirs from trips, and art fairs. She had ornaments from her childhood that she’d made from as far back as preschool.
Our last Christmas together, we spent the whole day bedecking the house and baking cookies. That night she poured wine and led me to a blanket that she’d spread out in front of the fireplace. There, we made love, her soft skin warmed by the fire, her eyes sparkling with the gentle twinkle of Christmas lights. I looked at her in that moment and wondered, how had a man like me ever gotten so lucky? How had I come to be with a woman so beautiful? So loving?
“Are you still here?” The man’s words pull me from my memory and I hate him for it. “Hey, are you out there?”
He is lying on his back with a jack pine between us, so he doesn’t know whether or not I’ve left him. It occurs to me that leaving him is an option. This forest is teeming with wolves. I’m no expert, but I would think that a pack of wolves would delight in such meal. I smile at the thought, even though I know that I won’t allow chance to decide his fate. There is no penitence in that. No, this man will not die until he understands the gravity of what he’s done.
But there’s something else that scratches at the back of my mind, something faint and mercurial, a wisp of disquiet that dances just beyond my grasp. I try to understand why I hesitated, why that ax handle froze above my head, and the only flicker that makes it through the murk is that I need something from this man, something more than just his death—something more, even, than his confession. But what? Vindication? I don’t think so. Such a sentiment seems petty to me, unworthy of her memory. No, I think this has to be about more than common revenge. This can’t just be about me. This man’s death must set right a universe beyond my own personal desires. That’s what he has to understand. That’s what I need to see in his eyes.
I contemplate what to do with him and keep coming back to the notions of time and pressure—forces that can build mountains and tear them down. In my experience, repentance comes neither quickly nor easily. I let my mind wander through a field of ideas, looking for the one that suits my needs. I try to keep the darker thoughts at bay, thoughts of torture and pain, thoughts so delicious to me that I can almost taste them on my tongue. But I set those impulses aside.
What I need is a countdown, a cadence that would let him see the end coming. His time on this earth is dwindling, his fate marching to a drum beat that he cannot alter. His only choice will be in how he meets that fate.
I like that idea. And if I’m being honest with myself, then I have to admit that I need that countdown for me as much as I do for him. I need it in the way a child on the high dive uses the fall of numbers to summon his resolve to jump. I know what I came here to do, yet, when I raised that ax handle for the death blow, I froze, my will to act caught in the cross fire between lesser gods of virtue and vice. I don’t want to think about that, because I don’t want to believe I can’t go through with it. But that’s the case, if the truth be told—and in the end, truth is what this is all about, right?
I sit on the bank of the lake, trying to come up with a plan, my feet resting on a shelf of ice below me, a crag sticking up through the snow that had been pushed there by expansion in the middle. I tap the edge of that ice with my toe just to hear it crack. That’s when a thought pops into my head. I remember a case I once had where a man tried to hide a body by cutting holes in a frozen river and slipping the body through. The ice on this lake has to be at least three feet thick—maybe four. But back at the cabin, before the chase began, I had peeked into a shed to make sure he wasn’t hiding in it. At the time, nothing piqued my interest, but now I remember the ice auger hanging on the wall. A plan begins to form in my mind, details falling into place. Time and pressure.
“Help!” the man yells. “Somebody help me!”
I stand up and walk back to where the man lies.
“Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to leave me. I knew you wouldn’t—”
I plop down on the man’s thighs and begin to undo his snow pants.
“What the hell?”
Beneath his snow pants, as I expect, he’s wearing blue jeans, held up with a belt. I undo the belt.
“Get off me!” the man yells. “What are you doing?”
Did he really think I chased him for two miles in knee-deep snow just to molest him? I suppose, had I been in his position, I would have been questioning this conduct as well. Or maybe he thinks I’m going to relieve him of his man parts. I pause for a second when that idea flashes across my mind. But then I go back to my task.
I pull his belt from around his waist and toss it to the side. Then I stand and lift his torso until he is in a sitting position, his legs straight, his feet bound together by his boot laces. I pull him down the hill until his back is resting against the pine tree.
“Thanks,” he says. “My arm really hurts. Could you—”
I pick up his belt and wrap it around his neck.
“What are you—?”
I pull the belt tight, cutting off his words, but not his breath. The belt is just long enough to close around both his throat and the tree. I buckle it on the last hole.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His voice is raspy against this new binding. “Why are you doing this?”
I take a moment to inspect my work, to make sure that, after I leave him, he won’t be able to escape. His eyes are large with fear—or is it rage? I can’t really tell. Either is fine by me. Satisfied with my handiwork, I put my gloves back on and pull my coat hood over my head, cinching it for the walk. As I step out onto the frozen lake, I can hear him yelling, or at least trying to yell past the belt around his neck.
“Where’re you going? You can’t leave me here. There’re wolves out here. Come back here. You can’t leave me like this.”
As his voice trails off behind me, I find satisfaction in his fear, in his belief that I’m leaving him to be eaten by the wolves. But I will return. And when I do, he’ll regret that he wanted me to come back.
CHAPTER 5
Minneapolis—Two Days Ago