Hidden River (Five Star Paperback) (29 page)

“If I tell them about the Mulhollands….”

“They won’t believe you…. Christ, Alex, you should know that, the cops want simplicity, there’s a simple explanation for everything. This isn’t a big fucking conspiracy, this is a simple case of homicide. You can get those knives anywhere.”

“I have an alibi, a witness.”

“Who, me? Come on. You were his roommate, he was fucking the girl you loved, you killed him with your own knife. At the very least, you’re going to jail. I suppose you don’t have fifty grand for bail?”

“No.”

“Alex, listen to me. You’re fucked.”

I nodded, too tired to debate it, too tired to see if it was the right thing to do or not. I went to Pat’s, stripped, soaped myself, showered. Sobbed up against the wall. Found one of Pat’s robes, put it on, went down the hall. Walked back into the apartment. No one there. The smell of blood, vile, pervasive.

I trudged downstairs. Knocked on the Ethiopians’ door.

It was open. I went in. Pandemonium. The whole family up. Pat talking to Mr. Uleyawa, the sons beside him, aghast, afraid, Simon translating what Pat was saying. Areea, wrapped in a blanket, curled on the sofa in the fetal position. Her hair soaked. She had showered or bathed. She’d been terrified but she wasn’t stupid, she’d gotten that blood off her.

A bucket sat beside her, she had been throwing up. Her mother and grandmother stroking her hair as she shivered and wept.

She gasped when she saw me.

“Areea,” I said.

“Get out of here, Alexander,” Pat said, “I’m taking care of things.”

I walked over to Areea. She backed into the cushions, afraid of me for a moment. The grandmother tried to stop me from touching her. I knelt by the sofa. I could smell blood on her still. Or maybe that was my imagination.

I touched her hair.

“It must have been terrible,” I said.

She sobbed. I let her cry for a minute. The conversation in the room ceased.

“Areea, I’m sorry about this, I’m very sorry.”

“Alex, don’t,” Pat said, cautioning me about saying anything.

Areea put her arms out and I leaned in and hugged her. No, not blood. She smelled of shampoo and skin, she had been scrubbed raw. We held each other for a minute. Her wet hair dripped down my back. Pat began speaking to Simon again in low tones, Simon translating it for his dad in singsong Ethiopian.

“Areea, listen to me, listen to me, did you see anything?” I said. “Did you see who did this?”

Areea shook her head.

“Tell me, tell me what happened.”

Her mother gave her something to drink from an opaque glass. She swallowed it. She looked at me and tried to smile a little.

“John and I were in your bed,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “What happened?”

“We were sleeping, we were falling asleep.”

“And then?”

“There was a knock at the door. John thought it was you, he said: ‘Silly bugger’s dropped his keys.’”

I smiled at her.

“And then what, Areea?” I asked gently.

She grabbed my hand and held it tight. So tight that it hurt.

“John got up, he left the bedroom, he closed the bedroom door. He walked down the hall, he did not come back. I did not hear anything, at first. I wondered what was keeping him. I thought he was talking to you. I waited for five minutes. The fan was on in the bedroom, so I could not hear him and then I did.”

She burst into tears.

Pat came over, touched me on the shoulder.

“Alexander, you’re doing yourself no good here, I’m trying to get this organized, you’re dripping wet, you should go back upstairs,” he said, calm, sensible.

“In a minute, Pat, in a minute,” I said.

Pat gave me a significant look. He didn’t want me to say anything. He had made a story for Simon and he didn’t want me to mess it all up.

“I’ll go back in a minute, Pat,” I said.

Pat walked back over to Simon and began talking to him again, urgently, explaining something, telling them what happened and what they were going to have to do.

“Areea, tell me,” I said.

“John was at the bedroom door, he had crawled all the way from the hall, he was bleeding. He could not speak. He could not say anything. He was bleeding. The knife. Oh my good God. Oh my good God.”

She cried again. I let her. She shook.

“I am sorry, Alexander, I was so frightened. I was too frightened to leave the bedroom. I helped John inside. I held him. I was too frightened. I know I should have called the ambulance. John was dying. I was so frightened.”

“It’s ok, Areea, they couldn’t have helped him, the doctors couldn’t have helped him. He had lost so much blood, there was nothing any of us could have done.”

“No, no, no, it was wrong, I should have got Patrick and used his phone, I was so frightened, I am so sorry, I am so sorry,” Areea said.

“No, it’s ok,” I said.

Areea began digging her nails into my hand and then abruptly she let go and began digging her nails into her own face. She began screaming. Her mother tried to stop her, she was writhing on the sofa. Her mother and grandmother held her down. Pat practically lifted me to my feet.

“Alexander, can’t you see you’re making things worse here? Go upstairs, Jesus, look at you, there’s still blood in your hair, I told you to have two showers. Go, now.”

Areea was sobbing and I wanted to hold her and tell her it was ok. My fault, not hers. My fault. My stupidity that had got John killed. My carelessness. It was nothing to do with her. Pat frog-marched me to the front door of the apartment.

“Listen to me, Alexander, I am a sick man, but if I have to drag you up five fucking flights I will, now get the fuck out of here,” he seethed at me, furious.

I went upstairs, took Pat’s advice, had another shower. The hot water was gone. It was cold. I relished the pain of the freezing water. Pat was nowhere to be seen. I put on a pair of his jeans and a T-shirt. They were too big for Pat now and too big for me. I walked out into the hall to see what was happening.

Pat, two of Areea’s brothers, and her dad, carrying John’s body, wrapped in sheets out of the apartment.

“Alex, get out of here,” Pat said.

“What are you doing, Pat?” I said, panicked, frightened, protective of poor John.

“Alex, leave this to us, fuck off,” Pat said.

“No, Pat, what are you doing? The police,” I said weakly.

“Hold on, boys,” Pat said. He took me by the arm and led me back to his place.

“Listen, Alex,” Pat whispered, “I told them John had been murdered by a burglar, ok? Crackhead, looking for dough, ok? I told them Areea would have to tell the police what she knew, that she would get arrested, that they all would get arrested, deported. That they have to help if they don’t want to go back to fucking Ethiopia.”

“What the hell are you doing, Pat? What are you doing with John?”

“We’re going to take John to the big trash Dumpster from that building renovation on Fourteenth. Throw him in, cover him up with garbage bags, timbers. They empty that thing every Friday, take it right out there to the landfill in Aurora. With any luck, he’ll never be found.”

“Fucking hell, Pat, there must be some other way.”

“No other way, Alex. We can’t get the cops. You’ll be questioned, arrested, I promise you, I know the system. Areea will be questioned, arrested, they’ll deport her and her family, you’ll get done for homicide, I’ll get fucking evicted. It’s the only way.”

“I don’t know, Pat,” I said.

“Did you drink that gin?”

“No.”

“Go do it now, go do it.”

I found the Bombay Sapphire bottle, poured myself a half a glass of gin. Pat left. I poured myself another glass, resisted the temptation to let ketch take over and sort this one out by itself.

When I stepped outside the apartment, the Ethiopians and Pat had John in the corridor and were maneuvering him down the stairs. He was wrapped like a mummy, in five or six sheets and blankets. No blood was soaking through, which wasn’t surprising considering how much he’d bled in the apartment.

“John, oh God, I’m so sorry,” I found myself saying.

“Alex, if you’re going to help, you got to pull yourself together,” Pat said.

I walked down the hall. Of the Ethiopians only Simon spoke good English. The father said something to me and Simon translated.

“A bad business,” he said, as if discussing a fall in the stock market or a war in a far-off country.

“Yes.”

“Just like with O. J. Simpson’s wife,” he said.

I glared at him. Clenched a fist. Pat put his hand on my shoulder.

The two big Ethiopian boys looked at me with expressionless faces. Maybe they thought I had killed him, or Areea had killed him in an argument. Anything…

“Alex, if you want to help, take the front, my place, and I’ll direct traffic,” Pat said.

I took Pat’s place at the front of the body. John was well wrapped in blankets, but I could feel his legs.

We walked him down the five flights. There were four of us. Surprisingly easy. Too easy, it should have hurt more. We paused in the lobby.

“I’ll check the street,” Pat said. He went out onto Colfax.

“We have to hug the shadows and get quickly around the back of the building. We’ll be exposed in the street for about thirty seconds,” Pat said.

I had no idea of the time but one thing was for sure, there wouldn’t be many random cop cars going by. Cops seldom came around here, almost never at night. Still, a taxi or bus driver might alert the authorities.

“It’s all clear,” Pat said.

We carried John outside and walked with him around the building to what Pat had called a Dumpster. We froze as a car drove past on Colfax, but it didn’t stop. Simon muttered something to his brother. I hoped they weren’t going to leg it, leave us with the body.

We heaved John into the skip and Pat told Simon to lift his brother in there so he could cover the body with debris. Matthew, the older boy, climbed up the side of the skip and lowered himself in, and spent a few minutes covering John with garbage bags, bits of wood and debris from the building. We stood there, looking foolish, feeling guilty. Matthew climbed out and gave us the thumbs-up.

We walked back to the apartment building.

“I have to see Areea,” I said.

“In the morning,” Pat said.

“I have to speak to her tonight,” I insisted. “It must have been terrible, I want to speak to her. While it’s fresh.”

“In the morning,” Pat said again.

Pat was a mess. Unemployed and unloved and abandoned by his friends and dying of AIDS, but at this moment his head was clearer and he was made of sterner stuff than me. I bowed to his common sense.

“Of course,” I said.

All of us walked up the five flights. The Ethiopians went into my apartment.

“I’ve told Mr. Uleyawa that they’re going to spend as long as it takes cleaning up the blood, not that you’ll be staying there anymore, not that anyone will be staying there anymore. But just to be on the safe side,” Pat said.

“Why won’t I be staying there?” I asked.

“They know where you live, asshole. You’ll be staying with me tonight, out first thing in the morning,” Pat said. “I have a place in Fort Morgan, it’s a one-room, it’s full of my old shit, but you’ll be safer there. Get you on the first bus.”

“Gotta thank the Ethiopians,” I said.

“No, don’t say too much, they think we’re doing it for Areea, we’re covering up for her, for all of them, don’t disavow them of that notion, we don’t want them talking. Ok?”

We went to Pat’s. He poured me a large whisky but I didn’t drink it.

“She told him, Pat,” I said. “She told him, Pat, she didn’t have any qualms, I mistook her, I didn’t see it, Jesus, she must have told him, too much of a coincidence. I don’t know what I said. I said something, I fucked up, I killed him.”

Pat put his fingers on my lips, showed me to his bed. I was too exhausted to protest. I boiled some ketch, injected it, crawled into his bed, and stared out the window at the sky over the park, stared all night until the black slowly evaporated and the stars went out and the ugly gray dawn stretched its tentacles across the sky….

* * *

The bus to Fort Morgan left at ten. It was nine-thirty, but I had to see Areea before I left. Pat was opposed.

“No time,” he said, helping me on with my rucksack.

Downstairs. A knock. Her mother led her out. She’d been crying all night. She looked terrible. Where the blood had been, her hands and arms scrubbed raw.

“Areea, listen to me, I need you to understand that it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done, you understand that, don’t you?” I said.

Areea didn’t say anything. She stared at me. She opened her mouth but then closed it; her expression spoke volumes. She, for one, did not believe Pat’s story about a burglar. In the night she had absolved herself of blame. She had placed it where it belonged. On my shoulders. Areea’s cold intelligence had seen through everything, cut to the quick of things. She looked at me for a hard minute. Her eyes burned. I let her go. Backed away. Closed the door. So there I was, indicted. Given a responsibility I wasn’t sure I would be able to fulfill.

In any case, I had to leave.

The bus station. A scout around for cops. None.

The bus.

Denver slipping behind me, with all the farce and horror and catastrophe; desiccated sunflowers on the plain, drying prairie, the South Platte River. I slept.

“Fort Morgan, Colorado,” the driver said.

I got out.

The I-76, the river, a sugar factory, and unemployment were the salient features of Fort Morgan. Too far to commute to Denver, too close to the city for a thriving motel strip or highway spill-off trade. It had nothing much going for it. No mountains, no scenic beauty. Drugstores, diners, a couple of bars, depressed-looking, prematurely aged farmer types.

Pat’s apartment was in an old redbrick building next to a large graveyard that ran beside the highway and the river beyond. One room. A dirty window, a working phone, a sink, a hotplate, a mattress on the floor, and everywhere a whole shitload of gear Pat had stolen from the Denver Fire Department. The guy had lifted everything: a uniform, a first-aid kit, two fire extinguishers, six pairs of fire-retardant gloves, a respirator, smoke bombs, burn cream, boots, and the pièce de résistance: a Kevlar vest that the firefighters wore when putting out fires in riot areas. Some handy stuff there for the motivated individual.