Topping From Below (46 page)

He looks at the ceiling, slowly shaking his head. He continues, his voice even lower. “I don’t know what happened. It shouldn’t have killed her. The voltage was low; there weren’t any burn marks on her body. I just wanted to frighten her, that’s all; just shock her. I wanted to make her realize I wasn’t good for her. I wanted her to stop calling me, harassing me five, six, sometimes seven times a day.”

He is silent. So am I. The mystery is solved. Finally. M. killed her, and he did it with electricity. He says it was an accident, and for some reason, I believe he’s telling the truth. This information sinks in slowly. I feel as though I’m outside of my body, watching, listening from a distance. I hear his words, but I cannot respond.

He says, “So that’s how she died. Her heart just stopped beating. It happened so fast, in seconds, and I didn’t know what to do. I tried CPR, but I’d never done it before and I couldn’t revive her. I tore off the duct tape and breathed into her mouth. I pumped on her chest, trying to make her live. I worked on her for so long, half an hour, forty-five minutes, I don’t know. It seemed forever. Nothing worked. I suppose I knew she was dead after the first five minutes, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t let her die. I alternated breathing with pumping, breathing with pumping, over and over again.” M. speaks slowly. “Finally, when I did stop, I just rocked back on my heels and looked at her. I realized the enormity of what I had done. How could she have died? How did this happen? I never meant to kill her. It was an accident.”

He hesitates, then says, “I’ve done a lot of reading about electricity since then. The voltage interfered with the electrical impulses of her heart, causing her to go into cardiac arrest. She didn’t have heart problems, and the current was low. It was just a freak accident, and never should’ve happened. But it did … it did.”

He laughs nervously. He says, “Well, I knew how it looked. The police would never believe it was an accident; they would never believe Franny allowed the cutting, the electricity. I put the tape over her mouth once more, for the last time. The knife marks all over her body, the blood, the tape—it looked like premeditated murder, the work of a psycho, a random killing. That’s what I wanted the police to believe also, that a psycho had come through town.”

I still feel removed from M. and all he’s telling me. His words float across the room, their significance softened in the diffusive, candle-scented air. He almost committed the perfect murder, with an undetectable weapon. “How did you know the autopsy wouldn’t reveal the electricity?” I ask him.

“I didn’t. In fact, when the newspaper printed her cause of death as undetermined, I thought the police had pointedly withheld the information. I assumed you and the police knew how she died. I didn’t realize it was a mystery.”

He didn’t realize. The coroner was baffled, and M. didn’t even know he’d created a mystery. “You were very thorough,” I say, and the unruffled tone of my voice bothers me. All this time I’ve been obsessed with Franny’s murder, and now that I have the answers I’m unable to react. It’s as though the news of her accidental death is a letdown, anticlimactic to my mind’s imagining of her cold-blooded murder.

“The police found no fingerprints that belonged to you,” I say. “No hairs, no carpet fibers from your shoes. How did you manage that?”

“It was dumb luck, pure and simple. Just dumb luck. It was raining when I went over, a spring shower.” He laughs again, nervously. “More like an unseasonable thunderstorm. It was chilly, the rain gutters were overflowing. Before I left my home, I put on rain boots, raincoat, and a hat. The raincoat and boots I’d always kept in my garage so I wouldn’t drip water or mud inside the house; since I’d never worn the boots in my house, there weren’t any carpet fibers on them. And there were no fingerprints because I wore gloves the entire time. When I got to Franny’s, the first thing I did was exchange my wool gloves for rubber ones. Again, just dumb luck—worrying about leaving fingerprints hadn’t crossed my mind. Frequently, I’d wear latex gloves when I punished Franny. It was a psychological move, designed to frighten her, to get her to imagine the worst. But that day there was another reason. I knew if she didn’t back down, I’d be cutting her. I didn’t want to get bloody, so I wore the gloves.

“As for the lack of hair strands—I didn’t take off my coat or hat. I thought I was just going to be there for minutes. In and out, fast, just enough time to scare her. But afterward, just to make sure I didn’t leave any hair behind, I vacuumed the floor really well. Then I changed the vacuum cleaner bag and put it in my duffel bag. I took one last look around—everything seemed okay—then I looked at Franny. She was wearing Billy’s medical bracelet on her wrist. I don’t know why, but I unclasped it and put it in my pocket. When I got home, I took off all my clothes. I put everything in a bag—the clothes, scalpel, boots, gloves, shock box, the vacuum cleaner bag, everything except the duct tape and bracelet—and disposed of them. I buried the duct tape and medical bracelet in my backyard. I don’t know why I kept them—a reminder, I suppose, of what I’d done. The tape you found in my closet was a different roll. I kept a few other things of hers—the sweater, eyeglasses, the earrings, a few pictures, the video with Rameau—but stored them at my office when I began seeing you. At any rate, there was no evidence, nothing to tie me to Franny’s murder. I knew her diary mentioned me, and I considered taking the disks to her computer, but decided against it. Taking the disks would look too suspicious, especially if the police found extra copies of them hidden somewhere else in her apartment. A psycho killer wouldn’t stop to remove computer disks. Besides, there was nothing on them to convict me. All they proved is that I like rough sex. And that Franny acquiesced to it.”

Reflectively, he looks off into the distance, in the space beyond the door. Turning back to me, he says, “If it hadn’t rained that day, I would probably be in jail. I wouldn’t have worn my wool gloves when I arrived—my fingerprints would’ve been on the front door. It was the only thunderstorm that spring. The next day, the sky cleared and the sun came out.”

I nod, assimilating this information, still feeling detached. “What about the wood carving?” I ask him. “The one you said Ian gave Franny?”

“I bought it in a shop in Sonoma.” He attempts to shrug his shoulders, but his arms are stretched taut and the movement is slight. “I wanted you to feel comfortable with me, and it was easy to make Ian look guilty. Too easy. I hadn’t planned on that. It worked out nicely that he knew Franny. Once you suspected him, I appeared less guilty.”

“And Mark Kirn?”

I see the amusement in M.’s face. “You really should trust the police, Nora. Of course they had the right man. The evidence against him was conclusive.” He smirks. “But it was quite enjoyable to watch you run down to San Quentin.”

The room is warm from the burning candles; I feel it closing in on me. “You made the anonymous phone calls. And sent the letters and photos. You broke into my house at night while I was sleeping.”

M. nods.

“How did you get a key to my house?”

“That was easy—the same way I got Ian’s. I made a duplicate back in March, the day I drugged and wrapped you in Ace bandages.”

M. had a key to my house all along. I thought I was secure in my Torrey Street home, but that was only an illusion.

“And you were the one who almost ran me over at the grocery store.”

“No,” he says quickly. “I didn’t do that. It was probably just an accident, or a kid fooling around. I never tried to harm you. Never.” He smiles. “But it did come in handy.”

Suddenly tired, I push my hair back, then cover my face with my hands. I am horrified at what I have done to Ian.

M. says, “Nora, I never meant to kill her. It was a freak accident. It should’ve given her a jolt, a shock, not stop her heart from beating.”

I hear a sigh, not of regret but of impatience—as if now that he’s told me the truth, the incident is behind him and it’s time to move on. He continues.

“Well, you can understand why I didn’t call the police. They would’ve arrested me for sure—why should my life be destroyed by an accident?”

The reality of all he has told me finally sinks in. The distance closes; his words take back their edge. I remove my hands from my face. “You murdered Franny,” I say.

His face is placid, cold and unreadable. Evenly, he says, “I wouldn’t take that moral tone if I were you. A death is a death. Whether it’s an accidental death or an abortion, it amounts to the same thing.”

“No,” I say hotly. “It doesn’t amount to the same thing.”

M. continues, not acknowledging my objection. “You’ve taken a life; so have I. We’re both murderers, Nora. Only mine was unintentional, yours wasn’t. So you tell me—who is more at fault? Who has more guilt to bear? I don’t know. I feel remorse. I wish I could replay that day, but I can’t. It was an accident. And Franny was not without fault. She consented to the electricity; she played a part in her own death.”

I bristle at M.’s words. “You’re very good at twisting the truth,” I tell him. “You can rationalize all you want, you can say she participated in her own death, but it doesn’t change anything.” Like the candles’ scent wafting upward, my anger is rising. “You abused her, you cut her, you killed her—and you’ll pay for it.”

He smiles coldly. “Useless threats, Nora? The police can’t touch me, not even with this so-called confession. The only thing this video proves is that her death was an accident. There’s nothing you can do.”

I hear the taunt in M.’s voice, the jeering, the scorn. It infuriates me, makes me want to grab the belt and choke the derision out of him.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he repeats, the scorn still present.

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I say, edging closer to the bed, knowing I’m losing control. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison.”

“I won’t spend a day.”

My anger is hot, straining against the rein with which I’m holding it under control. “When the police arrive,” I say, my voice rising, almost shouting, “when they see you like this, stretched out on the bed, when they see both videos—maybe they’ll take their time arresting you.”

I grab the cat-o’-nine-tails from the wall, then return to M. “Maybe they’ll use one of these whips on you first,” I say, holding it up. “Or the cane. How would you like that? I’ll bet you’ve never felt pain, have you? You just like to inflict it.”

M. gives a curt laugh. “You look ridiculous,” he says.

I hear his words, so contemptuous. To him, this is just a game—and Franny’s death just an unfortunate incident. My arm trembles with a newfound, murderous rage. I bring the whip down, hard, and it lands across his groin and thighs with a loud, stinging slap. A red mark instantly appears. M. groans and brings his legs up, trying to protect his genitals. He glares at me, his eyes dark with fury.

“You don’t like that, do you?” I say, taunting him now. I drop the whip and get the bamboo cane. I strike him again, with all my force, leaving a tattoo of a long red welt down the length of his right thigh. He grimaces in pain but doesn’t call out. Then something happens inside me, something savage and atavistic. I enjoy the pain on his face. I want to see more. I want him to scream in agony just as Franny had. I hit him again and again, each crack of the cane fueling my anger. M. thrashes on the bed, kicking, but he can’t avoid my aim. The cane opens his flesh; thin lines of blood appear. I step forward and bring down the cane once more, realizing, too late, that I’m too close to the bed. M. lashes out with his leg, striking me in the thigh. I jump back, crashing into the cardboard boxes, and several topple over. I glare at M., my heart racing.

He stares at me coldly, his face rigid with indignity and contempt, his body marked with welts and blood. My chest heaves; my body shudders. I do not know who that person was—that person striking out in an uncontrolled fury, with no thought but the destruction of another human being. I shake my head in disgust, with myself and with M., then drop the cane. “I’m going to call the police,” I say, walking to the door.

“Go ahead,” M. says, breathing hard, his voice pained. “I’m in handcuffs without my consent. You’ll be the one who goes to prison.”

I walk out of the room and down the hallway. I hear M. calling me back, but, ignoring him, I go into the master bedroom. I pick up the phone, then hesitate. M. is still yelling, saying the room is on fire. At first I think this is a ruse so I won’t call the police, but I replace the receiver anyway and walk slowly down the hallway. Then, several feet from the room, I smell smoke. I rush inside.

In the corner, next to the bed, the boxes are burning.

“The candles,” M. says when he sees me, trying to act calm now, his body still covered with blood. “The boxes caught on fire when you knocked them over.” I remember placing several candles on the boxes earlier today when I was setting up the room. The fire is still small, not larger than a campfire.

I glance quickly around the room, looking for a blanket to smother the flames. Once, after M. whipped me, I got a chill and he covered me with a pale green comforter. “Where do you keep the blanket?” I say, yanking out all the dresser drawers.

“Unlock me, Nora,” M. says. I hear the restrained panic in his voice. “Forget the blanket. Unlock me!”

The drawers crash to the floor as I pull them out of the dresser. I don’t find a blanket, or anything else heavy enough to beat out the flames. I rush over to M., to remove the handcuffs, then stop. The key was on the table next to the bed, and the table is still lying on its side, everything in and on it—including the key to the handcuffs—scattered all over the floor. I don’t see the key anywhere.

“Unlock me!”

“I have to find the key.” I drop to my knees and search for it. “It was on the table,” I say. I shove aside the box of condoms and wineglass and tubes of lubricant. It’s not here. I turn the table over, but I still can’t find the key. I look under the bed and see the blanket, folded, in a corner. I search for the key.

“Nora!”

I look up. The fire is much higher, closer to the foot of the bed. I grab the blanket and start beating on the flames. Smoke billows upward. Sparks fly out, igniting the curtain hem; the flames spread quickly over the material and race to the ceiling. The room is sweltering, the fire a hot, consuming blaze, growing larger, more intense, more deadly. The blanket isn’t doing any good. I stand back, glance at M., and see his fear-stricken face.