“Shit,” she mumbled, blinking her eyes as if to clear away stars. She touched the back of her head. “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” She glanced at me. “Men?”
“What’s wrong?” Kirk angrily fumbled with the zip on our pants. “What’s wrong is you were coming onto my brother!”
I moved to help him with the zip, but he slapped away my hand. I’d seen him angry like this before. His jealousy had gotten worse as the years progressed, so that lately, it was harder and harder to talk him down. Still, I tried. “Kirk, she wasn’t doing anything. I was just watching the movie. I didn’t even—”
“The hell you didn’t.” He gave up on the zipper and jammed his finger in the girl’s face. “You were rubbing his nipple. Don’t lie to me.”
“Kirk—” Again I tried to intervene, but he showed me the back of his hand to shut me up.
“Admit it!” he screamed at the woman. “You were thinking about him while you were screwing me.”
Her only answer was a confused stare.
“Admit it!” he repeated. I felt a tug as we got down on our knees. His fury burned like a flame next to me. Before I could stop him, he wrapped his hand around the woman’s face and shoved her back against the door. “I knew you were a whore when I saw you.”
“Of course I’m a whore.” She touched her fingers to her face. I could see a bruise coming up. She rubbed it like she could make it go away. “Why else would I be out here in your stupid van if it wasn’t for money?”
“Get out of here.” Kirk dug into his pocket for the key fob. It dropped onto the floor. The keys made a soft jangling sound as they hit the carpet. “Just get the hell out.”
“You’re an asshole!”
Kirk was never good at repartee. “You’re what comes out of one.”
Her lips snarled in disgust. “If my brother wasn’t in prison, he’d kick your ass all over this parking lot.”
“Tell me where he is and I’ll go kick it for him!”
She rolled her eyes, then for some reason looked at me. “Sorry.”
“Don’t you apologize to him!” Kirk screamed. “Just get out of here, you filthy whore!”
She told me, “You seem like a nice guy.”
“Thank you,” I managed, but no good deed goes unpunished. Kirk jerked his shoulder in one of his whiplash shrugs that sent my head careening into the back of the front seat.
“God, you’re an asshole.” She grabbed the door handle, but nothing happened. “Unlock the door, you freak.”
“Just get the hell out of my van!”
“I’m trying to, you freak.”
“Stop calling me a freak!” Kirk screamed. I felt a trill run through our body that brought a cold sweat onto my neck and shoulders. Our heart shook as if electrified. I’d seen anger before. I’d seen fury. But this was different.
“Kirk,” I begged, my throat tightening around the word. It was too late. His fisted hand went up into an arc over his head, and then—carnage.
CHAPTER TWO
I looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was 5:58 in the morning. Kirk’s CPAP machine made a noise like a ventilator as he slept soundly beside me. I had my Bible open by my head, but the words kept blurring.
A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is no friend who sticks closer than a brother.
I looked at my brother. Kirk snored softly. The breathing hose wrapped around his face resembled a plastic octopus. Whoever said that bad deeds keep you up at night had never met Kirk. He was sleeping like a baby. The sleep of the guiltless. The sleep of the content.
Mindy Connor. That was her name. We found her license in her wallet, which was inside her purse, which we only noticed when we were taking out the seats of the Town and Country so we could peel back the carpet and hose everything down.
The alarm clock changed to 5:59, then 6:00, which sent it into a shrill beeping. Kirk reached over me and groped for the snooze button, but I pushed away his hand.
“Wha—?” His voice was muffled by the breathing mask. My expression was enough to cut off any comment. He took off the mask, and together, we sat up.
I followed him into the bathroom, where he emptied our bladder. Silently, we brushed our teeth. He didn’t complain when I flossed, even did his own teeth for a change. I felt like I was in a daze as we went through our usual morning routine: breakfast, coffee, shower, shave. Kirk took longer on his hair than usual, but I didn’t care. I suppose he thought he was being generous when he gave me extra time to empty our bowels. Instead of tapping his foot and repeatedly clearing his throat, he sat silently, waiting. I turned my head away, staring out the bathroom window at the dogwood trees in the yard. Kirk hated gardening. The pansies and gardenias were all done on my days. The rose bushes. The peach tree. All me. All lost the moment they found out about last night.
That poor woman. That poor, poor woman.
“Red?” Kirk asked. He was standing in front of our tie rack. We always wore matching ties. It was my one concession to fashion.
I shrugged.
He gave a heavy sigh. “Wayne, there’s nothing we can do about it now. What’s done is done.”
“I notice you didn’t turn on the television.”
“I was trying not to freak you out.”
“Freak,” I said. Not meaning him, just saying the word.
Kirk’s throat bobbed, but that was his only acknowledgment. I stared at him in the mirror as he looped the red silk tie around his neck. I had a flash of last night: the blood, the screaming, the horror.
What hath thou wrought?
Not the Bible, but John Greenleaf Whittier. I wonder if they let you read poetry in prison.
“Wayne?” Kirk’s tone implied a strained patience.
My hand went up to pull the Windsor knot tight to his throat. He did the same for me, then clipped the tie to my part of our shirt so that it wouldn’t flop down like a hangman’s noose.
Kirk said, “We’re not going to hang for this.”
I chewed my lip. “The manhunt shouldn’t take long. ‘Last seen with conjoined twins.’ That’s a long list of suspects. They’re probably already preparing the search warrant.”
“Stop it, Wayne. What do you want to do—call the police, tell them to come get me?”
“That’s exactly what we should do.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
I glared at him. He glared back.
I’d never won a staring contest with Kirk in my life. I looked back at the yard, the trees blurring. I cleared my throat. “What you did was wrong.”
“What about what was done to me? You think I like living this way?” His voice caught. “I woulda been married by now. I woulda had kids. I’d probably be running IBM or something.”
I hated when he talked like this. It broke my heart because I knew that I was the only thing that stood in his way.
But still, what he’d done last night couldn’t be excused. You couldn’t take someone else’s life to pay for your own.
I said, “They’ll go easier on you if you turn yourself in.”