Delirious (17 page)

Gomes’s thick arms and strong hands reached through the broken glass of the driver’s side door and clawed at Charlie’s face, leaving large red streaks that burned down one side of his cheek. Charlie cut the wheel hard the other way and jammed the car into drive, reaching across the seat to close the passenger door as well. The car jumped off the curb, rolled back onto the street, sending Gomes sprawling backward, away from the vehicle as it took off.

From the rearview mirror Charlie could see Gomes getting to his feet. His head was thrown back, as if he were having the biggest laugh of his life. Hopefully it wouldn’t be his last, Charlie thought as he slipped out of sight. Although if Gomes were to meet an untimely end, Charlie wasn’t sure he’d care much anymore.

Soon after he pulled away, the BMW’s InVision system came to life. The sweet, calming voice of the computer wafted through the speakers. It settled Charlie’s jostled nerves.

“Hello, Charlie,” InVision said. “Where would you like to go?”

“Home,” Charlie said. “I just want to go home.” “To home,” InVision repeated. “No,” Charlie said. “Waltham. Home in Waltham.” “Home in Waltham. Enjoy the trip.”

Compared to that experience,
he thought,
anything would be enjoyable.

M
onte must have heard keys rattling and let out a delighted yip the moment Charlie entered through the back door. He saw Joe standing in front of the hall mirror, buttoning the last button on his blue-collared security guard work shirt. Joe waved at Charlie’s reflection as he approached.

“What happened to you?” Joe asked. He pointed to the large red scrapes running nearly the full length of Charlie’s cheek.

“Cat attack,” Charlie said, scooping Monte up in his arms and carrying him past Joe and into the living room. He fell onto the sofa, letting out a grunt. Monte rolled onto his back, legs pawing at the air, hoping to entice Charlie into a little roughhouse, or at least a good tummy rub.

Joe clasped his Hanover Security badge around his neck and made no further attempt to speak with Charlie. Charlie knew his brother. If Joe was being quiet, it was because he was still raw about their fight last night. Otherwise, he’d be talking up a storm. As drained as he was, Charlie was thankful for the moment’s peace.

“I’ll be home after nine,” Joe said. “Shift ends at seven, and I want to go back to the hospital and sit with Mom. I’ll try to stay quiet,” he added.

“That’s fine. Do what you have to. Don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” Joe said under his breath.

The brothers had worked out a schedule so that their mother was rarely without company. Joe had been with her most of the morning, and it didn’t surprise Charlie that he was going back for a couple
hours after his shift. Charlie had even set up a wireless hub in her private hospital room but still couldn’t muster the focus and energy needed to start the job search in earnest. What he liked best, despite his loathing for hospitals, was to sit by her bedside and read aloud to her. His mother had once lamented not having time to go back and read the classics she loved as a young girl—Jane Austen and Dickens especially. He was about midway through
A Christmas Carol
and thoroughly enjoying it. Perhaps she was, too, but he couldn’t tell. Her face was still and without expression; her body a statue. He wanted to believe that reading to her helped, but even if it didn’t, at least it made him feel useful. And that was a rare feeling of late.

“So, you’re coming Saturday, right?”

“Excuse me?” Charlie said.

“To Walderman. You’re coming, right? Mom always comes. You know this is a pretty significant checkpoint for me. I’m getting my three-year progress report and feedback on how I’ve been doing with my work assignment.”

Charlie wasn’t thinking about Walderman or Joe’s checkpoint. His mind was on Rudy Gomes and the kill list.

“I don’t know. Why do you need me there?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Let me think….” Joe let his voice trail off. He began rubbing at his chin as if deep in thought. It was a precursor to a particular brand of sarcasm that Charlie knew all too well, for he used it himself.

Brothers will be brothers
.

Joe’s fingers kept rubbing at his chin as he spoke. “Let’s see … Well, you are family. The only family I have right now. And I guess support is a good thing. Yeah, I think it is. And you know, you could be … I don’t know … supportive, and be there for me when Mom can’t. Doesn’t that seem like a good use of your time?”

Charlie scratched at the scruff of his beard. Every joint in his body ached. It was still amazing to him how quickly he had let himself go. He was no longer the lean, fit corporate executive he had been just weeks before. He was now nothing more than a vagabond; an unshaven, out-of-shape, jobless wretch who thoroughly disgusted himself.

“I don’t know, Joe,” was all he could manage to say.

“Thanks, Charlie. That really means a lot to me. I’ll make sure to slam the door hard when I get home.”

Charlie lay on the sofa but was unable to sleep. Monte curled himself into a tight ball against Charlie’s side. Minutes later, after Monte stopped squirming and found his spot, he began to snore.

What if it is me?
Charlie thought.
Like a night stalker, a sleepwalker.
Charlie remembered a movie he’d seen back in his MIT days. It was a German expressionist film titled
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Cesare, the somnambulist, was compelled by the evil Dr. Caligari to commit murder without any self-awareness. Charlie’s mind traveled down that winding road, in search of possibilities, explanations, anything. He headed deeper and deeper into that abyss, until finally, somewhere lost in that darkness, he found sleep.

Charlie didn’t wake until nearly ten o’clock the next morning. Light flooded the living room, rousing him from a night filled with horrifying dreams. Only flashes of those nightmares remained.

Rubbing his temples, he tried to force himself awake, then rose slowly and creakily from the lumpy sofa. His cheek was throbbing and raw from where it had been scratched the night before. He groaned.

“You finally up?”

Charlie heard Joe call to him from the kitchen. It was then he noticed the warming aroma of bacon and the earthy, aromatic smell of fresh brewed coffee. Charlie entered the kitchen and saw eggs were scrambled in the pan.

“You’re making breakfast?” Charlie said.

Joe looked back at his sleep-eyed brother equally quizzically.

“Of course I am,” Joe said. “You asked me to.”

“I did?” Charlie asked.

“Sure. You left me a note,” Joe said, waving a piece of paper in front of his face.

Charlie’s eyes widened, and he lunged for the paper, ripping it out of Joe’s hand, tearing one of the corners in the process.

“Hey! Easy does it,” Joe said. “Breakfast will be ready in a minute.”

Charlie read the note. It was definitely his handwriting. Pen written on lined paper.

Joe,

I’m sorry about our fight. Let’s start again. How about you make breakfast, eggs, bacon, and coffee, and I’ll buy lunch? Deal? Count on me for Saturday at Walderman, too. I’m really proud of you, Joe.

Charlie

Charlie gasped, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Where did you find this?” he asked.

“It was on the kitchen table,” Joe said.

Charlie’s heart began to race. Same as it had when he’d found the kill list and all the other notes he had no memory of writing. A terrifying thought occurred to him.

“Joe, were there any other notes?” Charlie asked. His voice was low, as if he were asking his brother to reveal a secret.

“Yeah. One. But I didn’t know what to make of it.”

“Give it to me,” Charlie said.

Joe slid another piece of paper on the kitchen counter over to Charlie. Charlie could tell without even reading it that the note was scribbled in his handwriting. He read the single line, and his blood turned ice cold.

One down. Three to go.

“God help me,” Charlie said.

C
harlie swerved his BMW in and out of traffic down Massachusetts Avenue. Wind and cold air blew in through the broken driver’s side window and whipped at his face. It was a stinging reminder of the unraveling of his life. He nearly ran a stoplight at the intersection of Mass Ave and Route 16, his concentration less on driving and more on what might have happened to Rudy Gomes.

Joe had been upset at Charlie’s departure. Charlie felt guilty about leaving him in such a rush. But how could he have made Joe understand why he had asked him to cook breakfast but wasn’t going to stay to eat it? It was a no-win situation. Charlie didn’t have the time or the answers.

“Turn right in two hundred feet,” InVision said.

Charlie waited for InVision’s navigation cues as a matter of habit, even though he could have driven the route unassisted. He pulled in front of Gomes’s house, in the exact spot where he had parked the night before. As Charlie exited the car, his feet crunched on shards of broken glass, which he assumed were remnants of his shattered window. The house was peaceful. The street was quiet. Charlie’s heart sank when he looked in the driveway and saw only one car parked. It was Gomes’s.

He walked up the wooden stairs to the front entrance and peered into the only window that was not obscured by a curtain. He couldn’t see anything inside. Knowing Rudy lived on the first floor, Charlie walked over to the left-most door of the two-family home and reached for the doorknob.

Then he froze. Pulling down the sleeve of his jacket, Charlie created
a crude, makeshift glove, surprising himself. He was already assuming guilt for something that he wasn’t even sure had happened.
It’s just a precaution
.

The doorknob turned with ease, and the latch clicked open.
Unlocked,
Charlie thought. He slipped off his shoes.

“Rudy?” Charlie called. “Are you here?”

There was no response.

The apartment was dark and drab, similar in layout to an apartment he had lived in with his mother and father in Belmont. To his right was an archway leading into the living room. Peeking inside, Charlie saw no signs of Gomes. Only a brown leather chair, a ratty yellow sofa, and a forty-five-inch plasma T V. In front of him was a short hallway leading to the master bedroom. There was a door halfway down, which Charlie assumed opened to a bathroom. He stood outside the door and heard the rushing of water from what sounded like the shower.

Using his jacket sleeve to conceal his fingerprints again, Charlie slowly turned the bathroom doorknob. The moment the door opened a crack, steam spilled out into the hallway. Charlie stood in the doorway and waited for the steam to dissipate. As the air cleared, he could see hot water spewing from the silver showerhead above a leopard-patterned shower curtain, which was pulled closed around a claw-foot tub. Water vapor that had condensed on the tile floor soaked the bottom of Charlie’s feet. Since he’d left his shoes outside, only his socks shielded him from the dampness.

“Rudy?” Charlie called out. “Are you in here?”

Instinct told Charlie that the only surprise would be if Rudy responded. Inching forward, Charlie reached for the shower curtain, ignoring the precautions he had taken earlier about his fingerprints. Pulling the curtain toward the wall, Charlie let out a loud gasp as he staggered backward.

Rudy Gomes lay dead in a pool of water. The water from the showerhead cascaded downward and pelted Gomes, turning the clear liquid into crimson drops as it mixed with his brownish blood. Gomes’s throat had been cut. Fatty tissue and frayed ligaments exploded outward from the dark, crescent-shaped gash. Had it been any deeper, Gomes would have been decapitated. Charlie quickly pulled the shower curtain closed.

As the blood rushed from Charlie’s head, his stomach churned and roiled inside. Falling to his knees, Charlie slid across the damp floor and vomited into the toilet, his body shuddering and convulsing with each gag and expulsion. The shower curtain covered most of Gomes’s corpse, but from his kneeling position on the bathroom floor Charlie could still see his legs and those cobalt blue feet sticking out at the end of the tub. He spent the better part of a minute on his knees, listening to the dreadful sound of water as it fell on a dead man.

After regaining enough strength, Charlie stood and stared down at Gomes’s lifeless body. The gaping wound was no less repulsive than when he’d first laid eyes upon it.

Backing out of the bathroom, Charlie was again mindful to keep his hands from touching any objects or walls. It was bad enough that he had grabbed the shower curtain with his bare hands. He hoped that the steam would act as some sort of a masking agent. A sickening thought then occurred to him.
What if I did kill him? Who knows what other evidence I might have left behind?
The idea that evidence pointing to him could be anywhere in the house was no less terrifying than the body in the tub.

Putting the thought aside, Charlie left the apartment and walked toward his car. His hands were shaking as he put the key in the ignition. His stomach hadn’t yet settled.

He took his time leaving, the cliché of trying to behave inconspicuously not lost on him. He searched for signs that somebody might have witnessed him entering Gomes’s apartment. A front door ajar. A light or TV on in a living room. The street was thankfully deserted. Every window he looked at was either dark or had the shades drawn. There were no pedestrians in sight or cars coming down the narrow street.

As he settled in his car, terrifying thoughts took hold and would not let go.

“I killed him. I must have killed him. But I don’t remember anything. Oh, God, please help me. Please …” Charlie muttered the words as if in a trance. The mantra lasted minutes before he realized he had to drive away from there as fast as he could. Nobody had seen him come out of Gomes’s apartment. It wouldn’t help if someone saw him loitering in his car outside the home of a murder victim. He
didn’t know where to go. He knew only that he had to distance himself from the crime scene.