Trust No One (19 page)

“Okay,” she says, and then she pulls out of the flow of traffic to the side of the road to a stop. “Let me call your lawyer first. I want to clear it by him, and I want to make sure I’m not doing anything illegal.”

“I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Jerry. There may not be anybody home, and even if there is we don’t know they’re going to let us in, and even then the journal may not be there.”

“I know. I know.”

“And if we do find it, the police will want it. They may consider it as evidence. They may not give it back to you.”

“I just need to read it. That’s all.”

“Are you sure about this? I mean really sure?”

“I’m sure,” he says. Then adds, “I’ll be okay.”

“This is the house where Sandra died, Jerry, and you may be about to read your own account of being her killer. I’m going to call Eric to come and help us because I think there’s a very good chance that
okay
may be the last thing you’re going to be.”

They’re installing alarms, Future Jerry. Can you believe that? Jesus, next thing they’ll get a giant cat door just for you and you’ll have to . . . wait, message from Henry . . . what’s that Henry? Oh, that wouldn’t be called a
cat
door, it would be called a
door.
Then you’ll have to wear a goddamn magnetic collar to make sure the other dementia granddads on the street don’t wander in and raid the fridge and shit on the carpet and chew up the arms of the lounge set.

It was actually What’s Her Name’s idea, the counselor with the big boobs. Sandra rang her this morning and told her you’d gone a-wandering, which was something the counselor said was likely to happen. There’s a guy coming around tomorrow to work on the place. Alarms on all the doors that lead in and out of the house, including the garage door. No alarms on the windows, because if you’re sane enough to try and escape through the windows as to not trigger an alarm, then you’re sane. The alarms are for when Captain A is driving this train wreck. You wandered off ONCE and instead of being sympathetic, Sandra is putting in the boot. Christ, she has NO IDEA how this feels. She isn’t THE ONE who is suffering, she isn’t THE ONE who is losing her mind. If you can find your car keys, maybe you can buy a tent and drive to the beach and toast some marshmallows and leave your
Let’s control Jerry
wife here to do whatever the hell she wants for a few days.

The wedding is now less than three weeks away. You’re too scared to look at your credit card bill—which, by the way, you don’t get to see anymore. All those things arrive online now, and you can’t access any of it because you can’t remember the access number or the password, though, to be honest here, Future Jerry, at this stage in the game you’re thinking you can remember them and that Sandra has changed them. She wants you to ask her what they are just so she can tell you they’re the same as they’ve always been, but you won’t give her the satisfaction.

You spoke to Hans today. He came around to see you. Unlike Sandra,
he
is on your side. He has no idea how it feels, but at least he’s sympathetic to the cause. He showed you the new tattoo around the base of his neck, just below the collar line so he had to pull his T-shirt down a little, and there in finger-sized lettering were the words
The Cutting Man.

It’s because I love your books, man,
he said.
I’m so proud of you.

You told him about the alarms and the wandering, and the accusation your neighbor made.

Must be bloody frustrating, mate,
he said, and he’s the only one of your friends to call you
mate
because you actually hate the term, but Hans does it because it’s a Hans thing to do.
Sounds like that lady across the road is crazy.

Barking mad. She’s more demented than I am.

What time are you being neutered?

First thing in the morning. Then I can’t open a door without Sandra knowing.

And the police, do they think you spray-painted her house?

Probably.

And how
’s the wedding coming along?

It must be the social event of the year the way Sandra and Eva are racing around. Tomorrow evening we have to head to a restaurant to sample some desserts, and I have to go with them so I don’t run away.

Sounds fun.

Only it won’t be fun. You’re going to stand there like an idiot, trying foods, being asked what you think is best, then having whatever opinion you do have overruled by one of the girls.
Jerry likes the chocolate? Oh, sorry, Jerry, but everybody else coming to the wedding prefers vanilla.

Sandra asked what to do about Mrs. Smith. You made the joke about hiring a hit man, but she didn’t laugh. Perhaps it really is no laughing matter, but maybe where you are in the future, Jerry, perhaps you can look back and get a chuckle from the whole thing. Sandra has the idea of leaving an envelope full of cash on Mrs. Smith’s doorstep, enough to cover the costs of painting. You don’t like the idea of paying for something you didn’t do, and you’re going to need that money if things get worse and you have to get home care. You pointed out to Sandra that Mrs. Smith was going to know where it came from—after all, who else would feel guilty enough to pay?

Hopefully this is as bad as it’s going to get. You have reached the final stage of grief, it seems. Sandra said it the other night when she said things are progressing. Now it’s just a matter of preparing for how bad it’s going to be. And how quickly it’s going to get there. You’ve reached stage one of stage five—you’ve accepted you’re losing control, but wandering off once in a while isn’t the end of the world, and who cares if you forgot the plate?

Ah hell, you’ve probably forgotten all about the plate. You got hungry this afternoon and heated up a tin of spaghetti. It’s not rocket science—use a can opener, pour the contents into a bowl, nuke the bowl in the microwave for two minutes. It’s not like you’re going to burn the house down. You were halfway through eating when Sandra got home from work, came in, and noticed there was no plate. That’s right, Future Jerry, you’d dished the spaghetti straight onto the table. Even when Sandra pointed it out it took a few seconds to register that there actually
was
no plate.

That was the moment you accepted your fate, that there was no way of shaking Captain A free, that he was going to ride you to the grave.

Sadly, Jerry, it’s time to accept that this is happening. It’s happening quickly too. You’ll be okay for the wedding—that’s what you’ve told everybody, and you will be, you have to be, but Christmas isn’t looking good. Look on the bright side—at least this year you can’t get in trouble for buying the wrong gifts.

Good news. It was really good to talk to Hans again. The wedding plans are coming along nicely and you’ve never seen Eva so happy. Her smile these days is almost enough to make you cry because you’re going to miss it like hell. She looks so much like Sandra back when Sandra was twenty-five. It’s spooky. “The Broken Man,” the song Eva wrote, is now being played on the radio, and debuted at number twelve. You preferred it when she sang it, but even so, it’s such a huge thrill. She has now sold a second song, and says an offer has been made for a third.

Tomorrow night we’re sampling some desserts for the wedding, and while we’re doing that, Sandra’s sister is going to be letting people into your house for Sandra’s surprise birthday. It should be fun.

Bad news—there are fork marks in the table from where you swirled and scooped the spaghetti. A year ago if the table had been marked by accident, Sandra would have suggested getting a new one. But not now, which can only mean she’s having an affair. It’s pretty obvious when you know how to connect the dots, which you’re an expert at. Soon she will try and talk you into a care facility. Then she can pick out a new table without you. She can walk hand in hand with her replacement of you into different department stores and they can spend your money together. The table is proof she’s already moving on, and at least now you know why she changed your pin number for the online banking and has torn pages from your journal. She doesn’t want you to spend what is now their money, and you must have figured this out earlier and written about it, and she found out and tore out the evidence.

It also explains why she has been spending so much time away from home over the last few weeks. You don’t want her to know you’ve figured it out, so mum’s the word, Future Jerry. The under-the-couch hiding spot was a pretty stupid place to try and hide the journal. Just goes to show the disease is affecting you more than you’d thought. Time to hide it with the writing backups. You know where that is.

Nurse Hamilton calls the lawyer, whose name Jerry knew half an hour ago but can’t remember now. This Swiss cheese of a memory reveals some things and hides others. He listens to the phone call, but only gets one end of it; when she hangs up she fills in the blanks.

“The diary would be considered evidence, especially if it shows a clear intent to shoot Sandra. Your lawyer says we need to be careful,” she says. “However, he also said that since it’s your personal diary, you have every right to take a look at it. Then he wished us the best of luck and to keep him updated.”

“It’s not a diary,” Jerry says. “It’s a journal.”

She calls Eric next and instructs him to meet them at the house. It’s a short conversation, and Nurse Hamilton nods occasionally during it. When there’s a break in traffic, she turns the car. They drive in silence, and the closer they get to his house the more things begin to become familiar. He can’t remember the last time he was here, and with that thought comes the dark little add-on that the last time he was here would have been when he killed Sandra. Which he believes is still up for debate. Hopefully the journal will give them some answers.

They park outside. Nurse Hamilton puts her hand on his arm to stop him from climbing out. “Let’s wait for Eric. He won’t be long.”

“We can’t wait,” he tells her. “I have to know. I
have
to know.”

“Just a few more minutes.”

He feels like opening the door and making a run for the house, but instead he agrees to wait. To distract himself, he tells her about the house, how he found it all those years ago, how he was driving with Sandra to meet a different real estate agent at a different house when they drove past this one with an
Open House
sign out front, the details as clear in his head as if it were yesterday, making his frustration at forgetting more recent things that much greater. They knew as soon as they walked inside the house they could see themselves living their lives out there.

In a way, they both did
, Jerry thinks.

A woman dressed in a light blue dress with matching shoes approaches from across the street, walking apace, suggesting her message to them needs to be delivered urgently. Jerry recognizes her.

“What is
he
doing here?” Mrs. Smith asks, and the
he
makes Jerry sound like he didn’t just shoot his wife, but ate her too.

“And you are?” Nurse Hamilton asks.

“I am the neighbor that . . . that
murderer
was harassing before he shot his wife. For all I know I was his intended victim. I’m lucky to be alive,” she says, then pauses for a few seconds to let the enormity of that situation sink in. “I’ve called the police. They’re on their way.”

“Perhaps you should wait inside for them,” Nurse Hamilton says.

“I have every right to stand in my street,” Mrs. Smith says, “he should be back in the nuthouse he got sentenced to.”

“There’s no need for talk like that,” Nurse Hamilton says. “Please, I really think it best you wait inside rather than upset Jerry.”

“Why you would have a cold-blooded killer in your car? I—”

“Thanks for your time,” Nurse Hamilton says, and she winds the window back up.

Mrs. Smith’s mouth forms an
O
shape, which then becomes a
well I never
look. She turns and heads up her driveway but doesn’t go inside. She stands by her front door and watches, glancing at her watch every few seconds.

“We should go,” Nurse Hamilton says. “We can always come back.”

“But we won’t come back, will we?”

Before she can answer, Jerry opens the door, and when she grabs his arm this time he shrugs it off. By the time she catches him he has already reached the front door of the house and knocked. He’s never knocked on this door as a stranger, only when he’s locked himself out getting the mail, or if he’s lost his keys. He’s never knocked and not known who was going to answer.

They hear footsteps approaching. “Let me do the talking,” Nurse Hamilton says.

A guy in his midforties opens the door, a pound overweight for every year of his life. He has bed hair that’s black on top but gray along the sides, black bags under bloodshot eyes, a white T-shirt that says
Sneezes for Jesus
under an unbuttoned blue shirt.