It was easy. I told Price the same thing I told him at home, except it was more detached now, as if it had happened to someone else and I had witnessed it from a distance.
The room where he took my statement smelled of stale cigarette smoke, but that was the only thing that fit my image of a police station. The room looked more like an insurance company office. I had seen too many damn television shows and movies, expected dust, cobwebs, empty coffee cups, half-eaten pizza and too much light.
There wasn’t much in the room in the way of furniture or decoration. Some citations on the wall, a file cabinet, a neat desk, a typewriter, paper in the roller, and Price behind the keys. In fact, Price and I were the only ones in the room.
It took twenty minutes for me to tell it again, top to bottom.
“What now?” I asked.
“Not much,” Price said. “It’ll go to the grand jury. They’ll look over your statement, your wife’s, mine, then they’ll No Bill you. You won’t even have to go to court.”
“You’re sure?”
“Open-shut case of self-defense. He broke in with intent to rob, took a shot at you. Your gun was legal. He’s a known crook, you’re an upstanding citizen in the community. We haven’t any reason to suspect you of anything. It’s over. Except for your gun. We’ll keep it a while, until you get the No Bill, then we’ll return it. I’ll have an officer take you home.”
· · ·
When I got home the policeman who had stayed with Ann nodded at me and went away with the other officer. I sank down in the living room chair and looked at the couch. I didn’t think I could ever sit there again. I determined that tomorrow I would have it carried off and buy a new one. I wanted to get rid of that bloodied landscape too and have the wall repainted. Christ, I felt like moving, and would have if I could have afforded it.
Ann sat on the edge of the chair and put her arm around me. “You okay?”
“Okay as I get. Go to bed, honey. I’ll come along.”
“I’m going to clean up a little… before Jordan gets up.”
It occurred to me what she meant, the wall, couch and painting. She just couldn’t put it into words.
“Is it all right if we do?” I asked. “Evidence and all. Won’t the police mind?”
“The officer told me any time we wanted to clean up to go ahead. They’ve taken photographs, done all they intend to do.”
“I’ll help.”
· · ·
We got a plastic bucket of warm, soapy water and rubbed the couch down, threw the painting away, and wiped the wall as clean as we could get it. The couch was ruined. The blood had soaked into it, turning it dark in spots, giving the room a faint odor to remind us of what had happened.
We cleaned up the carpet and put baking soda down to get rid of the smell of vomit, and it helped a little. When we were finished, I poured the soapy water into the kitchen sink, watched it swirl darkly down the drain, tossed away the rags we’d used and sprayed some air freshener about.
I don’t know why, but the freshener struck me as funny in a grim kind of way. I kept imagining a commercial for air freshener where the announcer was saying how it covered up not only the odor of fish and onions, but blood, brains and vomit as well.
Ann showered and I washed up in the bathroom sink, feeling like Lady Macbeth struggling with her damn spot, even though there wasn’t a drop of blood on me.
Death in reality certainly wasn’t like television death.
It was nasty and it smelled and it clung to you like a bad disease.
Self-defense or not, I didn’t feel like Dirty Harry. I just felt bad, worse than I had ever felt in my life.
“Let’s go to bed,” Ann said. She was stepping out of the shower and she looked good. Thirty-five years had been kind to her. Her breasts sagged a little maybe, but the rest of her was nice and the breasts were nothing to run me off. She was my woman and I loved her, and I knew she was offering herself to me. I could tell by the way she moved as she pulled the shower cap off and let her long blond hair fall like a shower of light onto her shoulders, by the slightly exaggerated stretches and the way she slid the towel slowly up her long legs and moved it seductively over her damp pubic hair.
She smiled at me. “We can snuggle, you know?”
“I’m not really sleepy,” I said stupidly.
“So, we can snuggle a lot. Sleep later.”
“We can try that,” I said. “Go ahead, and I’ll be to bed in a moment. Got a few things to do yet.”
She finished drying, stepped into her panties, extending her legs through them nicely. It was almost enough to excite me, even after what had happened earlier. Almost.
She put on her robe, kissed me on the cheek and went out of there with her soft soap scent lingering in the air.
I took a leak, showered, and brushed my teeth. I put on my robe, went through the house testing locks on the doors leading outside. They were all fine except for the jimmied door, of course. I checked the windows too, and when I was finished in Jordan’s room, I stopped by his bed and put his teddy bear back under the covers and tucked them around him. I felt like dragging up a chair and watching him sleep, but I went out to the garage and got some wire and pliers and rigged a sort of latch on the door Freddy Russel had broken.
Then I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of milk. The house felt strange to me, like it wasn’t mine anymore. It was no longer sanctuary. It had been invaded. I felt like a rape victim. Violated. Our house was no longer private, full of our spirits, thoughts, even our arguments. It was nothing more than a thing of glass, wood and brick that any thug with a crowbar or a screwdriver could bust open.
The milk tasted like chalk and rested mercury-heavy in my stomach. I poured the rest down the drain and went to bed.
Ann was asleep, and I was grateful for that. I had feared she would insist on a mercy fuck; sexual first aid. She worked that way sometimes, and I hated it. She meant well by it, but that didn’t make me like it. Tonight I would have despised it, no matter how much I loved her or how enticing she might be.
I lay there looking at the ceiling, listening to Ann breathe. My stomach kept churning the milk around and around, and an instant replay of what had happened earlier was whirling endlessly through my head: swirls of shadow and muffled sounds, a flashlight, revolver steel, the wind from a bullet against my ear, the report of my own gun, the lights going on, the empty eye socket, blood and brains on the landscape painting and the very wall on which we taped our yearly Christmas cards.
It wasn’t until daylight that I felt like sleeping.