The car door opened and Detective Potter leaned in the back seat. His round face looked puffier in the yellow overhead dome light than it had at Carly’s; his small eyes even squintier. ‘Julie,’ he began with a sigh and Julia smelled the cigarette smoke on his breath.
She swallowed the blood that filled her mouth and breathed in the blast of cold air. Don’t say it. Whatever you’re going to say, please don’t say it. Let me have more time before you say something bad. More time before everything changes …
‘Sorry to keep you waiting, honey,’ he started with a gentle, sad smile, ‘but we needed to make sure that—’
She stopped listening.
Her eyes suddenly caught on the two police officers in bulky dark-blue nylon coats that had stepped out her front door. They sandwiched a man dressed only in a T-shirt and jeans. She suddenly pushed past Detective Potter and out of the car, at first walking, then running full speed across the lawn. She heard the shouts behind her calling her to stop, but they didn’t make any sense.
‘Andrew?’ she shouted while running, the cold wind stinging her cheeks. ‘Andy? Andy!’
He turned to face her then, and she saw the bright red splatters on his white undershirt, the smears on his face, the dark stains that soaked his jeans.
At first she thought he was hurt, then her eyes fell on the handcuffs on his wrists and she knew. Both of his hands were wrapped in white kitchen towels, like a boxer’s, but blood had begun to seep through in spots. Her legs suddenly collapsed, refusing to hold her up any longer and she fell to her knees next to the Santa.
‘Oh my God, what did you do? Andy! What did you do?’ she screamed at him. ‘What did you do?’
The handsome young man who still had the face of a boy smiled. Tears spilled from his eyes. They met the smears of blood, running down his cheeks in watery red streaks. ‘I saved them, Ju-Ju. I saved them. I had to. It had to be done.’ He thrust his hands up to the sky, creating a reactionary panic among the blue coats, who rushed to regain control of his arms. The kitchen towels fell away and ribbons of bright red blood streamed from his mangled hands. ‘Alleluia!’
She stayed on her knees, screaming, her fists clutching at the frozen ground, the cold, melting snow seeping into her jeans. Detective Potter and the other officers who had rushed to catch her on the lawn stopped and backed up slightly, awkwardly looking at each other, watching her as she rocked back and forth.
The blue coats escorted the young man to the back of a waiting cruiser, forcefully ducking his head and placing him inside with a hard shove. He smiled softly at her once more out the window. Then he hung his head as the car drove off down the block.
She never saw her big brother again.