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I mostly brood through dinner while eventually, the dinner table conversation leads to Brad Junior going on about having witnessed the EMTs transport the dead-on-arrival bodies of the Camps to the Emergency Room.
“They were calling it an alleged murder/suicide,” he says, while stuffing his bearded face with spaghetti and meatballs. “But even I could see that Mark Camp’s suicide was a fake.” He makes a pistol with his index finger and thumb and demonstrates a man trying to shoot himself in the head. “The angle of the entry wound was something like seventy degrees if you were looking down on his head, which means his shooting arm would have had to be like twice the normal length.” He swallows what’s in his mouth, steals a drink of red wine. “Whoever tried to fake the murder suicide really didn’t know what he, or she, was doing.”
Sean...Sean didn’t know what he was doing...
“My, my,” Joanne says, “how fascinating, Junior. You really do have an interesting career. I can’t tell you how proud your father and I are of you.” She takes a bite of the garlic bread. “I have to say, if I saw a murdered body up close and personal, I think I’d get a little sick.”
“You never could stand the sight of blood, Mom. And to think, you own a funeral home now.”
If only he knew the truth about mom and blood...
“We just take care of the business end of things, Junior,” she says. “We have people who run the place, take care of the bodies. Your dad and I don’t go near them.”
My son refocuses on me.
“What’s wrong, Dad?” he says. “You’re not eating a whole lot.”
“Yes, darling,” Joanne says from across the table, her suddenly intense, wide-eyed expression telling me to act naturally for the sake of our son. “Are you feeling ill?” She gently sets her hand on Brad Junior’s and gives him a puppy dog smile. “There is a doctor in the house, you know.”
“It’s delicious, Jo,” I say, trying to sound perky. “Speaking of the funeral parlor staff, I had a big lunch today with them at Jack’s Diner, and I’m still a little full.” I pat my stomach and try to put on a smile. “You know, cheeseburgers and fries.”
“Well, don’t force it then. You can heat it up later.”
For the past twenty minutes I’ve been shuffling the food around on my plate, taking the occasional bite. Joanne was spot on when she asked me if I was feeling ill. I’m trying to make it look like I’m enjoying it, when in fact, my stomach is sick from the killing that went down at the Postal distribution center. No scratch that. I’m sick over all the killing that’s been going on. From knowing my own son saw the bodies of Mark and Melanie Camp and that their murder was his mom’s idea. Sick that Detective Danish is casing the joint.
When the doorbell rings I nearly jump out of my chair.
“Stay here,” I say, convinced the person at the door is going to be Danish.
Sliding out my chair, I head across the living room to the front door. When I look out one of the little square panes of glass embedded in the door, I can see that it’s not the homicide detective, but instead, Sean. I’d forgotten that Joanne said he was going to stop by. Judging by the redness and puffiness of his face reflected in the exterior lamp light, I can tell he’s already hammered. There’s something else I notice about him. His left eye. It’s puffy, and black and blued like somebody walloped him there.
I open the door.
“Hey, Brad buddy,” he says, like I’m the best thing to happen to him all day. “Joanne said I could come over and take a look at your new basement. I’m thinking about renovating mine.”
“Come on in, Sean,” I say. “What happened to your eye?”
“Something about a door jamb that got in my way at home,” he says.
I picture his wife belting him. That’s the likely scenario. But who am I to judge?
I back away so he can step inside. As he passes by, I can smell the alcohol on his breath. But then again, who am I to toss stones? I’ve been pounding drinks since I got home.
“You hear about that murder at the post office, Brad buddy?” Sean says. “You happen to know the guy who was killed? They said he was stabbed with a freakin’ letter opener and shot in the head.” He laughs a little like it’s funny. “I guess whoever wanted him dead, really wanted him dead.” Then, looking around the vestibule. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have an extra beer, buddy?”
“You know where I keep ‘em, Sean,” I say. “We were just having dinner.”
“Oh crap, hope I’m not interrupting.”
He heads into the kitchen while I go back to the dining room table and take my seat. Sean appears between the opening in the kitchen and the dining room, a fresh beer in his hand. His face lights up.
“Well, if it isn’t the good doctor!” he barks while flipping the tab open on his beer. “I thought that was your truck in the driveway, Brad Junior pal. And where did that spankin’ new Jeep come from?”
Joanne gives me a look like, Ignore the Jeep question.
My son swallows what’s in his mouth.
“Hey, Mr. MacDonald,” he says. “That’s quite the shiner you’ve got there. You want me to take a look at it?”
“Call me, Sean, Doc,” Sean says. “You’re a big important guy now. And no thanks on the eye. I wasn’t paying attention, and I ran into my bedroom door jamb.”
Sean is noticeably swaying now.
“Why don’t you grab a chair and have something to eat, Sean,” Joanne says. “How about an ice pack for that eye?”
“Yeah, Sean,” I say, “sit down. You look like you could use an ice pack.”
“I’d love to sit, but the wife put on a chicken earlier and she’s expecting me for supper pretty soon.” His eyes on Joanne. “I hate to interrupt, but if I could just take a look at the basement renovations and snap a couple of pictures, I’ll be on my way.”
Joanne shoots up.
“I’m done with dinner, Sean,” she says. “I’ll be glad to show you.”
“I’m done too, Mom,” Bradley Junior says while patting his full belly with both hands. “In fact, I have to be getting back.”
“So soon?” Joanne says.
Brad Junior wipes his mouth with the napkin, and grins.
“I’m meeting a friend for a cocktail.”
My wife’s face brightens.
“As in a female friend,” she says like a question.
Brad pushes out his chair, stands.
“Her name is Jill,” I interject. “And we’re going to have her over for dinner one day soon. Right, Junior?”
“You got it, Dad.”
Joanne comes around the table and gives our son a big hug.
“I’m so happy for you,” she says. “You have finally found love.”
“Well, we’re only dating right now,” he says. “Don’t get too excited.”
“I were you, young man,” Sean says after stealing a big slug of beer, “I’d play the field. Marriage ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. I got married way too young. The wife and I barely speak to one another at this point, much less, you know what.” He gives us a wink when he says you know what. “Play the field, kid, and if you have to get married, wait till your over forty.”
“Why, Sean,” Joanne says, “I’m surprised at you talking about marriage like that. You and Patty have had a happy marriage for decades,”
In my head I picture Sean’s somewhat frumpy, gray-haired wife. She’s a quiet, almost sad woman who hardly ever smiles. I recall her as being very cute and perky in high school, but who now, after spending too many years with Sean, has grown old beyond her years.
“Happy is too nice a word for it,” Sean says.
He drinks down the rest of his beer and crushes the can in his hand.
“How about that basement?” he says.
“Come with me, Sean,” Joanne says.
Together they head into the kitchen, then head down the stairs into a newly renovated basement, and the final resting place of the young Perez brothers.
My son and I open one last beer apiece and decide to take them out onto the brightly lit back deck with us. We don’t take a seat on the picnic table, but instead stand and look out onto the now dark woods that separate our property from the Little’s Lake State Park where Sean blew away the Camps in cold blood. The chill in the air tells me winter is coming sooner than later.
“You think Jill is the one, Brad?” I ask.
He sips some beer and laughs a little.
“I thought you might be of the same opinion as Sean, Dad,” he says. “Play the field. Live life. Don’t commit.”
I drink a little beer and wish I had a whiskey to go with it. In fact, screw it, I think I will pour a small whiskey.
“Junior,” I say, “in honor of your new relationship, I’m gonna pour one more whiskey. Do you care to join me?”
He nods. “What the hell, Dad. You only go around once.”
I pat him on the shoulder.
“That’s the spirit, Doc,” I say, but I’m just glad he’s not coming down on me anymore for drinking so much.
Setting my beer on the picnic table, I head back inside, go to the bar. My phone vibrates. I pull it out of my jeans pocket. It’s an SMS text from Don Juan Perez. I knew he had my smartphone number, but I never expected him to start texting me.
I open the first text. What I see makes me go dizzy. It’s a photo of Sean’s Volkswagen hatchback pulled up to the Camps cabin on Little’s Lake. The next photo shows Sean talking with both Mark and Melanie at their open door. The next photo shows me getting out and heading to the front door. I click on the next photo. It’s not a photo but instead a video. You see the flash of a gunshot through the front window. You can also hear the explosion of a bullet. There’s a pause, and then you see a second flash and hear another gunshot.
“He knew,” I whisper to myself. “We sat in front of him making a deal to sell our Bubble Gum, and he knew the entire time that we killed the Camps.”
Another photo arrives. This one shows me unlocking the front door to the public post office inside the New Karner Postal Distribution Center. Another photo shows Joanne standing outside the glass door, aiming her pistol at Martin. Another video arrives. It shows Joanne taking her kill shot through the door, the explosive round shattering the glass.
Another series of photos arrives of Joanne and I leaving the parking lot of the auto dealership in our brand-new red Jeep. That’s followed by one final picture. It’s the FBI Wanted Poster with the likenesses of Joanne and me on it. The name Brad has been penned in blood red Sharpie over my head. The name, Joanne, is penned over my wife’s head. Two big X’s have been drawn over our faces.
For a long beat or two, I just stand there stunned, the smartphone gripped in my hand. My feet feel like they’re not even planted on the wood floorboards. It’s like I’m levitating. Heart is pounding, lungs constricted, mouth bone dry. Setting the phone down, I pour some whiskey and drink it down. But the whiskey is doing nothing to calm my frayed nerves.
“He knows about his brothers,” I scream inside my head. “He knows we killed his little brothers. And now he’s going to want his revenge.”
I’ve got to tell Joanne and Sean. Doesn’t matter if Junior is still here. I’ve got to let my partners know this thing is about to blow up in our faces. I cross the dining room and enter the kitchen. First odd thing I notice is the door to the basement has been shut. When Joanne and Sean first went downstairs, she left the door open. Why would they bother to come back up the stairs to shut the door? And how long does it really take Sean to snap a couple pictures of the new basement renovations with his iPhone? Less than a minute, right?
Call it gut instinct, or a newly minted built-in-shit-detector, but something doesn’t feel right to me. Something other than psycho Don Juan Perez sending me all those texts now that he’s been following us...tailing us. Now that he knows we’ve killed his brothers. Using my free hand, I take hold of the doorknob and slowly turn it. Opening the door, I take a quiet step down onto the first stair tread. Then another and another.
I’m hearing something by then. Two voices. Joanne and Sean. They’re not having a conversation about the basement renovations, or about how we buried what was left of the Perez brothers under a patch of new concrete that I mixed by hand. They’re not speaking any words at all. Instead, I hear moaning. I descend further into the basement, and that’s when I see them.
Joanne is bent over, her arms outstretched, both her hands gripping the back of a new leather couch she picked up online at Crate and Barrel. Her jeans and red silk panties have been pulled down past her knees to around her ankles, her personal trainer-firmed ass exposed. Sean, who also has his jeans and underwear pulled down to his ankles, is doing her from behind.
“Hurry, Sean,” Joanne whispers like a scream. “Hurry, before someone comes looking for us.”
“I’m almost there, Joanne baby,” he says. “I’m...almost...there.”
I wish I could convey exactly how I feel, watching my wife having sex with my new business partner and old neighborhood friend. It’s funny, because I’m not angry. I’m not disappointed. I’m not sad or upset. What strikes me more than anything, is how shocked I am that a drunk like Sean can even get it up, much less finish himself and my wife off under all that pressure. I mean, what if Brad Junior were to walk in on them? Never mind me. The thought of somebody catching them in the act has got to be swimming around his beer-soaked brain.
“Are you there yet, Sean?” Joanne asks, her head bobbing up and down with each violent thrust of Sean’s narrow hips and flat, pale, bare ass.
“Do that thing, Jo baby,” he says.
“What thing?” she says.
“You know, where you pretend Bradly’s tied to a chair with duct tape. He’s watching us.”
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Sean,” she says.
“Please,” he says. “It always helps me.”
“Bradley is sitting there, Sean,” she says. “He’s watching us fuck. He can’t say anything because there’s tape covering his mouth. He’s struggling to—”
“That’s it,” Sean barks under his breath. “I’m...coming!”
A wave of nausea passes through me. About-facing, I tiptoe back up the basement stairs, and step into the kitchen. Taking hold of the doorknob once more, I slowly, quietly, close the basement door. My head is buzzing with adrenaline, my heart pounding and breaking at the same time.
But then, something else is happening too. A sense of resolve washes over me. If what I witnessed in the basement is the new and improved Joanne, then I want nothing more to do with her. Question is, however, is that really the new and improved Joanne? Or has she and Sean been fuck buddies for a long time? Like I said, my wife and I might sleep in the same bed, but other than one or two quick trysts, we haven’t slept together in years.
It’s then an idea comes to me. It’s one of those rare ideas that makes me smile, precisely because I’m about to do something my wife would never allow. Heading out of the kitchen, down into the dining room, I open the screen door, toss Bradley Junior a wave.
“Come on in, Junior,” I insist. “I need to give you something now, while mom is a little tied up with Sean.”
Of course, he knows what I’m talking about, and he sets his beer down on the picnic table next to mine. Leading him back through the kitchen, then into the hall, and into the master bedroom, I open the closet. Four shoe boxes have been stacked on the top shelf. I pull one out, set it on the bed. The box is filled with stacks of Benjamins. I quickly collect ten stacks and hand them to him.
“Holy crap, dad,” he says, “all I need is a thousand.”
“Take this,” I say. “Pay off the balance of your loan. Keep the rest.”
“If my math is right, that’s twenty thousand dollars left over.”
“You can use it,” I say. Then, my resolve growing deeper and deeper, I grab five more stacks. “Take this too. It’s fifty grand. If you and Jill work out, I want you to have a down payment on a nice new house.”
Placing the lid back on the shoebox, I replace it on the shelf.
“Come with me,” I say. “Bring the cash.”
We head into the kitchen. I open the door on a narrow cupboard where we store the broom and the mop and bucket. We also store discarded plastic shopping bags there. I know that at any minute, Joanne and Sean will be coming back up the steps, looking innocent as the day they were born. But if she spots all the cash I’m giving our son, her head will explode.
The cash hasn’t been laundered yet, she’ll say. It’s too dangerous spending that kind of money right now. Never mind the fact that she spends it whenever she feels like it. As it is, I’ll have to come up with an excuse when she finds out the cash is missing. Maybe I’ll tell her I misjudged my account when I bought the Jeep and I needed it to replenish my account. Or, I don’t know what I’ll make up as an excuse. I’m not quite sure I care at this point, now that Perez knows we killed his little brothers; now that Detective Danish is casing our place. The important thing is that Brad has the money. Because after all, it’s quite possible, his mother and I might not live to see the end of the week.
Grabbing one of the plastic bags, I open it up.
“Toss it all in here,” I say.
He does it.
“Now let’s bring it out to your truck while we’ve got the chance,” I say.
We go to the front door. I open it for Junior and he steps out. I follow close behind. As we’re walking the concrete walkway to his truck, I tell him that if anything should happen to his mother and I, he’s to come to the house right away and take the rest of the cash.
“Do you understand me?” I press. “We always keep spare key under the Weber grill on the back deck. You can’t miss it.”
He nods.
“Back deck,” he repeats.
Opening the passenger side door on his truck, he sets the money into the foot well, and closes the door. Turning to me.
“Dad,” he says. “Are you and mom all right?”
I attempt to work up a grin. But it’s a pathetic attempt.
“Why do you ask that, kid?”
“I know you have a new business and you’ve cashed out your pension,” he says. “But nobody in their right mind keeps that kind of cash lying around the house. It’s...dangerous.”
“We’re planning on taking it to the bank tomorrow,” I lie. “Things have been so crazy busy we haven’t found the time.” Then, changing the subject. “Now, go back inside and say goodbye to mom.”
He nods and heads for the front door. In my head I’m sure she and Sean have got to be all cleaned up and redressed by now. When Brad and I enter the kitchen, I can see that not only are they dressed, but Sean is seated at the kitchen table, drinking another one of my beers. Can this situation get any more perfect?
My business partner and old pal smiles. He’s red-faced and happy.
“Quite a job on the basement, Brad buddy,” he says. “I’m gonna hire the same guys to redo my man cave. Then we can watch the Jets games in style.”
In my head, I see my “friend” T-boning my wife.
“Looking forward to it, Sean pal,” I say. Then, turning to Joanne who’s standing at the sink, cleaning some dinner plates. “Jo, Brad Junior is leaving.”
She shuts off the water, dries her hands on a dish towel and turns towards Junior.
“Give us a hug, Bradley,” she says.
My son gives her a bear hug and a kiss on the cheek. If only he knew who she was kissing just moments before.
“Take care, Doc,” Sean says. “Enjoy the girls.”
“I will, Mr. MacDonald,” Junior says.
“I’ll see you out,” I say.
At the front door, I look into my son’s deep, brown eyes. He’s a good bit taller than I am now, so I’m forced to look up. He’s a big guy, with thick black hair and a matching thick black beard which he can grow in about a week’s time. He’s lucky because he inherited Joanne’s family’s genes which means he’ll never go bald. For a long beat, we just look into one another’s eyes. And for a moment, I see the little boy in short pants running around the house. I hear his giggles. I hear him singing a silly song he heard on the Cartoon Network.
I see myself reading to him at night while he lay cuddled up in his bed, his eyes struggling to stay open, him begging me to read just one more page. Then me leaning over and kissing his forehead and tiptoeing to the door. Just as I’d begin to close it, he’d suddenly awaken just long enough to ask me to leave it open a little.
“Sure thing, little pal,” I’d say, leaving the door open just enough so he could see the light. So he wouldn’t be afraid in the dark.
It’s amazing how time flies past at the speed of light. One day you’re kissing your toddler goodnight, and the next, you’re patting your adult son on his thick shoulders as he’s about to drive off to meet his girlfriend for drinks. You wonder where the life in between went. You wonder if you did the right things for him. If you’ve lived a good life. And now, here we are, just me and my son standing at the doorway, he having no clue about the damage his mother and I have caused, about the damage that might be done to us once Don Juan Perez catches up to us.
“Goodnight, son,” I say leaning into him and kissing his bearded cheek.
His eyes go wide.
“Wow, Dad,” he says. “Been a long time since you kissed me goodnight.”
“Hey,” I say, “you’re never too old for your dad to kiss you goodnight and tell you I love you.”
He gives me a hug that nearly breaks my back.
“Love you, Dad,” he says. “And thanks for everything. I truly mean it.”
“I’m happy for you,” I say.
Opening the door, I see him out. As he’s walking towards his truck along the concrete walkway, I step out onto the concrete landing.
“Bradley,” I call out.
He stops, turns.
“Yeah, Dad. What is it?”
“Was I a good father?” I ask.
He sort of shakes his head, and grins, like he’s not sure where the question is coming from.
“Yes,” he says. “You and mom were the best parents a kid could hope for. You were always home, always there for me.”
“We were boring,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. “Boring is good. It’s stable. You know how many of my friend’s parents went through divorces when I was growing up? Those kids were never the same. You and mom did the right thing. You stayed together.”
I picture Sean and Joanne going at it in the basement.
“Thanks, Junior,” I say. “I guess for some reason, I needed to hear that.”
Turning, I go back through the door. Just as I’m closing it, I hear a vehicle coming to a screeching stop outside the house. The engine is roaring and the tires squealing against the pavement. I make out three distinct shots.
POP, POP, POP!!! Then three or four more. POP, POP, POP, POP!!!!
“Oh my God,” I shout, as I pull the door open, and see a big black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows speeding off, pulling a U-turn, then shooting out of the neighborhood.
When I look for Bradley Junior, I see he’s lying on his back on the lawn, the exterior white light illuminating the blood that’s spilling out of him.