THE DETECTIVE:
The detective took the letter down to run its prints, find out if the pubic hair was of the male or female persuasion. He held its corner with red tweezers and it flapped along beside him. Smith cut out the whole exclamation point with an X-Acto knife and his eyes got round at all that possible DNA. He said, Hopefully there’s a root or two. His breath smelled like onions. The detective’s stomach turned. Jenny took the letter minus the exclamation point and promised to dust for prints before her shift ended. The detective noted her waves of red hair and the mole just under her nose and decided one didn’t cancel out the other.
On his way out to the car his nostrils started closing in on him. He opened the glove compartment so fast the Afrin bounced under the seat and he cursed. The body, the Afrin, he’d have to reach for both. He didn’t know why he had to look for something that wasn’t even hiding.
THE SISTER:
If there’s anything we’ve learned it’s that roses are red. I planted our man, told him the eyes are the last to go, and he believed me. Our man bloomed and died and a year later bloomed again. That’s the hope anyway. And did you know that a human head weighs more than the shovel.
Dearest, you say you understand, but if you did you’d stop crying.
We had a child. Our man named him Junior. Our man thought it was all a dream until it actually became a dream, and then he knew how real it was. And did you know blood tastes sweet like summer grass.
THE DETECTIVE:
Knuckles rapped on the window. The detective rolled it down and smoke poured in from the chief’s pipe.
She’s confessed again, he said, squinting. You better beat it.
The detective nodded, began rolling up the window, and the chief stepped back.
I’m on it, the detective said through the glass. The car started too smoothly. He had three hours and seven minutes left on his shift. He drove due south, fast. There was a truck stop he knew of where he could be alone and eat. There had to be.
THE CORPSE:
This is how I imagined being dead:
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
Idon’tknow
andIdon’tcaretoknow.
Hard to know where you are if everyone who knows you doesn’t know where you are and if the one who loves you most will never come looking for you. I’m here. I’m pointing at myself. My heart is sort of beating.
THE WIFE:
When we got married I told myself when he’s dead I’ll know it immediately. But I still can’t convince myself he was ever alive in the first place. Absence makes the heart grow fonder of absence. I shave my legs with his razor. Blood shimmies. It was always my razor.
A JOKE, PART TWO:
So this lady is in first class, real snooty-looking broad, and she’s got this poodle in her lap that yaps with practically every breath. Next to her is this real salt-of-the-earth-type guy, like the kind of guy who starts from nothing and ends up richer than anything. So the guy says to the lady, Look, you gotta shut that dog up and the lady takes offense and says, My dog is no worse than your disgusting cigar smoke. And they go back and forth like that and it starts to get ugly. So the guy says, Fine, lady, you asked for it, and he takes the poodle and throws it out the emergency-exit window. The lady is downright astonished, and she yanks the cigar out of the guy’s mouth and throws it out the window too. Well this makes them both laugh and they become great friends, and when they land, the guy says he’ll help the lady find her poodle, he’s real sorry, and the lady says no, she’s sorry, and they set out together. So they find the poodle wandering around this field in a daze, and guess what it’s got in its mouth?
THE PUNCH LINE:
The brick.
THE DETECTIVE:
The truck stop said OPEN in green letters. The detective wiped his neck with the underwear and put it back in his pocket. Inside, he ordered coffee and creamed wheat and watched the cook scratch his armpit. The waitress had a peanut shell in her hair. The jukebox played something country-sounding, of course it did, and it seemed to be on repeat.
The detective’s head pulsed. When the waitress turned he tooted some Afrin and nearly cried. When she came back with his coffee he plucked the peanut shell from her hair and handed it to her. Thank you, she said, and she looked touched.
The detective stuck his finger in the coffee and stirred. A woman came out of the ladies’ and sat at the other end of the counter. She watched him from the corner of her eye and then she said, Sir, you are unpleasant.
The detective was startled. He threw a ten on the counter and walked out and the night was cool. He purposely mistook the city lights for stars.
He went to his car and grabbed the cuffs. Back inside the cook had his chin on his forearms and seemed to be lost in thought. Okay, the detective said, let’s go. Get up.
The woman at the end of the counter didn’t move so the detective got rough with her. He mostly yelled. The waitress wiped the counter in slow circles. The woman’s shoes were loud on the floor and louder on the gravel outside. The detective threw her in the backseat. You’re gonna talk, he hissed, and you’re gonna say what I want you to say. The woman’s eyes glittered meanly.
The detective slammed the car door and went back in for his creamed wheat. Only then did he hear the bell over the door, violent with jingling.
THE SISTER CONFESSES:
I said, This is going to hurt. I said, If you insist on being so quiet I’ll be forced to make you scream. I said, You can’t love we but we can love you.
The shears—or was it a razor?
The blade. The blade looked like a blade and cut like a blade. It happened how it should.
Our man’s eyes were a thin shade of blue. We mashed teeth when we kissed. If you see my sister tell her to give me a ring.
THE DETECTIVE:
The chief’s cigar dangled. Put her in a lineup with the others, he said.
THE WIFE CONFESSES:
Listen. She thinks I’m not listening. If she says he’s dead he’s probably dead. When we were young we buried things.
We’ve got a man on the case.
THE DETECTIVE:
The detective thought about smudging:
Description: earless body, man, blood
into his fogged windshield. The woman in the backseat whined. The highway drifted on and the detective got bored with counting lights.
Tell me, the detective said.
When I was twenty I fell in love with a houseplant, she said. When I was fifteen I murdered my mother’s fancy soaps. She said, I’ve always hated shells. Something about the shape.
The detective noted the gap in her front teeth, the brass in her hair. Maybe, he said, it’s the halving you hate.
The woman rolled onto her back and kicked the window.
The detective shook the Afrin bottle. The familiar swish was gone. He was out. He pushed the nipple up his nose and held it there. Tell me everything, he said.
Just one last thing, she said. Her voice was low and she sniffed wetly. The truth is I’d like to go home now.
The detective smelled popcorn. Wine dregs. Something warm. She’d wet herself. I’m not buying it, he said. His patience was waning. He had one hour and forty-three minutes left.
THE CORPSE:
I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.
THE WIFE AND HER SISTER:
The station boiled. Men wiped foreheads with damp handkerchiefs. Ties were loosened. In the kitchen the lone female officer pressed an icy gallon of milk to her thighs. The station pulsed. Breath was exchanged. The night wound.
The wife identified her sister. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s her, she said.
Her sister stepped forward and bowed. Her hair cascaded in a horrible wave. Bits of it clumped with blood.
The chief blew smoke rings and shot the moon. That’s our girl, he said.
THE CORPSE:
Two ears. Not even the eardrums. Cartilage, lobe. And the room bloody with blood.
The question is, is there enough of me left over for proof that I’m dead.
And should I be taking her word for it (I don’t know).
THE DETECTIVE:
The detective stopped at a druggist’s. Pulled the woman out by her ankles and righted her. She wobbled in and squinted under the fluorescents. Near the diapers he uncuffed her, noted her interesting bone structure. Some cheekbones, he told her.
The detective cleared the shelf of its Afrins. Turned to offer the woman a chocolate sip, but she was gone. He watched the flight of her hair. Into the dark mouth of the parking lot.
The detective got wistful, told himself she’d find her way.
The car smelled like brine and white sugar. The car smelled like her. The detective rolled down the windows and let the wind knife in. The clock said what it said.
THE SISTERS:
Stop crying.
I will.