No Words

No Words

By Michael John Weldon

[Begin Tape]

          This is Detective Caleb Holmes of the Atlanta Police Department, conducting and investigation of the Homicide Case File #988-90-5344. Currently in the office with Walter Pearson Rays, DOB: 8/29/1976, education: 11th grade, the place: Detective Division. Today’s date is 06/09/2007, the time is 8:34am. Mr. Rays, in front of me I have a rights form, and it has your signature at the bottom of it. Is that your signature?

Yeah. That’s me.

           Good. Now that I’ve gotten all the formalities over with, do you mind if I call you Walter?

            I suppose it doesn’t much matter what you call me.

            You look nervous.

            Heh. Do I, now? I’m not, if you’ll believe it. Just cravin’ a smoke, is all.

            Yeah? I’m a smoker too, you know. What brand do you smoke, Walter?

            Pall Malls.

I’m a Marlboro man, myself. If you’re not in the mood to be picky, I think you could probably light one up right here, if you wanted.

            Now that’s not ever right, Detective, ‘cause I know you’re not serious. Givin’ me hope like that, only to yank it away? I thought there were laws about tourture in this country.

            I’m just trying to help you out, Walter. You seem like a man who needs a break. If a smoke will help you tell me what I need to know, then you can have one. Make my job easier, make your experience easier, help the whole thing along.

            What, now you’re tryin’ to get me in trouble? Is that it? I may not be a lawyer or anythin’, but I’m willin’ to guess that if I’m not allowed to smoke in a restaurant, I’m sure as hell not allowed to do it in a police station.

                Not trying to get you into trouble, Walter. You’ve been very cooperative so far, figure a man like you could use a break. Besides, I’ve never known a story that wasn’t made better by a smoke. Go on, have a butt or two. Captain can take it up with me, if he minds.

                Now I can’t tell if you’re a good cop… or a Good Cop, if you get my meaning. Either way, guess I can’t complain. Thanks much.

                Just doing my job. You ready to get down to it?

                I guess so. Where do you want me to start?

                Wherever you think it starts. Whenever you’re ready, Walter.

                …..

                ….Well, I’ll start out where I feel it really begins, or, you know, at least where it begins to really start. Yesterday, on my way home from work, I bought a gun.

                What time was that?

                Don’t remember exactly, but it was just getting’ dark, so I’m willin’ to say probably… seven thirty? That sounds right. So at I get off work and head over to Grabbin’ Guns, that shop on the corner of Smith and Wesson. Hell of a location, for a gun place. Anyway, I went in, bought myself a nine-millimeter and the ammo for it. Paid in cash.

                So you obtained the weapon through legal channels.

                Kinda, mostly.

                Kind of, mostly?

                Had a permit, but it was under a fake name. Don’t go blamin’ the gun shop guy, neither… it looked pretty damn real. Black market quality, or damn near. Cost me a small fortune.

                How did you get the permit?

                Knew how to get one. That’s the way it always goes, and I should know. Wasn’t my first time in that line of dealin’s. When I was a dumb kid, used to be a part of a local gang, the Red Eyes. Red Eyes, because we were so stoned all the time. Got out of that, though, some fifteen years ago, but… I made a lot of connections in this city, and connections like that, with people who know the things you’ve seen, the things you’ve done… those relationships, they just get stronger the longer you keep the secrets. Anyway, point is, I know a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, and on and on until I reach a guy who can get me a fake permit.

                Why go through all the trouble with the permit? Why not just ask for a gun?

                Off the streets? Are you nuts? All the horror stories I’ve heard about backfirin’ guns, I wouldn’t trust those things as far as I can throw ‘em. Hell, I’d rather throw one than shoot it, probably do more damage that way. Besides, man, for all I know I’d be supportin’ terrorists or the Klan or something. If I’m up to no good, might as well support Uncle Sam, y’know?

                What did you do with the permit, after you’d bought the gun?

                Sewer drain. After last night, it wouldn’t much matter. I wouldn’t need it anymore. Either I’d get away with it, or I wouldn’t, or I’d die killin’ the bitch. In any case, I’d never need another gun.

                So you admit, you purchased this weapon for the purpose of murdering your wife.

                …I…I began to suspect Susan of cheatin’… it must have been maybe a month ago, now. Don’t ask me why I thought it, or how I knew. It was just somethin’ in her eyes, the way she kissed me.

                You didn’t answer the question.

                God damn, man, you want me to tell the story or do you want me to tell the story? Yeah. She was cheatin’ on me, so I bought the gun, and I planned to shoot her. Planned is the key.

                It’s funny… well, not funny, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a complete nutcase. But it’s… Awh hell, I don’t know if there’s a word for it. You and your buddies and the shrinks, maybe you can find a word later. It was weird. In a good way, but… weird. Back then, I’d been thinkin’ about it a lot, just as a kind of – what’s it called – a hypothetical thing. Just an idea in the back of my mind, you know? Nothin’ but a bad case of the what-ifs, the kind everyone gets every now and then. Or, at least, I’m pretty sure everybody gets.

                Then last Thursday, I stop on the way home form work, right? I buy a bagel, and the cashier gives me change. One minute I’m in the coffee shop, lookin’ down at the change in my hand, nex thing I know, I’m hangin’ up a pay phone two blocks away. I called in the favor. The permit, I mean, I called my connection. That was weird, man. It’s like… I remember doin’ it, but I don’t remember decidin’ to do it. You get the difference?

                Yeah, I suppose I do. So you called in the favor.

                I’d been thinkin’ about doin’ it for so long, you know, but it was just thinkin’. That was the first step I took towards doin’. Just a baby step in the right direction. From there on out, for the past week or so, thinkin’ changed to plannin’. It wasn’t a what-if anymore. Nah, by then, it had changed into an I-couuld. Not an I-will, not yet. It was… that word again, the one I can’t get.

                You know what it was like? It was like… Like Legos.

                I’m sorry… Legos?

                Yeah, you know. Legos. When I was just a kid, we were real poor. My pops walked out on us before I knew him from Adam, as my momma used to say… no idea what that means, really, but that’s what she’d say. Anyway. Point is, my momma couldn’t buy me and my brother much in the way of toys, you know? Mostly, any money she got was rent money, and any money that wasn’t rent money was food money. One Christmas, though, when I was ten maybe eleven, I got this Lego set. I still remember the box, the picture on it. It was a pirate ship, all brown and black with a red streak runnin’ up the side, and all the little guys that came with it, on the box, they were all in action poses. This one’s up on the crow’s nest with a telescope or whatever, this one’s swingin’ form the sails, this one’s holdin’ up a sword like he’s ready for a fight. See, though, even back then I’m no dummy… you ever play with Legos?

                More of a model train guy, but yeah, some.

                Well, same deal there: I’m no dummy, and you probably aren’t either. You know as well as I do, as well as I did back then, that picture on the box is crap. Those pirate people, they aren’t gonna do any of that shit, not your set. You’re gonna dump all those pieces on the floor, build it, and then leave that fucker sittin’ on your desk until you lose it, break it, or throw it away. All the fun is in buildin’ it, figurin’ the thing out. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s the best I can think of.

                The plannin’ was the fun part. It was… excitin’ I guess? Don’t look at me like that, I don’t mean in a pervert way or nothin’. It was more like a good hobby. It was just kinda fun, actually plannin’ out the steps, the possible alibis, even dumpin’ grounds for the body. I know it sounds sick, I now, but…

                …Well, anyway, I can tell you though, when I was plannin’ it, I still didn’t think I was actually gonna do it. I know that’s probably tough for you to swallow, and harder even for me to prove but… You just had to be there, you know? None of it was real, not yet. Not even a little. It was just a hobby, a game I was playin’. That’s all. A Lego tower I was buildin’, thinkin’ that I’d damn well never use the thing.

                So what changed?

                What’s that?

                What changed? I mean, the very fact that you’re here, now, telling me all this means that at some point the scales tipped. Something made you crack, right? Made the fantasy a reality?

                Ah, I gotcha. Dave.

                Dave was the other man?

                Dave was an asshole. Still is, I guess. But yeah. It was just yesterday mornin’, before I left for work. This is early, like, crack of dawn early, so Susan’s still asleep. I’m in the kitchen, brewin’ myself a stiff cup of coffee – like you do – and there’s her phone just sittin’ there on the counter. Now I’m not a nosy person, most of the time. But I had suspected for so long…

                …. Susan works… worked, I guess… with this fella named Dave. Dave Travison, a tool if I ever knew one. They go way back, maybe ten years, when they opened a business together. Business ended up crashing, but they kept in touch. Never liked the son of a bitch. No sir. Fuckin’ snake in the grass, was from day one. Still, I mean, I have friends who are women, right? So I can’t really say anythin’, now can I? Maybe if I had…

                What was it, on the phone? What did you find?

                Text message. From the number listed as “Davie”…. Fuckin’ “Davie”? Says, it says “Hey there, can’t wait for our dinner tonight. See you soon, Suze.” And, of course, a winky-face. Can’t send a dirty text to another man’s wife without the winky-face, now can you? Heheehe… Want to know the crazy part?

                Sure, I’ll bite.

                That text was the proof that I had needed, you know? I mean, there’s no way your wife gets that kind of text from another guy and somethin’ isn’t up, right? But.. I was okay with it. I wasn’t even a little bit angry, no sir! I mean, I had suspected for so long. I guess I knew it deep down, before I ever opened that phone, so really, there was no surprise in it. If anythin’… ah hell, it sounds crazy but… I was happy about it.

                Oh?

                Hell yeah. It was a relief to know that I wasn’t just goin’ nuts, right? Well, maybe I was, but not the jealous, paranoid kind of nuts. I knew for a fact that she was cheatin’ on me, no questions or doubts. I had proof. I could just take that phone to court, get myself a divorce. Hell, I’m not so old, not yet, and my face ain’t too tough to look at… maybe I could even get back out there in the datin’ game, you know? So I felt good there. Then I made the mistake of reading the text again.

                We got married, me and Susan, about eight years ago. Dated two years before that. That’s ten years we were all but livin’ together, attached at the hip and all. So I thought. But all that time, there’s been one straight rule she keeps: I wasn’t allowed to call her Suze. Ever. Tried, at the start, that time when couples start tryin’ on pet names just to see what fits. She shot that shit down fast. Said it made her sound like a stripper or somethin’ like that. So I had to call her Susan, all those years that we were us. Susan.

                But Dave… that son of a whore Davie… he gets to call her Suze? He gets somethin’ I never got in a full fuckin’ decade?! I just…. Just…..

                Need another butt?

                Yeah. Thanks. Phew…

                Go on when you’re ready.

                …I left, went to work, after that. The whole day was a blur of things that just seemed so Goddamn unimportant. Not that bein’ a janitor was ever that important, but… it was like I was still at home, reading that text message, over and over and over again. All day. So I made it through twelve hours cleanin’ up after an office of ungrateful, overeducated slobs and when I got off, well… I knew where I was goin’.

                You got the gun.

                You’re damn right I got the gun.

                Alright, here’s the part where things seem a bit hazy to me, as an investigator. So take it slow. Tell me, in your own words, exactly what happened.

                ….Walter?

                I’m thinkin’. I wanna get it all right.

                …So I pull into the driveway at eight-o-five or so. Car clock has always been off by a minute or two, but damn if I can ever figure out which direction. I pull into the driveway. I take the gun out of the glove compartment. I check to make sure it’s loaded. I make sure the safety is off. Then I… well, then I just sit there. I don’t know how long. Maybe ten minutes, maybe less and maybe more.  It didn’t matter how long it was. I mean, you know, it does now. It matters to you, it matters to the whole damn story, but then, in that moment, it didn’t matter to me. It went on forever, and it was over just like that.

                I must of looked like a nut, thinkin’ back on it. I’m sittin’ there in my driveway, rockin’ back and forth in the driver’s seat cradling a load gun like it was a baby or somethin’.  I don’t think I cried at all. I might have, but I don’t think I did. I was too freaked out to cry.

                I mean, what I was about to do, it all hit me right there like a fuckin’ train, y’know? I’d never used a gun before, let alone killed anybody. I thought I was a bad kid, back when I rolled with the Red Eyes. And we were, in our way: we fought other kids for the hell of it, we mugged old ladies, spray painted churches and smoked enough weed to knock out an elephant. I helped rob four liquor stores in the downtown district. Even then, though, we never used real guns. We used cap guns, toy guns, spray painted black. This was back before they had to put the orange caps on ‘em. Never real guns, though. Cause we never wanted anyone to get really hurt, you know what I’m sayin’. We wanted cash, and we wanted to cause all kinds of hell, but murder? No way man. That was too real. We were just messin’ around.

                Just playing with Legos.

                Heh. Guess so, when you put it that way. It was all pretend.

                Sittin’ there with the gun, back in the driveway? That was the first time I actually thought that I realized I was about to murder my wife. Before then, the plan had been to kill my wife. Kill. Not murder. You might think the two are the same, but they aren’t, not even a little. You can kill a spider. You can kill a sick animal, put it down. You can even kill a man, if youre in a war, if it’s a “kill-or-be-killed” kinda moment. Killin’ is fine, in the natural world. Most every animal does it. Murder though… that’s different. That’s human. It’s cold blood. Killin’ is a thing you do. Murder is a thing you do to someone else.

                Right then, sittin’ in the car, it went from kill to murder, and just that little change made me want to call the whole thing off. I might have, too. I would have.

                Now my car, the Ford, she’s a mean sonofabitch. Damn near as old as you, Detective, if I’m guessin’ your age right, and cranky as a cougar. She doesn’t like to run when she’s got nowhere to go. And let me tell you, a car like that, it’ll let you know when it’s pissed.  The car backfires somethin’ fierce, loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. In fact, neighbors and I have a runnin’ joke, they’ll run into me and say, “Hey, Walt, heard you and the old lady fightin’ last night.” That’s the only reason I thought I could get away with the plan I’d hatched. When the Ford goes off, it sounds almost like a gunshot. That was goin’ to be my cover, you understand.

                So I’ve been sittin’ there these ten or so minutes, lettin’ the engine go. Right then, just as I’m thinkin’ that I should put the gun back in the glove box and forget all this, the whole plan… it happens. The sound goes off, louder than God himself, and I jump so high that I crack my skull on the ceilin’. I kill the engine as quick as I can, but it’s too late. No doubt that Susan knows I’m home, and I’ve lost any bit of surprise I might’ve had.  I must have been cursin’ up a storm, but I couldn’t hear it, or any other goddamn thing, what with the ringing still goin’ in my ears from the knock I’d gotten on the head.  As I’m sittin’ there, ringin’ starts to sound like words. Real, spoken words, in a voice I know all too well. It’s the voice of that cockwrangler, fuckin’ Davie, speakin’ the words of that goddamn text, the words that set me off at the first:

                “Hey there,” he says in my head, “Can’t wait for our dinner tonight. See you soon, Suze.” That last word just keeps ringin’ in my brain, over and over and over, even after the sound stops; “Suze, Suze, Suze,” it goes, on and on and on and….

                It was then, I think, that I broke. You might think, what with my plannin’ a murder and everything, that I broke way before that. You might be right, too, but I don’t think so. I may have cracked before then, that mornin’ when I got the text. Maybe the edges were frayed, maybed I needed a little maintenance work… but even then, when I’m buyin’ the gun, when I’m drivin’ home, I still have doubts. There’s still somethin’ in me, deep down, tellin’ me what a bad idea all this was, tellin’ me that what I was doin’ was wrong, tellin’ me all the things a good little cricket conscience should.

                But right then, that was when I broke. Somethin’ gave, and the whole Lego tower came a crumblin’ down. Suddenly I was all cool and relaxed, more relaxed than I had ever been in my life, probably more relaxed than I’ll ever be again. The cricket was dead, and the doubts were gone.

                I would go inside, just like I always did when I got home. I would whip up some food, maybe sit her down at the dinner table for a nice chat. They say that families should talk at the dinner table, don’t they? And I’d make it nice, too. I was goin’ to set the tablecloth, set out the wine, set out the food and then, when she was seated, I would set out the gun. Then we would talk. In a calm, reasonable, pleasant way, I was goin’ to tell her exactly the reason why she was about to die. Then I would shoot her in the head. Double-tap, just like they do in all the movies.

                And you know what? It sounded like the best plan in the fuckin’ world. I was broken, broken enough to think that this plan, this idea, it suddenly seemed so right.

                Nah, it felt more than right. It felt like… justice.

                So then what happened, Walter?

                Well I put the gun into my inside jacket pocket, and I get out of the car. Even take the time to lock the car door behind me. I walk up to the front steps of my house, spinnin’ my keys, struttin’ like I owned the place. I do, but, well, you get my meanin’. Hell, I was in such a good mood I even started whistlin’ the theme song to that old show? The Andy Griffith Show? Remember that one? I go just as fine as you please, just a guy walkin’ up to his front door, just like he might on any other day.

                Then I make it up to the front door, and the whistlin’ stops.

                The front door isn’t shut.

                It’s not open, not even enough to let a crack of light come through. Just isn’t shut. The littlest bit off its frame, maybe a half-inch or so, enough so it isn’t latched. That’s the detail that sticks with me the most, really. It was just so… wrong. Off, somehow. I opened the door and…Well, I don’t gotta say much about that, do I? I mean, they probably snapped a bunch of pictures, those crime scene guys. Hard for me to believe they wouldn’t show it to you, the guy in charge.

                I’ve seen them, yes. Still, I need to hear it in your words, the state of the house. After all, we need to know if anything changed between you coming home and the officers arriving on scene.

                Yeah, I figured you would. Well, I’ll save you some time by skippin’ the wall safe, the jewelry boxes, the missin’ DVDs, all that. They took too much for me to remember any of the specific. ‘Sides, let’s not kid each other here… you don’t really wanna hear about that. You want to hear about Susan, am I right?

                Alright, if you want it straight, I’d be happy to lay it out for you. I don’t know if you’re telling the truth about the robbery, but your timeline checks out. Your boss saw you leave work at seven-twenty, and the security cameras at Grabbin’ Guns confirm that you left the gun shop around seven-fourty-five. The police arrived on the scene at eight-twenty-seven. You wouldn’t have had time to stage a break in, or at least not such a thorough one. You could’ve done it that morning, I suppose, but for now let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt, yes? That I believe you. So yes, Walter. I want to hear about Susan.

                See, now we’re getting’ somewhere. So you want me to tell you what happened, what I saw when I came in the livin’ room, but that’s not important. You’d argue, I see you gettin’ ready to right now, but really, there isn’t much to tell. I saw Susan, dead on the couch. That’s about it. Now what I say is important is what I saw in my mind, as I looked at her there.

                I saw Susan comin’ home from work, maybe a bit earlier than the robbers thought… had to have been at least two of them, to carry so much stuff…. And walkin’ into that livin’ room. I saw her seein’ a couple of guys in the room, bein’ surprised. Maybe a scream, maybe not. I duno. I saw them pull a gun on her. I saw them takin’ turns beatin’ her, and then rapin’ her there on the couch for God knows how long. Then I saw them put a bullet through her head. They must’ve left in a hurry out the back door, leavin’ Susan where she was… face down on the couch, naked as a newborn.

                I saw myself, too.

                I see that look on your face, and I know what you’re thinkin’ but let me tell the goddamn story.

                I saw myself, too, because as I stood there thinkin’ about all this, I realized I had been here, at least for the very last part. I thought that my engine had backfired while I was sittin’ in the driveway. Always sounded a little bit like a gunshot. It was gonna be my cover. I pieced it together… I can be a smart man, sometimes. They’d looked out the window, maybe, saw the car in the driveway, and realized that she couldn’t be left alive. I’d heard the gunshot that killed her, while I was sittin’ right outside, tryin’ to work up the nerve to come inside and kill her. How do you think I felt about that, Detective?

                I don’t know, Walter. I mean, from where I’m sitting, it sounds like they saved you the trouble-

                I didn’t WANT to be saved the fuckin’ TROUBLE! What the fuck did she ever do to those guys, huh, the ones who robbed her? Decided to cut out of work a little early?! What gave them more of a right than me to kill her?! Hell, it’d be one thing if they’d just fucked her, maybe beat her around a bit. There’d at least’ve been some kinda justice in that, I think: The cheating bitch getting’ a little more sex than she bargained for.  But killin’ her?

                She cheated on me. If she was goin’ to die, I was the one who was supposed to make it happen. She was mine, God dammit. Mine. I wanted to make her suffer the same way that I’ve been sufferin’, see her cry. But I’ll never get to, now will I?! Heehee, can’t cry without a face, now can you?

                I don’t remember what happened next very well. I remember that I started screamin’. Just… just like all the anger I’d built up over the last month just flowed out of my mouth, all at once. There were no words in it. It was beyond the point of complete thought. There was nothin’ I could say, no way she could hear me, but still I needed to be heard. I guess I was heard, in the end, by the next door neighbors. Or maybe they didn’t hear until I started shooting her there, on the couch, her body. Didn’t really aim or anythin’… hell, it didn’t matter if I hit her or not. I stand there, shootin’ at her body, watchin’ it jump a little bit each time a shot landed, screamin’ at the top of my lungs. I finally ran out of bullets. I was cryin’, by then, and I knew I was out of bullets, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I stood there in the ransacked livin’ room, with a wife full of bullets, pullin’ the trigger and cryin’ until the cops showed up.

                You know the rest, I suppose.

                One more smoke for the road? Thanks.

                You know, it was good to get that out, man. I don’t think you believe me, but I can’t say I give half a shit what you think. I’m fucked three ways to Tuesday as it is. Probably I just confessed to half a dozen crimes. Doesn’t much matter. Didn’t get to do the crime I really wanted to.

                It’s funny. No, no it isn’t. It’s that one thing, that one word or phrase or whatever I can’t get. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but it damn well should… anyway, you know what I’m thinkin’ about, sittin’ here, spillin’ my story? I’m wonderin’ now, what if I hadn’t waited in the car for so long? What would have happened if I’d walked in just ten minutes sooner, when I was still doubting if I could go through with it or not? I mean… What the hell would I have done, then? Heh..hehee…

                What’s funny?

                I gotta joke for you, and it’s a good one. Man comes home from work, planning to shoot his wife. Waits ten minutes, tryin’ to work up the nerve to do it. Finally, when he walks in, he finds his wife dead, and he wonders if he could have saved her life if only he’d been more decisive about killin’ her. Cue rimshot. Heheee… hooboy….I’m tellin’ you, man… you just can’t make this shit up.

           [End Tape]