“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going downstairs to talk to Areea, she’s bound to be messed up. Talk to her, talk to her family. Tell them it was a burglar but if we want to keep the cops out of it, we gotta take care of this ourselves. They don’t want the cops as much as we don’t want the cops. They’ll get questioned, passed on to INS, deported. We gotta take care of this in-house. Tonight.”
“What do you mean, Pat?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about a thing, we’ll take care of this, no one else involved,” Pat reassured me, suddenly becoming stronger before my eyes, taking on something of the old DFD lead paramedic, someone with responsibility for other things than himself. But even so, I wasn’t convinced.
“I just assumed we’d call the cops,” I said.
“Alex, listen to me, they will arrest you, they’ll say you were jealous of John and Areea, you’re covered in his blood, you have motive, opportunity, I swear to you, there’s a very good chance you’ll go to prison.”
“If I tell them about the Mulhollands….”
“They won’t believe you…. Christ, Alex, you should know that, the cops want simplicity, there’s a simple explanation for everything. This isn’t a big fucking conspiracy, this is a simple case of homicide. You can get those knives anywhere.”
“I have an alibi, a witness.”
“Who, me? Come on. You were his roommate, he was fucking the girl you loved, you killed him with your own knife. At the very least, you’re going to jail. I suppose you don’t have fifty grand for bail?”
“No.”
“Alex, listen to me. You’re fucked.”
I nodded, too tired to debate it, too tired to see if it was the right thing to do or not. I went to Pat’s, stripped, soaped myself, showered. Sobbed up against the wall. Found one of Pat’s robes, put it on, went down the hall. Walked back into the apartment. No one there. The smell of blood, vile, pervasive.
I trudged downstairs. Knocked on the Ethiopians’ door.
It was open. I went in. Pandemonium. The whole family up. Pat talking to Mr. Uleyawa, the sons beside him, aghast, afraid, Simon translating what Pat was saying. Areea, wrapped in a blanket, curled on the sofa in the fetal position. Her hair soaked. She had showered or bathed. She’d been terrified but she wasn’t stupid, she’d gotten that blood off her.
A bucket sat beside her, she had been throwing up. Her mother and grandmother stroking her hair as she shivered and wept.
She gasped when she saw me.
“Areea,” I said.
“Get out of here, Alexander,” Pat said, “I’m taking care of things.”
I walked over to Areea. She backed into the cushions, afraid of me for a moment. The grandmother tried to stop me from touching her. I knelt by the sofa. I could smell blood on her still. Or maybe that was my imagination.
I touched her hair.
“It must have been terrible,” I said.
She sobbed. I let her cry for a minute. The conversation in the room ceased.
“Areea, I’m sorry about this, I’m very sorry.”
“Alex, don’t,” Pat said, cautioning me about saying anything.
Areea put her arms out and I leaned in and hugged her. No, not blood. She smelled of shampoo and skin, she had been scrubbed raw. We held each other for a minute. Her wet hair dripped down my back. Pat began speaking to Simon again in low tones, Simon translating it for his dad in singsong Ethiopian.
“Areea, listen to me, listen to me, did you see anything?” I said. “Did you see who did this?”
Areea shook her head.
“Tell me, tell me what happened.”
Her mother gave her something to drink from an opaque glass. She swallowed it. She looked at me and tried to smile a little.
“John and I were in your bed,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “What happened?”
“We were sleeping, we were falling asleep.”
“And then?”
“There was a knock at the door. John thought it was you, he said: ‘Silly bugger’s dropped his keys.’”
I smiled at her.
“And then what, Areea?” I asked gently.
She grabbed my hand and held it tight. So tight that it hurt.
“John got up, he left the bedroom, he closed the bedroom door. He walked down the hall, he did not come back. I did not hear anything, at first. I wondered what was keeping him. I thought he was talking to you. I waited for five minutes. The fan was on in the bedroom, so I could not hear him and then I did.”
She burst into tears.
Pat came over, touched me on the shoulder.
“Alexander, you’re doing yourself no good here, I’m trying to get this organized, you’re dripping wet, you should go back upstairs,” he said, calm, sensible.
“In a minute, Pat, in a minute,” I said.
Pat gave me a significant look. He didn’t want me to say anything. He had made a story for Simon and he didn’t want me to mess it all up.
“I’ll go back in a minute, Pat,” I said.
Pat walked back over to Simon and began talking to him again, urgently, explaining something, telling them what happened and what they were going to have to do.
“Areea, tell me,” I said.
“John was at the bedroom door, he had crawled all the way from the hall, he was bleeding. He could not speak. He could not say anything. He was bleeding. The knife. Oh my good God. Oh my good God.”
She cried again. I let her. She shook.
“I am sorry, Alexander, I was so frightened. I was too frightened to leave the bedroom. I helped John inside. I held him. I was too frightened. I know I should have called the ambulance. John was dying. I was so frightened.”
“It’s ok, Areea, they couldn’t have helped him, the doctors couldn’t have helped him. He had lost so much blood, there was nothing any of us could have done.”
“No, no, no, it was wrong, I should have got Patrick and used his phone, I was so frightened, I am so sorry, I am so sorry,” Areea said.
“No, it’s ok,” I said.
Areea began digging her nails into my hand and then abruptly she let go and began digging her nails into her own face. She began screaming. Her mother tried to stop her, she was writhing on the sofa. Her mother and grandmother held her down. Pat practically lifted me to my feet.
“Alexander, can’t you see you’re making things worse here? Go upstairs, Jesus, look at you, there’s still blood in your hair, I told you to have two showers. Go, now.”
Areea was sobbing and I wanted to hold her and tell her it was ok. My fault, not hers. My fault. My stupidity that had got John killed. My carelessness. It was nothing to do with her. Pat frog-marched me to the front door of the apartment.
“Listen to me, Alexander, I am a sick man, but if I have to drag you up five fucking flights I will, now get the fuck out of here,” he seethed at me, furious.
I went upstairs, took Pat’s advice, had another shower. The hot water was gone. It was cold. I relished the pain of the freezing water. Pat was nowhere to be seen. I put on a pair of his jeans and a T-shirt. They were too big for Pat now and too big for me. I walked out into the hall to see what was happening.
Pat, two of Areea’s brothers, and her dad, carrying John’s body, wrapped in sheets out of the apartment.
“Alex, get out of here,” Pat said.
“What are you doing, Pat?” I said, panicked, frightened, protective of poor John.
“Alex, leave this to us, fuck off,” Pat said.
“No, Pat, what are you doing? The police,” I said weakly.
“Hold on, boys,” Pat said. He took me by the arm and led me back to his place.