I know I was acting in self-defense when he died; in fact, when he fell on the knife, I was just trying to keep him from killing me. I hadn’t planned that, it was an accident, but still, I hope there won’t be any kind of trouble with the police when I show them his corpse.
After I find the trail, it’s not far to the research building, which, despite the rain, I can see is already mostly consumed by the blaze.
Rain and smoke smudge the day.
Charlene isn’t in the place where I left her and Tanbyrn, and I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.
I study the area, searching for her.
Emergency vehicle sirens scream at me from the access road to the center, but it’s too late for the firefighters to save much of the structure, and unless Banner had a partner we don’t know about, there is no arsonist for the cops to track down. All I can think of is that hopefully no one else in addition to Dr. Tanbyrn and Abina was hurt or killed in the fire.
A group of about twenty people has gathered beneath the roof of a deck built along the back of a nearby cabin, presumably to escape the rain. A few people are silently watching the blaze, others have formed a semicircle and are staring down at a body.
Tanbyrn.
I quicken my pace.
Two people lean over him, Charlene and a woman I don’t recognize. Two of the women in the semicircle are holding their hands over their mouths, and I can’t imagine that’s a good sign.
The attention of the crowd turns to me as I approach, and the people part to let me through. Someone asks if I’m alright, perhaps noticing the blood smeared across the side of my head or the hitch in my step from the pain in my side.
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
I make it to Tanbyrn’s side and Charlene looks up at me. “He still hasn’t woken up.”
But at least he’s alive.
At least—
“Did you …?” she begins, then seems to catch herself and stands. The woman who’s kneeling beside Tanbyrn apparently knows what she’s doing — perhaps she’s a doctor or a nurse — and Charlene must feel comfortable leaving him alone with her because she leads me away from the group of bystanders to the corner of the porch, where we can talk privately.
“What happened? Did you catch him?” Then she sees the wound on the side of my head. “Jevin!” Out of concern she reaches for it, but instead of touching it, just ends up pointing at it instead. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Was anyone else hurt?”
“No. It doesn’t look like it.”
“Good.” I lower my voice. “The arsonist, he’s dead.”
“What?” She stares at me. “You killed him?”
The first fire truck appears, lumbers toward the flaming building with one set of wheels on the trail, the other on the wet, uneven ground beside it.
“It was an accident. He came at me with the knife. I blocked his arm, kicked out his leg, and when I hit him again, he went down. He landed on the blade.”
She lets that sink in.
I gesture toward Tanbyrn. “How is he?”
“Hard to say. He needs to get to a hospital. You killed the guy? Honestly?”
I’m not quite comfortable phrasing it like that, but technically I have to admit that it’s correct. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
Her eyes have returned to the gash on my head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
A few police cars and an ambulance emerge from the fog, following the fire truck. One of the men who was on the porch leaves and signals to the ambulance to come this way. The driver veers away from the path and aims the vehicle toward us.
Gingerly, I touch the wound. It’s already swollen pretty badly and is quite tender. I’d been so distracted thinking about Tanbyrn that I hadn’t been as aware of the pain pumping through my side, but now that I pause and breathe and think about where I am, what happened, it seems to become more pervasive again. The knuckles of my right hand are sore from when I punched Banner’s jaw. The skin on my hands is still red and tender from the fire.
“A little beat-up,” I admit. “But yeah. I’m okay.”
She’s quiet, and I imagine she’s mentally running through the fight, trying to picture me — or maybe trying not to picture me — killing a man.
“He was the guy from last night,” I tell her. “The same guy who was outside Tanbyrn’s office when we arrived.”
“Did he… Did you find out anything?”
“His name was Glenn Banner. From Seattle.” The ambulance pulls to a stop. Two paramedics leap out, and the crowd parts to give them access to Tanbyrn. “I found a note with a code on it, and I’ve got some cell numbers for Fionna to follow up on.” I’m not sure how to tell her the rest, so in the end I decide to just go ahead and say it. “Charlene, he killed Abina.”
“What? Abina?”
I nod.
“How?” Shock and disbelief in her voice.
“Charlene, it’s not really—”
“What did he do to her!”
I hesitate, realize she will settle for nothing less than the truth, and give her the whole story. “He stabbed her, then he slit her throat. He burned her body in the fire.”
Charlene’s face hardens into a mixture of revulsion and rage.
For a moment I debate whether or not to tell her about the photographs in his wallet, but it’s pretty clear this isn’t the time for that. Unsure what to say, I finally just mumble an honest but inadequate acknowledgment that I understand how devastating this news is. “I’m sorry.”
The paramedics are giving Dr. Tanbyrn oxygen and transferring him onto a gurney that they’ve lowered beside him.
“Did he suffer?” Charlene’s words are soft, but there’s fire beneath them. “Did he suffer before he died?”
“Yes. He did. It wasn’t quick.”
“Good.”
She stares past me for a moment, then notices the slice in my shirt where Banner’s blade made its mark when he came at me. She reaches out and tenderly slides her finger along the edge of the frayed fabric, the light cut underneath it. The pain and anger on her face fade, and a look of deep concern takes its place. “Thank God you’re alright.”
“Yes.”
“But that poor woman.” Her voice breaks. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
I see a tear form in the corner of Charlene’s eye, and I draw her close. She wraps her arms around me and leans against me, and despite the pain that crunches up my side as she does, I don’t flinch. I just let her try to draw strength from me, even though at the moment I don’t really feel like I have a whole lot of extra strength to offer anyone.
The words from a few moments ago echo through my head:
“Did he suffer before he died?”
“Yes. He did. It wasn’t quick.”
“Good.”
Yeah, maybe there is a degree of justice to that after all.
Bloody Soil
The sheriff’s department deputies question me about the assailant, and I walk three of them to the place where Glenn Banner’s body lies sprawled on a bed of soggy, bloody pine needles. They ask me to explain what happened, talk them through the fight, and I do. Blow by blow.
Two of them jot notes while the third, a man with a snarled brown mustache whose name tag reads Jacobs, slowly circles the body, taking photographs with his mobile phone. I figure I don’t need to tell them about the pictures in Banner’s wallet. They’ll find them soon enough.
I’m finishing recounting what happened when Deputy Jacobs begins to go through Banner’s pockets.
He locates the phone, the note, the keys, the newspaper page, the wallet. He flips it open and after a moment pulls out the photographs.