The Unknowns

He was most certainly dead, as dead as one could be. No need to check for a pulse or heart beat, not that Jordan or Jessica wanted that. They were convinced, most certainly convinced.

“That’s a lot of blood,” Jessica said.

“Yeah.”

“Does a body even have that much? How much do you think?”

Jordan shrugged. “I don’t know. Fifty ounces maybe.”

“Hmm. Don’t they measure blood in pints? My mother gives blood and says she gives two pints. So how many ounces is that?”

Jordan was beyond listening. There was nothing to hear, only see. He couldn’t take his eyes off Paul. His knife had entered into Paul’s belly up to its hilt. Several times. As Paul slid to the ground the knife blade tore upwards until hitting his sternum. It was loud and long and messy and not how Jordan had planned it. His initial stab was to the heart. But the knife wouldn’t penetrate. It hit a bone and slipped out. He wouldn’t die. One, two, three, four stabs and he wouldn’t die. Why did it have to take so long and be so hard? Why didn’t he just close his eyes and die? Paul was stunned and hurt, no doubt, but it was his look of disbelief that confused Jordan. I’m stabbing you to death and all you’re asking is, why. All you can do is look at me.” It was a look Jordan would never forget. If it wasn’t for guilt everything would be possible.

“His car,” Jessica said, suddenly, coming to the realization that further plans had to be made. “You shouldn’t have told him to meet you out here; you should have picked him up.”

“Huh? No. I couldn’t be seen with him tonight.”

“But what do we do with the car? The body and now the car?” Paul was dead only minutes, already his identity reduced to an article.

“I don’t know, drive it into the river.”

“The river’s not that deep, not around here.”

“Put the body inside; make it look like an accident.”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “And where would they suppose it got the knife wounds.”

“Yeah,” Jordan said, turning back to the body. “Yeah, that’s right.”

It wasn’t going at all as planned. The stabbing, that was planned. And leaving the body here in the park, that was part of it. The term Jessica and Jordan used, a drug deal gone bad, was one they’d heard on TV cop shows and in real crime reports. Everyone bit on that as a motive, and that’s what they’d call this. But that wasn’t the truth here.

Paul Bargeron was a small-time dealer of weed, his customers mainly high school classmates, so that’s where the suspects would come from. Jordan and Jessica were not users, that being their alibi. Still, Jordan being Paul’s oldest friend since back in third grade, he’d be interviewed. And Jessica being Paul’s former girlfriend, she’d be spoken with, too.

That was no problem, in their minds. They could lie and keep it together, in their minds. They could deny with a straight face, in their minds. They could even pass a polygraph, in their minds. But this, this article now, laying before them, this was not in their minds. Jordan muttered, “Why did we do this.”

“I didn’t do it,” Jessica said.

Jordan turned, the bloody knife poised at the ready as if frozen in time since the last plunge. He had no intention of using it again but the posturing had Jessica backing away. “We did do it, Jessica. We have to figure out something.”

It was nearly four miles to get home, most of it down back country roads, unless she took the shortcut through the woods, the one she always got turned around in. He’d chase her down if she ran out now. She saw how savagely he tore into Paul. How unstoppable he was until the body fell off the knife like a roasted marshmallow off a stick. That would be her story if it came to that, how she screamed at him to stop only he wouldn’t, then threatened her with the same if she didn’t help get rid of the body.

“Why do anything with the car?” she reasoned. “Wipe it down, you know, of prints, and leave it here. Leave the blood, too. Hide the body. No body no crime, isn’t that what they say?”

“I don’t think they’ll say that. Not with all this blood.”

“Were you cut?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“So none of your DNA, right? Drug deal, right? Drug deal gone bad.”

She sounded confident. Jordan wasn’t so sure the original premise would stand. “I don’t think we can leave it here,” he said.

“Why not; that was the plan.”

“I know, just ... I don’t want to look at it.”

“We just leave; we don’t have to.”

“There’ll be photos and kids will claim they saw him lying here. The cops will show us pictures. It’ll never end.”

If they moved the body they’d have to hide it. Hide it so it would never be found. There was always some kind of evidence left on the body. A hair, a bit of sweat or blood, a fiber of clothes. Oh shit, this was a new shirt, a Detroit Red Wings jersey for his birthday. He had always wanted one and they were so expensive. Now he’d have to get rid of it and come up with a story for losing it.

It was still bleeding, or maybe just still bloodied and drying. In the dark he couldn’t be sure. Either way they’d have to wrap it in plastic so it wouldn’t leak into the trunk. “I’ll go home and get some plastic bags,” Jordan said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Oh no, you’re not leaving me here.”

“You need to. You need to make sure no one sees it. Hide in the woods, you want.”

“And what do I do if someone does come by?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Least we’ll know if it’s still safe to move it or if we need to think of something else.”

“Like what?”

“Shit, Jessica, I don’t know.”

He hit the gas hard and kicked gravel from the parking lot. Dumb move. His father would curse when kids in the neighborhood dared disturb his peace with a revving crotch rocket or drag run within earshot. No doubt father’s everywhere felt the same. He slowed it down. A casual drive through a playground at midnight, that wouldn’t look suspicious. Yeah, right.

He and Paul had long ago given up riding Heely’s through the neighborhood and matching Power Rangers against alien foes. By eighth grade Paul had become the school bad boy; the one know kid messed with and all the girls swooned over. He had become a celebrity for all the wrong reasons as far as Jordan was concerned. Still, he was cordial and accommodating to Jordan when all others at school were not. He’d still talk to him at lunch and nod in the hallway.

Jordan had never seen Paul fight for real. But rumors and stories flew about how tough he was. Once Jordan was being forced into his locker and it was Paul who shot his tormenter a look that broke things up. “All it takes, Jordy,” Paul whispered as he walked away. “An attitude and a rep.”

Jordan thought on that. Those were two things he’d never have, not with his pale white, freckled face. He tried sneering in the mirror but it look comical, like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, calling down to the burglars, “You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more?”

But that wasn’t what was on his mind as he drove home. Nor was killing his old best friend his deepest concern. It was Jessica and her comment, or was it a threat, “I didn’t do this.”

She was right in a sense. Maybe even in a legal sense. He didn’t know. Cop shows didn’t talk about that part. Maybe Law and Order but he never watched that one. Too dry, too boring. God how he wished he had seen a few episodes.

Call the cops. Anonymous. Tell them there’s girl and a dead body in Sawyer Park. He saw them from the road. No, not the road. You can’t see anything from the road. And call from where? His cell phone? No, no calls from his cell. They can trace the call and his route.

Just don’t go back. Leave her there to walk or get caught. Maybe she’d get so scared she drive Paul’s car away. That would be good, her prints all over it. Maybe a strand of her bleached blonde hair left behind.

No, Paul was a friend and he killed him as easily as slipping a frozen pizza into the oven. And Jessica was a friend. He couldn’t do such a thing to her. They’d know each other since sixth grade. She was stunning and aloof. But she spoke to him, smiled at him. It was Jordan who approached Paul for her. “Hey, that girl, Jessica, know her?”

“Who doesn’t.”

“Well, she asked me to tell you, she really likes you.”

That was ninth grade and they dated for two years, just up to last month. Jordan didn’t know all the details of the break-up anymore than he did those of the relationship. It was a week ago that she came to him in tears with a harrowing story and the terror it caused her. He had been only a messenger of love between her and Paul. Now her angelic face was buried in his chest, her delicate hands clutching his shoulders. He smelled her perfume, nestled his nose into her soft hair. She needed him and he couldn’t refuse.

There was a construction site a mile from the park. They were everywhere, the town experiencing a building boom. Jordan would run through such developments when he was a kid. Pieces of wood and rubber and shingles were strewn all over. And plastic, large sheets of plastic, to cover machinery and unfinished windows and doorways. He pulled into the site and killed the lights. He got out and beelined for the nearest structure, one with the Tyvek wrap. He tore a large plastic sheet from a side window. A second to make sure he had enough. He tore off two more to make it look like vandalism.

There was no sign of Jessica when he arrived back. The thought of her running to police had him nearly vomiting. Then he saw her coming from the tree line. She stood beside the car, between it and the body while he pulled the plastic tarp from the trunk.

“I’m not sure we can do this,” she said.

“Jessica, we did it.”

“I was thinking while you were gone. Did he tell anyone he was coming here? Did he have GPS on his car? What exactly did you tell him to get him to the park?”

“Hell, Jessica, now? Now you think of these things? You dated him; did he have GPS? Did he always call people to tell them where he was going?”

“He has all sorts of gadgets on his car. GPS, maybe, case it gets stolen. Sometimes he calls people to you know, buy and sell.”

“How ‘bout his new girlfriend, Tanya?”

“Tara. What about her?”

“Well, think he would have called her?”

“I don’t see why; he didn’t call me every time he ran out somewhere.”

That hit a nerve. It was uncool to ask her about Tara and Paul. Tara was nineteen, a college freshman, a former homecoming queen. The break-up must have been hard on her but he had to know if any potential witnesses were around. Not that he would do anymore killing. God no. That was out.

“We shouldn’t have brought him here.” Jessica said.

“You shouldn’t have asked me to help you.”

“You shouldn’t have suggested doing this.”

“You suggested, Jessica. I only agreed.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

Jordan was stretching out the plastic, without her assistance. “We shouldn’t have killed him,” he said. “But we did, and now you have to help.”

“I can’t.”

There was no time to argue. He’d been out late enough as it was, and he still hadn’t come up with a story for his parents. The body was stiff and heavy. Blood was no longer running out of it but he felt it sticking to his hands and arms. He struggled, looked to Jessica for a hand, then realized that wasn’t going to happen. Slipping it into the trunk was no easier. The plastic did what plastic did. It slipped and slid. For sure blood would be left somewhere.

“What now?” Jessica asked.

He told her of the construction site. “There are a few foundations ready to be poured.”

“What’s that mean?”

“They pour cement into these forms to make basement walls.” He shrugged. “We drop the body in and they cover it in cement.”

“You mean he’ll be buried in someone’s basement?”

“Yeah. Just get this done; I don’t want to think about it.”

He was about to close the trunk when she grabbed his arm. “Your shirt, it’s covered in blood. You can’t get into your car like that.”

“Clean it later.”

“You can’t get blood out, not all of it. Take it off.”

“How can I explain −.”

“I’m wearing a T-shirt under my sweater.” She pulled the sweater over her head. He turned away in embarrassment. “It’ll be too small,” he said.

“I wear them large. Here.”

He turned. She stood in her bra, her hand outstretched with the lime-green shirt. He turned away again while grabbing it. He took off his Red Wing’s jersey and slipped the T-shirt on. Tight but it covered all it was supposed to. “Gimme that.” She tossed it into the trunk.

At the construction site his mind began to focus on the essentials. Off- duty cops and private security were often hired to patrol after hours. They would sit, not patrol, usually in an out-of-the way spot. He drove through casually. Just a passing interest in the latest development if he were stopped. Worse they would do was send him on his way.

“So what about the pictures?” he asked Jessica

“Huh?”

“The photos? You sure he didn’t send them out before ... you know.”

“No. No, he didn’t send them.”

“Sure? I mean. ‘cause if −.”

“I told you no.”

She was highly perturbed at the question. The thought of Paul’s threat to upload naked photos of her, the reason she came to Jordan in the first place, was a distant memory and no longer seemed such a big deal to either of them. Jordan was sure they both shared the same thought, such a ridiculous reason to do what they did. It was the type of shit they read and heard about, never believing it could happen. Never believing it could be them.

“What do we do if we’re stopped?” Jessica asked.

“Tell them we’re just curious.”

“At eleven at night? What ... what if they want to check the car, the trunk?”

“They can’t.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“What if they do? What if they called the police and they make us open it?”

She was getting hysterical. He hoped not so much she could be heard out the windows. “I don’t know.”

“What if someone already saw the blood puddle and reported it? What if there’s like, you know, an ABP out for us?”

“I don’t know, damn it. Jessica. Okay, I just don’t know.”

Jordan drove to a back lot where he had noticed the new foundation prepared with wooden forms. It was Thursday night. For sure they’d be pouring cement into the forms the next day, allowing the weekend for it to dry. They stared into the ground, between the wooden forms. “Wow,” Jessica said, “that’s a tight fit.”

“Yeah.”

Jordan rolled the body over and into the narrow slot. It didn’t fall free to the bottom as he had planned. It caught about three feet down. He grabbed a length of two-by-four and tried pushing it. Maybe another foot or two, no further.

Jessica was sobbing. “We can’t leave it there like that. Anyone walking by will see it.”

“Yeah.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know.”

She ran to the trunk to get the Red Wings jersey and tossed it in, partially covering the body.

“What’d you do that for?”.

“You gotta get rid of it anyway.”

“But that’s my jersey. That’s evidence.”

“Shit, Jordan, the body is evidence. This idea of yours was good enough for the body but not your damn shirt?”

She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t leave it in his trunk. He could have burned it or buried it elsewhere but he didn’t think of that until days later. He gathered piles of dirt and rock and gravel and swept them onto the body, additives for the earthworks.

It had been over three weeks. Mad searches were on for Paul Bargeron and his killer. His sordid past came out. His parents and two younger sisters were going through hell on many levels. Jordan knew them well. Well enough that Paul’s father called him to inquire on any knowledge and then to just cry and vent. Jordan could only listen, fearing any answers would give him away.

“Paul wasn’t into selling drugs.” his father said, as much a question as it was a statement. “Why would people spread such horrible rumors? So he had money; he was working odd jobs; he was always hustling, you know that, how ambitious he was. He had good friends. You, Jordan, it’s been a while but you were his friend, you know. He was solid.”

A while? Yeah, like over seven years. You think he hadn’t changed, hadn’t rebelled, hadn’t become someone you wouldn’t recognize or even like if you met him on the street. Trust me, he changed; I changed; we’ve all changed. “We didn’t hang together much, sir,” Jordan said, just to close the conversation. “But yeah, Paul was a good kid.”

Jessica and Jordan hadn’t spoken since that night and barely acknowledged each other in school. It was a long way since that day she confided in him with tears and a fervent embrace. There were rumors of her selling weed now. Jordan paid them no heed. When tragedy hits it brings out all sorts of ugliness.

Jordan awoke from the first of many nightmares, one where he is staring into Paul’s eyes as he slides off the knife, “Next time, Paul, I promise. Next time I won’t do this.” His cell rang. It was a frantic call from Jessica.

“Jordan. Jordan. That housing development, Jordan, we got a big problem. Jordan, oh my god.”

“Slow down, what’s the problem?”

“My dad, he’s on the town zoning board. They’ve been planning for years to use that site as a community pool. I didn’t know that … I mean, I knew they wanted to build one, but I had no idea where.”

Jordan’s stomach fell out and a cold sweat bathed him. “Just what are you saying?”

“The town bought the site, part of it. I think it’s that part ... you know.”

“No I don’t know.”

“That house where we ... you know. My dad said the builders agreed to sell off three acres in the southeast corner for the pool and a community center. Jordan, that’s where we were. Jordan, they’ll be tearing up those foundations for the pool.”

Jordan got it. He got it as soon as she mentioned the pool. Rebuilding a structure above would have no consequences. Only digging down would serve against them. What were the odds? He thought back to her so callously tossing his jersey into the hole. No regard for consequences such as this. It was as if she was planting evidence against him in the event she needed a fall guy. He had to ask, though it came out as more of a accusation. “Did you know about this back then?”

“What? No, of course not. It was your plan; you found the site.”

Of course. Still.

“Jordan, what are we gonna do?”

“I don’t know, Jessica. I just don’t know.”