Carol added in the same breath, “Yeah, are we supposed to just ignore that?”
“I’m not saying to ignore anything,” answered Charlie. “Look, I’m not blind; I know how it looks right now. But Max is not a murderer. I’m sure there’s a perfect explanation that makes tails of why he was all soaked in blood.”
“You’re right there’s an explanation; and yet it’s not easy to admit it.” Carol leaned forward; her hands came together over her overlapping knees. “Listen, you said it yourself: the front door wasn’t broken into and, to my mind, Max has a set of keys to the apartment, isn’t that right?”
Charlie knit her eyebrows. There was no argument there. Yes, Max had a spare key to the apartment. He was continually moving from one area code to the next every other month or so, and sometimes for long periods of time as per the requirements of the trade he was pursuing. And her place was the only constant he had at this point in his life, housing wise.
“Look, I know he’s your brother.” Alvin addressed Charlie in all seriousness. “You don’t want to believe that he may have done this, which is understandable. However, the facts remain, whether we like it or not.”
“But we don’t know the facts,” Charlie retorted, her face hardening from stubbornness.
“What do you mean ‘we don’t know the facts’?” Carol said. “What, ’cause he can’t suddenly remember them?”
“I don’t like what you’re implying.”
“I was just wondering how that memory loss came about…”
Charlie kept quiet, but her face was working. Carol’s sharp tongue was really starting to get on her nerves.
Jen saw it and said in a low voice, “Maybe we should ask him first if he even knew the man in the first place.”
“He says he doesn’t remember a thing,” Simon reminded her. “And we don’t have the name of the victim. So unless we reopen the box and show Max what’s in it, I don’t see how we’re going to jog his memory.”
Carol shook her head vigorously.
“And I’m strongly against any type of foolish gambit that may land us in county jail for mindlessly messing with crucial evidence,” she said. “God knows how much damage we’ve already done so far just by handling that box unnecessarily.”
She eyeballed Alvin as she spoke and he felt the shade of her reproving glance run rampant on his neck.
He said to her with an icy tone, “Sometimes you can be a royal pain in the ass, you know that.”
Alvin’s crude nag didn’t tick her off in the least. However, the virtue of her self-esteem exhorted her to respond to it with an even punchier line.
She said, “Well, I’m sorry if I’m the only one here who seems to be left with any common sense.”
“Alright, let’s cut the crap out for about one minute in here!”
Everyone looked stupefied. It was Tara who had spoken with such a loud, commanding voice that it was akin to a governess’ reprimanding noisy little children. Her whole face was now drawn with an expression of utter aggravation. It was plain that she’d had it!
Putting her kitten down on the floor, she went on. “All this talking is not going to solve anything except driving us all over the edge; but we still have a decision to make, so let’s make it. What’s the next course of action now?”
Tara turned a decisive eye on each of her friends, waiting for someone to speak up. But instead, silence deepened about the room as words seem to instantly dry up in every mouth.
Sullenly, Tara stood up and asked again, “Anyone?”
Without hesitation, Carol broke the silence.
“I think we should involve the police regardless, even in light of the recent development.” She appealed to Charlie. “I mean maybe you’re right, maybe Max didn’t do it. But we won’t know until the police investigation proves otherwise and clears him. That’s the only way…”
Charlie said to all, “If even we, the closest people to him, won’t believe in his innocence, right here and right now, then what chance does he stand with the police? He risks the death penalty.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Alvin asked, his eyes looming large with concern.
“We’re still stuck in here, right? Let’s try to recall the events of last night. All of them put together might give us a better sense of whatever it is that went down. I mean if we can just nail down the series of events that led to the box ending up in here––”
“—And what if we can’t?” asked Tara coldly.
“Well, let’s find out.”
A brief moment of silence ensued during which Charlie’s request was apparently being weighed in all minds.
Finally, Simon nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, I guess if we really wanted to, we could make time to do some cross-examination of what we know even if—and I’m first to admit it—it’s still a long shot. But it’s a luxury we can afford for Max.”
No objection was put forth. And as if a bee had stung her, Carol suddenly uncrossed her legs and sprung up from her knees. Her arms, heavy like iron, hung loosely at her sides.
“I’m not in favor of that,” she said, her brow knitted in discontent. “This is just a waste of time, a pie-in-the-sky attempt to delay the reality of our situation. I mean, what is that gonna do, to try to remember whatever we did in the apartment when the crime took place somewhere else? The longer we wait to call this in, the more likely the delay could be considered an obstruction to a gruesome murder case. I mean, even assuming Max is innocent, then who knows how long the victim’s been dead? He could be on a Missing Persons list, for all we know… Come on guys, think!” Growing unnerved, she looked to Jen for support. “Tell them, will you?”
“I don’t know,” Jen hesitated. “I mean, this is a pretty complicated business.”
Carol shot Jen a sidelong glare which spoke volumes about her resentment. And Jen immediately regretted her middle-of-the-road response. Carol wouldn’t be quick to forget such a disloyal stab.
“Okay,” Carol went on right away with spite in her eyes, “I say we take a vote…”
V
“Take what?” Charlie said, totally dumbfounded.
“Yes, you heard me,” Carol said. “I’m sorry but you’re not thinking straight right now. We’re all in this together so I think we ought to see where everybody stands.”
Charlie plainly looked at Carol, studying her as if this instant was the first time her eyes had ever been set on the blonde uptown girl rocking a zealous temperament, and, now, were trying to place her. But Carol had always been somewhat unplaceable. It was part of her general appeal.
“Come on, Carol, we’re not going to put this to a vote,” Jen said.
“Yes we are; I want to hear what everyone has to say… Well?”
There was a pause. Then Alvin’s eyes went to Charlie. The language of his body spoke for him even before he opened his mouth to say, “Listen, not that I doubt Max or anything, but I just think it’s reasonable to let the authorities handle the situation. We just don’t have enough to go on and figure this out on our own.”
“I’m sorry,” Jen agreed, “but I feel the same way, Charlie.”
Simon said, “And I think we ought to show our support when most needed. At least we should try…”
Carol half-turned to face Tara and hear from her; Tara seemed to be deep in her own private thoughts. Then a second or two later, her chin went up and she said, “I stand with Charlie.”
Like two spotlights quickly converging on a wall, Carol’s eyes landed on Peter and he immediately said, without thinking about it twice, “Sorry, I don’t want to step into this. I’ll roll with whatever you guys decide.”
Tara remarked, “It’s three to three. Where are we now?”
Reemerging from the small corridor where he’d vanished with Max, Dom made count of his vote.
“As far I’m concerned,” he said, “it could’ve happened to any of us,” he said. “Let’s do what Ch
arlie says.”
Carol’s face closed unhappily and she shrugged with weary resignation as if to say, ‘unbelievable’. Then she let herself drop back to her seat and reassumed her generic cross-legged sitting pose. Feeling suddenly tired, she tilted sideways—as if to lie down—until her cheeks came to rest upon her hand. Her arm was propped at the elbow on the armchair and, in that reclined position, she seemed to be evocatively half lying in some Elysium garden. Somehow, her eyes met Tara’s.
“I totally agree now with what you said earlier,” she said to her. “This is a living hell.”
“Nope,” Alvin cut in, dropping his little bouncing ball and catching it back in midair. “It’s just democracy backfiring at you. It’s a nasty catch-22 and you know that.” He paused and gave her a pepping smile. “Don’t let it get you down. Girl, I’d hate to see you lose your fire.”
Carol said nothing. Meanwhile, Charlie anxiously approached Dom and asked him how Max was doing. He tried to reassure her, telling her that Max was still a little worn out and had asked to be alone for a while… Against her all sisterly instincts, she obliged. Let him be, she thought and silently prayed that their collective recollection of the night before would aid in shedding some much-needed light on this conundrum.
Her brother’s life could be lost otherwise.
V
Not wanting to waste any more seconds, Simon waited until everybody had settled into a chair or a comfortable stance. Then he said briskly, “Let’s get down to business, huh? We’ve got to make with our memories of last night so who wants to start it off?”
“I would,” Charlie volunteered. “Now I won’t say this would enlighten us any further but what I remember of last night is people having a good time, enjoying themselves and others’ company. From the moment the party kicked off, it just kept getting merrier and merrier and… I mean everybody was having fun as far as I know.” She paused then went on. “I still can’t believe that while we were all caught up in that celebration moment, something this horrible was happening. At any rate, the party picked up with the karaoke and closed with it. Shortly after that, I excused myself and went off to my room. I had a long day and was particularly tired. So I slept straight till the morning.”
“Not quite straight,” Simon objected. “I kept you up for some time.”
“Oh, that’s right. Late at night, Simon and I spent about an hour texting… And then I went to sleep.”
Carol said with a gesture, “Alright, so basically it was just an ordinary night…”
There was an unpleasant tone in her voice. Charlie ignored it, even though it wasn’t easy to ignore the undercurrent critic on the futility of this amateurish crime scene reconstruction.
“Well, seeing it like that, I guess it was an ordinary night,” Charlie agreed. Then a detail traversed her mind. “Wait,” she said. “There was this repeated noise on the roof that kept bugging me while I was texting. It sounded really weird actually, now that I think about it.”
“Yeah, I heard that too,” Dom said. “Sounded like a rumbling or something.”
“A rumbling?” Tara repeated.
“Yeah, you know like … hmm … the iron-rimmed tires of a train grating on the tracks,” Dom explained. “That kind of noise but on a small scale.”
Charlie confirmed, “That’s right.”
“What do you think it was?” Dom asked Charlie.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think much of it.”
Jen, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor along the couch servicing Carol, suddenly turned to her girlfriend and asked, “Is it the same noise you told me about, Carol?”
Carol dismissed the question with a small wave of her hand.
“I don’t know what I heard,” she said. “And, besides, I don’t see why it is so relevant all of a sudden … a noise. It could’ve been anything.”
II
Owing to his mediatory disposition, Simon tried to keep the proceedings going in an efficient manner. He said, “Alright Tara, you want to add something?”
Tara was sitting next to Dom, her face pale and seemingly taut, although the cause of it was not the exhaustion of her nerves, but rather an intense concentration of her memory on the night before. She was jogging it out frantically now that she stood in the witness stand. And for Max’s sake, she needed to bring it to bear somehow, even though she knew that most of her account wouldn’t really help his case.
At last, after wriggling a little in her seat to reassert herself, Tara said, “Well, I don’t know–– I thought the party was fun, you know. I saw Max a few times make nice to some of the guests, especially the ones he didn’t know and he was having fun like everyone else, I guess…”
Something amusing occurred to her and she added, “There was this time when he came to me and joked about how come we hadn’t planned a double party, you know, considering, and he sort of got a little fussy about it too. But not too seriously—” she looked at Charlie “—and when I brought up the fact that you guys weren’t technically born on the same day, he said that, technically, the first-come first-served rule didn’t necessarily apply to birthday parties where twins were concerned. And I don’t know why but he added that I’d be much happier if I were less of a stick-in-the-mud.”
Charlie stifled a laugh. That was Max all over. His blunt speaking was a character trait that hadn’t transcended from his genes to hers. And perhaps the oneness of their stem cell lines had once remained unbroken back then inside their mother’s womb until their separation at birth, which, as Tara had mentioned, did happen three hours apart with Max coming out last, a little after midnight.
Notwithstanding this, they had always celebrated their birthdays together back when they were small. And this custom would have been perpetuated last night had she had a hand in the organization of her own surprise party.
“This whole deal is just so horrible,” Tara went on, taking her head in her hands. “It’s so unbelievable that I can’t even fathom what is it that provoked someone into committing this kind of murder.”
“What else do you remember?” Simon asked.
“There’s nothing really particular that stands out, you know. I mean we didn’t run into any snag.”
“We did run out of drinks though,” said Alvin.
“Yeah, well I guess that qualifies as a major snag.”
Charlie said to Tara, “When Dom and you went out to get us more drinks, did you notice anything strange in the building, someone or something you felt uneasy about?”
“No, like I said, everything seemed pretty normal, casual, you know. And I wasn’t on the lookout for something either. So we went off straight to the store.”
Dom gently put his hand over Tara’s and concurred. “That’s right; we went straight to the store, got the drinks and we made the acquaintance of Peter there. And I’m pretty positive that I didn’t catch another sight of Max for the rest of the night after we got back here. But, again, I could be wrong.”
Hearing his name pop up in Dom’s statement drove Peter to make a statement of his own, even though it was uncalled for. He felt compelled to side with Max to some degree because of the genuine connection he’d had with him during the party.
He said, trying to look and sound sensible, “When I met him, he seemed all right. He even showed a great interest in my football card collection and we talked at length about sports.”
Peter felt happy about his contribution. At this point, he was deliberately trying to stay as uninvolved as possible, all the while assisting anyhow he could in cracking the circumstances of this murder mystery. And he would keep doing that so as not to burst their bubble for he knew by his judgment that their effort was all but pie in the sky.
Suddenly remembering something, Alvin said, “I didn’t personally see Max skip the party, but he told me that he wasn’t going to stay long anyway because he had other plans for the night. Prior commitment you could say. He was pretty stoked about it?
??”
Charlie immediately asked, “Did he say where he was going?”
“No and I didn’t ask. Now I really wish I had.”
Charlie saw Carol let out a pout of aggravation mixed with impatience. The pout may have been brought on involuntarily and not meant for anyone to notice. However, in response, Charlie waited a minute and turned a patient eye on her friend whose increasing acrimony was causing her serious heartache.
“Carol,” she said, “is there anything you wish to tell us?”
“No,” Carol replied with unmistaken sourness in her voice. “I don’t think so.”
“Please, any detail that you recall could make a difference.”
III
Carol’s lips remained pressed hard into a line of contention and there was also a tightness in her jaw which informed Charlie of her unwillingness to yield. Charlie looked at her with a pleading expression and Carol said, at last, “What do you want me to say, Charlie? It’s all been said.”
Alvin said, dropping his rubber ball and catching it in midair as it leaped back up, “I didn’t realize you were so averse to playing ball. Will it kill your pride to just bear with it for a minute?”
Carol replied hotly, “I didn’t agree to this charade and if you guys want to sit in a circle and share stories, that’s up to you. I think I’ll pass, it’s my privilege.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Tara suddenly said. “Maybe this will get us nowhere. But don’t you care to know what happened, or is it just that there’s no shadow of a doubt in your mind and Max is as guilty as it gets? Because if that’s the way you’re leaning, then maybe you know something I don’t because I’m still not convinced. Talk about some privilege.”
Carol stared at Tara and said nothing for a while. It was not in line with her self-possessed character to be swayed by public opinion. However, Tara’s words seemed to have worked through to her barriers and it showed, ever so mildly, on her comely face.
“Look,” Carol started defensively then paused. As she went on, her tone changed. “It was a fun, busy night, you were all there. And I don’t have much to tell about it except I didn’t see anything, before or even during the party, that could have any bearing upon the death of that man. I wish the situation wasn’t made so personal. I wish someone else had been involved but Max; someone who wasn’t this close to home. But that’s not the case; that is just not the case. And honestly, I really don’t know what to think of it. Believe it or not, I’m as upset about it as any of you… Okay, I’m finished.”