Little Bird of Heaven (30 page)

Except she’d left the shiny fake hair-braid behind, like a taunt.

The worst possibility was, he’d hurt her, or insulted her in some way unknown to him, she’d reported him to the cops and they’ve got a look
out for him right now checking the license plates of vehicles and with sick-drunk Delray sprawled in the seat beside him Aaron will be pulled over, his driver’s license examined, van registration, check the computer and for sure
Kruller, Aaron
is in the system, Aaron has a juvenile record for fighting at school, “assault” and misdemeanor offenses, under New York State law this record is sealed but still his name would be in the Sparta PD data base and you had to suppose that
Kruller, Delray
would be in the system too.
Drunk-and-disorderly, impaired driving, resisting arrest
Delray Kruller’s driver’s license suspended for six months back in 1987.

But it would be the connection with
Kruller, Zoe
that would trigger the cops’ interest most.

“Pa, chill it. We’re almost home.”

Delray had begun thrashing about in the passenger’s seat. In the confined space of the van’s cab he smelled strongly of alcohol and vomit and his body. Demanding to know where in hell Aaron was taking him, and why he wasn’t driving—this was his van, wasn’t it? Aaron said, “Pa, I picked you up at Viola’s just now. Some friends of yours dumped you in the driveway, you could’ve froze to death if Viola hadn’t been awake.”

Adding, “See Pa, I’m taking you home. You need to get to bed.”

Need to get to bed.
As if that was Delray’s greatest need.

Aaron was thinking what a wrong thing it is, taking care of your father like this. Like he’s a baby. It was unnatural, supposed to be a father takes care of his children.

You can’t help being resentful. Like with Zoe who’d stopped loving him in that special way. Like a mother loves you no matter what and will always forgive you except one day this love can wear out, you’re on your own. He’d gotten too big for her, maybe. How was this Aaron’s fault!
Love ya sweetie and your father too it’s just that I want my own life now some place I can breathe.

It was a cruel joke, then: strangled like she was. So the breathing ended.

Past 4:30 A.M. when Aaron turned the van into the lane leading to the house he’d lived in for all of his life he could recall. Old farmhouse Zoe
had had painted peach-color which was a pretty color but weatherworn now it more resembled dirty concrete, and since she’d left more than seven years ago the shutters were faded, and some of them rotted loose. Flower boxes Aaron had helped Zoe attach below the windows, where she’d planted bright red flowers—geraniums?—until she’d lost interest, and these window boxes too were rotted. Neither Delray nor Aaron saw the house only just lived in it the way shell-creatures live in their shells except sometimes Aaron took notice, what a sad wreck it was getting to be, how sad Zoe would be to see it, a beaten-up ship drifting in some remote sea.

Oh honey! How has this happened! I never meant for anything like this to happen.

Sure she still talked to him. More than he talked to her. Almost he could feel her hand touching his wrist. Almost he had to stop himself from turning to her desperate and yearning
Mom? Where are you?

“…never touched her, Aaron. Your mother.”

“O.K., Pa. Right.”

“You know that, don’t you? Aaron?”

“Sure.”

Grunting and cursing he managed to maneuver Delray out of the van and into the house. Not an easy job without Viola to help and the old man too drunk to cooperate and inside the house Aaron led him into the back room—no question Delray could be walked upstairs—where a few hours before Aaron had brought the shiny-fake-braid woman Sheryl, or Shirl. Let Delray sink down onto the dirty bare mattress, tugged off Delray’s boots, Delray’s filthy wool socks, vomit-splattered sheepskin jacket. Delray tried to assist by lifting his arms, lifting his legs, apologetically now mumbling, “…loved her. You don’t believe me but I did. A kid like you, you don’t understand these things. I loved your mother….”

“Pa, I know. Sure.”

Aaron squatted loosening his father’s trousers, this was an awkward procedure that made him ashamed, couldn’t look the old man in the face. Going then to get a wetted cloth from the bathroom to wash roughly at
Delray’s battered face. Maybe Delray looked worse than he was. Boxers who bleed easily always look worse than they are. Or anyway, the serious injuries are not visible. Blood is not a serious injury. Playing lacrosse a guy can be bleeding from a half-dozen cuts but stay in the game. It’s a matter of pride staying in the game. Aaron was determined to stay in the game. Some guys, friends of his living out on the Seneca reservation, they were giving up, enlisting in the army. That was the way out—the army. But Aaron Kruller would not. He was going to hang on here in Sparta, help his father at the garage and one day
clear his name.
This was not a mission Aaron ever spoke of to anyone. Certainly not to Delray.

Examining now his father’s big-knuckled hands, seeing with a smile sure the old man’s knuckles were skinned, must’ve been he’d been in a fight that night and had hit somebody, hard. Maybe Delray had provoked the fight, he’d brought this onto himself. “Who were you with tonight, Pa? Just, I’d like to know.”

Delray didn’t seem to have heard. Delray grabbed the wash cloth from Aaron and pressed it against his eyes, moaning softly.

Saying after a moment: “…believe me, don’t you? About your mother? Yeh?”

“Pa, sure. Never mind that.”

“You would not ever in-form on your own father, would you, Aaron? Right?”

Aaron laughed uncomfortably. This was not a new subject between them. “Why’d I ‘inform’ now, Pa. I never ‘informed’ then.”

Better back off now, Aaron thought. Let his father sleep it off. Maybe that’s all Delray needs is to sleep it off, by the time he wakes around noon Delray will have forgotten this episode and Aaron means to forget, too.

T
HAT NIGHT
. Only afterward would he think of it as
that night.

In fact Aaron had not been home until late
that night
himself.

Meaning the night when Zoe died. The night when Zoe was murdered.
That night everything changed. And I had no knowledge of it until hours too late.

It was their pattern now. The pattern of their lives. Living together in the house on Quarry Road after Zoe moved out. After school—this was before he’d been expelled as a
chronic troublemaker
—Aaron worked at his father’s garage. He pumped gas and was learning auto repair taking instruction from Delray and when Delray wasn’t there from Delray’s right-hand man Mitch Kremp. In the tow truck he’d ride with Mitch and assist him and after the garage closed at about 6 P.M. most evenings Aaron hung out with his friends for as long as he could before returning home where most nights Delray wasn’t likely to be.

Turning up the lane to the house he’d see a single light burning in a downstairs room. Though knowing better—for sure, Aaron knew better—he’d feel his heart leap with the thought this might be Zoe returned. Though probably Aaron had left the light on himself, that morning.

That night
which was February 11, 1983. When Aaron’s life was struck in two. He’d hung out with some guys he knew at the reservation, out North Post Road. There was a crossroads community there lacking a name, a 7-Eleven store where the older brother of a friend of Aaron’s bought the guys six-packs, cigarettes. One of the older guys drove into Sparta where he had a contact at the train depot, to score nickel bags of
weed. Aaron was one of the younger guys but reckless, hopeful. Any crazy thing that came up, Aaron volunteered. They’d been looking to break into cars at the mall behind Sears but came away with kids’ toys and women’s crap like towels, underwear, socks in shopping bags they tossed away in disgust. Anything expensive, people had enough sense to lock in their cars and it was more than they dared risk, to break the window of any car. Must’ve been noisy entering the mall at the CineMax in the wake of some high school girls eyeing them but the CineMax manager must’ve alerted security, there came a guard to chase them away.
This is private property boys. This is not a public place.
One of the guys overturned a trash can, shattered glass and the fat-faced guard couldn’t chase them more than a short distance into a field where Aaron and his friends were running like dogs in a pack excited and aroused whopping as their feet broke through the ice crust and the guard shouted after them in disgust
Cocksuckers next time you’re gonna be arrested. Get the hell back to the fucking rez where you belong.

Laughing together but the feeling drained away like air hissing from a slashed tire, Aaron wanted to get the hell home.

Past 11 P.M. when he returned to the house. Now that Zoe was gone seemed like nobody gave a damn how late Aaron stayed out or if he cut classes at school or failed to show up at school at all. If he had meals to eat, or ate like an animal foraging what he’d find in the refrigerator—leftovers, take-out Chinese and pizza, hoagies. All Delray kept in stock was beer and ale.

That night.
Delray had not been home when Aaron returned nor did Delray return while Aaron was watching TV, drinking beer from a can and finishing off a stale hoagie from the refrigerator sprawled on the sofa but there was no question, Aaron would believe Delray when Delray claimed he’d been with a woman at that time, whose name he could not reveal because she was still married to her husband and desperate not to lose custody of her children. This woman’s name would not be revealed to Aaron but it seemed that she lived in Star Lake, not in Sparta, and so Delray was driving forty minutes or more, all this sounded plausible. No question, Aaron believed his father swearing to him he had not been in
Sparta, he had not been anywhere near West Ferry Street,
he had not seen Zoe that night.

Saw in his father’s bloodshot eyes the sincerity of his father’s words
Did not commit bodily harm against my wife Zoe I love to this day you believe me Aaron don’t you?

Sure. Aaron believed.

Questioned by police where had Delray been on that Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday morning Aaron had said, “My dad was home, with me. We were home together.”

Sullen-faced kid, evasive eyes. Under duress Aaron looked dark-red-skinned, that singed-looking skin of the Native American though he’d had a blond Caucasian mother.

“All that night? That night and into the early hours of Sunday morning, you were in your father’s presence? That’s what you’re telling us, Aaron?”

Yes. That was what Aaron was telling them.

The older detective—his name was Martineau—suggested in a mock-sympathetic voice maybe Aaron was lying to protect his father? That it?

For a long moment Aaron did not speak. Dark blood beat heavily in his face. But he would not be baited, he would say only no he was not lying. His father had been home with him, the two of them together all that night.

“In the same room? In the same bed? All that night?”

The detective spoke sneeringly. Still Aaron would not be baited but sat stubborn, impassive. He was not lying. He did not think of it as lying. If Delray had sworn to him that he had not hurt Zoe, that he had not been at 349 West Ferry Street that night, Aaron believed him.

You know I would not lie to you son. This is the utter truth I am telling you.

Questioned further, Aaron told the detectives in a slow halting near-inaudible voice yes it was so, that night had not been a typical Saturday night for his father. Or for him. Some nights Delray was gone all night, two or three days Delray might be away somewhere, and Aaron wouldn’t know where, but the night of February 10 had been different: Delray had
been home. Maybe he’d had some kind of flu, he’d gone to bed early. Aaron had stayed up watching TV. So he’d been home, and his father had been upstairs in bed, Aaron could swear that. He would swear that in court if necessary.

And in the morning his father was still in bed when Aaron left the house, he was sure. He’d decided to drop by the house where his mother was staying with a woman friend, she’d asked him to come and pick up a Christmas present she had for him before she left on some trip—Aaron thought it was “an airplane trip”—“auditioning” at some nightclub. No, Aaron didn’t know details. It was like Zoe to speak of her plans yet remain secretive about details.

But she’d wanted to see him, Aaron said, before she left on this trip, it had seemed important to her.

How frequently had Aaron seen his mother, since she’d moved out of the house on Quarry Road, Aaron was asked. Aaron shrugged saying not too often.

“Not too often’? When had you seen your mother, before that morning, son?”

Son.
A sour taste filled Aaron’s mouth, he’d have liked to spit out onto the table.

Not too often, he said. But Zoe called him, at the house.

“She said she had a ‘Christmas present’ for you? Where is this ‘Christmas present’?”

Aaron shrugged. He had not given the
Christmas present
any thought until this moment.

“And your mother didn’t mention who was taking her on the ‘airplane trip’? And where?”

Aaron shook his head, no. She had not.

“Did you have any ‘premonition’ something might have happened to her? That’s why you went to see her?”

Aaron shook his head, no. He had not.

The word
premonition
was new to Aaron. But he knew its meaning.

So he’d gotten a ride into Sparta with some Quarry Road neighbors
going to church. This was around 9 A.M. Bright winter mornings he’d wake up early.

“And your father was still there? In bed? Asleep?”

Aaron shrugged. As far as he knew, yes.

The detectives exchanged looks of bemused skepticism. Aaron understood that they thought he was lying but would not be baited into speaking insolently to them.

The younger detective Brescia said: “Now you’re sure, Aaron? You’re telling the truth and not lying to protect your father—you want us to believe that?”

Believe that bullshit
almost the detective had said. Aaron felt the sick sour tarry taste in his mouth, stronger now.

Aaron shrugged. Aaron smiled. Yes. He was sure.

In these first weeks of the investigation, Sparta detectives had to acknowledge that they hadn’t been able to find any
physical evidence
linking Delray Kruller to his wife’s murder. Of the fingerprints of numerous individuals discovered at the crime scene like flyspecks scattered throughout the shabby row house the fact was that not a single print identified as a print of Delray Kruller’s would ever be discovered.

No witnesses in the neighborhood would claim to have seen Delray anywhere near 349 West Ferry that night, as they would report having seen one or two men including Eddy Diehl in his shiny black Olds.

Which didn’t surprise Aaron. He’d known that Delray had not lied to him. Just Delray swearing to him, Aaron would have staked his own life.

Eddy Diehl
was the name most often heard, in connection with the Zoe Kruller murder.

Eddy Diehl
had been Zoe’s lover, who’d been seen at the West Ferry Street address.

Eddy Diehl,
a married man with children. Known for his quick temper, his heavy drinking.

P
USHING OPEN THE DOOR,
that was slightly ajar. In that instant seeing what lay in the bed. Part-naked female body falling out of the wrecked bed and one bloodied arm sprawled on the floor as if beckoning.

A cry erupted from him, his throat. The cry of a wounded animal, that scraped his throat.

He would not cry
Zoe
but
Mom.

Many times he would cry
Mom Mom Mom
both at this time and at subsequent times through his life.

Recalling how in this first terrible moment something seemed to rush at him, at his face, shaped dark as a bat, as if to smother him. He’d begun to black out—his knees lost all strength—he was on the floor on hands and knees gagging.

Hot-acid vomit. Spilling and leaping out of his mouth.

What
dead
means. If you are meat you are going to rot. That is what
dead
means.

He’d smelled her, he thought. He was sure.

Despite the freezing-cold air. He was sure.

It would not be publicly revealed in the media, what Aaron did in the next several minutes.

He had not run from the room, as another person would have done. He had not run downstairs screaming for help. For not a moment did he give a thought for the danger he might be in, if the murderer or murderers of his mother had still been in the house.

He had done none of these things. He had managed to get to his feet and went to his mother where she lay battered and bloodied in the wrecked bed, and he’d grunted with the effort of pulling her back onto the bed, and lifting her stiffened arm from the floor. He had tried to straighten her awkwardly bent arms, he’d tried to cover her nakedness. The bedclothes were soaked and stiffened with blood. For the bedroom was very cold, near-freezing—a window had been forced open. Yet there was the unmistakable smell of urine, feces. In even his state of shock Aaron was mortified and ashamed. For Zoe’s sake he was mortified and ashamed. His mother, his mother’s naked body. There was such shame in a naked
body. And in the urine and feces smearing the thighs. Zoe Kruller had been a beautiful woman in her glittery costume highlighted on the bandstand stage but her mangled and mutilated body was not a beautiful body. And the smell was not a beautiful smell.

Someone had opened the window partway. Snow had blown inside. Aaron stumbled to the window and forced the window open as high as it would go.

Why? Why take time to do such a thing?

Were you crazy Aaron? What was going through your mind?

Like Zoe’s bed, the room had been wrecked. You might be led to believe that it had been systematically, deliberately wrecked. A frenzied struggle had taken place here. Everywhere on the floor were fallen things. Aaron stumbled over a woman’s high-heeled shoe. A torn lamp shade, a cracked ceramic lamp. A woman’s underwear, stockings. A soiled sweater, inside-out. A torn brassiere flesh-colored and gauzy as cobweb. Outside the window the February sun was blinding-bright reflecting new-fallen snow. The grimy wallpaper splotched with blood was starkly exposed. It looked as if a deranged child had flung red paint against the walls. There was a blood-soaked towel, tightly looped about Zoe’s neck, knotted at the nape of her neck. For her scalp had been bleeding, her skull had been cracked. Items had been swept off a bureau top. A woman’s blue-sequined handbag with a fake-gold chain. A woman’s toiletries. A container of white talcum powder spilling onto the floor. The talcum powder smelled of lily of the valley and quickly Aaron squatted sprinkling the talcum powder in handfuls over his mother’s body, and over the bed. Talcum powder onto the floor and onto the walls sticky with coagulated blood. And Aaron pulled more bedclothes over the body, a heap of bedclothes to hide the battered body, whatever he could find, anything his groping hands could find, what remained of the talcum powder he emptied onto it.

“That’s better. That will be O.K.”

Exhausted then he left the bedroom. Staggered from the wrecked bedroom now smelling of lily of the valley. Everywhere he’d left his fingerprints not giving a thought to it nor to who might still be in the house,
hiding in one of the rooms. Jacky DeLucca who’d licked her pushed-together smiling lips at him, who might’ve been murdered too, elsewhere in the house, he did not give a thought to, he’d forgotten Jacky DeLucca entirely. He would not pause to glance into another room. He would not glance into the bathroom close by. In a daze of unnatural calm descending the stairs like one who has been shaken out of a dream yet not fully wakened. Yet there was a smell, a smell of blood and death and now a smell of lily of the valley, sickly-sweet, on his hands. And blood, on Aaron’s hands. And a mixture of talcum powder and blood, on Aaron’s face where he’d touched his jaws. Close to fainting on the stairs but he managed to stagger outside into the fresh freezing air and sat down heavily on the stoop. The strength had drained out of his legs, he had no more strength in his body. Still he felt that strange calm, a sense of satisfaction, completion. What he had been able to do for Zoe, he had done. Too weak now to walk away. Too weak to call for help. On the dirty cement stoop and the door ajar behind him, the tinselly Christmas wreath knocked askew. Maybe Aaron had knocked it askew himself. Open-eyed and calm-seeming in his trance of sorrow where they would find him.