Broken Hope, page 24
I can’t let that happen.
She rises and tests the stun gun on the air, as if debating whether to make it a part of her future arsenal. Using her momentary distraction, I allow my limbs the tiniest motion, just to make sure I can move them as a unit.
I can.
She squats down next to me. “All that being said, I can’t have the police involved. Even if I get off scot-free, I would be on their radar, and I’m not ready to be done yet. So I think you can understand why I have to end this between us right now. I wish there was a more humane way. Suffocation is an awful way to go, but it’s all I have at my disposal.” She shrugs, as if that’s an apology, and stares at the plastic tarp that contains half of me.
She reaches out with the stun gun, but before she can zap me again, before she can roll me up in the tarp and turn me into a smothered sausage, I punch the weapon away with as much force as I can muster. It’s not my best delivery, but it’s enough to make the stun gun fly from her hand and send her staggering on her haunches.
Using that window, I roll out of her reach. She hurries toward the stun gun.
As swiftly as my quaking limbs will allow, I stand, and just as she reaches for the weapon, I kick the top of her hand with my heel, axe stomping the soft tissue there.
She grunts in pain but doesn’t release the stun gun.
Using her crouched position to my advantage, I drop down and elbow punch the base of her skull. It’s one of Krav Maga’s dirty moves, and even with my weaker muscles, she’s no physical match for me. She murders with needles and IV ports, not eye gouges and throat kicks.
My elbow punch sprawls her flat, her dress twisting up by her thighs, but she quickly rolls over on the wet ground. When she does, I land another axe stomp, this time to her solar plexus. Air whooshes out of her, and the expression her face makes is almost comical.
I am about to kick her again but hold back. I shouldn’t leave too many bruises. Her death needs to look like an accident.
After a final elbow to her throat, not as hard as with Michael but with enough juice to subdue her, I pry the stun gun from her hand and plant it against her neck near the mark that’s already there.
I zap for three seconds. Once again she’s mine. This time though, I can’t let her live.
With her eyes pinned on me, I drag her onto the tarp. By now, the barn floor is full of incriminating evidence, but I’ll deal with that later. I’ll bleach away and hose down whatever the scattered waterfalls don’t.
Once she is on the tarp, I shuffle back to my duffel bag. A headache from the stun gun’s voltage rips through my brain, each thunderclap outside amplifying it, but at least all my muscles are fully under my command. I grab the digoxin from the bag and return to Kim.
She eyes the syringe. Thanks to her own electrical charge, she is unable to show any fear, but I can smell it.
I crouch down next to her. “Looks like the tables have turned.”
As soon as I speak, a different voice surfaces inside me. The voice of Hope Past, I suspect. Or maybe it’s Manuel or my parents. Regardless, it tells me I shouldn’t do this. That if I do, I will cross a line that can never be uncrossed. But it’s a very short line, isn’t it? One that will end tonight with those pills in my nightstand.
“I’m sorry,” I say, as much to the voice as to Kim, “but I can’t let you go on killing.” I choose my words carefully. “You and me, we both take our resentments out on the world, so maybe that makes us alike. But I only give terrible people their due. You? You take from decent people what you don’t have. What you will never have.”
I pull the tourniquet out of one of my many pockets and wrap it around the short sleeve of her dress to avoid leaving a mark on her skin. Then I uncap the syringe and place my finger in the crook of her elbow, locating the needle mark from my earlier injection of sedative. Nathan’s words about injecting someone in the eye to avoid autopsy detection come back to me. If I could, I would dose her there, just for some poetic symmetry, but the drug needs to go in a vein. Besides, I’m not sure Nathan is right about that.
With one last pause, I weigh my options again. If Kim goes free, she will keep killing innocent patients, and she will take my reputation with her. She might even go after the people in my life. Ada, Terrence, Frank, Nathan.
I press my thumb against the syringe’s plunger and bring the needle toward the plump vein in her antecubital fossa. What I’m doing is for the greater good. Isn’t that one of the ethical principles they teach us in med school? Of course, they also teach us about beneficence and to first do no harm so…
I shake the philosophical arguments away. In my opinion, to save the future lives of anyone Kim plans to snuff out, it is the right thing to do. Maybe not the legal thing. Maybe not the moral thing, but in my mind, the right thing.
Before my brain can counterargue again, before the old me surfaces and releases Kim out of guilt or morality, allowing her to become an even more twisted and murderous Kim Lombardi 2.0, I slip the needle into her juicy antecubital vein and inject the lethal dose of digoxin until the syringe is empty.
I am now a killer.
43
Later that evening, after the deed is done, I return to my condo, shower, and put on leggings and an oversized top. With a cup of chamomile tea warming my hands, I sit near my massive windows and stare out at the harbor beyond. The thunderstorm passed shortly after Kim did. There must be some meaning in that. Although a gentle rain continues, it carries a cleansing energy, beading off Massachusetts Bay in a steady, hypnotic fashion.
Diva purrs in my lap. She seems particularly attentive tonight, as if aware I won’t be here much longer. A lump forms in my throat. Is this truly what I want?
Funny, now that I have made the decision to end my life, the tea bursts with flavor like never before, the harbor shines more luminously than I’ve ever seen, and Diva’s devotion comforts me more than I ever thought possible. Even today’s affirmation bucks my decision: I am strong enough to conquer life’s punches.
But it has to be this way. I am a killer now. Whether Kim deserved to die or not is up for debate, but the fact I was the one who silenced her is not. Now I am the monster who needs to be put down.
The world doesn’t need me. Not really. Sure, my skills as a doctor might be missed, but there will always be other doctors. My clinical work is not saving the world. Besides, my license might get suspended. At least now I’ll never have to know. Martin Hernandez will have one less case to deal with. And my will stipulates that all my money goes to charity, so in that sense, Boston is better off without me.
Despite what I like to tell myself, my vigilante work isn’t saving the world either. Whether one fewer bully or ten, there are a million more to take their place. I liked to think I was helping people, changing the course of their lives, both the brutes and their victims, but maybe it was all spin. Maybe my seeking justice for others was simply a failed means to get justice for my parents. Each miscreant brought down was one step closer to justice for Mom and Dad. For Manuel, too, I suppose, because cancer is just a beast in a different form.
But my parents are still gone. Manuel is still gone. My unborn baby is still gone. The person who needed to pay for my parents’ deaths has already been paying in full. Bo’s daily acts of goodwill, his deprivation of the material gifts his profession could bring, his constant shame and sorrow over what his addiction wrought is more payback than anything I could deliver with my own hands. More than anything ten years in prison could do.
“I understand this now,” I say to Diva, treasuring the steady heartbeat of her body, the gentle nudges of her nose against my palm. “But it’s too late.”
And it is too late. As Kim said, I am broken. Living in such a dark world for the past couple of years has leached the color from my soul. I have hurt people. For the greater good, I told myself, but I hurt them nonetheless. Their comeuppance fed me. Sustained me. Turned me into something wicked and tarnished. It’s one thing to torture a wife beater or dog abuser, but it’s another thing entirely to kill. Now that I have jumped over that line, how could I be sure I would never jump it again?
“So yes,” I say out loud, swallowing the last sip of tea and placing the mug on the window ledge near my feet. “It’s me I need to protect the world from now.”
It’s ironic, too, in a that-figures sort of way, because I don’t think anyone will suspect me in Kim’s death. I’m not sure the medical examiner will even label it a homicide. I was careful to cover my tracks. Maybe he or she will simply believe Kim took too much digoxin, a drug she was already on. Its therapeutic levels are not that far from its toxic ones, which is why we switch patients over to newer medications nowadays, but as in Ada’s case, Kim must have thought, Why fix what isn’t broken?
After I injected her with the digoxin and her heart stopped, I wrapped her up in the tarp like a mummy, just as she had planned to do to me, and dragged and hefted her into the trunk of her car.
I made sure no visible traces of either of us remained in the barn. No lost earring, no drop of blood, no puddle of urine I hadn’t already smoothed over with dirt. I even considered burning the place down, but I’ve read enough about forensics to know that finding biologic traces outdoors after Mother Nature has done her thing is unlikely. The inside of my barn, with its leaking roof, mud-caked floor, and frequent animal visitors who burrow under the loose boards is about as outdoors as an interior can get.
Besides, opaque LLC or not, a fire could draw attention to me. No need to do that when nothing about Kim’s death should point anyone my way. Michael’s video is gone from her photos app and her cloud account, and her backup thumb drive has been smashed by my hammer. If a file of the video exists on her laptop, I’m at risk, but it would be difficult to definitively prove the attacker was me.
And who is to say the wife beater would even come forward? Should the police track him down, he would likely deny that was him in the video. Guys like him would rather have their nipples wrenched than have the world see a woman take them down. With no victim to complain, how much effort would be spent in investigating? I feel pretty safe on that count. The only tie Kim will have to me is as the hospitalist taking care of my patients. The hospital notes she submitted under my name cast doubt her way, not mine.
Not that the police will need more doubt when they find the death pictures and Michael’s stolen laptop in her closet.
Once she was in the Altima’s trunk outside my barn, I changed back to my Kim outfit in the front seat of her car. Then I drove the hour back to her place. Carefully, so as not to draw any state-patrol eyes my way. The last thing I needed was a cop asking me to open the trunk. Surprise!
Inside Kim’s garage, with my gloves still on, I gripped her purse under my arm and opened the side house door. Getting her out of the trunk and up three steps into the house was the tricky part. I had already removed her body from the tarp, not wanting to drag barn debris into the house, and I was exhausted from the day’s events, my fatigue making her seem heavier.
Once inside, I slipped off my shoes and made sure all the home’s blinds were closed. I also relocked the front door. No need for the police to barge in now, unlike with my initial plan.
Lifting Kim under the arms, I dragged her through the kitchen, past the sad jigsaw puzzle on the dining room table, through the living room, and into the spare bedroom with the antique dresser set and treadmill.
After catching my breath, I returned to the primary bedroom and retrieved Michael’s laptop from the makeshift cubby in the closet. Doing that meant having to see those awful death selfies again, but I knew it would be best to have Kim’s prints on his laptop.
After placing her dead fingertips all over it, I returned the laptop and pictures to the hole in the closet drywall. Once I sealed it back up, haphazardly to make it more obvious, I rummaged through Kim’s dresser drawers and closet for workout clothes. Shorts, sports bra, wicking T-shirt, gym socks, and sneakers. Back in the spare bedroom, I changed her clothes. Twice, the realization of what I was doing made me pause in shame, but I couldn’t let emotion rule me now. After each hesitation, I slipped back into clinical mode and completed the costume change, returning her stained dress along with her shoes to the laundry room, where I ran the dress through the washer with a load of clothes.
Inside a kitchen cabinet, I found a water bottle and filled it halfway. In the spare bedroom, I placed the cup on her lips and in her hand to leave evidence behind of its use. After putting it in the cup holder on her treadmill, I dragged her body close to the exercise machine and turned her prone. Then—and this part made me hate myself even more—I pulled her head up and slammed it onto the side of the treadmill, after which I positioned her body in an awkward position with her head and neck at the base of the machine and the arm I injected over her head. When I powered the treadmill on, I set it to a brisk walking pace of 4.5.
I stood back and surveyed my work, watching the belt thwump thwump beneath her cheek, neck, and arm, leaving nasty burns in its wake and a cannonball of shame in my gut.
My hope was that eventually someone would realize she wasn’t returning calls or messages, likely someone from the hospital since her personal connections were sparse, and send the police to check on her. Once there, the police—and later the pathologist doing the autopsy—might assume she fell and hit her head, probably after a sudden cardiac arrest. Given her history of congenital heart disease and surgical scars from childhood operations (I saw them when I undressed her but already knew about her condition), the pathologist may very well attribute a faulty ticker as the cause.
He or she will probably check a digoxin level, along with a general tox screen. Although digoxin would be expected in Kim’s system, my overdose will push the level high. That could raise questions. I will have to hope they assume she was either taking too much of the drug or not metabolizing it properly. Working in my favor is its narrow therapeutic window.
I will also have to hope the bruises she sustained during our tussle and the stun-gun burns I gave her, not to mention the injection mark in the crook of her elbow, will be written off as damage from the fall on the treadmill. If I’m lucky, the treadmill belt will grind them off, hiding the fact they were premortem should anyone look that thoroughly.
That is a lot of hoping, I know. A deeper forensic examination could grind all those hopes into dust. But if foul play isn’t initially expected—and with her cardiac history there is a good chance it won’t be—then an autopsy examination might be less intense. Either way, it’s unlikely to be traced back to me, and when those sick pictures in her closet are found, along with Michael’s laptop, all focus will be on what she did, not on what someone might have done to her.
At least this is what I have been telling myself all day, between bouts of stomach cramps and throat tightness brought on by my monstrous behavior.
I cleaned up any last traces of me from her car and house, including removing the tarp from her trunk and stuffing it into my duffel bag. Then I left her purse on the kitchen counter, both her keys and her phone inside it. That meant I couldn’t lock the door, but leaving a side garage door unlocked isn’t suspicious. Even if my hair and skin cells were found in her car, I would say she’s given me a ride or two in the past. Similar story if traces of me remain in the house.
Then I removed my still-wet cargo pants and hoodie from my duffel bag and changed out of my Kim outfit into my own clothes, cinching the hoodie around my face. After stuffing my dress and wig into the duffel bag, I slipped out the back door of the garage into her backyard. With the rain, no neighbors were outside to see me. They probably wouldn’t have spotted me over her privacy fence anyway. After walking four miles, jittery and soggy, I deemed myself far enough away to power on my phone and call an Uber. I always turn my phone off during trips to my barn. No need to leave a GPS footprint.
Now I sit here, an empty mug of tea on the window ledge, drizzle pattering the glass and the bay below, Diva purring on my lap.
Diva.
She is the one I have to focus on now.
I raise her to my face and nuzzle my nose into her fur. “You’re the only one I can’t bear to leave.”
It’s as if she understands because her tiny tongue nips the side of my cheek.
After a few more seconds of soaking her in, I sigh and lower her to the floor. With a heavy heart, I head across the hallway and knock on Nathan’s door. He is quick to answer, and, as has been the case ever since he consoled me after my freakout on Bo, his face folds in concern. I have tried to reassure him I’m fine, but it’s obvious he doesn’t believe me. For a numbers guy, he is surprisingly perceptive.
“Hey, Nathan.” I try to sound nonchalant. “Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course.”
His unconditional response warms my heart. I think I’m going to miss him.
“You like Diva, right?”
“I do,” he says, “and I realized I might already have antibodies to toxoplasmosis because my aunt had cats when I was a boy. As for the actual percentage of people who do, it’s maybe around—” He cuts himself off and narrows his eyes. “Why?”
Damn. Maybe he is too perceptive.
I shrug. “You know, in case I need someone to keep her if I go on a trip, that kind of thing.”
The muscles in his face relax. “Oh, yeah, sure. You planning on traveling somewhere? You still have to worry about Covid. It’s never going away. In fact”—he rubs the front of his neck—“I was wondering if I could be catching a new strain of it. My throat is a little scratchy.”
The next thing I know I’m looking in the back of Nathan’s throat with his phone’s flashlight and palpating his lymph nodes. It actually feels good to taste this bite of normality.
Back inside my own loft, the momentary lightness fades, and the darkness returns. My body resists every step I take. Toward my bedroom, toward the nightstand, toward my exit-door pills inside the drawer.
