Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 42

Sirens rang in his ears. It wasn't from a police car or ambulance; it was just ringing—a distorted high-pitched nuisance. Sanford was slowly awakening from a deep slumber, his head pounding.

He ran his fingers through his hair, lying on his side. His palm pressed against his skull, trying to suppress the incessant throbbing. He felt a sticky wetness on the back of his head; it ran down his neck in a warm stream.

It was time to breathe. He inhaled deeply, slowly filling his lungs to capacity, then letting the air wheeze out like a leaking tire. All he wanted to do was sleep.

Sanford rolled onto his back and opened his eyes in the dimly lit room. He stared up at the ceiling. There was the ugly brown watermark from a leak in the upstairs bathroom. It reminded him of long ago. A period so detached from his life now that he felt it belonged to another person.

Maybe it did.

His hand stretched out from his side, slowly and awkwardly. He thought for sure he had a concussion.

Bare skin touched his reaching hand. Unresponsive. He didn't dare look. Tears streamed from his eyes as he ran his hand up further and felt her hair. It was wet and tangled. He turned his head and was met with her blank, lifeless eyes.

Lucy...

He rolled himself up and kneeled over her body. He used his hands to try and cover up the puncture wounds in her chest and stomach, as if he could stop the bleeding by pushing the blood back from where it came. He couldn't peel his eyes away from hers.

Why'd you kill me, Sanford?

I thought you loved me.

Why would you take me away from Sadie?

Why are you just like your father?

"Shut up!" he screamed into her still face.

He wanted to pick her up and hold her but he was too afraid. He could only kneel in her blood and hold her hand. The same knife that was sticking out of Richie's sternum was now sticking out of her. And then it hit him.

Sadie.

What if she came home? What if she saw it? What would that turn her into?

Me.

Sadie deserved better than that; she deserved better than him.

I have to leave something behind... an explanation. An apology.

That's when he thought about his sessions with Diane. The writing seemed to help. The writing cleared his mind, helped him cope, gave him the chance to see the situation from outside of himself. Maybe...

He went into the kitchen and grabbed a legal pad and pencil from the junk drawer, bringing it back into the living room. When he saw Lucy again the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. It was the way she was laid out.

"Is mommy sleeping?" he heard Eric asking him. It was a voice so tiny and distant he barely heard it at all.

It was the same: the stab wounds, the configuration of her body, it was the same as his mother.

The clock on the wall read 1:25 A.M. It was Christmas morning after all, and he felt like that scared little boy from twenty-five-years ago, only taller.

Before he realized what he was doing, he grabbed the knife by the handle and pulled it free from her stomach. A spout of blood spat up like a weak geyser.

He was about to wipe off his fingerprints on the knife but thought, what's the difference? It was obvious who'd killed her.

He sat down and placed the knife on the coffee table next to his pad. He picked up the pencil. Nearing its end, everything became clear. He put pencil to paper.

By the time I came to, my palms were caked in her blood...

A good start. It was a decent way to capture the reader's attention, but would that reader be a little girl or a stocky detective?

He couldn't know; the only thing he knew was he needed to write it down.

He needed to write it all down.