Here is Part IV and last of this Mystery!
The story of these events is posted at iRez in four parts, and here for archive purposes.
Do drop by iRez for other posts about Identity, Virtuality and Culture, among many varied topics.
Enjoy.
*
When they
got back to the café, after burying William Andrews, the mood was somber.
Carver didn’t cook. He opened a few tins of fruit, placed it on two plates and
poured the syrup over it.
“Sarah, we
must stick together.” He shifted in the chair, the fruit on his plate
untouched. “You do understand how serious this whole thing is, don’t you?”
Sarah
nodded.
“Now is no
time to play secrets here, Sarah.”
She nodded
again, scrapping the tip of her boot on the floor.
“I think
you should stay with me tonight. It’s not safe out there. We never know what
freaking Palmer might do…” His eyes wandered outside the window, past the
beach, the trash and the dock. He clutched his hand over his gun.
“I’ll be
fine.”
“No, Sarah.
You’ll stay with me.”
“Mr.
Carver, I apologize but I’d rather stay in my hut.”
“It’s too
dangerous.”
Yes, she
knew that. She was definitely not going to stay with the cook. She wouldn’t be
able to sleep at all. The café had a big window and an entrance whose door had
long been destroyed by the winds and replaced by a beaded curtain. That offered
little protection too, thought Sarah.
*
The night
went by fast, too fast. The sandstorm left a fog of dust that struggled to
settle down. She walked through the main street. The town was eerily quiet. Sarah
wondered where Carver hid for the night. She sat at the counter. The stove was
off.
“Morning,”
he looked beat as he entered the café. “I don’t have good news, Sarah. I found
Palmer.”
Apparently
someone had been busy during the night and not hiding after all.
“I couldn’t
sleep and went back to Palmer’s little temple. He was there, in a pool of
blood. His stupid finger with the ring on cut off and placed on that cloth…” He
seemed distraught. “I don’t like Palmer, you know that, but there’s something
out there killing us. Poor Palmer is gone and it looked like he went through a
rough time…”
Sarah
nodded. She didn’t like Palmer either.
“We are
going to die, Sarah…”
“Mr.
Carver…”
“We are
going to die,” he repeated. He pulled out his gun and started disassembling it.
Slowly, he slid a cloth over all the pieces. Then he reassembled it. Long
minutes went by. “But I won’t go without a fight, I tell you, I won’t go
without a fight. You should get ready too.”
Sarah knew
that. She had been cleaning her guns ever since the first death.
“Mr.
Carver…”
“Did you do
it, Sarah,” he asked looking at her.
“I was
going to ask you the same.”
“Why would
I kill that loser?” He put the gun back in its holster. Sarah watched the cook
closely.
“Mr. Carver,
why would anyone kill anyone? Everyone had a reason to kill everyone else. Old
grudges, growing envies, pathetic rivalries. Six middle-aged men left in a lost
town struggling to lead a normal life, fighting for their survival. There is
nothing more pitiful than that.”
The cook
started squashing the canned fruit on the plate, splashing syrup on the table.
“One after
the other, wasn’t it? Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? It was impossible to stop,
wasn’t it, Mr. Carver?”
There was a
tense moment of gelid silence. The cook looked at her.
“Good luck,
Sarah.”
She stared
at him for a few seconds and walked out of the café.
*
It would be
a long day and a longer night. She decided to stay in the crevice of her hut
and pack her stuff. She had had enough of this town. She would miss nothing
about it. At daybreak, a backpack over her shoulder and some food, and she
would cross the tunnel in the mine to escape this nightmare for good.
The next
morning, before leaving, she dropped by the café. Carver was stooping over one
of the tables. She grabbed his hair and pulled the head back. His throat was
slit. Yes, very dead. Sarah walked around the chair and turned the
record-player on. Charlie Parker was playing “Summertime”.
“One of
these mornings...” Sarah hummed the song softly. “…you'll spread your wings and
you'll take to the sky.”
She grabbed
an old newspaper from her backpack and threw it on the cook’s table.
The news on
the front page uncovered the horrid rape of a young engineer, a single mother who
had just settled in a promising town by the seashore. Six men were arrested,
but acquitted during the trial. Mathilda Fairchild’s testimony was not enough
to convict them and she had to endure their presence and unvoiced mockery for
years. These were six men of completely different walks of life who in a night
of partying and drinking together sealed their destinies irremediably.
It was
done, Sarah thought.
“Good luck to you. Oh, wait… What a pity. Too
late now for luck. Isn’t it, Ethan Carver?”
The End
