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Norman tightened his left arm, pulled her waist tight against him. Eisa seemed to like that. Before she could let more stink out into the air with another one of those wretched gasps, he tightened his right arm, brought the crook of his elbow up under her chin, against her throat, and began to squeeze. He did this slowly at first, just a little pressure. It had been years since he put someone in a choke hold, and while some things never really left you, machinery tends to get rusty when you leave it in the barn.
Either in discomfort or because Eisa thought this was something it wasn’t, she ground against him again, and that was when Norman tightened his right arm. He did it with enough force tojerk her head back. Eisa stopped grinding. She didn’t get a chance to gasp. What choked out of her mouth was a wet cough. Spittle sprayed the window glass and the screen below.
Norman pulled back hard enough to lift her from the ground. He had no idea where the strength was coming from, but it felt good. It brought him back to the man he once was, to the boy of his youth who feared nothing. He caught the reflection of his eyes again, this time in the window glass, and he saw Eisa’s, too. While his were confident, hungry, full of life, her eyes were wide and looked like balloons pumped up with fear. They bulged from her skull, threatened to pop.
“Stop …” The word came out of her like a hiss between clenched teeth, stretched out as long as a sentence, and with the sound of her voice, every annoying thing she’d said to him in the sixty years since that night in his truck came into Norman’s head all at once. Yap, yap, yap. Jagged nails down a chalkboard. Ice picks jabbed into his ears.
“I said … don’t …” Norman yanked back, brought his elbow up, and used the leverage of his fingers wrapped around Eisa’s shoulder to tighten his arm like a ratchet sizing down.
Her legs flailed, kicked at him. She caught him good in the left knee with the heel of her foot. Norman’s grip loosened, but only for a second. Long enough for the pain to register, but it was just a blip. Whatever gave him his newfound strength also seemed to keep the hurt away. He liked that. He liked that a lot. Damn if he wasn’t laughing.
Norman yanked up on his arm again. He put his back into it and pulled Eisa nearly two feet off the ground. Her legs slammed into the cabinet doors below the sink, and her arms waved about, but he knew this was almost over—she smacked him in the head, and it was barely a tap. He found her reflection again in the glass. Her eyes were up in her head somewhere, nothing but white. It was his own reflection that grabbed him—he looked twenty,maybe younger. Not a line on his face. His hair was thick and black, slicked back with Cornwell’s Tonic, that greasy shit he used to steal from his dad that made his scalp itch. His reflection wore that brown leather bomber jacket, the one he’d picked up at the thrift store in Portsmouth because he thought it made him look like James Dean. Oh man, he loved that jacket, always had. Where the hell had it gone? He hadn’t seen it in maybe—
Norman caught a flash of silver from the corner of his vision an instant before Eisa struck him in the side of the head with the meat tenderizing mallet. It was more of a wild swing than a coordinated attack, but somehow she clocked him square in the temple with enough force that the spikes embedded in his flesh and the hammer hung there for half a second when her hand dropped away before falling to the ground. Norman’s head jerked to the side with a resounding deepboom!echoing through his skull. He stutter-stepped and lost his grip on Eisa, and she fell from his arm, puddled at his feet.
Norman waited for the pain (that type of hurt always came on a slight delay), but there was none. The echo in his head dulled and vanished. He reached up, tentatively touched the side of his temple. His fingers came away wet and sticky, but he felt nothing. His reflection in the window glass gave him a quick wink.
It took her a couple of tries, but Eisa managed to get to her feet and scramble from the kitchen down the hall, spitting up God-knows-what as she went. Norman let her; she wouldn’t get far. He reached down and scooped up the mallet, felt the heft of it. Much better than the butter knife.
The Ray Charles song popped back into his head, and this time he did remember the name, even the words. A few days after their tussle in the back of his Ford, Eisa had bought the record and played it over and over. He started down the hallway after her, whistling softly, the lyrics singing in his head:I can’t stop loving you, I’ve made up my mind …
15
Matt
MATT TOLD JOSH TOwait in the living room before ascending the stairs. The stillness of the house grew thicker with each step, and by the time he reached the top, he felt like he was wallowing through some invisible heavy fog. He came upon the daughter’s room first, saw all the red, and felt a sinking feeling in his gut before he spotted the open bottles and realized it was only paint. Relief washed over him, but it was short-lived—every inch of his being knew something was wrong, told him to get out. His throat was as dry as sandpaper.
There were four other doors off the hallway, three of which were open. Matt quickly moved in and out of each of those rooms, confirming what his gut had already told him; they were empty. They were behind that closed door, most likely a shared bathroom. The light was on, visible in the crack under the door, but even as Matt put his ear against the wood, he heard nothing but the steady hum of an exhaust fan.
He knocked twice. “Lynn? This is Deputy Matt Maro. Is it okay if I come in?”
Matt desperately wanted an answer—he’d settle for a whimper out of one of the kids—but nothing came.
Gripping the butt of his gun, he flicked away the leather safety strap with his thumb. His free hand went to the doorknob, turned it just enough to confirm it wasn’t locked. “Lynn, I’m coming in. If you’re near the door, please step back.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, drew in a deep breath, and opened the door.
As a law enforcement officer, Matt had seen some horrible things. Gunshot victims. DOAs at car accidents. Two years ago, he’d been called out to the apartment of Robin and Stew Holland. They’d woken to find their three-week-old daughter dead in her crib from SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. The images of all those things had burned into Matt’s mind like vivid snapshots. He saw them when he closed his eyes, when he woke at three in the morning either crying or screaming, all of them fluttered back in moments like this, and as he stepped into that bathroom, he knew what he found would stay with him until his dying day.
Gracie and her little brother, Oscar, were both under the water, resting facedown at the bottom of the bathtub, visible only through breaks in the dwindling bubbles and soapy film on the surface. Kneeling beside the tub, bent over the side, her head in the water, was Lynn Tatum. Her hair fanned out, partially covering the body of her son. The water was as still as the air, not a single ripple, and it was clear all three had been dead for some time. Lynn Tatum was wearing pajamas and was soaking wet. There was water all over the floor, partially up the walls, streaking the doors of the vanity and the side of the toilet. Obvious signs of struggle.
A single thought rushed into Matt’s mind—only one member of the Tatum family survived whatever this was, and he was downstairs.
Matt took out his gun and quietly reached for the microphoneclipped to his shoulder. “Sally, this is Matt, come back. Over.” When no reply came, he pressed the Transmit button again. “Ellie? Sally? Either of you there?”
He spoke in a low whisper, didn’t dare raise his voice any louder. Nobody responded. He took out his phone and dropped it back in his pocket when he realized he had no signal.
A cold sweat filmed over his forehead. Matt cleared his throat and called out, “Josh? You still downstairs?” When Josh didn’t answer, he added, “I need you to stay down there!”
Matt turned slowly and stepped out of the bathroom. He worked his way back toward the staircase, clearing each room as he passed, knowing that in the coming seconds, there was a very good chance he’d have to shoot Josh Tatum.
16
LOG 10/16/2023 20:31 GMT-4
TRANSCRIPT: AUDIO/VIDEO RECORDING
Analysis Note: While I know little about the subject, I know even less about Beatrice Sordello. I was told she holds a PhD in psychology from[REDACTED]and completed her undergraduate training at[REDACTED]with a double minor heavily focused on religious studies. No ring, so either unmarried or she removed it. Mid- to late thirties. Had I been asked, I would have suggested monitoring her vitals along with the subject’s. Although she hid it well, she was clearly nervous.
