Sanford Crow

CHAPTER 32

PART 3: A MURDER OF CROWS

The crow screamed a malevolent cry, filling Frank's morning's air with fury. He'd barely slept a wink. His mind was on the edge of complete and utter exhaustion. The window was cracked open, letting a cool winter breeze enter their muggy bedroom on the top floor. When he heard the squawk his eyes gave up on being heavy and flashed open.

Looking towards the window, he saw it land. Its eyes were black as beads; the beak, crooked and sharp. Images of Sanford Crow danced in Frank's head. He was his man, he had little doubt, but something crawled in his conscience. It's what kept him up all night. The simple fact was that he felt bad for him—the boy who witnessed it all, not the man who decided to reenact it.

"Fucking crows," Frank whispered from his bed. He felt tension through his whole body like a constant hiss, trembling his every nerve.

Don't they migrate south? Or did this one get left behind, like another little birdie I know?

"What's that dear?" Nancy asked, as she moaned back to life. Her sleeping pills were in a bottle next to her on the end-table. Frank felt the urge to swallow the bottle whole. While the birds migrated, maybe he could hibernate this winter, then wake up to sunshine and chirping from a less ominous bird.

But no, he had work to do.

"Nothing, Nance. Go back to sleep. I'm gonna start the coffee."

"Okay dear, sounds good—" her own snore cut off the sentence, as she entered back into the medicated land of empty dreams, where crows had no place to squawk.

As he slipped on his coffee-stained robe, which was so old he couldn't recall its natural color, Frank found his mind slipping to thoughts of his ex and her cold, dead body on the floor. Every time he pictured it he thought about the rules and laws of investigating, how they become nothing more than handcuffs on the good guys. He couldn't help but to see her in most places, for it was the moment that changed his life, as if the self that was him had been sucked out of his body, leaving it hollow, only to return with half of its humanity stripped away.

This would be his last case, that much he knew, just like he knew who the fingerprints belonged to on the doorknob to 20C. Today those results would come in. With that, along with the anonymous call about Sanford, he'd have his warrant. It was all irrelevant though, meaningless protocols adding up to nothing but a waste of time. He had a Crow to catch, and figuring out where that Crow might land wouldn't be hard to do. He had the address of the ex-wife after all. One thing he learned about having a wife (ex or present) was that they always knew where you were.

It was a morning for instant coffee; he would take its lead and be quick and decisive. The sound of Nancy's snores reverberated down the halls in gargling, restless breaths. It was the sound of her choking in her sleep. Frank had become calloused to it and to how she refused to see a specialist about it. He wondered what it would be like if she really did die in her sleep.

He wondered what he would feel.

On the kitchen floor, her head rose in a crackling twist.

"It wouldn't be the same, Frank," she said in a hoarse whisper, "no one will ever be the same as me."

He stared at the empty floor, agreeing wholeheartedly. His insomnia left him dazed, which he knew was probably not a good thing in his line of work, especially with the day he had planned ahead. But there he was, whispering out loud, "I'd trade her for you if I could."

* * *

"Daddy, you're scaring me!" Sadie yelled as the van careened in and out of lanes like they were in a police chase that wasn't happening. Sanford barely heard her, the only voices he heard were Diane's, telling him over and over again that Eric was dead, and his own voice, persistently calling himself a monster. But Sadie's voice remained there, behind everything, pushing through. Through the swamp between his ears, he heard her panic.