One for the Team

35 | after

The call comes at nine in the morning. Detective Solomon wants me to go down to the police station to answer some questions. I have the answer on the tip of my tongue – yes, I did it - and so I don't open my mouth the whole way there for fear of it rolling out. I don't open my mouth but still, eyes fall on me like moths drawn to the light. Probably they think I'm here to report an abusive relative, bearing my beaten-up face as proof.

In the end, your brother gave me a black eye, three stitches over my left eyebrow, four on my left cheekbone and a bottom lip so swollen it looks like bad lip injections. On top of that, I suppose I also look like I haven't eaten in months.

I ignore the stares. Detective Solomon is nursing a cigarette when I get to his desk, just another one in the middle of all the others. The whole thing reminds me of a beehive. I suppose the honey is justice.

"I'm glad you could make it," the detective says when he sees me coming, the words becoming smaller and smaller as his eyes get a closer look at my face.

"He got you good, didn't he?" he finally says.

I just nod, slowly sitting down on the chair across his desk when he points at it. Soreness makes it harder to do anything faster.

"You still sure you don't want to report him?" the detective asks. "He shouldn't get to get away with it."

I shrug, "His brother was murdered. I– I– I would have done the same thing."

The detective sits down opposite to me, stubbing out his cigarette on the ashtray. You would have liked him, Levi. He's solid like you were. Assertive. Unapologetic. Real.

"Right, I was wondering if you could help me out. We have some new information on Levi's case, as you might imagine, and I'm not sure what to make of it."

I did it. That's what he ought to make of it.

I just nod. He begins to tell me what they know – or maybe just what he wants me to know that they know. They have CCTV images of your truck on its way out of town two hours after the party reportedly ended. They believe it should be somewhere in the bottom of the river that runs through the woods.

"The cause of death was head trauma and severe blood loss three hours after the party ended –"

"What?"

The words repeat itself in my head like an endless echo, a tape recorder stuck on repeat. "What?" the detective says, confused as he looks up from his file.

"What did you just say?" My voice sounds worlds away.

"He died from head trau –"

"N– no, you said three hours after –"

"Yes, three hours after the party ended, why?" He looks sharply at me. I'm sure he knows. He just needs me to say it myself. But I can't say anything. Not right now.

Three hours after the party ended means you didn't die right away. Means you were still alive in the car. I think I've stopped breathing. I feel a sharp sting in the palms of my hands and realize I've been digging my nails in it. I feel sick and for a second think I might just throw up.

I must look it because the detective offers me a glass of water. I hear his voice like it's coming from another room. In this room, all I hear are my own thoughts, loud and terrible. You were still alive. Maybe even when we buried you. Maybe you woke up in pain, in the dark, suffocated, paralyzed, scared, alone.

Did we bury you alive, Levi?

"Finn?" the detective's voice comes again, still from another room.

I feel a lump painfully making its way up my gut and into my throat. I feel my eyes stinging, soon tears will start falling out. I don't know how to do this, but I know I have to. I force my hands open, small crescent moons bleed in my palms, and I know I can't carry this anymore, any of it.

I wasn't sure what I was going to tell the detective today. I had thought maybe I could get another day with Archie, another walk with Achilles. Maybe I could have mom kiss my cheek before leaving for work in the morning one last time. But I've found that the answer is no. No, I can't.

My eyes turn to Detective Solomon but don't really see him. I blink the tears away, breathe out the air I had been holding in, push back the thought of you, buried alive, push back the thought that maybe if we had called an ambulance right away, you would still be here. I push it back, but doing so means touching it, and touching it hurts. It hurts everywhere and now I'm crying so hard, I can't talk. I can't tell him.

Levi, I promised, didn't I? I said I would make us pay. I will. I swear.

"Finn, wh –"

"I– I– I– I ran after– after him that– that night," I manage.

The detective sits back. I blink the tears away, but they keep coming, like windshield wipers tirelessly wiping the rain away during a ruthless storm.

"I–I told– told you he got– got away, but– but he never really – never really made it to the– to the front door." I take a deep breath. The detective doesn't rush me. I wish he would. I wish he would lean forward and slap it out of me, rip this out.

I breathe again. My eyes are glued to the palms of my hands, where the blood has begun to dry, but my hands are earthquakes, and it just makes it worse. I look at a paper bag the detective has on his desk instead.

I breathe again. The tears roll out of my eyes and the truth out of my tongue. I tell him everything. I tell him I meant only to get you away from Ace. Tell him I pushed you back, yes, against the shelf, yes, but I was just trying to protect you. I tell him everything that came after too. It is pulling hair from the drain. It just keeps coming and coming. I want to throw up when it's over. I want to throw up all the way through it too. The detective is still sitting back when I stop talking. There's something like relief in him now, like a man finally unwinding after a long day of work. I suppose this particular day lasted weeks.

I don't think closing the case won't get him a drink at his favorite bar at the end of the day, probably just a good night's sleep. There, job done. Nothing good about any of it, but finality. Closure. There you have your jar of clear honey.

"Would you be willing to write down everything you just told me?" he asks.

I wipe my face with the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and nod my head yes. I breathe in and out as he produces a paper sheet out of a drawer on his desk – a statement, my statement. The lump in my throat dissolves with each breath. When I take the paper into my hands, they're not shaking anymore.

"I guess I just have one question," the detective says when I grab a pen from him. I wait and it comes. "Why dig out his body? It was you, wasn't it?"

I nod yes. Confessing feels too much like washing off your blood, Levi, and now I can't stop scrubbing. We both know how long I've had it in my hands. We both know it will never really come off, not all of it.

"Why?" the detective asks. "I mean, I get why you would confess now, knowing he didn't die right away, I get that. But before, the things Ace told you, the things you told yourself. After a while, it would have gotten easier. It would feel less like a murder, more like cleaning up a mess. It was an accident. Like you said, he took one for the team, so why dig out the body? You wanted us to find you, didn't you?"

I nod yes. I recognize my voice once it comes out of my mouth now and it is like recognizing an old dear friend that's come back after years missing.

"Ace kept saying this one accident would ruin all our lives, too many lives for the price of one. But what life would I lead knowing this? Knowing I had been part of something this horrible. Knowing Levi's body was rotting somewhere in the woods, that his family would never know what became of him." I shrug, take another deep breath, "What life would I lead anyway? I was never really worth shit."

The detective shakes his head like looking at a crime scene. I breathe again. Open my mouth. Say, "And I loved him."