White City Murder Expo

cold.

On Christmas night, the ground was covered with wet and dirty snow, there was no wind, the rain and snow had stopped, the temperature was very low, and the nasal passages were dry and stinging when I breathed.My classmates and I parted ways in front of the restaurant, and I walked back to my apartment, drunk, clutching several flowers I had bought somehow.Through the alleys, the red light district is brightly lit.A thinly dressed woman with a red nose was leaning against the mailbox, smoking a cigarette.I walked over and handed her all the inexplicable flowers in my hand.She silently took another puff of the cigarette, the smoke escaped from her mouth like the white steam she exhaled while speaking, she stretched out her hand, casually took the flowers, lowered her eyes from beginning to end, looking at the muddy ground, maybe It was looking at my old leather shoes.

"What's your name?" I asked.She said the question could only be answered when she was in the room.At that time, I left as if I was running away.But I'll hear the answer at last, and I'll learn her name is Matilda; and we'll be married until her departure do us part.

"... Sue?" I heard someone calling my name.I awoke to a blurred and painful vision of Butcher by the window, groaning weakly before speaking.very cold.

Facing the sun, he carefully twisted the mercury thermometer and squinted his eyes for a long time: "You have a fever."

I answered vaguely.My mind is as confused as a beaten egg, there are too many things to ask, so that I can't tell the priority.Butcher helped me up, gave me a glass of water, and continued on his own: "You slept all day, and woke up twice while cursing."

"I have no memory at all. I don't even know how I got home. What did I do when I got up?" I sat up, my whole body ached when I moved a little, and I fell back slowly, "Give me an aspirin."

Butcher opened the bedside table, took out a tablet of pills and handed it to me: "You are like this, you need painkillers as soon as you wake up."

While lying in bed waiting for the medicine to take effect, Butcher told me some recent news. At the strong request of Petra's parents, the child will be buried this Saturday. The priest who went out not long ago died on Friday night. Will come back and preside over the funeral for her, and all the classmates and teachers in the school are invited to attend the funeral.Before he had finished I said, "You gotta go, Butcher."

"...I'm scared, Dad."

"On the contrary, baby. They've given up. No one will pursue this case again," I said. "You're going to see her buried in the ground, like the last step in the end, and then everything will be done." It's all over."

"What if it's a new nightmare?"

I raised my hand to pin his sideburns behind my ears, and looked at his eyes, which were the same color as mine but shaped like his mother's. For a moment, it was as if I had predicted all my fate, and I felt a kind of peaceful sadness. .

"I don't know," I said, "I'm sorry."

I gently stroked his black hair and let him rest on my chest, and for a long time, we didn't speak a word.I don't want to say nonsense words to him, "everything will be fine", which we know is a lie.Everything has consequences, even if it's good for some and bad for others; even if you don't even realize it's there.

The painkillers took effect, the tinnitus and headache subsided, and I started thinking about the past.After arriving at the town police station, many things happened.After a few hours in custody, Hunter came to bail me out, and Butcher was there.The two of them stood together and far away from each other, like two people who had just fought and were forced to make up.Leaving the police station and walking on the road, I refused the hands of two people who offered to help me almost at the same time, but the next moment my eyes went dark.Woke up again and was already lying on the bed.When I first woke up, I felt like I had a cold dream, and now I have no memory of it.

An hour later, I was finally able to get out of bed, and when I walked, I always felt a little limp than before, as if my body had gained weight.Looking around, the lower half of the full-length mirror at home is shattered into a kaleidoscope; the cupboard is half empty, with a dozen dishes missing; the crippled chair is completely missing a leg.I turned to look at Butcher, and Butcher turned to look out the window.I didn't say anything.

Just when the atmosphere was a little awkward, there was a knock on the door.Butcher went to open the door, and I heard a muffled conversation outside.

I asked: "Butcher, who is outside?" The next second I heard the sound of him slamming the door.Walking back to the room, Butcher's face was very gloomy. When passing by the living room, he stumbled over the painting on the coffee table.

"Let's throw it away, Sue," he asked.I don't feel like he was asking for my opinion, and I haven't seen the painting since.

**

The day of Petra's burial is fast approaching.I forced Butcher to participate, but I said I was sick and stayed at home. No matter how high-sounding the words, I was full of fear in my heart.That day passed like a dream, like waiting outside Matilda's delivery room.Butcher was silent for a long time after his return, but he was largely back to normal the next day.

I was glad that the swelling in my eye had completely subsided on the third day after the funeral, and that my body wasn't hurt too badly, and I started drinking again.Butcher was always trying to run me, and when he was home, I just had to find an excuse to go out and have some fun.There is only one bar in the town, and I actually don't like that kind of gossip at all, especially when I sit in the corner and hear other people talking about me.

On this day, I saw the Inspector and Cillian at the bar at the same time. They were sitting far away, at opposite ends of the bar, and it seemed that their relationship was indeed ordinary.The Inspector glanced at me and then looked away, and I felt pain when I saw him.There is no reason to speak in this acquaintance community. I know I can't sue him, and I will be thankful that I won't be troubled anymore.

After hesitating for a while, I sat next to Cillian, wondering if I should say hello to him.

"Your injury is healing quickly," he said, looking only at the ice cubes floating in the glass as he spoke, "Congratulations." He smiled, but looked disinterested, as if bored.It's like he doesn't know me anymore.I squinted at Cillian's side face, and found that the man's upper and lower eyelashes were long.He casually turned the glass in his hand, the ice cubes floated, collided, and melted. At this time, I thought of his gray eyes when he looked down at me for no reason, and the white mist slowly escaping from his mouth when he smoked, like winter words Disappears into thin air as quickly.It all feels so familiar to me, why?

He's kind of like my wife, really.It's that casual look.

I paid the bill, walked out slowly, and opened the door when I heard footsteps behind me; just as I was about to turn around, a hand lightly put on my shoulder, it was Cillian.He followed up and said in a low voice: "Maybe he will trouble you, I'll go back with you."

I'm not sure it's a good idea to turn him down. "I walk very slowly," I said.

Cillian smiled, and I found his smile unusually gentle. "I'm in no rush to do anything," he said.

On the way home with me, it was inevitable to chat, so I told him about myself.My wife went to Baltimore; yes, my son is in middle school, he is already tall, about your height.

I walked very slowly, but Cillian was much slower than me. Even when I turned my head, I couldn't see his expression all at once. He seemed to be very cautious.I don't know why, but I always feel like there is a gaze on my leg, but maybe I'm just too sensitive.This light and heavy footstep always makes me ashamed. At first, I thought everyone would pay attention to it.

When we finally got home, out of politeness, I asked him if he wanted to come in for a cup of coffee, but Cillian smiled and said no.

"It's a bit late today, Sue. I have good beans at home, maybe you can come next time," he said.

I didn't want to answer, so I said perfunctorily, "Haha, let's do it another day."

"Then it's settled. Find a suitable time," he said. "As for the favor owed to me, don't worry too much. I'm not the kind of guy who takes bribes."

What he said made me even more uneasy.If the owed favor cannot be repaid with money, then what is its price?

I stood at the door and watched him walk away into the distant night.

**

Then Sirian invited me once, and I declined.

I received the obituary from the postman that day. My father died and had been buried before this letter was sent. The funeral was arranged by the youngest who accompanied him.After the mother left, the curse of new birth in the family was completely ended, and no more children died in infancy.The older children all left home after they became adults, and no one thought that the youngest one could get along with his father, perhaps because this man grew old very quickly.

The letter stated that no one picked up the obituary when it was sent to my elder brother’s address in Chicago. If I have my elder brother’s contact information, I hope I can convey the obituary on my behalf.The eldest brother has the worst relationship with his father, but I think he should have learned of his father's death, at least there is still a little bit of inheritance to inherit, which is his due.

It took me a while to get the contact information of my eldest brother, and I called to inform my father of his death that night.On the other end of the phone, he began to cry. I have never heard my elder brother cry like this. The sobbing sound was like a dog barking.I tried to comfort him and somehow managed to laugh, and despite the intense shame of being out of place, the laughter spilled through the crack of the door into the river miles away, into the night we picked up the body .The tip of my nose still smells like the cup of coffee that smelled like rags in the police station. Someone patted my shoulder and whispered, "Let's go, go and see her."

At some point, the phone was hung up, and I was still clutching the receiver tightly, tears kept falling, forming a small puddle on the table.I have always believed that people are independent, or rather, isolated from each other.If that wasn't the case, why am I the way I am?Yet some things are lost forever, though not fondly.

My eldest brother and I did not meet, but he wrote me a letter shortly thereafter. The letter did not mention his crying or my inexplicable laughter on the phone that day. Our emotions were never important.He knew specifics about my father and thought I needed to know, too.After reading the letter, I once again felt the predestined absurdity.

In my house, through the bedroom window, you can see the apartment on the harbor side, where the sailors don't live, but often go there.When I went to college and talked about this little thing, my classmates always laughed teasingly.Yes, I think so too.People in the vicinity are poor, either at sea or in factories, and few children go to school.People who come and go have a rancid smell. Occasionally, after low tide, a dead body will be stranded on the shore. I have also visited it once. That person has always remained in my memory. It happened before my mother disappeared. thing.

The surface of the sea never freezes, and the waves roll and heave, lifting all involuntary dead things to the surface of the water.One morning, the fishing boat picked up my father. No one knows how he fell into the sea. Who cares?When I officially received the wad of inheritance in cash, I knew that this might be the last time I would think of my father, just as Butcher would forget me one day.

One night, I leaned against the head of the bed and heard the sound of the shower downstairs, and suddenly felt extremely tired.I packed everything I could think of, took out the dishes in the cupboard and cleaned them, swept away the white insect eggs and cobwebs in the corners, and used cement to plug the newly discovered mouse holes two days ago.

Before going to bed, I said good night to Butcher as usual, but he didn’t respond, but followed me all the way to my room, opening and closing the desk, bedside table, and wardrobe silently. I watched him busy like an outsider Turn around.When Butcher got under the pillow, I didn't have time to stop him. Finally, he took out a bottle of sleeping pills, poured out the pills, counted them one by one, poured them all into the toilet in front of me, and pressed the flush button .I can't stop him.

"You're sick." I said.

"Besides this, what else can I do for you?"

He looked at me calmly, his hand shaking the empty bottle.I don't know why I'm watching all of this without doing anything, I think I must be completely insane.I whispered something in his ear.

Butcher looked at me in disbelief for a while, and after a long time, he said, "Okay."