How They Were Found Part 11

Index, as time capsule, as guide to understanding the collected evidence of a life, of a history, of a family tree.

Index, as understanding, however incomplete.

Inevitability, as a likely end to this story.

Insurance policies, as in, Good luck getting one, if you're me. They never tell you that being from a family of murder victims is a risk factor, but it is.

J, tattooed on the inside of my right wrist, first initial of a brother lost.

Jars, for holding each organ individually after they are weighed and categorized and examined for meaning.

Jars, full of brains and livers and hearts. They will not give these to me, no matter how persistently I ask.

Knife, as weapon, if you hold it right.

Like being torn from the arms of the father.

Like being wrenched from the bosom of the mother.

Like closed caskets, like graves all in a row, like the last two plots, waiting to be dug out and then filled in.

Loss of limbs is less important to those who will not survive than those who have to see what is left.

Love, as necessity.

Love, not nearly enough.

Luck, as in bad luck, for all of us.

Madness, temporary, blinding.

Manslaughter implies that what happened was a mistake. In my family, we do not believe in manslaughter.

Memory, doing the best it can.

Memory, failing to do enough all by itself.

Memory, inconsistent, remembering the wrong events, seeking significance and signs where probably there are none.

Memory: When my brother and my sister and then I went off to school, my mother gave us each a St. Christopher's medallion. When she placed mine around my neck, she told me it would protect me, that it would keep me safe from accidents, from accidental death, as if that was all we had to worry about.

Mirror, the only place I see my father's hairline, my mother's nose, my brother's ears, my sister's thin, frightened lips.

Mother, memory of: Lonely before he left, then worse after. There were men with good jobs and men with no jobs, men with tempers and men with appet.i.tes, men who were kind to us and men who used us as punching bags, as whipping posts, as receptacles for all the trash they carried inside themselves. Of all those who have failed to protect our family, she was only the first.

Mother, murdered. Died strapped into the pa.s.senger seat of a car, unconscious from a head wound, from a wound to the head. I have heard it said both ways. Her boyfriend-a man she started dating after our father left but before he was dead-thought he had killed her with his fists, but was wrong. It was the drowning after he dumped the car that did it.

Motives are almost the opposites of alibis, but not quite.

Mug shots: One, two, three, all in a row on the wall of my office. A reminder of who they were.

My brother's dog, which I take care of but do not trust. He failed to bark in the night once before, and he could do it again.

Mystery, unsolved, even after all this investigation.

Nothing, as inevitable as an ending.

Nothing: impossible to index, to quantify, to explain.

Over-protectiveness is something you learn, but always too late.

P, tattooed on the left side of my neck, first initial of a mother lost.

Persistence of fate, of karma, of destiny, of a wheel turning and turning, crushing whatever falls beneath its heel.

Phones, both answered and unanswered. Bearers of bad news.

Phones ringing and ringing and ringing.

Photographs, blown up and then cropped until the wounds disappear beyond the borders of the frame.

Photographs, mailed to me from Michigan, of my father's body, as unrecognizable as the distance between us.

Photographs of crime scenes, always the same series of angles, repeated for each murder.

Photographs of my brother, dead before he could scream.

Photographs of my brother's eye, of the knife wound left where it used to be.

Photographs of my brother's lips, pressed together in sleep, then death.

Photographs of my mother's face, bruised and broken.

Photographs of my mother's teeth, on the floor of the car.

Photographs of our family of five, and then of four, and then of three. There are no photographs of our family of two. We do not gather. We do not congregate.

Photographs, plastered like wallpaper until all I can see from my desk are familiar clavicles and jaw lines and hands placed palms up to expose too-short life lines.

Police, as in, I have had my fill of the police.

Poison, a possibility. Must prepare my own food, avoid restaurants, parties, buffets and potlucks.

Pre-meditation, as way of life.

Prevention: See, GOOD f.u.c.kING LUCK.

Questions, how can there not be questions?

Risk, always there is the risk that at any moment one wrong word or action might bring upon we who are left what has already been brought to bear on those who are gone.

Rope: There are so many cruelties that can be done with rope that it is hard to know what to be afraid of.

Search party, looking for my mother, before we knew she'd gone through the surface of the lake.

Sister, memory of: Happy in the fourth grade when she won the school spelling bee. Happy at her confirmation, when G.o.d promised to protect her forever. Happy at my brother's wedding, dancing the polka. Happy, happy, happy, until she wasn't happy anymore or ever again.

Sister, survivor. She has tried to live a life free of dangers. She follows every rule, every instruction, takes every precaution. She does not talk to strangers, either men or women. She does not talk to children or babies. She does not pet dogs or hold cats or touch any other small domestic animals. In her purse, she keeps both mace and pepper spray, but she never walks anywhere. She has a tazer in her glove box, but never drives. If she walks or if she drives, then she will die. If she rides in cars with others, then they too will die because she is with them. There are no knives or forks or shovels or tire irons in her house. She does not answer her phone or check her e-mail or open her door, ever, even if it is me knocking. She has done everything she can, but it will not be enough. I have not seen her in months, but that does not mean I believe she is safe. Sooner or later, my phone will ring, and then I will know that she too is gone.

Sometimes, I go to department store perfume counters and spray my mother's scent onto a test card. In the back of my wallet are dozens of these now scentless things, marked only by the splotch stained across the white cardstock.

Sometimes, I think of my father without realizing he's gone, my heart numb as an amputee's fingers, as a lost hand trying to pick up a telephone over and over and over.

Sometimes, while I'm petting my brother's dog, I have to stop myself from hurting it, from punishing it for its failure to bark, to warn, to save its owner's life.

Strangulation, as possibility. To be that close to the killer, to see his eyes, to feel his breath, to press my windpipe against his grip-After all I have endured, after all I have imagined, this is one of the most satisfying ways I can see to go. This is a way that at least one question might get an answer.

Survivor, but probably not for long.

Tattoo of my sister's first initial, eventually to be inked but not yet necessary.

Tattoos, as reminders, as warnings, as expectations of loss.

The sound of a black bag being zippered shut.

The sound of a brother comforting a brother, ignorant of the doom between them.

The sound of a bullet making wet music in his organs.

The sound of a car breaking the surface of a lake.

The sound of a confession, taped and played back.

The sound of a gunshot reverberating, echoing between concrete facades.

The sound of a knife, clacking against bone.

The sound of a message played over and over until the tape wears thin.

The sound of a phone going unanswered.

The sound of a police siren, of multiple sirens responding to multiple events.

The sound of a sentence heard three times, that means loss, that means murder, that means another taken from me.

The sound of a sister crying and crying.

The sound of a sister saying goodbye, saying that this will be the last time you will see her, for both your sakes.

The sound of a woman screaming for hours.

The sound of an alarm ringing.

The sound of sirens, a Doppler effect of pa.s.sing emergency.

The sound of testimony, of witnessing.

The sound of words left unsaid.

Things that never were, and things that never will.

Understanding, as in lack thereof.

Vengeance, but never enough. Always state-sanctioned, always unsatisfying.

Victim is a broad term, a generalization, an umbrella under which we are all gathered at one time or another.

Violations of the law symbolize violations of the person, of the family, of the community. This is why they must be punished.

We regret to inform you.

We regret to inform you.

We regret to inform you.

What it takes to cut yourself off.

What it takes to defend your family.

What it takes to hide forever.

What it takes to kill a man.

What it takes to see this through to the end.

What it takes to solve the crime.

What it takes to take back what is yours.

Why, as in, Why us?

Witness, general.

Witnesses, specific: The other men and women who were with my father that night, plus the other people who were walking down the street when the shots were fired. The bartender and two waitresses, plus the policemen who arrived on the scene. I have interviewed them all myself, months later, after the conviction of the killer. The crime already solved, but not yet understood.

Wound, as in bullet hole, as in burn, as in puncture, as in slashing, as in fatal.

X, as in, to solve for X, as in, to complete the equation.