The Axe, page 6
She sat again. “I told you it was like I was outside of myself—otherwise I wouldn’t have had the strength, but I know I wanted to do it. I wasn’t unaware of what I was doing, if that’s what you mean.”
Barnes shook his head. “Ms. Chauveau, Harald McHenry’s fingerprints were on the handle of the axe.” He distinctly enunciated each word.
“He must have been the one who sharpened it,” she said quickly. “I told you it was sharp.”
“Yes…he admitted he sharpened it and took it into the house. But, Ms. Chauveau, is that all he did?”
“You want to claim he did it?” she asked. “I can’t testify to that. I didn’t even see him in the cabin.”
“His fingerprints are in the right places to have held the axe like a weapon. Yours are a little low on the handle—not impossible, but it would have been awkward.”
“Killing people is awkward,” she agreed. “I didn’t see anyone in the cabin except those two…animals. I saw them and the axe going into their heads like a knife into butter.”
“I would think it would have been very hard, taken a lot of force. It might have looked easy, but it wouldn’t have been easy. You have a clear memory of picking up the axe?”
“Yes, it’s the part I remember best—how heavy it was.” She flexed her fingers as if she still felt the strain of holding that weight.
“Could the two men have already been dead on the floor when you picked it up?”
Desi was silent.
She sipped her coffee while she considered the question. “You would have had to strike them very hard,” Barnes said. “Probably with both hands.”
“I want to have done it myself,” she finally said. “More than anything. They fucking deserved it. I hated McHenry so much. I still do. He liked hurting me. I don’t want to blame somebody else. I didn’t see anybody else. I don’t want some man to have done it for me. But I don’t want to go to prison either. I want to go back to my job if they’ll have me. I want to stay with Eric. If he still wants me.” She met his eyes, her expression soft.
“He does,” Eric said. His throat was very tight.
She turned back to the lawyer. “I don’t want to accuse the brother if he didn’t do it, but…reasonable doubt? Is that what you’re trying to do?”
“No, Ms. Chauveau. I’m trying to convince you that you felt like you were outside of yourself because you were watching somebody else commit the crime. Maybe you didn’t see him. If your eyes were focused on your assailants, maybe you only registered the axe.”
She started to shake her head and then stopped. Her lips parted slightly. She seemed to be lost in her own thoughts for a moment, and then she asked briskly, “Why would he kill his own brother?”
“He had been taking LSD. He might not have known what he was doing. He may yet remember doing it, or if he already does, finally cop to it. If he does, you’re off the hook, but even if he doesn’t, I want you to know for yourself that you didn’t do it. Because I don’t think you did.”
Desi didn’t respond. Eric couldn’t—he was choked by too much emotion—and had to mime his question to her: Can I take your hand? She nodded, and he did, his thumb caressing her palm. After a minute, she gently slipped her hand from his and stood again. She glanced around the kitchen for something, settled on the bottle brush, roughly the size of an axe handle, and picked it up. She raised her arm and brought it slowly forward, keeping her gaze on the brush.
“It was farther away,” she said dreamily. She set the brush back on the counter and sat again. “It wasn’t in my hand. I didn’t kill them. But I wanted to. I didn’t want to be rescued. I liked feeling dangerous, out of control. I picked up the axe because I was afraid they wouldn’t stay dead, but I needed to find Eric.” She turned to him. “Do you still want to marry me?” she asked.
“More than anything,” he said.
“Yeah, I knew you were crazy,” she said, smiling, and leaned in to kiss him.
A word about the author…
Linda Griffin retired as Fiction Librarian for the San Diego Public Library to spend more time on her writing, and her work has been published in numerous journals. In addition to the three R’s—reading ,writing, and research—she enjoys Scrabble, movies, and travel. This is her seventh Wild Rose Press publication. http://www.lindagriffinauthor.com/
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Linda Griffin, The Axe
