One

Though she wasn’t allowed, Robbin sat with the new nurse, Alma Mae, to discuss the events of Gertrude’s death.

Alma had no idea what she was in for. That within the span of forty-five minutes she would hear the story of how a local teacher committed suicide, leaving her husband, John, and eight-year-old daughter behind. Some of Robbin’s information isn’t reliable, for she was not there, but for the most part, she’s as close to the truth as anyone else.

“So, where do we begin?” she said. “Mrs. Gertrude Barrow was a teacher at the Little Pines School. Loved and respected by everyone; everywhere she went she would light up the room with her beautiful smile. Growing up, everyone was in awe of her dedication to schooling, her acknowledgement of authority, her leadership amongst us. Her parents, the Sanders, were role model parents. Always went to Sunday mass, members of the parent teacher board, involved in their community, just the best parents that you could imagine. No wonder she turned out so perfect...

“Around town, we got very close to making a schedule so everyone knew when she was available and whose turn it was to have her over. Sunday dinner, birthday parties, and baptisms were booked months in advance. You can imagine how we all felt when we heard the sad news of her death. I heard it before many others. My friend in the department called me later that afternoon… It was quiet that night around my house, but I cried the second my friend hung up the phone. Just couldn’t believe she was dead. I thought it was a joke.

“The next day, everyone was talking about nothing else; people started drawing their own conclusions, and suicide was the least discussed. School remained closed until mid-September, the principal thought it was the best thing to do under the circumstances.

“Mrs. B died?” the children would ask in disbelief. “It was horrible. Mostly because we had to see the children’s tears and hear their cries. She was like a mother to them, more than we were at times. Our own children loved her more than us. Their world, their lives, shattered, but her daughter was so strong. Never saw her shed a tear, not even at the funeral. It was strange.

“Gertrude’s parents thought there was foul play and they demanded that the sheriff, hell, the State of Colorado, do something about it. Seeing days had gone by and nobody was arrested, they went straight to the news station in Denver and told them all about it. Became national news overnight, don’t know how you didn’t hear more about it. Next thing you know, we had a Gerald D. Flint coming from New York, ready to defend John’s rights. Something along the lines of “innocent until proven guilty.” Around here, for John, is more like “guilty until proven innocent.” I never liked him after he came back from the war, he had changed, so quiet. I’m sure he did it. He was probably depressed. We had a lot of those guys come by the clinic, like Mrs. Dwight’s ex-husband. He used to beat her every day. Well, he did that before the war too, we all knew.

“People didn’t get to see pictures of the scene in the newspapers, but my friend Bryant gave me a sneak peek. He said he rushed back into town from the nearby golf course and went straight to the scene. The street was lit by cop cars, yellow tape everywhere, like a movie, he said. He couldn’t believe what he heard until he walked in. The house was intact, no signs of struggle. The sunlight pierced the windows, he could count each particle of dust as though time had slowed down. While the deputies gave him a run-down, he couldn’t hear a thing.

“See, around here there haven’t been many crimes ever since I can remember. The most that has happened was a brawl over football, not even accidents. A suicide, murder I should say, was way beyond our imagination.

“Making his way to the living room, he saw John holding his daughter, Michelle, tightly, rocking back and forth on the couch. John kept crying and holding her head, patting her hair and shoulder. And, just like me, the sheriff was shocked to see how strong Gertrude’s daughter was even though her hands, face and PJs were stained with blood. She simply stared back, letting her father cry against her. The sheriff didn’t know what to do or say, so the deputies pointed to the master bedroom where they found the body.

“Gertrude was laying on the bed, under the covers, holding a book. Her blood had dripped for hours by the time the sheriff made it to the room, so he had to tiptoe in, still wearing golf shoes. There was a gun by the bed and Gertrude’s hand hung above it. I know you’re eating, honey, but I’m just getting to the good part...

“As Sheriff Bryant lifted his eyesight, away from the gun and the puddle of blood, he noticed her brains were scattered across the bed and against the eggshell colored wall. Part of the wound was covered with her soft hair, caving into her skull. Bryant says he almost barfed when he saw her mouth and eyes open, full of flies. It was a hot summer day; I can only imagine the smell. Sheriff Bryant headed towards John to ask him some questions, but John would only rock back and forth, crying.”

“John, we’ll need you to give us a statement,” Sheriff Bryant told him.

“But seeing how struck he was, his shaking, how the blood in his hands got stuck to his daughter’s hair, he just couldn’t do it right then and there. The sheriff decided to have him over later that day to describe what happened. And he did. By then the reporters were everywhere and they didn’t leave for weeks. When it was time to head to the Sheriff’s Department, they all ran toward John with their cameras and recorders at arm’s length. And Tom, that gentleman sitting at the end of the counter, he had to put up with it as well. He’s their neighbor you see. He had to testify, and it turns out he was John’s alibi.

“Apparently, Tom gave the same testimony multiple times: from early in the morning John had been outside working on the front yard. Raking leaves, mowing the lawn, watering plants and filling up his bird seeders. His normal routine. For the fifteen years they have lived next door, John worked on his yard while I read my Sunday paper. Nothing seemed out of place this morning. If anything, I expected to see little Michelle running around the yard helping or playing with the birds. Today I didn’t recall seeing her, but I didn’t think anything of it. After all, she’s only a child. Soon I heard a shot, went to the window and there was John, running towards the house.”

No matter how many times Sheriff Bryant asked him to go over the story, nothing changed. John appeared to have nothing to do with his wife’s death and the alibi checked out.

Pointing to an older gentleman. “Look at Tom right now, reading his paper.”

Alma looked over.

“Poor Tom, the reporters kept throwing questions at him: ‘Why are you protecting a murderer? Are you in on the murder too?’ No wonder he doesn’t like talking much anymore... They wanted a story no matter whose dignity was on the line.”

Murder sells, suicide doesn’t.

“What a shame. Tom has been nothing but a saint, a good man, one of the few left in this town. Reads his paper, goes back to rest, gets another paper, comes back. Every day and don’t bother nobody. He got nothing to do with it. It’s John that I question. Gertrude? Kill herself? No way!”

“Interesting,” Alma chimed in.

“And listen to this! When he showed up to testify, he didn’t manage to say much. That Flint, lawyer-man busted in the department and stopped the entire interrogation. Said his client didn’t need to answer questions without his legal representation. John didn’t even know who he was.”

Alma stared at the clock above the window, listening to its ticks.

“Well, I had worked my way into the department with a little help from Sheriff Bryant, so I was able to hear and see a thing or two as this mess unfolded. The interrogation room had a separate screening room, like the ones you see in the movies, it couldn’t fit another deputy. Mr. Flint had a whole team of lawyers behind him taking notes and providing him with documents at the snap of a finger. They were preparing for the worst: The People of Colorado v. John Barrow.”

When the time came for John to give his testimony, everyone in the screening room froze; desperate to look into the mind of a killer, into the mind of a man they thought could kill his loving wife and bathe his daughter in her blood, without remorse.

“It was heartfelt. I could hear him sobbing and screaming the entire time from all the way out in the waiting room.”

John could barely make a word without choking up.

“Of course, I got a word or two out of the sheriff afterwards, this was something I couldn’t go to sleep without knowing. Apparently, he asked John to describe the events that took place that Sunday morning, prior and after her presumed suicide. I can only imagine that the deputies got closer to the window, waiting to see what John would confess.”

They did. Feeling a tap on the glass. “Give me a second John, I’ll be right back!” Sheriff Bryant said while stepping outside the interrogation room. “Can you maggots keep it down a bit?! I can hear all of you tapping on the glass! Deputy Stanley, next person to even hint at a word, have ‘em removed.” The room went silent.

“Sorry about that John, ready to begin?”

John responded, “As unfortunate as this may be... Yes, I am.”

“Alright, the floor is yours John. Walk me through this day.” John stared closely at the dark tinted glass, searching for faces.

“I’ll remember this day for the rest of my life and for the wrong reasons. Sundays were always my favorite days. I’d plan all my yard work, gather my tools and materials the night before. By early morning, I had it all done. Then Trudy would come out with water, sometimes lemonade, she was so sweet,” he paused. “Loved to see her glancing at the rose bushes, the buttercups and the sunflowers, her favorites. She never stayed out for too long, but for that moment, I felt like the luckiest man on earth cos I had the kindest woman on earth. I know she was very absent, after her brother Michael died, but even then, she found ways to make me feel that I was important to her, that Michelle and I were important to her. I can almost picture her right now wearing her sundress, barefooted, with her hair down.”

“I know it’s hard for you, but c0uld you try to stay within the subject, John?” Sheriff Bryant asked.

“He murdered that woman!” a deputy whispered behind the glass.

“Please have him removed,” Deputy Stanley requested calmly.

John couldn’t speak. He almost went mute. His thoughts were eating at him. “John…” Sheriff Bryant insisted

“Yes?”

“Please continue.”

John was under a lot of stress. Hands shaking, sweat rolling down his ear.

John continued, “I want everyone to know what I saw when I saw her. That every time she was near me my throat would close, that when she looked my way I smiled, that there was never one day I wasn’t in love with her, that she’s all I ever wanted.” He stopped to look straight into the glass.

“I did not kill Trudy. She was my everything, my one and only. I would give my life right now if it meant I would see her again. If it meant she would live, and I died. I would put a bullet through my head this second if it would show you the truth, if it would turn back time and brought her back. Brought back Michelle’s mother, my Trudy.”

“Trudy! Trudy! Why did you leave us, why did you leave me?” he yelled.

The sheriff wasn’t impressed and when things settled down, he continued to interrogate him. “Mr. Barrow, who’s gun was found next to your dead wife’s body?”

“It was my gun,” John responded.

“Where was the gun before the incident took place?”

“I kept all my guns in the same case, by the living room.”

“And did this ‘case’ of yours have a key, some sort of security. Say, a lock so that a child the age of Michelle wouldn’t have access to?”

“Of course! It was locked,” he said, “But my keys were in the same spot I had always placed them. Right by the door. Trudy always knew where they were. It wasn’t a secret. I did it mostly because of Michelle… didn’t want her opening the case freely.”

“And why, Mr. Barrow, if I may ask, why would your eight-year-old daughter want to open up a gun case?”

“I’m not sure, I didn’t say she did. I only said that I didn’t want her having access. That’s all.”

“So, you mean to say that somehow, early in the morning, your wife decided to pull Of Mice and Men from her library, grab a handgun, go back to her bed, read a couple of pages and then blow her brains out?” Sheriff Bryant’s tone switched from good guy to bad guy at the blink of an eye, but even he knew sensitivity was of the essence. “Let me rephrase the question Mr. Barrow… Does it make sense, for all these events to take place, before your wife ‘supposedly’ committed suicide?”

“No, it doesn’t make sense.”

Another deputy spoke, “I knew it!” another deputy had to leave.

“So, you do agree that things don’t add up, right, Mr. Barrow?”

A sharply dressed man busted through the door. “I’m Gerald D. Flint!” he said, “From now on, I’ll be your attorney Mr. Barrow. You don’t have to say a single word or answer any more questions. The way I see it, for all we know, you are innocent. You’ve done nothing wrong and if there is no evidence to demonstrate otherwise, you are a free man,” was all he said.

Mr. Tom’s alibi placed John outside at the time of the shot. Leaving only two people inside the house: Gertrude and her daughter Michelle. The sheriff couldn’t pin any evidence to suggest that John was the one who pulled the trigger, but he wasn’t going to entertain any other ideas. Since she was waiting outside, Sheriff Bryant decided to call the only other person that was inside the house when everything took place.

This caught everyone by surprise. The deputies rushed behind him. “It’s alright boys. John…” Still in shock, he looked up. “Do you mind if I have a word with Michelle?”

Mr. Flint advised him not to. “Absolutely not Mr. Barrow! You are innocent and they have no evidence.”

But John obliged. For the deputies, seeing Michelle walk into the interrogation room was unsettling.

“I could see the sheriff scratching his chin while standing by the door, he probably didn’t know where to start,” Robbin added.

Alma simply nodded and looked around the cafeteria.

Bryant wanted to go about it with as much sensitivity as he possibly could; still exposing enough evidence suggesting Gertrude didn’t commit suicide.

He began with something simple: “How are you, Michelle?”

“Good,” she responded.

“Excited for the school year?”

“Yes. This year I’m in fifth grade. I got to skip.”

“Wonderful! Just wonderful. Did you get your summer reading done?”

“Yes, I did. Read my final page this morning.”

“Did you like the book?”

“I liked it very much so.”

John sat by the door, next to Gerald.

“And why is that, Michelle?”

“Because it reminded me of the things my father has taught me.” Sheriff Bryant moved towards the edge of his seat and made sure the recorder was on. The light was red and the magnetic tape was surely spinning.

“Oh, he has taught you things you say. What kind of things, Michelle?” The deputies thought Bryant found his opportunity, but Michelle disappointed.

“Papa has taught me that when things are hurt, we must help them get better,” Michelle responded looking directly into Bryant’s eyes.

Bryant almost began to cry, for even now she showed so much devotion to her father. Finding no way of pinning evidence on John, he stood up and showed Michelle the way out the door.

“She was out almost immediately,” Robbin said.

After a long pause. “That’s as far as I go, unfortunately. Last thing nurse Alma… Make sure to never repeat anything I’ve said. Never!”

“Of course not!” Alma responded.

Time passed by faster than planned. “You sure eat fast nurse Alma. Not even the napkins survived.”

Alma said, “I try to stick to my diet, but I just can’t help it sometimes.”

“Look at me, barely finished my soup,” she paused and looked at Alma, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No harm done ‘nurse’ Robbin. Mother Berta reminds me every day.”

“We better get back now. I wonder how things are at the corridors. I figure one of us should get back to our patients.”

Alma wiped her mouth.

“All we can do is keep quiet and let the others battle it out.”

“Alright!” Alma said licking her fingers.

“Keep your mouth shut! Most likely Stubby Linda will discipline us by having us reorganize and look over patient charts.”

“I don’t mind…” Alma responded, still savoring her food.

“You say that now, but everyone agrees she’s quite the cunt.”

“You can’t really trust the voices you hear,” Alma said slyly.