Yesterday
by Craig Wessel

Yesterday was a bad day.

It started like most other days. Given the choice between riding the crowded elevator up to the 52nd floor of Donnelly & Schust and having dental work done by first year dental students, I'll take the dental work. At least you get the gas.
    An elevator is one of the most surreal places in our society. As people get on, everyone mumbles some benign comment that sounds like a greeting, but usually covers our real feeling, which goes something like Oh shit, I thought I was going to be on here alone!, and then we all turn around and stare blankly at the closed doors as the elevator crawls upward. Those mirrored doors they installed recently have really spoiled the experience, because now we have to see each other on the way up. It’s very hard to ignore someone when you are looking at them, have you noticed this?
    Anyway, back to this morning. Up we went, in total silence. Thank God the Muzak wasn't on, or I might have lost it. When we reached fifty-two, several of my co-workers exited with me and we trudged toward the employee entrance.
    Davis slid his ID card through the card reader and we all filed through after him. There was some small talk about last night's ballgame, date, dinner, blah, blah, blah. I didn't have anything to say; it had been some time since I had contributed anything meaningful to the morning ritual, and I certainly didn't feel like chiming in this morning. 
    I slid my ID card across the touchpad outside my office door and slipped inside. My office had begun to feel like a haven. All the things I cherished had made there way there, as things at home had deteriorated.
    It was waiting for me in my office. Placed neatly on my desk, between my IN/OUT box and my desk lamp, was an envelope. I knew what was inside before I even opened it. When you get a letter inside an envelope that's cream colored and made of such heavy paper stock that it looks like cardboard, odds are that it's from an attorney, or as it turned out in this case, attorneys.
    THE LAW OFFICES OF BAILEY & RIDGESTON was embossed on the front, along with their address. Most ominously, a number was tucked away in the lower left corner. Case number? I thought so, but I opened the letter anyway.
"Be it known, and therefore, etc, etc” . . . I won't bore you with the details of what I'm sure you can guess was inside. Divorce papers. I wasn’t surprised. When you come home and find all your clothes scattered on the lawn, you have to figure that the dance of the attorneys is about to begin.
    I didn’t bother reading the rest of the documents in the envelope. I just tossed them in the trash and walked to the window. It had started raining hard sometime between my run to the building and my ride up the elevator. I could see it pounding down on the street far below, slamming into everything with mindless force.
    I paced back and forth a bit, and then decided there was little I could do about the papers now. I had a mountain of work to do, so I decided to put her out of my mind and get to it.
    At some point, I must have dozed off, because I woke up with a start and it was dark outside. I think I had been dreaming–something about my wife–but the more I struggled to remember, the more the dream faded. I felt groggy, as if I had been sleeping for a long time.
    The work I had set out to complete earlier was finished, stacked neatly in my OUT tray, and there was nothing in my IN tray. It appeared that however long I had been sleeping, I had managed to finish everything.
    The letter from the attorneys was still in the trash where I had dropped it earlier. I rescued it, and tossed it in my IN tray to look at in the morning. I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it.
    I got up from my chair, and noticed something odd—my legs and arms were sore. I flexed them experimentally, stretching. Had I been asleep in the same position for most of the day? Whatever the cause, they did ache. In particular, my right shoulder was very stiff, and I winced as I worked my arm in circles to loosen it up. I had some Advil in my desk drawer, and I popped two of them, then turned off my desk lamp and left the office.
    No one else was around, and I rode down in the elevator in silence. In the lobby, one of the security guards–Dave? Tom? I can’t remember–said goodnight to me, and I nodded as I entered the parking garage.
    As I got in my car, it occurred to me that I had nowhere to go. She had kicked me out last night. I drove toward home anyway—habit I suppose. I wasn’t upset. In fact, I felt very good considering the fact that I was now homeless. However, it occurred to me as I left downtown and entered the freeway, that there were still a few things I needed from the house. Just a quick trip by to grab them, and then I’d be done with her for good.
    About half an hour later, I pulled into our driveway—excuse me, HER driveway now, I suppose. As I got out of the car, I noticed the house was dark. I checked my watch, and saw it was about 9:30. My first thought was that she must be out, but then I noticed her car was still here. Puzzled, I fumbled for my house key on the dark porch, and was happy that it worked. I guess changing the locks was yet to come.
    Inside, I fumbled for the light switch and blinked in the bright glare of the entry hall lamp when it came on. It was quiet, but I was unprepared for what awaited me in the den. At first, all I saw was the destruction. Everything–the furniture, pictures, the television–everything in the room had been smashed in one way or another. Glass, papers, and other debris were all over the room. The walls were gouged too, as if someone had been slamming them with a hammer, or a baseball bat.
    I was stunned. For a moment, I just stood there. Then I saw something that seemed to drop the temperature in the room 20 degrees. I think when I first came in the room, it had registered as dirt or something, but what I had taken for streaks of grime on the walls, floor, and most everything else in the room, was blood. I found my voice, and screamed, “MARJORIE!!!” as I bolted up the stairs.
    The trail of blood and destruction continued. I was frantic, screaming her name over and over as I headed for our bedroom at the back of the house. I was moaning, something like, “OH-GOD-PLEASE-NO-MARJORIE-NO-GOD-NO.” I hoped, even though some part of me knew I had seen too much blood for her to be alive, that she was just hurt and if I could get to her in time, I could save her.
    Our bedroom door was shut, and I slammed into it, grabbing the doorknob at the same time. I smacked painfully into the door, causing a sympathetic pain in my sore right shoulder. Locked? That was good, wasn’t it? It meant she had made it inside and locked herself in. I yelled for her through the door, “Marjorie, honey it’s me. Open the door!” but she didn’t answer. Frantic, I backed up, and kicked the door open like I had seen them do on the crime shows.
    I stepped into the room, and flicked on the light.

 

POLICE REPORT
1/22/09
Officer: Arnold, J.
Case: 456784

Description: I was dispatched at 10:28pm to 2343 Bayside Court. A 911 call had been placed, and the home owner had reported a break in and a possible severe injury to his wife. An ambulance was on the way, but I arrived at the home first. All lights in the residence were on, and the front door was open. I entered with my weapon drawn, identifying myself as a police officer. I received no answer, and I made a careful sweep of the lower level (see attached diagram 1 for floor plan detail) The house had been ransacked, with furniture and other items destroyed, and walls with holes and gashes in them. Most disturbingly, blood was everywhere (see attached diagram 2 for blood splatter detail). I could hear a voice coming from upstairs, and I cautiously made my way in that direction, calling out a warning that backup was on the way. The voice was coming from the back of the house, in what I assumed was the master bedroom.
    I pushed the door open, and saw the suspect, kneeling on the floor over his wife’s body. He was holding her, moaning, “Marjorie, Marjorie” over and over. I aimed my weapon at him, and said, “Mr. Pearson?” The suspect stopped sobbing, and turned his head toward me. Following is a rough transcript of our conversation:

    PEARSON: Ah thank God you’ve come. Do you see? Do you see what they’ve done to her?

    ARNOLD: Yes sir. I’m sorry. They?

    PEARSON: Yes, they…it must have been burglars or something. I . . . I’ve been at work all day and I just got home and . . . and . . . (Suspect dissolved into sobbing, moaning his wife’s name over and over again)

    ARNOLD: Mr. Pearson, please sir, I need to ask you to step away from your wife, please so I can help her.

    PEARSON: Oh . . . yes of course, officer . . . help her please? She . . . there’s so much blood.

    I instructed Mr. Pearson to sit on the bed where I could see him, and began to examine the body. One glance was all I needed to know that Mrs. Pearson was dead. Her body was mangled by multiple stab wounds, and it was obvious she had been beaten severely as well (see diagram 3, CSI Preliminary Exam). It appeared to me that she had barricaded herself in the master bedroom to escape her assailant. I shook my head no, at the suspect, to indicate that the woman was dead, and he began wailing again, covering his face with his hands.
    I noticed that a door across the room was open, and as I looked through it, I could see more blood in the glare of the lights there, but I could also see clothes on the floor. There was more blood on them, and I could see as I looked more closely that they were a man’s clothes. There was so much blood on them that it had pooled around them. I looked back at Mr. Pearson, dressed in what I’m sure had been a clean, freshly pressed suit, white shirt, and tie before he had hugged his dead wife. The clothes in the bathroom floor looked the same, or nearly so. I backed away from Mr. Pearson as I heard the ambulance and my backup arrive.

    ARNOLD: Mr. Pearson? Sir...what happened here?

    PEARSON: I don’t know, officer, I really don’t know.

    They say I did it. Can you believe that? I could never do that, not to Marjorie, no matter what they say. The coroner at the trial presented evidence. Blood on my clothes found at the scene, evidence that my soreness was due to the . . . attack . . . times, probable causes of Marjorie’s awful injuries. But it’s absurd, isn’t it? I was at my office, asleep. A guard testified he had seen me leave around 3pm, and return dressed in a different suit about 3 hours later. But that’s just silly. I didn’t kill her. I couldn’t, even after she kicked me out. I was asleep. I don’t remember. All I remember is the dream. It has come back to me a bit and I keep having it over and over. In it, Marjorie is yelling at me as she always does, and then . . . I’m naked in the rain, and the rain turns red as it runs down my naked body.

Did I . . . did I tell you about yesterday?
Yesterday was a bad day.

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