How Archibald Sweeney Vanished: Part III
By: Omar Ateyah
Creative Writer
By the fifth day, Adam and Commodus had still not been released; my mother and I were informed on that same day that the search for the body were to begin. We dressed and followed several policemen out of the door. They took us to the neighborhood, where the body had been found. During the day, the grass glowed and teemed with many different specimens of flowers. The streets were wide and crack-less which allowed scores of residents to walk with their families, nodding at each other happily as they passed. The houses were each two-story high, painted white or otherwise bright colors.
“How is this possible?” I whispered to myself.
One of the officers heard me and he turned around as we walked. He had a small smile on his face.
“These folks were really shaken once it happened. No crime has ever happened in this residence, and the blood stains and everything were cleaned by the next morning and it seems like everyone has forgotten.”
“But,” another one of the officers said, “we recently figured out that the judge of Crocs, Ler, lives here and we think we might be able to get some useful information out of him.”
Judge Ler was an older fellow, whom respected my father but often quarreled with him. However, that was not really out of the norm for Ler, who argued with just about every resident of Crocs. While he carried an immense respect for the law, he was also exceedingly paranoid and held a small revolver under all his clothes. I had never met him in person and nor did I consider it an immense pleasure to do so on that day.
One of the officers knocked on Ler’s door politely and it swung open almost immediately. An elderly lady stood at the door, wearing an apron covered with powder. She looked nervous when she saw the cops.
“How can I help you?” she asked, her eyes darting around all of us.
“Hello, Madam,” said the officer that knocked, “we would like to speak with Judge Ler. Is he home?”
“Yes, why of course,” she said and she stepped aside.
We entered into a dim living room with two armchairs and a large bookshelf. Examining the bookshelf was Ler, who paused when he heard us approaching him.
“Dear,” said the elderly woman, whom I assumed was his wife. “We have guests.”
He remained facing the bookshelf, not acknowledging his wife. Ler ignored us for so long, that I thought he did not hear us and that his wife would repeat. She did nothing of the sort, so we waited quietly.
“And what do they seek?” the judge asked suddenly so I jumped slightly.
“I don’t know,” his wife responded, looking at the cops. “There are a few officers here along with two women who would like to speak to you.”
He turned around slowly and nodded politely to the cops, but then he glared at my mother and me suspiciously.
“Who are you?” he asked, and I suddenly remembered the revolver.
“I’m Susan, Archibald Sweeney’s wife,” my mother responded immediately. “And this is my daughter, Anastasia.”
Ler nodded but the look in his eyes hardly changed.
“Ah,” he said, “I apologize for your loss. Is there anything I could do to help?”
“Yes,” my mother said, “and that’s why we’re here. We were wondering if you happened to see anything that night, if you saw who the killer was and if you have any notion as to where they might have taken the body.”
Ler shook his head, and then he pointed at the cops. “Surely you men must have some idea.”
“Well, yes we do,” said one of the policemen defensively. “Adam Sweeney, Archibald’s son, and a man named Commodus were fleeing from the scene afterwards. We’ve taken them into custody-“
“Wait, wait, wait,” Ler interrupted, holding up his hands. “You took the victim’s son into custody? Surely, you must know that in order to accuse a member of the murdered man’s kin, the evidence must be overwhelming. And what evidence do you have against the boy?”
“We just told you,” The officer said, “that we saw Adam running, most likely due to his-“
“And it never occurred to you,” the judge cut in again, “that this boy, who is still a minor, could have been fleeing out of fear and did not know what to do after watching his father getting killed? Taking the man into custody was wise, but it was a great bit of folly to take the boy in.”
“Sir,” the cop said beginning to sound annoyed. “If he was one of the only people at the scene and he could have easily gotten away, don’t you think we should have been cautious?”
“There was no need to shame him!” Ler shouted. “Now, if the boy is innocent, you are going to make him bear that shame and negative reinforcement of his trauma in his adult years! You’re a pack of buffoons that’s what you are for taking a minor and a family member of the victim into custody!”
The officers looked stricken and they seemed to decide that it was best not to argue further. Ler was enraged; his eyes snapped to my mother next. The world seemed to be moving far too fast for my liking.
“And did it ever occur to you, Madam,” he spat, “that your husband could have offed himself or perhaps assaulted another resulting in self-defense from the attacked that got him killed? Instead you chose the despicable route of allowing your son to be taken into custody for your lack of answers! I want all of you out of here now! Go!”
The cops escorted my mother and me out and Ler was still screaming as we shut the door behind us.
“That did not go quite as planned,” one of the officers said looking morose. “We apologize; I suppose we could always search the neighborhood ourselves.”
We decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood, and through this morbid activity my mind kept flitting back to what Ler had said. Was it possible that my father was responsible for his own death? Or could he have provoked another? I couldn’t figure it out on my own but just the thought of saying it out loud made me nauseous.
We toured the neighborhood for several hours before we came by a small house towards the back of the smallest subdivision in the area. It was uninhabited and was one-story, unlike all the other houses in the neighborhood. However, the most unhinging aspect of the place was that the words “Little Demon” were spray painted to the side of it. I remembered my father’s sermon of envy which he referred to as the ‘little demon’ and I gulped.
The officers entered the house and they instructed us to wait behind, and my mother and me grabbed on to each other’s hand and stood stock still. Several minutes crawled by before we heard the gunshots.
Twice the sound boomed into the air from the house, and then my mother grabbed my arm.
“We have to go!” she screamed, pulling me. I dashed past her, and she followed in suit. We ripped past trees, and then my mother caught her leg in a branch. She fell forward onto the ground with a groan of pain, her face scraping a rock. I pulled her to her feet hurriedly and we continued running. We did not slow our pace until we reached the main street of the neighborhood.
My mother doubled over, as she struggled for breath. Some of the passerby eyed us strangely. I helped my mother to an upright position, and I guided her back to the house.
Back in the house, I called the police and informed them of the incident; they said they would get there as soon as possible. Meanwhile, my mother gulped down a glass of water and sat on the couch burying her head in her arms.
“Who could be doing this?” she asked in a muffled voice.
I realized it was my turn to comfort her; I sat next to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
“This comes with one plus side,” I told her. “At least we know that it’s not Adam.”
The officers that had been sent for the investigation came to our house several hours later. They brought Adam with them. His face was blank and his shoulders sagged downwards as if it were an effort to hold them up. My mother hugged him and Adam returned it only with one arm, with the same expressionless look.
“What did you find?” I asked the officers.
One of them sighed and said, “Well, when we went into the house and all we found was the body of the other cops. That’s probably because we just couldn’t get there fast enough, so obviously the culprit made a break for it. However, we did find Archibald’s body hanging in the trees behind the house.”
“You did?” my mother asked removing her face from my brother’s chest. “Well, where is it?”
“We have it in the car,” the officer said. “Let’s bring it in, boys.”
They brought in the body for us and laid it on the couch; he looked almost exactly the same except for the fact that his clothes were ripped and his once smooth hair stood up all over the place. However, in every other way, there was no mistaking him. Adam stared down at him with tears spilling down his cheeks, and my mother lay her head across his chest, weeping. I tried to avoid looking at the wounds.
The cops then offered to take him until we were ready for a funeral; we let them and then they left but not before saying, “You might want to keep an eye on Adam; we still can’t exactly prove him innocent; he could have had an accomplice doing the job for him today.”
My mother was staring at the floor and I was sitting next to her, my hand on her knee. Adam sat across from me, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, and he offered me a small and gentle smile. I looked back down, trying to think what place he had left in our family.
Apparently he understood how I felt for he spoke in a hushed voice to redeem himself. “I think it’s time that I tell you what happened that night, or at least as much as I could. After I ran out, I went to that neighborhood and sat on the curb. About fifteen minutes later, Father walked towards me and I got up, wanting to get away from him. He followed me and called my name, but I just ignored him. I noticed Commodus walking down on the other side of the street and then a car pulled up behind Father. Several people got out and they pounced on him. I heard him yell so I turned around, but it was too late.
“One of them came up to me and hit me on the head with something. I fell to the ground and I was almost unconscious. I barely registered Commodus who was running up to them, and I couldn’t tell if he was helping them or Father. Then, I heard the gunshots and sirens with police there and by then the actual culprits were hiding somewhere. Commodus darted past me and then came back to help me to my feet. We sprinted into the woods for a long time, and we kept falling and injuring ourselves because it was so dark. Then, when the police got really close to us thinking that we had done it, Commodus found a motorcycle in one of the houses that were far into the woods and he left me; so they caught up to me and brought me here, with Commodus right ahead of us. I think in that time, the culprits came out of hiding and took the body and made a run for it.”
He fell silent, looking down at his knees. My mother and I were silent; there was absolutely nothing to say.
The funeral was very intimate, and the cemetery we chose was behind the Crocs Lake. It was sunset and a purple blanket of a sky hung over us. A cool breeze flowed into our clothes easing our skin. After a small speech from Judge Ler, who seemed to be making up for the way he treated my mother, the body was laid into the ground and we went home.
We were accompanied in our house by about a dozen people, residents of the city who were particularly close to my father such as Warner, who sat pale and quiet for most of the gathering. Also, some of the cops that had helped us sat on our couches, looking solemn.
Adam was sitting on the floor resting his back to the wall and occasionally he would look at me with a kind expression on his face then he would focus his eyes elsewhere.
Warner summoned Adam to sit next to him and he did so grudgingly.
“Would you like a piece of cake, sir?” Adam asked him, picking up the butter knife next to the chocolate cake.
“Oh, yes please, young man,” Warner said. “I just want anything to set this mind from its mood of today.”
“Oh, tell me about it,” Adam muttered under his breath, cutting out a large piece of cake.
“Perhaps, you could tell us more about that night,” said Warner taking the first forkful of the cake. “We should know the details, don’t you think?”
There were mutters of agreements around the room; everyone wanted to know but what truly disgusted me were the reasons they wanted to know.
“Well, I think-“Adam began.
“Also,” Warner inserted, beginning to look angry. “We want to know what role you played in the tragic event.”
My jaw dropped as I stared at him, and the room fell silent. My mother looked up at him and said, “Warner, we will ask you to drop the matter there-“
“Oh, it’s alright, Madam, but this is essential information,” Warner said, holding up a hand. “After all, he was a Sweeney.”
“You’re right,” Adam said. “He was a Sweeney and all of you, as residents of Croc, have the right to know what happened to him. I have to tell you that I am responsible for all of it.”
Warner glanced at him, raising his eyebrows. I looked at him, thinking What are you doing?
“You all heard that,” Adam said, positively grinning like the psychopath he claimed to be. “Boys,” he added to the officers, “this is the part where you take me away.”
They were just as shocked as everyone else; not a single one of them moved.
“But,” Adam said, his expression becoming serious. “There’s one more thing I would like to do.”
Before anyone could breath, Adam brought the butter knife down upon Warner and several people squealed.
He cut open Warner’s pocket and something slid out and glinted on the floor. Shining in the way they always did, they were my father’s glasses.
“Well,” Warner said, smirking. “It looks like the ‘Little Demon’ has been revealed just the way I wanted. Officers, take me away.”
Epilogue
Adam explained to us that he figured out it was Warner from the moment he walked in because he saw the glasses shimmering in his pocket.
“The ‘little demon’ is how he expresses his envy, I assume,” Adam said told my mother and me. “But I think that’s where I could take some blame; when I mentioned how it was prejudiced to think that only Sweeneys could give sermons, the idea must have begun to grow in Warner’s mind, and I think that makes me fairly responsible.”
“Oh, stop it,” my mother said. “It’s not your fault.”
As I have grown, my awe at what envy could do to a man has not been subdued; if anything it has only grown as I discover more and more about its meaning.
Whenever I remember the incident tears come into my eyes; however, the silver lining always comes when I remember my father’s wisdom in the matter.