Reasonable Doubt

Sarah ate her moo goo gai pan while the man lay dying on the floor. The stench of vomit hanging over the cramped kitchen ruined her appetite. Death was messier than the fantasy she had played out in her mind. She pushed the mushrooms to the side to save for her brother, an old habit that lingered despite his absence. Months of planning had led to this moment, but the satisfaction she was hoping for didn’t come. Sitting on a barstool in his tiny, shabby home, Douglas James Miller wasn’t the monster from her memories, only a fragile human being on the brink of death. No outward sign betrayed the darkness she knew he harbored. His features were mundane, almost disappointingly so, compared to the ominous perception she had carried in her mind for so long. He had an unremarkable face and brown hair tinged with flecks of gray. There was a small scar just below his left ear Sarah never noticed before.

The phantom of her brother’s arms still pressed around her, that final, desperate hug in the courthouse hallway. Everything will be okay, he had whispered, a lie that turned sour over the three years of his absence. The dying man’s face blurred into the one from the witness stand. His finger, as good as a gun, aimed at her brother’s chest. She had etched every line of that face into her memory.

An eerie quiet blanketed the room as the man's gasps turned to shallow, panting breaths. The only other sound was the incessant ticking of the clock hanging on the wall. Each beat scraped against her raw nerves like sandpaper. Furniture that was too large for the space cluttered the room. A worn brown leather couch, end tables buried under unopened mail, no extra coasters on the coffee table. His unfinished container of general tso chicken sat on the counter. By the time she slipped into Douglas’s house with the spare key she found stashed outside he was already losing consciousness, unaware that his food had been tampered with on his doorstep while he sat inside. Poison was discreet, clean, and it required no physical confrontation.

He deserves this. He deserves this. Doesn’t he? Sarah repeated it to herself to keep her hands steady as she continued to eat, listening to his slowing breaths. Twelve people believed Douglas James Miller’s words over her brothers and that was all it took. He was gone forever and she couldn’t let that injustice go unpunished. Maybe the man really believed it was her brother he saw that night, or maybe it didn’t even matter to him which brown boy did the crime as long as someone paid. The damage was the same either way.

Sarah wiped her hands and slipped off the barstool to look at the man lying at her feet, Douglas James Miller. She hoped he felt a fraction of the pain and confusion he had inflicted on her and her brother. Did his friends call him Doug or Dougie? Did he have friends? In her weeks of monitoring him and his home, she hadn’t seen much evidence of any relationships besides the delivery people who brought his weekly takeout and his groceries. One of the delivery drivers called him Joe, but he must have been mistaken. There were some framed photos of a smiling little girl on the mantle, but no children had visited the house in the month that she had been surveilling him. A cold smile crept over her face.

Sarah snapped a blue latex glove over her hand and bent down to check whether he was still breathing or if it was finally over. She leaned in close and laid a finger on his neck, just under his jaw. He let out one last wet gasp. Startled, Sarah fell back against one of the end tables, knocking loose the mail perched on the edge. It fell around her like confetti on the floor.

Douglas’s eyes were open, unblinking. Sarah reached out to touch him again. Though his skin was still warm, there was no movement of blood pumping beneath. Her chest became a hollow chamber. She had never killed anyone before. Even though she had been waiting for this moment for years, she didn’t feel joy at taking someone’s life. She didn’t feel remorse either. It was like her emotions had been dulled and her only desire was to finish up and get the hell out of this house. She found a trash bag under the kitchen sink and shook it open. After gathering her trash she moved on to the final thing there was to do. She removed a piece of chicken from his container and carefully opened Doug’s mouth, pushing it as far back into his throat as she could. The lack of resistance from his tongue was unsettling as her fingers disappeared from sight. A strong garlic odor came from his mouth and her stomach began to roil as it combined with the other noxious odors in the room. Putting one hand over her own mouth to stifle her gag, she gave one final push until the flesh of his throat gave way. It would look like he choked while eating dinner alone. Based on his lack of visitors it could be days before anyone even came to check on him.

She surveyed the room one final time, pausing at the envelopes scattered on the floor. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that he bumped into the table while gasping for air, but she didn’t want to leave anything that looked out of place. She picked up an envelope. It was addressed to Douglas Joseph Miller.

Her vision wavered. The room drained of color, spinning subtly, as if she were standing on a precipice. The clock ticked loudly, each beat a fragmented thought she couldn't quite catch. She wished she could turn down the volume of the ticks so she could focus more clearly. Sarah recalled the man she had seen in the courtroom three years ago, the details of his face she had memorized with such certainty. Yet now, doubt wormed its way into her brain, too deep for her to claw out.

Sarah’s heart raced, her breath in short, shallow pants. She stared at his vacant face. Had his nose always been that sharp? Had his eyes been hazel or more green? She took a sharp inhale of the stale air. There was no turning back. No time or room for a guilty conscience.

She dug her hands into the pockets of his pants. The wrongness of his muscles pressed against her finger tips. Vomit and urine overwhelmed the air, an oppressive sickly sweet. A throb started to beat behind her eyes, in time with her pulsing heartbeat. His body was just a few degrees too cold now. A chill ran up her spine. In his back left pocket, she found what she was looking for: a black leather wallet.

Bracing herself, she flipped it open. Douglas Joseph Miller. Bile rose in her throat. She choked on it. Her mind spun. She must have been wrong. She couldn’t think of what it would mean if she were wrong. The lines of her memory became hazy.

The short rap of knuckles against the front door froze the spiral Sarah was descending into. Still on her knees beside the body, the coldness of the floor seeping into her shins. She felt the sound before she registered what it was. The clock continued its unceasing count of the seconds passing, indifferent to the rapid change of circumstances for the room’s occupants.

Certainty had once felt solid in her hands, something she could hold onto. The certainty that she was doing the right thing, had the right man. She stared at the blue latex of the gloves, a slight sheen of saliva coating them. She understood then that certainty did not always belong with the truth.

The lock turned. The door opened. It was too late for regrets. Sarah would never know if she had been right. Only that she had been certain just moments ago.