Chapter 4 Chapter Four

Hours after my murder, my mother was busy on the phone looking for me, and my father was going door to door in the neighborhood. By this time Mr. Harvey had buried the hole in the cornfield and left the scene with the bag containing my body parts.He passed near my house, where Pa was standing talking to the Tarkins, and he went on, carefully walking through Eutrative's and Steady's, the Eutrull's boxwood and the Steady's chrysanthemum Almost touching, Mr. Harvey walked through the thick foliage, leaving my scent in his path.It was the smell that enabled the Gilberts' puppy to find my elbow.But after three days, the snow and frost had diluted my smell, and even well-trained police dogs couldn't find a trace.Mr. Harvey came home with my body parts. He came in and washed his face and hands. I was already waiting for him at home.

Since the house changed hands, the new owner has been complaining about stains on the garage floor.When the agent took the client to see the house, he would always tell the buyer that it was the grease from the car. In fact, it was my blood. The blood seeped out of the cloth bag in Mr. Harvey's hand and dripped on the concrete floor, revealing my whereabouts to everyone for the first time. You probably already guessed that I wasn't Mr. Harvey's first victim, it took me a while to realize that.He knew to move my body out of the cornfield, and he also knew to check the weather first, and choose when the rain and snow turned strong, so that the rain and snow would wash away the evidence the police were looking for.But he was not as careful as the police thought, for example, he forgot to put my elbow in the cloth bag, and besides, he took a cloth bag to hold the bloody body parts, if anyone saw him at the time with the cloth bag , Walking between the narrow bushes, anyone will find it very strange, the bushes of the Otrell house and the Steady house are very close, even a child who likes to hide here feels a bit narrow, let alone an adult.

He went into the bathroom and took a hot shower. Bathrooms in suburban houses were pretty much the same, and the bathroom that Lindsay, Buckley, and I shared was similar to Harvey's bathroom.He washes slowly, without rush, and with a sense of peace.He turned off the light in the bathroom, he felt the hot water wash away my breath, and suddenly thought of me again.My muffled cry floated in his ears, the cry of death is really beautiful.He also thought of my baby-like, white skin that had never been exposed to the sun. His blade gently passed by and made a perfect cut. Thinking of this, he trembled under the hot water, and bursts of joy made his arms Got goosebumps and thighs.He packed me in a waxed sack, along with shaving cream, razors, poetry books, and a bloodstained murder knife on a shelf in the burrow.The shaving cream and other things were mixed with my knees, fingers, and toes. He reminded himself to wait a minute and take out the razor and other things before the blood became sticky. At least keep the poetry book and the murder knife.

I was most pleased with the various puppies who showed up at vespers, and those who looked up at the first smell of interest.Sometimes the smell is very clear, the puppy knows it is raw beef as soon as it smells it, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish immediately, no matter what the situation is, the puppy must follow the smell and stop until it finds something, and then decide what to do .Dogs are like that: they don't give up because they don't smell good or the object is too dangerous, they keep searching, they just want to know where something is, and so do I. Mr. Harvey put the orange sack with my body parts in the car and drove to the sinkhole, eight miles from home.Until recently, the area was deserted, filled with railroad tracks and the debris of a nearby garage.In December, Mr. Harvey switched to some station that played Christmas music on repeat over and over again, whistling and congratulating himself in his huge van.He felt content, as happy as after apple pie, cheeseburger, ice cream, and coffee.He became more and more proficient in committing crimes, and his skills became more and more proficient. Every time he came up with a new trick, even he himself did not expect it. Every time he committed a crime, it was like a surprise gift for himself.

The air in the car was cold and thin. I saw his hot breath, and I really wanted to press my lungs, which were as cold as stone. He took a shortcut through the narrow lanes of two new industrial estates, and the van wobbled forward when it came across a large pothole.The cloth bag containing the body parts was in a safe in the back seat. The safe was shaken and slammed into the rear of the car, scraping off a piece of plastic.hateful, Mr. Harvey cursed, but soon began whistling again, and did not stop the car. I remember being here with my dad and Buckley, me and Buckley in the backseat, the two of us wearing a seatbelt, Buckley huddled next to me, the three of us sneaking up from the house .

Dad first asked us if we wanted to see how the refrigerator disappeared. The earth will swallow the refrigerator.Dad said, and he put on the leather gloves that I coveted for a long time. I know that adults wear leather gloves, but children wear mittens. I have wanted a pair of leather gloves for a long time. (For Christmas in 1973, my mother bought me a pair of leather gloves as Christmas presents. Lindsey accepted the gift, but she knew the gloves were originally mine. One day on the way home from school, she Leave the gloves by the cornfield. Lindsey always brings me something, she always does.) Does the earth have a mouth?Buckley asked.

Yes, the earth has a big round mouth, but no lips.Dad said. Jack, mommy said with a smile: Come on, you know I caught this kid outside mumbling to a snapdragon? I will go with you.I said that my father once told me about an abandoned mine nearby, and that the mine collapsed and formed a sinkhole. So when I watched Mr. Harvey take my dead body down the sinkhole, I had to admit he was brilliant.He put the cloth bag in a metal safe, and my remains were surrounded by metal. It was late when he drove to the sinkhole, he put the safe in the car and walked straight to Finargen's house.The Finargens live near the sinkhole, and the land here belongs to the Finergen family, so anyone who throws old appliances into the sinkhole has to pay, and the Finergens make a living by this.

Mr. Harvey knocked on the door of the white cottage, a woman came out and opened the door, the smell of rosemary and mutton wafted from the house, and the scent wafted to my heaven, Mr. Harvey also smelled the smell, and he saw a man from the door Stand behind the house. Hello, sir, Mrs. Finargen said: Is there anything to lose? Yes, something is in the back of my car.Mr. Harvey replied that he had a twenty-dollar bill ready. What's in your car?a corpse?Mrs. Finergen joked. Murder never occurred to her.Although her home is small, it is very warm. Her husband doesn't have to go out to work, so there are people at home who can fix things at any time.Her husband is very kind to her, and her son is also very obedient. The child is still young, but still thinks that the mother is the whole world.

Mr. Harvey smiled.I watched him smile, not wanting to look away for a moment. In the car is my father's old safe, which I finally brought here.He said: "I've been trying to throw it away all these years, and no one in the family remembers the number of the safe. Is there anything in the safe?she asked. Just some mildew. All right, bring the safe here, do you need help? OK, thank you.He said. Over the next few years, the Finners read about me in the newspapers: Missing girl suspected of murder; neighbor dog picking up missing girl's elbow; Tian was killed; girls of the same age, please be on high alert; the city government agreed to rezon the area around the high school; the sister of the murdered girl, Linxi.Shamon delivered a speech on behalf of all the students.They never imagined that that night, a lonely middle-aged man paid twenty dollars to put the girl's body lying in the gray safe they had thrown away.

On the way back to the car, Mr. Harvey put his hands in his pockets where my silver bracelet lay.He couldn't remember when he took off the silver chain on my wrist, nor when he put it in the pocket of his new trousers. He felt the chain, his fleshy forefinger over the smooth Penn stone, the ballerinas, the holes in the miniature thimbles, and the spinning wheels of the little bicycles.He drove straight onto Route 202, stopped on the shoulder for a while, ate the liverwurst sandwich he had prepared earlier, and then continued on to the industrial area under construction south of town.At that time, there were usually no guards in the suburbs, and no one was around the construction site. He parked his car next to a portable toilet. Although he knew that he was unlikely to be found, if someone did see him, he could say that he stopped to use the toilet.

This scene always comes to mind when I think of Mr. Harvey after it happened.He walked back and forth between the muddy potholes, the huge excavator was quietly parked on the construction site, and the huge strange hand looked even more terrifying in the dark. Mr. Harvey walked around, almost getting lost among the backhoes.On the night after my accident, the night sky was black and blue. He stood in the open construction site and could see the surrounding scenery clearly.I purposely stood next to him, knowing what he saw and following where he wanted to go.The snow stopped and the winter wind blew. According to his instinct of building a house, he walked to a place he thought would be a man-made lake. He stood there and touched my silver bracelet again. He liked that Dad carved my name for me Penn stone, and my favorite is the little bicycle on the bracelet.He tore off the Penn stone and put it in his pocket, then threw the silver bracelet and the remaining trinkets from the bracelet into the future artificial lake. Two days before Christmas, I saw Mr. Harvey reading a book about the Republic of Mali in Africa.He read that the local Bambara people used clothes and ropes to build houses. As he read, his eyes flashed suddenly, and an idea came to his mind: he would try something new like digging a hole in a cornfield. Build a tent like the one you read about in a book.Once he made up his mind, he went out to buy some basic building materials and was ready to spend a few hours pitching a tent in the backyard. After breaking all the glass bottles where the boats were placed, Pa saw Mr. Harvey standing in the back yard. It was rather cold outside, but Mr. Harvey was only wearing a thin cotton shirt.He had just turned thirty-six at the time. At that time, he tried to wear hard contact lenses, and his eyes were often bloodshot. Many neighbors, including his father, thought that Mr. Harvey probably had too much alcohol. What's this?Dad asked. Although the man in the Salmon family has a weak heart, Dad likes to do odd jobs and is quite good at his craft.He walked around the green house into the backyard and saw Mr. Harvey busily erecting long sticks like football goalposts.Dad was taller than Mr. Harvey, and when he walked into the back yard he looked more poised and more capable than Mr. Harvey.He had just seen me in the shards of glass and was still a little dizzy, and I watched him walk across the lawn, slowly, like a high school student going to the backyard, only stopping at Mr. Harvey's. He stopped in front of the bushes, and gently stroked the bushes with his palm. What's this?Dad asked again. Mr. Harvey stopped, stared at Dad for a moment, then turned back to work. This is a mat tent. What is a Mat Tent? Mr Shamon, Mr Harvey said: "I'm so sorry for you that you lost your daughter. Dad pulled himself together and responded politely. Thanks.He replied stiffly, as if there was a stone stuck in his throat. After a silence between the two, Mr. Harvey, sensing that his father had no apparent intention of leaving, asked his father if he would help. And just like that, I was in heaven watching my dad and my murderer pitching a tent together. Dad knew very little about tent-building.He knows how to tie the curved piece to a long branched stick, and then use a small wooden stick to pierce holes in the edge of the curved piece to form a semi-curved side. He also knows to tie the wooden stick vertically and horizontally. on the pole.Mr. Harvey had read about the African tribes, and he knew how to proceed, and Pa had followed his instructions, so he knew the steps.Dad stood in the backyard, thinking that the neighbor was right: this man is really strange.That's all Dad can think of so far. An hour later, the basic structure of the tent had been completed, when Mr. Harvey walked in without a sound. Dad thought it was time for a break, and Mr. Harvey went in to get coffee, or make a pot of tea. Dad was wrong.Mr. Harvey went into the house and went upstairs to check the murder knife that had been in the bedroom. The murder knife was still on the sketchbook on the bedside table.There is a sketchbook on the bedside table, and he often gets up in the middle of the night to draw the figures he saw in his dreams on the sketchbook.He checked the murderous knife in the paper bag, the blood on the blade had turned black, and the blood reminded him of the good deeds he had done in the cave.He remembered reading about the custom of a tribe in Africa where when the tents were pitched for the newlyweds, the women wove the most beautiful cloth they could and draped it over the couple's tent. It started snowing outside, the first snow since I died, and Dad noticed it too. I can hear your voice, Suzy, and although I can't hear any answer, he still says to me: What are you talking about? I stared desperately at the withered geraniums in front of my father's eyes, thinking that if I could make the geraniums bloom, my father would get an answer.In my paradise, the geraniums are in full bloom, and the branches and leaves grow to my waist, but the geraniums of the world are not moving. In the flakes of snow, I noticed that Dad was looking at Mr. Harvey's green cabin strangely, and he was already suspicious. Mr. Harvey had put on a thick flannel shirt inside, but when he came out the first thing Pa noticed was the wad of white cotton in his hand. What are these for?Dad asked, suddenly, his mind was full of my shadow. We draped these cloths over the tent.Mr Harvey said.He handed Dad a stack of cotton cloths, and the back of his hand touched Dad's fingers, and Dad suddenly felt an electric current. You know something, right?Dad said. Mr. Harvey returned Dad's stare, staring at him, but didn't say a word. They started to work, the snow was getting bigger and bigger, and the snowflakes kept falling. Dad walked in the snow, feeling more and more excited.He knew the neighbors had been questioned by the police, but he couldn't help asking himself: Did anyone ask where Mr. Harvey was when I disappeared?Did anyone see him in the cornfield? Pa and Mr. Harvey put the cotton over the curved pieces, pulled the cotton, and then they hung the rest of the cotton over the bars, so that the cotton hung straight down to the ground at the bottom. By the time they were done, the tent was covered with a thin layer of snow, which fell on Dad's shirt and left a trail of snow above the belt.My heart hurts, and I know I'll never run into the snow with Halliday, never push Lindsey off the sleigh, never teach my little brother to make snowballs in the palm of his hand.I stand alone among the bright geraniums, and the snow falls softly and innocently like a white curtain. Mr. Harvey stood in the tent thinking of the virgin bride who would come to the tribe on camels.Dad slowly approached him, and he raised his hands to Dad. Well, that's it.He said: Why don't you hurry home? Now it was Dad's turn to talk, but he had only my name on his mind; he said softly: Suzie, with a snake-like hiss at the end. We had just pitched our tent together, and Mr. Harvey said: 'The neighbors have seen it, and we're friends now. you know something.Dad said. Go home, I can't help you. Mr. Harvey did not smile or move. He hid in the bridal tent and hung the last piece of cotton with his name embroidered on the floor.