Murder on the Rocks

by Clara Nipper

  Alistair laughed sadly. “I see why she loves you.”

  “Hey, man, one at a time, all right?’

  “She called your name.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “Alistair, listen…”

  “There’s no way to pass off Jill as any sort of Alistair derivative.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “She’s way too good for you, isn’t she?” Alistair squinted at me. “So I ran amok for a bit and now I got myself in hand again. The stiff upper lip and all that.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Quite.”

  “Offering tea seems to be the English way. Would it help?”

  “It might do.”

  “Care for a cup? I could put in a rain barrel of liquor.”

  Alistair laughed again. “Rather. But not at the moment.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  I sensed Alistair wanted me to sit with him and help draw out the poison of the pain, so I leaned down and scavenged through several empty pizza boxes until I found one with leftovers. I picked up a slice that was as cold and stiff as frozen leather and began eating.

  “I miss England,” Alistair said wistfully, staring hard at the flames. “I hate Oklahoma.”

  I laughed. “That’s easy to do.”

  “Too right.”

  “So really, you’re not losing anything to go home,” I said. “You’re doing yourself a favor. Oklahoma isn’t worth it.”

  Alistair grinned and nodded. “You do have a bloody good point.”

  “Hell, yeah.” We bumped fists.

  “You know what I’ll miss though?” He asked softly. I tightened my muscles, preparing for the soliloquy about Sophie. Her curly hair, glossy and shimmering like waving sun-warmed wheat. Her smile, like hope in spring, her arms that fit around you and snapped in place as precisely as Legos, both your parts inserting and receiving like Tinker Toys, your legs locking in harmony like Lincoln Logs, building something sturdy and real. I wondered, feeling swords in my stomach, if Alistair would regale me with Sophie’s lovemaking. Were there sighs or did she pant and moan? Did she close her eyes or stay open for everything? Surely she preferred complete and utter nudity because lingerie would be absurd. Like putting a tacky muumuu on Venus.

  “The humor,” Alistair said.

  I had to shake my head to clear from it cherubic visions of glorious pure nudity and pulchritudinous thighs and pendulous breasts and ample bellies and chewy fat bottoms, all embracing and yielding to me. I cleared my throat. “The humor?”

  “Take your Judge Gilbert. I observed a burglary trial where he gave the defendant five thousand years.”

  “I heard about that. Funny as hell. Didn’t the guy have an extensive second page?”

  “He had fifteen previous burglary convictions; he had been released from prison the week before, and when he was arrested, he was drunk and holding an axe. The victim came home and found him.”

  “Yep, that is rich!” I agreed. “But still, Brittania…”

  “And there was another district court case during sentencing in which the judge instructed the jury to write a ‘one’ on a piece of paper and to then write zeroes and keep writing until their hands got tired.”

  “I remember that! Afterward, the defense attorney told me that it was an incredible victory just to get 567 years.”

  Alistair snorted. “See? You don’t have mavericks like that in England.”

  “Did you ever see that ADA Fred Winston?” I asked.

  “The one with the eyeball? No, I have heard of his antics.”

  “That’s right. He would’ve been before your time; he retired right before you arrived. Well, he was a really passionate guy. Superhero complex. You know, a fire and spit kinda guy. Well, he also had a glass eye, and I don’t know anything about them, but I guess they come in sizes? Anyway, old Fred would really get a righteous sermon going, and that glass eye would fly out of his skull like a boiled egg shot from a stunt cooch. Well, that old boy Fred wouldn’t miss a beat, and he would just pick up that eyeball and put it right back in and keep going.”

  “That’s nonsense!” Alistair laughed, looking happy.

  “Nope. Saw it happen many times. He always won his cases. Really impressed juries. Finally, Judge James ordered him to see a doctor about it. Forced him to have it fixed. Thought it was prejudicial.”

  Alistair leaned back, giggling and glowing in the firelight. “Yes, I will miss this.”

  “But just think…now you can tell these stories yourself.”

  “To the wonder and delight of all England, eh?”

  “Well…”

  “As you say, you’re quite right, you know.”

  We sat in silence and finally drifted off to sleep. My insomnia wasn’t so bad in Sophie’s house. I was sleeping better during this ice storm visit than I had in my whole career.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  When I woke up, I was stiff and alone. My mouth was filled with morning slime. How long had it been since I brushed my teeth? I smelled breakfast and wandered into the kitchen. Alistair was there wearing a frilly apron over his parka and scrambling eggs in one skillet and home fries in another.

  “Morning,” I mumbled.

  “Good morning. Care for some tea?”

  “No. Want a smoke?” I held out an American Spirit.

  “What the hell.” I perched the extra cigarette on Alistair’s lip and Zippoed it as he kept jiggling the skillets. “Sophie will kill us, smoking inside,” Alistair said. Then he inhaled like a puffer fish and let an enormous blue cloud flow out.

  I laughed. “Where is Sophie?”

  Alistair shrugged, pouring the food on to three plates. “Out walking, I guess.” He placed the skillets back on the stove, turned off the gas jets, and picked up his plate. “Bloody hell, I wish the airport would open.”

  “I hear ya, bro.”

  “Here, eat, you son of a bitch.” Alistair shoved a plate to me. We walked to the living room to sit in front of the fire and ate together.

  “This is good,” I said with my mouth full. “This is the first thing I’ve eaten that isn’t pizza.” I swallowed hard, the big bolus of food easing down my gullet like a whole melon down a giraffe’s throat.

  “You inhaled it,” Alistair said, chewing and smoking. “Did you use your teeth at all?”

  “Nope, I’m saving them for the thaw.” I belched. “Think Sophie wants her food?” Without waiting for an answer, I got her plate from the kitchen and shoveled the cold eggs, limp bacon, and congealing potatoes into my mouth. “I just need a biscuit for a napkin and I would be all right.”

  Sophie entered, regarding us balefully. “Well, I’ve seen power trucks and they’re working, but there’s so much damage and the ice keeps coming and so many outages, they’re not even giving an estimate anymore of when we might get turned on.”

  “I’m turned on right now,” I said, stretching my legs onto the coffee table and yawning luxuriously.

  “Breakfast?” Alistair extinguished the tiny roach in his own leftovers and then held out the empty plate of cold grease I had cleared of food.

  “Nice. Exactly what I wanted. Where is it?”

  “Right here.” I patted my belly.

  “No, thanks, I’m good.” Sophie unwound her muffler, unzipped her coat, and sat in the wingback across from us. “You know the trucks are coming from all over? I met some guys from North Carolina. North Carolina!”

  “You previously mentioned that,” Alistair said.

  “Did I?” Sophie played with her coat zipper. “What about a generator? I’m about to cave.”

  Alistair and I looked at each other with our mouths open. Then we snapped into overdrive as if splashed with a bucket of Three Stooges water. Our voices overlapped in our giddy eagerness. “Sure…hell, yeah…whatever you wish…right away…absolutely.” I didn’t know about Alistair, but I was starved for television, Internet, something electric. But
staying at Sophie’s house, I endured the torture of her resistance to the horrid noise and hassle of a generator. I worked every day to keep myself in a lather respecting Sophie’s wishes. “No question it’s the wisest decision…we just want you to be comfortable…” Our voices blended into an obsequious babble. We jumped up, bumped into each other, hit heads as we bent down to grab hats, tripped over each other getting our coats.

  “Don’t worry. We will go right now, won’t we?”

  “We will see to everything. You just relax.” I picked up my gloves and Sophie’s keys and dropped them. Alistair put his hat on backward. We stumbled out the door and into the car where we finally calmed.

  “Suppose they’re sold out. That would be a fine muddle, wouldn’t it?” Alistair asked.

  “Suppose nothing. It’s guaranteed they’re sold out,” I said.

  “Still, we can make the attempt.” Alistair started the car.

  “It’s the least we can do,” I added.

  Alistair pulled into the street and nearly hit a pedestrian. Then he overcorrected and bumped the car up onto the curb. I got out and pushed while he spun the wheels. Finally, after me screaming myself crimson and pounding the hood, I freed the car by rocking it. Alistair drove away without me, yelling out the window, “I can’t lose this momentum!” which is, of course, what happened several seconds later when he skidded the car into a crusty ice bank where it stuck. I walked up to the driver’s side, expecting to have to yell my way into driving, but Alistair had already moved over.

  When we arrived at the hardware store, it was just as busy as it had been that first panicky day. No generators.

  “Damn and blast!” Alistair shouted, pounding a box. This was the most animated I had ever seen him.

  “Goddamn it to hell,” I moaned, sliding to the floor, my head in my hands.

  “I can’t take this anymore.” We both said in unison.

  A perky worker approached. “Crazy weather, huh? Need a generator?” We both stared at him like we were death row inmates. “We are out right now. They’re selling so fast! Guess you should’ve gotten here sooner, ha, ha.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “We will have more in a few hours.”

  Alistair grabbed the boy by the collar. “When, you bloody sod, when?”

  I stood up and separated them. “Easy,” I told Alistair. Then I grabbed the back of the boy’s neck. “He asked you when?” Alistair separated us.

  The boy rubbed his neck. “In four hours. The truck is coming from Dallas.”

  “We’ll wait, all right?” Alistair dropped like a stone to the concrete.

  “Surely, sirs. If there’s anything else you need, let me know.” The worker sauntered away.

  “What now?” I said.

  “We wait, of course,” Alistair said. “Why? Do you have to be elsewhere?”

  I jumped to my feet. “Do you think they have phones here?” Alistair didn’t answer so I wandered off in search of an emergency cell. Once I found a burner, I turned on the power and called Marny. Shreds of a dream were coming back to me.

  “Hello?” Marny’s voice was uncertain. She didn’t recognize the number.

  “It’s Rogers.”

  “Electrified yet?”

  “Not at the house, but about something else. What do you know about Perryman?”

  “You mean Sheriff Perryman?”

  “Who else? And what can we find out about this daughter-in-law, Wanda Perryman? She was fucking dismembered. That’s so extreme, it has to be somebody close to her.”

  “I know, Jesus, Jim is so happy about this, he’s practically prancing around the office. Perryman beat out a crony of his for the office of sheriff.”

  “Could it be a setup?”

  “From my end? I doubt it. Jim’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t think he has the stomach for anything but political corruption,” Marny said with finality.

  “So Wanda’s got some soft priors, but nothing that would result in a death like this,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “What about Wanda’s husband?”

  “Perryman’s son?” I remembered him looking absolutely undone and seemingly ready to dissolve into sobbing. “Don’t think so. His grief is real.”

  “Well, Wanda’s priors are for drugs. What about a stiffed dealer or gangs or cartel?”

  “Marny, you know dismemberment isn’t their MO. They want their vics ID’d. Remember that crazy case last year when that amateur dealer was killed and the murderer spread the body in potted meat and left it in the forest?”

  Marny laughed. “Yeah, that couldn’t have been cheap. And even the carnivorous animals wouldn’t go near that mess like they hoped they would.”

  “Yeah, even something like that isn’t personal. Not like taking the time to saw off the head and hands and remove the teeth. Can you imagine the determination that takes?”

  “I wish I couldn’t, but I’ve been an ADA long enough that I can imagine it. Remember that guy who bit off his ex-girlfriend’s nose?”

  “Ew.” I shuddered. I had testified for the prosecution in that one. “I will never forget. They even hoped to save her nose, but he had swallowed it and her nose was dissolved in the stomach acids before they could catch that perp.”

  “Yeah, poor thing had to come to court like that.”

  “Well, we nailed him, didn’t we?” I said. “He got twenty years for GBH.”

  “I know. I tried to sell the jury on attempted murder, but it didn’t work,” Marny said wistfully.

  “Well, I’m going to do some poking around Wanda’s intimates. Call this number if you find anything on your end.”

  “Check.”

  When Alistair and I finally obtained the generator, it was so awkward and heavy that my new burner phone slipped out of my pocket and I accidentally stomped on it. When we got the generator loaded into Sophie’s car, I ran back inside to buy another phone but they were all gone.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “So how’s work going then?” Alistair asked on our way back to Sophie’s.

  I sighed heavily. “Homicide is hard. And this weather makes it impossible,” I said vaguely to deflect him. My murder muse was almost on to something. “How’s your work?”

  “Nearly finished. Watch it!” I hit what I thought was a large snowball, but was in fact, a small boulder. “So, really, what’s happening these days?”

  “Let me have your phone,” I said. Alistair handed me his cell. “Shut up!” I pre-emptively ordered him, struggling to remember Perryman’s number. I dialed. Wrong number. Shit. I tried again.

  “Perryman,” the sheriff answered hoarsely.

  “Rogers. Did you run down any witnesses on Goodson?”

  “Yeah, we have a few lukewarm sightings.”

  “Anybody pick him out of a six-pack?”

  “Not yet, but we’re about halfway through the list. One guy at a gas station said a guy matching Goodson’s description bought gas and was, and I quote, a ‘natural-born asshole’ end quote.”

  “Okay, well we’re definitely looking for one of those. Make Goodson take a polygraph.”

  “Don’t be an ijit. Those aren’t admissible in court,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and pounded my fist on the steering wheel. Alistair reached over to correct our course. “I know. Just do it.”

  “It’s a waste of time,” Perryman said.

  “I know that, you know that, but he doesn’t know that. It doesn’t matter what we think of polygraphs; all that matters is what Goodson thinks of them, and I guarantee that will scare him enough to break. Do it.” I hung up and handed Alistair’s cell back. “You were saying?” I said to him.

  “Just asking about work. Anything juicy?”

  I rubbed my chin. “I believe so.”

  “Ever have any serial killers in Tulsa?”

  Alistair even made the words “serial killer” sound elegant. “Serial killah,” I said, aping him and feeling foolish. I cleared my throat. “Yes, actually, we have. The rum
or is that Ted Bundy is even responsible for a few unsolved murders here.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, on his way to Florida forty-odd years ago, it was alleged he stopped awhile here. But that was back when the earth was still cooling. We don’t have any evidence. We can’t prove it.”

  “Ted Bundy…flippin’ heck. I’ll be gobsmacked.”

  “Funny thing about serials…many of them are necrophiliacs also,” I said.

  Alistair blinked rapidly. “And that’s funny?”

  “No.” I laughed. “The funny thing is, that the taboo against necrophilia is so deep that even a serial killer won’t cop to it. They’ll freely admit, even boast about the numbers of murders and how they were done. But necrophilia? That’s the line they draw.”

  Alistair shuddered. “That’s not so much funny as…profoundly upsetting.”

  “Tomayto tomahto,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “We got it!” I hollered into the house to Sophie.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Sophie said. “I’m not sure which one of you to hit!”

  Alistair and I pointed at each other simultaneously and said, “Her” and “him” in unison. Then Alistair said dryly, “You’re welcome,” then added, “Aren’t you chuffed? We put that beast on the south side of the house where it would be most sheltered. Now we just need to decide what to plug in.” He rubbed his hands together.

  “Refrigerator,” Sophie said.

  “TV,” I said.

  “Computer,” Alistair said.

  “Vacuum,” Sophie said, looking around, “and lamps.”

  Alistair and I went outside, filled the generator with fuel, negotiated with extension cords, appliances, windows that were frozen shut, and a nervous, fluttery, bossy Sophie so overbearing that Alistair ordered her into a hot bath or he would tranquilize her with an elephant dart. Finally, we started the engine.

  “Sweet!” I screamed over the noise.

  “Let’s go inside!” Alistair screamed back.

  We studied the manual, did the power math, and first plugged in the refrigerator and the vacuum. We agreed the least we could do would be to clean up. Alistair put a trash can by the refrigerator and began sniffing and discarding things. I picked up the living room and then ran the vacuum. After that, we plugged in the television, computer, and two lamps. I turned the gas fireplace on high and then checked on the local news.