by R E Swirsky
Chapter 34
Tuesday, April 17th 6:04 pm
Winter came and went. The snow mostly disappeared from the streets and front lawns and left only patches hidden in the dark corners and shadows about town. The sky also changed and the deep, dark clouds that carried the spring rain returned.
Jack headed straight to the post office after work. He spotted the notice on the front door when he pulled in the drive the evening before and knew immediately what it was about. He tried to look relaxed and uninterested as he signed the ledger at the post office, but his heart was pounding as they handed him the envelope.
The sky was overcast, and the wind blew a fresh, cool breeze across town as Jack scurried to his vehicle. He jumped inside and placed the envelope on the passenger seat. He wanted to open it right there, but it needed more ceremony. He drove carefully home and dropped his eyes to the envelope every few moments. Maybe I should have buckled it in, he thought to himself and laughed.
At home, he hastily dashed inside to avoid the wind gusts. The weather forecast called for rain and possible even thunder later in the evening, but this only invigorated his excitement.
He tossed his overcoat over the back of couch and dropped into the seat. He leaned back, lifted the envelope high and stared at it a moment before lowering it to his lap. He tore the seal off the end. Inside was another envelope. It was from the Western Provincial Life Insurance Company, just as he hoped. He slipped his finger under the edge of the flap, tore the flap open, and looked inside.
He was dumbstruck for a moment. Speechless. He stared hard at what he saw, and it felt like he just swallowed his own heart. He reached in and pulled out the check. It was payable to Jack Gardner for the amount of three point five million dollars.
Jack leaned back and laughed. He clenched his fists in victory, slightly creased the corner of the check and raised it above his head. He screamed with joy. He jumped out of the chair and hollered louder than he had ever hollered in his life. Ecstasy overflowed, and Jack could not control the sudden sense of relief and wonder the presence of that check delivered. He accomplished exactly what he had set out to do. It was a process lasting well over three years from start to finish, but today was payday, and Jack felt invincible.
It was a great day for Jack. The best day of his entire life. Nothing was going to take the moment away, and he wanted to celebrate. He needed to celebrate. Victory was sweet, but Jack knew this kind of success could not be shared with a single soul. He planned this alone and remained as cold and calculating as necessary the entire way. He allowed no one to steer him from his intent—not even Donna herself.
He thought about her once again and realized he sacrificed a part of his soul in his actions against her. He was never supposed to love her. She was just another piece of the plan, and the plan was always on his mind, but she had become much more. He felt a moment of remorse as he looked at the check and asked himself one more time if it was all truly worth it.
Jack jumped in the air and pumped his fist. "Hell, yes!" he shouted. "Hell, yes." He paused and stared down at the check again. He tried hard to engage his own enthusiasm but found it extremely difficult to do so. He rubbed his lips.
"I am so sorry," he whispered.
Jack had been very good about suppressing any thoughts about Donna these past few months. He was not proud of what he had done. How could he be? It was beyond cruel. It was purely evil. But did he really feel so evil? No one even suspected him. Well, no one but Dean anyway, and Dean was completely incapable of doing anything to Jack anymore. Jack had ruined Dean; he made Dean and his crew look incompetent in the end. Any attempt by Dean to challenge Jack now would appear petty and vengeful. No, Dean was no longer something Jack needed to worry about.
Jack looked outside and decided to go for a run before he exploded. He was pumped so full of energy now, and it was just yearning to burst out of him. A run would help release all that, and the fresh air would help him sort everything out…he hoped.
Jack tucked his large check away in the drawer where he kept all of his important documents. He would go to the bank tomorrow to make the deposit. Right now, he just needed to release the energy building inside him. He donned his running shoes and made his way down his usual route on Founders Road towards Head Park. The wind was beginning to pick up again in fresh gusts, and the clouds spit down rain in small pockets. This was the first rainfall he could remember since that difficult night in September.
He ran on, and as he entered the park, the weekend of Donna's death resurfaced. Jack wanted to remember now. He needed to remember. As much as he wanted to forget everything that led up to it, he needed to remember one last time. He did a savage thing. He now reaped the benefits of his actions, and he wanted to feel closure. His feet pounded across the gravel road in the park and many thoughts swirled around in the darkness inside him.
It started early that September Sunday morning with Jack preparing for the drive to the coast in the evening. The forecast showed heavy rain showers with possible thunder. It was late in the season for thunder, but heavy rainstorms were not uncommon. Jack had been pleased. The storm would give him much more cover when darkness descended.
He started that Sunday by going to the office, where he spent specific amount of time working on the computer, looking at customer files, and prepping documents. He knew he would be investigated in extreme detail, so he made sure they would find extremely specific details.
Heading into Calgary for the tote boxes also had a purpose. He had planned the trip to Vancouver as his alibi well over a year before, but he also required an excuse to drive into Calgary prior to the late night drive to the coast. His pickiness about the tote boxes was the key for this. He started cultivating his fussiness about the totes a year and a half before, around the same time he started the evening drives to Vancouver. Truth was, Jack could not stand the night drives, but to have his nighttime alibi, he had to make those damn night drives every few weeks for over a year. He was glad it was over.
He had driven into Calgary to IKEA that day just like he told his wife, and detective Dean later. He bought the totes just as he said he would and then went over to Best Buy to buy some audio CDs. But there was more to his stop at Best Buy than simply the purchase of these audio books.
Jack owned an expensive windbreaker from Outdoor Adventurers in Calgary. The coat was reversible and had a removable hood. Jack wore the coat around town and to the office that day. He wore it into IKEA and then into Best Buy. But as soon as he was in Best Buy, he headed straight for the washroom were he reversed the jacket and put on the hood that was tucked away in an inside pocket. Then, faking a slight limp, he walked out the store after purchasing a pack of blank CDs at the front till. He paid with cash, just for show in case anyone thought to review the video tapes of people leaving the store while Jack was supposedly there looking at audiobooks. Jack had scouted the store long ago, and he knew where the cameras were and where they were pointed. He ensured the hood would conceal his face from the cameras.
Once out of the store, he walked to his vehicle and removed a small cardboard box out of the trunk that he placed there earlier. He stuffed the empty box, containing only a strip of bubble wrap, into his pocket, and then walked towards the First Choice Haircutters on the other side of the lot where a bicycle was waiting for him in the bicycle rack. On the way he tossed the CDs he purchased into a trash bin.
Jack picked up the used bicycle and lock two weeks ago from the Recycle Centre at the High River Dump. After dropping some cash into the donation box at the dump, he brought the bicycle in his Pathfinder back to the mall where he locked the bicycle to the bicycle rack.
The bicycle was still there, locked and waiting for him just as he left it. He grabbed the bicycle and rode as fast and hard as he dared to the other side of the downtown core to the Greyhound bus depot.
Jack planned and practiced this ride a number of
times with his own bike. It was five kilometers, and Jack had previously made this trip on his own bike in as little as fourteen minutes. On this final trip, he set out to ride harder than ever. He narrowly missed a collision with a city bus as he cut across 11th street to 42nd Ave.
There was almost no lineup at Greyhound when he arrived. He placed his Blackberry inside the box after verifying it was still on and fully charged. He paid in cash to have the box delivered ‘Hold For Pickup’ to the Abbotsford station on the 6:45 p.m. bus. He addressed it to Black's Photography, c/o J Gardner with a fake phone number. It did not matter what company was named on the Way Bill when it was sent ‘Hold For Pickup’; only the care-of name was necessary for pickup at the other end. Even a search on the computer afterwards would not pull up J Gardner. To find his name, they would have to have to first search for Black's photography. Jack held on to the Bill of Lading in case there was a problem when he went to retrieve the package.
Jack rode the bicycle back from the Greyhound Depot to the far side of the Best Buy parking where he left the bicycle leaning against a street light unlocked. It was now an easy target for a bicycle thief. The round trip took him forty-six minutes. He pulled the hood back over his head, limped slowly back inside to the Best Buy washroom, removed the hood, and reversed the coat again. He quickly picked out the two audio CDs, paid with his VISA, and walked out of the store. The total time in Best Buy, the way Dean saw it, was 57 minutes.
Jack jogged on as he easily remembered the vivid details of that trip.
The spring rain started to come down harder, reminiscent of the night of the murder, as he entered the park towards the parking lot and river. He felt uncomfortable as he neared the parking lot; he remembered the angst he felt as he sat parked in the lot waiting for time to pass after saying his last goodbye to Donna.
He left the house at exactly 7:30 p.m. that night, but drove no further than the parking lot at Head Park, where he parked in the corner near the river path. The night was still young, and the wind and rain began savagely beating down around him. He had a few hours to wait and a long night still ahead of him. He lay his seat back, set his watch alarm for 9:30 p.m., put on his sunglasses, and forced his eyes closed while the storm outside raged on.
He had tried to sleep but worry and fear was slowly slipping in. The rain continued to fall and beat down on the roof of the car. He pressed his sunglasses tighter to his face to shield his eyes from the bright, intermittent flashes of lightning. Flash after flash lit up the inside of his vehicle, and each flash seem to trigger another crazed thought in his head. Too many flashes, and too many crazed thoughts. He felt a calming relief when his watch beeped at 9:30 and broke the thoughts racing through his manic mind.
Jack then opened the trunk and pulled out the carefully prepared bag from the bottom of the sample case. The pair of Nike Air Max, size nine, were a little tight, but they had to be the same size as Josh's. He slipped them on, stuffed the other items he needed into his pockets, and set out on the pathway back to the house.
The rain was fierce, and the wind drove hard, pelting him in his face and leaving a stinging sensation from each of the cold pellets of rain. Lightning crackled above, and the tree branches thrashed in and out along the pathway. The branches seemed to be reaching out to grab hold of him as if attempting to stop him from doing what he was about to do. He fought his way up the path towards his house, fighting the driving wind that seemed to increase the further up the path he ran. He could see lights on in many of the houses, but the downpour would make it impossible for anyone looking out their windows to spot him, let alone identify him.
For ten minutes, he ran up the path, and he grimaced as he began to feel winded. He was close to home and could see the window up in the upstairs bedroom was still lit. The rest of the house was dark. Donna was probably reading in bed as she usually did before turning in for the night.
As he reached the backyard, he slowed to a fast walk and entered the back yard. He tried to wipe the wetness from his face, but the driving rain immediately had him sopped once again.
He stopped on the back steps and checked his pockets to make sure he still had everything he needed. He carefully and quietly unlocked the back door and stepped inside. He walked around inside the back porch area to make sure the Nike Air Max footprints were clear and visible. He stepped into the kitchen area and removed the shoes.
He removed his wet coat and set it on the back of the kitchen chair. He grabbed a hand towel and wiped his face, hair, and hands free of the rain as best he could and then hung the towel to dry on the oven door handle.
He slowly crept up the stairs with only the guitar wire tucked in his front pocket and left the other items in the kitchen.
He pushed the door open slowly and saw Donna laying on the bed reading. She turned towards him and looked startled. She smiled as soon as she spotted his own huge smile. He played the smiling husband for two years, and he was about to give his last performance for Donna.
Lightning crackled and pulled Jack back to his current jog up the same path he ran that night. Jack remembered vividly what he did in the bedroom with Donna next. It came back to him like a false dream, and though he remembered it clearly, he felt disconnected as if a part of him had acted on its own and left the shell of his soul to only watch. But his soul was unable to stop him; his wretched side that had emerged from the dark abyss inside him was in full control. Precise, calculated, and cunning were the words that described Jack that night as he approached his unsuspecting wife.
Donna put the book down on the night table. "What's happened?" she asked.
Jack moved quickly towards the bed. "It's the storm. It's just as Fred said. It's going to be worse than I thought, and the pass might be closed due to heavy snow. I heard that on the radio after I drove a ways, so I turned around and came back."
"I didn't hear the garage door," Donna said.
"I parked on the drive. I didn't want to disturb you in case you were already sleeping."
Donna smiled. Her husband was always so thoughtful.
"Anyways, I am back now." He lay down on the bed next to her. "I thought we might finish what we started before I left." He kissed her on the lips and asked her to turn over onto her stomach.
Donna kissed him back and rolled over. Jack removed his shirt and tossed it to the floor. He removed his white sport socks and threw himself on top her, sitting straddled across her back with one leg on each side of her. He pulled back the blankets to expose the top portion of her back and began slowly massaging her. He spoke softly and told her how much he loved her. He kissed her on the neck and licked her ear lobes. She giggled and told him to stop with the ear licking.
Jack continued to massage her back as she lay on her stomach. Her arms were down at her sides under the blankets. He carefully removed the guitar wire from his pocket. He kept whispering sweet, loving comments into her ear, and she giggled in delight as he slowly pulled one sock onto each hand.
She laughed, and he whispered as he slowly wrapped the guitar wire around each hand over the sock until he had the wire ready.
"I love you more than anything, my darling," he said. "Lift your head up for a sec."
And she did.
Jack quickly slid the wire over her head and tightened as hard as he could. He crossed his arms over one another as he pulled the wire taut. Donna did not react at first, and Jack thought it was going to be quick. But Donna suddenly jerked and fought as fiercely as she could. She tried to pull her arms out and up to grab at him, but Jack had her arms tucked under the blankets and held the blanket down with his knees as he sat on her back.
She thrust her pelvis and legs in attempt to throw Jack off, but she had no leverage and could not fight hard enough without the ability to breathe. It seemed to Jack like Donna struggled for a very long time, but she quit fighting in only a few minutes. Jack sat there holding and pulling back as hard as his body was able.
His muscles vibrated under the force as his hands held tightly to the wire around the socks. His arms were beginning to burn when he realized she had given up.
Jack let out the huge breath he had held in his chest the entire time and let her head fall forward on to the pillow. She was dead. He relaxed his hands, unwrapped the wire from each, and left the wire under her body with the ends hanging out to the sides.
He removed the socks to examine his hands. He was sure he was going to see deep cuts into his skin; he didn’t realize the panic of the moment would have overtaken him like it had as she struggled for her life and he for her death. He looked at his quivering hands, flipping them over and inspecting them for any sign of the guitar wire, but he found none. He let out another breath in relief and got off of his dead wife’s body.
He picked up his socks and shirts and redressed while he stared at Donna's lifeless body. The worst part was over. He swallowed, went downstairs to retrieve the rest of the items, and came back up to the bedroom with them.
He began with the trash bin in the bedroom. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves, removed the loose garbage from the bin and inserted the end of the shoelace, then the condom, and then the tissue. He tossed the rest of the garbage back on top.
Next was the hairs. He placed Tony's head hairs on the bed, on the carpet, and in the shower drain, which he flushed down with water. He went pretty low to collect these samples, and he collected a lot of hair from Tony that night at the hotel, so he wasn’t super careful how much remained in the trap in the bathroom and how much washed away.
Jack lifted Donna's body enough to lay a number of the pubic hairs right under where her own were on the bed. He was careful and thorough. He planted some of the other hairs on the carpet, elsewhere in the bed, and even the walk in closet. He was done upstairs.
Jack stood over her body, knowing he would be identifying her body at the morgue the next time he saw her.
Jack went downstairs to place the rest of the evidence: the coffee cups, take-out boxes in the kitchen trash, and the cigarette evidence in the tin out back. He was almost done.
Jack looked out the window to the Anderson house next door. He could see lights on inside so Josh must certainly be home. He planted the blonde hairs in both Josh's bedroom and bath during the dinner party on Saturday . In the bedroom, he placed a couple of long blonde hairs similar to Donna's on the bed and carpet. In the bath, he pulled a few hairs through Josh's brush and tossed a few more into the corners on the floor under the sink cabinet and behind the toilet.
Jack pulled a small voice recorder out of his pocket that held a recorded copy of a message Donna left on his Blackberry nearly a year ago. He used the main floor phone to dial his Blackberry, which by this time at 10:27 p.m. would be nearing Golden, B.C. on the Greyhound Bus. When his Blackberry went to voicemail, he played the recording from Donna.
Jack called the Anderson house next. The phone kept ringing, and Jack thought Josh might not pick up, but he did after the seventh ring.
"Hello?" Josh answered sounding out of breathe. In hindsight, he knew that David would have been with Josh at the time he had called.
"Uh, hello," Jack said back to Josh, he deepened his voice so Josh would not recognize him. "Can I speak to Mike, please?"
"There's no one here by that name," Josh replied.
Jack dragged on the conversation with Josh as long as possible; he kept insisting that he had the correct number and that Mike must be there. Jack ended by asking if Josh knew what Mike's number was, but Josh finally said goodbye. Jack felt good that as he had managed to keep Josh on the line for a couple of minutes—long enough to serve as incriminating evidence of a full conversation with Donna.
Jack was done. He grabbed the evidence bags, wiped the back door handle clean of his fingerprints, inside and out, and then stepped outside. He pulled the door closed behind him, and wiped the knob again. He ran back down the path to his car at Head Park, and ten minutes later, he was making his mad dash in the darkness down the highway through the raging storm to catch the bus by the time it got to Kamloops.
He felt possessed as he drove. He was entirely alert to the road conditions, driving rain, and mixed traffic, and he paced himself, hour after hour as he watched the clock to ensure he was on schedule to meet the bus in Kamloops.
He thought of Donna most of the drive, and as much as he tried not to care, he did. He told himself it was necessary for her to die, and he tried to feel remorse. He was not supposed to love her; he was only supposed to play the part of the loving, caring husband. The emotion was raw and difficult to suppress as his adrenalin continued to pump hard.
He stopped in Golden for a coffee at Tim Horton's. He parked on the outer edge of the parking lot and walked inside. After getting his coffee, he returned to his vehicle and placed the coffee in the cup holder. He grabbed the plastic bag from the back seat and stuffed the running shoes and plastic baggies that once contained the DNA inside. He dropped the latex gloves in the bag and walked to the Petro Canada truck stop next door. He went inside to the washroom and was glad to see it empty of patrons. He removed the Nike shoes and placed them randomly on the floor inside one of the stalls. He simply dropped the rest into one of the trashcans. He returned to his vehicle and pulled back on the highway to catch the bus at Kamloops.
The night drive was long and hard. The storm was already abating now that he passed through the Rockies, but he was still worried about Roger's pass and the possibility of heavy snow. The near miss with the elk livened his senses, but the worst weather he found as he climbed up the mountainside was a light sleet that turned to snow near the summit. It was completely gone by the time he came down the other side of the pass into Revelstoke. He monitored his speed and continued to make good time. It was well after midnight now, and the volume of traffic dropped significantly, allowing him to go for longer stretches at high speed.
Jack stopped near Salmon Arm to refuel with the Jerry cans and carried on until he caught the bus as planned a few kilometers before Kamloops. He topped up at the Petro Canada, paying with Visa for the record, and drove on to Abbotsford behind the bus the rest of the way.
When the bus finally pulled into the station at 6:39 a.m., Jack was right behind it. He waited until all the passengers emptied out of the bus and then another fifteen minutes before going up to request the package being held for Black's Photography care of J Gardner. He smiled politely to the attendant who handed him back the small box. Jack opened the box as he left the station and discarded the box in the trash bin outside. He looked at the screen and was pleased to see he had one missed call and one message waiting. He would not check that message until he checked into the Super 8 just a few blocks from the Greyhound bus station.