Skin the Cat

by R Sean McGuirk

  “Aren’t you gonna’ slam it into me harder?” the woman squealed nearing climax. A clear face-shot of the man and my mouth fell open. Charles Greymore, naked, snarling and snapping, sexually devouring the woman. I leaned into the screen, my arms dropping limp at my sides. It really was Greymore. The old man. Hard as a rock. Well hung. I almost ran into the hall at the bottom of the steps, to call for Carlina. To tell her about this insane surprise dropped off at our door. But before I could, the woman went wiry in a seizure of orgasm, throwing her head back, exploding. What I saw next changed everything. The woman screaming at the top her lungs was my wife.

  “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah baby, that’s it. Cum inside me!” she shrieked. Then it abruptly ended. I found myself clutching the edge of my desk, sickened and sexually aroused, uncontrollably dry-heaving. Then like one, loud hand clap, something in the pit of my stomach snapped. All the muscles wrapped around my skeleton flinched, just once, like leaves on a treetop giving a final bounce before it falls over. I was no longer me.

  Dreams of a future filled with children, family, home and financial security burned up in a smoldering flame. I’d swallowed a bomb, and Carlina set the charge. She’d blown us to bits. There was no one left to love and nothing left to live for. Especially here. Our community standing, the few friends we shared, our livelihood, all of it would be crushed and swept away. Carlina had turned out to be nothing more than a con-job. I thought of my gun upstairs. My wife the trailer-park-junkie-slut. I waited for the tinge of hate to come on. But there was nothing. I was cold. Empty. Everyone here in America had done their best to do their personal worst to me. Including my wife. What remained was nothing less than basic math. Eye for an eye. It was time to kill. Which was easy. Think of my profession. Think of my knives. I’d been in the Indian military. I’d killed before. And I was good at it. I turned off the laptop, went to the mirror and straightened my tie and tightened my cufflinks. In the kitchen, I opened the cutlery drawer, and pulled out the largest butcher knife I could find. Resigned to my task, I became almost mechanical about it, creeping up the steps, careful to not make a peep. If this were any other day, I might be bringing my wife a warm mug of herbal tea. Instead of hacking her into meaty slices with a fucking butcher knife.

  The bathroom door at the top of the steps had been left cracked open and steam billowed out, the sound of shower spray raining down on the porcelain tub. I touched the doorknob with my left hand and lifted the blade into the air like a hatchet, pausing to rethink my pose, then bringing the blade behind my back, fully out of sight. I shoved the door open, strode across the tile, ripped open the shower curtain. No Carlina. Just a hot shower running down the drain of an empty tub.

  “Svidi,” Carlina mumbled.

  I swung around on my heels with my grip still steady on the knife, creeping along, following her voice. “Is that you baby?” she called out.

  Her voice was muffled, bouncing behind the door of the washroom, like she might be on the commode. I tried the door. This one was locked. I kicked it open and lunged forward, butcher knife raised high to start chopping. Carlina was perfectly nude, curled up in fetal position around the commode, eyes shut, her lips, fingertips and nipples turning blue. A loose rubber tourniquet sagged around her bicep where a syringe dangled out of her arm. A spoon, a lighter, and a cotton ball sat on the edge of the marble vanity.

  The butcher knife slipped from my hand and bounced across the floor, the metallic clang failing to make her Carlina stir. Mumbling at the floor now. “Svidi,” she muttered, going almost incoherent. “Don’t leave me baby.” I was shocked. Confused. Chop her up? She was already almost dead. And calling out for me. The thought hit me. What if she’d been high in that video? What if Greymore was her supplier? What the hell was going on here? My chest bucked, then heaved, and my eyes went watery. I unfastened the rubber tourniquet and plucked the needle out. By the time I hoisted her on my shoulder and placed her into bathtub, I’d heard a sucking, hacking, sobbing noise, and realized it was me. I roused her with a blast of cold water, shouting in her face and shaking her shoulders. I was hysterical, massaging her arms, calling her name. After a few minutes, foam came to the corners of her mouth and she vomited into the water. Steadily her color returned to her lips and she began to fumble her arms, fighting me. I shut the water off, tossed a towel over her body, and shrank to the floor beside the tub, drawing my knees to my chest. What American dream? Whatever this was, my culture in India never prepared me for any of it. I looked up, to find Carlina trying to focus on me through slit-eyes, mumbling, head falling to the side. “Baby, what are you doing home?”

  “You!” I shrieked, snatching the knife off the floor and pressing the blade against her neck. “You ruined our lives. I should cut your throat out right now. You destroyed our home. I should kill every last one of you.”

  Carlina whimpered, a single droplet of blood appeared, inflated on the flesh and trickled down the side of her throat, plopping into the tub-water. “Do you understand me?” Delirious, she slapped at me, trying to fight me off, until she went limp and her head nodded. I threw the knife cross the room. I could clearly see my wife for what she was now: A stranger. Not because she’d changed. But because I was no longer me. Somewhere along my travels, I’d lost myself. My exhaustive struggle had begun with dishonorable discharge from the Indian military. Penniless, I’d traveled tens of thousands of miles, scaled the mountains of time, and conquered medical school, all to flee the bitter cruelty of a broken childhood, my uncle molesting me. I’d survived. And won. Now all these years later, showered with wealth, success and a professional title, I looked at my American wife and no longer knew her. Maybe I never did. Maybe I’d never taken the time to get to know me. Right then, the weight of the truth hit me. I’d risked everything to travel to the opposite side of the world to find happiness, and only succeeded in finding someone just as fucked up as me.

  I allowed my eyes to crawl over the length of the bathtub, caressing Carlina’s naked body with my gaze. Suddenly, killing seemed all too easy.

  16

  New evidence

  Wadsworth stopped blowing his coffee steam midbreath and raised his eyebrows at Debbie. “Uh,” he grunted. “Run that by me again?”

  Debbie held up the evidence bag, the heft of the object inside the clear plastic making it swing. “This is a side-view mirror of what we believe to be a second motorcycle at the crime-scene. Clearly it was ripped clean off when our killer took his shot, the front tire swallowing both Ricky and his motorcycle, both riders going down in a horrific crash.”

  The Chief set down the coffee mug, leaned back in his chair until a loose spring chirped somewhere beneath him. His eyes narrowed as he interlaced his hands and pushed his index fingers together, making a child’s church steeple. “Go on.”

  Debbie gave me a head-nudge and I fell in next. “The pair of matching mirrors off Stopher’s bike are accounted for.” I motioned toward Debbie holding the evidence bag. “So that mangled piece of scrap puts two riders at the scene.”

  Wadsworth rocked forward. “You found the other motorcycle then?”

  “No sir.”

  He stared at nothing in particular outside the window. “Y’all happen to find an extra body out there? One we missed the first time around?”

  Debbie stepped in, giving the evidence bag a shake. “That’s the thing Chief. The mirror wasn’t on the roadway. We did a rough triangulation by line of sight, and realized the killer and his bike went ass-over end. He cleared the guardrail completely.”

  Wadsworth’s eyebrow’s lifted with sarcasm. “With what exactly? Was there a jump ramp?” He shook his head at the absurdity of it, not getting it. “You know, the stunt-biker’s at the circus flying through those fire-hoops? Like that?”

  Debbie hesitated, glanced at me and back at the old man. “When our killer hit that debris, he was drifting into a right-side angle. Some part of his bike hooked up with t
he road shoulder, maybe the kick-stand, taking out a huge clot of dirt and it launched him like a ragdoll.” Wadsworth sealed his lips and laid heavy eyes on me, waiting for my thoughts.

  I gave a nod. “Chief at those breakneck speeds, physics finds the funhouse. If a foot peg or the kickstand took the impact, we believe anything could have happened. Including the killer and his bike going airborne. I worked a case in a rural suburb forty-five minutes west of Chicago once, a high velocity motorcycle versus car crash. We searched all night and couldn’t find the rider.”

  Wadsworth sighed. “I’m listening.”

  “Until the body tumbled out of a tree during rush hour the next day.”

  He gave me a hard look.

  I shrugged. “Shit happens.”

  Debbie cut in. “Boss, this side-view mirror? We found it down at the bottom of the ravine adjacent to the state road. Where a huge grassy hill tapers down several hundred feet into the forest canopy below.”

  Wadsworth sat up and clasped his hands together. “What else?”

  “This is it.” She put the bag down. “We have a theory the bike has been hidden or removed. There are numerous ATV trails in the area.”

  “The next move might be to send one of your guys over there,” I cut in. “With a metal detector, just to make sure we didn’t miss something vital. Like maybe a gun.”

  The chief scratched a note on a yellow legal pad, and glanced at his coffee, getting lost in the steam and traveling somewhere. Then he came back, tapping his fingers on his desk. “Is that it?”

  “I made numerous calls to local and regional hospitals,” Debbie pulled out her phone like she meant to prove it to him, flicking the screen with her finger. “We consulted emergency rooms for any injured patient seeking medical attention for trauma consistent with an MVA.” She looked up at Wadsworth to clarify. “You know, a motor vehicle accident.”

  “For God’s sake Debbie,” the Chief muttered, clinking the coffee mug with his thumbnail. “I’m old. Not brain damaged.”

  Debbie coughed in her hand to hide the laugh. “So okay,” she cleared her throat. “We have no trauma victims in Exodus or Lincoln County, none admitted during the day of the accident or even the next. But we do have two hits in Trayfort County.”

  “I guess not even a goon would shit where he eats.” The Chief pulled a sip from the mug. “But if our perp did travel all the way to Trayfort for discreet medical attention, it’s not far enough. Not for murder at least.” He paused, cocking his head, perplexed. “I have a question. Any reason we keep calling our potential suspect he or him? Just semantics? Because a woman could do the deed. Easily.”

  I snapped to attention in my mind, Wadsworth lending some weight to my perception of him. The old man was still sharp. Debbie piped up. “Boss you’re a step ahead. It seems Ricky Stopher’s rap sheet is packed-full of priors, ranging anywhere from vandalism, theft, and second-degree assault to multiple drug charges, but never busted on more than what was on his person. But this is where your him and he question gets answered. At least we think.”

  Debbie sat in front of his desk and opened two files, plunked out three mugshot photos, while the Chief leaned forward on elbows with growing interest. She began, “The name Billy Harmony a.k.a. Tadpole, and Eddie Mullins a.k.a. Fast Eddie, keep coming up in Ricky Stopher’s priors. These three seem to enjoy partying and getting arrested together.” She spun the file upside down so Wadsworth could read it, pointing at the dates. “See. Here. Here. And there. Over seven years of rap-sheet, wherever you find Ricky, you also find these two.” She looked up, giving a quick grin. “Nothing spells bromance like incarceration.”

  I peered over Debbie’s shoulder at the mugshots splayed across the desk. “We assume these three are the same sewage-sucks that I met in the center of town, running down those little old ladies. Ricky looked familiar enough in the morgue. But I think these are our boys. And I agree with Debbie. Odds are slim he’s riding with a new crew. Where are we with active addresses for them, Debbie?”

  “None listed.”

  “Next of kin?”

  “Tadpole’s father appears to be a local by the name of Barry Harmony,” she said.

  “That name’s not unfamiliar to me,” the Chief huffed. “He used to get around quite a bit. Real allergy to alcohol. When he drank he always broke out in handcuffs. Debbie, we must have a dozen addresses for that guy.”

  “Yes sir,” Debbie said. “But none recent. The last listed address burned to the ground a few years back. The only reason that made it into Mr. Harmony’s file is that he was suspected of arson for insurance scheme at the time. But then all the charges were dropped when the man he rented from died suddenly.”

  “So,” I added. “We have no addresses, no place of residence, no numbers, no next of kin to go on at this time. That leaves us with the side view mirror. I’ll run it over to a local motorcycle dealership and squeeze as much info as I can from it. I bet a motorbike grease-monkey could help us. Like what bike, what model, what maybe even a year. It would give u something to compare against county registrations and titles.”

  “Sounds like you two have your work cut out,” the Chief said scribbling another notes.

  “Shade,” Debbie rose to her feet and shoved the evidence bag at me. “I’ll rule out any hospital candidates. Stay in touch, boss.”

  On the way out the door she swatted me on the ass like a football jock. Wadsworth rolled his eyes, throwing his thumb toward the hallway. “How’s she coming along?”

  “She’s intuitive,” I said. “A real natural with observation skills. I can tell she was a good cop. I see why you chose her..”

  “Oh, she’s gonna be a decent investigator,” Wadsworth nodded, snapping his fingers to remember. “She has that, whad’ya call it? Oh, for God’s sakes.” He paused. “Instinct.”

  “She does have that,” I said facing the window where birds darted in and out of an ancient old Oak tree. Emily loved watching birds. Sometimes it just hit me like that. And my sister Molly, living the big-sky dream out west. They were both gone. I was empty. Then, her eyes. That woman from my A.A. group in the basement of Tenacity Church. Melanie. Her smile. I cringed. She had no place in these thoughts. The Chief’s voice rattled me from my stupor.

  “Aren’t you ever going to ask me about your paperwork?” He peered up from his reading glasses. “Or do you prefer to work for free?”

  I took a seat facing his desk, pretending the thought just hit from thin air. “Hey Chief, how’s that paperwork coming along?”

  “I told you it’d be done by the end of the week,” he frowned pointing at the door. “Now stop bugging me about it already. And get the hell out.” I felt my eyebrows go crooked. His head bounced with the steady beat of low belly laughter, his face glowing with self-congratulation, scoring one for dry country comedy. On a dime he went all serious, reached in his drawer, came up with folded dollar bills and slid them at me with a wink. “Here’s five-hundred bucks against your first check. The paperwork is nearly done.”

  The dealership was at the edge of town. It shared a hilltop lot with an old church and a quick-mart with two dirty gas pumps out front. Vinyl banners stretched along the length of a chain-link perimeter reading Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki motorcycles. I swung the Taurus in and parked in front of the aluminum airplane-hanger building where a huge LED board flashed “Bogey’s Bikes.” Cracking open the door, new motorcycle smell hit me, the polymers drifting into my nose like an intoxicating drug. Rows of sparkling two-wheeled machines lined up to greet the customer, with all manner of Japanese sport bikes, touring cruisers, dirt bikes, and four-wheelers. I scanned racks of polished black racing boots, riding jackets, slick leather gloves and glossy helmets. Before I reached the glass service counter, I’d quickly spent about fifteen-thousand dollars in my mind. I used to ride a lot so I loved this shit. Setting the evidence bag on the floor, I climbed aboard
a Kawasaki ZX-14. The speedometer gauge offered a potential speed measurement of 160 mph. I drew my knees up to my chest and tucked down tight over the fuel tank into attack-position. Then I thought of Ricky getting his brains blown out.

  “I have more yahoos kill themselves on that damn bike than any other motorcycle in here.” The man had huge forearms, squat stature, male pattern baldness and rubber bands tied in his beard that held it in a long braid that dangled to his chest. The grease-smudged nametag on his pinstripe technician shirt read Gary. He slapped me on the back, all smiles, and folded his arms. “Will that be cash or credit today sir?”

  I dismounted, and snatched the bag off the floor. “Now why would you sell me the deadliest bike in the joint?” I gave him a vague smirk. “Or have you found a way for a dead man to make payments?”

  He bowled forward, laughing hard, slapping his thigh. “Well who knows?” he said tugging on his beard like a rope. “Maybe you have a rich wife that will pay off the loan after your gone.”

  My stomach twisted, and I dropped my head. The wind knocked out of my sail. Just like that. “Okay,” I held up my hand, staring at my feet to hide my face. “You win.”