by Arthur Day
Fred jiggled the wire leading to the spark plug. “Dunno. Mechanic I’m not.” He yanked at the cord again.
RRRUMMMMMmmmmmm
“That was it. MJ you are a genius.”
“Nope. Just another guy who has had to mow the lawn.”
He laughed in commiseration. “It’s an old mower. We brought it up here when we got a new one for our winter house. Probably should look around for a second hand one up here.” He patted the handle of his mower with affection, something we all do or at least are tempted to do when machines work the way we want them to. I was sure my neighbor would keep his mower until it literally fell apart and then he would curse the manufacturer for making a piece of shit machine.
“Okay. Maybe you came down the drive because you heard me talking to the mower but maybe you need something. You have but to ask my friend.” Fred Finklestein was a short, wiry man with a ready smile and graying hair that looked like it had had to twist its way out of his skull. He adored his wife Mona and for good reason. She was a rock on which waves of fortune and misfortune pounded with no effect. Pam and I had known them for years and both of us thought they were delightful people and wonderful neighbors. If I turned to my right I could see Pam’s cabin through a screen of pine and cedar trees.
“Did you see any car come down the road that didn’t seem to belong?” That seemed a little broad, so I tried again. “You know like maybe some asshole tourist took the wrong turn and ended up here?”
Fred laughed at my description. “Only car I’ve seen in the past hour was strange but then they parked down at the Dustons. Friends or family maybe. Before that, I couldn’t say. Mona and I were swimming while I tried to put off messing with this damn mower.” He put on a woeful face. “She wasn’t about to let me get away with that. How’s Pam doing these days?”
Well some people came to Compton to get away from papers, TV and internet although it was becoming harder to do every year. “You know we divorced a couple of years back, right?” I was fairly sure I had talked to Fred after that nightmare.
“Oh yeah. Sure. I mean but you’re here, so I thought you two might be,” he waved his hands back and forth in a gesture of reconciliation.
“Hate to tell you this but somebody killed her. I’m not talking out of school. It’s been in the papers.”
“WHAT?” Fred stared at me in disbelief saw my expression and turned towards his camp. “MONA, he yelled and then turned back to me. “I’m so sorry MJ. When did this happen?”
Mona Finklestein was the exact opposite of her husband. Tall, willowy with long blonde hair and hazel eyes with just the touch of the Mongol in them she was a former model who had turned a successful career into a solid portfolio with her husband’s guidance. “Yes, Fred. Are you still standing around looking at the mower? You know the last time you told it to mow the lawn it just stood there. I think it needs a push.” She pushed her luxurious hair away from her face, “Oh hi MJ. How are you? We haven’t seen you in a while. There was another man at the camp earlier this summer, but we didn’t get a chance to meet him.”
“Mona, Pam’s been murdered.”
Mona looked at her husband but only the slight widening of her eyes and mouth showed her feelings. “MJ I’m so sorry. We’re so sorry. We try to get away from it all but sometimes that is not a good thing. We should’ve known about something like this.”
Fred turned and kicked his mower. It promptly stalled, and the sudden silence had us all standing around looking at each other. “It’s I who should apologize for ruining your day. I should have remembered you like to go back to basics up here. I was talking to Fred to see if he had seen any strangers or strange cars recently, but he said he hadn’t.”
“Well that don’t mean shit.” Fred stuck out his chest and put his arm around Mona. “We’ll keep an eye out, you bettcha, and if we see anything I’ll call your cell. Same number, right?”
“Right.” I thanked them both and walked back up the driveway to the road. Turning back briefly I saw that they were still arm-in-arm as if frozen there. Good decent folks. Your basic Americana. If they saw anything they would call.
I continued up the road another quarter mile, but I was getting further away from Pam’s camp. If someone was lurking in the woods they would likely be spotted by the Dustons or one of the other people staying in one of the camps along the shore. There would be no line of sight to Pam’s camp so I did not search the woods there but kept an eye out for tire tracks that left the road where there was no drive or camp. I found nothing and turned back to look in another direction.
‘The Woods are lovely dark and deep’, Words from one of the great poems by Robert Frost. I circled back around to the patch of woods behind the Worth’s camp. Here there were no immediate camps and the woods filtered the light so that certain trees shone alone while others sulked in the gray of the early evening. The great poet’s words kept turning around in my memory, man in nature, but he never had to search for a killer. Still, I paid special attention to the darker parts of the wood where dead trees had fallen, or saws had brought them down. Keeping the side of the camp in sight I went through the wood as quietly as possible. I knew that anyone growing up in the area could probably hear me a mile away. Leaves and twigs crunched under my feet. In places I had to push aside fir branches or dead stuff that had fallen across my path, I hoped that, if the killer was indeed Jacob, that he had lost the ear and instinct for the woods and become urbanized.
I peeked into nooks and crannies but saw no spot where someone might have lain to set up a blind or simply a spot where he could watch the house. If he had done so all trace that I could spot was gone. The woods on that side of the house looked as they might have fifty years before. Discouraged but determined to be proactive instead of a sitting duck, I walked back to the house. There was Dianne’s forest green Ford Explorer parked in front of the garage. I felt better about everything and found myself even humming a nameless tune as I came out of the woods behind the camp.
“Hey there.” I went in through the door to the living room where Dianne was sitting reading a brochure of some type.
“Hey there. Any news?”
“I know what you know. Buckmaster called to warn me that Susan’s death could mean the killer will try for me next and do so quickly. I had already come to that conclusion, but it was nice of him to call with the warning. I decided to check out the surrounding area to see if I could spot anything.”
“Did you?”
“No,” I admitted feeling a little embarrassed “but it felt good to be doing something.” She looked as if she had just stepped from the shower. I felt a little hot and dirty from my afternoon exertions. Ordinarily I would have changed into a bathing suit and run down to the lake; however, now I wondered how Dianne would react and whether that would hurt her feelings. I didn’t want to go for a swim and leave her sitting in the living room. It seemed a rude thing to do. I came to the same conclusion about going up the stairs and taking a shower. HELL and DAMNATION. “I was thinking of going for a quick swim to take off the heat of the day, I finally said.
“Great,” she replied with evident relief. “I wore my suit. It seems a shame to be on a beautiful lake and not take advantage of it. That’s if my being here and going for a swim works for you.” There was no bitterness or sarcasm in her voice, only concern.
I smiled trying to show that this situation was an everyday experience and that I had no fears about it. “Works for me. I’ll go get my suit on and meet you down there.” I almost ran up the stairs with a nasty dark little voice in my head chanting. Homo, homo, you’re a fucking perv, you know that? You are a Biblical monstrosity. You should be telling him to get the hell off your property. People like him shouldn’t exist you fuckin’ homo. I pushed it back into the dark part of me and concentrated on getting my bathing suit on and finding a towel. Each movement became a manual process where I would think about what t
o do before actually doing it. Take off shirt. Fold on bed. Take off shoes. Put under bed. Take off socks. Take off pants. Put on bed next to shirt. Take off underpants. Put next to pants. I was in robotic slow motion while my mind tried to grapple with the dichotomy of upbringing and present reality. Open dresser drawer. Pull out bathing suit. Put on suit. Go to bathroom for towel. Although I was probably moving normally my body felt as if it were buried in quicksand and sinking more and more.
I came down the hill past the Worth’s house to the boathouse where Dianne was sitting on the dock dressed in a stunning white bikini that set off her hair and took my breath away for a moment. All ethical and moral arguments faded from my mind and I trotted down the last few feet to the dock. “Hi there, partner. You look great.”
She got to her feet laughing. Apart from a different bulge in her crotch beneath the fabric of her suit she looked to be as much woman as any man could want. “You want to swim so let’s swim,” she shouted, raced to the end of the dock and dove in.
I followed and came up next to Dianne a few yards from the dock. The water was marvelous but if somebody who wanted to do me harm was in the area with a rifle we could be in real danger. Best not to prolong the pleasure I thought.
As if she were reading my mind Dianne was already climbing up the ladder to the dock. I admired how she filled out the back of her bikini. She had small, firm buttocks that made the suit look as if it were painted on. I climbed up on the dock and headed for my towel. “I checked the surrounding area and saw nothing, but we should be cautious.” I said turning to see what she was doing.
Dianne was already in her pants and was slipping on her t-shirt. Her pistol was tucked into one hip. She pulled the shirt down over it. “I agree, but it was nice just the same.” She slipped on a pair of Nike cross trainers, picked up her towel and headed towards the house. “You got anything to drink in that shack of yours?”
I hooted with derision and trotted to catch up with her.
JACOB WARREN
He watched them walking up the hill to the camp. Such fools. He had heard McCaal crashing through the woods like a fucking bull moose way over on the other side of the house. Then the woman had driven up and a while later they had gone down to the lake for a swim. Just like a couple of kids. How sweet. Weeks before he had even started charting Pam’s activities and schedule he had burrowed into the earth behind a large pine trunk that had come down in a storm. He had a clear view of the house and especially the living room under which he had placed the explosives. Short of stepping directly on his head no one would find the blind. He had not grown up in this area for nothing. They entered the living room and Jacob relaxed. He was having fun watching McCaal. What was the saying? Revenge is a food best eaten cold or something like that. He would wait until just the right moment and slip away while the police and fire department were buzzing around like so many hornets looking for a target.
It took years of planning. He had to leave his apartment in New York without raising questions that might come up if he suddenly left and broke his lease. The police would look at him first and foremost and the first place they would go to would be his apartment followed by his employer. That would take some time as well since he had clients and trades that needed to be finished to a point where he might naturally hand them over to someone else. There were casual acquaintances and co-workers who, on questioning, needed to honestly state that he was a prince among men and had simply retired to a simpler life with less stress on his heart. Boring but necessary and it took time to work all this through. He even invented a new girl-friend so that he would seem a perfectly normal man on the rebound from a bad relationship. No one ever saw this friend but that did not matter either to them or to him.
He made himself more comfortable in his hidey hole and waited for darkness when he could move like the night breeze out of the blind and back to his car parked at the beginning of the road to Compton in front of a cabin that he knew would not be occupied for a while. He had removed the license plate if somebody remembered the car. People did walk up and down that road from their camps after all. Then a drive to a small no-tell motel on the outskirts of New Hartford where he was registered under an assumed name with a driver’s license to match. Amazing what a person can do given enough time and money and superior intelligence.
The lights went on in the Pease living room where the two love birds were probably drinking themselves even more stupid than they were sober. HAH. Jacob settled back into his hole, took the 1911 .45 Colt from his belt and made himself comfortable. It would be a while and he had his memories.
Pam had always liked exercise. When she was home she was out walking or at the gym on the machines if the weather was bad. He had tried to keep up with her and failed miserably but had scored points with her by trying. So totally worth it. Actually, it had done him a world of good. He had not been in such physical shape since his childhood. He had decided to keep it up after they got married and had purchased outfits of stretchy plastic stuff and a pair of good sneakers. That’s what they used to be called anyway, but now they had a fancier name for them.
There was the day that they had gone for an exercise walk and he had peeled off and returned to Pam’s apartment while she carried on for another couple of miles. He heard the click of the lock as he was stepping out of the shower and walked into the living room drying off as she came through the door.
Pam grinned. “Suppose I had been the cleaning lady or the super. What would you have done?” She looked dry and cool and not as if she had continued walking after he had given up for the day.
“I’d have told them to get the hell out of the apartment. Besides, Delores comes on Mondays and the super always calls before he comes.” He walked over and hugged her. Something was wrong. He wasn’t certain what it was, but he sensed it. “You don’t look as if you’d continued with your exercise walk.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said and pushed past him into the bedroom where she began stripping off her black exercise shorts and I AM WOMAN pink t-shirt.
Jacob followed her into the room admiring the taut flesh and slim butt. “Where have you been?” he demanded. She had not been exercising. That much he knew so where had she been? Maybe he should have asked with whom had she been?
“Just where I said I was. It’s November. I don’t sweat a lot.”
She was flipping him off and he couldn’t stand it. “This is the end. No more walking unless I am with you.”
“Bullshit. I’ll walk whenever I dammed well want to.”
She was openly defying him and after all the love and attention he’d shown her. He gripped his head between his hands as his vision exploded and he saw everything through a red haze. Without even knowing it, he crashed his fist into her two-timing face and sent her crashing across the room and into the coffee table. “Bitch. You’ll do what I tell you to do. Nothing less and nothing more.”
Pam stared up at him with a dazed expression as if he had been speaking a foreign language. Suddenly he realized where he was and what he had done. He had almost killed the only woman he’d ever loved. “Oh my God,” he groaned and went to help her up. “Pam I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He held out a hand, but she batted it away as she struggled to her feet.
Rubbing the shoulder that had come into contact with the coffee table she backed away glaring at him. “Get out,” she hissed.
“Pam I..”
“Get the fuck out and don’t contact me again. If I see you outside my door I will call the cops.”
“Pam I really am sorry. I don’t know what happened. Suddenly you were on the floor.”
Pam pulled her phone from a pocket and hit a few buttons. “Yes, I need to report domestic abuse.”
Jacob held up both hands in a sign of peace. He might lose his job if this got any uglier. Once she had calmed down he would bring her back under control. Pam was still holding the
phone to her ear when he backed up and left the apartment.
She did not respond to his calls or texts the next day or the day after that. He thought she was still steamed and sent two dozen roses with a sad-face emoticon. He sent her a letter of apology. It was returned unopened. Life became a series of days where he would go to work, come home, call Pam who did not answer, go over to her place in the hope that he would see her coming or going, go back to his apartment and spend the night thrashing about as nightmares filled his mind.
A week later she texted him that she had met someone else and that he should stay away from her or she would get a court order.
That someone else would die tonight.
DOUGLAS WORTH
Doug awoke, as he usually did, with a blinding headache and without knowing, at least momentarily, where he was. On a bed surely and in a room but everything spun around him for a second and he wondered dully where the fuck he was? Ah yes. His room. His place. His bed. What had brought him out of his drunken sleep was his bladder. He felt the pain in his lower abdomen that always meant he had to pee big time. He found that he was still dressed although he had managed at least to remove his shoes. It was still dark outside and the little clock radio on the table by the bed showed three-ten in the morning.
Doug literally rolled out of bed and onto the floor as he was trying to sit up. Instead of looking at the window in his bedroom he found himself looking at an empty whiskey bottle that was under his bed. Story of his life, he thought as little trolls pounded on the inside of his skull with hammers. He even thought about giving up completely and just peeing himself as he lay there but some remnant of pride forced him to his knees and then, using the bed as a lever, to his feet.
Several hours later he woke up again, this time less hungover but still feeling nauseous. After a cup of coffee and two Excedrin, he sat at the little wooden round table that served as his dining room and stared glumly out at the apartment units that surrounded the little green quadrangle behind his apartment. He thought about taking a shower but decided against it for that would mean facing the mirror in the bathroom and he could not do that. He already knew the story it would tell of bloodshot eyes, red-veined nose and a gut that hung over his belt. He was a mess and he knew it and he didn’t need some piece of glass reminding him of it.