“Don’t worry about that. I kind of expected it.”
“Thanks,” Richard replied bashfully, still a bit embarrassed he had made a mess of the detective’s coffee table.
“I see you found the shaving kit. The cut looks good on you.”
“I really appreciate you. It means a lot.”
“I told you, a whole new perspective. Hey, do you feel like riding somewhere with me? I’d like to show you something.”
“Of course. Let me get my shoes and sweatshirt on.”
While Richard went to get ready, Detective Barnes gathered the chips and salsa, a package of cookies, as well as the empty soda cans from his old wooden coffee table. By the time he’d put everything in its place, Richard stood ready and waiting near the front door.
“That won’t happen again,” he professed as Barnes emerged.
“I meant what I said. You’re fine, but I appreciate you acknowledging it. Come on. Let’s get going.”
* * *
One the way there, Richard couldn’t help anticipating where Barnes was taking him. He took a mental note of every corner they turned, every street they traveled.
“Do you believe the evil that men do will be punished?”
“I don’t know. Before this happened to me, I would have said yes. But now, I just can’t say. There are so many evil men walking this earth free to do as they please. All criminals aren’t in the streets.”
“I agree. Evil comes in many forms. I’d like to show you just a little of what I see every day.”
Barnes took Richard down to the morgue at a local funeral parlor. Being an officer of the law gave him the liberty to walk through those tinted glass front doors as he pleased. He also knew the family that ran the establishment. They had laid many bodies to rest at Klein’s Resting Place. Detective Barnes took Richard down to the basement where the bodies were stored. Stone walls lined the corridor of the basement. A set of metal, swinging doors brought them to the room for which they had searched. There had to be more than twenty sheet-covered corpses stored on tables. Most of them, Barnes knew personally, their story.
He walked over to one table, then pulled the sheet from over the top of a little adolescent boy. His lips were dark purple, flesh a hint of blue.
“Meet Jeffery. His stepfather beat his mother nearly to death. It went on for so long the boy decided one day he would protect her. Jeffery stabbed his stepfather fifty-two times with a swiss army knife his mother had given him for his birthday. They sent him down to juvie. The investigation into his murder is still ongoing. There was a Goliath in front of this little boy, and he managed to channel his inner David so that he could save his mother. Who was there to save him, though? Who is going to right this wrong?”
Richard shook his head in sorrow for what had happened to the little boy.
Barnes covered him back up, then moved to the next corpse, which happened to be equally discolored. “This is Anastasia. A foreign exchange student from Russia. Turns out some of the guys on campus got angry because she refused to go on a date with one of them. They paid her translator to give her the wrong address to a party. When she got to the house, it was abandoned. They took her inside, raped her, strangled her, then left her for dead. The translator knew where she was yet refused to say a word. This girl’s body sat in that abandoned house for two days until a man like you found her, then reported it to authorities. Wish we had more eyes like that in the world.”
It was hard for Richard to look at her. In fact, he didn’t say a word until Barnes covered her back up. He imagined the terrible fate she had suffered at the hands of those men.
The next cold, stiffened body he revealed belonged to that of Kenneth Prat. “Someone killed him in a barroom brawl that started because they didn’t appreciate the fact that he was married to a Black woman. During the scuffle, one of the patrons picked up a broken beer bottle from the floor, then stuck it into his side. He bled out before the ambulance got there. Do you know out of fifty other bystanders, only one helped her attempt to cover the wound and keep him lucid?”
“I never understood hate like that. It’s disgusting. Maybe years from now, it will be different. I can’t imagine the year 2000 getting here and still dealing with blatant racism.”
“What we need in the world are more people willing to stop things like this from happening.”
“I never thought about being a cop. It’s too late anyway.”
“You don’t have to be a cop to help. You just need cop resources.” Barnes held his arms out, him being the resource he spoke of.
What do I have to lose? Richard thought, having seen his path clearly. “I think I’m starting to catch on to this redemption thing.” He brandished a slight grin, not wanting to seem too excited in a room full of dead people. The former vagrant fancied thinking of himself as a hero. That kind of rush he hadn’t felt since the war.
“I think we can go now.” Barnes gave him a pat on the back, rousing a feeling of camaraderie between the two.
Chapter 24
Night Pursuits
During the wee hours of the night, Ronald and Gertrude lay together in a deep slumber. She looked comfortable hugging the pillow, an entire side of her face swallowed up by it. Soft, black coils fell over the top of her face. You could tell she had fallen asleep satisfied with the day’s events. A waning moon illuminated the star-speckled sky that night, radiating a soft light into his bedroom window. The clock on Ronald’s nightstand read 3:03 a.m. when his eyes sprang open, darting around the room as if he had no idea where he was or how he’d gotten there. He sat up, beads of cold sweat drenching his face. His short, panicked breaths only made it worse, threatening to rip Gertrude from her dreams, dreams filled with thoughts and scenarios, which all included Ronald, quite fittingly, the man of her dreams.
Only the man in her dreams was much different than the one rocking to and fro at the edge of the mattress. A vein running down the center of his forehead pulsated. Wincing from the pain radiating throughout his skull, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his bloodshot eyes, trying to quiet the voice, if at all possible. “Help me, dear brother. Help me while there’s still time! Don’t let me die down here! It’s cold, and I’m all alone. Please, brother, I need you.”
Cecilia’s voice echoed throughout Ronald’s fraught mind. It took every ounce of mental wherewithal he had not to scream. Still, he stretched his mouth wide as if it were bound to spill out. Not a peep, though. Even with the veins in his neck swollen, face flushed red, no sound emitted. He held tight to his therapist’s words. You must release it. Ronald, you must release her. As long as you harbor guilt over the death of your sister, the inner turmoil you’re facing will never cease.
Ronald dropped his head as he hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. Smack. Smack. Smack. He whacked the palms of his hands on the sides of his head in frustration.
“Yes, come on, dear brother. Release me.” Her sinister voice demanded it of him, commanding Ronald’s will by the time his head lifted. He peered up at the moon as if it were beckoning him.
He got up, moving about the room as if on autopilot, right past his slumbering date. Ronald exited the bedroom, slipped into his work boots at the front door, unlatched each of the dead bolts securing it, then headed out into the darkness.
“Release me. I’m here, dear brother.”
He saw her apparition across the street, hovering above the spot where she met her end. Snatching up a shovel from the grass just below the porch stairs, Ronald tore off across the street to save his dear sister. Or at least he believed as much at that moment.
* * *
Next door, Peggy rolled out of bed, hacking as if she had inhaled a teaspoon of cinnamon and was about to meet her maker. The way she carried on, a lung was liable to come up if she didn’t get to a glass of water as soon as possible. The closest sink was the bathroom next to her bedroom. She booked it, breasts dangling every which way under her Tom Petty T-shirt. The flannel pants she wore belong
ed to her late husband, Russell. He was a little on the abusive side, but so was she. Their arguments had resulted in tussling matches a time or two. That last one, though, proved to be more than Russell anticipated. Peggy didn’t mean to kill her husband. It just happened suddenly. Alcohol coupled with arguments never ended well. That one, in particular, left Peggy a widow. Despite his demise, she fared okay, obtaining the house and his $75,000 life insurance policy.
When she finally made it to the bathroom, Peggy realized there was no glass on the sink. Fuck it. She turned on the faucet, then hunched over the sink to get a few gulps, hoping to tame the coughing fit. After several hard coughs, the spell passed. I might as well pee since I’m up. She groaned, flopping down on the cushioned toilet seat to do her business. That’s when she heard it, the heavy breathing and grunting through the cracked window beside her. Peggy lifted it just a tad more, peeking out to see what she had already assumed.
There Ronald was in the flesh, digging as though his life depended on it. The hole he had excavated was nearly three feet deep already. Ting. He heard something metal hit the end of the shovel, realizing he’d found her. Ronald tossed it to the side in a panic, then dropped to his knees, from there, digging with his bare hands. “Cecilia,” he whispered, pulling at the blue jean suspender strap he had discovered buried in the soil.
That’s when his arm began to vibrate.
“I thought you said she wasn’t buried out here,” Peggy interrupted, having snuck up behind him.
Ronald turned his head slowly to see who it was standing there. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looks to me like you’re digging up a body.”
“I’m not digging up a body.” He dug his hands into the soil, no longer feeling the strap of her overalls. It had vanished . . . disappeared as if it were never there in the first place.
“Then what is it you’re digging up?” Peggy rebutted.
“I said, I’m not digging up a body.” His tone hardened as he grabbed hold of the wooden handle beside him. With all his might, he swung around with the shovel, whacking her across the face with it.
Peggy’s body fell over like a wet mattress. Blood oozed from her ear down into the dirt beneath her as Ronald continued digging his hole. Only now, it would need to be much deeper.
Chapter 25
The Need to Know
When Gertrude opened her eyes, alerted by the sound of running water, she glanced over at the clock. It’s 5:55 a.m., and he’s already in the shower on a Saturday? Somebody’s an early riser. She saw it as an opportunity to look around. Maybe she would even be able to find something in the fridge she could make for breakfast.
The bedroom closet seemed to open a little more upon Gertrude noticing it being ajar. Curiosity killed the cat, Gertrude. She knew better, but on second thought, figured, what would it hurt? He won’t even know I looked. That second thought was all it took for her to be convinced. Gertrude peeked her head out the door to make sure she could still hear the shower running before rushing back over to the closet door to survey what lay behind it.
She crossed the threshold of the large, dark space, feeling around for something to shed light inside. That’s when she felt something tickling the tip of her nose. “Oh my gosh,” she uttered in a panicked whisper, flailing her arms about. The nosy woman thought for sure she had walked into a spiderweb until she felt the skinny, metal, beaded string in her hand. “Thank God.” She let out a sigh of relief, yanking on the string to brighten up the space. Just as she suspected, it was full of old clothes and boxes. But then, as she let her hand run across the clothes, she realized they weren’t even his. They were his parents’ clothes. Not a stitch of clothing hanging there belonged to Ronald. She gushed, finding it endearing he’d kept his parents’ belongings. He must be a family man. Gertrude grinned at the thought. She equated his being sentimental toward his parents to Ronald being husband material. The notion was one she tucked away as promising.
A big black chest sat on the closet floor, begging to be opened. It was one of those chests that looked like it could be filled with treasures. Gertrude assumed they would be priceless heirlooms. You know, school pictures, Mother’s Day gifts made in grade school, maybe some old jewelry, or even an old letterman jacket. There was only one way to find out. She had to open it. Gertrude lowered to her knees to lift the metal latch but just when she was about to crack the lid, the water turned off.
Ronald stepped out of the steamy shower, free of soil, blood, as well as the skin and hair fibers from Peggy’s body. He covered his waist with a towel, then with a swipe of his hand, he wiped a section of the mirror free of fog. The view of himself only lasted a moment before the mirror fogged up again. What have I done? Ronald wiped it away once more, staring in at his own soul seen through the windows of his eyes.
“You know exactly what you did, dear brother.” The apparition appeared behind him amid the clouded bathroom as what he’d done came clearer.
Smack. The metal end of the shovel crashed into Peggy’s skull, striking against her temple and knocking her out cold. Blood trickled from her ear down the side of her wrinkled neck, soaking into the collar of her T-shirt. A thud sounded off when her body hit the soil. Adrenaline pumping, Ronald panted as he stood over her stiffening corpse. “There’s something fishy about you. I just know it. Ever since I was little, you’ve rubbed me the wrong way.”
For her, Ronald dug a separate hole in the rear of the property lot. He dragged Peggy’s lifeless body by the ankles across the dewy grass until he made it to the hammock between the two maple trees. It was the perfect place to put her body.
* * *
“Ronald?” Gertrude called out to him from the other side of the bathroom door.
“I’m almost finished,” he answered, pushing the memory from thought.
“I’m going to go next door and get ready for our date later.”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Ronald worried she might have witnessed him coming back inside last night.
“I’m usually up pretty early. Aunt May is probably brewing a pot of coffee right now. She’ll be expecting me to join her for a cup.”
“Then you shouldn’t keep her waiting.”
“I’ll see you at around one o’clock?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“I’ll be sure to lock the door on my way out.” Gertrude snickered, poking fun at Ronald before heading on her way.
Chapter 26
Friends
“It’s eleven o’clock, and I still haven’t had anything to eat. Come on, Brenda. Just stop at one of these fast-food restaurants on the way there,” Tiffany begged over the sound of her grumbling tummy.
“I’m not eating that crap. You sure love those horse meat patties.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “What about some Chinese food?”
“Cats, dogs, and rats.”
“Oh my gosh, Brenda. You think everything is bad for you.”
“It is. Our meat is pumped full of chemicals and hormones.”
“Well, I sure could go for a chemical burger and an order of hormone-injected nuggets.”
“Let’s just wait until we get to Gertrude’s. She might be hungry too.”
“Fine,” Tiffany relented. “But if she isn’t, I’m leaving to go get food myself if I have to.
Brenda glanced up at the street sign at the corner, “I think this is her street right here. Didn’t she say, Gable?”
“Yup, Gable and Sobieski.” Tiffany recalled the conversation vividly.
Brenda made a right, clipping her rear passenger tire on the curb.
“Let’s make it there in one piece,” Tiffany complained, clinging tight to the hand bar above her head.
“Huh,” Brenda huffed. “I’m surprised you’re still in one piece seeing you’re mingling with the commoners, now.”
Tiffany held up her hand in protest. “Brenda, I didn’t come with you to get a lecture.”
Brenda rolled her eyes at the flippant
reply. “Whatever. We’re almost there. She said it was the house across from the lot with the hammock and flowers.”
“There it is, up ahead.” Tiffany eagerly pointed it out.
“So, this must be the house.” Brenda hung a sharp left into the driveway, tires squealing as they painted the cement on their way in.
Tiffany shook her head in disbelief. “I don’t know how you managed to get a license.”
“Says the person who failed her driver’s test. If it weren’t for me, you’d be on the bus,” Brenda countered with a snappy comeback—a comeback that went unrefuted due to its validity. Tiffany had failed her driver’s test more than a few times, so she had the least room to be critical of her cousin.
Brenda spoke up, breaking the awkward silence. It was apparent her comment had hurt Tiffany’s feelings.
“So, he owns this place and the lot across the street?” Brenda turned, admiring the structureless property decorated with flowers. “Gertrude might be on to something.”
“Hopefully, they have some food in there,” Tiffany groaned.
“Only one way to find out.” Brenda unbuckled her safety belt to hop out of the vehicle, prompting her cousin to do the same.
* * *
Inside, Gertrude thought it time she warned Aunt May about their incoming guests. She peeked into the living room where Aunt May sat immersed in gossip.
“I have some friends coming by, Aunt May. They should be here any minute. Please be nice to them.”
“I’m always nice,” Aunt May rebutted but kept her eyes glued on Maury. “As long as they don’t come in here interrupting my show. Like the young kids say, we are good to go.”
“Aunt May,” Gertrude rested against the doorway between the living room and the hallway, “did you hear that on Maury?”
“In my travels,” she shrugged.
“Travels? What travels, Aunt May?” At that point, Gertrude had found amusement in her aunt’s replies.
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