by Tim Kizer
“Let’s drop by that storage place right after we’re done here.”
Yes, he had put his wife’s remains in the trunk. It was the safest choice given the circumstances. He’d had to use his car to transport the body since he’d left Kelly’s BMW in one of Buffalo’s sketchy neighborhoods a couple of hours earlier, hoping someone would steal it. Once the corpse was in the trunk, he drove out of the garage and headed south-east. He intended to take the body to a low-populated area fifty miles away from Buffalo so that no one would accidentally dig it out. He had extracted all of Kelly’s teeth with pliers in order to make it harder to identify the skeleton in case it was eventually found.
Yes, buddy, you actually pulled those teeth. You didn’t want to seem like some Nazi torturer, but you were compelled to do it. You fully intended to get away with this murder, which required you to consider every little detail. Your devious mind even thought of Kelly’s cell: shortly before killing your wife, you removed the battery from the phone since you had read somewhere that it was the only way to prevent the triangulation of the phone’s location. You were going to claim that you hadn’t seen Kelly when you had come home at half past five in the afternoon, which meant that you couldn’t allow her cell to be traced to your house. Could you say Kelly had forgotten her cell at home? Yes, you could, but the police would feel suspicious about you anyway.
He wished he could examine the trunk of his old car, a four-year-old Toyota Land Cruiser, which was nothing but a flattened slab of scrap metal now. The infamous trunk he had shoved the toothless corpse in a month ago. Horrible as it sounded, it had been necessary to get rid of the teeth because they could be preserved in the ground for decades, thus increasing his chances of ending up in jail. He had been unable to bring himself to cut off Kelly’s fingers. In the end, he had figured that Mother Nature would take care of the flesh for him soon enough.
“Did you read his notepads?” Frank started filming the living room.
“I just skipped through them. I didn’t know what to look for.”
You’ve had four teeth extracted in your lifetime, Frank. And all of them were wisdom teeth. The procedures were painless due to anesthesia. Kelly felt nothing either, but for an entirely different reason, as you know. She was dead. Thirty two odd looking pieces of calcified matter, some with fillings—you threw them out of the car window as you drove on the freeway. It took a while to pull them all out, and thankfully you had plenty of time. You finished preparing the body for burial by nine o’clock in the evening. It was dark when you hit the road. You were headed south-east, where population was relatively sparse, where nobody would notice you, where you could bury the corpse without unnecessary attention. You killed Kelly at half past five, dropped her BMW off in the East Side around seven, and left the house with the corpse in the trunk at half past nine.
“Is his laptop protected by password?”
“Yes, but I know what the password is.”
And what about Kathy, who was kidnapped last November? Poor girl, she must miss her daddy if she is still alive. However, chances are she is dead. Did you kill her, too? Maybe you lost your mind last year? First, you killed Kathy, then Kelly. Your wife began to suspect you had murdered her little girl, confronted you sometime in April, and you ruthlessly slaughtered her to shut her up.
He might have killed Kelly, but he’d had nothing to do with his daughter’s disappearance.
Relax, pal, it was a joke. Okay, you didn’t kill Kathy. At least, you don’t remember doing it.
And you know what? Kelly might still hypothetically be alive. She might come back some day. To obtain a divorce, for example. She could decide to tie the knot with whoever was banging her nowadays.
Okay, buddy, let’s imagine that Kelly was killed by a maniac. What did he do with the corpse? He could have buried it in a forest fifty miles away from your house. There are plenty of forests within a one hour drive from Buffalo, you know that very well.
“Were you able to check Alex’s email? Did he save the email password on his laptop?”
“No, he didn’t. And I couldn’t figure out the password on my own.”
You buried your wife fifty miles south east of Buffalo, in some god-forsaken boonies. You turned onto the dirt road to the forest, drove a couple of miles into the woods, and buried the body. You believed that you shouldn’t allow the corpse to be discovered, and a well-hidden grave was a great solution under your circumstances. They haven’t found Kelly yet and most likely never will in the next several decades. The corpse will completely decompose soon, if it hasn’t already done so. Can they determine the sex of a skeleton? They probably can, but that’s as far as they will be able to go without teeth. It’s impossible to identify the badly decayed human remains without teeth, and you’ve made sure there were no choppers left in Kelly’s mouth.
Or had he indeed put her body in that safe Alex had helped him to buy? Where was this safe now? What had he done with it?
No, buddy, a human-sized steel-plated safe is a terribly hard thing to hide. It must weigh at least seven hundred pounds—without the body! Why would you choose such a cumbersome way to get rid of the corpse?
He ought to concentrate on Schenectady and Utica. He had already remembered the Schenectady trip: Kelly was with a man who appeared younger than her, and she wore a wig and sunglasses. She had really been selling her body to sex hungry men. Her depravity was stunning, but did it justify killing her? A month later he caught her again, in Utica.
Frank stopped filming, opened the notepad application, and typed: ‘Toledo—February, Cincinnati—March, Schenectady —June, Utica—August. Wig, sunglasses.’
“What does this mean?” Marilyn pointed at the screen of his phone.
“That’s where my wife went to meet other guys in the past year.”
“Looks like she traveled all over the place.”
Frank nodded. “She sure did.”
No, Kelly won't come back, bro. Perhaps you need more time to get used to this idea. You killed her. You killed her on the 24th of April, in the bathroom. Those three stains under the tub are her blood, you know that. Stop denying the truth; in the end, it's her fault, she had a lover, she was unfaithful to you and paid for it. You killed her in the state of temporary insanity, the jury will understand you. You couldn't forgive Kelly, and you killed her. Kelly was a corrupted woman; she’d met at least three men for sex and would have inevitably died an awful death. If you hadn't ended her life, she would have been killed by a lover that turned out to be a homicidal maniac. For all you know, she could have been a prostitute looking for easy money, Frank. She sold herself secretly, she craved adventure, and it would have been wrong for you to let her wallow in this filth. You endured it for a long time, you hoped she would change her ways, but she didn't. In March, you tracked her down with another lover, actually two more lovers, and your patience was over. Kelly degraded completely, there was nothing left from the Kelly you had fallen in love with, so you cut this knot. You murdered her, partner.
Accept it, buddy: Kelly won't rise from her grave in that forest fifty miles away from Buffalo. She is dead, and she will remain dead, even if you catalogue all of her sex escapades in the last year of her life. On April 24th, you came home around five o’clock, insane thoughts swishing in your head. You were on edge, you’d convinced yourself Kelly had to die.
One more detail, partner: you used four trash bags so as to double the number of wrapping layers. You were pretty thorough about keeping the blood from leaking; you didn't want your house or car to be stained with it.
Bullshit. Pure bullshit. Let’s get back to the trip to Utica.
“Do you remember talking about your wife with Alex?” asked Marilyn.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I did.” Frank walked to the credenza that sat next to the couch and opened one of its drawers. The drawer seemed to contain nothing exciting.
On the way to Utica you were excited; you couldn’t stop thinking about Kelly and her lover. The
y were not going to get away from you in Utica, you told yourself. You were in a good mood; you were well equipped to follow Kelly to the final destination. It was like a spy movie, you thought, and you were its star.
When Kelly boarded the train in Buffalo, she was accompanied by a man whose face seemed familiar to you. Who was it? You knew he wasn’t Kelly’s lover. That man got on board together with Kelly and stayed on the train until it arrived in Utica. By the way, he was not missing a leg. One odd detail caught your attention: the man kept at a distance from Kelly the whole trip. He alighted the train fifteen-twenty seconds after Kelly and her lover, pretending to be a random stranger. As Kelly walked towards the station building, you glanced back at the train and saw the man step down on the railway platform. Fortunately, he didn't notice you since he was focused on Kelly and her lover. His face seemed painfully familiar to you; you recognized him at once back in Buffalo. Who the hell was that man? Why had he accompanied Kelly to Utica?
Think harder, buddy. This man appears to be a crucial piece of the puzzle. He’s not Kelly’s lover, he deliberately stayed away from Kelly, making it look as if he had nothing to do with her.
“Has he ever mentioned my wife’s name to you?” Frank asked, slowly scrutinizing the contents of the second drawer.
“No. If you think that he was sleeping with her, I promise you he wasn’t.”
Frank shut the drawer and stepped over to the TV stand to take a look at the DVDs stacked neatly on its shelves.
Another detail: on the trip to Utica he wore a wig, which, coupled with a pair of sunglasses, dramatically changed his appearance. Though his disguise was fairly simple, it reduced the chances of him being recognized by Kelly to a more or less acceptable level. The wig and sunglasses must have worked just fine since Kelly had remained unaware of his spy activities till the day she died. He had also dropped by a thrift store and bought a jacket, a shirt, and pants specially for shadowing Kelly. As a matter of fact, he had done the same for that memorable trip to Schenectady; he had tossed the clothes in the dumpster once he had come back to Buffalo.
He had hoped Kelly wouldn't notice him because she would be preoccupied with her lover. He observed them from a hundred feet away, hiding behind people, buildings, and cars.
And in the end you killed her, buddy, didn’t you? Don't worry about Bluth, he’s a scammer, he saw nothing. If he calls you again, tell him to go fuck himself. You placed the corpse in the trunk; no one could have seen it.
He had not killed Kelly. She might have been a victim of a murder, but he had not killed her.
Alex’s DVD collection consisted mostly of comedies and action movies and offered no clues. Frank turned away from the TV stand and fixed his eyes on the table, which he had finally begun to recognize. He had remembered sitting at this table while looking at pictures of pickup trucks on Alex’s laptop.
“What does Alex do for a living?” Frank sat down on a wooden chair by the table and looked around the room. Yes, he had sat right in this spot as they had gone through the online truck listings. They had bought a truck to haul that big ass safe around.
Why hadn’t they just rented a truck?
Good question.
“He’s a hairstylist at a beauty salon in North Buffalo.”
“Did you ask people at the salon if they heard from him?”
“They told me he had taken a leave of absence for family reasons.”
In Utica, Kelly and her lover got in a silver Ford Taurus, which had been waiting for them by the entrance to the station. As soon as you took a look at the car Kelly was going to ride in, you rushed to your rental in the overnight parking lot. The friend finder app in Kelly’s phone did its job as advertised, and you quickly caught up with the Taurus. You drove about a hundred feet behind them, wondering where they were heading and plotting your next step. Kelly and her lover were going west. They entered Interstate 90 and half an hour later were out of Utica, showing no signs of slowing down. The drive promised to be long, which didn’t surprise you, considering what Kelly had done in Schenectady.
“So he never told you about taking a break from work?” Frank got up from the chair and headed for the kitchen.
“He probably didn’t have time to tell me that.”
What about that man with the familiar face?
He had stayed at the station. He must have taken the next train back to Buffalo.
Kelly and her lover passed Oneida, zipped through Syracuse, and still kept moving, with no stops along the way. The route seemed a bit odd given the fact that they had just traveled in the opposite direction. He was asking himself where the hell they were going as they drove past another exit. Was it Rochester?
You had a valid reason to murder Kelly, buddy. She was a good-for-nothing woman and she had disgusting relatives. She was also a bad mother: the blame for Kathy’s disappearance—Kathy’s death—lay squarely on her. Yes, it was Kelly’s fault you lost your daughter. Kelly had been so busy fucking other men that she had forgotten about Kathy; it was only a matter of time before something terrible happened to the girl.
No, they were not heading to Rochester. They passed the exit to Interstate 490, the first freeway that would have taken them to Rochester; twenty minutes later, they were still on Interstate 90, having ignored every opportunity to change course. At that point, they had driven about one hundred and forty miles from the Utica train station. There was a slight chance that they were going to one of local state parks—Carlton Hill, for example—but Frank didn’t bet on it since Kelly had never been big on trail hiking or horseback riding.
“Did you ask his landlord if Alex was going to break the lease?” asked Frank as he scanned the kitchen counter.
“Why would he want to break the lease?”
For the next forty miles, Kelly and her lover passed every exit ramp. Frank had finally guessed where they were headed, which allowed him to stop worrying that he would lose their car.
“That’s what I would do if I were going to skip town for good.”
After a short pause, Marilyn nodded and said, “I’ll talk to his landlord tomorrow.”
He had finally guessed where they were going. Buffalo. Odd as it might have seemed, their destination had to be the Buffalo Metro Area! When they passed by the town of Pembroke, Frank’s last doubts vanished. Kelly and her lover were driving back to Buffalo, and on their way there they were having passionate sex. Her lover's friend must have been behind the wheel. Kelly was an eccentric woman, Frank thought then. Having sex in a moving car, wearing a wig, using trains as pick up spots—her act was surely far from routine.
Have you remembered where Kelly and her lover went after arriving in Buffalo? Did they go to a hotel?
That was still a mystery.
“Have you ever seen a safe in his apartment?”
“Alex did have a safe, a big six-foot tall safe, but he kept it in the bed of his truck. He bought that truck about three weeks before he went missing.”
Well, it hadn’t been a false memory after all: he and Alex had indeed been shopping for a truck.
“What kind of truck was that?”
“A used F-150 with four doors. It was in a good shape, maybe eight-nine years old. I had a hunch that he got the money to buy it from you. I doubt he could afford it on his own.”
He had searched Kelly’s closet for the wig but couldn’t find it. Evidently, she was hiding the wig somewhere or had borrowed it from a friend. By the way, he had taken a couple of photos during his spy outing: Kelly kissing her lover, Kelly getting in the car with him. Now he had to remember where he put them.
“I’ve never seen him drive that truck after he got that safe,” added Marilyn.
“How did he move around? Did he have another car?”
“He had a Honda Civic. It’s still in the parking lot here.”
“Is the truck in the parking lot, too?”
Marilyn shook her head. “The truck is gone.”
Now back to Kelly’s trips. The trip t
o Schenectady had taken place last June, the trip to Utica—last August, and this past March he tracked them down for the third time. He must recall where it had happened. What city did they go to? Did he remember the city?
But what about that bloody massacre in the bathroom?
He considered it a hallucination; he had been mentally exhausted and confused, that’s all. He didn’t care about Kelly's morals, he didn’t care whether she was a whore or not. All he cared about was his personal freedom and comfort. He had not murdered his wife, that was the bottom line.
After Utica, he had found no more train tickets in her bag. Either Kelly had gotten smarter and stopped buying tickets herself, or she had grown bored with trains and switched to something even more exciting. Did she continue visiting her “friend” in Syracuse? Did she keep telling him impudent lies?
“Honey, I’m going to stay at Cheryl’s this weekend. I hope you can survive without me for a couple of days.”
Yes, she did. But since he didn't know where she was going, he couldn't follow her. Besides, he had already tailed her twice before and saw no value in doing it again.
“Did you ask Alex what he needed that safe for?” Frank returned to the living room and sat down on the couch.
“I did. He said he wanted to put some stuff in it. These are his exact words.”
Of course Alex said that. He was good at keeping secrets.
“Did you ever look inside the safe?”
“No, I never cared what was in it.”
If he remembered correctly, there had been no shadowing Kelly from August to February. For seven months, he had been busy with other things, probably consoling himself with the idea that he was neither the first nor the last husband with a cheating wife.
Kathy went missing last November, and for the next few months all he could have thought about was finding her. She disappeared while riding her tricycle in Ellicott Creek Park in Tonawanda, where Kelly had taken her to enjoy some fresh air. It was supposed to be just another average weekend; Frank couldn’t have imagined that he would never see his daughter again when he waved her goodbye that morning. He could hardly breath as he listened to Kelly shout through tears that she had looked almost everywhere and that he should come to the park immediately. As he drove to Tonawanda, his mind kept picturing a sleazy middle-aged man offering Kathy a candy and then taking her to his minivan. He was mad at his naïve little girl for trusting someone she shouldn’t have and at his stupid wife for making small talk with some woman she’d just met at the park instead of keeping an eye on their daughter. He was wondering if that woman Kelly had chatted with while Kathy was being shoved into the back of the van could be one of the kidnappers.