Trewlawney glared at Harriet Cooper. “So we stay silent. Understood?"
But driving home, Harriet Cooper thought Miles Trewlawney had intimidated her for far too long. And he hadn't seen the look of shock, horror, betrayal, that had flashed across Norbert's eyes the instant the pickax handle had struck the back of his head. She had. Nor had Miles Trewlawney seen the look of sneering contempt on his own face as he put every ounce of strength he could muster into delivering the blow. She had. She had seen that, too.
* * * *
5.
—And finally, in which a woman reminds her children of Captain Lawrence Oates, George Hennessey tells his wife about his lover, and a man thinks a smug thought about his wife.
The woman pondered whether to wait for her husband to come home, but she decided against it, the wrench would, she felt, be too much to bear. But she made an excellent lunch for her two delighted children and then went to speak to the daily help. She explained to the help that she had to go out, and asked her, in return for extra money, if she could wait in the house until her husband returned at about six P.M. so as to ensure the children were supervised by a responsible adult at all times, as the law requires. She then returned to the dining room and said, “I'm going out now. I may be some time."
To which Jonathan, eleven, her eldest, said, “You sound like Captain Oates."
The woman smiled, and said, “Mrs. January will stay in the house until Daddy gets home."
She took the bus into York. She indulged herself with a visit to the Minster, where she lit a candle, and walked the walls, savouring the city. Finally she fetched up at Micklegate Bar where once the head of Harry Hotspur had been impaled as a deterrent to any who would betray the Crown. At Micklegate Bar she saw the police station. She walked into the building and at the enquiry desk she said, “My name is Harriet Cooper. I'd like to give information about the murder of Norbert Parkes."
* * * *
George Hennessey stood in the rear garden of his house, sipping a mug of tea, enjoying the late evening. The garden had been laid according to his wife's design when she had been pregnant with their first and only child. Three months after he was born she had died, suddenly, and her ashes had been scattered in “her” garden. He felt that she was still there, and he came out to say hello to her, to Jennifer, each day.
"So with her statement we wrapped it up.” An observer would see a middle-aged man talking to himself. “We picked up the other two. Trewlawney held out, but when we showed him Harriet Cooper's statement and Cameron McKay's statement, he too confessed. For twenty years the secret had remained buried, then along came a bloke with a metal detector and it all crumbled, or fell into place, whichever way you look at it, inside forty-eight hours.” He sipped his tea. “Jen, I'm going out tonight, staying out. We've found each other. It doesn't mean my feelings for you are diminished. But we both have our needs. I want you to be happy for us.” When he said that he felt a warmth close about him that could not be explained by the last of the day's sun rays alone.
He packed an overnight bag and drove to the village of Skelton, north of York, a wealthy village, with a tenth-century church. He went to a half-timbered house. He rang the doorbell. Louise D'Acre opened it and smiled, hooking a hand round the back of his neck. “Come in, the children have gone up."
* * * *
"That's her, that's her all over, all the time.” Gary “Gaz” Schofield sat in the armchair getting hungry and he thought that that was her. Her old bugbear, unfinished sentences. He read the note: “I've taken the children.” Of course she's taken the children, he could see that, did she think he was simple? But where had she taken them? The Railway Museum? The Coast? And when would they be back? He sat and watched the sun kiss the distant skyline. He thought it could be worse, some men have to put up with much worse. Sandra's inability to finish a sentence ... when all was said and done, that could be lived with for the sake of peace. He switched on the television and waited for his wife and children to come home, wondering what excuse she'd offer for making him wait so long for his dinner.
(c) 2008 by Peter Turnbull
[Back to Table of Contents]
Novelette: GETTING RID OF THE BODY by Tom Tolnay
A writer with many mainstream stories in print, Tom Tolnay has also produced a small body of work in the mystery genre. His 1990 mystery novel Celluloid Gangs (Walker & Company) was recently optioned as a feature film property by Matinee Entertainment, and his most recent suspense novel, This Is the Forest Primeval, is due out later this year from Silk Label Books. His upcoming stories include a private-eye tale in Hardboiled.
Murder. The unlawful kil-ling of one human being by another, especially with malice aforethought.” That's it? Thirteen words to describe such a wicked deed? Slapping the dictionary closed, I hoisted my body up from the desk and shuffled into the bedroom. Elise was lying just as I'd left her, naked to the hips, sprawled across the tangled sheets. I stood at the foot of the bed, admiring her exceptional womanhood, which was framed in a swath of light from the street lamp below: her flaming red hair scattered across the pillow like a mass of silken tassels, the deep indention of her waist, her shoulders glowing like beach sand at dusk. A blue heart pierced by an arrow had been tattooed midway between her bellybutton and the lower edge of her abdomen. The only defect in this picture of loveliness was the bruises which encircled her throat like a necklace of amethysts.
Minutes before, as she was sliding out of her bra, she'd started laughing over a remark made by a young attorney in her office, but something in the way his name—"Alexander"—had rolled off her tongue suggested that more than one-liners had passed between them. When I came right out and asked if anything I should know about was going on, Elise became so animated in her denial that I was convinced she'd already crawled on all fours across the other man's bed. Having always trusted my hunches, I cross-examined her obsessively—until she finally gave in:
"I think I'm in love with Alexander.” She bowed her head in apology, retrieved her bra, and muttered, “I'd better go.” The next thing I knew I was tightening the bra around her neck, and Elise, after letting out a single piercing scream, was choking and clawing the backs of my hands.
Now, that twist to her red-smeared mouth struck me as not contrite so much as smug, as if she'd managed to have the last laugh simply by leaving her body behind.
I sat down on the edge of the bed beside her freckle-specked legs. I was still finding fault with the dictionary's take on “Murder"—its matter-of-fact treatment of a word fecund with implication. Any adequate definition had to take the aftermath of that selfish act into account; it was, after all, the abrupt, unexpected end of an individual's journey through life: Never again would Elise brush her hair and apply bright lipstick before heading out to her office, where she booked travel and hotel reservations for a team of attorneys. Never again would she be able to expose that soft skin to me, to Alexander, or anyone else.
Eyeing the uncanny whiteness of her toes, their nails tipped with pale blue polish, I questioned whether the act of violence I'd committed counted as a true murder, the dictionary having qualified its definition with the phrase “especially with malice aforethought.” Not at any time over the eight months we'd been lovers had I considered depriving Elise of all her tomorrows. Pure and simple, mine had been an impulse of passion, a fatal burst of wild jealousy. No aforethought whatsoever.
In the midst of these thoughts someone knocked on my door.
The sound—hesitant rather than forthright—didn't rattle me. Mostly I was curious: Unless I was expecting a visit from Elise, or I'd been late with the rent, rarely did anyone swing their fists against my door. I stood up, ran my hands down my undershirt to smooth it, closed the bedroom door behind me, crossed the living room in half a dozen steps, and unlocked the front door. Before me stood the squat figure of the woman who lived directly above my apartment with her husband and two kids. Her worn dress and apron reeked of fish.
"Good e
vening. It's ... Mrs. Rinnoti, isn't it?"
"That's right, Mr. Shamley."
"What brings you down here at dinner time?” I said, pointing to her apron. What I really wanted to know was why she wasn't washing her dishes instead of standing at my door, intruding upon my evening.
Her olive face dark with blood, she avoided looking into my eyes, which had contracted under the glare of the unshielded bulb in the hallway. “I heard ... a scream ... a woman ... I come down to make sure everything's ... okay."
"Very considerate of you, Mrs. Rinnoti. Sorry I had my TV on so loud."
"TV?” As she looked past me at the 27-incher resting silent and blank-faced on its wire stand, I wished I'd thought to at least turn on the overhead light.
Noticing the sting of Elise's nails, I drew my hands behind my back and hoped no blood had gotten onto my T-shirt. “I was watching a mystery."
"A mystery?"
"Sure. A murder mystery. You must watch them sometimes, too."
She shook her head. “My husband and my boys watch—I don't like."
"Well, I find a good murder mystery calms me down after a rough day at work, Mrs. Rinnoti."
"Murder ... relaxes you, Mr. Shamley?"
"Sure, it takes my mind off all the things I didn't get done today, all the things I've got to do tomorrow."
Mrs. Rinnoti shook her head again, this time mournfully. “It sounded ... so real."
"Of course.” I cleared my throat. “With high definition and surround sound, it can almost sound like someone's being murdered in your very own apartment."
Again Mrs. Rinnoti looked past my shoulder, this time at the sofa and coffee table, both cluttered with magazines.
"But I'm sorry I disturbed you,” I blundered on. “I got to thinking it was too loud and turned it off. Now I see I did bother you and your family. It won't happen again, Mrs. Rinnoti,” I promised.
Once I'd closed the door on her dark-ringed eyes, I raised my hands to my face: Even in the dimness I could see blood had surfaced in the narrow gouges. I didn't notice any traces of red on my T-shirt, but what if Mrs. Rinnoti hadn't bought my story and was placing a phone call to the police station at that very moment?
I returned to the bedroom half hoping I'd been mistaken, that I hadn't strangled Elise to death but had simply caused her to black out and that, by now, she had come out of it—enraged, coughing her head off, but alive.
She lay staring intently toward the window, as if searching for the early stars that had surfaced against the black of evening. Never having felt passionate enough to kill before, I had no idea how to go about eliminating that bundle of prima-facie in my sheets. My first impulse was to drag her off the mattress and fold her into the bottom of my closet, but that would only have delayed what needed to be done. Certainly I wouldn't be able to reenact any of the scenarios I'd witnessed on the tube—sawing off parts of the body and tucking them into a suitcase like Raymond Burr did in Rear Window; or packing the body whole into a huge shipping trunk like Maggie Smith had managed so coolly in Keeping Mum—besides, I had no one I could call upon to help me carry the trunk out of my apartment. Not many options were open to me in a city walk-up where philanderers and drunks were passing through the lobby all night long.
As I looked Elise over from head to toe, so striking, so dead, I was unexpectedly overcome by a rush of empathy—struck by how grossly unfair it was that her future prospects for love, family, and personal accomplishment had been erased simply because she preferred Alexander the attorney over Justin the computer graphics guy. Who knows? Eventually Alexander might have become the father of her children, including a little girl who would, in due time, blossom into another Elise. Remorseful, I lifted her hand and pressed it between mine, her long ivory fingers still faintly warm; two of her nails, broken, were tinged with blood. With fingers like these, she might've become an accomplished pianist, or at least a massage therapist. The way she was lying half turned on her hip, her neck twisted unnaturally, made me feel very uncomfortable, so I straightened out her arms and legs, rolled her over fully onto her back, and, with the tips of my fingers, drew her eyelids closed. Since the evening had turned cool, I slid the light blanket from the foot of the bed up over her legs and chest.
While rummaging for ideas to solve my problem, one part of my brain remained on alert, listening for the sounds of vehicles—especially those that might screech to a halt outside my building. But the street was as still and quiet as Elise, with most people already parked in front of their televisions, giving their dinners time to digest before nodding off. The only encouraging thought I had was that maybe Mrs. Rinnoti had believed me, that it had never occurred to her to contact the police. Such a non-development would give me an extra day or two to figure out the best way to dispose of the body. But what if the people in the apartment below had been home and had heard Elise screech? They were new to the building and might have called the cops without coming up to see what a clean-cut guy I am. Not at all the kind of person who would do such a horrible thing.
"Your troubles may be over,” I whispered to Elise, “but mine are just beginning."
To someone who doesn't know me well my life may not seem worth protecting, but it has supplied most of Justin Shamley's needs quite well, thank you: I've had the same good job for five years, and my boss appreciates my work—I create computer graphics for a small architectural firm to make presentations more attractive to potential clients. My apartment may be small (bedroom, living room, kitchen) but it's comfortable and quiet, and most of my neighbors mind their own business. My one claim to elegance is a silver BMW, which I bought used a few years ago; lately, however, it's had a tendency to stall out. (If I somehow managed to get Elise downstairs and fit her into its small trunk, what would I do if the car failed to start?) The only thing I really lacked, now that Elise was gone, was a love life. But I'm a reasonably intelligent, pleasant-looking guy—dark haired with only a few strands of gray. Not too tall, not too short. I'm not much of a drinker and don't do drugs, at least not anymore. If I couldn't rustle up a replacement for Elise at my office or in a local tavern, I could always sign up with a dating service, or surf chat rooms on the Internet.
Of course, none of my personal advantages were doing me any good whatsoever in solving my immediate problem. It was only later in the evening that sheer exhaustion brought a couple of ideas to mind: Why not wait up until well past midnight, then drag Elise to the back window? With no moon out tonight, no one would be likely to notice me pushing her body off the fire escape and down into the concrete-covered courtyard. Later a note would be found in her pocket, indicating that, distraught over our broken love affair, she'd lost her desire to live. Then I remembered those dark marks on her throat.
Or I could set Elise in my bathtub, then head out to an all-night pharmacy to purchase a five-gallon jug of a strong drain cleaner. Wouldn't it slowly but steadily eat away her flesh and bones until there was nothing left? Only that would take a very long time, and what about the stink?—not only of decomposition, but of lye. Killing someone, I was beginning to understand, required a good deal more planning than I'd ever imagined.
At a quarter past eleven I sat down at my computer and started Googling: I mean, if you can find complete details on how to build a pipe bomb to blow up your fellow workers, or how to kill a spouse with a knife (like that guy in England), why shouldn't there be a site to help someone get rid of a body? After trying half a dozen keywords, I found myself cornered in the realm of funeral services, and that's where I came upon the most promising concept I'd had all night: cremation. Obviously I couldn't just sprinkle her with gasoline and strike a match, so I tried to locate a compact, clean-burning, personal cremation oven, but not even eBay offered such a specialty item.
Next I cruised through listings for death in general and murder in particular and got mostly statistical breakdowns by sex and age: X-thousand had died of heart attacks at home or on the job; X-many by auto accidents. Most murder victims in
America were apparently brought down by gunshot—pistols, hunting rifles, semiautomatics—while another goodly number succumb to knives, razors, or scissors. Poisoning is fairly popular, too. Oddly enough, I didn't come across figures for death by strangulation. Either I hadn't Googled long enough, or the art of strangulation was in decline after having enjoyed such prominence in Boston years ago. I shut down my computer deeply disillusioned, having long believed that the Internet could provide useful information about absolutely anything.
I marched back into the bedroom dead on my feet. Of course Elise had not moved in the slightest, but in the expanded shadows of deepening night, it looked as though the expression on her face had altered slightly—sagging a bit—and the strap marks on her throat had darkened. Otherwise she looked at peace, proud of herself for having placed me in such an awkward situation.
My feet wouldn't move any farther so, unbuckling my trousers and dropping them onto the floor, I crawled uneasily into bed, sliding under the blanket alongside her—careful not to touch any part of her body. We both lay absolutely still, as if quietly acclimating ourselves to our respective fates, until I closed my eyes and, in moments, dropped off into a deep grave of sleep.
I was awakened by a massive pounding on my door. The bright-eyed slot on the night-table clock showed 3:26 A.M. Why the hell, I wondered, would anyone be knocking on my door at such a god-awful time ... unless one of the drunks from the lobby had found his way upstairs. In a few hours I'd have to climb out of bed and begin preparing for another day at the office. Something more than the knocking on my door seemed to be troubling me, but I couldn't quite grasp its tail and hold it still. When the pounding stopped, I gasped with relief, as if a fresh breeze had blown in my window. Then the pounding started again, louder than before, and I shouted, “Stop that racket or I'll call the cops!"
Only then did I remember Elise, poor Elise. Rolling over quickly onto my side I saw her stretched out beside me, a faint smile upon her lips.
EQMM, December 2008 Page 11