by Tim Kizer
Richard rose from the sofa and, after a short hesitation, said, "This means less work for us."
He sighed. He was still unsure if he should have let Kathy come to his house to help him with cleaning. She had asked if she could come while they were at the restaurant, and he couldn't have brought himself to say no.
"There’s a ton of dust here.” Kathy was in the master bedroom now. “I'll take care of it."
Richard climbed the stairs and went to the master bedroom. He wanted to see if Kathy was exaggerating the amount of dust. Kathy left the master bedroom when he was about to enter it.
"I'll start with the living room," she said.
"Okay."
He surveyed the room, which, despite what Kathy had said, looked pretty clean to him. Then he noticed that the closet door was ajar. He clearly remembered that the door was closed the last time he had seen it. He walked up to the closet, opened it, and froze. Mary's clothes and shoes were gone. All of them. Staring at empty hangers, Richard growled with anger.
Who had stolen the clothes and shoes? Was it that mysterious woman in blue jeans? This damn bitch seemed to feel at home in his house.
Richard did not want to stress about it. Those clothes were useless to him. He had a couple of questions, though. How had the thief managed to get inside? And why hadn’t she taken more expensive things?
Dammit, his house had become too easy to enter. He was going to get killed one of these days.
When Richard shut the closet door, he heard Kathy scream on the first floor. Without wasting a second, he ran out of the room and rushed downstairs. He found Kathy in the hallway, a mop in her hands.
"What happened?" Richard looked at the mop and saw a dark brown stain on its sponge. He thought it could be blood.
Her face pale with fright, Kathy pointed at the floor.
"I killed a mouse." She clutched at his elbow.
"A mouse?" Richard lowered his eyes to the floor and was surprised to see a dead mouse. He stepped up to the rodent’s crushed body and bent over it.
"Yeah, it really is a mouse," he said. "Good job, Kathy.” He straightened up. “We’ve never had mice before."
"Now you do. I'll clean it up, don't worry."
"Well, let's take a break. You must be in shock.” Richard took the mop from Kathy and leaned it against the wall.
"I wouldn’t say I’m in shock.”
They headed toward the living room, and Kathy said, “You should call exterminators. If you wait too long, there will be hundreds of them."
"I'll take care of it. Please take a seat. I'll go get you something to drink. Is orange juice okay?"
“Yes.”
When Richard returned from the kitchen, holding a bottle of orange juice and two glasses in his hands, Kathy said, "You could have rats here, too."
"Don't worry. I'll take care of it."
“Maybe you should get a cat.”
Richard sat next to Kathy and started filling the glasses with juice.
"You know what my mom said about you?" Kathy picked up her glass from the table.
"What did she say?"
"That you're a nice guy." Kathy giggled, her cheeks blushing red.
"Really?" Richard smiled.
"You know what else she said?"
"What else did your mom say?"
"That your wife didn't go missing."
"What happened to her then?" Richard asked in a nonchalant tone.
"Mom said you killed her and hid her body somewhere." Kathy laughed.
Even though Kathy’s words came as a total surprise, Richard didn’t bat an eyelid. Keeping a smile on his face, Richard looked at Kathy as his mind raced to determine the best course of action.
“Your mom is hilarious,” he said.
Was Kathy dropping him a hint that she was onto him? Was she trying to provoke him?
At the moment, he saw no guile in her eyes.
“Yes, she is. She has a unique sense of humor.”
“Tell her I liked her joke.”
“Okay, I will.” Kathy took a sip of juice. "She said you might have hidden the body in a wall. Like in that movie."
"She has a wild imagination.”
“She sure does.” Kathy put her hand on his shoulder. “I think I shouldn’t have touched this subject. I don’t know why I did. I guess I’m dumb.”
“It’s all right. I can handle it.”
After a long silence Kathy said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to.” Kathy cleared her throat. “I’ve been wondering… That Saturday night you were visiting a friend, weren’t you?" Kathy creased her forehead.
"Which Saturday?"
"When we first met."
Richard thought for a moment and said, "No, I wasn’t visiting a friend that night."
He gave Kathy a puzzled look. She was up to something. He had never told her he had been visiting a friend that Saturday. She was probably fishing for information.
“Okay.”
He had told her he had been at the lake. She could not have forgotten that so quickly.
"I want to tell you something, Kathy.” Richard put his hand on Kathy's. “I finally realized that I need your help."
"I'll be glad to help you." She fixed her eyes on his hand.
"Thank you, Kathy. I’m so tired." He breathed a heavy sigh. “It’s been a difficult week.”
"If you want, I... I could stay with you until Mary is found," Kathy said in a hoarse voice.
"You don’t have to do it."
"But you’re alone now. Who cooks for you? I could cook. I could help you clean the house, wash dishes."
"No, Kathy, that's not necessary. Even when Mary was here, we ate take-out food most of the time. As for dishes, I have a dishwasher." Richard cracked a small smile.
"But don't you feel lonely? I know what can happen to people who live alone. You must be under a lot of stress right now. There’s nothing worse than uncertainty.”
Richard nodded silently.
“Do you feel depressed?"
"No, I don’t. I feel worried, but not depressed."
"I understand.” Kathy sighed. “What if your wife never comes back? Some missing people are never found.”
Kathy looked into his eyes, and Richard suddenly realized that she wanted her words to come true. She wanted Mary to disappear from his life forever so he would regain his freedom and be able to marry again.
"Do you think they’ll never find Mary?” Richard asked quietly.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
After a hesitation, Richard said, “Let’s not talk about it.”
"I’m sorry, Richard. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s all right.”
There was a short pause before Kathy said, “Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Should I tell anyone where you were that Saturday night?"
In the silence that hung between them, Richard could hear his heart throbbing. In order to avoid a long pause, he said the first thing that came to his mind, "Where do you think I was that night?"
He raised his eyes from his plate.
Kathy did not answer. She stared at him with unblinking eyes as though attempting to hypnotize him. Richard felt a chill in the pit of his stomach.
What the hell was she up to?
"Kathy?"
"Well… Should I tell anyone where we met? I’ll keep it secret if you want.”
Richard swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, “Why would anyone want to know where we met?”
Kathy opened her eyes wide in surprise. She must have expected Richard to be more perceptive than he appeared right now.
"Your wife went missing that Saturday, didn’t she?"
"So what?"
Kathy pursed her lips, and then said, "If someone asks about it... Do you think you can explain where you were that night?"
"Of course I can." He
felt somewhat relieved. It appeared that she was worried for him. However, it was still unclear whether she suspected him of murdering his wife or not. "I think I told you that I was at the lake."
Kathy was silent for some time, processing his words. Then she took him by the hand and said, "Richard, I won’t tell anyone about this. I promise."
"About what?"
"You see, you weren’t driving from the lake that night." She gave him a meaningful look.
"What makes you think so?"
"That road is north of the lake.”
“So what?”
“And you live south of the lake. You wouldn’t have taken that highway if you were driving home from the lake. You would have gone straight to Route 9.”
"Are you sure?" He visualized the map of the area around Lake Stevens and realized that Kathy was right. He had met Kathy on Granite Falls Highway, which indeed was north of the lake. "Are you saying I took the wrong road?"
"I think you weren’t at the lake that night."
"Really?" Richard began to dislike this conversation. "Where do you think I was?"
He could say that he had made a detour by mistake, but something was telling him she was not going to believe him.
“I don’t know. Probably in Granite Falls.” Kathy squeezed his hand lightly. “But you have nothing to worry about, Richard. I won’t tell anyone about it."
"Do you think I lied to you?” Richard lifted an eyebrow. “I took the wrong turn. I do that from time to time when I don’t use the GPS. I’m sure it’s happened to you, too."
Suddenly it occurred to him: she probably believed he had visited a mistress that Saturday.
"Okay, I believe you.” Kathy lowered her eyes. Judging by the tone of her voice, she said that only to placate him.
"I’m telling you the truth, Kathy. I simply took the wrong turn."
Richard was glad Kathy had finally dropped the subject.
Why was she so eager to help him? That was an interesting question.
"I didn't mean to upset you, Richard. I understand that you’re under a lot of stress right now."
"I’m not upset. I appreciate your concern.” Richard drank from the glass.
If Kathy thought he had murdered Mary, would she come to his house alone? Was she that reckless?
“Did I tell you that Mary called her brother’s girlfriend last Monday?” he said, putting the glass on the table.
“Last Monday?” Kathy bit her lower lip, digesting the new information. Richard could almost hear the wheels spinning in her brain as she figured out that Mary Brower was alive two days after they had met on Route 9.
“Yes. This gives me hope that she’s alive.”
“Uh-huh.” Kathy nodded. After a short pause, she asked, “What did the police say? Do they have any leads?"
"I doubt it. Today I talked to the guy in charge of Mary’s case. His name’s Steven Norris."
"Steve Norris?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"Yes." Kathy paused. "I work with his wife."
"What kind of person is he? Does he like to harass people?”
"No. Steve’s a nice guy. Very laid back."
"Can he find my wife?"
"Yes, I believe he can. He’s a good detective.”
"I hope you’re right, Kathy." Richard sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
3.
So what do we have here?
A full-figured woman who wasn’t young anymore. She didn’t want to leave him alone. She followed him around. And she had information about his whereabouts on the day his wife had supposedly disappeared.
The most important thing was that Kathy was not a blackmailer. She was an honest, decent woman. She was eager to help him. Why? What was in it for her? Cynical as it might seem, Richard had a hard time believing that she was trying to help him out of the kindness of her heart.
Why would a woman follow a man, attach herself to him? Maybe it was some sort of motherly instinct? Maybe she had a penchant for taking care of lonely men?
It could be love. It wasn’t far-fetched that Kathy had romantic feelings for him. She might have fallen for him the night they had met. What did Kathy like about him? His face? His character? Or his mysterious charm? Whatever it was, Richard was glad he had it.
4.
He woke up at five in the morning. After washing his face, he got in the car and went to look for the forest where he had buried Mary’s body. He kept telling himself that it was a stupid idea, but he could not resist the desire to see whether the police were searching the forest for his wife. He also considered digging up Mary’s grave to make sure that she was still in it. If her corpse was still buried in the ground, she could not have been the woman Susie had seen in his house, right?
When he drove onto the Granite Falls Highway, he slowed down to forty five miles an hour and began to scan the right side of the road every five seconds. He had no problem finding the road that led to the bridge from which Mary had jumped. He decided not to exit the highway out of fear that the police might be watching the area, waiting for the murderer to return to the crime scene. He made a U-turn half a minute later and headed back to Mill Creek.
5.
Later that day, Richard made a strange discovery: the box in which he had placed Mary's small stuff (things like prints, plush toys, and miniature ceramic rabbits) had vanished. He had left the box in a corner of the dining room; he could swear that he had seen it there this morning.
Only then did Richard notice that Mary’s worthless prints were back on the walls. And her ceramic rabbits and plush puppies had returned to where they had been before. Richard got upstairs and saw that all the prints he had removed from the walls of the second floor were back, too. As he stood in the hallway, he felt goosebumps rise on his arms.
Somebody had put everything back in its place!
She must have done it while he was out.
Why did he think the perpetrator was a female?
Because it was probably that mysterious woman Susie had told him about.
Burning with vexation, Richard ran downstairs and started searching for the box. He found it on top of a tall cabinet in the garage. Then he went through every room in the house and collected everything the mysterious woman had taken out of the box. He put all the items he had gathered in a trash bag. An hour later, he threw the trash bag in a public garbage bin in the northern part of Bothell.
CHAPTER 11
1.
In the morning of his fourth day in Miami, Richard, Meg, and Julia wandered along the beach, looking for seashells. Billy Oberly was still sleeping in his hotel room, tired from their adventures the night before. Billy loved to sleep.
"I heard there's a scuba diving school a couple of miles from here," Julia said. "How about we go there and take a few lessons? Scuba diving must be a lot of fun. We could go pearl hunting.”
“Do you want to be eaten by sharks?” Meg asked.
(Pearl hunting. Richard just saw a woman wearing a pearl necklace and thought of Julia and Meg again.)
The next day, Richard and the girls rented a speedboat and headed into the ocean.
"I love to drive speedboats!" Julia exclaimed, standing at the steering wheel.
When the boat was half a mile from the shore, Meg said, "We should have rented a boat without a motor. This boat’s very noisy."
"Come on, Meg," Julia said. "You're always exaggerating. It’s not that noisy."
"No, we should have taken a rowboat. Rowboats are so romantic."
“And slow,” Julia said.
“I’m okay with slow. I’m not obsessed with speed like you.”
"The problem is, you would have made me row the boat,” Richard said. "And it's not an easy thing to do, you know."
Five minutes later, Julia shut off the engine and said, “Let’s enjoy the scenery.”
Meg took three cans of diet Pepsi from the cooler and handed one can to Richard and one to Julia.
"Good thing we brought somet
hing to drink," Julia said.
"Richard, would you like some beer?” Meg gave Richard an attentive look, then pulled off her swim top and started massaging her breasts.
"I love it here." Julia drew a deep breath. "It's so quiet and calm."
They were silent for a minute, staring at the ocean and the sky. At last, Julia, who had gotten bored with lying on the bow, jumped in the water.
"There's a country in Europe called Bulgaria," she said. "They have a strange tradition. They shake their heads to mean yes, and they nod to mean no. Did you know that?"
No, they didn't know that.
"I just remembered a very funny thing," Meg said. "One of my high school classmates had really big ears. They were huge." She cupped her hands to her ears to show how big her classmate's ears were. "We always teased him about them."
And then Meg asked him if he remembered Martin. She skipped the preliminaries and simply asked, "Do you remember Martin?"
Fucking bitch.
He strangled both of them. It took him a lot of effort to do that. Despite their fragile appearance, the girls turned out to be pretty strong and robust. They kicked and scratched him, pulled at his hair, thrashed their arms, and yelled at the top of their lungs, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. Honestly, he could have lost that fight if not for the furious indignation that was burning in him at the time. He told himself that he would not consider himself a man if he failed to waste these bitches.
When he was finished with the girls, he had to deal with the problem of getting rid of the dead bodies. Unfortunately, there were no heavy objects on the boat that he could tie to the corpses. And it was too risky to bring the bodies to shore. The good thing was, the boat had been rented in Julia’s name, so he didn’t have to worry about returning it. Also, no one knew that he was with the girls on the boat that day, so if the bodies were found, he wasn’t going to be a suspect. After racking his brain for a while, Richard dumped the bodies in the ocean as they were, without weights. Having wiped all the surfaces he had touched, he sank the boat about a hundred yards from the shore.
It was the first time he had killed a woman. Or rather, women.
2.