Sex and Murder

by Douglas Allen Rhodes

  Chapter Fifteen

  Around one in the afternoon, I set out for the parking lot to retrieve the green ‘94 Grand Am I’d hidden there. It wasn’t anywhere near the Caddi in style, comfort, or quality, but it was inconspicuous and it would do the job.

  By the time I arrived back at the hotel, Rachel had everything packed and ready to go. We loaded up the car, and twenty minutes later we pulled up to the U.S. Customs checkpoint.

  During the drive over from the hotel, I had run over every conceivable question that the customs agent might ask, practicing an answer for each one. It was vital that they didn’t search the car, what with the two guns, the knife, and the scalpel we’d stashed under the seat. With all this in mind, I slowed and pulled up to the check point, confident that I could answer any question, no matter how clever or bizarre, that the customs agent might try to trip me up with.

  “What country are you from?” the agent barked as I rolled to a stop beside him.

  This time, our interrogator was no Scott Hall—far from it. He was your typical, corn-fed, southern baked, all-to-familiar U.S. police officer, with one important difference: he had the full authority of U.S. Customs behind him. If you don’t think that’s a big difference, then you don’t know how much power those guys really have.

  He’d asked me a simple enough question; so simple, in fact, that I, in my typical American conceit, never expected it. I mean seriously: “What country are you from?” Where the hell else would I be from? Like I said, American pride—it’s a bitch.

  Anyway, I froze. For long seconds, each of which felt like an eternity unto itself, I just sat there, staring up into cold, mirrored sunglass eyes that reflected only my own confused and guilty-looking reflection.

  “Uh…,” I managed and then several seconds later, “America.”

  I sounded so unconvincing that I began to doubt my nationality. Rachel tried to help.

  “Yeah, USA, man,” she said, but instead of helping, she came across like a stoned teenager.

  With a sharp, suspicious gesture, the mirrored shades came off, leaving me staring into hard, unbelieving eyes. I looked into those eyes, those small coal-like orbs, and I knew we were fucked. He didn’t know exactly what was up with us, but he definitely knew we weren’t on the level. There was no doubt that a search of our car was imminent.

  And then the Cuban saved us.

  A ragged and unkempt-looking fellow, in torn brown pants and a tank top, burst out of the Customs office without warning, just as the agent was going to pronounce our doom, and started snapping pictures of Rachel, me, and the guard with a small, disposable camera.

  The agent’s gaze shot to him. I followed with my own eyes. The man was one of four Cubans; the other three seated inside the Customs office watched everything through the glass front wall.

  The agent spun and headed for the photographer.

  “Goddamn it,” he roared, closing space with the Cuban, “I told you to sit down in there and wait.”

  The Cuban turned to run, evidently wishing nothing more than to comply with the agent as soon as possible—but not soon enough. He took no more than a couple of steps and the Customs agent reached him, snatching his camera. The man tried to escape again, but before he could, the agent kicked him in the ass, not too hard but with enough force to get the message across.

  “And no pictures, damn it. Read the sign.”

  I, in fact, did read the sign. Sure enough, in big red letters, it ordered NO PHOTOGRAPHS. Of course, it was in English, but hey, was it Johnny Customs’s fault that Cuban Pete only read Spanish?

  By the time the agent returned to my window, I knew that we weren’t in danger any longer. It’s simple American racism of the Good Ol’ Boy variety. Basically put, he was white, we were white, and we’d just been privileged to witness him—in all his Caucasian glory—reigning in an uncivilized spic who’d dared to get uppity. There was nothing he could do with us now but gloat.

  He looked down at me, and—sweet day in the morning—cracked a wry smile.

  “Natives getting restless?” I quipped.

  “We get ‘em like that sometimes,” he joked. “You can pass.”

  Well, of course we can, White Man. We’re part of the club.

  * * * *

  The wreck happened less than an hour after we’d crossed the border.

  We sped along at close to eighty-five miles per hour on a deserted stretch of New York highway, listening to a Doors tape we’d picked up at a service station a few miles back. To be honest, we weren’t going anywhere in particular. Our plan—or lack thereof—consisted of drifting in an aimless fashion across the U.S. leaving a trail of bodies in our wake. Granted, not the best way to go, but then again, it wasn’t the worst.

  Riders on the storm, the charismatic voice of Jim Morrison called out from the speakers. Into this house you’re born, into this world you’re thrown, like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan….

  Melodic and mystical, the music flowed over us. I’ve always been entranced by Jim Morrison’s work, from his music to his poetry. There’s something positively spiritual about him. Rachel seemed to be under the same spell as me, and we both sat quietly, letting the song have its voice.

  If you give this man a ride, sweet family will die. Killer on the road….

  I turned and looked at Rachel. It’s one of those things that becomes ingrained in a person after a few years of marriage; when the song speaks about something you share, you look at your wife. Believe me, it’s good politics. This time, however, it was a mistake.

  Her gaze never met mine. Instead, a look of panic etched itself across her features. The soft, almost faerie-like qualities of her face vanished. In their place, hard lines of anticipation and fear marred her beauty. It seemed as if I stared at her for hours, memorizing her, recording her appearance for posterity. An awful feeling clenched my stomach and squeezed. Slowly, as though time was no longer able to function properly, I saw her mouth, drawn thin and hard, form words of warning.

  “Watch out!” Her scream threw my gaze back to the windshield.

  A deer stood ahead of us in the centre of our lane, unable to tear its stare from the looming death that bore down on it. I cursed and jerked the wheel to the right, looking to swerve around the animal. To that extent, I succeeded. I careened off the road and onto a patch of unstable gravel and dirt. Time, which had briefly resumed its natural flow, slowed once again to a barely perceptible crawl. The next few seconds comprised a lifetime of their own, forming a new and horrific reality.

  We’d missed and passed the deer. Now I faced the threat of losing control of the car at eighty miles per hour. In an effort to regain the road, I cranked the steering wheel to the left and tapped the accelerator. It seemed like the right thing to do, but it was far too little, much too late. I’d over-compensated in my attempt to miss the deer and took the car too far off the road. My wheels slid, and the loose dirt and gravel sent the car’s rear end into a spin. I tried to right myself, but the spin had gone too far, and I only succeeded in placing an unhealthy strain on the balance of the car. All this would have meant a lot less in my old Deville or the SUV we’d left behind, but the ‘94 Grand Am had a small wheel base.

  The car began to roll.

  It seemed unreal; I didn’t think it would actually happen. I thought that, at most, we would lift maybe a foot or two off of the ground on the driver’s side before settling back down on all four tires. I was wrong.

  The car flipped upside down and left contact with the road altogether. An infinity of uncertainty played itself out in my mind until I realized I was falling towards the ceiling. As a rule, I never wear seat belts, and this time was no exception; that’s what saved my life.

  My head impacted with the ceiling just as the car’s roof hit the ground. In an almost cartoonish way, my head smashed down against my shoulders—like my neck had disappeared. I heard more than felt the force of the blow—a cacophony of crumpling metal and crackling bone. I’d barely
processed the hit and the change from up to down when perspective flipped again and I fell—or, rather, was thrown—back towards the floor. My ass met the unwelcome presence of the gearshift, and I became vaguely aware that Rachel sat next to me, buckled in and riding out the storm.

  About halfway through the second roll, the rear windshield shattered. It gave off an odd note, more vivid and real than any movie sound effect has ever managed, and filled the tumbling car with thousands of razor shards. My senses sharpened greater than ever before (mortal danger will do that), and of a sudden I heard everything, from the rending of the car’s steel and plastic, to the grinding of gravel on dirt, to the crumpling cellophane sound made by the pieces of the car’s windows as they tumbled around inside the car.

  We managed two more rolls, four in all, before we landed on our wheels. During the third revolution, the front windshield and side windows joined the rear one in shattering, leaving glass shards everywhere, including several embedded in my head. The fourth roll turned out to be anticlimactic, old hat after the previous three, and for a tentative moment at the end, it looked like the car would try for one more roll and leave us upturned in its failure. The car teetered up onto two wheels for a moment before it balanced itself back out on all fours, ending the wreck.

  Dazed and unable to think, I found myself sitting on Rachel’s lap.

  Time warped forward, barreling like a freight train that’s late for its pick up. The disorienting effect of feeling it right itself stole away any sense that I had managed to retain through the roll. Luckily, Jim Morrison was there to break the fog and set me back on firm reality.

  Take him by the hand, try to understand….

  I assessed the damage the car had taken and shook my head. White-hot pokers of pain punctured my eyes, convincing me to hold still.

  The car was totaled. If I’d have stayed in my seat, I undoubtedly would have died because the roof on my side had been crushed down to below chest level. The crash mangled the hood, and all the interior gauges gave varied and inaccurate readings. Yet through it all, the tape player played away. I remember thinking that it would have made a great commercial for Sony.

  That’s the first moment I truly thought about Rachel. I turned to mention the commercial idea to her and froze, my words stopping in my throat.

  I knew she was dead immediately. You can’t look death in the face every day without noticing what color eyes she has. Rachel’s head hung ungainly to the side, in an unnatural position. There seemed to be no tension in her body at all. Her eyes—large and beautiful as always, but no longer filled with childlike innocence—glared wide open and sightless out the hole where the windshield had been. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth to her cheek, dripped onto her leg, and formed a tiny puddle in a crease of her pants.

  I sat transfixed, like the deer had, and stared at my wife. No tears came to my eyes, no sadness welled up within me, yet I felt an all-encompassing sense of separation, not just from her but from myself as well.

  In that moment, I felt my self die. Not my physical self—apart from the glass in my head and the pains in my neck I was fine—but my former identity. When I’d killed my first victim, I’d begun to die. Slowly, day by day, the me I’d existed within had faded away, leaving a new being behind, a harder being.

  At first, that being had been unnamed and abstract, more an idea than a reality, but as the killings progressed he’d become better and more defined, even gaining a name, until the last part of the old me that still existed was Rachel.

  I had tried to integrate her into my world. I’d shown her how to kill and, more importantly, why. But, to her, it had always been something far different than it was to me. To her it was a game, a way for her to be part of me. I truly believe she loved me.

  I know I loved her; at least, the old me had.

  Robert Parker on the other hand, is different. He’s incapable of love, incapable of any emotions really, his sole purpose for existing, my sole purpose for existing, is to kill.

  There in the wreckage of my former life, I found myself alone for the first time. The door to my cage swung open in my mind, its iron bars clanging harshly against each other in a last ditch call to rationality. I ignored them and walked free; society no longer constrained me.

  Placing my hand underneath Rachel’s chin, I turned her head to face me. Her neck released a sweet chorus of grinds and crackles, its shattered insides scraping rudely against each other. Doe eyes filled with death looked deep into me, calling me, enticing me. I leaned down and softly kissed her lips. They parted without resistance, and my mouth filled with the warm, salty taste of her blood.

  I pushed her car door open and crawled over her and out of the car. All around me, rain had started to fall, its cold drops stabbing my face. I smiled a blood red smile into the coming storm and moved to undo Rachel’s seatbelt. Once I had her free, I pulled her from the car and laid her down upon the ground.

  Still and beautiful, she lay there, her eyes turned towards a heaven they would never see. With haste, I stripped off my clothes. I wanted to be exposed, revealed in the elements.

  The rain fell hard upon me, washing away bits of glass and blood. I relished its icy sting and threw back my head and laughed. My arms rose in exultance above my head, and I bellowed out a primal noise that was both the first cry of life and the last wail of death.

  In the distance, a slick-looking BMW approached. It occurred to me that I didn’t know whether it was the first car to happen by our wreck or not, but I do doubt that I could have stood along the road for as long as I had without someone seeing me.

  I hoped the Beemer would just pass by, but it obviously meant to stop. I stepped a little way away from the wreck and flagged it down. The car pulled off the road about fifty feet from me.

  I continued waving, trying my damnedest to look frantic, and a large black man stepped out of the car’s driver’s side, leaving his engine running. He just stood there outside his car, looking at me with confusion on his face.

  “Hey, yo,” I called. “Hey, come help. There’s been an accident!”

  The actual cry for help seemed to break through, spurring him into action. Within seconds, he shortened the fifty feet between us down to ten.

  “Oh, God,” I blubbered. “I’m so glad you’re here. My car rolled. My wife…oh, God…I think she’s dead.”

  I laid the melodrama on pretty thick, and he sprinted the last ten feet, coming around the car’s back end to face me. He got his first really good look at Rachel and me, and his eyes grew wide. He stared at me first, but seemed unable to make sense of the babbling and naked white boy. He turned to Rachel.

  Without warning, he puked, spilling his lunch all over the ground in front of him. It startled me and I gazed down at Rachel. Her head had rolled to the side, bent at an angle no living woman could have managed. Blood covered her bottom lip and chin and had flowed down to pool around her head.

  Once he’d purged his stomach, he turned to face me again. He shook his head and asked a rapid-fire succession of questions.

  “What happened? Are you all right? Why the fuck are you naked?”

  Up close, he was even bigger than he’d looked from far away—easily 6’6” and 350 lbs. I looked down at myself, as if noticing my nakedness for the first time, and acted shocked.

  “My God,” I said, a quiver of well-acted fear running through my voice. “I’m naked!”

  Big Dude’s eyes told the tale of what was running through his mind. Pity, a little concern, and a whole heaping certainty that I was about fifty-one cards short and had just dropped my ace.

  “Hell, yeah, you’re naked,” he spat out. “You got some clothes in your car?”

  I nodded and turned to climb partway into the car. Instead of the clothes, I located my .45 under the seat and undid the safety. I re-emerged from the ruined husk of the Grand Am and fired two rounds into the big man’s face. Now usually it’s better to shoot for the chest—it’s bigger and it doe
sn’t move a lot so it’s easier to hit—but you can never be sure that a big guy like that will go down on the first couple of slugs. Face shots, on the other hand, will always stop a man cold.

  He fell, dead.

  I decided I should leave—leave quickly, for that matter. I crawled back inside the car, found the keys, walked around the back, and sprung the trunk. It wasn’t easy to get it open—the wreck had dinged it up pretty badly, but after a minute, I got it to pop.

  I pulled out our luggage and set the bags on the ground. Opening them, I took out some clothes, brushed the remaining shards of glass off of my body, and dressed in a semi-dry outfit. Finished, I loaded everything I had—including the 9mm, the scalpel, and my knife—onto the back seat of my new BMW.

  I tried to load the bodies into the trunk—a no-go. I probably should have guessed, but a humongous speaker box already occupied it.

  Oh, well. I closed the trunk and began loading the bodies into the car. At least I’ll have a good system for the trip.

  Using all my strength, I managed to dump the car’s previous owner in the back with the luggage and then propped Rachel up in the passenger’s seat, making sure to buckle her in. Climbing into the driver’s side, I engaged the gear and put as many miles between myself and the car wreck as possible.

  Plans had changed. I no longer intended to jump from place to place killing in a haphazard and indiscriminate fashion. I was Robert Parker now. Pulling my wet pants from the back seat, I took out my license and read the address printed on it. I had a new home too. I figured I might as well go check it out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  My home in Illinois turned out to be a large house in a suburb of Chicago. It had the look of a place a junior partner in a law firm or a doctor in his late thirties would own.