From different rental cars they'd watched him for three weeks every day, then three more Thursdays. They'd broken into his breezeway, his garage, and his house. They'd copied his keys, stolen his pillow, captured an unfinished glass of water, pulled hairs from his brush, and stuffed the pack of letters in his dresser drawer. There were days when Margaret was so ill she couldn't participate in the drive-bys or the stakeouts, and other days when she couldn't attend the meetings. Harold missed a couple in a row because of tests, and Arthur's last attack hadn't helped him keep the agenda. But the fact there were three of them erased the inequities of individual energy and health and attendance. Reynolds's “comeuppance” (Harold's word again) became Arthur's and Harold's goal, indistinguishable from Margaret's retribution.
* * * *
Harold pulled the string that turned on the fluorescent light suspended over the workbench. The rubber gloves made his hands sweat, but he helped her untangle the headphone cord from the oxygen tube and placed the tiny buds back in her ears. While she fiddled with the iPod to choose her song, he took the pillow from her lap, unzipped the clear plastic cover. “S'marvelous...” she sang tunelessly, as if he wasn't there. He straightened her scarf and patted her on the back as if to ask if she was ready. She was nodding, perhaps to the mute question, maybe to the music. Head down, eyes raised, she watched him over her thick glasses as he approached, then gave him a thumbs up and a grim smile. He gently removed her oxygen mask and lowered it, fondly, bending down to kiss her cheek. He heard the oxygen hissing and felt a wet tear on his face. Hers or his? He held the pillow over her. She didn't struggle, just slumped, then twitched automatically at the end when the body obstinately argued for life. He placed the pillow on her handlebars and lowered her head gently onto it, face down as if she were napping. He took two yellow-brown plastic pill bottles and tweezers from his left chest pocket and delicately laid single hairs on her scarf and skirt from one, drizzled drops of clear liquid on the pillow from the other. Harold jumped when Arthur rapped twice on the garage door, signaling he was ready to go. He placed the tweezers, the rubber gloves, and the pill bottles in the clear plastic pillow cover and zipped it up.
* * * *
"Huh?” Arthur shakes his head awake. “What?” Harold nods toward the young minister standing beside the billiards table. Arthur smacks his lips. His mouth is dry. He pulls in his legs, sits up straight, and folds his hands in his lap as the young minister begins to speak about Margaret as if he'd known her, something about sacrifice.
"Bunk,” says Harold. Did he say it out loud? Both policemen look their way, frowning. Cops attend funerals to see if the killers come to gloat. Harold read that somewhere. They hadn't a shred of evidence, thought Arthur. Did they? Harold shakes his head as if he's heard.
* * * *
Arthur could see the lights on Locust Tree Lane through the leafless trees between the lots. They had pulled into the rutted driveway of a lot no one had purchased a block south of Reynolds's. A rotting stake with a dull orange tip, once identifying some utility, lay uprooted near the road, almost buried among the second-growth maples and small balsams reclaiming their territory. Arthur turned the van lights off and said an automatic “sorry” before he farted and rolled down his window. Harold grunted an understanding, eyes on Reynolds's garage doors, mind on Margaret. With the window down and the dark coming on, they could hear the crickets in the clearing singing, regretting nothing but the night. Reynolds was due home any minute. Lights were on over the garage door and front porch. Arthur checked his watch. It was 5:17 p.m. Reynolds had them set on a timer to come on at exactly 5:15 every day.
Arthur got out and peed in the ditch beside the rutted driveway. Damned coffee ran through you like a caffeine creek. He strained to see the lot in the dark. One day a family might live on this spot, might try to build a life without regrets, or might hide their regrets behind an inability to address them, might grow old without resolving them.
Harold whistled, waving Arthur back into the van. It was Reynolds. They watched through the trees as he backed up into his clean black driveway. The highly waxed Taurus wagon reflected the lights of the porch and garage. He hesitated for a moment and Arthur's stomach clutched, wondering if he'd seen something that suggested people had visited his home. The garage door opened silently, like the maw of a whale, and Reynolds backed in quickly, eye on the tennis ball in the rearview mirror like a thousand times before, closing the door with the remote before he even stopped his car. For the last time in his life.
Arthur and Harold waited, teeth clenched, breathing suspended. Harold crossed himself, then looked surprised he'd done it. Arthur stared, unblinking, at the breezeway until Reynolds ran in panic from the garage to his house. Harold smiled. Arthur started the van. They drove for six minutes and twenty seconds to the pay telephone behind Daley's Fried Chicken in Eastbank Mall where they called 911. Harold tossed the plastic bag into the dumpster, just like they'd rehearsed.
* * * *
Margaret would have left long ago if she could've. The young minister bleats about valleys and shadows of death. Arthur steals a glance at the cops. They know, each in their way, he thinks. The young one with the dirty tie suspects murder, and suspicion infatuates him. The wise one suspects justice, and murder doesn't bother him at all.
Harold looks gray, thinks Arthur. Sickly. Good thing his turn is next.
Copyright © 2006 Dennis Richard Murphy
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TAKEDOWN by RICHARD F. MCGONEGAL
Maybe if they hadn't stuffed the wadded washcloth in my mouth, I could have let it go.
Or maybe not. The crime—clever in its simplicity—fascinated me.
But already I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning, when the two men entered.
The mid October evening air was brisk but hardly chilling. I was sitting alone at the folding table in the theater lobby, staring at a chessboard that was largely empty, attempting to solve a mate-in-three-moves problem from The Manual of Chess by former world chess champion Emanuel Lasker.
I'm not much of a thespian—or athlete or car guy, for that matter—but I like chess, and I'm pretty good. One way our high school chess club raises money is by selling tickets and bottled water during school plays. The theater department gets the proceeds from ticket sales, and we get the profits from selling water, which at a buck a bottle can add up quickly.
The performance was opening night of the season's biggest production, the annual musical, but the job was easy; the only busy periods were before curtain and during intermission. Aside from that, I seldom saw audience members unless they needed a bathroom break.
Amid the background drone of orchestra and applause, and absorbed in the Lasker puzzle, I failed to notice the two guys until they were standing beside the table. I looked up from their tan coveralls and focused on their black ski masks, and I was pretty sure at that moment that I was in trouble. In fact, I think I may have muttered something like “Oh, shit."
As I scrambled to my feet, the taller of the men seized my upper arm in a viselike grip. “Don't scream. Don't shout,” he warned. “Everything's gonna be fine.” He paused and stared at me. My expression must have convinced him I was too frightened to be anything but docile. “Let's you and me walk to that office over there,” he instructed.
"You know,” I said, “there's a couple hundred people right through those—"
"Walk. Don't talk,” he interrupted.
As I walked, I contemplated how Emanuel Lasker would study not only the chessboard but also the demeanor and gestures of his opponents.
I glanced back and caught a glimpse of the shorter man tucking both the metal cashbox with the ticket receipts and the cash bag containing the water proceeds under his arm. As he hurried to the outer doors, his only notable aspect was his perfect posture.
"Open it,” the taller man ordered when we reached the office door. I continued following his instruction. I put my hands behind my back and al
lowed my wrists to be duct taped together, then sat on the floor, where my ankles similarly were bound together with duct tape.
The man then produced a white washcloth from a pocket, wadded it, and shoved it unceremoniously into my mouth. He finished by ripping and pressing a rectangle of duct tape over my lips.
Suitably bound, gagged, and humiliated, I watched the taller man rise from his crouch.
He paused momentarily and gazed down at me through the eyeholes in his ski mask, almost as if admiring his work. Then he left, closing the door behind him.
* * * *
A few weeks later, I was walking to class with Albert, a fellow chess club member, when a voice from behind called: “Hey, Roly."
I wasn't fond of the nickname, Roly, which had been pinned on me in grade school. It was a derivative of my given name, Roland, and of roly-poly, which I was before my pubescent metamorphosis into a lanky, gangly teenager.
I'm aware of the stereotypical chess club member, and unfortunately, that characterization mostly applies to me. I'm smart, nerdy, and uncoordinated. I do not, however, fasten the top button of my shirt. I wear glasses, but the bridge is not taped, and although I carry a few pens in my shirt pocket, I do not wear a plastic pocket protector.
Albert defies even the nerdy stereotype. Like Winnie the Pooh's self-assessment, he is “short and round,” with large ears and a habit of wrinkling his nose like a mouse who has just inhaled a whiff of Muenster cheese.
In contrast, Gary is handsome, athletic, and poised. He is a state wrestling champion and captain of our team; he rules the “cool” table at lunch and dates Misty Magarelli, the most drooled-after girl in school.
He rarely had much to do with us, but I wasn't entirely surprised when he hailed me in the hallway.
"Hey, Gary,” I greeted as he neared. “How's your mom?"
"You heard, huh?” he asked, referring to the weekend robbery, which had occurred two weeks after the one involving me. “She's okay. The doctor said head wounds bleed a lot and often look worse than they are. Mostly, she's angry and upset. She feels responsible for the money that was stolen."
"Welcome to my world,” I replied. In the periphery of my vision, I watched Albert fidget.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about,” Gary said. “I thought maybe we could compare notes. See what's similar."
"Yeah, sure,” I agreed.
A bell resounded, heralding two minutes until the next class.
"We're gonna be late,” Albert chastised.
"Can you meet me in the cafeteria after school?” Gary asked.
"Sure,” I said.
* * * *
I was staring at an open textbook, absorbed in a trigonometry problem, when Gary entered the largely empty cafeteria and sat across from me at the lunch table. Aside from us, the only people remaining in the large room were a few of the lunch ladies, who were nearly finished unloading the industrial dishwasher, and Eddie the janitor, who was pushing a wide dust mop in the aisles.
"So,” Gary said, leaning in across the table, “you were the only witness to your robbery, right?"
"Right,” I affirmed.
"The guys who are doin’ this strike me as pretty crafty,” he observed.
"I'll say,” I agreed. “I've been thinking about it. Instead of high-risk places like banks or convenience stores with alarms, surveillance cameras, and employees who are trained to remain calm and get descriptions, these guys are taking down the opposite. Look at me and your mom. We were alone and hardly trained to deal with masked, perhaps armed, assailants. I was scared out of my wits. And look at all the money they got. Probably more than most store cash registers. And it was all small unmarked bills—ready to spend."
Gary pondered my analysis, then leaned back in his chair. “You and Albert are pretty tight, huh?"
"Well, we're both in the chess club and we take—” I began before interrupting myself. “What are you suggesting?"
Gary shrugged. “I'm not suggesting anything,” he protested.
"I think I see where this is going,” I said. “This was one of the first things the police questioned me about. Was I the inside man on an inside job?” I paused. “Sure, it would have been easy for me to have a buddy tape me up, take the money, then split it later. That would be pretty slick, but there's one problem. I wouldn't steal from my own club."
I stood abruptly and slammed closed my trigonometry textbook. “I'm outta here."
I left the cafeteria and was striding down the hallway when Gary caught up with me.
"Look,” he said, walking beside me. “I'm sorry. Okay. I just had to know if you were involved before I could trust you."
I kept walking.
"Those guys hurt my mom,” Gary said. “I want ‘em caught."
"So do I,” I said, without breaking stride.
"Then let's work together. Okay?"
I stopped.
"Okay?” he repeated.
I shrugged, releasing a significant amount of pique.
"C'mon,” Gary pleaded. “No hard feelings? Let me buy you a burger or somethin’ and we'll talk.
"Okay,” I agreed.
* * * *
Every town has a popular hangout for teenagers when the school day is done. In our town it's Millie's Diner.
Gary and I sat across from each other in a booth, in plain sight of classmates gawking and wondering what circumstances had brought together a chess geek and popular jock.
Ronnie Starke, a marginal student who had graduated, barely, a year ahead of us, sauntered over to take our orders.
I went with a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke; Gary, who was trying to make his weight class for the upcoming wrestling season, was content with water.
After Ronnie left us, we shared what we knew about the two robberies.
I went first and mostly had finished when the food arrived. While I chowed down, Gary related the incident involving his mother.
Gary's mom and another West Elementary School PTA officer, Clara Wilcox, were manning the ticket table for the school's annual fall carnival. Their task involved sitting at a table in the main entryway, selling tickets to eager youngsters who then proceeded to the classrooms in hopes of winning prizes at a variety of games—miniature golf, beanbag toss, cake walk, etc.
About thirty minutes after the carnival began and the line for tickets had subsided, Clara excused herself to use the restroom.
Moments later two men approached Gary's mom from behind. She described them as white males, one about three inches taller than the other. Both wore tan coats, blue jeans, and clear plastic gloves, and both had nylon stockings pulled over their faces.
Despite her struggles, the two men dragged her to a nearby classroom, where they attempted to tape her wrists and ankles and to force a wadded washcloth into her mouth. She resisted and the trio eventually collapsed in a heap.
As they fell down together, Gary's mom banged her forehead against the corner of a desk. Her last recollection was the sight of her blood saturating the carpet. Then everything went blank until she was revived by emergency medical technicians, surrounded by a group of concerned PTA parents.
When she became lucid enough to ask about the proceeds from the ticket sales, she was told the cashbox was missing. Further inquiry revealed that no one else recalled seeing the two men she described.
I summoned Ronnie for a refill of Coke while I pondered Gary's narrative.
"Okay,” I said. “Let's consider what's similar. Two white guys, one taller than the other. Could your mom estimate the height of either one?"
"She guessed the taller one was about six feet, maybe more. The shorter guy she figured was five nine, maybe five ten."
"That sounds about right,” I affirmed. “Your mom said both wore clear plastic gloves and had stockings over their faces?"
"Uh huh."
"My guys wore ski masks and black gloves, but they came from outside and weren't expecting to encounter anyone but me. I'm guessing the guys who rob
bed your mom came through a side door and had the gloves and stockings stashed in their pockets. They probably blended in like a couple of dads or big brothers killing time."
Gary nodded agreement.
"What about the duct tape?"
"Standard gray duct tape."
"And the washcloth?"
"Police found it on the carpet,” Gary answered. “A plain, white terrycloth washcloth. The tag had been cut out of it."
A silence ensued as we contemplated our shared information.
"That really isn't much to go on,” Gary conceded.
"Yeah,” I agreed.
"So what's next?"
I shrugged. “I wish I knew."
* * * *
Gary was only a few people behind me in the lunch line, so I waited, holding my plastic tray laden with food.
"Hey Roly, what's up?” Gary said, when he exited the line with a contrasting meager amount of food on his tray.
"I've been thinking about the two guys,” I said. “Plus—"
"C'mon,” he interrupted, gesturing toward his customary lunch table.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea. What about—"
"C'mon,” he insisted. “I wanna hear what you've got to say."
Reluctantly, I followed him to the proverbial “cool” table. As I set down my tray and pulled out a chair beside Gary, I offered an apologetic smile to the trio seated across from me. They included the rangy Ryan Paulson, singles and doubles tennis standout; the gigantic Frank Sansone, one of Gary's fellow wrestlers, a heavyweight; and the muscular Dave Ormosi, baseball slugger and center fielder.
"Hey, Gary, what's goin’ on?” Frank inquired, tilting his head in my direction.
"Roly's here as my guest,” Gary replied. “You got a problem with that?"
"Maybe,” Frank answered.
"Then maybe you can start sittin’ someplace else."
Frank swiveled his gaze to Ryan, who shrugged and pushed food around his plate, to Dave, who continued gobbling his lunch. Unable to generate support, Frank gave me a menacing stare, then pushed his chair back from the table. “I was pretty much finished anyway,” he said. He arose and left.
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