Vengeance

by George Willson

  “Are you sure?” Sharon asked. “You tell me all the time that he’s never home. I couldn’t have done it without your father to back me up.”

  “Of course,” Athena insisted. “But he said he’ll be there for me.”

  “I still think you should consider waiting a little longer before bringing a child into your lives,” Sharon said in a cautionary tone.

  “Of all people,” Athena said, “I thought you’d be happy to hear that you might be getting some grandchildren.”

  “The thought thrills me, Athena,” her mother replied kindly. “I’m just worried for you and the child if Hank decides he can’t handle it.”

  “Hank is so wonderful to me, mom,” Athena protested. “He cares for me, and he’s not going anywhere. He’s doing well at work, too. He works long hours sometimes, but that’s his job. His students really seem to love him too. That’s got to count for something.”

  “That’s wonderful, honey,” Sharon said. “You just let me worry, and as soon as I hear the good news, I’ll be happy for you.”

  “Good,” Athena said, feeling victorious for some reason. “I just feel like my life is so perfect right now, nothing could go wrong.” She finished her tea, placed the cup on her coaster on the coffee table, and leaned back on the couch. Sharon immediately stood, took Athena’s cup, and walked to the kitchen. Athena watched her go for a moment before getting up and following her.

  The kitchen was little more than a line of cabinets around a small patch of white linoleum covered floor with a stove and refrigerator. The countertops were littered with a microwave, mixer, blender, along with several other appliances, canisters for dry goods, and a couple of cook books.

  Sharon carried the cups to the sink and proceeded to wash them by hand. Athena walked in behind her and saw by her mother’s expression that despite the apparent agreement they had only moments ago, her mother was still troubled by the idea of her having children. Sharon noticed Athena walk in behind her and sighed.

  “I can’t help but wonder what your father would think of all this,” Sharon said.

  “I don’t know,” Athena shrugged. “He only let us get married because of me anyway. Poor Hank could never get on dad’s good side.”

  “Your father was very perceptive, may he rest in peace,” Sharon said. “I wish I’d learned more from him before he passed on. So many things in life can change so quickly that you never know what you have until it’s taken away from you.”

  “How are you holding up?” Athena asked, in part grateful to change the subject.

  “As well as could be expected,” Sharon replied wiping a tear from an eye before rinsing out their tea cups. “I miss him terribly, of course, but I’m glad you decided to come by once a week to check on me.”

  “Well, I couldn’t have you trying to keep this place up all by yourself,” Athena said.

  “And I appreciate it,” Sharon said, “more than you’ll ever know. You give me something else to look forward to. Speaking of forward, you’ll keep an eye on the place while I’m on my trip, right? I’ve already asked that, haven’t I?”

  “Only every week for the last six months,” Athena laughed. “I even said I’d take you and your stuff over to the church to help you load up tomorrow morning.”

  “Sorry, I’m just nervous,” Sharon said. “I’ve gone on mission trips before, but never out of the country and never for an entire month.”

  “It’ll be great,” Athena assured her. “You’ll have fun, I just know it. You just better take care of yourself.”

  “I will,” Sharon said. She sighed. “And of course, I promise that whatever you and Hank decide will be fine with me. After all, there’s no time like the present, right?”

  “Thanks, mom,” Athena said, and they hugged. “I love you.”

  “I love you too, Athena.”

  The doorbell startled Athena out of her memories, and she sat upright back in her own living room. For a moment, she wondered if she had imagined the sound. She felt sweat beading on her forehead and walked to the kitchen for a paper towel to wipe her forehead as well as her eyes and nose as the tears and snot had slowly taken over as she was reminiscing. She shook her head at her stupidity once more recalling how wonderful she thought everything was when it turned out her dad was right all the time.

  The doorbell rang again, confirming its existence in her conscious world. She grabbed her bottle of Zoloft from the kitchen counter, popped a pill in her mouth, and chased it with a little water. As she walked toward the door, the doorbell rang once more.

  She opened the door to find a courier walking down the sidewalk away from the door with a small box about three inches on all sides in one hand and an electronic signature pad in his other. Hearing the door open, he turned around and walked back to her.

  “Need a signature on this one,” he told her as he handed her the signature pad. She signed for the package and exchanged his pad for the box. He thanked her, and she closed the door behind him as he left.

  She walked slowly across the living room staring at the package in her hands. She knew what it was and knew why she had ordered it. She had been so excited in waiting for it, because she could hardly wait to see Hank’s face when he opened it. She was supposed to wrap it for him today and give it to him tonight. She never forgot any celebration or special day and always made sure it was special for him. She made sure that what she bought was something he would treasure. She had put a lot of thought and research into this little box.

  “Happy birthday, Hank,” she said quietly, still staring at it.

  The disparate nature of their relationship hit her all at once, and she threw the little box across the room with every ounce of strength she had within her. It crashed against the wall behind the TV, shattering the contents despite its packaging. It dropped behind their media setup and out of sight.

  “Everything I did for you!” she screamed. “Everything! And for what?”

  She collapsed on the couch, bawling into her hands, finally allowing her anger to come out. The best way to describe this reaction is somewhat like a tantrum, but not like a child who doesn’t get his way. This was a woman whose emotional well being had been torn in half and her sanity stretched to the breaking point. Seated on the couch, she did stomp her feet on the floor and scream and pull at her hair, but it was the sort of display that would make even a friend stand back in alarm before gently trying to comfort in response. Unfortunately, Athena was alone, and because she knew she was, she held nothing back. She had no one to keep it in for. At the end of it all, she was just whimpering and breathing heavily having stormed herself into exhaustion. Before long, the doorbell rang again. Her wild, tear-stained eyes shot to the door. Without a care for her out of control hair, she stormed over to it and tore it open.

  “What?” she yelled. No one was there. She sniffled and calmed down, wiping her tears and nose on her shirt sleeve. If there had been someone there, she would have felt awful for yelling at them the way she did. With no one there, however, she was more confused than anything else. She knew she had heard the doorbell ring. Or had she? She looked back and forth outside the door. “Hello?”

  She soaked in the sunshine for a moment, part of her grateful to be outside for a moment. She hadn’t realized that she would find the sun so refreshing. She stepped outside fully and ran her fingers over her hair to smooth it out a little as she walked down her sidewalk. She took a deep breath and looked up and down the street. It was clear except for the courier truck turning the corner as it left. She accepted that perhaps the bell was a trick of her mind, so she shrugged and walked back inside.

  When she closed the door behind her, she failed to notice the faceless figure in black standing behind the door, waiting for her. It was the middle of the day so there were no shadows to obscure any aspect of its form. The dark clothing was loose enough to not be form-fitting, but it wasn’t big either. The person also was clearly only wearing black socks rather than any kind of shoe to further ob
scure any kind of investigation and allow her footfalls to remain silent.

  Athena walked obliviously into the living room rubbing the raw emotion from her face. She heard a lock snick behind her and turned to see the faceless figure had locked the deadbolt. Athena froze as the figure walked toward her. The figure spoke in a raspy whisper making identifying her voice impossible.

  “If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the Lord’s commands, even though she doesn’t know it, she is guilty and will be held responsible.”

  Athena only stared, not understanding the purpose of the words. She finally mustered the breath to say, “Who are you?”

  “The angel of death.” The figure revealed the knife she held behind her back, and Athena found her feet. She ran for the back door and found it was locked. She fumbled with the deadbolt which had always been a little tight and figured out quickly that she would not get it open in time.

  She ducked away from the door as the figure approached and ran toward the front door. The figure jumped, planted a foot on the door frame, and bounced away from the door. Athena reached the front door and easily unlocked the deadbolt. She tore the door open and ran outside.

  She didn’t pause to look behind her as she ran across her lawn toward Kathy Brackett’s house. She reached Kathy’s door and pounded on it.

  “Kathy! Kathy, he’s here! Oh my God, he’s here!”

  No one answered the door. Athena looked around in a panic. She glanced across the yards between their houses and didn’t see anyone following her. Her door remained as wide open as she left it, but there was no sign of the masked figure. She felt the world spin for a moment, nearly swooning from the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. Her hands shook as she put a hand to her head, wondering if she were going mad.

  “Athena, what’s wrong?” Kathy said, surprising her.

  “Quick, get inside,” Athena said, pushing Kathy inside her house. “Shut the door.”

  * * * * * * * *

  Following the alleged attack, the women did exactly what they should do in such a situation: they came to see me. I listened patiently to the entire story and had trouble accepting it at face value. I questioned and cross-questioned both of them before I sat back and looked them over. Athena appeared exasperated, but to her credit, her story never changed. Kathy simply looked annoyed.

  I tapped my lips with my first two fingers absent-mindedly. I did it most often when I was thinking which was when I used to smoke. Even after I quit, my fingers continued to find my lips during those times when I reached for a pack, and it wasn’t there. I hadn’t smoked in years, even then, but every once in awhile, that habit came up.

  “So,” I said, recapping the story once again, “some guy in a black outfit broke in, quoted scripture, chased you around your house, out into your yard, and he didn’t catch you?”

  “Obviously not,” Athena sighed. “And I think he’s a she.”

  She had told me this already, but I just wanted to go over it one more time. It seemed a little hard to accept that a crime of this nature would be perpetrated by a woman, and then that she allowed herself to be identified as a female. I would have thought that since we would have assumed the killer to be male, the woman would keep her sexual identity a secret.

  “A she?” I asked.

  “She spoke to me in a whisper,” Athena said. “But it was definitely female.”

  “Did you know the voice?” I asked.

  Athena sighed and shook her head as she had before. I was certain there had to be something she wasn’t telling me about all this, but whatever this information was, she was keeping it to herself. I rolled my eyes and looked at Kathy.

  “And you didn’t see anyone,” I confirmed with her.

  “No,” Kathy clipped.

  “I see,” I replied, narrowing my eyes in thought. I caught myself tapping my fingers against my lips once again and casually brought my hand down to my lap. I figured I could go ahead and let them know my opinion of their story at this point along with what I had learned that they had failed to mention.

  “Ladies, here’s my problem with all of this,” I told them, “to date, there have been four murders and no witnesses. In addition, Mrs. Michaels, we’ve found that you’ve been treated for severe clinical depression over the last year making you prone to a large number of anxiety and panic attacks. Is that correct?”

  “Well, yes,” Athena said in a shaky voice, “but I just lost my father.”

  “We know this,” I said.

  “Detective,” Kathy piped up, “how is this relevant?” I had hoped she would ask, so I turned the conversation to her with that look I give people when I’m aware of something they don’t know that I know yet.

  “Well, Mrs. Brackett,” I said condescendingly, “why don’t you tell me?”

  “I’m sorry?” Kathy said with some genuine confusion.

  “According to the information you decided not to provide,” I said confidently, “you work at the mental hospital. Means you are probably more qualified and me to make this type of observation, aren’t you?”

  Kathy immediately saw where I was going with this. She narrowed her eyes at me and dropped right into doctor mode. “If you’re suggesting this is some kind of hypomanic episode, I think you need to rethink it.”

  “I see,” I said, mentally noting that she avoided the question. I turned back to Athena. “Ok, for the sake of argument, why did he, or she, let you live?”

  “Let me live?” Athena replied incredulously. “I escaped. She didn’t let me live.”

  “Athena, think about it,” Kathy chimed in. “He doesn’t believe you because you’re a suspect.”

  I had to give Kathy some credit for her intelligence, though it didn’t take a doctorate to note that those closest to a victim are the first targets of investigation. I wasn’t not sure if she knew she was a suspect too, living next door and all. However, being not at complete liberty to discuss it yet, I feigned ignorance.

  “No one said you were a suspect,” I reassured Athena.

  “Detective, do you really think we’re that stupid?” Kathy interrupted. I looked at her innocently.

  “I don’t follow you,” I said.

  “Well, let me lay it out for you,” Kathy said, really thinking she’s in charge at this point. I just like to let them talk themselves into a corner sometimes, so like a psychiatrist, I listened. “Her husband has been cheating on her with any number of bimbos, and one night, he ends up dead. Hm, who could the prime suspect be?”

  “Who told you there was more than one?” I asked to see why she suggested “any number of bimbos” as opposed to just the one I assumed they knew about to date. After all, no one had said the second girl murdered had any relationship to Professor Michaels. Easy to assume, of course, but assumptions are dangerous.

  “What?” Kathy asked, caught off guard by my question.

  “Well, you said ‘any number of’,” I mentioned. “I thought you might know something.”

  “Ok,” Kathy admitted. “So I assumed last night’s killing was related.”

  I stared at her for a moment wondering how much they could possibly know about last night’s murder. Then I remembered the news story from this morning, and nodded.

  “Ah yes,” I admitted, “the news story.”

  “Yeah, the news,” Kathy confirmed. “So I can’t help but wonder what you think will happen tonight.”

  I studied her face closely at this point to see what I could decipher. I caught myself tapping my lips again. It’s really more of an embarrassing habit.

  “Interesting,” I said. She looked confused again. “So how many do you think there are?”

  She had to think about this one, since while the information about the last murder was out there for the public consumption, there was no information out there to indicate that there might or might not be more possible victims. I wondered, again, if she might know something she wasn’t saying.

  “All right,” she sighed. “I
assumed again.”

  “You do that a lot,” I told her, “but with uncanny correctness.”

  “Well,” she said in an effort to explain herself, “psychologically, it just seemed like he might be that kind of guy.”

  “I see,” I acknowledged and looked back and forth between the pair of them, weighing how much they needed to know. So far, neither had really given me an indication that they were doing any more than telling the truth, so it was entirely possible that Athena was simply a victim in an attack she was narrowly able to escape. I decided to tell them what we were doing for them.

  “What I can tell you right now is that we have our eyes on more women that may be related to Hank Michaels’ … philandering,” I began. “While I can’t give you numbers, I can tell you that you can expect a uniformed officer to keep an eye on you tonight.”

  “House arrest?” Kathy asked.

  “We have several reasons,” I told them. “Protection is one of them.” That was all I was going to say, but they both just sat that and looked at me. “Is there something else you need?”

  “No, I guess not,” Athena sighed.

  “Ok then. If you see any more shadows running around your house trying to kill you, you may need to start paying your friend here by the hour.” I looked at them, but they didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. They also paused in their departure from my office. “Good day,” I prompted.

  Neither appeared very happy over my dismissal of them, but I needed to think. The idea that this killer would have the audacity to attack someone in their home in the middle of the day was incredible to me. Almost too difficult to believe, really, which is why I had my doubts, but at this point in the investigation, I couldn’t rule out anything.

  I reached into my desk where I had placed Hank’s black book just before the women walked in on me. I probably looked like a fourteen year old stashing a Playboy when I put it away, but they didn’t seem to notice. I had honestly exaggerated just a little when I told them about the protection detail. I figured I would put an officer outside Athena’s house to both keep her safe and make sure she didn’t leave at suspicious hours, but I had been unable to finish my review of the black book before they barged in.