The Murder Next Door
Page 8
“What?” Jackie cried. “How do you know?”
Marla swallowed the chunk of bread. The food hurt as it made its way to her stomach. She’d been so riled up, she hadn’t chewed it properly.
“I don’t know for sure,” she said, “but I don’t think it was a coincidence that he came rushing into the garage right when I was called into the station.”
“That’s insane!” Jackie exclaimed. She slurped her soda. “What could Speckleman have said?”
“Some crap about my cold-hearted demeanor. The lead detective said it was an ‘anonymous caller’ claiming I was sick in the head. I’m so freaking pissed! The police are tearing my place apart looking for the murder weapon right now!”
Marla dropped the remainder of her sandwich into her Tupperware container and shoved it to the side. She then dropped her forehead to the surface of the table and groaned. Jackie rubbed her hand across Marla’s back affectionately.
“Hey, you know you’re innocent. The police aren’t going to find a murder weapon because there is nothing to be found,” Jackie reminded her. “This is just Speckleman’s lame attempt at revenge because you told Mr. Oswald about his shitty embalming. Which, by the way, was the right thing to do. That man can’t preserve crap!”
Jackie was right, as usual. Still, Marla knew the cops wouldn’t necessarily leave her alone just because they didn’t find anything of relevance in her condo. The only way she could prove her innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt was if she brought them the killer.
Marla sighed and straightened herself in her chair. “Honestly, I’m more embarrassed by them searching through my rooms. I live alone, so… I don’t always flush the toilet.”
“Marla!” Jackie burst out laughing, pushing her carton of fries over to Marla. “Here, have some of my fries; they’ll cheer you up.”
***
The following day, Marla decided she needed to approach Speckleman and ask him head-on if he was the one who’d called the police. During her breakfast that morning she’d been thinking about the sorry look on Dane’s face while Detective Wiggins had been telling her about the anonymous caller’s words. He’d looked as if he’d been second-guessing himself for considering Marla a suspect. Dane might have been the one to bring up Marla’s name without any influence from Speckleman, but Marla needed to be sure.
It was a particularly sticky day in Wallsberg. Marla’s hair was unruly in the humidity. It was normally frizzy and voluminous, but with the addition of the moist air, it was twice the size as usual. As much as she loved her bouncy curls, sometimes they were hard to control.
Marla wondered how Speckleman could stand smoking in such disgustingly hot weather, or the bitter cold for that matter. She was glad she’d never picked up the habit, as it seemed to be the sort of habit people suffered for until the bitter end.
Speckleman always went into the garage to smoke. He’d open the garage door and lean against the side, blowing plumes of smoke out the door. Marla traveled through the air-conditioned funeral home to get to the garage. She opened the door, which caused Speckleman to turn around.
“Oh, hello, Marla,” he said, smugly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
“No,” Marla answered truthfully. “It’s so hot it feels as though someone performed the Dutch oven on the entire town.”
Speckleman chuckled and coughed wretchedly as he continued smoking his cigarette. Marla bet he probably stank like sweat and tobacco all the time. It was for this reason that she held her breath whenever he passed her. She’d rather breathe in the scent of dead bodies than Speckleman’s ripe armpits.
“How’s your wife?” Marla asked, knowing the subject of his wife was a touchy one. “Has she filed for a divorce yet?” She strutted over to where Speckleman was standing, her arms folded firmly across her chest.
Speckleman snickered. “That woman won’t leave me; she’s crazy about me. She just needs to be trained to stop barking. A few cooking classes wouldn’t hurt either.” He narrowed his beady eyes at Marla. “She’s not the only one who could use some training.”
What a misogynistic ass-wipe! Marla thought in disdain.
“You’re a greasy tool, you know that?” Marla said. “You belong under the hood of a mechanic’s grubby car!”
The roast was so clever it seemed to go over Speckleman’s head.
“At least I don’t belong in prison,” he retorted, flicking his smoldering cigarette butt to the pavement. He immediately dug another one out of a crumpled carton he kept jammed within the large interior pocket of his suit jacket. Marla imagined he probably sat around in piles of dirty laundry chain-smoking on his days off.
On the contrary, Marla thought, your disrespect toward women, as well as your carelessness toward dead people, makes you more of a suitable candidate for prison. One of these days you’ll be caught breaching a funeral regulation.
“So, you were the anonymous caller?” she said.
Speckleman shrugged. He then leaned so close to Marla she could smell his horrid breath.
“Yeah, so what if I was? I did my civic duty.” He placed his second cigarette between his lips and paused to light it. “You know,” he said, after blowing the rank smoke in Marla’s direction, “you should learn to play the harmonica. I think you’d look good all decked out in orange with a harmonica in your mouth. I like a woman who knows how to use her mouth.”
The comment made Marla want to retch. Speckleman was the epitome of a creep.
“Excuse me while I violently throw up my breakfast,” she said tersely.
She needed to get away from Speckleman. Being anywhere other than his presence was preferable, even a room filled with dead bodies.
Marla made her way up to the embalming room where there was a body resting on a table, ready to be embalmed. It was clear Speckleman had claimed the embalming, as he’d already closed the mouth and the eyes. The body was also on the table located on the right side of the room. That contained the station that Speckleman tended to use.
The left station’s table held a bagged body that concealed Reggie’s now autopsied remains. It was no surprise to Marla that Speckleman had moved the body over to her station, since autopsy cases tended to be more work to embalm than regular cases. He was too lazy to deal with autopsies.
Marla scoffed when she saw the state of his embalming tank. Speckleman always neglected to drain the remaining chemicals leftover from embalming. Instead, he’d save them for the next case. As much as Marla was an advocate for recycling, it was a poor choice to reuse chemicals. There was no telling what percentage of the mixture was a formaldehyde solution and what percentage was just water.
His formula would be thrown off and the embalming machine would be forever stained and dirty. On top of all this, Speckleman failed to clean up after himself. There was nothing more repulsive than a poorly kept embalming room. The cabinets on his side were speckled with blood and other unmentionable fluids. Marla hated to think about what the state of his house was like. Then again, he probably forced his wife to clean everything.
How could anyone tolerate living with someone so repugnant? Marla wondered.
A thought occurred to her just then: she could easily add water and tint to Speckleman’s mixture, making it seem as though he’d already filled the tank with a preservative solution. Without a sufficient percentage of formaldehyde chemicals in his mixture, the body would fail to be preserved, and it would rot. Speckleman would again be reprimanded for failing to do his job. Mr. Oswald would demote him and make Marla the new manager.
As much as this idea appealed to Marla at that moment, she knew it would be wrong to sabotage Speckleman like that. Although she had no qualms about hurting Speckleman, she did have a problem with hurting the family of the person who’d died. No one deserved to see their loved one black and blue with rot.
She sighed. If Speckleman was going to be ruined it would be of his own doing, not hers. Besides, if Marla sought out her revenge, she’d be just like him: pathetic.
The paperwork clipped to the clipboard that hung on the wall at Marla’s station contained a form stating that she had permission to embalm him.
“Is somebody arranging the service for Reggie’s funeral right now?” Marla inquired.
“Yeah, it’s Mr. Oswald,” Speckleman answered. He turned up the fan that filtered out the harmful fumes released from the embalming chemicals. “Jesus, aren’t you choking up here? Every breath is like fire in the back of my throat.”
Marla rolled her eyes. The fumes wouldn’t be so bad if Speckleman didn’t leave chemicals stagnating in his embalming machine. They also wouldn’t bother him so much if he’d stop smoking.
“That’s better,” Speckleman said as the fan whirred noisily.
He then proceeded to whistle and snort obnoxiously as he continued with his embalming. Marla ignored him until he said, “You know, I remember the good old days when you used to be able to smoke in the embalming room.”
His comment made Marla laugh spitefully. “Formaldehyde is flammable,” she stated. “The act of smoking and embalming at the same time is dangerous, not to mention disgusting.”
Speckleman shrugged. “I never had a problem doing it. I’ve dipped the ends of my smokes in formaldehyde. The head rush is fantastic. ”
“That’s horrible!” Marla exclaimed. “You get pneumonia ten times a year and have asthma,” she pointed out. “I’m pretty sure smoking has caused you problems. It’s almost a given that you’ll get lung cancer or COPD later. You’re going to suffer and die a painful death.”
Speckleman flashed her his ugly yellow teeth. “Sounds like you’re worried about me. I’m here for a good time, not a long time, Sweetheart.”
Marla’s skin crawled. “Go to Hell,” she responded. She then completed her embalming, avoiding any form of engagement with Speckleman until he declared that it was time for him to leave.
“You haven’t finished with your embalming,” Marla said. She rinsed off her embalming tools in the sink and placed them in a dish of disinfectant to be sterilized.
She swore to herself when she saw the arrogant look on Speckleman’s face. It suddenly dawned on Marla that he’d intentionally been taking his sweet time with the embalming. He was like a deviant baby who’d just crapped himself on purpose knowing someone would have to clean his diaper.
“I guess you’ll just have to finish it up,” Speckleman said, sniggering. “You shouldn’t have a problem with that, seeing as you’re so good at embalming. See ya’!”
He strutted out of the embalming room; head held high in triumph. The satisfied expression on his face was like that of a kid who’d just stolen another kid’s candy.
Marla growled. Not only had Speckleman left her with the task of aspirating the body’s s viscera − the most unpleasant part of the embalming − he’d also left her with a mess to clean up.
She walked over to the partially embalmed body lying on the table. “Why can’t you be Speckleman?” she asked the dead man.
***
That night, when Marla returned to her condo from work, she was perturbed to find it in a state of disarray. While she’d been busy embalming at the funeral home, the police had been trashing her place in search of proof she was a killer.
The cupboards and drawers of her kitchen all were thrown open, the contents strewn all over the counters and floor. Her bed was naked of its sheets and, worst of all, her underwear drawer had been rummaged through.
“Perverts!” Marla said aloud.
Too exhausted to deal with the mess, Marla went into her kitchen to fix herself some supper. It was while preparing the veggies for her hummus wrap that she discovered her knives had been taken.
“Oh, God!” she exclaimed.
They’re probably testing the blades for blood residue, Marla surmised. All they’re going to find is celery juice.
It was at that point that Marla returned her hummus and veggies to her refrigerator and decided to get take-out.
Chapter 8
Marla knew exactly where she was going to go to eat: The Burrito Bar, though after the story Jackie had told her about the unsightly restroom stall, she would not be visiting there. But first, there was somewhere she needed to visit.
Now that she was considered a murder suspect, Marla decided she needed to do some detective work of her own. The only way to clear her name completely was to find out who had murdered Reggie. She figured the best place to start with her investigation would be to talk to the tenant who’d found Reggie.
Dane had said the girl had found Reggie murdered after coming home from a late shift at a café. There weren’t many cafés that stayed open late. The only one Marla could think of was a fast-food café called Sipping Saucers, which was open twenty-four hours.
Marla wondered if the shift times at the café were the same as they’d been when she’d worked there. If Marla was correct, and the girl currently was working a late shift at the café, then she’d be close to finishing, as it was almost ten o'clock. Dane had mentioned the police arriving at the scene of the crime a couple of hours before Marla. It had been about midnight when Marla had arrived, meaning the girl would have returned to Reggie’s house around ten.
Before leaving, Marla changed out of her funeral director’s suit and into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Although it was getting late, the temperature outside was still abysmally hot. She hopped into her car and drove in the direction of the Sipping Saucers. She prayed she’d find the girl there. Perhaps she’d be more willing to speak with Marla now that some time had passed since Reggie’s murder.
The girl had seemed in shock when Marla had been at the house, though Dane had said she’d answered his questions without fail. Marla wondered if the girl had left out anything when she’d spoken to the police. No matter what the situation, it was always a bit nerve-wracking having to talk to the cops.
Inside the Sipping Saucers, Marla scanned the area behind the front counter for a girl who looked like the one at the scene of the crime. She remembered the girl being blonde, athletically built, and looking quite young, as though she was a college freshman.
Sure enough, Marla spotted the girl handing her drive-thru headset to a colleague and going around the counter to the dining area. She’d finished her shift. With an exasperated sigh, the girl tore the scrunchie from her hair and made her way to the exit, where Marla intercepted her.
“Hi, there. Remember me?” she said.
The girl’s eyes widened in terror as though Marla just had pulled a knife on her.
“No need to be scared…” Marla paused to read the nametag attached to the girl’s uniform. “Sommer. I can explain.”
“Uh, okay,” Sommer answered. She still looked horrified. “How do you know where I work? You aren’t with the police, right?”
“No, I was only at the scene of the crime to remove Reggie’s body. I was told you worked at a café. This is the only café that’s open late,” she explained.
Marla opened the door for Sommer and they both wandered into the parking lot.
“So, if you’re not with the police, then why do you need to see me?” Sommer asked.
“The detectives think I might be the one who killed Reggie.”
Sommer’s mouth fell open. Her aghast expression reminded Marla that the girl had no reason to trust her. Marla had freaked out the girl when she’d defined the word exsanguination.