Poplar Falls

by Arseneault, Pierre C;

  Sadie screamed in anger as she wrapped her hands around the top half of the lamp, grasping the wooden dick like a wooden stake, and plunged it into her husband’s chest as hard as she could, breaking the two remaining bulbs in the process. Furious with years of pent-up anger, she screamed at him while she half straddled him, bearing down on the bloody wooden dick protruding out of his chest. That’s when she heard the shrill scream coming from the kitchen door leading to the front of the meat market. Standing there was the young cashier with the pierced lip, shrieking loudly. Behind her, pale-faced and peering over her shoulder was Geraldine, the wife of Pastor George.

  Sadie looked at her shaking, blood-covered hands in disbelief as the largest chocolate craving of her life washed over her. As she tried to stand, her knees buckled and her head spun. Sadie blacked out before she hit the floor.

  53

  Geraldine trembled as she sat in her car, her old Nokia flip phone in her hand as she scrolled through her contacts. Finding Emma, she dialled and the phone rang twice.

  “Hello?” she heard Emma say.

  Emma, dressed in a nun’s habit, was in her kitchen, getting a drink of water. The role-playing was getting to be thirsty work. Emma set down her riding crop, swapping it for her glass, and took another sip of water with the cordless phone at her ear.

  “You’re not going to believe me when I tell you,” Geraldine blurted.

  “Geraldine? Is that you?”

  “Sadie just killed Vernon. At least I think he’s dead. He has to be. God. No way he could survive that.” Geraldine was rambling nervously.

  “What?” Emma inquired, not sure her hearing wasn’t failing her at this moment. “Say that again.” Emma sat at her kitchen table with her glass of water and her cordless phone.

  “Stabbed him to death with a dildo, I think.”

  “A what?”

  “I know what I saw,” Geraldine said. “It looked like a dick, I’m telling you. It had to be a dildo.” She shook nervously, adrenaline pumping as she spoke.

  “Tell me everything,” Emma replied excitedly.

  “You coming back or what?” she heard Bill shout from the basement.

  Bill could wait, thought Emma. It’s not like he was in any position to do anything but wait anyway. She had bound him good this time. Mind you, the bindings weren’t tight enough to cut off circulation or anything, but he’d be held in place for a bit. Plus the Viagra had only kicked in a half hour ago, so that would last a few more hours. He could wait, she thought as she listened to Geraldine tell her what had happened that afternoon at Vernon’s Meats.

  54

  The paramedics had arrived in time to find Sadie as she regained consciousness and were forced to sedate her when she became frantic at the sight of her dead husband. Officers struggled to hold her down as the paramedics injected a sedative. They were in the process of wheeling her out, strapped to a stretcher, when Detective Tilley arrived.

  “Where’s Dodge?” Lemkie asked moments later. He winced from the strong smell of onions which overpowered the other smells of bodily fluids, peppers, and other various foods. The pair stood at the kitchen door of Vernon’s Meats, marvelling at the sight before them. Vernon lay dead in a large pool of blood and broken eggs, the murder weapon still protruding from his chest.

  “I don’t know,” Detective Tilley replied as she waved away some of the smell. “He asked if I needed him right away and I said no. I told him this was pretty cut and dry. Vernon’s dead and witnesses saw Sadie kill him.”

  “Yeah,” Lemkie replied. “No mystery to solve here, that’s for sure. Although I wonder what made her snap and kill him. I mean, she looked a little agitated at the daycare, but I didn’t think she looked upset enough to kill anyone.”

  “Did you see the murder weapon?” Tilley asked as she nudged Lemkie with her elbow.

  “Yeah,” Lemkie replied pointing at a lampshade on the floor. “My bet is that’s part of that. Hard to tell with all the blood but it looks like a wooden dildo; if it wasn’t for the light sockets sticking out, that is.”

  “You men and your infatuation with your dicks,” Tilley replied.

  Lemkie smiled at first, then chuckled, and Tilley shook her head in disbelief.

  “Who says it wasn’t hers?” Lemkie said.

  “Dodge said he’d get here as soon as possible,” Tilley said, ignoring Lemkie’s comment. “And the chief’s gonna love this one, too.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re not gonna believe this one,” Lemkie replied. “Especially not after the way we found Charlie Baker.”

  “Yeah, he’s been complaining about how long we’ve been taking. How long Calvin’s been taking on those videos, too. He won’t enjoy the idea of us getting sidetracked again.”

  55

  Dodge ended the call from Detective Tilley as he stood in the parking lot of the recycling centre. He tucked his Blackberry into his pocket as he pondered the news of Sadie killing her husband. And from what Tilley said, she did this in his own store of all places. Stabbed him, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had brought that on. What would make the demure little daycare owner snap and stab someone? She had seemed a bit unstable when they first met to ask questions about Charlie Baker, but murdering her own husband? Maybe she did kill Charlie Baker after all, thought Dodge. Shaking his head out of the fog he found himself in, he tried to refocus on the task at hand. After all, he was perhaps going to finally get answers he’d needed for a long time now. Dodge wasn’t the type to lose sleep over anything, but he would definitely feel better once he knew.

  He watched Walter unload his trailer and bring Thursday’s haul inside the recycling depot. Dodge reached into his back pocket and pulled out an empty pint of whiskey; empty save for the rolled up paper on the inside of the bottle. Using a tissue, he wiped down the clear glass bottle as he went inside.

  He watched Walter stand before the counting station of the recycling depot as the clerk counted each can, bottle, and cardboard container. Walter watched intensely as the clerk counted quickly, hurrying along.

  Dodge couldn’t help but notice Walter looked thinner than ever. He looked sickly. Walter pulled at his pants to keep them from sliding down to his buttocks. Dodge smiled, a little amused at the thought that some kids wore their pants like this thinking they looked cool. Walter looked emaciated, and so now even with a belt his dirty pants were falling off him. His smile vanished as he made a mental note about Walter’s health.

  The clerk finished his count and scribbled on a notepad, tallying up the recyclables as Walter watched. Dodge walked up behind Walter and held out the whiskey bottle to the brain-damaged young man.

  “Walter,” Dodge said, getting his attention. “You dropped one.” He held out the bottle for Walter to take, which he did.

  “Wednesday,” Walter said with a puzzled look as he took the bottle from Dodge. Walter turned, handed the bottle with the rolled-up paper inside it to the clerk, who examined it and looked at Dodge before lightly tossing it into the glass bottle bin. The clerk scratched out the count on the paper and tallied it again. The clerk walked Walter over to the cash register and handed the paper to Mr. O’Neil, who up until then had been paying no attention to any of them. He took the paper from the clerk and proceeded to pay Walter the money owed him.

  Dodge, satisfied that Walter was no longer paying him any heed, reached into the glass bottle bin and fished out the whiskey bottle with the note inside it. He grasped it by the neck of the bottle and shot a satisfied glance at the clerk. The clerk wore thick rubber gloves but Walter’s hands were bare as usual. Dodge pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, slipped the bottle inside it, and left.

  56

  The morning after Sadie killed her husband, Calvin sat alone in the lab going through the Charlie Baker files on his laptop, earbuds in place while he listened to the calming saxophone music of Kenny G on his phone. Calvin hadn�
�t been this relaxed since before he moved to Poplar Falls and took the job as a crime scene investigator.

  Being a CSI looked exciting and glamorous on television, but he’d learned it wasn’t so when he started on the path studying Forensic Science. Many times he doubted whether this was the career for him, but he was good at it; in fact, he was more than good. Maybe he wasn’t the best in class, but considering that he never studied at all and still did very well he decided to stay the course, literally and figuratively. But studying and actually working turned out to be completely different things. When you worked a real case, you were directly affecting people’s lives.

  The Panty Bandit case wasn’t that big a deal because he didn’t take the case seriously. This was something he never told anyone because they wouldn’t understand. To Calvin it wasn’t that the women’s safety wasn’t a concern, but that all the Bandit did was steal dirty underwear. To Calvin, that was petty. But now he was working on a murder investigation and the pressure was immense. Not to mention that as a porn addict, the last thing he wanted was to have to watch porn for the job. But Stella had been right when she said she could help him. Mind you, the type of help she gave Calvin wasn’t normally how they helped clients at the wellness centre. This sort of help would get her fired if someone found out. But it turned out to be exactly what Calvin needed. And turns out that Stella knew a whole lot about work-related stress. After a session of rigorous sex, and a few hours of conversation, Calvin realised that he was the only one putting all the pressure on him. Now Calvin sat, watching short clips of Charlie Baker’s home movies, skipping through parts and selectively watching others while sipping a can of Red Bull.

  As Calvin clicked on a file, convinced he had already seen it before, he clicked the time strip to start the video about midway through its run. Stella had suggested that he should try other ways to ease the tension he had been creating for himself. She had mentioned that music could help take his mind off of things. And Stella had been right, this music was calming. So as Kenny G’s soothing melodies played on, Calvin leaned back and sipped his Red Bull.

  It was while sipping Red Bull that Calvin realized what he was watching as he gasped, choked on the caffeinated drink, and sprayed the sticky liquid all over the monitor. Calvin coughed, spat and, using the handy box of tissues, blew his nose while he struggled to regain his breath.

  Calvin realized that in this video, Charlie was tied to the bed like they had found him. He restarted the video and began watching again, this time much more intently. The angle of the video meant it had to be from the bizarre statue of a rabbit that Charlie had perched atop the television on a stand. On the screen, other than his mouthful of Red Bull and spittle was a blonde woman, her back to the camera. She was down to her matching bra and panties, standing at the foot of the bed. In her hand she held a thick rope that Calvin instantly recognized from the mountains of evidence they had catalogued. At this point in the video, Charlie lay on the bed with his hands already bound to the metal four- post bedframe. The blonde woman was in the process of tying his right foot. Charlie mouthed something, which is when Calvin realised Kenny G was still playing in his ears. He ripped out the earbuds and quickly set his phone aside. He then remembered that the videos from this angle had no sound and, combined with the angle of Charlie’s head, made it impossible to discern what he was saying.

  The one thing that was obvious was that Charlie being tied up had been consensual. The fact that he wasn’t struggling was the first hint, the second was the large erection, and a third was the smile on Charlie’s face. All this clearly meant this was not being done against his will. Charlie glanced around the room as his right hand flexed a little. Calvin could only guess that Charlie hadn’t had the chance to activate all his cameras for this one and was now wishing he had. Calvin recalled a small broken remote that looked as if someone had stepped on it. Charlie lay completely naked and fully erect as the woman finished tying his foot. She slowly walked around the side of the bed but somehow she remained turned away from the camera, and this frustrated Calvin who was now leaning forward as if it would help him see better.

  Charlie Baker’s smile had faded but his erection remained. Calvin knew this was because of the bottle of pills precariously perched on the edge of the nightstand. Even with the powerful camera being zoomed in on the bed, there was no way of knowing what the pills would have been had he not been there to see for himself.

  The blonde woman, still in her matching lace underwear, climbed onto the bed and straddled Charlie, sitting on his stomach while ignoring his large, erect manhood. Calvin could only assume they were talking as she sat on Charlie Baker for a good thirty seconds, maybe more. The camera angle showed Charlie’s hands clenching and tensing against the ropes. Calvin could only assume the conversation might not have been as pleasant and charming as Charlie Baker was accustomed to. Stella had told him about how truly charming the man had been. But Calvin had a feeling that Charlie Baker’s charm had no effect on this woman. The blonde reached for a pillow and Calvin leaned even closer to the screen, only to watch it go blank.

  Calvin sat back in disbelief as the hiss of the speakers was still there and the lights on the laptop still lit. He checked and the laptop was still plugged as it had been. But with the blacked-out screen, he could now see just how much Red Bull he had spewed when he first saw the blonde with the rope.

  “Fuck me,” he said aloud.

  It took a few minutes to find one, but Calvin fetched another monitor from one of the lab’s desktop computers and connected it to the laptop. Shortly after doing so he was viewing the video from the laptop via the monitor. Calvin’s stomach churned and the urge to vomit returned as he saw the video footage was still playing, but now Charlie lay still, covered by a thin silk blanket with a crumpled pillow on his face. He moved the media player back to about where he thought he was when it had blanked out. Again, he saw the woman walk around to the side of the bed and straddle Charlie’s stomach. Again he watched them, assuming they were talking. Again, the blonde woman reached for the pillow, but this time the screen didn’t go blank and she grabbed it.

  Charlie’s hands clenched and unclenched multiple times, and his feet twitched as much as the rope would allow. The woman seemed to fidget some with the pillow held at chest height. She leaned forward, pressing the pillow on Charlie’s face, leaning into it with all her weight applied to the pillow. Charlie bucked against the ropes, to no avail. Something Calvin already knew since he knew the ending of Charlie Baker’s story. He watched Charlie struggle hard at first, weaken, and eventually stop struggling altogether. The blonde woman sat up, leaving the pillow on her victim’s face. She seemed to hesitate there for a moment as if already regretting her actions, Calvin assumed. She swung her leg backwards as she climbed off Charlie, knocking his manhood around in the process. Calvin watched it bob and weave for a moment before he realized that in doing so she had finally turned towards the rabbit eye camera, which recorded everything but sound. He watched as the woman he recognized as Trudy Wilkins picked up a thin off-white blanket and draped it over Charlie Baker’s torso. Why she did this, Calvin wanted to ask her. It didn’t really make sense to him, but he thought he saw regret written all over her face. He remembered reading the term “crime of passion” a lot in class. Although this wasn’t what he had pictured when he read that terminology it certainly fit the bill, he thought.

  He watched her as she dressed, moving outside of the camera’s view as she did. A few shadows were enough to show she was near the bed for a few brief moments. Shortly after there was a flash of daylight, which Calvin assumed was the front door opening and closing as Trudy Wilkins left the scene of the crime.

  Still half-watching Charlie Baker with the pillow on his face as the camera had kept recording, Calvin grabbed the phone and called Lemkie who answered his cell phone on the third ring.

  “You’ll never believe what I just found,” Calvin blurted.


  57

  Dodge and Tilley sat in chairs flanking Lemkie, who sat in front of the external monitor and laptop combination which he didn’t bother explaining to the detectives. The fact that Calvin had sprayed Red Bull all over it seemed irrelevant at this point, especially since they had just finished watching the murder of Charlie Baker. The video played on but nothing moved on the screen. Charlie lay with the crumpled pillow still on his face, his fully erect manhood under the silk blanket.

  “Where’s Calvin?” Detective Tilley inquired, leaning back with her arms folded against her stomach.

  “After he showed me the video he threw up all over himself, so I sent him home,” Lemkie replied.

  “Sheesh,” Dodge replied. “He looked fine when he came in this morning; more than fine actually. I’ve never seen him look so chipper.”

  “Me either, although he has been acting strange this last week,” Lemkie added as he stopped the media player. “I’ll put a copy of this in the Q drive for you,” he added while looking at Tilley.

  “Thanks,” she replied.

  “I can’t believe it was that easy,” Dodge said. “Although it did take him a long damn time to hack into that video.”

  “Actually, about that,” Lemkie replied. “I’ve been meaning to talk to the both of you about that. To be honest, Calvin had hacked everything a long time ago. Probably a day or two after we collected the drives. The same goes for the laptop. But he left out the part about the metadata being corrupt.”

  “The what?” Dodge asked. “English please?”

  “It’s like file-cataloguing information,” Tilley said. “Including when it was recorded.”

  “Exactly,” Lemkie replied as he pushed his chair away from the desk so he could better see the detectives as he spoke. “Anyway, we never assumed Charlie would have recorded his own death. I mean, Calvin was compiling a list of suspects, which is all we assumed we’d get from all the footage. And the only reason it took so long to go through it all is he kept having to stop to help me collect and catalogue evidence. I think he thought we wouldn’t notice, but I know computers way better than he assumes I do.”