Killing Katie

by Brian Spangler

  Tapping my finger atop Steve’s desk, I considered my needs. The first was a new box. The screen flickered something at me, offering a list of cryptic messages about drivers.

  We need a new computer, I thought as the familiar frustrations began.

  We’d needed a new computer for a while. The screen rolled up, spouting message after message. Steve had mentioned that I should wait before touching the mouse and the keyboard. I stared, trying to be patient.

  Maybe there was a digital box that I could use? An online version? A folder that only I could access?

  I’d need to be able to get to it from anywhere and from any machine. Surely, something like that existed.

  But how traceable would it be? How would it work? Would it be too risky? I wondered. Worth the risk? After all, my high—my need to feed the hunger—came from the planning and the designs too; half wouldn’t be an option.

  The computer screen blinked a flash of blue before showing a collage of last year’s vacation pictures. My gut twisted at the sight of our family photos. I pressed my fingers against the cool screen, touching one of them. The photo was of the four of us sitting together on the beach, a tall ocean surf climbing behind us. A helpful stranger had taken ten minutes out of his own vacation to try and get the best angle.

  “I can’t do this,” I mumbled, running my fingers to another photograph. Anxiety lurched inside me, telling me this wasn’t right. “Not here.” And not just because it felt risky, but because it felt dirty somehow, like having an affair in the bed I shared with Steve.

  The computer’s screen faded and then flashed another set of photos at me, but not before I saw the smudges from my fingerprint.

  Gotta clean that.

  I suddenly felt like an amateur and also felt equally overwhelmed, maybe even a bit stupid. I had to be smarter about what I was planning, what I was going to do. The first thing I had to do was to clean my smudgy fingerprints from the computer screen. Steve hated it when anyone touched the glass.

  The screen is for looking, not touching, I could hear his voice saying in my head.

  I cradled my chin, my elbows leaning on the desk as I watched more photos come to life. A holiday party, complete with a pair of horribly loud Christmas sweaters and floppy Santa hats. I think Snacks had just turned two back then. Oh, and that night. That had been a good night. I shifted in my seat, titillated by the memory. That was the night Steve and I ditched the wool sweaters and wore only our Santa hats. I wore mine in the traditional style. And Steve? Well, he wore his Santa hat somewhere else. He’d joked, asking if I’d like to visit his North Pole. The urge to laugh came to me, but I couldn’t.

  My eyes wandered back to the smudges.

  My fingerprints. Evidence.

  Steve was smart about that stuff, and the detectives in his division were very smart about that stuff. The excitement from earlier began to fade with the screen’s photos. A stack of case folders lay there on the desk next to me; I recognized them immediately. There was a mix: some from the city, some local. The two offices often crossed since our town bordered the city, and as Steve would say, “Criminals respect no boundaries, geographic or otherwise.”

  The sight of the folders spurred a memory from the year before—just after I’d made a habit of reading through them. There had been a particularly disturbing case that I’d pored over one evening. Nearly a half bottle of wine warmed my belly as I disappeared into my favorite reading chair. Yellow light from my lamp shone down—soft and familiar and in a perfect round halo. I’d opened the case file and learned more than I ever wanted to know about a dangerous pedophile. Worse yet, this man my husband was trying to put away lived fewer than five miles from our house. I’d known that last part only because Steve had openly talked about the case. I shook in disgust, recalling some of the things he’d done and the lives he’d ruined.

  “I’d definitely kill the creep if given the chance,” I’d mumbled, adding his name to my list. “The world wouldn’t miss him.”

  My husband had almost lost that case, though. The conviction had hinged on a key witness who’d backed out of testifying. And to make matters worse, they’d found nothing on his computer.

  “It’s as empty as our case,” Steve said gravely. He’d come home late, flustered and defeated and upset that the guy was going to walk. I couldn’t shake his mood—no matter what I tried.

  “You’ve got nothing else?” I’d asked, thinking through every crime scene television show we’d ever watched.

  “Guys like him, they usually keep trophies,” he’d said in a rant. “Thought for sure we’d find something on the computer.”

  And they did find something. It was a chance find. Luck, really. Dust on a bookshelf pulled the eyes of a young police officer trying to prove himself. A thin gray coat of filth covered the shelf, hinting that none of the books had been read in a long time. That is, all except one book. That book had no dust in front of it.

  “Like someone had drawn an arrow and pointed to it,” Steve told me. “Just needed to pull the book open.” Inside, they’d found the pages had been welled out to store a portable hard drive. Thousands of images were recovered. They had their evidence. It was all they needed to convict the bastard.

  But the pedophile was out already. Free these days. A year in jail, and he was sent home. The dust on the shelves had become thicker, but offered no more clues. “A courtroom fuck-up,” Steve had called it. “Ten years’ probation and registering as a sex offender.”

  “He’ll be one of the first on my list,” I mumbled.

  With that thought, I swiped the sleeve of my shirt over the screen, erasing any traces of having used the computer. I snapped at the power button like a yapping dog, annoyed and disappointed by the lack of progress I’d made that morning.

  “If I’m doing this, then I’m going to do it right!”

  SEVEN

  SUNLIGHT CREPT OVER Katie’s shoulder, throwing the rest of her into a harsh silhouette. I covered my eyes, but not before waving her toward our table. She saw me and hurried over at once, carrying the sun behind her until she was beneath the small café’s awning. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust; I blinked away the colorful sunspots.

  “Outside?” she questioned as she began to pull a chair out.

  “Might be our last time before the winter sets in,” I answered. She sat across from me, her smile waning. Katie’s eyes were puffy and glassy, as if she’d been crying. I sighed quietly so my disappointment would go unnoticed. This was going to be a Katie lunch, filled with Katie moments. Meaning something had gone wrong, and we were going to talk about whatever it was the entire time.

  I shrugged to shake off my concern, realizing it was fine. I just hoped that I’d have enough patience to stomach the conversation. After all, if we were talking about Katie, we wouldn’t be talking about me. And the only news I had to offer was about having decided to murder someone—not exactly the type of news one shares over a meal at a small café.

  “Feels good in the sun,” she said, anxiously playing around with the dishes and tableware, trying to fill the time until she could spill what was bothering her.

  “Things aren’t good?” I asked, feeling impatient and wanting to shortcut the filler, but making my voice sound concerned. Katie stopped fidgeting and nearly broke down, covering her mouth. She swiped at her eyes impatiently and waved off my question.

  “Let’s just eat and have a drink or two . . . or three,” she answered. “We’ve got an hour before I have to get back to the office.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, uncertain if I should nod or shake my head. She nodded for me, confirming. “When you’re ready.”

  I glanced at my phone, noting the time. Michael wouldn’t be home from school for at least another four hours. Steve’s mother often offered to sit for Snacks—frequently hinting around that it looked like Snacks was going to be her last grandbaby. Shamelessly, I took advantage of her time every chance I could, especially on nice days like today.
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br />   “That can’t be right,” I mumbled. I felt giddy, realizing I’d have a small pocket of free time after our lunch.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Sorry, nothing.” Three hours! I shook my head. Three free hours after lunch! Free time doesn’t come by very often. Three hours doesn’t sound like much, but to me it was a universe of time to do some more planning.

  Katie had checked her phone too, but for her the phone was a tether back to her office, a virtual leash that constantly nagged and yanked on her for attention like a needy toddler. A sporadic mess of rat-a-tat-tat clicking sounds volleyed over the table as her fingernails hit against the phone’s screen. And as she tapped message after message, I looked at Katie’s business suit and felt a sudden, and surprising, twinge of jealousy. Katie and her husband Jerry stopped having children after their boys came into the world, which was great for my Michael. Growing up at the same time, the three boys were as close as cousins.

  As best friends, though, work was where our lives went in different directions. From those first moments in the tub together, and through decades of being joined at the hip, we found ourselves separated now. Katie had gone back to working full time as a business analyst and process owner for a big nonprofit firm. She always joked that for a nonprofit, they had more money to spend than most small countries. As for me, I stayed home. I didn’t get to trade in my mommy clothes for a slim-fitting pantsuit and tall, sexy heels. I didn’t get to plan out morning coffees and business lunches. Another pang of jealousy leaped up to nip at me. Although I was happy with living simply, the envy I felt at seeing Katie dressed up for work took me by surprise.

  I remember wanting to go back to work, however. I had planned to go back to work; Steve and I talked about it and had even set a date. But then Snacks came to us as a bit of a surprise, and I never gave work another thought. Not until now, that is. Not until the fear of losing Steve had become very real, very possible.

  For now, I’d at least dressed the part, deciding at the last minute to put together an actual outfit for lunch. And seeing how Katie killed it with her gray pantsuit and heels, I felt relieved that I had taken the extra time when picking out what I wanted to wear. I decided on a shorter skirt that rode high and let my legs show a little more than usual. Adding in a new pair of open-toe heels and a champagne blouse, I felt comfortable sitting across from her. Anyone passing by could easily have mistaken us as having a business lunch.

  As if she’d been reading my mind, Katie said, “Love your outfit.”

  “Yours too,” I answered, smiling.

  The conversation was starting to feel forced. That had never happened before. Our conversations had always been easy—especially when we had still been on the same playing field, sharing the same mommy and husband woes. I watched her attack the screen on her phone again. She looked triumphant as she sent off another text or email. I could text Steve’s mom . . . maybe invent a reason to have her scold Snacks for me, but it just wouldn’t be the same thing.

  “I’m so hungry,” she said. “How about you?”

  “We’re at Romeo’s,” I answered with some sarcastic charm. “What do you think?”

  Romeo’s Café was our place. Once or twice a month, we’d try and meet without any kids in tow, hoping to catch up. Early on, there had been playdates, at least a half dozen a month, but we could never be ourselves during them—not like we used to be.

  “Work?” I asked while looking at the menu.

  “Work is good,” she answered, and then she lowered her menu. “But the men . . .”

  “Men?” I asked, raising my brow. “Do tell.”

  “Oh, it’s not like that . . . okay, well maybe just a little sometimes,” she answered. “But the flirting is innocent. What I mean is that they are so different now, a whole generation that I don’t even recognize. They . . . they seem so young.”

  “That’s because they are,” I answered without hesitating. I knew where she was going. I knew because I’d felt the same way. We weren’t young anymore. I could still turn a man’s head, and certainly Katie would give any man a reason to pause, but our days of getting away with thigh-high shorts and going braless had passed us by. Our bodies had changed as fast as a light switch—on and then off. Now we had to work a little harder. Prepare a little more. Men? And we’d both seen the way our husbands would sneak a peek elsewhere when they thought we weren’t watching. Did it bother me? You bet! Who wouldn’t want endless bounce in their tits and an ass that stayed firm forever?

  Age is a fickle bitch, and there is just no staying out of its way.

  A soft wind pushed a cloud out of the sun’s path and warm sunlight peered under the patio’s canopy. A sharp ray glinted off my knife like a jewel, hitting my eyes before bouncing across from me. I followed the bright reflection to where it landed on Katie’s neck. The timing was simply eerie. It was perfect. I’m not a doctor—I had almost failed my high school biology class—but there was a pulse where the bright light washed over Katie’s tender skin.

  Her jugular? Was that the right term?

  Blood coursed just below that spot, pumping and beating against her neckline. The sight of it was hypnotic.

  A Killing Katie design flashed briefly in my head. In my design, I saw myself with the knife and running its blade over Katie’s neck, opening her skin and freeing her caged heartbeat, turning the tablecloth red and throwing the powerful scent of copper and spent blood into the air.

  “Amy,” the wind chirped, catching my attention. “Amy! Are you all right?” I was startled, nearly jumped when Katie tugged on my shoulder. She sat back down, and the warmth of her touch quickly faded. The sun had disappeared behind another cloud, taking the strong beam of light with it.

  “I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but my voice was stuck in my throat. “Just distracted.”

  “Are you sure? Did you hear what I told you?”

  I shook my head, embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry.”

  “I think Jerry is having an affair.”

  At once, my fantasy design disappeared like the sunlight. It was replaced by disappointment and empathy. Fantasy or no fantasy, I loved Katie and hated hearing that news. But at the same time, deep in my gut, a sense of disbelief sprung up. I just couldn’t see her husband doing something like that. Not because he was such a nice guy and a great father—I just didn’t think he was smart enough. Her husband Jerry lacked a certain something that most men had. Balls. He lacked balls. Heck, most of the time, Katie was more the man in their relationship. If anyone were having an affair, I would think it would be Katie.

  I felt my face cramp as I questioned what Katie told me, and I could tell by the sudden change in her posture that she’d been offended by my reaction. I quickly moved my hand onto hers. “Are you sure? I mean, are you really sure?”

  “Almost?” she answered, but in her tone I heard uncertainty. That could mean that she had found something suspicious. I wondered if it wasn’t something as innocent as a business receipt for a lunch.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I began to say. “I love you and I adore Jerry—always have—but cheating? And on you? He married up, way up. I’m just not seeing him doing that to you and the boys.”

  Katie stared ahead, looking past me, her eyes wide and her lower lip trembling. There was something else. There was more, but she wasn’t ready to say anything.

  “You’re probably right,” she quickly answered, pressing her lips together until they went white. She gingerly brushed the dampness from her cheeks and picked up the menu. “Ready to order?”

  “Katie,” I objected. “Wait. What else is going on?” She shook her head and put on a terrible lie of a smile.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she exclaimed, waving to our waiter. But I didn’t believe her. There was clearly more, a lot more.

  For the next hour, our conversation drifted into the familiar territories of home and family and the never-ending challenges of motherhood. Most of the back-and forth was a rehearsed ban
ter, Katie’s way of leaving behind her worries for a few minutes. But it was what she wasn’t saying that kept me bothered. And while I remained skeptical and disbelieving of her suspicion, I had to admit to being intrigued by the idea of Jerry being so deceptive. If what Katie was saying were true, then how long had the affair been going on? How many lies had Jerry told? Just the thought of someone else in our small circle having secrets intrigued me. I wanted to know more. I wanted to learn.

  Images of our home computer crept into my mind—as did my first failed attempts at spinning up a secret life. With this last thought, I stabbed a glance at my phone to check the time. I had at least another three hours.

  What could I do with the afternoon? Buy a new computer. A laptop that I could secretly keep to myself. I’ll have to get cash from the bank or put it on a credit card.

  My head began to spin again as I traced how every transaction showed up on our monthly bills. We shared that chore, switching off month to month, taking turns.

  Was it my turn to pay the bills and balance the checkbook this month? If not, how much could I get away with spending?

  Steve sometimes checked my work when it was his turn anyway, I knew.

  “Can I wrap that up for you to go, ma’am?” our waiter asked. I hated being called ma’am. My mother was a ma’am, and she wasn’t exactly one of my favorite people. I felt fit and sexy—did I look like a ma’am? I certainly didn’t feel like one. The waiter leaned forward and repeated, “Ma’am?” I cringed at the sound.