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| Author: |
Gretchen Craig |
| Dated: |
Sunday, January 04 2004 @ 06:00 AM EST |
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Half an hour before sunrise, I closed the door behind me without a sound. In a few steps, the grass soaked my cuffs and the mud stuck to my boots.
I strode across the field without worrying about the swish of my jeans. The nearest neighbors were half a mile down the road, and I had mown this field enough to know there was nothing to trip over in the dark.
I headed for the black line of firs. The stream was running high as I splashed across and climbed through the fiddlehead ferns on the bank. Once I was in the woods, I flicked on the flashlight. At the old stump I retrieved my gear from a plastic bag -—a crowbar, a sheet, and my Colt. I stuffed the folded sheet into my jacket. I checked the Colt and clicked the safety on.
It was still dark when the rain hit hard again, as hard as I'd hoped it would. I circled through the trees back to the house.
Bobby would be staring at his rainy window. He was used to lying in his crib awake and alone in the mornings while Linda wallowed in bed still half doped up. When I'd left her this morning, her hair was spread out on her pillow. Still pretty, in spite of what she'd become.
I used the crowbar on the front door. The lock was flimsy and the deadbolt above it was lightweight. Linda had been after me to change it, but of course I didn't. It jimmied easy.
I dripped and tracked prints on the floor. That was all right. I'd allowed for that. I was wearing the boots I'd bought two months ago and kept new in the pickup. They were a size smaller than what I usually wore.
Bobby was talking to himself in his crib. I hoped he wasn't too cold. He was probably soaked, but I couldn't afford to change him. Everything had to look routine.
I moved the sofa. It didn't matter if Linda heard me. I wanted her out here, out of the bedroom. I had to be able to sleep in that room again. I reached in the torn seam behind the couch and pulled out Linda's stash — a baggie full of white powder, another baggie with pills. A razor, a spoon, more druggie stuff.
I hadn't believed the sheriff when he'd accused Linda of dealing. I thought he was just hassling her, another good-time boyfriend let down too hard. But he wasn't lying. I'd found her filth, right here in the house with our son.
She didn't come to check on the noise, so I smashed the glass on my gun case. I pulled out the shotgun and the rifles and dropped them on the sheet. The twenty-two clanked when I tossed it on top. I added the two pistols and the three hunting knives, each one making a clink.
"Robert? Is that you?"
I held my Colt up and waited.
"Robert?"
She'd be scared when there was no answer. I heard her fumble for the phone, probably going to call Matt Swenson down the road. No dial tone. I'd taken care of that.
Come on, come on, I thought. Get out here.
I heard the click as she locked the bedroom door left Bobby all alone with the big bad burglar. I shouldn't have been surprised. She'd done worse than that leaving him in the car all day while she was passed out on the couch, and it cold and snowing. Good thing he was too little to remember it.
Now there's this new guy. She thinks she's going away with this one, taking Bobby with her. Not going to happen.
I turned the kitchen lights and the radio on and then called her. "Breakfast," I said. She'd think I'd come back home after all, the bridge washed out again. She'd come out.
"Robert?"
"Hurry up," I said. "The eggs are getting cold."
She'd think I'd forgiven her latest little fling, like I'd always done before. Wanted to make up. Wanted to be her man again.
I heard the lock click. I positioned myself next to the gun case and waited.
The door opened a crack and she peeped out.
"What you waiting for? You want breakfast or don't you?" I said.
The kitchen lights shone on me, but the arm with the gun was in shadow.
"You made breakfast, Rob? That's sweet." She wiped her nose. That had become a habit, wiping her nose all the time. I know now cocaine does that to you.
She smiled at me in her white silk nightgown, the one I'd given her our first anniversary. The one she'd been wearing when I found her with that trucker from Blue Hill. She stopped when she saw the hardware on the floor and looked at me, a question in her eyes.
I didn't have to answer it. She was far enough into the room. I raised the gun and took aim.
She raised a hand toward me like it could stop a bullet. Her mouth was a big round 0.
I fired. The bullet plowed into her neck, blood sprayed out all around her.
I checked my jeans, but I was far enough away. I was clean.
I'd used a home-made silencer for Bobby's sake, hoping it wouldn't scare him too bad. He didn't cry.
I was tempted to look in on him, but who knew how much a one-year old could register and remember? I didn't want him connecting me with his mother's murder -— even if she was worthless scum.
I turned off the kitchen lights, turned off the radio.
Then I remembered the phone. Damn, she'd bled everywhere. She should have been further in the room. I'd have to pass Bobby's open door with the lights on so I wouldn't step in the blood.
I peeked around Bobby's door. He was sitting up in his crib, staring at his mom on the floor in the hallway. The kitchen light made a yellow triangle across her body, dark splatters on the shiny silk, but it didn't show her neck ripped open.
I grabbed the afghan off the couch and draped it over my head and shoulders, then reached in to close the door. Bobby looked up. I hoped he didn't know it was me.
All that blood. It was oozing across the floor under Bobby's door. Nothing I could do about that.
Then I saw I'd stepped in it. Half a boot print in the puddle. Those science cops, they'd know it if I wiped the footprint away.
I held my foot up and hopped to the couch. I took my boot off and stared at the smear on the sole. It was a little smear, but those cops were like magicians.
I sat on the couch and thought. I decided the footprint didn't matter, but wiping it away would matter. That wouldn't make sense, for the killer to notice the footprint in the darkness. I'd leave the print; it didn't match my real boots anyway. Then I'd get rid of these boots like I'd planned all along.
Bobby began to whimper. "Just this one more lousy morning sitting in a wet diaper, Buddy," I whispered. "This is the last time."
I rinsed the blood off my sole and then scrubbed it with toothpaste and Linda's toothbrush. She wouldn't be needing it anymore. I dried it and then dried the sink too. I wouldn't have to think about the footprint anymore.
Bobby had shushed by the time I turned off all the lights, gathered up the drugs and my guns, and let myself out. It was still raining hard, and the cold felt good.
I cut through the woods to old man Grady's. He was in town for the week getting his hip replaced, so I'd hidden the stolen Ford behind his garage. The rain would take care of my tracks. I threw the sheet full of guns into the trunk along with the drugs and the crowbar.
I kept the Colt in my belt. It had been Grandpa's and it wasn't registered. I didn't want to get rid of it, but I couldn't let the cops find it either. I walked about fifty yards into the woods to the old hollow log we kids used to play around and stuffed the gun into the rabbit hole. It would probably rust a little before I could get it back, but I'd greased it well.
I drove the Ford to the gravel pit where the hard-packed gravel didn't leave much in the way of tracks. I pulled one of the hunting knives from the sheet and pushed it back in the trunk to look like the burglar had overlooked it. Then I rewrapped the guns along with the crow bar and tossed the bundle into the pit. I threw the drugs after it. They say the pit is about two hundred feet deep, and the water is always chalky green. I checked for my footprints to and from the pit in the dim light, but I didn't see any.
I jogged the two miles back to the house in the tight boots and left them at the doorstep. Bobby was quiet. I stared at my footprint in the blood, and glanced at Linda's face. Her eyes were open. I was glad Bobby's door was closed.
I took my clothes out of the dryer and put my wet ones in it and turned it on; it'd be finished and cool again before the cops arrived. I changed and put my own boots on. I carried the shoes with me when I left the house.
As I drove toward the diner, I reviewed my options. If the bridge was out, I'd turn around and drive home, discover the murder myself. That was Plan A. If the bridge was still there, I'd go on to the plant and let Linda's mother discover the body. That would be too bad. Not for her, she's as bad as they come, the reason Linda was so messed up in the first place. But the old lady would probably scream and carry on and upset Bobby. It couldn't be helped though.
I pulled into the diner, right on schedule. The red and green EATS flashed on the wet pavement.
Ruby said, "Miserable morning. You want the usual?"
I smiled and said, "sure." She brought me black coffee right away and I sipped it while the eggs cooked. It didn't reach the chill settling into my bones.
I left a five on the table and winked at Ruby as I left, all routine. I drove on toward the bridge.
Plan A or Plan B? I found myself hoping I could drive on to the plant, not have to gear myself up for the blood again. But Plan A was probably safer.
Bill Gilmore was coming from the river. He flashed his lights and slowed. I stopped too and rolled the window down.
"Damn bridge is out again. Must be a foot of water tearing over it. Might as well go home."
"I could use the sleep anyway," I said. "See you, Bill."
So Plan A. I drove down to the turn-around at the bridge and idled there, watching the water swirl over the planks. I rolled my window down and threw one of the new boots into the flood. It tumbled and submerged itself in the white water. I waited before I tossed the other one in. I was confident they'd never find either one, but they sure wouldn't ever find them together.
I drove on back home. Betsy Rogers waved to me as she put the newspapers in the mailboxes along the road. That was fine.
As I turned in to the drive, the gravel crunched under the tires. I looked over the splintered door, imagining I was seeing it all for the first time. I stepped in to the living room and took in the sofa pulled out from the wall, the shattered gun cabinet, the glass on the floor. My eyes drifted toward Linda, but I looked at the blood instead. Inside it was dim and quiet except for the rain on the roof.
I walked over, bent down, and touched her chest. A little blood on my clothes and on my hands would be right. I stepped in the pool, but I didn't touch the print the other shoes had made. That print was the killer's.
Then I walked quickly to the phone in the kitchen, bloody footprints all across the carpet. 911. They'd have to come by the south bridge, but they were on their way.
I stepped over the blood and into Bobby's room, closing the door again behind me.
He opened his eyes when I rubbed his back.
"Hi, Sport," I said. He smiled and held his arms up for me.
I hugged him, soggy diaper and all. "Let's get you some dry clothes, Little Man. Then we'll see about breakfast. You hungry?"
When we left the room, I put the blanket over his head so he couldn't see his mom on the floor. I couldn't do anything about the smell of the blood.
I made Bobby a warm bottle and held him in my arms. He'd never have to drink another cold bottle lying in the crib all by himself. We sat in the kitchen away from the body while we waited.
At first, it went pretty much as I thought it would when the three cops arrived. They looked around, I told my story, shook my head in disbelief, clung to my boy. Not a hard act.
I heard a cop open the dryer. "Bag these," he said. "We'll take them to the lab."
That worried me, but they always suspect the husband first. It was just routine.
Two cops went outside to look around.
Donny Millhouse sat down next to me at the kitchen table. "Hate to ask you anything right now, Rob, but there's a detail that bothers me."
"Sure. All right."
I knew Donny back in school. Linda met him later. He'd been with the sheriff when they arrested her for drugs. He'd looked sick when the judge threw the case out.
"What can you tell me about the phone in the bedroom?" he said. "It was unplugged."
The phone. It came rushing back at meclosing Bobby's door, seeing my boot print in Linda's blood, washing the sole with her toothbrush. All that, and I hadn't plugged the phone back in.
Donny waited for me to answer.
I was scared. The whole plan could come undone - they'd start thinking harder about me—all because I'd forgotten to plug the phone back in. Linda's mother would get Bobby, the woman who raised a cheating, lying, drug-dealing slut—and all I'd ever wanted was for Bobby to have a good home.
"Rob?" Donny said.
"Yeah. I was just trying to remember. Linda asked me to unplug the phone before I left for work this morning. She said her mother wakes her up all the time, calling too early, so I unplugged it."
"Thought you said she was asleep when you left."
"That's right. She went back to sleep. I just forgot about the phone."
Donny stared at me, stared at the sweat breaking on my forehead. I didn't dare wipe it away.
"You two been getting along?" he said.
"Yeah, we've been good. You had it wrong. She wasn't doing drugs. We've been good."
He stood up and looked at Bobby's big eyes and back to me. The message was clear — he wasn't buying it.
We listened to the rain dripping off the eaves. I wrapped the blanket tighter around Bobby and held him close.
"Well," Donny said. "Why don't you plug it back in. The sheriff will be here soon. No need to complicate things."
They found the stolen car at the gravel pit with my knife in the trunk. They talked to Ruby, to Bill Gillmore and Betsy Rogers. Looked like a clear case of burglary gone wrong. Case closed.
Bobby gets up early with me every morning. We have a hot breakfast and time for a storybook before I take him to Aunt Patty's for the day. When work's over, I take him home and we roll a ball around on the new carpet or play with our puppy. Bobby's going to grow up fine.
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