In His Thoughts, page 5
It was no matter, of course. He could wash the dishes himself. It was only that he worked so hard, and from the looks of things, his wife hadn’t done more than sit in that one spot for the entire day. It didn’t seem quite fair that he should come home and be required to do all the cooking and cleaning as well.
Still, there was much about life that was less than fair. The man knew it well. Few, he thought, knew it better. Perhaps only Job. Perhaps nobody.
The man turned on the faucet and angled the handle so that the tap ran hot. Almost at once, the water that vaulted from the spigot began to steam. He let the hot water clean his hands to a soft, burning pink while he soaped and scrubbed the dishes. The pain of the scalding water grounded him, humbled him, and reminded him that he was alive with his full sensory faculties, and that was something to be grateful for.
The dishes were clean, and the man set about preparing a simple meal. He pulled sausages from the refrigerator and cooked them in red wine. He made potatoes but didn't add enough salt because the shaker had run out.
“So, I take you didn’t do any shopping today, either?” the man asked over his shoulder while he stirred the potatoes over the stove. He’d removed his tie and dress shirt, not wanting to stain his professional finery with the womanish stains of homemaking, and was now wearing Cindy’s patchwork apron over his white sleeveless undershirt.
“You know, Watson told me that he’s buying a cabin in the mountains for summer getaways,” the man said, trying again over his shoulder while the sausage and potatoes hissed and sizzled on the stove. “He and his wife both love the outdoors, so they’ll have a good time out there together. He said he was waiting for his kids to graduate and leave the house before he bought the cabin so that he and his wife could have it all to themselves. Ha! What do you think about that?”
He looked, still chuckling, over to the table. Cindy still hadn’t moved. The man scowled as he turned back to the stove, shoveling the potatoes and sausage onto a waiting plate.
"I'd like to have a place like that," the man said as he crossed the kitchen, plate in hand, and set it down on the table. He brought over a fork and a large carving knife. Using both, he began diligently carving away at the food. "Maybe not a mountain cabin,” he said as the sausage gave way under the sharp blade of his knife. “Maybe a beach house or even an apartment in a different city. The point is to have someplace to get away, a place all to yourself, beyond the reach of the mail or the telephone, beyond responsibility and schedules.”
The man looked down at his plate. The sausage was carved into thin, bite-size slices, the potatoes skewered and oozing out of their skins. The fork and knife, steel culprits of the cut and stab massacre before him, hung limply in the man’s smooth, strong fingers.
His appetite fled like villagers before a monsoon. His mouth was suddenly dry and sandy with distaste. Wrinkling his nose, he set the utensils down gingerly and pushed the plate an inch or two away.
“You know, the Watsons seem to have a pretty good marriage," the man went on. "The way he talks about his wife, it’s like they’re actually friends or a pair of bandits that stick together through everything. They have real adventures together, just going down the street for groceries. You and I can't even…"
The man let his words trail off. He'd been staring at his plate the whole time he was talking. He let his unfinished sentence hang in the air for a minute before he looked up, his eyes locking at last on the deep, hardened expression on Cindy’s face.
“It isn’t fair,” he said with a sigh, adding almost automatically, as he always did when he made that statement, “but nothing’s fair. So it goes.”
The silence between them was unbearable.
“We don’t even talk,” the man hardly dared to whisper, tears springing up unexpectedly in his eyes. “When I look at you, I see the beautiful form and figure, the familiar shape of the woman I love, whom I took into my home, to honor and cherish as my wife, to hold close and dear through thick and thin, rich and poor, through sickness and health. But you’re like a shadow to me now, a ghost of a woman I loved so passionately. You're silent, always silent, motionless. You’re like a prisoner. Is that it?”
He stared intently, but Cindy’s face didn’t change. Not an iota.
The man’s eye twitched.
“Goddammit, I’m talking to you!” he shouted, bringing his fists down on the table with a crash that made the plate jump. The dissected sausage scattered itself across the table, leaving dribbling trails of grease. The man’s palms gripped the surface of the table as if he were clinging for his life to the sheer face of a cliff.
“Why?” he pleaded desperately, his face shaking with the physical tension of his rage and anguish. “Why, Cindy? Why won’t you speak to me anymore? What have I done to you that’s so terrible? Have I imprisoned you in a gilded cage of domestic comforts? Is that my great sin? Do you feel kept and depressed? Filled with ennui? I…”
The man’s voice broke in a guttural sob. His shoulders heaved, and he sucked a snotty breath through his nose.
“I’m trying here! At least I’m trying!” he managed to shout through the sobs. “Can’t you see that? Can’t you meet me halfway? Speak to me, my love of ages. Speak!”
There was, of course, nothing but silence from Cindy. She stared at the same point on the wall. The man ground his teeth.
It isn’t fair. His fingers closed around the handle of the large carving knife, which still rested on the table.
Nothing’s fair – so it goes.
“You won’t say anything, will you?” the man asked in a drained tone as if he already knew the answer. “You’ll just sit there, even if I shouted at you for years. Even if I cut my own throat right in front of you, you wouldn’t even blink, would you?”
The man jumped to his feet and held the knife to his throat as if to illustrate the point. He felt the sharp edge of the blade against his Adam's apple. For an instant, he considered really doing it. There would be a certain vulgar sense of immediate relief, of course, but it was the easy way out. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction.
“You’d like it, wouldn’t you?” the man sneered at her, “You’d sit right there, still as a statue, with that same far-off smile in your eyes like the goddamn Mona Lisa.”
Still, Cindy said nothing. Outside, the night had turned dark. The wind picked up, creaking through the branches of the old cypress tree in the backyard. The man let his breath out.
All his breath.
He let his chest be empty, lowering the knife to hang by his side as his chin sank back into his throat. His eyes, however, remained trained with Birddog intensity on the motionless face of his wife.
“You stubborn bitch,” he growled. “You don’t react to anything, huh? Well, how about this?”
His voice rose into an awful screech, raising the knife over his head in a sudden, dramatic gesture.
“You won’t even flinch to save your own life, will you?” he roared, his eyes bloodshot and wild with rage and grief. “Will you?”
Cindy didn’t move. Her rosebud lips were pressed in the supple, pretty line he’d adored for as long as he could now remember. How he longed to kiss her, even now as he brought the knife down in a deadly, sweeping arc, how he yearned to press his own lips against hers and find them warm, loving, alive.
The knife landed with a thwack in the crown of Cindy’s wooden head.
Her expression remained exactly the same. The faint smile painted across her lips never wavered. The knife quivered, stuck in place, protruding from her wooden skull.
The man collapsed to his knees, whimpering. His face was crumpled, distorted by his miserable sobs.
“Why, Cindy?” he cried, clutching at the lap of the wooden doll that had long sat at the kitchen table, “Why?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eve and Thompson stood in the county impound lot, staring at the pickup truck. They were standing outdoors under a set of football stadium-style lights.
The vehicle was in good shape. Eve’s shot had flattened the rear tire, so the truck bed rested at a limp-like tilt. The driver-side door was peppered with buckshot from the sawed-off shotgun, and the window shattered. Thompson's shot had penetrated the rear window, creating a spiderweb of cracks extending away from the bullet hole.
The narrow windows around the top of the impound garage showed a thin bar of the night sky – darkened, starless, and cloudy. Eve studied the midnight overcast forlornly for a moment before redirecting her attention to the truck that the man had used in his attempt to escape after he’d nearly run the agents down.
The suspect -- whose name was Floyd Cartwright, as the agents finally learned from the staff registry at Lion’s Hill Athletic Club – remained in custody and under strict observation in the recovery wing of Callo General Hospital. His lips were sealed, even as he waited for his court-appointed attorney to make time for his case. It didn’t promise to be soon.
“So,” Thompson said, stepping out towards the truck but still giving it a wide birth, as if it made her somewhat nervous, “What can we tell from this rattling death-trap, huh? Cartwright ran as soon as he found out we were agents, which means he definitely has something to hide. The fact that he made a run for it in the company truck suggests that the truck itself is somehow involved with his criminality, whatever that may be. There’s something in the truck that he didn’t want for us to find – but what?”
“How about the sawed-off shotgun?” Eve asked bluntly, walking in a straight line to the driver’s side door of the truck and peering steadily inside. In a flash of vivid memory, the shot-up truck reminded her of the totaled vehicles she’d seen turned to cinders during her combat tours in Afghanistan and Syria. She shivered, brushing off the memory with a quick huff. “How many maintenance crews do you know that keep a pistol-stock twelve-gage among their tools?”
Poking her head into the cab of the truck, Eve’s eyes landed on a long, leather holster that ran down the inner side of the driver’s seat. It was secured in place by a ratcheting strap laced through the seat belt.
“Get a load of this,” Eve called out over her shoulder, but Thompson had walked in a wide circle to the other side of the truck. She approached the passenger door and opened it, poking her head inside exactly opposite Eve’s. Her eyes followed Eve’s pointing finger to the shotgun holster.
“He carried it in the truck regularly?” Thompson pieced the scene together, then looked across the seats at Eve. “But why?”
“The first reason that springs to mind is transport,” said Eve, “During the stagecoach era, a person would be assigned to literally ride shotgun when transporting cargo and passengers in order to ward off bandits and robbers. What if we’re looking at a modern version of the same thing?”
“Alright,” Thompson nodded, “But what would he be transporting in an athletic club company vehicle? Certainly not passengers.”
“Right,” Eve said, looking behind the seats, “This thing only has a bench in the back and half-doors. They’re clean, too. No cigarette butts or fast-food wrappers. In fact, the pattern on the carpet makes me think they’ve been vacuumed recently.”
“You mean he went out of his way to clean it?” Thompson asked, eyeing the backseat for herself.
“Doesn’t it look that way to you?” Eve asked, “See? The windows are perfectly clean, too. I'd say this vehicle has been recently detailed."
“If he went out of his way to clean it,” Thompson mused, “then what would he be so worried about us finding?”
“Something he was there to pick up,” Eve said, getting out of the cab as the realization hit her. Thompson backed out as well, coming around the hood to look at her partner.
“What do you mean?”
“He unlocked the door first, remember? That place was locked from the outside. And he was surprised to see us there. What if he showed up when he knew the place would be closed because he was trying to get something out of there before it was turned up by the police investigation?”
“I like it,” Thompson said, nodding vehemently, “I like it a lot. But it still leaves us with the million-dollar question: What was he hiding?”
“Well, whatever it was, he didn’t get to it before he ran into us,” Eve said, “Which means it’s still back at the athletic club.”
“Ugh,” Thompson shivered, “That place gave me the creeps even before Cartwright tried to kill us. I’m not looking forward to going back at night.”
“Neither am I,” Eve said with a sigh, “But this truck is clean as a whistle except for the shotgun holster. Whatever he’s hiding has got to still be there, probably in that same creepy shed.”
“Alright,” Thompson said, “But I’ll be following very closely on your six.”
Turning her back, Eve smiled as she heard her partner mutter under her breath, “God, I can’t believe I left the classroom for this horror-movie shit.”
***
The athletic club was, of course, closed when the agents arrived, but there was a uniformed sheriff’s deputy standing guard. Eve approached the deputy, who was posted under the light near the door of the pro shop.
“Evening, Sheriff,” Eve called out in a friendly tone, “Or, morning, as it might be. I’m Special Agent Hope, and this is my partner, Special Agent Thompson. I met your boss earlier, Sheriff Heinlen. Did he leave you to work the night shift?”
“That’s right,” the deputy sheriff replied dutifully, peering down at Eve’s badge before settling his hands on his hips, “How can I help the FBI?”
“As I’m sure you’ve been made aware, a man on the custodial staff of the athletic club here made a serious attempt to kill myself and Agent Thompson when we were investigating here before.”
“Right, I heard about that,” the deputy replied. “You ladies alright?”
"Yes, thank you," Eve replied a little stiffly. "Anyway, it's our current theory that Cartwright's hostile behavior was a defense response because he was hiding something – something that he was there to retrieve from the custodial shed of the club. Can you think of anything a custodian of Lion Hill might be mixed up in?”
“Not off the top of my head,” the deputy replied, sucking his teeth and rocking back on his heels, “We’ve had deputies posted at all the entrances all day.”
“What about the maintenance shed access?” Eve asked, “There was nobody posted there earlier when Cartwright tried to kill us and run for it.”
“Maintenance shed?” the deputy tipped his hat back to rub the top of his head ponderously, “No, I think we only have men posted at the main and rear gates. I didn’t hear anything about a maintenance shed.”
“Alright,” Eve said dryly, “Thanks, deputy, we’ll take it from here.”
“Are the local cops always as useless as these clowns?” Thompson asked Eve once they were beyond the deputy’s earshot.
“Not always,” Eve replied, thinking the question over genuinely for a moment as they retraced their steps from earlier that day. “Sometimes they’re well organized and timely. I’ve even met a few crack detectives wearing plain uniforms. But sometimes, they're inept old curmudgeons or even malicious saboteurs. It really depends on where you are and who you're dealing with."
The agents crossed the darkened patio quickly, returning to the spot where Eve had disappeared into the ivy. The gap in the ivy was exactly where they remembered it, although they found their path barred by a gate.
Eve and Thompson looked at each other.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“That wasn’t there before,” Eve said.
“It must have been left open. Look – the hinges swing inward. It was probably half-buried in the ivy.”
"So, who came around to lock it?"
“Maybe one of the staff?” Thompson ventured again. Eve nodded.
“The same staff that keeps a shotgun fastened to the seat of their service truck,” Eve commented dryly. She tried the gate, rattling it in vain. It was locked tight. “Maybe they’ve got a whole operation running behind the scenes here.”
“What kind of operation?” Thompson asked, stepping close to Eve’s side and reaching for the gate handle as if she would somehow have better luck pulling against the lock. Eve stepped back and managed to refrain from rolling her eyes.
"I don't know," Eve said, "If I had to guess, I'd say it's something drug-related, but that's just a shot in the dark."
“You don’t think he’s the killer?” Thompon asked, reaching into her coat and pulling out something small that Eve couldn’t quite see in the dim lighting.
“No,” Eve replied, “His escape plan was too scattered for a serial killer. He both tried to kill us and get away and all before we'd accused him of anything. In my experience, a logic-obsessed sociopath would choose one course of action and see it through to completion. The violent flight we witnessed was the frightened response of a goon, in my critical opinion. I’d guess that Cartwright is a small cog in a larger machine."
While Eve was speaking, Thompson had been fiddling with the knob, putting to work whatever the tool was that she’d drawn out of the secret pocket in her jacket. Without a word, she straightened up and gave the gate a push. It swung open with a harmless creak and was still.
Eve stared at Thompson with an impressed expression unhidden on her face.
“Did you just pick that lock?”
“I learned a lot during my time in criminology school,” Thomspon replied with a grin that Eve could see even in the dark, “Including how to break into my professor’s office to steal test answers.”
“Really?” Eve raised her eyebrows, “That’s pretty bad. You could get in a lot of trouble for that, given your career.”
“Eh, I trust you, given the circumstances,” Thompson said with a shrug, “Besides, it was only once.”
“You sure opened that gate pretty smoothly for it only being once,” Eve said.
“Okay, but I only used it for evil once. I had to practice, didn’t I? Besides, it comes in handy when I lock myself out of my apartment.”
