Letter to Belinda (34 page)

“Eh Travis! Would you like to step outside and suck a fag?”

“Say again.”

“I say, I’m about to step outside an’ suck a fag. Would you like to join me?”

Travis was drunk, but he knew he wasn’t
that
drunk. Still he didn’t want to offend someone who obviously thought of the offer as a friendly gesture.

“No, I think I’ll pass on that, my friend.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yes. But don’t let me hold you back from your usual evening ritual of fag sucking.”

“There will be quite a few of my friends out there as well.”

Good
lord,
Travis thought,
they’ve
made
it
into
a
group
activity
here!

“No thank you. I just never have been much of a fag sucker, but please, you go right ahead.”

“As you will.” Travis watched as the fellow left the pub and joined a large group of Brits who were standing around on the sidewalk smoking. He wondered when this ‘fag sucking’ was going to begin. He was starting to think that he had misinterpreted something the fellow had said, so he turned to the Professor. “Let me ask you a stupid American question.”

“There are no stupid questions. Please.”

“What does it mean here when a man asks you to go outside and suck a fag?”

“It means that the Pub has a no smoking policy. See? There is no one smoking in the building.”

“Yes, now that you mention it. I didn’t notice it before.”

“It is a law here. A matter of public health, which is a good thing, because I am not a smoker.”

“So sucking a fag means smoking a cigarette?”

“Yes.”

“Thank goodness! I thought I was being invited to engage in oral sex!”

“Oh my, no!”

“I’m glad that is cleared up. You Brits have a different way of saying a lot of things.”

“Well, so do you Yanks.”

“I remember a few years ago, a friend of mine in Alabama, who dealt with antiques, was approached by a British woman, looking for particular antique items. My friend didn’t have what she was looking for, but he knew of a dealer in Chilton County who did, so he began giving her the directions to get there. He said, “Go down Interstate 65 to the Jemison exit. You will know it is the right exit, because there is a big water tower shaped like a peach.”

“Like a what?” she asked.

He figured she didn’t know what a ‘peach’ was, so he tried to give her a more descriptive image. He wanted to say it looked like a giant ass, but he thought that word might be a little crude, so he told her the water tower looked like a giant ‘fanny’. He said she gasped and commented, “My god! Why would they put such a thing on a water tower?”

My friend shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know, I guess because it’s the major source of income for the County.”

This confounded her even more, and she said, “Such things should not be considered appropriate to display on the side of water towers and billboards and such. But then, Americans are, in general, crudely uncivilized!” She left in a huff, and greatly offended.

“Later my friend learned what the word ‘fanny’ meant in England.”

“Yes,” the Professor said. “It is a crude reference to the female vagina.”

“Right. So this British woman left thinking that the major source of income for Chilton County was not peaches, but prostitution!”

There was a roar of laughter, as Travis realized that he had more listeners than he was aware of. Isabel found it particularly funny. He would not have told such a thing in mixed company, if he knew so many were listening. This was yet another sign that he had too much to drink. “Folks, I think I have reached my limit, and I have a busy day planned for tomorrow, so I must go.”

They begged him to stay longer, but he insisted he had to go. A couple others were leaving as well, so they offered to accompany him to his hotel, saying that the streets of London could sometimes be dangerous after dark.

When he got to his room, he found his mother asleep, and Drew back from his walk, but still awake.

“Are you all right, Dad?”

“I’m fine tonight. Tomorrow may be a different story.” He staggered to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

He didn’t see the hand-written message his Mom had left for him beside the phone.

28
 

A
fter stopping for ice cream, Miranda dropped Lennie off at his home. The big empty house loomed on the hill as Lennie got out of the car, thanking her for the ride to the doctor.

“Don’t forget your medicine, Lennie.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot.”

“Be sure and take them just like I told you. The directions are on each bottle.”

“I will. Thanks Miranda.”

As she backed up to leave, she watched him go into his empty house. She could relate to his loneliness, because since she won the Lottery, she seemed to be just as lonely. She didn’t see how Lennie could stand it, the loneliness, and now the burden of knowing that he had cancer, and that he didn’t have long to live. If he wasn’t so simple minded, he probably couldn’t stand it. It made her shudder to think of what he had told her over his banana split. ‘
Miranda,
you
are
the
bestist
friend
I’ve
got
in
the
whole
wide
world!’
And the sad part was, he was right. She was not just his best friend, she was also his
only
friend. It was enough to make her eyes water. He was, without a doubt, the most sincere man she had ever met. If he wasn’t such a simpleton, and wasn’t dying, she would probably want to
marry
him! Yes, she was that desperate to find someone she could trust.

But as she pulled out of his driveway, she remembered that she had more pressing problems. Namely, what to do with the remaining parts of her last attempt at love. She could have kicked herself for not making sure that all the parts were in place before the pool cement was poured. Travis had been right, it was the perfect solution to what to do with the body, because no one would ever find him there. But now she had to deal with her mistake. As usual, when she
really
needed
Travis around to advise her, he was gone off to who-knows-where! She had to devise some plan to dispose of the remaining two parts of the Judge. But that shouldn’t be so hard, should it?

It was disturbing that Lennie knew so much about what she had done. True, he didn’t know where most of the body was hidden, but he knew about the Judge being in her freezer. It was dangerous to have such knowledge in the head of someone so naïve and stupid. Under police questioning, he was sure to crack and tell what he knew, or at least let something slip that would point a finger back toward her. He was so darn
helpful,
that he was dangerous.

Incredibly, he had offered to help her, by taking the blame for the Judge’s death! Was that stupid, or what? What could he possibly use as a reason for killing the Judge? Lennie wouldn’t hurt a fly! It was absurd that he thought he could help her out of this mess, by confessing to killing the Judge himself. Stupid, stupid Lennie!

Listen to her! Who was she calling stupid? Stupid was the whole situation she found herself in, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own. Travis told her it was stupid. Even Lennie told her it was stupid! And then Lennie had the laughable thought that he could help her out of this mess, by telling the police that
he
killed the Judge? Why would she, even for a moment, consider such a thing?

Hmm.
Why
not?
Lennie
was
right.
What
could
they
do
to
him?
He
was
dying
anyway.
He
really
does
like
me,
and
he
wants
to
help
me.
He
is
willing
to
do
anything
for
me,
so
why
not
let
him?
No, she felt horrible for just thinking such a thing.
Travis
was
right.
It’s
my
mess,
so
I
have
to
clean
it
up!

She turned down her driveway and saw the contractors trucks gathered there, and men hauling tools out of her back yard. It looked like they were finished. The contractor smiled as he came out to meet her.

“Ms. Monroe, I am proud to inform you that your pool is installed two days under the agreed upon deadline! The landscapers are finishing up now, but they will be finished by sundown.”

“Is it filled with water?”

“No, we need to let it cure out a couple of days before we fill it with water.”

“Then it won’t be finished for two more days, which is still meeting our deadline, but minus the bonus!”

The smile faded from the contractor’s face.

“What would happen, if you filled it with water now?” she asked.

“The weight and pressure of the water could cause stress cracks in the cement. And stress cracks could cause us to have to dig the whole thing up and start over.”

This sent an electric shock through her brain. “We certainly don’t want that,” Miranda said.

“No Ma-am, we don’t want that. It wouldn’t be ready for your pool party on Saturday.”

“So all I have to do to insure that the cement will cure properly, and not crack, is to wait two more days before I fill it?”

“Yes Ma-am.”

“Okay, I can live with that. Give me your bill, and I will write you a check.”

“Yes Ma-am, just one moment.”

As she went into the house to get her checkbook, she breathed a sigh of relief, that the job was finished. But even before she got her checkbook, she had to go to the back porch to be sure Leon was still in the freezer. She raised the lid, saw a frozen ear, covered it back up with a bag of English peas, and went to get her checkbook. She wrote the check for the agreed upon price, plus two days bonus, and the deal was finished. They loaded their tools and left Miranda to admire her new pool.

She walked around back to take a look at it, but there were no flaws, it was perfect. No one would ever know that it concealed the body of Judge Leon Rosewood. She was almost home free. All she had to do was get rid of the last two pieces, and it would be like he was never here. What should she do with them? Why not let Lennie decide what to do with them, since he was so eager to help. With just a little smile, and a turning of her female charm, she could get Lennie to do anything for her, she was sure of it. She just had to make sure that he understood what he was to do and say, should the police find him in possession of the parts. He must not even
hint
that she had anything to do with the Judge’s death. She would coach him to say that he
accidentally
killed the Judge. And then he was scared, and so he tried to hide the body, but it wouldn’t fit anywhere, so he cut him up into small pieces, and disposed of the pieces in the river, where the fish could eat him, and no one would ever find the pieces. It sounded plausible, if she could get Lennie to stick to the story without deviating from it, or adding to it.

But there was the problem. When the police begin asking their questions, it was sure to rattle Lennie. The questions of ‘how’, ‘why’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ were going to sound a lot different coming from the police than from her coaching. He was going to slip up and say the wrong thing at the wrong time, and then the police were going to be knocking on
her
door. And she
knew
that if the pressure was on her, she would crack open like a rotten egg!

No, she couldn’t let Lennie help her, because it was sure to backfire. He
already
knew too much as it was. If only he would oblige her by dying of cancer in the next day or two, then he
couldn’t
mess things up running his mouth. Dead men told no tales.
Arg!
That
sounded
so
pirate-like!
And it was an awful thought to have about Lennie, but it was the truth. If he carried the parts to his house, then he died, the police would be left trying to piece together what happened without Lennie’s explanation to clog up the works. They would have to piece it together with nothing but physical forensic evidence, and hopefully there would be nothing there to point to her. It was all so confusing, trying to decide what she should do, and what the consequences would be, if something didn’t go as planned.

She went and got a lawn chair, and took it out beside the new pool. She sat down and looked forlornly into the empty pool, as though she thought she might see some dark reflection of her soul, as she considered her options. Should she include Lennie in her planning, or not? If he did not know anything already, then the answer would be no. But even the things he was privy to didn’t seem a good enough reason to get him involved any deeper. He was going to mess it all up, she was sure of it.

So what should she do? Where could she dispose of those other body parts? She had noticed an old hand-dug well out beside Lennie’s house. He told her that his grandfather had dug the well a long time ago, but it was dry now, and was half-full of trash and junk. She had looked down into it, but could not see the bottom without a flashlight. She had the thought to drop the remaining parts into that well, without Lennie knowing about it of course, and see if anyone finds them. She could put the parts into a garbage bag with other animal parts, like pork chops, and chicken, and so it would all rot together, and would probably never be found.