by Mary Monroe
“Here, let me pour you some more wine.” I refilled Sylvia’s wineglass and then my own, hoping she’d change the subject. She didn’t.
“And the nurse had just moved into a new house with her fiancé. I don’t think she’d up and run off. None of her credit cards have been used either. She didn’t even cash the paycheck she’d received the same day she disappeared.” Sylvia took a sip from her wineglass and dropped the newspaper onto the coffee table. “Why would these women run off and not use a credit card or cash a paycheck? I’m sure they didn’t all take off on a lark. Especially the secretary, who’d just gotten married and promoted at work.”
“Sweetheart, marriage can be overwhelming. That and a promotion is a heavy load for a young woman in her twenties to handle. Maybe she realized that and wanted out of the marriage, and the husband didn’t go along with it. I think the cops should be taking a long, hard look at him. . . .”
“Uh-uh,” Sylvia said, vigorously shaking her head. “He passed a lie detector test and they have no evidence that he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance. He didn’t have life insurance on her, or any other reason to want to get rid of her. Three women have vanished and nobody knows why.”
I took a deep breath and remained as nonchalant as possible. “The thing about going underground is, you have to do it in a way so that nobody can track you down. Check the Internet and you’ll see. Women and men drop out of sight on their own every day in this country for various reasons. With all the bills I have, walking away from my current life crosses my mind from time to time.” A hearty laugh followed my last comment.
“I certainly feel you on that one.” Sylvia laughed, too, and rolled her eyes.
“I would not leave a paper trail by using credit cards or making a bank transaction. I’d also get new credit cards using a fake Social Security number and an alias. I’d even get a fake passport in case I wanted to leave the country.”
“I’m sure people who want to walk away from a difficult life do just what you said. Something tells me that that’s not the case with these three women.”
“Well, this busybody reporter thinks the same person killed these three women. What do you think?”
With a loud gasp, Sylvia looked directly into my eyes. There was a frightened expression on her face. “ ‘Killed’? How do you know they’re dead? So far, all we know is that they are just missing.”
I didn’t like that look on her face, and I didn’t like that I’d slipped up and said something stupid! Again I shrugged and maintained my position of indifference.
“Did I say ‘killed’? Hmmm. I just thought that after all the time they’ve been missing, somebody must have kidnapped and killed them. Like that young Mexican girl they found in a shallow grave in Berkeley last week. I hate to say it, but when women and young kids disappear, they usually turn up dead. Unless, of course, they’re lucky like that Jaycee Dugard, the girl who went to the same school you attended when your family lived in Tahoe. She was held captive for eighteen years and had two babies by her kidnapper. And don’t forget that poor little girl in Utah who was snatched right out of her own home in the middle of the night while her parents were in another room.”
“Elizabeth Smart. Thank God she and Jaycee made it back to their families. There are a few others who came home after being missing for a long time, years in some cases, so maybe there’s hope for at least one of the three missing black women.” Sylvia took another sip of wine and blinked. I was glad she had finally gotten a buzz. She’d be even easier to control once she got good and drunk. “Calvin, we black folks have more than our share of problems, but this kind of shit is done mostly by white folks. I would hate to think that a black man is responsible for the disappearance of these three black women.”
I didn’t bother to shrug this time, but I wanted to. Instead, I took another sip from my wineglass. “Maybe some white dude who prefers dark meat snatched those three black chicks. . . .”
“Yeah, that’s a possibility. But whether this freaky maniac is black or white, I hope I never run into him.”
I was tempted to tell Sylvia, “You already have, honey,” but this was nothing I wanted to joke about. And like I said, I didn’t want anybody to think I was too interested in this subject. “Why don’t you join this ‘freaky maniac’ in the bedroom?” I said in a low voice, already tugging on her blouse. For a small woman, she had big juicy breasts and a nice meaty rump that I liked to slap and squeeze sometimes to the point of causing her great pain. She was so tiny and fragile-looking, she made me feel like the Big Bad Wolf.
“That’s not a bad idea,” she purred, rising. “I’m still a little sore from that session we had just before dinner, so can you be more of a lamb this time?”
“Baaaaaa,” I said, tickling her chin. Despite my humor, I knew that once I got her into my bed, I was not going to be responsible for my actions. Women brought out the Big Bad Wolf in me. . . .
After I made love to Sylvia, she rolled over and promptly went to sleep. I didn’t like it when she stayed over. But it was past midnight and I didn’t feel like driving her home.
I lay on my back with my arms folded across my chest for the next hour or so. Thoughts rolled around in my head like tumbleweeds in a desert storm. My head began to throb like hell. I was surprised I didn’t have these excruciating headaches more frequently. I had a secret that had almost consumed me, and would remain a secret until the day I died.
I often wondered what people would say or think if somebody accused me of kidnapping and killing women. I had to hold my breath to keep from laughing out loud because such a notion was not even a possibility.
I finally fell asleep. Unfortunately, sleep was not a refuge for me. What I had become was always on my mind. The dreams I had of women dying by my hands (some I had not even met yet), their eyes rolling back in their heads as I strangled the life out of them, haunted me almost every single night since my troubles began eight years ago....
Chapter 42
Calvin
I DON’T KNOW WHO CAME UP WITH THE SAYING “MONEY IS THE root of all evil,” but that’s a goddamn lie. The root of all evil is women! I grew up in the Church and I believed in the Bible all my life, despite its inconsistencies and fairy-tale–like stories. If creation began the way the Bible claims, then Adam was doing all right until Eve came along. That hardheaded bitch started it all!
Despite the havoc women wreaked, I had once loved all of the women I knew and treated them with nothing but respect. That all ended when the woman I had loved—more than life itself—caused me to slide headfirst into a bottomless pit that I would never climb out of.
Her name was Glinda Price. I found out too late that she was a bitch from hell.
We’d met a little over eight years ago at the birthday party of a mutual friend, two and a half months before I joined the marines. At the time, she was working as a waitress. The first time I laid eyes on her, I knew I had to have her.
Glinda had come to the party with another dude, but that didn’t stop me from making my move, and it didn’t stop her. The fact that she had disrespected her date should have been my first warning that she was a she-wolf in sheep’s clothing. But I still didn’t care. She left the party with me without hesitation and we walked the three blocks to my house, holding hands and smooching all the way. We made love for hours; and when it came to sex, she was as good as she looked.
Glinda was too beautiful for words. She was twenty-four at the time, a year younger than me. She had cinnamon-brown skin, large slanted brown eyes, a smile that could brighten the darkest room, and long, thick black hair. She was petite, the way I liked my women. I loved tall, full-figured women too. But since I was only five feet nine and barely 150 pounds, having a woman larger than me would be too intimidating and difficult to maneuver between the sheets. I had almost married a woman my height, who outweighed me by thirty pounds. But one night when she caught me flirting with one of her friends and got the better of me during the figh
t that ensued that night, I decided to avoid larger women.
What I didn’t know the night I met Glinda was that she was one of the biggest sluts in town. Not only did she get around like a centipede, she had previously worked as an escort for one of the most notorious services in the state. And when I did find out a week later, it was too late.
“That woman is so hot to trot, I’m surprised she ain’t caught on fire by now,” one of my buddies warned me.
“I can say that about every woman I’ve been with,” I mused. “You can too.” This same busybody friend had once dated three women at the same time.
“No, this one gets a-round. Glinda spends more time on her back than a corpse. Poke that pussy as often as you want, but you’d better wear a heavy-duty condom—maybe even two—every single time.”
I did use protection when I slept with Glinda. But one night when we were both too drunk and frisky to care, I didn’t. A month and a half later she told me she was pregnant with my baby. I didn’t hesitate to ask her to marry me, but she was hesitant to accept my proposal.
“I know your whole family hates my guts, as well as most of your so-called friends,” Glinda told me with a grimace on her face. “After all, marriage is a big step.”
“Having a child is just as big a step as marriage, if not more. It’ll probably be less trouble for us both if we’re legally married by the time I leave for Camp Pendleton. Uncle Sam is tricky enough. I’d hate to get tangled up in a bunch of red tape when it comes to arranging benefits for you and my child.”
I married Glinda in Vegas two months after I’d met her. And because of that, Mama stopped speaking to me. I was hurt because I loved my mama to death; she’d always been the most important female in my life. But I’d been taught—in the same church she used to drag me to when I was a kid—that when a man got married, his first allegiance was to his wife, not to his mother. I didn’t just lose my mama, siblings, and a lot of my other family members, I lost most of my male friends. The women of the ones who were married, or in committed relationships, felt threatened by Glinda. My only sister, Vickie, told me in no uncertain terms not to bring her around. She was married to a man who would screw a female snake, so having a woman like Glinda within his reach would have been too much of a temptation.
She was not pregnant, after all. As much as I wanted a child, I was glad it had been a false alarm. “Let’s not start our family until I complete my commitment to Uncle Sam. I know I’ll be getting deployed to Afghanistan and I’d hate to be over there worrying about you and a baby,” I told her.
“That’s fine with me,” she replied, looking and sounding very relieved.
As much as I adored Glinda, I began to see things in her that I found disturbing. At the time, I owned a large tabby cat I called Georgie. He’d been with me since the day he was born. One morning, the week before I left to go serve my country, I saw something that made me flinch. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Glinda kick Georgie when he brushed against the side of her leg. I let it go that time.
The very next day, she kicked him in front of me, sending him scrambling from the room, howling like a banshee. This time I had to say something. “I wish you wouldn’t do that anymore,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh. “I know you’re still upset about not being pregnant and me leaving next week, but I wish you would stop taking out your frustrations on my pet.”
“You know I’d never really hurt Georgie,” she told me in a serious tone of voice. And I believed her.
To this day, I regret that I didn’t make arrangements for my beloved pet to stay with someone else until I returned home. In the first correspondence that she sent to me, she told me toward the end of her one-page letter: I accidentally ran over your cat the other day and he died. I was inconsolable.
Georgie had been like a family member to me. And the fact that I was somewhat estranged from most of my family made losing him even more painful. I grieved for days. And I got careless.
On more than one occasion, I had almost lost my life by not being alert and following instructions. In one week, I saw three of my comrades get blown to pieces by suicide bombers. I came close to ending up in the same situation myself, more than once. I eventually pulled myself up out of my depression when I realized the kind of hell the war in the Middle East was.
One gloomy day one of my comrades tacked a large photo of Jesus on a wall in our barracks. A few hours later, someone scribbled on it with black ink: I know I’m going to heaven because I’m already in hell. I was in hell in more ways than one.
I sent Glinda at least two or three letters a week. I was lucky if I received one a month from her. However, some of the few friends I still had wrote to me often, and they all eagerly told me about some of the things she was up to. She was spending time with other men, and she was doing it in the house I owned! Not only did I fear losing my life in a senseless war several thousand miles away from home, I feared losing my woman.
Despite all of the reports I kept receiving from my friends about Glinda, I prayed that she would still want me when I returned. I told myself that if I could survive the war, I could survive my wife’s bad behavior.
I never mentioned the reports to Glinda in my letters, and I didn’t plan to mention them when I saw her again. I had planned to spend my first leave since my deployment making love to her nonstop, or close to it. I had changed my mind about waiting to start a family. I wanted to get her pregnant as soon as possible. I thought that motherhood would make her change her ways and become a better mate.
My first leave did not go the way I hoped it would. Glinda did not greet me at the airport with open arms, but with a scowl on her face and a cold embrace.
“Honey, I’m so glad to see you,” I told her, nuzzling my nose in her hair, which was longer and more beautiful than ever. “You look tired,” I said before I could stop myself.
The last thing I wanted to do was upset her. I wanted her to be in a very good mood when we got home. I had told my friends not to call or come to the house for at least two days because Glinda and I were going to be busy creating our first child. She had other ideas.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled. She walked with her head down, talking in a low voice. “The stove is on the blink,” she grunted as we headed toward the nearest exit.
Dozens of people stared and smiled at me in my dress blues—the sexiest, most recognizable, and prestigious uniform in the whole military worn proudly by marines, and envied by all. Several civilian dudes saluted me as I strolled by. It saddened me to know that complete strangers were more excited than my wife about seeing a man who had put his life on the line for America. I was thinking about all the ways I was going to make love to Glinda and she was telling me that the stove was on the blink!
“We can get a new stove or get the old one fixed,” I said. “In the meantime, I’d rather talk about the bed . . .”
Her body stiffened when I put my arm around her shoulder. When I mentioned “bed,” I had never seen a more disgusted look on a woman’s face than the one on Glinda’s face now. She looked like she wanted to puke.
“That’ll have to wait. My period just started this morning,” she informed me. That was the last thing I wanted to hear, because nothing turned me off like a bloody pussy. I told myself that if I could survive several months without sex and still be sane, I could wait a few more days.
“Oh. Well, it’s a good thing I’ll be home for a couple of weeks,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. She responded with a sharp grunt. We remained silent until we got into our four-year-old Prius and headed toward the freeway.
“Glinda, is something wrong?” I finally asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she snapped. She kept both hands on the steering wheel and both eyes on the road.
“Something is wrong,” I insisted. “I know you quite well and I’ve never seen you act this way.”
“What way, Calvin?” She glanced in my direction. The look of contempt on her face was so profound, it made my ches
t tighten.
“You’re making me feel like an unwanted, ugly stepchild, but I still love you. You don’t seem happy to see me, and you don’t have much to say to me. I’ve been away for a long time and the least you can do is make me feel welcome to be back home.”
Glinda looked even more disgusted by now. With a heavy sigh, she said, “I’m just tired and I can’t wait to get home so I can get some rest.”
We were like two strangers when we went to bed that night . . . after I had repaired the stove. With our backs to one another, she slept on one edge of the king-size bed and I slept on the other.
She felt like a piece of wood when I made love to her four days later, when her alleged period ended. But I had not been with a woman since the last time I saw her, so I didn’t care what she felt like. I took my time and I didn’t release her until I was thoroughly satisfied. When I finally slid off her body, she scrambled out of bed, moaning and groaning, and scurried into the bathroom. I didn’t wait for her to return. I was exhausted from our marathon lovefest, so I went to sleep immediately.
The next morning was only slightly better. Around nine o’clock, I shuffled into the kitchen in my pajamas. Glinda had on a frumpy brown dress, a pair of shabby house shoes, and she had pulled her hair into a severe ponytail. Despite her dowdy appearance, she had on as much makeup as she would wear to a nightclub. I was pleased to see that she had prepared a lavish breakfast. I had not eaten grits and bacon since the last time I visited my mother’s house. And probably wouldn’t again, at least not at Mama’s table. She was still angry with me for marrying Glinda and had not even written to me.
My older brother, Ronald, one of the few relatives I had who still communicated with me on a fairly regular basis, had written to let me know that Mama had been experiencing some serious health problems. I’d written to her immediately and even called her house a couple of times. She had ignored my letters and refused to take my calls.
