Cliff Roberts Thriller Box Set

by Cliff Roberts

  In most of the novels he read, whenever someone buried a body they did so with the hope of hiding it forever. Invariably, the police found it every time because of the disturbed soil or the site had been disturbed by animals or some passerby spotted a body part inexplicably sticking up through the soil.

  Far too many of the murderers in the novels, as well as real life, simply dug a hole until they were tired of digging, then they stuffed the body in and filled it back in with dirt. They never considered the amount of dirt they would have left over after placing the body in the hole.

  Most of them simply left the remaining dirt piled up next to the grave, when they should have spread it around the area. By not spreading the dirt out, it left the grave several inches higher than the ground around it but only until it rained. Then the soil in the grave would compact itself becoming several inches lower than the surrounding area.

  To keep this from being a problem, he chose to bury his wife’s body in her own flower garden. The garden’s soil was always disturbed due to her constant planting and replanting, making it the perfect place to hide a grave. To ensure that animals wouldn’t dig up the body or the rain wouldn’t wash away the soil and expose it, he dug the hole ten feet deep.

  He couldn’t just dig a hole. He had to plan for the reclamation of the surface where the hole was to be dug as well, that way the garden would look exactly as it had prior to his excavations. If even a single flower was mangled, the garden would look differently than it had. So, he had to painstakingly uproot all of the flowers and preserve them for replanting after he had refilled the hole.

  While he worked, he used the stack of old potting trays she kept in the garage to store the flowers. He had no idea why she had kept so many, but it worked for him. Of course, the flowers didn’t fit into the trays anymore, since they were much larger then when first planted, but it beat dumping the plants on the ground.

  For the different types of soil he encountered while excavating, he laid out tarps on which to pile them so as not to alter the soils’ consistency when refilling the hole. He would refill the hole with the different types of soil in the same order in which he dug them out.

  As he dug, his thoughts drifted, and he found himself rehashing the train wreck of his marriage. He hated this garden, mostly because she loved it so much. She spent more time working in it than she spent with him. She was so into her garden, she had even joined a garden club and managed to win a few awards for her efforts. If she had put that much effort into their marriage, perhaps he wouldn’t be taking this step.

  When she wasn’t out in the garden, she was shopping. He’d only recently discovered the word ‘shopping’ was code between her and her sister, for her being out with her new boyfriend—a guy he had met at her work’s Christmas party last year. She spent the night practically hanging on the guy monopolizing his time, which he didn’t seem to mind. Tyler should have intervened and stopped it, but he had gotten drunk and had spent the night flirting with Janice, the babe from accounting.

  To be honest, it was the lack of attention he paid his wife that had brought an end to their relationship. He’d been too busy doing other things, when he should have been paying attention to her. He had left the door wide open for her to walk out and that was exactly what she had done. It was his own fault, but he couldn’t accept it, because she’d had an affair.

  When he had asked her why she had an affair, her excuse was the long hours he worked and what she called his meager salary. He had tried to justify the long hours by claiming it was required to keep up with current events. Though in reality, he stayed away from home because he wasn’t up to fighting with her anymore. Screaming and hollering had become the only way they communicated and he’d had enough.

  He pushed those thoughts from his mind and focused on the task at hand. He hollowed out the side tunnel, making sure that he braced it well using plywood and two-by-fours to shore up the walls and ceiling. It had to hold up for the next several hours, and then, if everything worked right, it would all be filled within a few hours after that.

  After the hole came the real challenge of committing the perfect murder, the alibi. He’d read somewhere that everything in life was timing—being in the right place at the right time. He had spent the last month making sure the timing today would work out to his advantage. He had managed to access the computer time clock at work, altering its programming. It would show he had been at work today from around four in the afternoon until three in the morning.

  Next, he chose the perfect murder weapon. He’d chosen a fast-acting poison which he purchased from a pharmacy in Singapore via the Internet. He used the computers at the public library and a Visa gift card to place his order. He had gotten the gift card for Christmas a couple of years ago from his wife’s sister. The beauty of the gift card was its anonymity. There was no record of who purchased it or who had used it, provided you didn’t use it in a store like Walmart where you had sign for the purchase. Once the money was spent, you simply threw it away.

  Once he had made the purchase, he was confronted with another issue. He couldn’t have it shipped to his house or to anywhere that required anyone to handle it or release it to him. He had to have complete anonymity. So, he rented a mail box at a package delivery store in a town fifty miles away. He paid cash for a six-month rental under a fake name. He had chosen that particular store because they didn’t require ID, making him completely untraceable.

  The poison itself was advertised as a wart and mole remover. In the fine print though, several pages into the website dealing with it, it was explained that it was not to be ingested as it could cause hallucinations and/or death, if taken in the ‘right amount.’

  The site went on to explain what the right amounts were, before showing another disclaimer that stated it was for external use only. With further research, he’d discovered it had been used as a deadly poison by the ancient peoples of Southeast Asia and India. The research claimed that the drug was odorless and tasteless, perfect for use in food or drink. It had been the suspected poison of choice for many political assassinations in ancient India, carried out by the followers of Kali, the Goddess of Death.

  He found it funny that the pharmacy guaranteed your money back if it failed to kill your intended victim. In order to receive a full refund of the purchase price and the shipping costs though, you had to provide a doctor’s note, attesting to the drug’s failure.

  He continued to hurry. The victim, his soon to be ex-wife, was due to stop by in less than two hours. He planned on slipping her the drug in a glass of iced tea, after which, it should take less than ten minutes (according to the Internet) to take full effect. Once she was dead, he would carry her out to the garage and wrap her in plastic sheeting, then place her in the box and bury her in her beloved garden. He’d already brought her two favorite pieces of luggage out to the garage, filled with some of her clothes to bury with her. It was all part of the plan to make it appear as though she had taken a trip or left town.

  For a brief moment, he thought he shouldn’t do it. He knew it was wrong, but still. She had broken his heart, and now she was trying to steal everything he owned by divorcing him. She was the cheater, not him, and yet the laws all favored her. So, in light of the facts, murder was his only option.

  If pressed by the investigators, his story would be she must have come by the house and grabbed her clothes while he was at work. He would claim he last spoken with her several weeks ago, and she had informed him at that time she wanted a divorce. As far as where she was going, she had stated it was none of his business. He would also be sure to mention she had been seeing her boss’s son and someone should ask him where she went.

  It was simple, and it was easy. Not too many details and it ended with her leaving while she was still alive. He would drive her car downtown to the train station and park it as if she had taken a train to the airport, which was a common practice from the northern suburbs. Parking was so much cheaper at the train station than the a
irport, everyone in town did it. He had already parked his backup car, an old Chevy Nova, a short distance from the train station, so he would be able to drop off her car at the station and still have a ride home.

  After stuffing the last bit of bracing in place inside the side chamber, he climbed the ladder out of the hole and stood looking down into it, admiring his work. He then stepped inside the garage, where he stripped out of his dirty work clothes, because he didn’t want to track any of the dirt into the house where someone might find it.

  Being able to wander about outside in your underwear (or less) was one of the benefits of living in a country setting. Tyler’s house was located on the edge of town surrounded by heavy forest, and his nearest neighbor was over three hundred yards away, so he felt there was little chance anyone would see him. It was the privacy of his home’s location that afforded him the confidence he could commit the perfect murder.

  CHAPTER TWO

  His soon to be ex-wife, Wendy, arrived right on time at eight o’clock, as requested. He was surprised since she was usually twenty minutes late for everything, even for their wedding, she managed to show up late. He had used the idea of talking over their pending divorce as the ruse to get her to stop by. He had even gone so far as to promise to remain civil as long as she did.

  When she arrived he was peeking out from behind the front window curtains. He had been too excited and nervous to sit and watch TV or read while he waited, kind of like it was their first date again. As he watched her exit the car, his excitement though turned to horror, because her sister had gotten out of the passenger side of the car.

  Together the two of them stomped, side by side, up to the front door and rang the doorbell. He stood frozen at the window, anger boiling up inside him. Shit! She couldn’t even do this right, he thought as she rang the bell again.

  “Come on in,” he yelled through clenched teeth as he crossed the room to the sofa and stood behind it. Remember, non-threatening, he told himself. He clamped his hands on the back frame of the couch. They were already white when the door opened and the two women entered.

  “I’m surprised it was open. You changed the locks and hired a security service as soon as I left,” Wendy remarked as she crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair near the fireplace while April, her sister, hovered behind her.

  “Hello, nice to see you too,” he stated as he tried to remain as non-threatening as possible. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be sarcastic.

  “I’m not here to be nice to you, Tyler, especially since I’ve been locked out of my own home now for what? Four weeks?” she groused.

  “It seemed prudent with no one being home most of the time and besides, you moved out, so this isn’t your home any longer.”

  “I’ll move back in as soon as you move out, like any self-respecting man would have done.” Wendy was trying to press his buttons, but he didn’t take the bait, this was too important.

  “I owned the house before we were married, remember?”

  “Robert, the attorney at work, says that doesn’t matter,” April stated as Wendy sat glaring at him.

  The thought occurred to him this display of attitude by Wendy was completely misdirected. She had been the one to have an affair. She was the one who broke her vows, not him. If anyone was entitled to an attitude it was him, yet here she was, giving him attitude.

  “Oh! Hi, nice to see you, too,” Tyler replied to April’s remark. In response, she gave him a twisted sneer and then looked at her nails when Wendy looked at her.

  “Don’t try to change the subject,” Wendy snarled.

  “I only said hello,” Tyler stated through gritted teeth.

  “You were about to complain I brought her. I know how you think,” Wendy snapped. It was clear she was spoiling for a fight.

  “It’s a little hard to have a heart-to-heart with you, with your sister giving me the evil eye.”

  “Well, I don’t trust you,” Wendy snapped. “If you decided to, you could beat the crap out of me, and I couldn’t defend myself because you’re so big.”

  “Have I ever hit you or even threatened you?” Tyler asked, knowing he never had.

  “You could kick him in the balls, that would stop him,” April stated with a wicked smile on her face.

  That pissed him off so he snapped back at her, “I thought that was what you called foreplay.” April flipped him the bird and stared at him. After a minute, he realized this wasn’t going to get him what he wanted, so he changed tactics.

  “This isn’t helping the situation. It’s not easy for me because I still love you, and I want you to be happy. So I thought we could sit down and you could tell me what you wanted to do about this situation. If you want a divorce, then I guess I haven’t any choice but to give you what you want,” Tyler said.

  April quickly interjected, saying, “Robert says he doesn’t have anything to say about it, if you want a divorce, he can’t stop you.”

  “Robert’s right,” Tyler agreed, leaving her no place to go in the conversation. Wendy held up her hand, yet again, cutting off her sister before she could make any further comments. She then looked at Tyler with a face that was as cold as stone.

  “I want a divorce,” Wendy stated. “I want to get this over with as quickly as possible, but if you insist, I’ll drag it out for as long as it takes to get what is rightfully mine.”

  “Okay,” Tyler replied as if he was agreeing to repaint the living room. It was all he could do to keep from becoming emotional, but he knew if he did, it would defeat his plans. “Do we want to hire attorneys or do it ourselves?” he asked. “We can split the bank accounts, fifty-fifty. You keep your pension. I’ll keep mine. You have your car and I have my car. I don’t think you want my car, do you?” he asked with only the smallest hint of sarcasm.

  “No, it’s a piece of junk,” Wendy snapped.

  “So, that only leaves the house, which I owned before we were married.”

  “Robert says…” April started to say but Wendy cut her off by waving her hand.

  “So what?” Wendy groused. “I should get nothing, just because you owned it before we got married?”

  “You’re the one choosing to get a divorce, and I bought the house a long time before we got married. It’s a part of me.”

  “Part of you? I was the one who painted it. I planted all of the landscaping,” Wendy countered.

  “Doesn’t Danny have his own house?” Tyler inquired.

  “I’m not marrying him.”

  “Well, not right away,” April stated. Wendy gave her a dirty look which caused her to turn away. “I’m just saying.”

  “It’s none of my business,” Tyler stated. “Plus, I really don’t care to know.”

  “You got that right,” April snapped. “It ain’t any of your business.”

  “Shut up, April! Why don’t you go get us some iced tea?” Wendy suggested, then turned to Tyler. “You do have iced tea, don’t you? You always have iced tea in the refrigerator,” she stated as she looked at his glass of iced tea on the coffee table as he nodded. The iced tea in the refrigerator was already laced with the poison, unlike his tea on the coffee table which was from the last unlaced batch.

  When April went into the kitchen his heart leapt, this still might work. April would be a complication but hardly any trouble. He hated her as much as he hated that bitch of a soon to be ex-wife. It was at that moment that he had a random thought and wondered just how many men she had affairs with, in her quest for more money.

  “What’s with all the plastic cups?” April hollered from the kitchen as she looked at the stacks of cups on the counter.

  “I got tired of washing glasses,” he informed her. He planned on burying the plastic cups in which he had served the tea, leaving nothing to collect fingerprints from or traces of the poison.

  “Men are the laziest creatures on the planet,” April asserted. “He’s even bought a disposable pitcher to make tea in. What do you eat? All he has in the refrige
rator besides the tea is a yogurt, a couple of bagels and a tub of cream cheese. No ketchup, no mayo, nothing,” April offered as she walked back into the living room. Then after taking a sip of the iced tea stated, “Wow, great tea. It’s so sweet.”

  “Glad you like it,” he retorted snidely, hiding his excitement at the pending demise of these two bitches.

  “I thought you’d get me one,” Wendy stated as April took another small sip.

  “Sorry, I got sidetracked. You can share mine,” April answered as she handed the cup to Wendy.

  “How can you live like this?” April then asked Tyler, referring to his lack of food or drink, as Wendy took a long deep drink. She then handed the cup back to April, who took another small sip. Tyler ignored April’s inquiry as he fought back the urge to grin like a Cheshire cat.

  “So, what do you suggest we do about the house?” he asked, avoiding eye contact, because he didn’t want Wendy to see his glee at what now was her assured demise.

  “I think I deserve something, if you’re so set on keeping the house. I mean, I should get something for having been you’re sex toy,” Wendy stated, as if that was something bad as she took back the cup of tea from April and took another drink.

  “I thought you were my wife,” he stated and began counting the minutes until the drug was supposed to take effect.

  “Wife? You treated me like I was an afterthought. You never were home unless it was to sleep or to have sex,” Wendy alleged.

  “Yeah, I know I was the one who blew it. You don’t need to rub it in,” Tyler stated sincerely.

  April took the tea back from her sister, stepped over to the dining room table where she pulled out a chair but didn’t sit down. She apparently preferred to hover over her sister. Tyler wondered if she was high on something.

  “Maybe you could remortgage and give me my fair share?” Wendy offered.