by Scott, D. D.
“Okey dokey.” Monica Lyn bobbed and weaved her way up the steps to Kitty’s front door.
“Whatareyadoin’?” I whispered more loudly than I should have, given the circumstances.
“Needda phone.”
“Wherezhyur cell?”
“I dunno. ‘Sides, cops ‘ud trace it back ta me.”
I smiled and nodded at Monica Lyn’s criminal brilliance. “Jus’ don’t wake Kitty,” I cautioned.
“Car’s gone,” Monica Lyn said, her Living Glove-clad hands twisting the door knob, to no avail. “Prob’ly out screwin’ someone else’s husband.” She stopped twisting and with exaggerated movements, crossed her arms under her breasts. “Now, if’n you were an SBCH, where wouldja hidda key?”
We stood side by side under the porch light and surveyed the possibilities. “Flower pot,” I said, because that was the only thing sitting on the rust-stained cement porch. .
Sure enough, tucked under a terra cotta pot filled with water-starved petunias we found a silver key that granted us access to Kitty’s home. I waited in the front room and counted the Chinese takeout containers (my comfort food of choice also) on the coffee table while Monica Lyn made the 9-1-1 call.
Once the proper authorities had been notified, we skedaddled back down Fisher Street. Ensconced once again in Monica Lyn’s parent’s fenced-in patio, we collapsed on the chaise lounges and then proceeded to toast our success with a few more bottles of Boone’s Farm. Who’d a thunk that dragging a dead body around would be such thirsty work?
• • •
There are hangovers, and then there are HANGOVERS. I currently suffered from the latter, and right now wished I was in a simple pine box buried six-feet under the ground.
Instead, I sat in an echo chamber labeled Police Interrogation Room Number Three, baking under lights that had to be 2,000 megawatts brighter than the sun.
“I’ll repeat my question,” Detective Dirk Rasmussen said. “How did you and Ms. Hunter come to be in Ms. Kline’s house?”
I forced myself to open my eyes and peeked at the man lounging in a metal chair. He was light-skinned, dark-haired, and built like a cuddly teddy bear. But the expression on his face more closely resembled a lion sizing up his dinner. I had a sinking feeling I was to be the main course.
“What makes you think we were in Ms. Kline’s house?” I asked. My recollections of the previous night were vague. Okay, more like non-existent. That Strawberry Hill wine had a tremendous amnesiatic effect.
“Because Mrs. Peterson reports seeing you and Ms. Hunter entering Ms. Kline’s house at two fifty-eight this morning. That’s one minute before a phone call was placed from that location, informing us of a dead body in the front yard.”
“Maybe Ms. Kline made the phone call herself. Did you ever think of that?”
“I find that highly unlikely, considering it was her body in the trashcan.”
I laid my head down on the cold metal table, closed my eyes and connected the dots of the previous day’s escapades. The dead body in the trash can we found at J.J.’s house was that of his playmate of the month, Kitty Kline. And it had been pilfered by his soon-to-be-ex-wife, a very jealous Monica Lyn, and delivered to her front yard by Monica Lyn and her childhood friend—me. It seemed a logical conclusion that one of the three of us had killed Kitty. The only thing I knew for sure was that it wasn’t me. “I want a lawyer,” I told the detective.
He nodded and left the room.
• • •
Since it was determined that Kitty Kline had been dead for a couple of days and I had an airtight alibi working at my job at a cotton merchant more than 1,000 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, I was off the hook for murder. Charges for Accessory After the Fact, Breaking and Entering, and Urinating in Public were still pending, but the attorney I found in the Yellow Pages had me sprung on my own recognizance by suppertime. And just like in a bad movie, I’d been warned not to leave town.
Monica Lyn wasn’t so lucky. With means, motive, opportunity, and the trail of blood down Fisher Street, she was a slam dunk for the prosecution. But the judge took into account her twelve-year stint as a city council person, nine years as Girl Scout Troop 83 leader, six years as PTA President, and current fundraising chair for the local no-kill animal shelter, and deemed her a low-flight risk. Bail was set at an amount easily covered via a cash advance on her VISA.
A smart woman would let the police take it from here. A really smart woman would hire a private investigator to help things along. And then there’s Monica Lyn. She decided to take things into her own hands.
“I need your help,” she said the next afternoon. I’d just returned from picking up my favorite lunch from my favorite local restaurant—spring rolls from Maya Moons Chinese Restaurant—which I placed on the table. I had lived on Maya Moon’s spring rolls back in high school. Literally. A fad diet I’d read about in a teen magazine had suggested the best way to lose weight was pick one favorite food and eat it exclusively for one month and the pounds would just melt away. (The theory being, I guess, is that you get tired of the food and don’t eat as much of it.) I had picked spring rolls, because I loved them, and I figured they were filled with vegetables, therefore, a healthy option. But I hadn’t counted the carbs in the flaky wrapper or the fat grams from deep frying the egg roll-like food. Nor had I tired of eating them. Thus I ended up gaining weight—and picking up the nickname Spring Roll—by the end of the month.
I hadn’t had any near as good since I’d left town. My mouth watered at the aroma, but my stomach churned into overdrive at the look on Monica Lyn’s face. I wasn’t sure what kind of “help” she needed, but it didn’t bode well.
Monica Lyn was already unwrapping the first spring roll from its waxed paper bag. So my choice, as I saw it, was either to abandon my all-time favorite food that I hadn’t tasted in over a quarter of a century and run screaming for the hills, or I could sit down at the table and share them with her and then run screaming for the hills. At least that way I’d have a full stomach.
I went for Option B and slid my backside along the mahogany bench seat the way I had at least a million times in my youth. So many memories. Especially the one where I’d been an accomplice when Monica Lyn had used her brother’s wood burning set to engrave ML+JJ=4EVER in the corner. I let my fingers trace the letters and contemplated how sometimes mathematical equations don’t always prove out.
“Whadaya have in mind?” I asked, my voice revealing the hesitation I felt. Monica Lyn had changed since being released from what she now referred to as her two-day vacation in cell block number 13. Her eyes, once dancing with mischief and merriment, were now iced-over with misery and fear. I had a bad feeling about this.
She took a long draw on her Earl Gray tea then thumped her mug down on the table. “When the police questioned J.J. about the trashcan we found in his garage, he made up a crazy-ass story about how I was not taking the divorce well and had cooked up this scheme to pin the murder rap on him, when really I had been the one who’d killed Kitty. So time for us to flip the tables back around and we’re going to do whatever is necessary to make sure J.J. is accused of Kitty Kline’s murder. That way he gets to spend a few days rotting in jail. Then we’ll do our civic duty and find the real killer,, since the cops don’t seem too keen on examining the evidence. It’s a win-win, don’t you agree?”
“We? As in you and me?”
Monica Lyn nodded.
“No way. Not me. I’m washing my hands of this whole thing. I already regret helping you steal the trash can in the first place. ‘What could go wrong?’ you’d said. Turns out, everything could go wrong. And then your stupid plan of planting the evidence at Kitty’s house almost got me ten years to life. No way. Not me. Find yourself another partner in crime.” I scooched towards the end of the bench, dragging a spring roll through the sweet dipping sauce en route.
But Monica Lyn put her size ten bunny slipper on the edge of the bench and stopped me from leaving.
“Are we or are we not sandbox sisters?” she asked.
I stared right back into her baby blues. “We are. BFFs since age two.”
“Did I or did I not beg my family to take you in last semester of senior year so you didn’t have to move to Reykjavik, Iceland with your mother when she married that crazy sailor?”
“You did.” A marriage that had lasted 179 days, at which point Mom became a global vagabond. I’d seen her twice since.
“Did I or did I not stop, drop and roll you when your veil caught on fire at your wedding reception?”
“You won money from America’s Funniest Home Videos with it.”
She wagged her pointer finger at me in a tick-tock motion. “But that hadn’t been my motivation. I did it to keep you from flaming up like a Roman Candle and having that beautiful face of yours disfigured for life. Risking my own beautiful face in the process, I might add.”
I let my gaze drop to my fingernails, which I’d scrubbed to bleeding nubbins in an attempt to remove every last molecule of Kitty Kline’s blood.
“And who was it that rushed to your side to hold your hand while Lucas drew his last breath?” she asked.
“You.” My mother had been MIA somewhere in Thailand while my husband battled pancreatic cancer.
“And did I or did I not lend you my last dime to help cover the funeral expenses?”
This could go on forever. “Okay, I get the point,” I said.
Monica Lyn settled back on her stool. “Have I ever once asked for anything in return?”
“No.” And she hadn’t. Ever. Not one single time in over 40 years.
“I’m calling in all my BFF chits right now.”
“Now?” I re-tallied the friendship account. I owed her. Big time.
“Now. Go get dressed. Something you don’t mind getting dirty.” She lowered her slipper to the floor.
I could leave. I could get up and walk out of this house and trot down to Gillian’s Wharf Road where I could hail a pedi-cab and have him take me to the nearest bus station where I could board a Greyhound and ride off into the sunset.
Or I could stay and help my best friend exact revenge on her dirt bag of a husband who had tried to convince the police this kind, gentle soul was capable of murder.
I knew what she would do if I asked her.
“How exactly does one go about framing their ex-husband for murder?” I asked.
“We’re going back to the house…”
And she did speak the house in italics, even though it was where she and J.J. had lived for seventeen years and raised two kids. But ever since she’d returned early from her meeting to find J.J. and Kitty, it had ceased to be her “home” and was now merely the house.
“…where we’ll wait for him to get home from work. Then we’ll get him so schnockered that when we tell the police he confessed to the murder, he won’t remember if he did or not. Ready?”
“I guess.”
• • •
“Calling Doctor Morgan. Doctor Morgan. You’re needed, stat.” J.J. waved his empty tumbler in the air in a sloppy drunk way.
As bartender for the evening’s festivities, I concocted another pitcher of Dr. Pepper and Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum (aka a Dr. Morgan), heavy on the rum, and poured another round. So far the plan seemed to be working well.
We’d spent the last few hours sitting poolside, sipping the rum beverage and reliving the good old days of The Four Musketeers, which had consisted of me, Monica Lyn, J.J., and his younger-by-three-minutes twin brother, Scott. Last I heard Scott was serving a twenty-year sentence for running a methamphetamine lab in Cincinnati. And I’d come this close to marrying him.
“This is better than my fourteenth birthday party,” Monica Lyn said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. We’d sure had some great times as kids.
I poured another round. “Just promise me you won’t make me get another tattoo to commemorate the event.”
Monica Lyn laughed so hard she fell out of her chair. J.J., ever the gentleman, helped her back up. I poured us all another round of Dr. Morgans.
“You have a tattoo?” J.J. asked. “Do tell.”
“Not just any tattoo. A misspelled one,” Monica Lyn said. “Only we didn’t realize it until the next morning when I looked at her ass.” Monica Lyn spoke through chortles and snorts. “Instead of ‘Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville,’ it says ‘Bastin’ away…’” She fell out of her chair again.
“I don’t believe it,” J.J. said.
I got up and tugged the waistband of my capris low enough so he could see the misspelled lyric, a forever reminder of when we’d been young and foolish. And drunk.
“Your turn,” I said to J.J. once we’d all stopped laughing and got ourselves off the ground and back into our chairs.
“Yeah,” Monica Lyn said. “True confessions time. Tell us one of your deepest darkest secrets.”
He swirled his drink in his hand, the ice cubes clinking softly against the glass. “Have I ever told you about the night Kitty Kline was hacked to pieces?”
I felt I’d been hit by lightening, the way my arm hairs snapped to attention at not only J.J.’s words, but the foreboding tone of his voice. I held my breath, waiting, afraid of what he’d say, but also strangely curious to hear the macabre tale.
The sun had set hours before, leaving J.J.’s face cast in wavering lights from the pool. I watched him toss back the dregs of his tumbler then reach for Captain Morgan’s. Instead of pouring it into a glass, he drank straight from the bottle, glug, glug, glug, until every last drop was gone. He then drew his arm slowly across his mouth before staring into the darkness.
We waited, listening to the sounds of silence.
Three minutes later, J.J. closed his eyes, slid out of his chair and landed face down in the fescue. Despite numerous not so gentle pokes and prods, he wouldn’t budge.
“Crap. How long before you think he wakes up?” Monica Lyn asked while prying open one of his eyelids and peering in.
“Dunno. He drank a lot. Could be a few hours, could be a few days.”
“But you heard him, didn’t you? He confessed to killing Kitty.”
“You think the cops will take the word of two drunken women? Both of whom are prime suspects themselves?”
“Good point,” Monica Lyn said. “One of us should have stayed sober.”
“Us? Stay sober? Right.” I tossed back the dregs of my drink. “So now what?” I asked, hoping home to bed was the answer.
Monica Lyn sat back in her chair and tapped her pointer finger against the enamel on her front tooth. I knew, having sat next to her for every test from third-grade spelling quizzes to high school Calc exams, finger tapping on a tooth meant she was deep in thought and shouldn’t be interrupted.
“We need proof,” she said. “And I’ve got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea.” She sprang out of her chair, raced around the pool and disappeared into the house.
I waited for her return, watching J.J. sleep and wondering what had motivated him to kill Kitty. Especially in such a brutal way. They say everyone has a point that they will take another person’s life, but rarely does one get pushed that far. What had been J.J.’s tipping point?
Monica Lyn returned, wearing latex food preparation gloves and wielding a hacksaw and shovel. “Here, put these on,” she said, tossing a pair of gloves in my direction. The shovel followed, landing with a thud at my feet. “Now go dig a hole by the back fence.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as I watched her bend over J.J.’s body, hacksaw in hand.
“Putting his fingerprints on the saw that killed Kitty.”
“OMG, you found the murder weapon?”
“Nope. No bloody saws hanging in the garage, so we’re going to make this look like the murder weapon by covering it in J.J.’s prints then burying it in the backyard. Then we’ll call in an anonymous tip to the police. They’ll haul him in for questioning, and he’ll confess under the pressure of the intense interrogation.�
�
“How do you know he’ll crack?”
“He always fidgeted when Beckett put the screws to someone on Castle. He’ll crack faster than an egg dropped from a third-story window. I’ll bet my life on it.”
I donned the gloves, picked up the shovel and headed off towards the back fence to dig a hole. No doubt about it, Monica Lyn’s had a criminal mind. I’m just glad I was on her side.
• • •
“Damn Luminal,” Monica Lyn said as she slammed her cell phone on the kitchen counter the next afternoon.
“What’s that?” I asked while spreading strawberry preserves on my wheat toast. We’d been up for hours, but I was just getting around to breakfasting.
“It’s a chemical agent that detects the presence of human blood. Even if the item has been washed, traces of iron remain and cast off a blue light when Luminal is sprayed on it.”
“So?” I slipped along the bench seat the table, my mouth watering at the idea of tasting the homemade strawberry preserves. Monica Lyn’s mother’s preserves were the best on the planet, and I hadn’t had any in years.
“So, no big surprise, there was no trace of blood on the hacksaw we buried in J.J.’s yard. Which means they can’t tie J.J. to Kitty’s murder. Which means he didn’t even get hauled in for questioning. This also puts us back at the top of the list of suspects.”
“Not us. You.”
“You helped steal the trashcan and move the body.”
I pushed my toast away and wondered how much jail time that might earn me.
“You heard him confess. He killed her, I know it. Sure as I know my own name. Which means the murder weapon is somewhere in that house. It’s up to us to find it.”
“How?” I don’t know why I asked that, because I really didn’t want to know the answer.
“I have a plan,” Monica Lyn said. “Come on, best friend. Let’s go.”
