All The Dead Girls

by Tim Kizer

  "Why did you think so?"

  "He was in your house four days ago."

  "Four days ago I was in Vegas."

  "That's right. You left for Vegas, and the next day he came to your house."

  Another surprise. Richard frowned, fixed his eyes on his plate, puzzled. Norris had been in his house while he was in Las Vegas. What the hell had the detective been doing there?

  "Did he enter the house? Are you sure it was my house?"

  Tina nodded. "I’m sure. I'm not blind. I was watching at the kitchen window. I saw everything."

  "Did you see him carrying anything out of the house?"

  "No, I didn’t. But he might have taken something small.” Tina sipped some wine from her glass. “I thought he was your relative or friend."

  "He’s not my friend,” Richard said indignantly. "He entered my house without my permission. He didn't even tell me about it."

  "You should report it to his boss. I'll be your witness. They’re going to fire him. The police are strict about things like that."

  "If he worked there for a long time, he’ll be hard to fire."

  "At least it will make him nervous. He’s going to think twice next time he wants to break the law."

  Richard shook his head. "I highly doubt that."

  8.

  At midnight, Richard received a phone call from Bob Logan. Bob sounded worried.

  “Do you understand what’s going on?" Bob asked.

  "What do you mean?”

  "I’m talking about Mary. Did Norris tell you where she’d been the last four weeks?”

  "I don’t think he knows that.”

  "He was in charge of this case. He must know something.”

  Richard rolled his eyes. What difference did it make where Mary had been the last four weeks?

  “Maybe you should ask him yourself.”

  “Did he tell you how she got in that car accident?"

  “They believe she lost control of her car.”

  “Are you going to see Norris any time soon?”

  "No. The case is closed. I’ll probably never see him again.”

  After a short pause, Bob asked, “Are you buying what he told you?”

  “Is there something wrong with it?”

  "I don’t believe it was an accident.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Murder. The police are calling it an accident because they don't want to investigate."

  “Bob, I’m going to disagree with you. Norris is an honest guy. If there had been any evidence that Mary was murdered, he would have kept investigating, I’m sure of it.”

  A curious thought occurred to Richard: what if this phone call was orchestrated by Norris to find out if he badmouthed the detective behind his back? The detective could be sitting right next to Bob, listening to their conversation, giggling.

  “Don’t be so naïve, Richard.”

  “What makes you think it was murder?”

  "I’m her brother. I knew her very well. I probably knew her better than anyone else. She was a cautious person. She couldn’t have died so stupidly."

  "I wouldn’t call her death stupid. Even cautious people get in car accidents." Richard sighed. “Look, Bob, I’m in a lot of pain, too. I loved Mary with all my heart. But we have to accept that she’s never coming back.”

  “I’m so pissed off at the police. They were looking for her for almost a month, and now she’s dead."

  “They did their best.”

  "I still can't believe she’s gone. I feel like part of me died with her. Why do you think she left?"

  Richard smiled. Bob was polite enough not to say, ‘Why do you think she left you?’

  "I don’t know. I doubt we’ll ever find that out.” Richard rubbed the back of his head. “Don't forget, the funeral is tomorrow at eleven."

  "I'll be there. Thanks for arranging and paying for it."

  "No problem.”

  It was nice to hear Bob express his gratitude. Richard hated it when people took things for granted.

  Did Bob think that Richard had opted to have Mary’s body cremated because cremation was cheaper than burial? Well, if he did, he was right.

  "I've been meaning to ask you something,” Bob said. “Was Mary insured?"

  "Insured?" Richard was surprised by the question. What difference did it make to Bob whether Mary was insured or not? "Honestly, I don't remember."

  Maybe Bob hoped that Mary had insured her life and named him the beneficiary?

  "Well, all right then. Would you like to talk to my mom? She’s just arrived."

  Richard said that he didn’t have time to chat with Doris, said goodbye, and hung up. Then he spent a few minutes thinking about Bob's call. He was still puzzled by Bob’s question about insurance. Finally, he concluded that he didn’t need to concern himself with this matter. Bob may have been rambling, for all he knew.

  As for Bob’s theories regarding Mary’s death, it was possible that Mary had been murdered, but he wasn’t going to waste his time looking into this. The Mary Logan part of his life was over, and he must move on now.

  Richard chuckled. Bob must be very mad that their plan had failed and he had lost a lot of money.

  9.

  The next morning, just before breakfast, Richard took a barefoot walk outside around his house. He liked to walk on the dew-covered grass without shoes; it made him feel part of nature.

  He thought about Norris, about the detective’s illegal intrusion into his home. Why the hell had this moron broken into his house? What had he been looking for there? Had he been trying to check another ridiculous theory?

  He should tell Kathy about this. She might know how to deal with Norris.

  Thank God they had found Mary's body.

  CHAPTER 15

  1.

  He took off his sunglasses, looked around, and then fixed his eyes on the old woman who was standing on the porch of the house across the street from his car.

  The woman was old. It was bad to be old.

  How old would his mother be now?

  He quickly did the calculations in his head and found that Wendy would be sixty nine if she were alive today. She would be one decrepit lady.

  Would she have made it to sixty nine? She’d had a tough, miserable life. Perhaps she would have died of a heart attack in her early sixties—and made a lot of people happy, including her own children. Both he and his sister didn't love their mother, that's what he was trying to say here. There was nothing to love her for; she only cared about herself, about what she wanted. She didn’t give a damn about her children. That was fine with him; he wasn’t mad at his mother for being selfish. It’s a free country; Wendy could do whatever she damn pleased. But by the same token, she shouldn’t expect him to kiss her ass just because the tradition required it.

  If one took a look at Wendy's life, one would see that it was a mix of misfortunes, failures, and sufferings. She was unlucky. She had married the wrong man, she had never gone to college. Her children didn't love her. They argued with her every day. It must be hard to believe, but he and his sister somehow found a reason to quarrel with Wendy every God damn day.

  2.

  He sat down at the bar, ordered a glass of beer, and turned to the pool tables. His head was clear, his spirits were high. He was in a good mood because Mary’s body had been cremated yesterday. This time she was not going to come back from the dead, he was sure of it. He was not her husband anymore, he was truly free now. Tomorrow he would fly to Puerto Vallarta; it was a perfect place to relax and recharge his batteries.

  The name of the bar he was in was The Roger Lounge. It was located just a few miles from his house. It had four pool tables and offered great beer and fine chicken wings.

  Richard drank his beer and went back to the pool table. When he pocketed the first ball, he heard a voice behind him, "That was a great shot.” Then the man clapped his hands twice.

  Richard made a wry face: it was Norris.

  The good
thing was, since he was a grieving husband, he didn’t have to pretend to be happy to see Norris.

  The detective walked up to the table. He was wearing black jeans and a gray T-shirt, which had a large picture of a semi-truck on it. "How are you doing? Are you playing alone?”

  “Just practicing.”

  They shook hands.

  “Can I join you?” Norris asked. “Maybe you could teach me some tricks?”

  “I’m an amateur. I don’t know any tricks.”

  "Let's sit down and have some beer." Norris pointed at an unoccupied booth in the corner of the room. "I've been watching you for about ten minutes. You didn’t notice me, did you?"

  “No, I didn’t.”

  What did this self-satisfied jerk want from him? Did he ever get tired of spoiling other people's moods?

  "Where’s your mother-in-law?" Norris asked when they took their seats in the booth. "She did attend her daughter's funeral, didn't she?"

  Richard nodded. "Yes, she did. She’s staying at her son's place."

  "I see."

  A waitress came to their booth, and they ordered two beers.

  “It's a nice place," Norris said, drumming his fingers on the table.

  "Do you come here often?"

  "No, I was just driving by and decided to check it out. I don’t go to bars very often. With my job, I don't have time for that.”

  Richard didn’t believe the detective’s story. Norris must have followed him from his house. Or maybe he had placed a GPS tracking device on his car.

  “I came here to relax.” Richard sighed. “It’s been a stressful week. Before Mary went missing, I used to come here every weekend."

  "I'm sorry about your wife. She was so young.” Norris laced his hands on the table. “Listen, Richard. I apologize for all the unpleasant things I’ve told you. I feel like such a fool." He paused to think for a moment. "Yeah, it’s times like these you realize that any day might be your last. That life is short. Mary was a little over thirty, wasn’t she? So young, and now she's dead. It's a terrible tragedy."

  The waitress delivered the beers. Norris took a swig from his glass and smacked his lips.

  “Excellent stuff,” he said. “You know, I have an idea. You will give me pool lessons. Deal?"

  Richard agreed. After they finished their beers, he pocketed seven balls, explaining every shot. Norris spent half an hour practicing the techniques he had just learned, and then they returned to the booth.

  "You play really well,” Norris said. “I think you have the potential to become a professional.”

  They ordered two more glasses of beer.

  "I saw Kathy Brown at your wife’s funeral," Norris said. "How long have you known her?”

  “About a month.”

  Norris hummed and nodded. “You seem to be good friends with Kathy."

  "Yes, we’re friends."

  "I know her pretty well. She’s a nice person."

  “Yes, she is.”

  "Smart, too.” Norris withdrew his cellphone and tapped its screen with his finger a few times. “You want to hear something interesting? I read in some magazine that the rat can live four years. How long do you think the red sea urchin lives? Take a guess.” He looked at Richard excitedly.

  Richard thought for a moment and replied, “A year?”

  “A year? Not even close. Two hundred years. Can you believe it? Two hundred years! Some stupid sea creature lives twice as long as we do. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Shortly before they left the bar, Norris invited Richard to his birthday party this Saturday.

  "I’m turning forty,” the detective said. “The big four-o. I’m having the party at my cousin’s place. It’s going to be a lot of fun, I promise. My cousin has a huge house with a big-ass pool. You can skinny-dip if you want.”

  “I’m afraid I’m too old for this.”

  “You’re never too old for skinny-dipping. There’ll be a lot of booze. My cousin is great at throwing parties. He and I love to have a good time. The party starts at seven. Kathy will be there, too. So what do you say?"

  Richard said that he would think about it.

  CHAPTER 16

  1.

  He took a shower, brushed his teeth, and went to bed.

  He fell asleep within ten minutes. He had a dream about Wendy again. She was wearing a red nightgown. Interestingly, most of Wendy’s nightgowns were red. She stretched out her hands to him and yelled, "Son! Son!"

  Suddenly, her shouts became muffled, as though an invisible pillow had been pressed against her face.

  "Wendy, go home!" he screamed.

  "What?"

  He had to strain his ears to make out what she said.

  "Go home!"

  "What? What are you saying, I can't hear you!"

  "Go home, bitch! Go home!"

  Then he woke up. It was six in the morning when he left the bathroom, drying himself with a towel. After he picked up the newspaper from the porch, he went to the kitchen and began making coffee.

  He couldn’t get last night’s dream out of his mind. It had awakened very old memories, brought back the image of his mother—every last detail of it.

  He sat down at the table and opened the newspaper.

  He didn't feel sorry for what he had done to his mother. In fact, he had never been sorry for killing her.

  Why should he be? Wendy had been an egotist. He had punished her for thoughtlessness, for intolerance to other people's opinions, for cruelty, for callousness. She used to beat him, you know, and she did it with pleasure, with furious ardor. When he turned sixteen, he began to fight back against Wendy. He stopped being a passive party.

  At that time, he wanted to have a good relationship with his mother, but for some inexplicable reason things between them were getting worse every year.

  Wendy had no problem finding an excuse to start a fight with him.

  "When I die, you’ll see what it’s like to lose a mother," she would say to him. His sister was in college in another state, a thousand miles away from home at the time and didn't see their battles.

  "You never help me with anything," Wendy liked to say. "And I'm the one who feeds you, who buys you clothes. All you want to do is watch TV and hang out with your stupid friends."

  "I’m not asking for much," she would say. "I want our house to be clean. How hard is it to take out the garbage? Can’t you be a little more supportive? I’m you mother, for Christ’s sake!"

  Wendy was obsessed with cleanliness, just like most women. She thought nothing of beating him up for leaving a piece of a candy wrapper on the living room floor. What a cruel woman! Was a clean house worth a child's tears?

  Pouring coffee in a cup, he suddenly realized once again that he had done the right thing back then, seventeen years ago.

  You see, he had wanted to be indulgent toward Wendy, to forgive her, but his mother had not changed for the better in the years he had spent in college, away from home. And his hatred for her became pathological. It was all Wendy's fault.

  You wonder how he killed his mom? He poisoned her... No, that was the wrong way to put it. He let her get poisoned. And the most important thing was that he was only following her wishes. Wendy had always complained, "When is this all going to end? My God, I'm so tired of this life! I wish I were dead. I just can’t take it anymore."

  Those were her words. Her exact words.

  He had not planned Wendy’s murder. He did not even want to kill her. Perhaps he did it out of curiosity.

  It happened on a Thursday afternoon in April. His mother said that she felt like eating some beef stew, so he went to the kitchen and retrieved a can of beef stew from the pantry. As he walked to the counter, he noticed that the top of the can was bulging. His best guess was that the swelling had been caused by gases produced by bacteria. Evidently, the can or the stew had not been properly sterilized during production. It occurred to him that the can was likely to contain botulin, a naturally occurring toxin that was stronger than any
other biological or chemical poison.

  He opened the can and put its contents on a plate. The meat didn't stink and looked delicious. The good thing was that botulin had no taste or smell. Wendy could eat the whole can and notice nothing wrong. And so she did.

  He started waiting. First, Wendy complained of a drilling headache and general weakness. She felt dizzy and appeared ill. However, she was calmed by the fact that her body's temperature was normal; you see, botulism is a remarkable actor, it pretends to be a harmless indisposition up to the moment when it's too late to do anything.

  After several hours, Wendy suddenly jumped up from the couch and shouted, "I’m getting blind! Oh my God, I can’t see anything! I can’t see anything, son! Something’s wrong with my eyes! I’m getting blind!"

  She began to grab various objects from shelves and cabinet tops, and bring them to her eyes.

  "Everything’s so blurry!” she yelled. “Oh my God, why is everything so blurry!"

  Wendy collapsed on the couch and started crying. He was observing his mother with keen interest, burning with impatience. He was curious to see what she felt before the life left her body: botulin had a different effect on different people.

  "What am I going to do?" Wendy muttered. "I don't want to go blind. Why am I going blind?”

  What a fool. She thought she was going blind. If only she knew what was in store for her!

  "Maybe it’s your age," he remarked flatly.

  "I’m not that old. I could see fine this morning. This is so strange. Everything’s so blurry. I have a terrible stomach ache."

  "Let’s wait. Maybe it's temporary. I’ve read about cases like that.”

  “Maybe it’s glaucoma. Could it be glaucoma?”

  He gave Wendy Pepto-Bismol to relieve her stomach ache. He didn’t do it out of the kindness of his heart; he just didn’t want her to call the ambulance before it was too late to treat her.

  And then he went to Thirsty Beaver, his favorite local bar. He was a little tense, and a few glasses of vodka were just the thing. As for Wendy, he had no doubt that neither God nor the devil could help her now.

  He could only speculate about what his mother was experiencing while he was drinking at the bar. According to medical books, during her last hours she was tormented by excruciating stomach pain and nausea. Her stomach became swollen, her mouth dry. She may have been constipated, but it was probably the least of her problems at the time.