by Jeff Vrolyks
Pop!
John nearly fell forward, reflexively leaned back to counter the momentum.
Pop!
John fell eight feet to the foot of the ladder, dust billowing around his lifeless body.
“I love you so, so much,” Simone whimpered, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know how I would live without you.” Wearing nothing but a white robe and pink slippers, Simone knelt at John’s side and caressed his bloody cheek. The only man she would ever love might still be alive if she heeded the lady’s words in her dreams. “My soul mate… Johnny, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” She put the revolver with four bullets remaining to her temple and fired, collapsed on top of her husband.
Chapter 46
There would be a massive investigation, and a grave problem remained in the garage. Kloss briefly considered dragging Keith and Bertha to the backyard and playing them off as casualties to the day’s tragedy, but they were killed by Pea Willy’s handgun: it wouldn’t fly. There wasn’t much time to devise a plan, so Holly and I volunteered to do the only thing that made sense: drive off the property with them. Alison said they put the bodies in the trunk of the BMW, which Kloss appreciated. A quicker getaway increased our odds. Since time was of the essence, we hurried to the garage while the others stayed behind to suffer the three-ringed circus that was undoubtedly on the way.
Gunfire was still going off in my head. There were so many shots fired, even if the majority of them missed, it still left room for a dozen or more dead. Things were about to change drastically, that much was certain. It was the second attempt at her life on this property; it was time for us to leave. The only place I could think of was my apartment. But if they found us there, we’d be defenseless. I didn’t even own a gun. That would soon be remedied.
Kloss followed us to the garage, tossed me his car keys and said “Get a move on, quick. Drive anywhere. There’s a phone in the console. Call me later and we’ll discuss what to do from there. Maybe you should go to your apartment until things calm down, if they ever do. Be careful where you park, the smell will only get worse.” Kloss handed a wad of cash to Holly. “Stick with cash, avoid plastic. Be careful, guys. Obey the speed limit, drive like a grandma.”
I said I would.
Kloss looked to the far end of the garage. “Looks like they loaded the wolves in the trunk, too. Fantastic. Get out of here, guys. Holly, I love you and please be careful.”
We drove away in the BMW. Through the sound-proof cabin we could hear sirens approaching. They were close. Kloss opened the gate with the clicker; I drove down the driveway alongside the double-rank of parked cars. There were quite a few stragglers talking excitedly amongst themselves. I’m sure they would be giving eyewitness testimony not only to police, but to reporters.
I drove up the cul-de-sac. The first ambulance screamed past me before I reached the cross-street, soon followed by fire-engines, ambulances, and cops. There was a helicopter overhead.
“If they knew what was in our trunk,” I said, “I doubt that cop would have just driven by us.” I glanced over at Holly, who was now weeping. My body was in survival mode, adrenaline coursing. I hadn’t thought about death, other than it happened and there was plenty of it.
I touched her shoulder. “Can I do anything or get anything for you?”
She shook her head and opened the glove box, found a travel-pack of tissue paper and put it to use. At the end of the street two police cars had created a roadblock. “Damnit.” I flipped a bitch and drove the way we came, considering another route out of the neighborhood.
“I asked Sue Ellen to stay the night and… and she said she would,” Holly stammered through sobs. “Now she’s dead. How could this happen?”
My heart broke for Pea Willy. He lived for his wife. He would wish he was the one who took the fatal shot in the back.
“And it’s my fault!” she cried. “They were trying to shoot me but she was in the way, so they shot her to get to me!”
I turned at the fork in the road. There were more cops making a roadblock. In my rearview mirror I saw a Not a Through Street sign.
“Wolves died because of me,” she continued, “the two people in the trunk are dead because of me. Lindsey and that poor nurse died because of me. Maybe I should just die so nobody else will!”
I stopped at a curb a block from the squad cars. Emergency vehicles funneled in between them. “Don’t think that for a second!” I said vehemently. “They died because someone chose to kill them! You aren’t any more responsible for their deaths than Colt and Beretta are for making the guns that killed them. Please don’t saddle this shitty mess on your shoulders.” She continued weeping. “We’re trapped. We’re either going to have to give them the bird or go back to your brother’s house.”
“Going back is a bad idea. Just try to leave.”
Exchanging a bad idea for a terrible idea, I put the car in drive and continued on. My heart was hammering, nervous sweat broke out at once on my forehead. I cranked up the air-conditioning to high as I slowed before the gap in the cruisers and attempted to roll on by. An officer signaled me to stop. I powered the window down. He hunched and looked inside, chewing gum and smacking his lips. I said nothing, would say nothing unless I had to. I looked to Holly, praying she would say something smart, something to help us get the hell out of there. She put the kibosh on the tears, that was something positive. She looked rough, though.
The officer took a step aft and scanned the empty back seats and floor. “Where are you coming from,” he said finally.
“From Vacaville,” Holly replied shortly. “We came by to visit my brother, Kloss. But by the look of things there’s some sort of emergency in the area. Do you know what happened? I’m worried about him.”
Why the fuck did she have to bring up Kloss?
His eyes widened. “You’re Kloss VonFuren’s sister?” Holly forced a smile and nodded. “Did you just come from his house?” She said she didn’t. “You drove all the way from Vacaville to visit your brother, and when you get here you just drive right on by his house without stopping?”
We were screwed.
“We had no choice,” she retorted. “An officer waved us away—what were we supposed to do? Tell him to kiss our ass and drive past him? We have more respect for our police than that, sir.” On the surface she was sincere. I reckoned if I had said the same bullshit, it would have sounded condescending.
He looked at the car phone mounted on the center console and said, “Why didn’t you call him before leaving? Or did you?”
“What’s your name?” she inquired.
“Ray.”
“Ray, he was recording a live performance. I knew he wouldn’t and couldn’t answer. What exactly is it that you think we’ve done wrong?”
The other officer jotted down the license plate number in front of the car and went to his cruiser to enter it in the system. “I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong. It’s standard procedure. All I know is you just came from the scene of a homicide.”
“We didn’t come from the scene of a homicide because we were never there. Like I said, we drove on by when the cop told us to. Kloss is my brother,” she said thickly. “You think I would have anything to do with an attack on him and his guests?”
He waved the other officer over. “Step out of the car,” Ray said dryly.
I wondered how we would look in orange. I heard they let you lift weights and read all the books you want in prison. I figured I would be buff and well read before I saw Holly next.
We got out of the car. “What the hell?” Holly said indignantly. “I told you everything that happened!” She slammed her door in protest.
“How did you know about an attack on him and his guests? You said you didn’t know what happened and merely drove by. Let me see both of your I.D.’s. And why don’t you start being honest with me. Whose car is this? And how do you know Kloss?”
A fire engine and two squad cars were now in front o
f the BMW, our car blocking their thoroughfare. The officer asked the other to move his squad car so they could get by.
“She’s Kloss’s sister,” I said petulantly, “she already told you that.”
Holly handed over her driver’s license. He looked at it carefully, nodded. He then studied mine. I had handed him my Military ID card as well. It never hurts to show a cop a Military ID. Many of them are former Military and might go easy on you, especially if they were in the same branch. This cop didn’t say anything, just glanced at it, then handed the two cards back.
“Is this your car, Holly?”
“No, it’s my brother’s. He let me borrow it because my car was ruined in the fire last week.”
“The fire in Cattlemen Ranch? You own the house that Kloss use to live in? You’re that sister?”
“I’m his only sister. It’s just the two of us, like the song but without the happy chorus.”
She failed at humoring him. “I’m sorry about your home, ma’am. Must be difficult.”
“She loved that house,” I said. “Lost everything in it. I’m sorry we weren’t straight with you. The truth is we just arrived at her brother’s house when we heard gun shots. We hadn’t even parked yet when it began. We were scared so we drove off and tried to call a few times with the car phone, but nobody was answering. We’re guilty of being cowards, officer.”
He stared undecidedly at me. The other officer approached him and said, “Car belongs to Kloss VonFuren. It’s not reported as stolen.”
“It’s all right, Dwight, this is his sister. She’s the young lady whose house burnt down in the Vacaville fire the other day.”
Dwight raised his brow, “No shit? You’re Holly VonFuren?” He appraised her. Holly nodded. “You don’t look like the picture they showed of you on the news.”
“That was a high school picture. I hate that picture.”
Ray said we could leave. We didn’t need to be told twice. He gestured for us to wait one second as he conversed with Dwight in private. We got in the car. “God,” I whispered, “just let us get out of here, please.”
“Did you see that jerk stare at my boobs? Men are supposed to only do that when we aren’t looking. What a creep.”
I had the car in drive, foot on the brake, and both hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two. I was chewing on my cheek. I saw that the officers were laughing. A radio transmission came in and they gave their radios their attention. As they listened, the creep Dwight waved us off. I took my foot off the brake and rolled forward. “Thank God,” I said.
“Hey!” Ray shouted. I contemplated driving on, but I couldn’t guess how that might play out. I stopped the car and watched in the rear view mirror as the officer approached the trunk of the sedan staring at it. He waved Dwight over. They both hunched down. I could see their nostrils flaring.
“Oh no,” Holly whispered. My thoughts exactly.
Ray stepped to the driver’s door and said, “That’s some odor you got in the trunk.”
“An aquarium tipped over recently,” Holly said. “You smell mildew.”
“Doesn’t smell like mildew. Smells like decomposition. Open the trunk.”
Holly closed her eyes. Her lower lip quivered almost imperceptibly.
“Yes sir,” I said, spoken like a man without a future. I didn’t know how I would explain it. I hated to have to rat out Pea Willy, and even when I explained why he shot them, it would sound like a piece of science fiction. I removed the keys from the ignition and got out of the car. Holly stayed inside and palmed her face.
“Ma’am, is there a problem?”
Holly shook her head, and then sobbed once.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Holly? Kevin? It’s in your best interest to be honest with me.”
“Kiss my ass,” I replied. “Don’t talk to her again.” When you have nothing left to lose, you can afford to speak your mind a little. At the trunk I said, “There’s nothing we can say that you aren’t about to find out.” Both officers alarmed from my words and gazed uncertainly at the trunk.
An officer stood on either side of me as I pushed the key with a BMW logo into the keyhole. Dwight placed his hand on his gun. I hope Holly will be safe in jail, I thought. I twisted the key, the deck lid sprang up an inch. The odor intensified. Officer Ray opened the trunk the rest of the way. A green blanket draped over the trunk’s contents. The officer looked deep inside.
“What’s under the blanket?”
I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though he was reluctant to see for himself. “It’s complicated,” I said grimly. “I know you’re not going to believe me but it was an accident. I swear to God.”
His eyes widened. Dwight took it upon himself to check, and lifted the corner of the blanket up. Black fur. He raised the flap of blanket until it met the roof of the trunk and exposed the side and rear legs of a black dog. The officers awaited an explanation without asking for it.
Hell if I know. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but the trunk was plenty deep enough for additional corpses.
“I ran over a dog last night and it died. I didn’t know what to do with him so I put him in the trunk. I felt bad for him, and was going to give him a proper burial later.”
The officers checked each other. My story was going through their bullshit sensors. Dwight met eyes with me and asked if I’m stupid. “You leave the rotting carcass of a dog in the trunk of a hundred-thousand-dollar BMW?”
“I didn’t know what else to do. It was someone’s pet. I didn’t want to leave him in the middle of the street for the kid who owned him to find. I guess in hindsight it wasn’t a good idea.”
“Ya think?” He dropped the blanket and closed the trunk. “Get outta here, and get that thing in the doggone ground.”
I almost asked him if pun was intended, but refrained. The fact that it had entered my mind was telling of my instant mood upswing. I prayed an appreciative thank you as my guts unwound. I reentered the car, forehead glistening with a layer of nervous sweat covering the thicker layer of pre-summer sweat. As I rolled the window up, officer Dwight exclaimed, “Get rid of that damned bumper sticker, too. It’s inappropriate.”
“Will do.” I didn’t recall seeing a bumper-sticker, but then again I had more important things on my mind.
I pulled away, putting wonderful distance between them and us. “You know how lucky we are?” I said. “If Alison and Mike didn’t put the wolves in front of Keith and Bertha, we would be in back of a squad car right now.”
“How could they miss two dead people in the trunk?”
“It’s a big trunk and there’s a tarp and several thick blankets over them. He only lifted the blanket up enough to see the dead wolf, which he assumed was a dog.”
Holly took a deep breath, nearly grinned. “Pull into the Chevron by the freeway. I want to see this bumper sticker.”
I left the neighborhood, sped toward the freeway and pulled into the gas station, parked at a gas pump. We hurried to the back of the sedan. The bumper sticker read: FRIENDS HELP YOU MOVE; REAL FRIENDS HELP YOU MOVE BODIES
Chapter 47
With a sardonic grin, Lieutenant Dehetre asked Kloss why he wanted his attorney present, and what he was afraid of.
Kloss gazed at Alison. He thought she never looked more beautiful, even after this shit storm. “Lieutenant, you don’t know what it’s like to be me. Anything I say will come back as a quote taken out of context and end up in a tabloid. My attorney suggested I never answer questions without him. His ambition is to protect me. Your ambition is to get promoted by busting me. So I’ll take his advice over yours, thank you.”
“Fine,” he said crossly, like a kid who didn’t get his way. “We will be doing a full investigation of these premises. If you think we need a warrant to look wherever the hell we want, you’re in for a big surprise. Our right was granted the second a bullet entered the first victim. So go smoke a joint or shoot up, or whatever you rock star types do, until your attorney arr
ives. But I promise that things would be much easier on you if you’d have a dialogue with me.”
“I’ll smoke a joint while you eat a donut or find someone black to club with a nightstick. Fair enough?”
“You’re an asshole,” muttered lieutenant Dehetre. He brought his radio to his mouth. “James, I’m right outside the garage; where you at?”
“Be there in a sec,” a voice replied.
Kloss unlocked the garage door with an unstable hand, then backed away, took to Ali’s side. The other detective arrived and the two spoke to each other in hushed tones.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Alison whispered to Kloss.
“It’s not so much that they’re wolves, and it’s not that they’re dead, it’s how they died. The shotgun that the bitch killed them with is in my gun safe. It’s going to lead to them having the legal right to search every square inch of my house for that gun.”
“Again, I’m sorry,” she said. “I looked for them, really I did.”
Kloss rolled his eyes. “They’re under the blankets not ten feet from the—” Tight-lipped he said, “other two.”
The two suits went inside the garage. A second later all six garage stall doors began rising unevenly. Anything hidden in the shadows of the garage was now brightened with afternoon sunlight. The corner where the bodies had reposed was empty, as Kloss had been assured it was. Still, he felt marginal relief witnessing the vacant corner with his own eyes. The stench remained, but there would be nothing the law could do regarding a stench without bodies to connect it to. The blankets which had covered the bodies of Jack and Peaches were exactly where Kloss had put them, though there appeared to be fewer of them. And they were flat. It both mystified and thrilled him.
The lieutenant gave the garage a cursory inspection with the sergeant at his heels, kicked the blanket aside when he arrived at it. As was to be expected, the putrescence came into question. Kloss said he had no idea what the smell was, theorized a dead rat or two in a cupboard, and that was the end of it.
