EASY GREEN

by Bill WENHAM

  At nine a.m. he was awakened by Streeter.

  “I’d like you to come with me to the interview room, Mr. Factor. There have been developments already. Something I think you would want to know about.”

  Factor struggled to his feet and followed her out of the cell. He asked to use a washroom and when he returned, he and the lieutenant seated themselves facing each other on either side of the interview room table. Streeter began by saying, “This is strictly a brief informational session, Mr. Factor. Do you understand what I’m saying? Nothing very much at all at the moment and it’s just to keep you in the picture. This conversation is not being recorded and you haven’t been cautioned, okay?”

  “Yes,” Factor answered.

  Streeter nodded.

  “Good,” she said. “All we’ve discovered so far sir, is that the body in the car is female. Until the autopsy is completed later on today we have no other information.”

  Factor looked surprised.

  “So, what does that mean? How does any of this concern me? I wasn’t even there,” he said. “Do you think it could be my wife, then?”

  Streeter gave him a bland look.

  “It happened in your driveway, Mr. Factor. Until we can locate and speak to your wife, we have one very badly battered and extremely burned female and one missing wife. Add it up for yourself, sir.”

  “Battered? You think the poor woman was murdered?” Factor said incredulously.

  “Can’t say for sure yet either. But it sure as hell isn’t a case of death by natural causes though, is it? You saw the state of the body,” Streeter said.

  “Am I under suspicion for this death and the fire then?” Factor asked.

  “Should you be?” Streeter replied, with a raise of her eyebrows.

  Factor gave her an exasperated scowl.

  “Are you planning to arrest me now, lieutenant, or am I free to go?” he asked tightly.

  Streeter handed him his keys across the table.

  “We have no legal reason to hold you at the moment, Mr. Factor. You’ll notice, I hope, that I said ‘at the moment’, because things might change dramatically after the autopsy is completed. I’ll need to know where to reach you when I need you. You will, however, remain a person of interest to us until we have more information. I could hold you on suspicion, if you’d prefer?”

  Factor shook his head and immediately regretted it.

  “I’ll be at home, Lieutenant Streeter, and you already know where that is. Hopefully, my wife will be back home as well by the time I get there.”

  Factor got up to leave but Streeter stopped him.

  “What was the argument about, Mr. Factor?” she asked

  He gave her a withering look.

  “Actually, lieutenant, I don’t think that’s any of your damned business if I haven’t committed a crime,” he said.

  Streeter smiled.

  “You’re right, sir. It isn’t. Not yet at least. Later today it might be a whole different story. We’ll see what the autopsy has to tell us. You’re free to go, sir, but believe me, we’ll be in touch.”

  Factor strode angrily out of the interview room and out of the building. He hailed a cab. Streeter needn’t be worried about him, he thought, because as far as he was concerned, he hadn’t done anything wrong at all – not so far, at least.

  Chapter Six

  The cabbie dropped Factor off in his driveway. If the man was surprised at the blackened and cracked condition of the interlocking brick, he didn’t comment on it. Factor paid him and he left.

  His own car was right where he’d left it. He walked over to it, unlocked it, raised the garage door with the remote under the visor and drove it inside the garage. Then a thought occurred to him. Dellie’s car hadn’t been in the driveway when he’d left so angrily the previous evening. Either she, or someone else, must have put it outside after he’d left.

  He lowered the garage door and went through the connecting door into the house.

  “Dellie, honey, you home?” he called. There was no answer. There was still no answer after he’d called several more times as he went through the big house. The place was obviously empty.

  Dellie wasn’t there.

  Which wasn’t strictly true since Dellie actually was there. She just wasn’t visible. If he had opened cupboard doors and other such places, like the large and locked chest freezer in the basement, he might have seen her. As it was, he wouldn’t see her again until many months later.

  The freezer key was usually kept on a hook in the wall beside it. It wasn’t there anymore but Factor just didn’t notice it was missing.

  As far as he was concerned, if it wasn’t for the body in the car, the answer was simple. Dellie had gone off with Willoughby, just as he’d suspected.

  He paused for a moment to use the bathroom and barely recognized the disheveled and haggard figure reflected at him back from the mirror. He stripped his clothes off in the bedroom, noting that the bed hadn’t been slept in either, and threw them on a chair. Maybe that was a good sign.

  Then, walking naked back into the en suite bathroom, he had a shave and as hot a shower as he could stand. Afterwards, he dressed in jeans, a denim shirt and a heavy wool sweater even though he wasn’t planning to go anywhere.

  What his plans were actually had nothing to do with it as he heard the front door bell ring. He threw it open, smiling, and expecting to see Dellie standing on the step. He was disappointed to see two uniformed police officers standing there instead.

  “Mr. Factor, we’ve been sent to ask you to accompany us back to the station, sir,” one of them said.

  “Are you charging me?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I could refuse then?”

  The officer shrugged.

  “You could, sir, but I wouldn’t advise it.”

  Factor nodded.

  “Come inside for a minute. I need to get my wallet and keys.”

  The officer who’d spoken stepped inside. His partner went back to their cruiser. Factor went upstairs, picked up his wallet and keys and went downstairs again. The cop opened the door. They went out and Factor locked the door after them.

  Neither Factor nor the police officers noticed a pickup truck at the end of the street. It was parked in the dirt driveway of a house under construction. It was Sunday and no one was working on the house. The same pickup had been there earlier and had been parked in the same place.

  All of the driver’s actions that evening had happened by chance. The results were exactly what he wanted but none of it had been planned. The pieces just fell into place as he went along.

  His intention was to involve Dean Factor and Jim Willoughby in a murder, any murder, as the prime suspects. He had been driving towards Factor’s place and wondering how he could make this happen when he saw Patti Thatcher come out of her house. Her car was parked in the driveway. She got into it and left. The man in the pickup followed her.

  In this area of very expensive new houses there were many construction sites since approximately fifty percent of them were still being built. As Patti drove by one of them the man in the pickup cut in front of her and stopped dead.

  Patti slammed on her brakes and slid to a stop. Without thinking of the possible consequences, she got out of her car and stalked angrily over to the driver’s side of the truck. She rapped hard on the window with her knuckles.

  The pickup’s windows were tinted, the night was dark, the building site was deserted and the driver didn’t respond. For a moment Patti thought the driver had perhaps had a heart attack or something and that had caused the pickup to swerve like that.

  She reached for the door handle and that was the last thing she ever did.

  The driver had emerged from the truck on the passenger’s side. He had smashed the truck’s interior light earlier on and now crept around the rear of the truck to come up behind her. Patti’s slender neck broke without a sound. The male driver picked up her limp body and dumped it into the truck bed.

/>   Well, he thought, as he started up his pickup again, I’ve got the murder now but how can I tie this in with either Willoughby or Factor? He knew he’d have to dispose of the body quickly and he also knew that Willoughby lived in an expensive apartment in a high rise in downtown Saginaw. Factor wins buy default tonight, he thought.

  Since he was in the area anyway, he decided to carry on to Factor’s house and to see if any ideas occurred to him there. As he drove into Factor’s street, he lucked out. He saw one of Factor’s garage’s double doors go up at the end of the street and a car raced out.

  The man quickly swung his pickup into another of the construction sites, doused the lights and waited. As the car approached, he could see that the driver was male and it was Factor’s own car. He was also in a hell of a hurry.

  If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….the man thought to himself and grinned. He watched the car’s taillight disappear at the other end of the street and then backed his pickup out into the street again.

  He took a moment to make sure no one was out walking their dog or something, but there was no one around, just the lights on in the occupied houses. He drove forward and parked in Factor’s driveway and then he got out, glanced around again and walked over to Factor’s front door. After another quick look around, he rang the doorbell.

  Dellie heard the door bell and smiled. It looked like Dean had gotten over his angry snit in a real hurry. But maybe not, it could be Jim Willoughby. No, she thought, as she got up from her chair and walked down the hallway. It had to be Dean because Jim always called first. But she wondered why he didn’t just use his own key, as she opened the door.

  It wasn’t Dean or Jim. The man in front of her was a complete stranger. She gasped as he stepped straight forward into the house. Like Patti, that was all she had time for. A moment later she was lying on the hallway floor.

  Dellie Factor was dead. Her neck had also been broken.

  The man closed the front door, and left the woman there while he checked out the house. In the kitchen, in her handbag, he found her keys and a garage door opener. He put them in his pocket. They would come in handy later perhaps. In the basement he found a very large chest freezer which was only about a quarter full. The key for it was hanging on the wall.

  That would solve one problem, he thought, and made his way back upstairs. Off the front hallway, near Dellie Factor’s body, was a steel door leading into the attached garage. The man opened it and smiled.

  Dellie Factor’s Cadillac was in there, plus a snow-blower in a corner with a large metal can of gasoline beside it ready for the season’s first snowfall.

  There was the answer to his second problem.

  The next thing he did was to hoist Dellie’s body over his shoulder and carry her down to the basement. He had already left the freezer open and unlocked. He upended the body into the freezer, closed the lid, locked it and pocketed the key. Then he wiped the freezer handle free of finger prints.

  Now to take care of business with the other body, but he realized that it was way too early in the evening to safely pull something like that off.

  He could be a patient man sometimes and this just had to be one of those times, a time when his own life could depend on his patience. At most other times, when angered, he would react violently and brutally.

  One of the unfinished houses he had passed was completely built but did not have its doors or windows installed yet. There were no garage doors in place yet either.

  It would be a long, hard wait, the man thought, as he backed the pickup into the garage opening. He would probably have six or more hours to wait unless Factor came home before then. If that happened, he’d have to rethink his hastily formed plan. The waiting time would help him refine it and plan the necessary sequence of events.

  It was boring but he kept a diligent watch until just before 4 a.m. and one by one he had watched all the lights in the other houses go out. The last one had gone off a half hour previously and there was still no sign of Factor. The man had already turned of all the lights in Factor’s house before he left.

  All he would need was a little luck and maybe no more than five minutes to get the job done. While he had been waiting, he lowered the pickup’s tailgate and had dragged Patti’s body on to the current dirt floor of the garage.

  Then he reached into his toolbox and removed a claw hammer. He didn’t even give it a second thought as he used it to smash Patti’s pretty face and then lifted her feet first back into the truck. In order to do what he now had in his mind, he didn’t want her to be too quickly recognized. He threw the blood covered hammer back into his toolbox and would dispose of it later.

  He left the woman’s head and shoulders hanging out over the dropped tailgate. That way, there wouldn’t be any blood in his truck. Since he’d done that little job over two hours ago and she’d been dead already, he figured there wouldn’t be much blood anyway.

  Just to be on the safe side, even though he couldn’t see it, he scuffed the dirt floor where her head had lain with a scrap piece of wood. The last thing the builders would be looking for when they showed up for work on Monday, would be bloodstains on a dirt floor!

  He drove to Factor’s house and backed his pickup halfway up the driveway. Then he got out and used Dellie Factor’s garage door opener. As soon as he was inside he switched off the garage’s interior light.

  Once again he looked around and saw no one. The few houses that had lights on earlier now had drawn drapes as well.

  The man walked to the back of his pickup. All the time, he was constantly glancing around. This must be what a bird feels like, watching out for cats, he thought.

  He dragged Patti’s body out and laid it in the center of the drive on its back. Then he got into his truck and drove it out into the street. He left the driver’s door open and the engine running. There was still no one around. In another few minutes, it would all be finished and Factor would be nicely nailed to the wall!

  Next he took out Dellie Factor’s keys, walked into the garage and drove her Cadillac outside and beside the body. He turned the engine off and got out, leaving the driver’s door open.

  Then he ran to the back of the garage for the metal can of gasoline he’d seen earlier. He took it back to the car and put it down while he lifted Patti Thatcher’s body into the driver’s seat.

  He carefully unscrewed the cap from the can, tipped half the contents over the body, put the cap back on tightly and threw the can into the passenger seat. Just a few more seconds now, he thought as he pulled a little of Patti’s gasoline soaked skirt hem over the lower ledge of the door.

  The next part had to be done really quickly now. With just one more glance around and still seeing no one, he took out a lighter and lit it.

  He touched the flame to the bottom of the dead woman’s skirt and stepped quickly back as the body was immediately engulfed in flame. He slammed the door and raced back to his truck.

  Without even waiting to close his door, he jammed the truck’s gear lever into drive and fishtailed away down the street. In his rearview mirror he could see the interior of the car was already blazing like a furnace. A split second later the rest of the gasoline in the sealed metal can exploded and blew the front passenger side door off.

  Later the car’s gas tank would also probably explode but he’d be long gone before that occurred. Then he went back to a different unfinished building site to wait and see what happened next.

  After he had seen the police, the fire department, the tow truck and Factor arrive he drove out of the area and headed to a Denny’s for breakfast. After a good breakfast, and since it was now Sunday morning, the man figured he’d return to see what else might happen.

  He’d seen Factor taken away by a woman cop in plain clothes but hadn’t been there to see him return later. Consequently he was surprised when a police cruiser showed up and Factor answered the door to the two cops. Much to the man’s delight, Factor went with them in their cruiser when they left. />
  Now for stage two, he thought.

  The driver waited until the cruiser was out of sight and then he backed the pickup out into the street. Moments later it was in Factor’s driveway and the garage doors were going up. The pickup was driven inside and into the space where Dellie’s car would normally have been. The garage doors came down behind it.

  The driver was short but powerfully built. He went through the connecting door and down to the basement. He unlocked and raised the lid of the chest freezer with the key he’d taken earlier and lifted the woman’s body out. It was very cold but still fairly flexible since it was not yet completely frozen. He took a moment to close the freezer lid and lock it again.

  Then he spent the next few minutes wrapping the body securely in clear plastic moisture barrier sheeting that he’d stolen from the unfinished building. Finally, he wrapped the entire package tightly with duct tape.

  With his task completed, he threw the plastic wrapped body over his shoulder. When he got back to the garage, he dumped it into the truck bed and covered it with a tarp.

  He put the garage door up, started the engine and drove slowly out and away. The door came down again after he left. Even if anyone had noticed the truck, it is doubtful if they’d also noticed its license plates were missing.

  Pickups of one kind or another were a common sight on building sites anyway, but not necessarily on Sundays. In a couple of hours both the body and the truck he’d stolen on the previous evening would also be missing.

  The man waited until he was several miles away. Then he pitched the freezer key amongst the other trash along the highway’s shoulder. He kept the garage door opener and all the other keys and was pleased to see that one key in particular was on the ring. That one key would solve his disposal problem nicely for him.

  He smiled to himself as he drove over to the marina.