The Widow's Husband

by William Coleman

  “Figures,” Philip muttered.

  She fielded more questions with evasion and vague responses. She glanced at the clock. Time was slipping away. If Ray was early, how would she explain him? She wanted desperately to tell the detectives to leave.

  “Are you okay, Mrs. Tuttle?” Dave asked.

  “Yes. Why do you ask?” Sarah said.

  “You seem a bit nervous,” Dave said.

  “Well there’s some guy out there pretending to be my husband,” Sarah said. “I’m concerned about what he’ll do next.”

  “Just keep your doors locked and don’t open them to strangers,” Philip said. “And if he shows himself again call the police immediately.”

  “You have my card,” Dave said. “If you would feel more comfortable you can call me directly. I’ll come as soon as I can. And if I can’t I’ll call it in. Someone will be here in a matter of minutes.”

  “That would be very nice,” Sarah said, looking at Dave.

  “We’ve taken enough of your time, Ms. Tuttle,” Philip said. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything more.”

  “Okay,” Sarah said. This time she shut the door as soon as they started descending the stairs. She raced to her bedroom throwing her robe into the closet as she passed. Her clothes were laid out on the bed and she pulled them on quickly. The doorbell rang as she was finishing the last button. She looked at the clock. It was eight. Ray at last.

  A short time later she was bent over the dining room table, naked. She wondered why she had bothered to dress at all. Her legs were tied to the legs of the table and her arms were tied together and stretched out in front of her. Ray stood behind her thrusting with everything he had. He was good, she had to admit, very good. It was their second round and she knew there would be more before the night was through. She also knew she would not be untied during the entire encounter. She tingled just thinking about it.

  Ray stopped and sat on one of the chairs. He took breaks often during their nights together. She didn’t mind. It was part of the game. It left her craving the next touch. The anticipation was almost as exciting as the act itself. She sighed heavily with pleasure. If everything worked out she would be able to have this anytime she wanted.

  “What’s on your mind?” Ray asked.

  “What?”

  “Your mind isn’t on what we’re doing,” Ray said.

  “On the contrary,” she said. “My mind is completely on what we’re doing.”

  “You’re not thinking about him, are you?”

  “Him who?”

  “You know,” Ray said. “Your husband. You are, aren’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You’re thinking about him while I’m screwing you,” Ray accused.

  “If I am,” she said, “it’s only because I’m hoping he won’t come home.”

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m serious. Can we discuss this later? I’m really not in the mood to talk about Allan.”

  “How serious are you?” Ray asked.

  “Ray,” she said. “Please.”

  There was a pause, followed by, “Okay.”

  She heard movement, wondering what he was doing. A moment later she let out a moan as he pushed inside her.

  Chapter 19

  (The Range)

  Mr. Cutter pulled up in front of the cabin at six o’clock. To the east, the sky was just beginning to show signs of the day that was soon to break. Allan was sitting on the porch swing dressed in the clothes and boots Henry bought for him. His head was tilted forward until his chin rested on his chest. He did not stir at the sound of the truck.

  Henry depressed the horn to announce his arrival. Allan’s arms and legs flailed as he nearly tumbled from the swing. His eyes, wide with fear, searched for danger until they settled on the rancher. The man was motioning for him to come to the truck. Allan simply stared.

  The passenger side window slid down and Henry leaned across the cab of the truck to be sure Allan could hear him. “What’s the hold up? Need to get back before the heat starts to kick in.”

  Allan sat with his eyes focused on a point somewhere between the truck and the cabin. He rose to his feet and climbed into the passenger seat. The cool air from the air conditioning blasted his face. By the time they arrived at the ranch he might be ready to go. He glanced over at Henry who was smiling broadly.

  “When I was a boy,” the rancher said, “my daddy made me get up every morning at four o’clock. By four-thirty we were milking the cows. I’ve been a rancher all my life. Don’t know anything else and wouldn’t want it any other way.”

  Allan looked at him in silence letting the words absorb into his mind. He couldn’t imagine getting up every morning at the same time. Doing the same thing every day. That was one reason he liked writing. Get up when you want. Work hard for several hours. Every story was a unique experience. And he didn't have to milk cows.

  The ranch was dark. There were a couple of windows lit up in the farmhouse. Another light illuminated the barn where Allan could see a man moving around. Allan expected Henry to pull up to the barn so they could pile out and mount horses or something. Instead the rancher drove right past the barn and the farmhouse. He drove down a narrow dirt road until he came to a gate.

  “Can you get that?” Henry asked.

  “What?” Allan turned to him.

  “The gate,” Henry said. “Could you open the gate so I can pull through? Then close it once I’m clear.”

  “Sure,” Allan said. Opening the door to the warm summer air, he slid out and approached the gate. He looked at it briefly. A loop of rope was being used to hold the fence post to the gate. Allan pulled the rope clear and walked the gate out of the way. He waited for the truck to roll through the opening, swinging the gate closed behind them. He made sure it was secure before returning to his place in the truck. In the headlights, Allan could make out the faint impression of tire tracks leading away. It did not look like a road. Henry steered onto the impressions and started gaining speed.

  Allan grabbed the handholds in a death grip as he bounced from side to side in the seat. His head hit the passenger window once and he reached up to touch the bruised area. With his hand off the support bar he was thrown wildly around the cab of the truck. He was sure he would slam into Henry at any moment causing the rancher to lose control of the vehicle and sending them careening into a tree or boulder. They rolled to a stop at an angle where the headlights illuminated a section of broken fence.

  “Here we are,” Henry said, opening his door and stepping out into the field. He went to the back of the truck and started pulling tools and other supplies from the bed. Allan slid out into the tall grass and stretched. Henry shouted from behind him, “Give me a hand with this, will you?”

  Allan walked to where Henry stood. On the back of the truck there was a large cylinder with a motor mounted on it sitting in a frame of bent pipe. Allan examined it thoughtfully, “What’s that?”

  “An air-compressor, my friend,” Henry smiled. “Gas powered. Didn’t think we were going to drive all those nails by hand, did you?”

  “I didn’t know what to think,” Allan admitted.

  “Well this baby will make short work of our fence repair,” Henry’s smile was still broad. “All we have to do is get it out of the truck and start ‘er up.”

  The rancher pulled two boards out of the bed and propped them against the tailgate. He climbed into the truck and pushed the compressor up to the edge of the boards. It was simple in theory. All they needed to do was guide the compressor down the boards. Henry was going to do most of the work. It was just up to Allan to keep the skids of the frame square on the boards as it slid down. He had done it a dozen times, Henry explained.

  Henry pushed the machine onto the ramp, the boards slipped away and fell to the ground. Allan replaced them, holding them in place as Henry pushed a second time. The man put every ounce of his strength into it and inched it onto the ramp while Alla
n pulled from below without any benefit to Henry. On the third push Henry underestimated his strength and overran the compressor's center of gravity. Like a run-a-way train, the large cylindrical machine slid down the ramp. Allan scrambled to get out from between the boards. He was almost fast enough.

  The bulk of the machine hit him low, throwing his legs out from under him, flipping him up and slamming him to the ground. The impact reminded Henry of dropping a bag of cement. The rancher jumped down and ran up to Allan with a great deal of concern in his face. Allan lay dazed in the grass and could feel Henry’s hands probing his legs for broken bones.

  “You okay?” Henry asked.

  “What happened?” Allan said to the dark sky above him.

  “Does anything hurt?” Henry asked again.

  Allan pulled himself up to a sitting position, making a mental assessment of his body. Concluding there was no lasting damage, Henry helped him to his feet. Vertical again, Allan took in his surroundings.

  “We got it down,” he said.

  The rancher smiled and patted him on the back. “We got it down. It’s definitely down.”

  “Good,” Allan said. He took a step, lost his footing, and Henry was there to catch him.

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  “Yea,” Allan said. “I’ll be fine. Just tell me what to do.”

  The two men spent the rest of the morning mending fences. Henry showed Allan how to remove broken boards from the posts with a crowbar and Allan began walking the length of the fence removing any board not up to standard. Henry followed, dragging the compressor to each opening and using a nail gun to affix new boards to the posts. As each section of fence was repaired, they moved to the next and repeated the process.

  They worked for several hours before stopping to eat a lunch Mrs. Cutter packed for them that morning. Allan drank more water than he ever had in his life and was still parched. Henry spoke positively of the progress they made while Allan acquainted himself with muscles he never knew he had.

  After they had eaten, Henry pulled Allan to his feet and they started again. The sun was high and Allan could feel his skin cook in its heat. He wanted to find a shaded place to hide, but knowing he owed Henry so much kept him pulling old boards and tossing them aside. To get his mind off the pain, he let his thoughts wander.

  He was an author. He dedicated his life to, and made a comfortable living with his writing. Now he was working as a general laborer. He told himself it was temporary. He knew it couldn’t end up this way. He just finished a novel his agent was convinced would bring in a great deal for him. He was at the height of his career. Yet here he was, wrestling with rusty nails and splintered wood.

  The clincher was Sarah. She was telling people he was dead. She was keeping him out of his house and pretending she didn’t even know who he was. She was up to something. And he finally understood what it was. The thought came to him as he pulled a decaying board from a post. She was after the money. Not the little bit he kept in the savings account. She was going to have his novel published posthumously and take the money. And if she could convince everyone he was dead, she would get away with it. She couldn’t. He was sure of that. He wasn’t dead and eventually someone realize it.

  The workday ended and the two men pushed the compressor up the ramp and into the truck bed. Henry insisted on doing most of the pushing and Allan did not argue. They packed up the supplies and climbed into the cab of the truck with the air turned onto their sweaty skin. On the drive back to the farmhouse, Allan drifted to sleep in spite of the bouncing.

  They pulled up to the house just as Mrs. Cutter was finishing dinner and the two tired men sat at the table expectantly. Allan was famished and ate everything she gave him as if he hadn’t eaten in days. He apologized for his lack of manners. They only smiled and told him to continue. Finally stuffed, Allan pushed himself away from the table and sat back in the chair. The plates were cleared. The Cutter’s went about their daily routines. Allan didn’t think he could move for fear he would fall, exhausted, to the ground. He contemplated calling Sarah once more, deciding he had had a hard enough day already.

  That night he lay in bed beneath the cool sheets wondering how many miles of fence they repaired. He also wondered how many more miles they would have to do before they would be finished. He drifted to sleep thinking about miles and miles of fence racing by like a vertical railroad.

  Chapter 20

  (The Plan)

  Sarah Tuttle lay awake staring out her bedroom window. Her window. Not Allan’s. Not theirs. It was her house. Just hers. She liked the way it sounded and she wanted to keep it that way. As long as Allan continued insisting that he wasn’t dead, she was running the risk of losing everything. The night before, Ray had asked her if she was serious about not wanting Allan to come home. She had shut him down, wanting only to feel pleasure. Now his question repeated itself in her mind. She was curious why he had asked.

  “Ray?” she said to the mass under the sheet next to her.

  He did not stir.

  “Ray,” she said, this time nudging him with her elbow.

  He shifted his weight, moaned in protest and settled again, never opening his eyes.

  “Ray!” She pushed him and he rolled. His arms flailed as he struggled to keep from falling out of bed.

  “What? What?” He eyes wide, his head turning from side to side, he searched for his attacker. He focused on Sarah who sat next to him calmly and he relaxed. Softly, he repeated, “What?”

  Ray Morrison was a plumber by trade. He didn’t own his own business or lead a team of plumbers, he simply worked for any company he could get work with. Unfortunately for him, he was not a great plumber. And if you believed many of his customers, supervisors and evaluations, he wasn’t even a good plumber. So, he skipped from job to job only minutes ahead of his reputation, scraping up a living as best he could.

  It was how he and Sarah met. Sarah called the company he worked for at the time because of a clogged toilet. No one liked to deal with clogged toilets, so the company sent Ray. Why send the good employees on a crappy job? Ray was, of course, no happier to go than the next guy, but he needed to keep the checks coming in as long as he could. Accepting the job, he drove to the address and rang the doorbell to the Tuttle household.

  Sarah answered the door, wearing a robe, untied, with a pair of thong panties; nothing else. It was one of those things she enjoyed doing that Allan would never understand. She enjoyed watching men get uncomfortable. She watched from the window to be sure the man they sent was indeed a man. On the rare occasions women were sent, she would close the robe before opening the door. Satisfied, she opened the door, standing behind it and asked him in. Once he was inside with the door closed she stood where she knew he could see her while she explained what she needed.

  As it turned out, Ray was one of the most enjoyable participants of her repairman game. Where most men would either ogle her, or divert their eyes, or pretend to divert their eyes only to sneak a peek when they thought she wasn’t looking, Ray was different.

  “Ma’am,” he said, pointing at her exposed body. “You best close that robe or I may have to jump you.”

  “Then jump me,” was all she said. An hour later while untying her hands, he insisted he needed to get back to work. She took his number so she could call him the next time Allan was away, and he left. Sarah had to call another plumbing company for the toilet because Ray only worked on her.

  “What do you want, Sarah?” Ray asked, bringing her back to the present.

  “Last night,” she started slowly.

  “You want to go again?” he smiled.

  “No. Well, yes, but not right now,” she smiled back. “Last night you asked me how serious I was about not wanting Allan to come home.”

  “Yea, so?”

  “What if I told you I was very serious?” she asked.

  “I’d tell you to divorce him,” Ray sat up.

  “What if I said that because of special c
ircumstances,” Sarah looked down at the sheets, “divorce wasn’t an option?”

  “Why wouldn’t . . . “

  Sarah held up a hand. “It’s not an option, Ray. Just trust me.”

  “Well,” Ray shrugged. “The only other way to get rid of him is if he died.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Never mind,” Sarah said frustrated. She was almost ashamed to think Ray was thinking the same thing she thought he was thinking.

  “You want me to kill him?” T

  “Forget it,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry I brought anything up.”

  “No. Wait,” Ray said. “It’s okay.”

  “What’s okay?”

  “If you want me to kill your husband so you can be with me,” Ray looked hopeful. “I’ll kill the bastard.”

  “You would do that for me?” Sarah said, flattered.

  “I’ll do it for me,” Ray said.

  “Are you sure?”

  Ray shrugged, “No problem.”

  “It would have to look like an accident,” Sarah explained.

  “Oh,” Ray sounded less sure.

  “If it doesn’t look like an accident there’ll be an investigation,” Sarah said. “We don’t want an investigation.”

  “True,” Ray agreed. “So how do we do it?”

  “I can’t do it,” Sarah said. “I have to have an alibi so I’m not suspected. They always look at the spouse first. Even before they determine if it was an accident or not.”

  “Then how do I do it?” Ray asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said.

  “Where is he?”

  “The cabin up north,” she answered.

  “The cabin?” he said. “Like a log cabin?”

  “No,” Sarah shook her head. “Nothing like that. More like a shack.”

  “But wood?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Insured?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Why?”

  “Could burn it down around him,” he said. “You could collect from the insurance.”