EQMM, June 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “It will when we find the skunk,” Monk said.

  “What skunk?” I asked.

  “The dead one that she ran over,” Monk pointed to the wheels. “There's fur and bits of flesh stuck in the front and rear passenger-side wheel wells.”

  “Gee, she really was on a killing spree today,” I said. “No living thing in her path was safe.”

  “Actually, the skunk was already dead when she drove over it,” Monk said, “or there would be much more blood.”

  “How do you know it was skunk?” I asked.

  “I can smell it,” Monk said. “Can't you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “The odor is overpowering,” he said. “It's almost as strong as the egg-and-cheese burrito the chief had for breakfast.”

  “You can smell that on me?” Disher said.

  “I can also see it,” Monk said. “You dribbled some on your shirt.”

  Disher examined his shirt, finding the tiny spot on his stomach. “Damn. How do you know she drove over the roadkill after she left the grave and not before she arrived there?”

  “The skunk matter is stuck on the mud rather than coated with it,” he said. “If we find the dead skunk, we'll know we are in the right vicinity.”

  “And then what?” Disher said. “How will you know where to go from there?”

  Monk crouched by her front right bumper. “It appears that she was going too fast when she turned onto a narrow, rust-colored mud road, and clipped a post or a tree, shattering her fog light,” Monk pointed to the scratched bumper and the broken light below it. “There is mud inside the fog light casing, which means it was broken before she went on the dirt road. All you have to do is go back five miles, look for a dead skunk, an unpaved road with rust-colored mud, and an object with scrapes of red automotive paint on it. You'll know you're in the right spot when you see the broken glass and the unique tire impressions from this vehicle in the mud.”

  “Well, if that's all there is to it, why are you still standing here? Call me when you find the grave.”

  And with that, Disher went out to retrieve his hat and we drove off to find where Kelsey Turek buried her husband.

  Twenty minutes later, we found the shallow grave and secured the scene. And ten minutes after that, we found the bottle of lye, the shovel, the gloves, and the goggles in a gas-station dumpster a mile from the dirt road.

  * * * *

  Once we found her husband's body, Kelsey Turek decided to ignore her right to remain silent and instead energetically exercised her right to get everything off her surgically enhanced chest.

  Disher drove us all back into Summit in his Suburban. On the way, Turek told us her tragic tale, which she prefaced by telling us all about the rich and wonderful life that she, a literary agent, and her husband Rick, a Manhattan architect, had enjoyed during their ten years of marriage.

  They had a beautiful home in Summit, a beach house in Maine, and four European cars. They were connoisseurs of exquisite wine, collectors of fine art, and masters of tantric sex.

  “We could go for hours,” she said. “Sometimes even days.”

  “Stopping only to open a bottle of wine and admire one of your paintings,” I said.

  “I am only trying to give you some background so you will appreciate my actions from the proper perspective,” she said.

  “Let her talk,” Disher told me.

  The previous day at breakfast, Rick had calmly informed her that they were penniless, a consequence of his long, secret addiction to online gambling.

  But the news was even worse. When he'd used up all of their money, emptying their accounts, maxing out their credit, and leveraging their property, he'd embezzled $300,000 from his firm, which he also lost. The firm had just discovered the missing money, so he'd most likely be going to jail very soon, leaving her to deal with their financial mess.

  Kelsey got up from the table without saying a word, found the heaviest frying pan they owned, and hit him on the head with it.

  She dragged his body to the garage and covered him with Hefty trash bags, which she sealed tight with duct tape, and then put his body into the Range Rover.

  Kelsey was thankful that she was strong enough to do all of this without having to cut his body into pieces.

  “All of those hours of Pilates and tantric sex really paid off,” she said. “I've got the body fat of a gazelle.”

  After that, she spent an hour on the Internet doing research on the best ways to dispose of a body and settled on burying him and then covering him with lye to speed decomposition. All she had to figure out was where she should bury the corpse.

  She recalled a piece of land that her husband had considered buying as investment property a few years back, right before the real-estate bubble burst. It was nearby, but forested enough to offer seclusion and the strong possibility that his body wouldn't be found before it was mush.

  So she went and bought the supplies and then, late that night, drove out to the plot of land and buried him. She ditched the shovel, lye, gloves, and goggles on the way home.

  “I bet that everyone would think he fled to avoid arrest and it wouldn't occur to anyone that his poor, shocked, and devastated wife had killed him,” she said. “But apparently I'm as luckless a gambler as Rick was.”

  That was true. And I didn't particularly blame her for what she did. In fact, I thought she had a pretty good chance at getting sympathy from a jury, but I kept that opinion to myself.

  Her lawyer was waiting for her when we got back to police headquarters. Disher told us he was one of the most expensive and respected criminal attorneys in the state. But when the attorney learned that she'd spilled her guts to us, he abruptly quit as her counsel. I think his resignation had less to do with her confession than his realization that she was broke. Disher got her a public defender.

  While all of this was going on, we wrote up our reports and then submitted them to Disher in his office.

  “It was a stroke of brilliance inviting you two out here,” Disher said. “It's that kind of bold, decisive action that got me where I am today.”

  “I thought it was Sharona's idea to bring me here to help out,” Monk said.

  “Yes, but I didn't hesitate to act on it,” Disher said.

  “And to take the credit for it,” I said.

  “Now you know why everyone says I have such a bright future as a politician,” he said.

  We couldn't argue with that.

  Copyright © 2012 by Lee Goldberg;

  Monk Copyright © 2012 USA Cable Entertainment LLC. All Rights Reserved.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Department of First Stories: WALKING OUT

  by Judith L. Shadford

  * * * *

  * * * *

  In 2009, Judith Shadford moved to Tacoma, Washington and did an MFA in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop of Pacific Lutheran University. Prior to that she'd had an active career in marketing and public relations in New York City and Santa Barbara, California, in such areas as senior healthcare, historic preservation, publishing, and prep-school development. She currently lives in Spokane, and from the way this first story ends, our guess is she'll eventually write some kind of sequel to it.

  My husband disappears on his way home from the library and this cop says I shouldn't take it personally. Right.

  Officer Jerolski told me it was likely one of those mid-life crises: go-out-for-cigarettes-and-disappear-off-the-face-of-the-earth deal. He said more men did it than you'd think.

  Talking, talking, his voice going up and down like a dinghy when a speedboat goes by. Kind of soothing in a weird way, not that I was listening that much. Watching more than listening. He just sat there, pushing down my creamy leather couch, his thighs looking like khaki logs. A thick neck. I tried to pretend I wasn't looking at those curly red hairs that stuck out over the top of his snow-white undershirt. Wasn't staring at the stiff ridge all the way across the front of his shi
rt—as if he were hiding a notebook. Maybe he put his script in the notebook. Maybe he would pull it out if he got stuck on what to say next. Homework ribs.

  No.

  It's a bulletproof vest. No wonder he sits like that. He can't move. He's just going to sit there and talk and talk and talk until I die of old age.

  Did Randy die?

  Is Randy dead?

  Maybe somebody killed Randy? Did you ever think of that, Officer?

  “Were there people at school who didn't like him? Maybe students he gave a hard time, failed?”

  I shook my head. “Everybody liked Randy. Or, they didn't think he was important enough to dislike. Even tough kids thought he was okay. A nerd, but okay. A drive-by shooting . . . how about that? Something random . . . ?”

  “Paso Calma is a little town, Mrs. Turnbull. Tiny, really. We don't have drugs or gangs. People know Randy. The librarian knows him. She saw him leave. We've covered every inch of the five blocks between here and the library. Nobody heard anything, saw anything. No evidence of violence. Absolutely none. People were out walking. It isn't even dark at eight-thirty.”

  I'd walked home from Sophie's about nine-thirty that night, after Girls’ Night Out.

  Such a Girls’ Night . . . We watch National Geographic and talk about trips we'll never take. Plus a glass of wine. Or two. I was kind of excited about Lake Baikal. Wanted to tell Randy about it. Have a glass with him and think about going to Lake Baikal.

  “They just leave like that, ma'am. Just walk out and find a new identity.”

  Ha.

  I knew about Randy and new identities. Books. Every week. He talked to me about it . . . them. “What do you think?” he'd say. “We could start a colony . . . Mars . . . maybe even Io . . . Can you see me in charge of the hydroponic vegetables?”

  Books. How they gave him light for the next day. That's what he said.

  * * * *

  I waited as long as I could stand it to strip our bed, rolling the sheets into a cocoon, dumping them against the closet door.

  Opened Randy's dresser. Time to look at the little things, the socks, the underwear. Things he wasn't ever going to put on because Officer Jerolski said he'd suddenly found the need for a new identity outside a book.

  Top drawer. Dress socks on the left, athletic socks on the right. Tucked against the right side, right where it should be, his wallet.

  “Why?” I said it right out loud. “Why . . . anything?”

  I put my arms across the dresser and laid my cheek against his socks. Smooth. Smelling a little like softener, a little like Randy.

  I traced the edge of the wallet, then picked it up and opened it. Two tens and a couple fives. Nothing else. No cryptic torn-off bit of placemat with a phone number. His credit cards were there. His library card was there.

  Did he check out books Monday? Is that why the librarian remembered seeing him? Did he take out How to Run Away From Home So Your Wife Will Never Find You? If he took out books, what happened to them?

  Oh damn oh damn oh damn.

  He couldn't run off. He dreamed of galaxies and aliens, not waitresses or bar girls. He didn't run off.

  My face was wet all of a sudden. Tears bled into the fold of the wallet and I couldn't breathe anymore. Why should I breathe? There was no more Randy.

  I slid down the dresser and sat there, leaning against it. It had hard edges. Not like leaning against Randy. I stared at the floor. Even that was Randy. He tore out the nasty green shag carpet and clicked those lovely blond boards into place. When I brought him a bottle of water, he laughed. Said he was building a raft to sail across the Argentum Seas. He'd patted the blue plastic liner and asked me to join him on the voyage. Like a child. A grown man who knew that the only way through ordinary life was to keep that child healthy.

  I finally scrambled to my feet because I had to pee. Even sitting in the middle of my broken heart, pieces scattered all around me—I still had to pee. They never talk about peeing at Lake Baikal. Or the Argentum Seas.

  I rinsed my hands and face and shoved my hair behind my ears. Actually remembered I needed to get my hair cut. Then, like ice down my back, “How come Randy's wallet is in the dresser? If Randy took out books, or even thought he might take out books, he'd have taken his wallet with him.”

  After five minutes talking to the librarian, I found out that Randy had turned in three Asimovs, one Arthur Clarke, and had taken out a Poul Anderson anthology. He had his wallet with him. He'd come home! He'd come home, tucked the wallet back into the top drawer, and . . . then what?

  Where was the Poul Anderson anthology?

  * * * *

  I spent the afternoon cleaning house. Maybe looking for Randy in a perverse way, like he'd shrunk and if I did everything right, I could find him. He was not behind the bed in the guest room. Not between the hot-water heater and the basement wall. The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson (or Randy)was not tucked between the couch cushions or leaning against the cereal boxes or dropped negligently into the clothes hamper.

  I tackled the upstairs. All of it. I dusted and scrubbed until it was almost five o'clock. I put the can of Pledge under my arm and headed for the stairs. Descending parallel lines. Step, step, step. One after another, the next and the next and the next, until you reached the bottom. I sat down at the top. The Pledge rolled down without me.

  Think about Randy, not Jerolski's Guide to Missing Husbands. Randy. Gentle, lovable, absent-minded, not a lot of ambition. Good junior-high teacher. Randy, the opposite of Type A: Type Z Randy, voracious reader and lover of science fiction . . . and me. That Randy.

  After Sophie's I had come home. Home to our house at the end of the block. Where we always leave the porch light on because the walnut grove spreads its shadows down the hill behind our house until the trees stop, right next to our garage.

  And the porch light had been on. I checked the big pot of rosemary next to the door to see if it needed water, picked off a few needles, and sniffed my fingers as I closed the door and called, “Randy, I'm home.” I went up to the bedroom, knowing there'd be a cone of light over the top of his pillow, his dark hair rumpled, loafers still on, twisting the spread into little whirlpools. “Hi, honey,” he'd say, never looking up. “How was Sophie?” Only, the bedroom was dark, the spread smooth.

  I stood up then and went downstairs, picked up the Pledge can and put it in the closet. I called Jerolski because it seemed like the thing to do, not because I thought he'd know something more. Missing Persons had turned up nothing, he said, not even false leads.

  * * * *

  Six weeks later, I was trying to patch together some kind of life. I'd gone back to my everlastingly boring job representing the Department of Agriculture to the good people of Paso Calma. Selecting brochures for farmers who needed to know about bark splitting and leaf scorch, handing out “Projected Losses to the Cattle Industry Resulting from Global Warming: New Software for Simulated Hypotheses.” That kind of boring. Useful. Even necessary. Boring.

  My girlfriends quit asking about Randy. They'd just look at me and smile, maybe too sweetly, holding off on the stupid, banal, “How're you doing?” Got tired of my “Just shitty, thank you,” maybe.

  Pep Boys was having a sale on oil, so I went and bought a case. I wasn't really sure why, because Randy always changed the oil and I sure as hell wasn't going to start. When I got home, I opened the trunk, levered the case out, and put it under the workbench. I pulled a bag of new oil filters from the trunk and held it against the bench while I pulled open the door of the old breadbox with the rooster decal. Why we stored oil filters in a breadbox I had no idea. Was there a long-forgotten connection between that rooster and FRAM? A joke? Why was The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson leaning against the breadbox?

  The filters tumbled under the car.

  That damned library book, top covered with dust, its corner mashed against a pipe.

  I called Jerolski. He was almost excited. An hour later, he came out with a guy from the lab in San Luis
who treated the book as if it were a dinosaur bone or, say, a skull.

  Three days later, Jerolski was sitting on my sofa again.

  “Well, Mrs. Turnbull, your husband was the one who put the book there. A nice clean set of prints from his right hand. We'll clean off the cover and send it back to the library for you, okay?”

  Sure. Police are really great. Helpful. Taking back overdue books. Maybe I wouldn't have to pay the fine.

  “NO!”

  Officer Jerolski blinked. “No?”

  “Have you looked through the book to see if there are any messages, any clues stuck in it?”

  “No. I mean, the guys flipped through it. But your husband had just checked it out, right?”

  “Do you ever go to the library, Officer?”

  He scowled. Had I hit an illiteracy shame button?

  “Randy starts his books IN the library. If he gets hooked, he checks it out, comes home, and continues without a break. He's been known to read a new book straight through. All night.

  “Suppose somebody interrupted him, threatened him? What if he scribbled something in the margin because he knew I'd check the book. Only I didn't find it IN TIME!”

  “Mrs. Turnbull, please, ma'am, these cases aren't spy movies. They're just sad ways people act.”

  “Then give me the book and I'll check. I'll return it too. Pay the fine. Then it won't have to come out of your budget.”

  I waited till dark before I took the book up to my desk. I pulled the gooseneck lamp over the pages like a spotlight. By page 212, I knew there weren't going to be any messages.

  I'd got it wrong. As wrong as Jerolski—Schmolski.

  Think.

  I stuck my fists into my eyeballs and rubbed until red balloons bobbed back and forth. Think. Think. Step, step, step. Top to bottom.

  Watch Randy leave the library. Watch him walk along Lincoln Ave., up the sidewalk, up the front steps, unlock the door, kick it shut behind him so it latched. Upstairs, turn on the bed lamp, flip the book onto the bed. Put his wallet away. Then?

  No. It was light enough to put his wallet away without turning on the lamp. The book still under his arm. Right then, right at that moment, something happened. He goes downstairs, book still under his arm. He unlocks the door into the garage. Why?