A Shadow of Death in The Woods

by Albert Sisson

  Chapter 7

  House and Home

  Once the timid trooper turned me loose, I made good time home. I arrived only a few minutes late so presumably I would be yelled at only a few minutes. I looped the bike around and backed it into the garage. I put the back wheel near the steel ring embedded in the concrete with a hardened steel motorcycle cable lock on it. I always locked the rear wheel down to the concrete floor. My bike was worth a lot on the market. If I locked the front wheel down, guys might leave the front wheel and steal the rest of the bike. Front wheels are easy to replace. With a torch or a jack hammer, they could still steal the bike but it would take long enough for the cops to get there since we had an alarm system that would automatically call the police.

  The garage was detached from the house. When built, the garage was the carriage house. Back in those days you didn’t want the horse manure aroma infiltrating your beautiful home so the carriage house was in back. Since the driver would drop you off at the porte cochere, you really didn’t care that the carriage house was on one of the back acres. For modern use this meant that you could get soaked in a rain going to the house from the garage. To sidestep such a disaster, a tunnel had been dug years ago in which one could go from the garage to the house. That meant stairs on both ends so in nice weather everyone walked between the buildings although the kids liked to run through the tunnel, yelling just to hear their echoes. I didn’t like going through the tunnel because my head hit on the ceiling. I had to hunch over. Uncomfortable.

  The house was a huge two-story affair, not counting the full basement or walk-in attic, on a beautiful treelined street. It was typical of the houses built by moneyed people in the 1920s and 1930s. There was a large porch in front but it was never used after the air conditioner was installed. The house was brick painted white with black window shutters. Personally I would have preferred that they left the brick its natural color but the house was painted years ago. It had a black roof, which was a good heat absorber in the winter but it loaded the house with heat in the summer.

  On the attic floor was my refuge where I studied physics and read history. I loved my time up there in solitude. Ordinarily it would have been hotter than Hades up there in the summer in southern Ohio but central air conditioning and shade from the large maple trees surrounding the house kept it cool. The house had a lot of conveniences installed by Kat’s family who were the owners.

  It was an unusual arrangement. Kat and I both worked and earned good salaries but the family wanted Kat and the kids to live well so we had the use of the house. “The family” consisted of Kat’s father, William Simpson, her mother, Margret Simpson, Kat's sister, Karen, and Margret Simpson’s mother, Mama Woodward. Mama Woodward (no one ever used her first name) was the matriarch of the clan and “Mama” had to be pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. If you pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, she would simply ignore you. If you persisted, she would make you feel like you had been flayed. She controlled the family money, of which there was a lot.

  They kept the title of the house in the Simpson name so that I would never end up with any of their money. This did not bother me and, in fact, it seemed fair to me. I got to live in a great house and they paid for the maintenance and taxes. Some guys couldn’t do this because of their egos but for some reason it was fine with me. I loved Kat, not her money.

  And money she had. She had a generous income from a trust fund and the kids had trust funds that would be theirs when they reached the age of twenty-five. Those were already in the bank so to speak but if you were a family member in good standing, then there were promises of more riches to come as the older generations died. I wasn’t a member in good standing. In fact, I wasn’t even really a member, just a guy who had unfortunately, in the view of the family, married Katherine, my Kat.

  The yards in front and back were large with well-trimmed shrubbery, including an English style garden in the back. It was one of my favorite places other than my attic study. I loved the smell of the English boxwoods. Normally people can’t afford such gardens because they are too expensive in money and labor. As usual that was not a problem for us. Since the family owned the house, they employed a groundskeeper who cared for the lawns and garden. I had no say in what was in the garden officially but I quietly talked the groundskeeper into a nice rose garden. It wasn’t hard to talk him into it and it turned out great. Roses are one of my favorite flowers.

  The groundskeeper was an interesting guy. I loved talking with him. He liked me because I treated him like an equal human being. He was a farmer until he found out he could make more money with less risk by working as a groundskeeper. He was hired by the Simpsons and he sold his farm. He loved flowers. I suspected that he favored roses based on the energy he put into the rose garden. He had a budget but I gave him extra money if he needed it for special clandestine projects like the rose garden.

  I got off the bike and started peeling off the motorcycle gear. A vented leather jacket is surprisingly cool in summer on a bike as long as you are moving. Once you stop though, it is hot and you have to either get moving or take off the jacket right away. It felt good to get the jacket, helmet and gloves off. Just as I did so I heard a squeal, “Daddy’s home!” and two little kids came running out of the house. Kat had heard me pull in and had set the kids free. They loved to jump on my arms and have me put my arms straight out with them hanging in midair. I tried to do that only over grass in case they fell off but it didn’t always work that way. If I felt one of them slipping, I lowered the offending arm. It was a game that we played and the kids loved it. They would tire of it but usually not as fast as I wanted and my arms would grow tired. They were growing and one of these days I wasn’t going to be able to take their weight.

  I put the kids down and Laura told me that her mother said I was late and that I was to hurry. We were going to Grandpa and Grandma’s for dinner. This was the first that I had heard of this nasty turn of events. I liked my father-in-law, Bill Simpson, but I could live the rest of my life happily without seeing my mother-in-law again but she was Grandma to the kids and Mom to Kat.

  Laura was the serious one and the one to carry messages. Will was happy-go-lucky and most likely would forget to deliver the message. They were a cute pair.

  Will must have gotten his happy-go-lucky demeanor from his biological father. Kat was a serious, organized woman and would never misplace a message. Laura was a lot like Kat.

  They always wanted to help carry my luggage in the house. I parsed out pieces according to body size so everyone had an appropriately sized load.

  Inside, Kat informed me that we were going to her parents for dinner and that I was to shower and be ready tout de suite. I said, “I’m glad to see you too. How was your trip to your sister’s?” I got a kiss for my smooth manner. She hurried me on.

  I dropped my luggage in our bedroom and stripped off my clothes.

  Did you ever wonder where the tread on your tires go when they wear off? Here is a factoid. Tiny pieces grind off the tires, float in the air over our highways and you breathe them. An interesting, or perhaps horrifying, exercise, after several hours of riding a motorcycle on an Interstate, is to rub your face with a white, damp wash cloth. Take a look at the wash cloth and you will see the black imprint of your hand where it rubbed your face. That is the residue of tires with maybe a dab of motor oil mixed in.

  Remembering that I was supposed to be in a hurry, I jumped in the shower. It felt great to wash off the tires. The warm water cascaded down over my body and suddenly it turned to blood. I felt weak. It couldn’t be blood. I closed my eyes and opened them and I saw clear water. My heart was pounding. What caused this horror?

  I got out of the shower and got dressed. It was going to be a casual dinner. That meant a blazer and slacks would work. It didn’t have to be a dinner jacket or a black tie. But a tie was required.

  I could hear Kat downstairs telling me to hurry or we would be late. I should be moving but I
felt dizzy. It was hard to focus. I was having flashbacks to The Woods. I had chills first, thinking about the two men we had killed and second, the worry over getting caught. I was going to have to stop sweating or I would have to change shirts. I started concentrating on my breathing and soon I felt better. I went downstairs and Kat asked what was taking me so long. What could I say? One of the secrets to getting away with murder is to never, ever tell anyone what you did. No one. People who talked went to prison or worse. West Virginia abolished the death penalty in 1965 so it would be prison for me.

  Kat and I never kept secrets from each other. Now I had a doozy of a secret and it had to be forever. It felt terrible but there was no other course. I would never want to burden her with such knowledge. Besides, I didn’t exactly know what her reaction would be.

  I thought about chatting with Bill later. He might ask me about my weekend ride just to be polite. Should I say, “Hey, you’ll never believe what happened. I ran into some people in West Virginia and we killed a couple of guys.” Being a lawyer he is an officer of the court so aside from family issues there would be legal issues unless I hired him. I guess. I was not quite sure how that worked not having been in this situation before. No, I was going to have to avoid telling the truth.

  I had lived my whole life based on the principle of honesty and forthrightness. Being an accountant and a closet scientist reinforced these ideals. My whole being was about finding the truth and reporting it. I was beginning to see what a life changing event had taken place. Not only did I have to live with the thought of robbing two men of their most prized possession, their lives, I also had to live with lies to my family and friends. What a nightmare.

  I heard someone calling my name. I came back into focus and Kat was asking if I was okay. Without much conviction, I answered, “Yeah, sure. It’s been an unbelievably long day.”

  I started downstairs with the enthusiasm of a man going to his execution. I was going to have to stop using analogies like this.

  Downstairs the kids were excited and raring to go. Going to Grandpa and Grandma’s was one of their favorite things to do. Grandparents are like parents without discipline. It is all goodies and love, no standing in the corner.

  I wished I could stand in the corner and then be forgiven. Well, that wasn’t going to happen. I would be unforgiven for the rest of my life.

  Kat had the kids dressed in their finest. Laura looked a lot like Kat. She was going to be a heart throb when she grew up. She had shoulder length tresses curled to perfection. She had on a nice dress and looked like someone you might see in a movie. Her shoes were shined. If it were the army, she was ready for inspection. Her face had the clear glow that children have before the ravages of acne set in. I wanted to lift her up and give her a hug. I knew better than to do that. If I wrinkled or smudged something, I would be in all kinds of hot water from Kat. Not only that, Kat would tell her mother what I had done, which would add further to my miseries.

  Will on the other hand was all boy. He was active and always squirming. He could transform a perfected ensemble into a pile of wrinkled cloth in no time. Everyone loved Will and never held it against him. He and Laura were an interesting contrast.

  I went to fetch the car and pulled it into the porte cochere. They got in the car and we were off to what for me would be a painful dinner. My mother-in-law, Margret (not Marge), didn’t like me and I didn’t like her. She probably had spent time that afternoon thinking up comments to torture me with. On the other hand maybe it came naturally. All I knew for sure was that it was not going to be fun for me. I couldn’t say anything back to Kat’s mother because then I would have Kat to contend with until the bad chemistry ebbed. One bright spot was that if I were to go to prison for murder, Margret would not visit me and that would be okay with me.

  I couldn’t wait for the evening to end. Then I could spend some time in my study and maybe I could settle some of my feelings. First, the in-laws.

  Chapter 8

  The In-Laws

  We pulled into the circular drive. The house was a huge ranch house, red brick with white pillars around the entrance. The front door was beautiful and the only thing I liked about the house. It was a massive wood door. I didn’t think it matched the house architecture but what do I know? It was a splendid piece of oak wood.

  We rang the doorbell, which I thought a little weird because it was Kat’s childhood home. I guess it was proper since we didn’t live here. I could understand my ringing the bell. I could also understand Margret not answering the doorbell if she thought it was me.

  Bill answered the door and beckoned us in. The kids rushed to get a hug from Grandpa and then ran yelling for Grandma. Kat got a kiss from her father. I got a warm hello.

  Bill pointed Kat to the kitchen where he claimed that Margret was helping with dinner. I was sure Margret was in the kitchen but I doubted very much she was helping. Interfering was more like it. I didn’t think that she knew how to make toast let alone a dinner. They had a full-time housekeeper who did the cooking. Lucky for Bill.

  The housekeeper was an excellent cook. Kat and I sometimes hired her for big dinner parties. I liked her. Whenever I could arrange it, I cooked alongside her. I was good at making fancy, gourmet dishes but she was excellent at serving a whole group at once. That was engineering as much as it was cooking. Timing was critical. I learned a lot from her.

  Kat went in search of her mother.

  As I may have mentioned a few times, Margret didn’t like me. There were several reasons for this. First, she viewed me as being from a plebeian class, to which I pleaded guilty. I came from a relatively poor family. Relative to the Woodward and Simpsons that is. My family, God bless them, were merely middle class, a sin that could never be fully washed away. Second, and this was unforgivable because it was preventable, I rode motorcycles. We motorcyclists wore leather jackets for protection in the case of a spill on the road. This kind of leather jacket, to her, was a sign of evil, a gang member, the dregs of society. To have such a person in her house was physically painful for her. Since I didn’t like her, I didn’t care except I felt bad when it put Kat in an awkward position. I would have worn my motorcycle jacket to dinner but I knew Kat would not allow it.

  One cheerful thought was that Mama Woodward lived in another house and wasn’t going to be part of the dinner party. She hated me more than Margret disliked me. It was only a matter of time, in her opinion, before she was going to nail me on some trumped up charge and have me expelled from the family. If she knew I was guilty of murder, she would have an old lady orgasm with the thought of finally being rid of me.

  I called William, Bill. To the best of my knowledge I was the only one who ever got away with calling him that. I had seen him dress down people for calling him Bill. I think it was because, secretly, he identified with me. If the truth were known, he came from a level of society perhaps not up to Mama’s standards. It was one of those family secrets that was never acknowledged or talked about. Bill was the only man in the family besides me so they put up with him. Plus he tried hard to fit in. I wasn’t considered a man because my roots were showing and, worst of all, I didn’t lift a finger to fit in. I was the family disappointment or worse. I was a pariah. Color me bad.

  The only reason I was in the family at all was because I fell deeply in love with Kat. I met her in college while I was working on a master’s degree and she was finishing her Ph. D. In the previous year her husband had been killed in a car wreck, leaving her with a small child and a baby. I came along and fell in love with her. It was probably too soon for her to fall in love again but we hit it off. We got married and she finished her degree. I think that, initially, the family was glad to see her get married because they were so worried about her being alone with the children. They wanted the children to have a father. Symmetry and form were important to them.

  As the frayed nature of my background became clear, second thoughts emerged. I was never asked to leave the room but I didn’t feel part of
the clan. Since I only wanted to be married to Kat and not the whole clan, it didn’t bother me a lot. In fact, it mildly amused me. That is until dinners and such came up where I was thrust in their midst, making me feel like a modern day Oliver Twist.

  I liked Bill. I think he liked me too but he had to be careful and not let it show. He knew what it took to maintain peace in the family.

  He took me into his study, which doubled as an auxiliary office at home. He had a huge, wonderful office for his business but he sometimes brought work home and he met with some of his closer clients here occasionally. He was a prominent lawyer.

  Across from his beautiful oak desk was a wet bar. I think the bar was teak but I wasn’t sure. I was never sure what teak and mahogany looked like. I could tell you the difference between chestnut, oak, maple, pine, poplar and all the other American woods but the foreign woods were foreign to me. Sorry, I couldn’t help saying that.

  He didn’t bother asking me if I wanted a drink or what I wanted to drink. He knew that I wanted a large Manhattan with two cherries and a thick slice of orange if it was available. And if he knew I was coming for dinner, it was available. He prepared the same thing for himself. He made terrific Manhattans with Maker’s Mark bourbon.

  We sat down in leather covered chairs by the fireplace. It was too warm for a fire but in the winter he would have a nice fire going. It was always pleasant sitting, talking with Bill.

  He had come from a relatively poor background and devoted his life to doing better. He went to a good law school and made sure he married well. He never talked about his background or his family. I gathered that he didn’t have much family of his own left.

  From time to time I would get peeks into his past and after a while I was able to piece together a mosaic of his past life. It wasn’t remarkable and there was nothing to hide except the lack of money and family name.

  I think he probably loved Margret but it was hard to tell. The fact was that after all these years they were still together but who knows, maybe it was the money that glued them together. Bill struck me as a happy man. Or maybe it was more of a satisfied man.