by Nesly Clerge
“Contact me, through Patricia, if you have to. I’m in school at Stanford. Let me give you my number at the dorm. Although, I prefer you not leave a message on my machine other than to call you. My roommate is the last person I want knowing my business.”
Connie extracted a business card from her pocket and handed it to me. “That’s my home phone, which I either forward to my office here or my car phone. You can reach me 24/7, unless I’m out of my car or between points and it’s inconvenient to pick up. If I don’t answer, leave a message.” She withdrew a small notebook and pen from a pocket in her jean jacket. “Give me your number.”
My name and number tucked away, Connie hugged each of us, marched to the door and said, “You’ll be hearing from me.”
Jenni, thankfully, was in the shower when Connie called two days later and before my first class on Friday. That presented the opportunity for us to discuss plans—hers and mine. Some of the latter, I kept to myself.
My last class was a lab. It was easy enough to slip a scalpel into one of the long pockets of my lab coat then into my purse.
Two hours before Connie was to pick me up, my phone rang. At first I feared she was calling to cancel. When I heard Abigail’s voice instead, I was both relieved and troubled.
Mixed feelings bubbled to the surface. On the one hand, all I’d been through—well, nearly all—was a direct result of her actions. On the other hand, hearing the voice of my oldest friend pulled at my emotions.
I decided to be polite. “How are you?”
“Kinda nervous about calling.”
“Understandable.”
“You remember that woman we met at that meeting that time, the one who ran it?”
“Emily Saunders.”
“That’s the one. She contacted me to go to another one of those meetings. I told her to take my name off the list. I went that time thinking it would be about the feminist movement, you know?”
“I’ve been going to the ones here.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Besides, the women here are good company.”
“Whatever floats your boat. You know, K, I thought I’d hear from you before now. You said you’d let me know what you decided about, you know, the problem.”
A sigh escaped me, a result of having to cover this ground again. Grateful Jenni was out of the room, I said, “The problem, as you call it, no longer exists.”
“What a relief. Did you go to the clinic alone?”
“I didn’t go to a clinic.”
“Geez, K, I know you know your stuff, but it’s dangerous to do it yourself. You could ruin something.”
I drew in a deep breath, exhaled, and explained, needing only five tissues to get through it. I stopped talking and waited for Abigail to speak.
“Look, it sucks that it happened. Still, he did you a favor. Now you don’t have to worry about the decision. He also saved you the cost.”
“Are you genuinely this dim and insensitive?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I cupped my forehead in my hand. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“I get that you’re not tied down with a kid. I get that you’re still walking around. What’s the big deal? So it was rough sex. You back off a day or two then go back to the regular ways for a while.”
“My study group starts in ten minutes. I need to go.”
“Oh. All right. Call soon, okay?”
“Sure.”
Abigail and I live in different worlds.
G. W. von Leibnitz said, “The world is not a machine. Everything in it is force, life, thought.” With the exception of Mr. Hopkins, at least according to my limited experience of him, men were all about force. Abigail had life but she was clueless about anything truly significant.
She was also my touchstone regarding my past.
It was a quandary I didn’t appreciate.
CHAPTER 45
Headlights of a beat-up, double-parked car I didn’t recognize flashed at me. Good thing Connie had told me what to look for. I slid onto the passenger seat. “Where’s the Jeep?”
“One, I don’t want my vehicle recognized. Two, we needed a trunk.”
“What about people seeing your Jeep in the area every day and night before now?”
“Only the first night. After that I used a different car during the day and a different one at night. Besides, I parked a few streets away and kept in the shadows on Arthur while watching for the bastard.”
“And your hair?”
“Wigs and caps I got. We’ll need these as well.” She handed a plastic cap to me. “Looks like you need one of these too.” She pulled a bobby pin from her hair.
I twisted my hair into a knot, pinned it in place, and covered it with the plastic cap, positioning the elastic so that no hair could fall out.
Connie handed me a regular brimmed cap, slapped one onto her head, put the car in gear and started driving. “Still positive you want to follow through with this? If not, now’s the moment to back out.”
“No way. However, as I told you, you don’t have to do more than point out the house and drop me off.”
“I said I’m all in.”
“Thanks. I mean that more than you know.”
“Believe me. I know.” She opened the glove box and handed me a lint roller encased in a plastic bag. “Run this over you everywhere while we ride, even on the bottom of your shoes. I’ve already done my thing with it.”
Task completed, I bagged the roller and put it back in the glove box. Between us was a small paper bag with its top folded down an inch or so, which sent me into a momentary flashback to my Cabrini-Green days. “This bag contains what I asked for?”
“Yep.”
“Any problem getting it?”
“I’m not called Crafty Connie for nothing.”
As she drove toward Arthur Street, we reviewed our strategy.
I started trembling as we passed the oak tree. “That’s where it happened.”
“I know. I also know you’re shaking. That’s not good.”
“It’s from rage, not fear.”
“Oh. Well. That’s different then. This is me, keeping my mouth shut.”
Connie turned left off of Stewart Street, drove slowly on Arthur, and pointed to the fifth house on the left. “That’s our target’s house. Eric Clarkson.”
“Not that his name matters.”
“I hear you. But I like to be thorough.”
Connie turned right at the corner and parked in the first available curbside spot. She turned off the engine and said, “We stick to the plan. All the way. We only deviate if absolutely necessary.”
“Right.”
“Don’t forget your stuff.” She handed me the small paper bag.
I opened the bag and saw a wax paper-wrapped square. “What’s this?”
“Ham sandwich. I needed cover, just in case.”
“Since you didn’t ask Agatha for these items, I presume she would object to our project.”
Connie shrugged. “Probably not. But you didn’t say to involve anyone else.”
“You are good.”
“Before you touch anything, we need to put these on.” She pulled two pairs of purple nitrile gloves from her jean jacket and handed a pair to me. “I’ve got extras if we need them.”
I put the gloves on then handed the sandwich to her, which she tossed into the back seat.
“What about your fingerprints on the bottle and syringe?” I asked.
She stared at me. Her eyebrows disappeared under the lowered brim of her cap. “Seriously?”
“Sorry.” Carefully, I removed the protective cap from the syringe and poked the needle into the foil top of the bottle containing botulinum toxin. When the syringe was full, capped, and tucked into one of my pockets, I said, “Ready?”
“You bet your ass.”
I reached for the door handle. Connie grabbed my arm and said, “Wait.”
She turned off the interior lights.
“Now. And remember what I said about closing the door quietly.”
“Won’t we be seen?”
“One, did you notice the streetlights for most of Arthur are out?”
“You?”
“You bet your ass. Two, we keep to the dark areas. Just follow what I do.” She started forward then stopped. “Remember, no names.”
Keeping in the shadows as much as possible, we walked back to the corner and crossed the street, edging our way forward as near to shrubs and trees as possible. We turned into his yard and crept along the side of the small wood-frame house, avoiding the long tire-worn driveway that was missing most of its crushed shells. Even in the dark I could see that the driveway extended to a covered area yards from the back of the house. A small car of indistinguishable make was parked underneath.
His TV blared beyond the closed windows. Connie halted, placed a finger to her lips then peeked into the living room window. She motioned for me to follow her to the back of the house.
Positioned in front of the back door, she whispered, “He’s slouched in his ratty chair in front of the TV.”
“Are we going to knock or something to get him to open the door?”
She slid a small case from an inside jacket pocket. “Top student in lock-picking class. Silent as a cat. My instructor said I was friggin’ scary.”
“I’m glad you’re on my team.”
“Friggin’ A.”
“Why the altered version of that word?”
“Patricia allows certain obscenities—the milder ones—but not that one. No one in WAM says it twice.”
“I’ll remember that, not that I ever use it.”
Connie grabbed the knob with her left hand. “Time me.”
CHAPTER 46
Connie had the lock open, without making a sound, in under a minute—I counted the seconds. She put the small case away and checked the kitchen through the window, nodded, and eased the door open, leaving it ajar once we were both inside. To say the kitchen was fit for a pig would be accurate on all counts.
She lifted something from her belt.
“What is that?” I whispered.
“Stun gun. We want him immobilized, right?”
“You bet your ass.”
She grinned and winked. “Stay here.”
“That’s not the plan.”
“It’s my plan. It’s easier if I sneak up on him and zap him. Then you come in. In the meantime, if something goes wonky, you’re close enough to the back door to get the hell out.”
“What about you? No way will I leave you with him.”
“I can handle it. I’ve incapacitated bigger guys than him.” She withdrew the car key from her pocket and held it toward me. “Just in case.”
“Keep it, in case you need to get away. I’m close enough to my dorm to run.”
Connie nodded, pocketed the key, and said, “This shouldn’t take long. Stay out of sight.”
She got down on her hands and knees and started forward slowly. I moved as close as I could to the doorway and listened. I heard what I assumed was the stun gun, and then a gurgle followed by a whump, which I took to mean he’d hit the floor.
“Ready when you are,” Connie called out.
I made my way through the cluttered dining room, into the equally sty-like living room. “Roll him onto his stomach.”
As Connie did that, I extracted the syringe and uncapped it. “Lift his shirt and pull the waistline of his pants down about three inches.”
She followed my directions. “Damn. Does this guy ever wash?”
“Fortunately, I was unconscious so remained unaware of his lack of hygiene.” I knelt beside him, felt for the correct entry point, made certain the syringe was ready to go, and said, “Just a little prick.”
Connie snickered.
I capped the syringe and slipped it into my pocket. “Roll him over.”
Connie rolled him onto his back then pulled from one of her many jacket pockets, a small roll of duct tape. She ripped off a piece big enough to cover his mouth then bound his wrists and his ankles.
He looked from Connie to me, terror clear in his eyes.
“Remember me?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Connie said, “Wrong answer, ass-wipe. Oh yeah, that’s not a practice you follow.”
I waved my hand in front of his face. “I’m the, quote, snotty college bitch, end quote, you raped a couple of weeks ago. Around the corner, behind the large oak tree. Remember now?”
His eyes widened. Panic set in when he realized he was mostly paralyzed. His muffled squeals were pathetic. I felt no pity.
Connie got to her feet. “I’ll pull the car to the back of the house. Then we’ll load lard-ass.”
Once alone with him, an idea came to me. I removed his earring and tucked it far down into my front jeans pocket.
He kept his eyes aimed at me. His expression shifted from panic to pleading to fury and back more times than I cared to count.
“So many emotions occur in such a moment,” I said. “Fear, disbelief, terror, panic about being helpless and out of control. Concern about what’s going to happen to you.” I placed my face inches from his. “Just as I detest what you did to me, you’re not going to like what I do to you.”
The soft crunch of driveway shells on the dark side of the window drew my attention.
Within seconds, Connie stood at his head. “Heave-ho.”
“What about the TV and lights?”
“Leave them on. Let people think he’s here.”
CHAPTER 47
Connie had backed the car in, stopping even with the rear wall of the house. She’d also left the trunk open to make it easy to dump him in.
“Get in the car,” she said. “And remember how to close the door.”
As gently as possible, Connie closed the trunk then got in behind the wheel. The headlights stayed off as we turned left out of the driveway, and were turned on once we turned right onto the street where we’d parked.
“How far is this place?” I asked.
“Far enough. Remote enough. We’ll be there in about a half hour. I timed it from here.”
“You really do like to be thorough.”
We glanced at each other and said simultaneously, “You bet your ass.”
We laughed for several nervous moments then made the remainder of the drive in silence, broken solely by occasional feeble thumps from the trunk.
Connie turned off a two-lane blacktop road onto a one-lane dirt road, which seemed to wind for miles, but was no more than a mile and a half—I asked. She pulled into a clearing and turned the engine off.
We hauled him out of the car, which he didn’t make easy, and placed him on the ground several yards away. “You have a good flashlight?” I asked.
“Always.” She retrieved it from the backseat. “I don’t know why you need a light to dump him here.”
“I need it for the second part of my plan.”
“Which is?”
“Help me pull his pants down.”
“Uh-oh.”
I faced her. “You’re welcome to wait in the car for this part. Just don’t try to stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s just, this is a party favor I didn’t expect.”
Together, we got his pants and odoriferous underwear down to his knees. His attempts to thrash his arms annoyed me. “Raise his arms over his head and sit on his hands. If you’re squeamish, face the other direction.” I removed the covered scalpel from my jacket pocket and sat on his legs.
“Whoa. You’re going to go Cosa Nostra on his ass, aren’t you?”
“Do you know what the translation of those two words is?”
“No.”
“Our thing.” I put the flashlight on and aimed it in his eyes. “Appropriate, don’t you think, Eric? You forced me to receive your thing, you disgusting excuse for a human being. In the process, you killed my unborn daughter. You ripped her from my womb. As far as I’m concerned, this
is the only appropriate penalty for someone like you. And there are so many like you. Far too many.”
I handed the flashlight to Connie. “Look away anytime you want or need to, but hold the light steady.”
“Not that I blame you one bit, but you really hate this guy.”
“I hate all men, every last disgusting waste-of-space one of them.”
“What about the father of your child?”
“He was nothing more than another unwelcome, uninvited sperm donor.”
“Shit. Another rape?”
“In more ways than you know, and by more than one person.”
“I guess that explains the animosity.”
“More than you can imagine. I need a plastic bag.”
Connie fished one from one of her many pockets and I placed it over his genitals to protect my clothing from blood spurts. Eric began to urinate into the bag. I let him finish then emptied it and placed the bag back into place.
I didn’t dawdle during my surgical removal of his genitalia, nor did I particularly hurry. It was surprisingly easy, or perhaps not so surprisingly, to ignore his muffled screams that became sobs that slipped into whimpers and moans then silence as I sliced through his shriveled, offending parts.
We hid him in thick brush and covered him as thoroughly as we could, leaving him to die, which I estimated wouldn’t take too long, just long enough for him to consider his deeds, if he even used his remaining time in such a productive manner before shock set in and death followed. I did the same with his genitals but in a separate place yards away from him.
Connie held out her hand. “Give me the gloves and the bag. I’ll get rid of them.” She put the bloodied items into a fresh plastic bag and handed me a clean pair of gloves. “Just in case.”
As we made our way back onto the two-lane, Connie said, “Well, that was different.” She glanced at me. “Do you feel avenged?”
“I’m just getting started.”
“You know, you’re kind of on the scary side yourself.”
“No woman ever needs to be afraid of me. Even those who betray me.”
She gave a quick glance at me then returned her focus to the road. “Is that meant as a warning for me?”
