* * * * *
It was a little before half past nine when I parked my car back at my now familiar dirt road. I snuck up towards the house. The Chevy and Trans-Am were still parked in the front yard. I was a couple of hundred feet from the house when I first heard the angry voices coming from it.
What’s this? A lover’s quarrel?
As I got closer to the house, the voices were getting progressively angrier. I couldn’t make out the words being said, but you could tell by the tone that it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. The lights were on in practically all the rooms, but the curtains were drawn in the living room. I could vaguely make out the occasional silhouette of a person as he—or she?—walked past the window. I’d finally reached the woods opposite the front door and was debating on whether I should try to get nearer in order to hear what the argument was over, when it happened.
A shrill “You goddamn bitch!” was screamed in the night, which was then punctuated by the sound of a dull, heavy thud and the crack of breaking glass. It was dead quiet for a few seconds. Suddenly, I heard the back door slammed open, followed by noises of someone running through the woods in the back. That’s when I was shocked from my inaction and sprinted around to the back of the house.
The back kitchen door was wide open. I wheeled around to look in the woods behind the house. Just in time, I saw some movement in the trailer park that was just beyond the woods. Suddenly, a car engine roared to life in that vicinity followed a few seconds later by the sound of tires spinning in gravel. I only could make out the taillights of a car as it sped away.
Knowing there was no way I could get to my car in time to chase the fleeing person, I turned my attention back towards the now silent house. I waited a few minutes to see if there were any signs of life coming from the inside. There weren’t. I pulled out my gun and slowly made my way into the house via the open back kitchen door.
The kitchen was slovenly. Unwashed dishes were piled in the sink, and a few more were on the card table that doubled as a dining table in the middle of the room. Three folding chairs were arrayed around the table. An ancient refrigerator, compressor laboring away, sat in one corner. A grimy, greasy range and oven squatted beside it.
I stopped and listened for a second.
Other than the fridge, there were no other noises I could hear. The interior kitchen door leading to the rest of the house was ajar. With the barrel of my gun, I slowly opened it the rest of the way and made my way into the den. It contained a couch, coffee table, a couple of chairs, a fireplace and the nearly nude body of Susan Bowman.
I smelled her at about the same time I saw her.
There was a rich fetid smell permeating the air. Her bowels must have cut loose when she was killed. There ain’t nothing neat about killing, despite what you read in an Agatha Christy novel, especially when the victim is only clad in a short, sheer polyester—what else in this neck of the woods—robe and lace panties. She’d fallen backwards into her coffee table, a cheap wood and glass top affair that had shattered on impact.
That explained breaking sound I’d heard.
The pink robe was splayed open, and death had put to rest the sex appeal of that once superb body. Her breasts were drooped decadently in opposite directions, flaccid, pale and without form. Her belly was shown to have folds of loose skin, with a thick, slightly graying pubic hair growing towards her navel. Her legs were flung open and the panties provided only a modicum of decency. Dimpled waves of cellulite were painfully obvious on her thighs. The feces that escaped from her when she relaxed in death were starting to stain the area under her brown. Her arms lay pressed against her sides, the frame of the coffee table holding them in place.
However, as repulsive as her body had become, its obscenity was nothing to match her face.
Her black hair formed a halo around her head. One could see that the roots were a mousy brown, streaked with gray. There was no color to the skin under the makeup, so it appeared she had some bizarre, surreal mask of death painted on her face. Her mouth with its red lips was open and a drooling tongue was laid out and to the side. Saliva ran down her chin. The eyes were wide open, but each pointed outward in a grotesque parody of the human face. To top it all off, there was a small hand axe sticking out of her forehead at a forty-five degree angle. Rivulets of blood and brains ran down and around her head. It was almost—but not quite—as red as her toe and fingernail polish.
By now, I was in a state of stunned panic. The site and smell had caused the bile to rise to the back of my throat. I was close to throwing up. I should have turned tail and got the hell out of there right then—that’s what Ernie told me later—but for some damn reason, call it morbid curiosity, I decided to give the rest of the house a quick search. Rest assured, I had every intention of getting the hell out of there as soon as I looked around.
Gingerly, I made my way around the body, being careful not to step in the blood or shit that lay spreading on the floor. I made my way down the short hall. At the end of it was the bedroom and to my right was the bath. I stuck my head in the bathroom to look.
Nothing. Quickly, I made my way into the bedroom.
At first, I just glanced in and was about to turn around and begin my hasty exit, when I heard a faint rustle coming from the other side of the bed. Slowly, I walked in, went around the bed, and there I saw him, Sonny Slatterson, naked, curled up in the fetal position on the floor. Around his left arm was tied a rubber tube, and a syringe was sticking out his forearm. He was unconscious, pale as a ghost and lying in his own vomit. He was alive, but wouldn’t be for long unless someone did something.
The bastard had OD’d.
Ernie tells me to this day I should have gotten the hell out of there and let the punk die, considering the hell I eventually was going to go through, but it wasn’t in me. I took one look at Sonny Slatterson and realized that there was a damn good possibility that his Dad might pay me a bonus for saving his son’s life. So, I decided to stay and see what I could do to keep him alive.
The first thing I did was to grab him by the legs and drag him to the bathroom. Somehow, I managed to get him in the tub and turn on the cold water. I don’t know if this did him any good, but I always saw them do it on TV, so I gave it a shot.
After making sure he wouldn’t drown, I held my nose and walked back into the den to call for help. Trying not to look at—and smell—the corpse in the middle of the room, I made a quick call to the operator and told her to get an ambulance out here right away.
After I made the call, I went back to the bathroom and watched over Sonny. Every now and then, I’d slap him hard on the face to see if he’d react. It was like hitting a dead fish. On the plus side, he was still breathing, so I felt that as long as help arrived soon, he'd hopefully live. I don’t know how long I stood there looking at him in the tub, but it seemed like forever.
Finally, I heard a siren outside the house, and I started yelling for them to come in, that the patient was in the bathroom and not to worry about the dead body in the den. I know it sounds stupid now, but it made sense then.
I gave Sonny one more slap on the face, just in case, and turned to go meet the emergency personnel. I’d just walked outside of the bathroom when I heard the unmistakable sound of a revolver hammer clicking into the cocked position. I slowly turned to my right and found myself staring down the barrel of .357 magnum. Holding it was a man near who had the look of death in his eyes.
He was a little older and bigger than me, was dressed in a dark suit like me but his revolver wasn't shiny.
It was "painted" a cold, dead dark blue.
Chapter 11