| |
We drive back into the north Albany suburbs, all three of us packed into Sean’s Volkswagen hatchback. Sean has got a New York Jet’s versus New York Giants pre-season football game going on the radio. He and I have been to some of those games down in the New Jersey Meadowlands where both teams play in the same stadium, and things can get pretty rowdy. Sean loves nothing more than tailgating, getting liquored up, and watching the fights break out between New Yorkers who love the Jets and New Yorkers who love the Giants. To Sean, the more heated the better. On occasion the fists fly and it’s almost more fun than the game itself.
“I think the way we’re going, Brad buddy,” he says, as we approach the Little’s Lake State Park property and the traffic light outside of it, “we’ll be able to afford season tickets to both the Jets and Giants games. We can charge the business. Heck, you can finally get rid of that old minivan you drive, and Joanne, you can buy yourself something more suited to your good looks and sharp image. A convertible maybe. A small, sporty red convertible, your long, lush hair blowing in the wind.”
...your long, lush hair blowing in the wind...
WTF!
“Oh my, Sean,” she says, “I love the way you think.”
In my head I’m thinking it might be a little premature to start buying up all sorts of expensive toys, even if I would love a new ride. We don’t want to appear like we’ve just robbed a bank when in fact we robbed two drug dealers of their cash and drugs. But I decide to keep my mouth shut while Sean slows the car down not at the red traffic light, but right before the gravel road that accesses the Little’s Lake property, taking me more than a little by surprise.
“What are you doing, Sean?” I beg.
As he turns onto the gravel road, I can see that both the local cops and the FBI are no longer working the crime scene. However, the crime scene ribbon is still visible. Several layers of it are extended from tree to tree. Sean drives deeper into the Little’s Lake property. A couple of junky second or third hand cars are parked out front. I recognize them as Mark and Mel’s cars. The parked cars mean they’re home which makes sense since the park is still open for another hour. Sean parks beside the cars, throws the transmission in park.
“Wait here if you would, Brad man,” he says casually, as if he’s heading into the dollar store for a package of cheap, two-ply toilet paper. Refocusing on my wife. “Joanne, you have something for me?”
“I sure do, Sean,” she says, reaching into her purse, and pulling out a gun. Not just any gun. But one of the pistols we nabbed from the Perez brothers.
I feel the hackles on the back of my neck rise to attention. Mouth goes dry and my pulse begins to throb in my temples.
“Sean,” I say, “what the hell are you doing?”
He does that up and down gesture with his free hand again, like he’s telling me to calm down and now is not the time for twenty questions.
“Calm down, Brad pal,” he says, while planting the barrel of the pistol in his pant waist behind his spine. “We know what we’re doing.”
“Who’s we?” I say, my eyes shifting from him to my wife and back again. “Who is we?”
“Now Bradley,” she says, “I love you, darling, but to be perfectly honest, you’ve been a bit of a pain in the rump all day. Sean and I talked it over and we have a plan to carry out. It’s not a pleasant plan, admittedly, but one that needs to be carried out nonetheless. You’ll understand as time goes on.”
“Be right back,” Sean says, leaving the door open. Turning, he smiles. “I can already taste that first beer.”
I watch him walk to the door on the main cabin, watch him knock on it.
“What the hell is he going to do with that gun, Joanne?” I beg, my body beginning to tremble. “What the fuck is he going to do with that gun?”
“Just sit back and relax,” she says. “It will all be over in a jiff.”
The front door opens. It’s Mark, dressed in his usual uniform of wife beater T-shirt and baggy jeans. Another head pokes out the open door. It’s his wife, her long, thick, crinkly red hair draping her face. Maybe they think Sean is the police come back to ask them more questions.
Sean speaks something to them, and they allow him to enter into the house. Mark closes the door behind him without bothering to look at Joanne and me. Maybe he can’t see us at all, what with the reflection of the late day sun on the windshield.
Heart in my throat, I turn back to Joanne.
“What did he tell them, Jo?” I beg. “How did they let him in like that? A total stranger.”
“He told them he’s a defense lawyer, that he heard about their case, and that he would offer his services for free. It was Sean’s idea. He’s positively a genius when it comes to thinking up ruses like that.”
...a genius...
The first gunshot rattles me to the core. I try to speak, but I can’t. When the second gunshot happens, I scream like a girl. Opening the door, I jump out of the car and run towards the cabin. I don’t bother with knocking first. I throw the door open. There, lying on the living room floor, is Mark, the back of his head now missing, eyes wide open, a small dime-sized hole in his temple.
Slumped over on the couch, a pool of blood gathering under a rat’s nest of red hair, is Melanie. What was her brains are now sprayed all over the wall behind the couch.
Meanwhile, a black leather gloved Sean is calmly kneeling in front of Mark, while placing the Perez brother’s pistol into the dead man’s right hand, making sure that the index finger is wrapped around the trigger. He also makes sure to position the arm so that the gun barrel is pointing at the entry wound.
“Sean,” I say, my voice an octave higher than God intended, “what the fuck, fuck, fucking, fuck have you done?”
He shoots me a smile from down on one knee.
“Oh hey, Brad buddy,” he says. “Sorry you had to see this. I thought you were going to wait for me out in the car.”
I’m staring at the lifeless bodies, at all the dark, fresh blood pooling all around them.
“They’re dead,” I say, stating the more than obvious.
Sean stuffs his tongue in his cheek, and nods like, What was your first clue?
“That they are,” he says. “But then, that’s the point.”
He repositions the pistol, so it almost perfectly aligns with the entry wound in Mark’s head. When he’s satisfied with his work, he leans back and gives it a long, hard look, the same way Picasso might look over one of his newly completed paintings.
“And that should do it,” he says, standing.
“Should do what?” I say, my heart still pounding in my throat, mouth dry, temples pounding. A peculiar dizziness has also set in, like the world has gone and shifted on its axis.
“The ruse,” he says, with a laughable fake French accent.
“Ruse?” I repeat, sans the accent.
It was Sean’s idea. He’s positively a genius when it comes to thinking up ruses like that...
“The murder/suicide, Brad buddy,” he says, like he’s exasperated. “Jeepers, but do I always gotta spell things out for you? No wonder you were a postal worker. No imagination.” He sort of catches himself again, like he’s once more faux pas’d. He even clenches his top and bottom teeth together, like he’s saying, Oopsies. “Oh crap, Brad man, hope you don’t take me seriously. Some shit just comes out without my controlling it. Maybe I have Tourette’s and just don’t know it.”
I’m still staring at the lifeless bodies. It’s like shifting my gaze has become an impossibility.
“How could this happen?” I say after a long beat. “Whose bright idea was it to commit a double murder?”
Sean crosses his arms over his chest.
“It’s not murder, Bradley baby,” he says. “It’s a murder/suicide, and you and I were never here.” He giggles. “Actually, I have to admit, the whole thing was Joanne’s idea.”
“No it was not!” I snap, finally shifting my eyes from the bodies to him.
“I’m gonna have to beg to differ, Brad man,” he says. “You actually caught us talking the plan over when you came back from your bathroom puke visit. Joanne was worried that Mark and his wife would put up a fight against the allegations against them regarding the murders of the Perez brothers. She’s seen enough movies and read enough thrillers about hotshot lawyers who can get even the most ruthless killer off. Remember OJ?”
“But Mark and his wife didn’t kill the Perez brothers. Joanne did.”
“That’s the point, Brad buddy,” he says. “Don’t you see? Killing these two people is for your own good. By making it look like a murder/suicide with the Perez’s own gun, it seals their guilt. It will be case closed. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”
Well fuck me with a stick, but as badly as I feel about being a conspirator (by default) in the murders of these two people, it’s not a half bad plan. But it’s still an evil plan.
“And you wanna know what’s really sweet about this here murder/suicide, buddy?”
“What’s so sweet about it, Sean?” I say, nausea filling my guts yet again.
“I’ve got an in with the coroner, and since according to the newspapers anyway, Mark and his wife don’t have a whole lot of family in the area, nor much money to speak of, we’ve agreed to provide their funeral services for them, free of charge. Naturally all this will be worked out after the bodies are discovered and the police do an investigation.”
Holding his hand up as if to say, Hang on. He digs through Mark’s rear pocket, finds his cell phone. He then presses the back of the phone against Mark’s index finger, which is wrapped around the pistol trigger. Must be he’s pressing it against the biometric fingerprint reader because the smartphone lights up.
Digging in his pocket, he pulls out a business card. I can see that it only contains a single telephone number. No other ID. No name. No occupation. He dials the number and shoves the card back in his pocket. Clearing his throat, he patiently waits for a connection.
His eyes go wide when someone answers. “Yes, this is Mark Camp at Little’s Lake.” He’s feigning a very stressed out, high-pitched voice that’s on the verge of tears. “I want you to tell Juan, my wife and I killed his little brothers. We did it. We are the killers. We just can’t live with ourselves anymore, knowing we took the lives of such young, innocent men. We killed them, took their drugs and their money and buried it in a secret location. It was to be our retirement fund. But you will never find it because when I hang up, I’m going to kill my wife and then kill myself. We’re going to use one of your brother’s guns. You tell Juan, we’re sorry for what we did. Now we’re going to pay the price.”
He hangs up, returns the phone to Mark’s back pocket.
Looking into my eyes. “How’s that for some acting chops, Brad baby?”
I’m not about to start congratulating him on his imitation of a desperate man who’s seconds from killing his wife and then himself.
“So, you’re serious,” I say, instead. “Our funeral services free of charge?”
“Well, our basic costs will have to be covered by the dead couple’s estate, such as it is. But we won’t charge a profit.” He grins and winks when he says profit.
Now I see where this is going.
“Exactly what kind of burial will they be receiving?” I ask, knowing the answer.
“Cremation, of course,” he says. “It’s the cheapest and most efficient way to send loved ones into the afterlife.”
But what he’s actually doing is burning the bodies of evidence.
“Nicely done, Sean,” I say with a shake of my head.
“Hey, don’t thank me,” he says. “Thank your lovely wife. All I did was get myself past the front door and into the house.”
“So I heard,” I say. “The ruse.”
“So how’s about those beers and wings?” he says.
“How can you eat at a time like this, Sean?” I ask, my insides gurgling.
He smiles and pats his protruding belly.
“I can always eat and drink,” he says. “It’s my very special talent.”
Together we exit the cabin, knowing that right this very second, Juan Perez has got to be screaming bloody murder.