“Help me get the funnel’s tube down his throat,” Janet said. “We need to have this done before he wakes up and fights us. If we’re dumping him tonight, he needs to be stone-cold dead.” She glanced at the wall clock and mentally calculated how long it would take for the full thirty-two-ounce bottle of drain cleaner to kill the man tied to the radiator. “He should definitely be dead in a few hours if we do it now.”
Gail released the ropes that secured him to the radiator. Tied by his arms, Mr. Hennessey was hunched forward, his chin against his chest, which made getting the tube down his throat nearly impossible. They would waste too much time. He needed to be lying down.
“Okay, he’s loose.”
Mr. Hennessey fell sideways, still in the same position, but Gail, a perfectionist, placed him the way she wanted him on the hardwood floor, then she reached for the funnel at her back. In the kitchen, Janet retrieved the bottle of drain cleaner, tucked it under her arm, and went to the hall closet and grabbed a towel. She assumed if any liquid ended up on the floor, it would destroy the clear finish, and they’d be billed for the repair. As she draped a towel over her arm and closed the closet door, the scream to her right caused a head jerk in that direction. With his back to Janet, the man had his fist balled and his arm cocked, as if ready to deliver a blow to Gail’s face. Grabbing the eight-pound antique flatiron used as a doorstop, Janet bolted down the hallway, and just as he turned, she slammed it into the side of his nose. Blood erupted from his face, and if that didn’t kill him, she would do it again.
“Screw the drain cleaner. You’re about to take your last breath right now, you son of a bitch!”
Rolling out of the way in the nick of time, Gail watched as her mother pounded the iron weight into the man’s skull. Blood ran down the walls and pooled on the floor. With the back of her hand, Janet wiped the blood spatter from her face then dropped the iron. She knelt over the man and jabbed his chest with her finger. “See, that’s more proof of what I’ve always said. Your breed is nothing but shit and not to be trusted. If I could remove all of you from the earth, the world would be a much better place.”
Gail sucked in a gulp of air as she tried to compose herself. “Thanks, Mom. My head was turned for barely a second. I had no idea that son of a bitch was awake and waiting to strike. I was sure the sleeping pills would have lasted longer than they did.” Standing over the man, Gail spat on him then picked up the weight and dropped it on his head, which was now caved in.
Janet unfolded a paper drop cloth that she’d pulled from the utility closet and spread it across the floor. “Give me a hand undressing this idiot. I don’t want to leave clothes behind anymore that could possibly lead to identifying the men.” They dragged Mr. Hennessey by his ankles, centered him on the cloth, then disrobed him. Janet tipped her head toward the kitchen. “Grab the shears and hammer off the counter. We have to turn him into Chicago’s John Doe number two.”
Destroying the man’s body didn’t take more than ten minutes. Finding the exact location of the finger joints was easier than cutting through half-inch-thick bone. A few snips and the tops of all ten fingers were gone.
“Hold his mouth open,” Janet instructed.
“Just don’t hit my fingers,” Gail said.
Janet smiled. “We’re both pros, remember?” Holding the hammer, she directed several crushing blows to his upper and lower front teeth. After that, she slammed the hammer into each cheek, destroying the molars from the outside in.
“There. Job done, and he’s unidentifiable. Nice to meet you, John Doe number two.”
With the dustpan and broom in hand, Gail swept up the bloody fingertips and teeth fragments and flushed them down the toilet. It took three flushes to make sure nothing had settled at the bottom of the bowl. They rolled Mr. Hennessey and his wadded-up clothes into the drop cloth for the time being.
Janet jerked her head at the black blanket folded on a kitchen chair. “Take that with you and back up the van to the door. We’ll put him inside and out of the way so we can clean up this blood before it stains the hardwood.” Janet pulled out her cell phone and set the alarm. “There, that’s done. At three a.m., we’ll head to Washington Park and get rid of him. I will admit, though, watching him suffer the effects of the drain cleaner would have been far more satisfying. That’s something I’ve always enjoyed seeing.”