Wendi got in Mike’s pick-up and backed it up to the rear door of the clinic. She chose an angle that took advantage of the slight depression in the ground in front of the entrance leading inside. She lowered the tailgate and eyeballed its height. On flat ground, the distance was just under three feet. Her strategic parking got it closer to a height of two feet.
She dragged the body across the lintel and hoisted the top part of his frame onto the lowered gate panel. She crawled into the truck bed and, sticking her hands under his arms, jerked him all the way up. She pulled the burden completely into the back of the pick-up. Then she jumped down and slammed the tailgate shut.
She threw a covering over his body and went into the outbuilding behind the clinic and returned with an old brake drum and a concrete block. She hoisted them into the truck bed, weighing down a couple of corners to keep her cargo concealed from view. Then she tossed a spool of baling wire and a reel of fishing line into the cab.
She left town, heading north on Route 87 toward the community of Grape Creek where her parents lived. She angled off the highway onto March Road. When it forked, she left the paved surface, going straight on Sutton Road.
The surface of this byway was caliche, a light-colored layer of dirt that split into shingles like sheets of mica. In other parts of the country, people refer to this soil as “hard-pan.” Nothing can grow from it but clouds of dust. The ride over it was rough, but Wendi had been raised in this part of Texas. She was used to bouncing a pick-up truck over rugged back roads.
She followed the fence line of the 7777 Ranch until she reached the main gate. A lot of spreads out here had tall arches spanning the gate with metal artwork on top proclaiming the name of the property. Here, though, was just a simple metal entryway locked shut to keep out intruders. Wendi had the key. She opened it up and pushed it all the way back. She climbed in the truck and pulled through across the cattle guard. On the other side, she stopped, put on the emergency brake and got out. She pushed the gate shut, but didn’t lock it.
The narrow, one-lane caliche drive went up and down hills, past weed-like mesquite and cedar trees and sparse brush for a mile before reaching the stock tank. Out of sight of the road, it was surrounded by acres of rolling hills devoid of homes and prying eyes.
In Texas, a stock tank refers to a large pond. There was a boat dock on one end, and it was stocked with fish every year for laid-back summertime recreation.
Wendi pulled up to the dock head first, pointing her headlights in the direction of the stock tank. She rolled Michael’s body out of the bed and grabbed his feet, dragging him face down across the ground and onto the covered wooden platform built over the edge of the pond. Then, she returned to the truck and retrieved the supplies needed to weigh down the body.
She looped one end of the baling wire around his neck and twisted it tight—but not too tight, so as not to sever the neck. On the other end, she attached the brake drum. She tied fishing line around the cinder block and secured it to his left leg.
What was she thinking as she went about her gruesome task? How could she do this? Lying before her in nothing but red boxer shorts, his winter-white skin glowing in the gleam of her headlights, was the man who’d shared her bed—a man she’d claimed to love. Mike was only 24 years old. He’d served his country, he’d cared for his baby, he’d loved life. Wendi had gone with him to look at homes where they could build a future together. Now, she stood by his corpse, in the middle of nowhere, in the dark of night, treating him like useless trash.
She pushed his body to the edge and rolled him off into the water. When the sound of the splash disrupted the eerie quiet of the wilderness, did it make her jump? She needed to stay until the last of his body passed under the black surface of the water and the ripples smoothed to glass.
She stalked back to Mike’s pick-up truck, backed it up, put it in gear and headed out of the ranch and back to her apartment in the clinic. She climbed into her empty bed—a place she’d tried so hard and so often to fill with a man. She sought just a few hours of sleep before her mother arrived to open the clinic.
She believed she’d committed the perfect murder.