Letter to Belinda Page 5

  “I couldn’t bear the thought of him lying there in his own home, rotting down on the floor! It just isn’t right! You know how hot the weather is! He wouldn’t last but just a few days before he gets ripe!”

  “Then call the police, and get him into that refrigerated morgue.”

  “I can’t do that!”

  “So you’d rather he rot down on your floor?”

  “He’s not rotting. He’s frozen. I bought a big freezer, the biggest chest freezer they had, and got them to deliver and install it, and I put the Judge into it. But just until we decide what to do with him.”

  “WE? He’s not my problem!”

  “You’ve got to help me, though! It was all I could do to haul him over to my house!”

  “I guess so! And how many people saw you hauling a dead body out of his house, and into yours?”

  “Nobody saw me!”

  “You don’t really know that. There are billions of people in this world, and all you need is for one of them to see you!”

  “Believe me, no one saw me! I live in a secluded area.”

  “Okay, assuming no one saw you, what now? You have the Judge on ice, but what now? You can’t leave him there. What’s your plan?”

  “That’s why I called you, to get some ideas.”

  “You want me to help you dispose of a dead body?”

  “Not necessarily. I want ideas. You’re a writer, you should have a few ideas on how to get rid of a body.”

  “Writing a fictitious story is different from real life. These days, forensics investigators have an awful lot of tools to work with. That’s why I told you that you should just call the police and report his death. It wasn’t murder, it wasn’t even an accident. It was a heart attack. It was just one of those things that happens that is nobody’s fault.”

  “But it was very embarrassing. I would die, if all this were to come out, especially now that I’ve tried to cover it up. Being rich doesn’t keep you from falling into shame. Believe me, if there had been any other way of getting out of this mess without telling even you, I would have done it! I called you because I was out of options. Just like now. I’m out of ideas, and since you already know about it, why not ask your opinion?”

  “You don’t have any ideas?”

  “Well, I thought about dumping him into the river. Maybe he’d drift down a few miles before anyone found him. Maybe they would think he had a heart attack, and fell into the river.”

  “If he did, he wouldn’t drift anywhere. The body would hug the bank on this side, and he’d be found within just a few feet of where he fell in. How long have you had him in the freezer?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “So he is probably frozen solid by now. That presents a problem too. Investigators can tell if he has been frozen, and then thawed out. That would raise a few questions right there.”

  “How can they tell if he’s been frozen?”

  “I don’t know, but they can. It leaves tell-tale signs in his body somehow.”

  “Then how about dumping him into the river weighted down with concrete blocks?”

  “If he is ever found, it would be obvious that it wasn’t an accident. They would suspect murder. And by that time, the evidence that it was actually a natural death would be gone.”

  “But how would he be found, if he was weighted down and sank in the river?”

  “The same way bodies are always found, by accident. When a body decays under water, it bloats up, and wants to come to the surface. If it rots enough that the ropes come lose, it pops up like a cork. Or one of these catfish fishermen snags into him with their hook, and they think they have a 200 pound catfish! They winch him to the surface, and there you have it! Smiling Judge Leo, grinning at the whole world! And then somebody comes forward to say that they saw you dumping something into the river a month earlier, and suddenly, you are in jail for murder!”

  “Okay, so give me your recommendation. What would you do with him?”

  “Do you want to bury him? Burn him? Dump him in a well? Slice him, dice him, blend him into a puree? Just what do you want to do with him?”

  “Whatever method will result in him never being found.”

  “Nothing is fool-proof. There is always the chance that someone will do something entirely unexpected, and then you have complications.”

  “Then suggest something.”

  “Incineration. If you can completely burn up a body, it can never be found.”

  “How would I do that, without someone suspecting something?”

  “I don’t know. You could chop him into little pieces, and grind him into hamburger meat, then scatter him in the Gulf for the fish to eat. That way there would be no traces of a body left.”

  “I couldn’t do that to Leon!”

  “He’s dead! You can’t hurt him any more!”

  “But processing him down like that . . . it’s just too gross!”

  “Well, there is a dog food plant up in Bessemer. They haul animal parts there by the truck loads from the slaughterhouses. The county even takes road-kill animals there. Everything is ground up into pieces, which are cooked down into a mush, to extract the protein, which is used as a basis for making dog food. If you could get him into that processor, the body would be unrecognizable as human. And within just a few days, he would be bagged up and served as Kibbles and Bits.”

  “You are joking, I hope!”

  “No, seriously! That would work, but you would have to know someone who works at the plant, to slip him into the chipper for you.”

  “Well, I don’t know anyone like that. Any more suggestions? Try to come up with something that is not so gross.”

  “I think having a dead man in your freezer is pretty gross!”

  “I want a fool-proof plan, one that is not so gross.”

  “Well you’ve got three weeks to come up with something, but if you want my help, it had better be right away, because I leave for England in four days.”

  “Okay, let’s do something simple, like bury him. What do you suggest?”

  “I think I would bury him close by somewhere. A place where I could monitor the grave site, and be able to modify the surface features, as I needed to, to keep him from being found. A place where I could work over the surface of the burial, and not draw attention to my actions.”

  “And where would that be?”

  “Like in my garden. I could dig the grave in secrecy, bury him, and as the soil settles in the grave, I could add more dirt. No one would suspect anything by seeing me working there, because I work there all the time. I could plant a row of tomatoes over him, and just tend my garden. In the course of tending my garden, I would also be making sure the grave stayed concealed. As long as there is no initial reason to suspect me of hiding a body, who would suspect a thing?”

  “That sounds like a good plan. So we’ll bury him in your garden . . .”

  “Whoa! Wait a minute! Not in my garden! I was just using that as an example. If he’s buried in a garden, it will be your garden!”

  “But all I have is a flower garden next to the house.”

  “Flowers, vegetables, it doesn’t matter what you plant over the grave, as long as you regularly tend your garden. Do you have a gardener?”

  “I have a boy who comes every two weeks and cuts the grass, but I tend my flowers myself.”

  “Okay, there you go. In between his grass cuttings, you bury the Judge in your flower garden, and no one will ever know he is there. When was the last time your grass was cut?”

  “I could hear him cutting it while I was hand-cuffed to the bed. He came back yesterday to get his money.”

  “So basically, he won’t be back for ten days or so?”

  “Yes, that’s about right.”

  “Go
od, then you have time to bury the Judge before he comes back. Assuming that is what you want to do.”

  “It sounds like a good plan to me. When do we start digging?”

  “There’s that ‘we’ again. I’m just offering advice, remember?”

  “But I can’t dig a grave by myself! How deep do I dig? How wide? You know about these kinds of things! Can’t you help me?”

  “When would I do it? I have a job, remember? And in four days, I am leaving for England.”

  “Can’t you take a day off work and do this?”

  “No, I can’t!”

  “Can’t you call in a sick day?”

  “Well, yes I could, but if Janice found out I took a sick day, and spent it at your house . . .”

  “She would not be happy, would she.”

  “She would be a lot more than just not happy!”

  “Is there any way you could take a sick day, and her not know about it?”

  “Well, yes, but I would be taking a chance. If anything went wrong, and she tried to contact me at work, I would be dead!”

  “How would she find out?”

  “By calling the mine and asking for me.”

  “Who would she talk to, if she called the mine?”

  “The same man you talked to when you called the other day.”

  “Is there any way you could bribe him, to say you are at work?”

  “Possibly. You are going to stay after me about this, aren’t you?”

  “There is no one else I can turn to, Travis! If you don’t help me, I’ll have to do it all myself.”

  “I suppose I could take a sick day today. But this is the only day I could do it. The rest of the week, I’ll be busy getting ready to go to England.”

  “Can we get him buried and covered all in one day?”

  “Yeah, but it will depend on what kind of soil you have at your house. Soft deep soil will be a breeze. But if it’s hard and rocky, it might be tough.”

  “So you will help me?”

  “Yes, I’ll turn in a sick day, and call Howie to be sure if anyone calls for me, that I am officially at work.”

  “Oh Travis, I can’t thank you enough! I don’t know what I would do without you as a friend!”

  “Sounds like you would be up the creek without a paddle. I’ll leave for work at my regular time, with my lunchbox and work clothes. But instead of going to work, I’ll go to your house. Be there about two. Do you have an enclosed carport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then have it open, so I can drive in, and close the door. No need in letting anyone see me there. What do you have in the way of digging tools?”

  “Hoes, rakes and a shovel.”

  “Then you’d better go to Lowe’s and get a mattock to dig with, and an extra shovel. Two tarps, and two 50 pound bags of powdered agricultural lime. I’ll explain what that’s for later.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, that should do to start with. What time is it? Almost noon. I’ll go home and eat lunch, and call work. And I’ll be at your house at 2 p.m.”

  “Great! I’ll be waiting.” She slipped her sunglasses back on. “Travis?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for everything. I know I have asked a lot of you, and you’ve been really great. I don’t know who else I could have turned to.”

  “Well, you can thank me by not incriminating me, in case the crap hits the fan, and you get caught. I’m telling you, if you get caught trying to dispose of that body, you’ll be suspected of murder. But even if the autopsy reveals that he died of natural causes, they can still charge you with mutilation of a corpse, or something.”

  “Is that a crime?”

  “I think it’s a misdemeanor, but still a crime. I still say it would have been better to just leave him in his house, and let his wife find him in three weeks.”

  “But what is done, is done.”

  “Yes, what’s done, is done!”

  Travis was shaking his head as he went to his truck. It looked like he was never going to learn to just say no. He got into more trouble simply because he was always willing to help. He had a bad feeling about this, but he was going to go ahead with it anyway. When one starts down the road to deception, who knows what will be around the next bend. One lie leads to another, and after awhile, things tend to snowball out of control.

  5

  Janice was not home when he got back from the park, so he got his bag of work clothes and lunchbox, and left. He got to Miranda’s house a little early, but she was there waiting on him.

  “You’ve got a really nice place here. Great overlook of the river, secluded, and you probably have a pool too.”

  “No pool, but I had planned to put one in. I got an estimate on one about two weeks ago. $14,000 dollars. Is that a good price for a pool?”

  “A below the ground pool?”

  “Yes.”

  “A pool with a liner, or concrete and tile?”

  “Concrete and tile.”

  “Then that’s a pretty good price. But why are you even worried about the price? With your money, you can just tell them to put it in. $14,000 is pocket change for you!”

  “But I still hate to pay too much. Since I’ve been rich, I have lost the perspective of what things cost. It just isn’t relevant to me any more. I mean, does a cup of coffee cost 50 cents, or 50 dollars? To me, it’s just meaningless numbers.”

  “Poor girl! I feel your pain!”

  “No you don’t! I decided not to get the pool, because I thought about the cost and work it would take to maintain it. It was just too much. I know, I could hire someone to maintain it too, but that just takes the fun out of it. Know what I mean?”

  “No, I really don’t, but let it go. Now, where were you thinking about planting the judge?”

  “Around here.” She took him around to the north side of the house, where there was a 40 x 40 foot garden space between the house and the cedar fence. Rows of well-tended flowers occupied the space. Iris, gladiolas, zinnias and petunias, as well as some he didn’t know the names of, were doing very well there.

  “Nice garden.”

  “I use a lot of Miracle-Gro. I was thinking about putting him right here, at the ends of these rows. That way it wouldn’t disrupt my flowers.”

  “That’s right, we can’t be disrupting your flowers, can we? How is the soil here?”

  “It’s rich. Good for growing things.”

  “I mean down deep. Six feet down. Is there clay or rocks?”

  “What do I look like, a geologist? How should I know what’s that deep? All I have done is scratch the surface. This is also where I was planning to put the pool.”

  “I’ll be honest with you. It doesn’t look good for digging by hand. See those boulders around the edge of your yard? That indicates that this place probably has massive sandstone below the sub-soil. No way I could dig a grave into that stuff.”

  “So we’ll have to bury him somewhere else?”

  “Well, I haven’t called in for a sick day yet, so how about this: Call that pool contractor back up, and tell him you want that pool put in as soon as possible. He will have the equipment to cut through all that rock, and it will take several days. You leave the judge in your freezer, until they get the pool dug out and ready to pour. They will probably form it up one day, and have the concrete delivered the next morning. The night before they pour the concrete, you put the judge under the gravel and plastic, where he can’t be seen. The next morning they pour concrete over him, and he’s never seen again! How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like a plan I can live with. Okay, let’s do it.”

  “In spite of the fact that you don’t really want a pool?”

  “I’d put the pool in, just to have a p
lace to hide that body! After I get the pool in, I’ll sell the house and move somewhere else. That’s no problem.”

  “It must be nice to be rich.”

  “It has its advantages.”

  “Okay, so you are going to call the contractor, and tell him you want that pool in as soon as possible?”

  “Yes, I’ll do that. I just hope they can get it in fast, so I can have the judge disposed of before anyone knows he is missing.”

  “You might want to set a deadline for them.”

  “What kind of deadline?”

  “Tell them that you want it ready for a pool party in ten days, and that you’ll give them a bonus if they can have it completed in time.”

  “Can they put a pool in that fast?”

  “I’m sure they can, if the bonus is big enough. Tell them that you’ll give them a five thousand dollar bonus if it is completed by say, August 10th. And if they get through earlier than the 10th, you’ll give them an additional thousand dollars for every day earlier than the 10th. They’ll work day and night, and have it in by the 6th!”

  “Do you think so?”

  “Sure. Just make sure they leave the site the night before they pour the concrete, so you can hide the judge under where they plan to pour it the next day.”

  “Can I get you to call the contractor and tell him all that? You know more about all that than I do.”

  “Sure, I’ll call him. You got the number?”

  “Yes, come into the house.” She took him into the house by way of the back deck, and the screened in back porch, where the new freezer was sitting ominously with its grizzly contents. As they approached it, she noticed that the lid to the freezer was partially opened.

  “That’s strange. The freezer door is open! God, I hope someone hasn’t been in there!”

  Travis got to it first, and raised it up. Miranda screamed.

  “Oh my God! He’s not dead! He’s trying to get out!”

  “No, he’s dead all right. It’s just the rigor mortis. It caused his muscles to tighten up as he froze. As he froze, he pushed up on the lid of the freezer. Is this the first time you’ve seen the freezer since you put him in it?”