Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set Page 32

  “Are you coming to bed, babe? It’s after one.”

  Richard checked his watch. He hadn’t realized. He was tired, but not from the lack of sleep. Michelle sat at the table next to him and picked up his notes.

  “How’s it look?”

  “Expensive.”

  Michelle sighed and ran a hand through her tangled hair.

  “Sorry.” Richard tried to smile. Michelle did likewise. “I think we could cobble something together,” he said.

  “That’s great!”

  “It’ll be tight, though. We’ll no longer be in the position to reward ourselves--the chance to see the world, early retirement--kids.” He let that one linger. “It’s all gone now, if we go through with this.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Okay.” She nodded. “What do we have to do?”

  “Well, you know how I feel about them living here.”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “We could pay their rent for them, but we’d just be pouring money down the drain. However, we can just about afford to buy a small house.”

  Michelle beamed.

  “It wouldn’t be anything fancy and probably wouldn’t be in the best neighborhood, but I think we could do it.”

  “I knew you’d work something out.”

  “I wouldn’t be too happy. Maui is out of the question.”

  She flung her arms around him and crushed him in her excitement. “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t care too much about cable TV, dinners out, going to the movies, name brand foods or any new clothes.”

  “I don’t.”

  “For all the fuss your parents have caused, it would be cheaper to have them killed.”

  And there it was. He’d said it--admittedly as a joke. It was an option, though--an option he hadn’t consciously considered. It was a solution, an answer to his problematical in-laws. Michelle was too wrapped up in the moment and hadn’t heard his joke. She cooed sweet nothings into his ear.

  By just thinking of having Ted and Eleanor killed, he was crossing a line, but as much as he hated to admit it, it was a line he crossed knowingly. His murderous thought seemed extreme. He couldn’t share it with Michelle--that was for sure. But it would solve things. If he bankrolled Ted and Eleanor, he incurred their current debt and at least ten to twenty years of their yet to be squandered debt. Even long after his in-laws were dead, they would still be gnawing at his finances. With compound interest, he wouldn’t be free of their touch for at least forty years. It was inconceivable. Murderers didn’t serve that kind of time. He struggled to see the downside, pushing morality aside. He leaned back in his chair, letting the concept soak in.

  “Come on, let’s go to bed.” Michelle grabbed his hand and tugged at him. “I want to celebrate.”

  “In awhile,” he said with a thin smile. “I want to double-check a couple of things.”

  Michelle stood. “Okay, but don’t take too long about it.”

  “Okay.”

  He watched her dance back to bed, while he contemplated killing her parents.

  ***

  A restless night’s sleep hadn’t tempered his solution--it had reinforced it. He was going to kill his in-laws. It had been three a.m. before he’d gone to bed. He’d sat in the kitchen daydreaming, plotting their demise. While in bed, he’d tossed and turned--excited by the prospect. Stronger than caffeine, his ingenious idea kept him awake. Even in his unsettled sleep, he dreamed of murdering his burdensome in-laws. Surprisingly, he’d risen the following morning in fine fettle. He felt like a million bucks.

  Leaning against the sink, munching on a bowl of cereal, Richard asked as casually as he could, “When’s your mom and dad’s eviction date?”

  “Don’t say eviction.”

  Hell, what was he meant to call it? Their involuntary departure due to irreconcilable payment terms? Eviction wasn’t a pretty word and it wasn’t meant to be. That was the name of the game. He tried again.

  “Okay, when do they have to move out?”

  “By the 20th, I think. Can I tell them the wonderful news?”

  “Hold off for now. I need to get the mortgage broker to double-check my figures.”

  “Okay.” Michelle smiled. She was so happy. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. “Maybe tonight?”

  “Maybe.” He smiled back.

  I’ve got until the 20th, he thought on the commute to work. I’ve got two weeks to kill them.

  Deciding to kill Ted and Eleanor was one thing. Doing it was another. He had to decide how, when and where. Inspiration wasn’t on the right wavelength. Nothing coming through sounded workable. He wandered through his working day as a passenger, cruising past his responsibilities. At lunch, he made the obligatory phone call to the mortgage broker and realtor, and they set them in motion. He went home that evening with his cover story, but no plan for murder. Inspiration was waiting for him in the living room.

  “Richard, you don’t know how much we appreciate what you’re doing,” Ted said.

  “Very generous,” Eleanor echoed.

  “I couldn’t wait, honey. I had to tell them. Please don’t be angry.”

  “I’m not angry,” Richard said, his blood boiling. “There’s nothing to be angry about.”

  “Richard, you’re my son now. What you’ve done for us elevates you way above in-law status.”

  God forbid me ever being of your blood, you useless SOB. Richard shook Ted’s proffered hand, smiling as broadly as his anger and irritation allowed. “Thanks, Ted. That means so much coming from you.”

  “We can go house hunting together,” Eleanor suggested. “Make it a real family affair.”

  Over my dead body, Richard thought. “Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.”

  “We should celebrate,” Ted announced. “Go out to dinner. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds great, dad,” Michelle said.

  “Great,” Richard agreed.

  They went for a steak dinner. Ted suggested Outback. Richard said Sizzler, because it was nearer--and cheaper. He knew he would be picking up the tab--and he did. Their last meal together might be on him, but it didn’t have to be an expensive one.

  He was glad to get home after seeing off his in-laws. The meal together had been good, though. It made his decision so much easier. Seated face to face with them, he felt no compunction to hand them a stay of execution, but they’d been a distraction. He couldn’t think seriously about killing them when they were jabbering away in front of him. Their inane chatter prevented him from concentrating. Michelle slipped her arms around his waist.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “You know.” Her face filled with sadness. “I’m sorry we argued last night.”

  He pulled her to him and hugged her tight. “It’s all right. We’ve got a solution now. Last night is forgotten.”

  “C’mon, soldier. We’ve got some unfinished business in the bedroom. Let’s go.”

  ***

  For Michelle’s benefit, Richard pretended to go to work. He went through the usual morning routine of his shower, shave and light breakfast. The moment he hit the road he called the office requesting a floating holiday. He had to think and he couldn’t do that with Michelle around or the interruptions at work. He stopped in at the first Denny’s he came across. Much to the hostess’ annoyance, he insisted on a booth rather than eating at the counter. He didn’t want the conversation. He ordered and gazed out the window at the freeway traffic whipping by below him.

  Two restless nights and he still wanted to kill Ted and Eleanor. He was sold on the concept, but not on his morality. He told himself that he wasn’t evil. It was self-defense. Justifiable homicide. His livelihood was under threat and he couldn’t let that happen. He had to do something about it. Any notion that he was just another criminal dissolved with his first cup of Denny’s coffee.

  He needed a killer, a hit man, but where was he going to find one? He didn’t have a clue. Even if h
e did find one, how the hell would he know if he’d found a good one? It wasn’t like he could pick up a copy of this month’s issue of Best Buy--the Hired Killer addition. No, he couldn’t count on an assassin. It was a stupid idea. He wasn’t a mobster, for God’s sake.

  He examined his hands, turning them over and inspecting the calluses on his palms. He was good with his hands. He always had been. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t turn his talents to for professional results. He would treat Ted and Eleanor’s death like any other DIY project. He would kill them himself.

  He warmed to the idea instantly. What would be a suitable death for Ted and Eleanor? He had to come up with something that would be befitting of their lifestyle. Lifestyle, what a joke. Style was one thing absent from their lives. His waitress brought his breakfast.

  He trawled through his cheesy and greasy choice. Ted & Eleanor’s neighborhood wasn’t the best. It was way better than it had been the year before they moved in, but it was still tarnished by its reputation. Drug dealers and felons were still a common sight. A home invasion wasn’t out of character. He considered the scenario for a moment and dismissed it just as quickly. Home invasions were noisy and messy and required planning and more than one person. It wasn’t going to work.

  “Simple solutions are usually the best remedy.”

  “Huh?”

  Richard’s waitress smiled and refilled his coffee cup. “You seem to be trying to solve a weighty problem. People always complicate things. Most of time, the simplest solutions are the best ones.”

  Richard managed a smile. “You know what? I think you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right,” she said and moved on to the next table.

  He finished up his meal and paid the check, leaving an over-generous tip. His coffeepot philosopher had been right. Simple was best. Getting back into his car, a plan was piecing itself together.

  Richard parked on Hillcrest Drive. The road was deserted. Not many used the service road to the water plant. He stared down the hill at the run down development and particularly, at Ted and Eleanor’s rental home backing onto the hillside.

  From his lofty vantage point, there seemed to be no activity. Eleanor would be at work, but Ted would be there, pottering around, trying to make one of his damn fool schemes succeed. Even in Richard’s short marriage to their daughter, there’d been too many. There was the property speculation deal--buy cheap properties with no money down and give them a quick makeover for a quick profit. The upshot had been a string of expensive home inspections that proved that cheap houses are cheap for a reason. Not being daft enough to buy a termite-infested shack, Ted had moved on to want ads, selling junk that no one wanted. Their garage was still chock full of trash. Buying cars from auctions to sell had been next. The city had confiscated six jalopies after multiple complaints from the neighbors. His current fad was telemarketing. Richard had no idea how that one worked…neither did Ted, in all honesty.

  What stuck in Richard’s throat was Ted’s ridiculous belief that he was as successful as Bill Gates. Other people’s successes were his successes. He put himself on the same level, never once acknowledging that he lived in near poverty, and he still had the audacity to consider himself better than Richard.

  Just sitting there, Richard’s blood pressure skyrocketed. Ted made him sick. He felt sorry for Eleanor for having to be married to that, especially since he was going to kill her too. But she was just as guilty. She condoned every one of Ted’s harebrained schemes. She never said, “Ted, you’re a grown man. Act like it.” If she had, maybe her name wouldn’t be on the death warrant.

  He’d gone there to study their movements, understand their habits, in the hope of seeing a chink in their defenses. But he knew them already. There was nothing to learn.

  Instead, Ted and Eleanor were feeding his hatred for them. He despised their squandered lives and the way they were attempting to squander his and Michelle’s. He hated having to be the grown up on this one.

  A speeding truck from the water plant roused Richard from his angry thoughts. The dashboard clock said it was after three. He’d been parked there for five hours. It was time to do what had to be done. He gunned the engine.

  ***

  A week had passed since he spent the day watching Ted and Eleanor’s home, but tonight was the night he was going to do it. It was all planned, and he couldn’t afford to waste any more time. The house buying pretense wasn’t going to last much longer. The mortgage broker had a bank ready and waiting and house viewings with the realtor were a nightly affair. He’d turned down two excellent investment properties already. If he didn’t act now, he’d end up in the financial hole he was trying to avoid.

  Tonight was a night off from house hunting and that was his alibi. Richard was a minority in that he loved soccer. There was a night game in San Jose and he would be going alone. The drive to San Jose would take him past Ted and Eleanor’s. He would kill them, go on to the game and return home to the shocking news. He would miss the first half, but that wouldn’t matter. The game was being broadcast on the radio. He took his ticket from his breast pocket and popped his “get out of jail free” card in the glove box. He turned up the radio, listened to the game and peeled off the freeway off-ramp to Ted and Eleanor’s.

  Richard concealed his Honda in the park’s overflow parking lot and joined the trail. It was dusk and essentially the park was closed, but it was unsupervised. Ted and Eleanor walked the trail every night to reflect on another great day in paradise. This was their main form of entertainment because it was free and their supposed love of nature could camouflage that. Richard hid himself in an avenue of trees a quarter mile from the parking lot. He slipped into coveralls, snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and pocketed a knife.

  Waiting was hell. He kept swallowing, working his tongue over the roof of his mouth, and wiping his gloved hands on his coveralls. Paranoia seeped in. Maybe he’d screwed up and given himself away. With every passing second, he expected his in-laws to round the bend and the police to swoop in. He knew it was stupid. He was letting idiotic guilt take over, but he couldn’t stop it.

  But fear, paranoia and guilt evaporated in a second when Richard heard Ted and Eleanor approaching. Ted’s inane banter cut through the night and Richard’s hand tightened around the knife. He couldn’t make out what was being said. It was all noise. But it didn’t matter. He would pounce the moment they were level with his position.

  They were laughing when Richard leapt out of the trees. Laughing at their good fortune at his expense, no doubt. Well, the laughing was over.

  They gasped when he growled something and they spotted the knife glinting in the moonlight. How he wished their faces hadn’t been lost in the dark.

  “You’ve been taking advantage of me for too long.” Richard didn’t wait for a plea for clemency. He plunged the knife into Ted’s bloated belly, swollen from sponging off others. Blood spilled over Richard’s gloved hand and he pressed the blade deeper.

  Ted crumpled, sliding off the blade. Eleanor screamed. In reflex, Richard lashed out with the knife, catching Eleanor’s throat. She went down without another sound.

  Richard rummaged through Ted’s pockets for his wallet. Their deaths couldn’t look motiveless. They had too look like a violent robbery carried out by a desperate junkie. Senseless tragedies like this happened every day. He jerked out Ted’s wallet from the back pocket of his pants. Ted groaned and Eleanor gurgled.

  Richard raced back to his Honda with the wallet and Eleanor’s rings. He dumped them with the knife into a Ziploc he’d brought with him and stuffed his coveralls and rubber gloves into a trash bag. Peeling out of the parking lot, he headed for San Jose.

  At a gas station outside San Jose, Richard filled up and dumped the trash bag in a nearby dumpster. Five miles from the gas station, he tossed the knife out the window and down a freeway embankment. Parking outside Spartan Stadium, he still had the wallet to get rid off. The rings and the wallet’s contents he would keep for now
and dispose of down a storm drain on the way home. He opened up Ted’s wallet and tugged out his cash, credit cards and driver’s license.

  On the drive to the game, he’d been on a high, delirious to be rid of his burden, but not anymore. The driver’s license pictured a man who wasn’t his father-in-law. Just to reinforce the calamity, the credit cards didn’t have Ted’s name on them, but instead, the name Thomas Fairfax. The rings he held in his palm weren’t Eleanor’s. He’d killed the wrong people.

  “Oh God,” he murmured.

  Richard stumbled into the stadium on uncertain legs, water gurgled in his ears and he couldn’t breathe. He dropped Fairfax’s empty wallet into a nearby trashcan. He handed his ticket to the yellow-jacketed ticket taker. He climbed the steep steps to his seat, not taking the free program offered.

  Goals flew into the back of the net one after another. The San Jose Earthquakes were having a landmark game, but Richard couldn’t raise a smile. The murders of two strangers weighed heavily on him, but that wasn’t what was worrying him. Ted and Eleanor were still alive. That meant he had it all to do again.

  The fifth goal went in and the crowd leapt to their feet. A man noticed Richard was the only one who wasn’t cheering. “LA can’t win them all, buddy.”

  Richard said nothing and the man dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  The game ended and Richard trudged back to his Honda. He’d left the car on a residential street and trash and recycle cans for the following morning’s pick up blocked it in. He dumped the Fairfax’s belongings in a can.

  Driving home, he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t use the same MO to kill Ted and Eleanor now. It was so perfect, but his bungled murders would lead to better security at the park. He couldn’t afford to be hasty, but time was against him. Ted and Eleanor would be evicted in less than a week.

  How could he have been so wrong? It had sounded like them. It had looked like them. How did he kill the wrong people?