Chapter 4 #3
Rosa said, “Okay, Diane, back the new ride as close to the door as you can get and pop the hatch. It’s a frickin’ good thing he lives in the middle of nowhere.”
It was a good thing, Bonnie thought. It was still broad daylight outside.
“He probably chose this place because it’s the middle of nowhere,” Diane said.
“Nobody to see kids coming and going.” She trotted outside, leaving the cabin’s door open wide.
Soon her pretty blue hybrid backed silently closer as the rear gate lifted.
She got out and rejoined the others at the front door.
“Oh good, it has the cargo bay liner,” Rosa said.
“Harry ordered Weather Tech for it, end-to-end,” Diane replied. “Let’s move him fast, before someone passes by and sees us backed up to the front door.
“Gather round the dead pervert, everybody,” Rosa said.
Two women crouched on either side of the late Phillip Terrence in his blanket burrito wrap.
“This reminds me of Catholic school,” Christine said. “Diane, remember when Father Pecola volunteered for Stiff as a Board, Light as a Feather?”
Diane nodded. “A dozen adolescent girls lifted him up like he didn’t weigh a thing,” she said. “I thought that game was bull cookies, till we levitated Father Pecola in sixth grade.”
Rosa had not been in Catholic school with Diane and Christine, but she obviously knew the game, because she said, “Let’s use our entire hands, not just two fingers. On three. One, two, three!”
They all rose, picking Mr. Terrence up with ease.
Then they shuffle-stepped him out his front door for the very last time in the full light of day and put him into the back of Diane’s brand-new crossover.
They had to place him in a sitting-up position, with his back against the passenger side of the car, and his slightly bent legs reaching to the other side.
But his head was in the way of closing the hatch.
That would look conspicuous, driving down the road, even wrapped in a blanket. Or especially wrapped in a blanket.
“We put any more pressure on that head, it’s gonna pop all over Diane’s new ride,” Rosa said. She reached in and pushed Mr. Terrence forward, bending him over his own legs.
“That’s too far,” Bonnie said. “Rosa, you’re bending him double.”
“I promise, he doesn’t feel a thing.” Rosa pressed his back harder, mashing his chest into his thighs. “But I wish he did.”
As the tailgate lowered itself over the dead man, Diane said, “Now we clean. Do you suppose he has bleach in there? It’ll be suspicious if we have to go buy it.”
Bonnie lifted her head. She’d been staring at her feet. “I have a gigantic tub of Clorox Wipes in my bag,” she said softly.
“Well, of course you do, baby,” Christine said. “Of course you do.”
If there was one thing Bonnie knew how to do, it was clean.
She knew lots of other things too, she supposed, since she’d hopped from hobby to hobby in the fourteen months since Mark had died.
The scrapbooking hadn’t taken. The bird-watching got boring after a few weeks.
The herbalism & foraging class was still holding her interest, though.
Cleaning soothed her. Always had. Her hands even stopped shaking as she helped the girls clean up the scene of her crime.
They wiped down the doorknobs, both sides, and the frying pan handle before putting the pan into a small plastic bag to be disposed of with the body.
They wiped down the entire area near the door, and around the sofa where Bonnie had been standing.
They wiped down the water glass, which had flown across the room dumping its contents on the way, and landed without breaking—even though Bonnie hadn’t touched it.
They wiped down the dead man’s phone and decided to leave it behind in the house as it probably had evidence against him that the police could use, as well.
They wiped all the blood from the mantel, the walls, and the floor.
That was the worst part, because not all of Mr. Terrence was wrapped in that blanket. There were bits of him on the floor.
They flushed the bleach wipes and goo right down the toilet. Then Rosa went over everything again with soapy water to try to reduce the smell of the bleach.
Diane said, “I have a better idea than him being on the lam. Because if he left, he’d take all this evidence with him. It wouldn’t make sense for him to leave it behind.”
She opened a word processing app on the computer and using a tissue, typed a suicide note and narrated.
“Soon everyone will know what a piece of shit I am. I’m taking the easy way out. Don’t bother looking for my body. I’ll be fish food before you find me.”
“Fish food?” Rosa asked, crooking a brow at Diane. “What the frick is that about?”
“They’ll waste time looking for him in nearby lakes,” Diane said. “But he won’t be there.”
“Where will he be?” Bonnie asked, thinking her voice didn’t sound like her own. It was softer and deeper and kind of hollow. She wondered if killing another human had changed her in some way.
Christine said, “That’s a good question. Where can we hide him where he’ll rot before he’s found?”
Diane said, “I happen to know of a funeral happening in the morning.”
“At our age, when don’t we know of a funeral happening in the morning?” Christine said. “And yes, I heard. Tommy Johnson from high school. You must’ve got the same notice I did. Do you remember him, Diane? Black framed glasses with a perpetual strip of tape around one arm?”
“I remember,” Diane said. “He was a nice guy.”
“Real nice,” Christine said. “I banged him under the bleachers during the big game, senior year.”
“I’m sure you did,” Diane replied.
Rosa clapped a hand to her forehead. “Diane? If you have some sort of an idea here, I wish you’d spit it out already. The longer we hang around, the bigger the chance we get caught.”
Diane nodded. “I have a perfect idea, actually. We’re going to bury this guy in an open grave, and nobody will ever know the difference.
Unfortunately, we’ll need to wait until way after dark to do that.
And I’m not keen on the notion of taking the corpse home and hoping Harry doesn’t decide to use the new car.
Frankly, I don’t want to let the crossover out of my sight until the dead guy’s out of it and it’s had a good cleaning. Of the Clorox variety.”
Rosa snapped her fingers and said, “A drive-in! There’s one about forty minutes away. And it’ll be dark in a couple of hours.” She tapped her phone. “They’re showing a moldy old double-feature tonight. ‘Murder by Numbers’ and ‘Death Becomes Her.’”
Bonnie groaned. “I don’t think I can spend the next several hours in a vehicle with a corpse,” she said.
“You’ll manage,” Rosa said. “We’ll be with you.”
“And by the time we get back it’ll be midnight,” Diane put in. “And we can get rid of this sicko once and for all.”
Bonnie looked at each of them, then sighed. “Okay, then. Pull into a Walmart on the way. We should each get a disposable phone, so we can discuss what we need to, when we need to. Keep that phone secret. We’ll only give the numbers to each other. Okay?”
Christine leaned closer to Diane and Rosa. “Is it creepy how good she is at this?”
“Imma start watching Forensic Files,” Rosa said.
Bonnie lowered her head. “I’ve made my best friends accessories to murder. What would Sam think?”
Diane sighed. “At least he’s a deputy in Michigan, and not here. Finally, something positive about your son living so far away, right Bon?”