Letter to Belinda (6 page)

“SSSH! Not over the phone!”

“What? Why not?”

“They could be listening, that’s why!”

“
Who
could be listening?”

“Meet me somewhere. We have to talk.”

“About what?’

“You know about what! Meet me in Bates Park in an hour!”

“Is that a request, or an order?”

“I’m not kidding, Travis! This is serious!”

“Okay, in the park, in one hour. I can do that.”

(click.)

It didn’t sound very good. He wondered what she had done this time. So mostly out of curiosity, he stopped what he was doing, and made preparations to meet her at Bates Park. Janice was not home, so he didn’t have to explain who called. As an afterthought, he deleted Miranda’s call from his caller I.D. before he left. No need in arousing suspicions with Janice.

It was a beautiful late-July day to be in the park, which meant that it was also hot. Late July to late August in Central Alabama was a most miserable time to be outside, because of the heat. But that was good, because it meant that though the weather was good, there were few people in the park. He left his truck, taking only his walking stick, as though he intended to walk a few laps.

He did make one complete lap before he saw a small red sports car pull into the park, which he knew belonged to Miranda. The woman who got out of the car was over-dressed for the weather, however. She had bulky clothes, a head scarf, and dark glasses. It was the absurd image of a woman who was deliberately trying to hide her identity. He was almost embarrassed to be seen talking to someone who was trying so hard not to be noticed. He walked another half lap, and she caught up with him.

“Pardon me, Lady, but you look familiar. Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Hey, you’re one of those movie stars that’s hiding from the paparazzi!”

“Can it, Travis! I’ve got a big problem!”

“You sure do. You’re going to fall out with a heat stroke, dressed like that. At least take off that bulky overcoat.”

“I’m just trying to protect you. You don’t need to be seen talking to me.”

“Then let’s at least sit down and talk. There at the pavilion, . . . nobody is there.” They went and sat down in the shade, across the table from one another. She looked both ways before she took off her sunglasses, revealing, as usual, the most beautiful green eyes he had ever seen.

“Like I said, I’ve got a big problem.”

“How big?”

“About 225 pounds!”

“You don’t weigh that much, do you?”

“No, it’s the Judge.”

“Ah yes, the Judge! How is the old boy doing these days? Or have you not been back to see him?”

“I’ve been back, all right! I loaded him up, and took him to my house!”

“You did what? Why did you do that?”

“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.”

“Good, 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.