I now have
another
woman, whom I don’t know, staring at me and saying nothing. I look down at how I’m dressed. I touch my face looking for deformations. Maybe I’m covered in blood and don’t know it. Maybe I have a case of skydiving bends. I heard that scuba divers can’t come to the surface too fast, lest they get a case of the bends. Maybe I fell too quickly from the sky? Who knows?
I look away and open the door to where I took my classes earlier in the day. Ah, Alexia, my daughter is here. She’s crying. I thought I heard that on the headphones during my jump. I wonder what could be wrong.
“Is everything all right?” I ask as I make my way to her side.
Nobody responds to me. Something weird is happening. I kneel down in front of Alexia and ask her what’s wrong. I reach to take her hand but I’m stopped by the sound of the main door being banged open. It’s Owen, the man who taught our skydiving class today.
“We found the chute. He went down in a clump of trees about two hundred yards from here.” He pauses as he looks at my daughter. “I’m sorry, Alexia.”
He’s sorry. For what? What’s going on?
As I’m staring at Owen, confused by what he’s talking about, the woman from the car steps in behind him. Her face is a mask of horror, shock, and outright disgust. She takes in the whole room and stops at Alexia. Then her face turns a heavier shade of red.
The loopy woman from the woods steps in behind the car driver woman and whispers something into her ear.
“You,” the woman from the car says, pointing at Alexia. “Are in a lot of trouble, missy.”
Owen steps up to the woman. “Who are you? Can I help you? Were you here for a lesson?”
“Do you hear that?” the woman asks.
“Hear what?” Owen says.
“Listen.”
Owen appears to be listening.
“A siren?” Owen asks.
The woman nods. “Just wait till they get here. I’ll explain my beef then.”
The crazy woman is staring at me again. I have no idea why the police are coming. I just want to talk to, and console, my daughter.
“Can we help you?” I ask.
Both women stare at me. The driver one says, “not yet. It’ll all be clear in a moment. I witnessed your jump from the highway. I thought I’d drop by to clean this up.”
“Who are you talking to?” Owen asks.
“Mike, Alexia’s father.”
“Okay, that’s just rude. Get out. How could you say that?”
I watch as Owen turns his back towards me and tries to coerce the visitor to leave. Alexia stands up and tells Owen to wait.
“Who are you, and how could you possibly be talking to my father?” Alexia asks.
That is when I look to the right of Alexia and see the strange woman that hid quietly among the trees. She has moved inside the building, walked across the floor without me seeing her do it, and is staring at me.
“My name is Kramer, and I’m a psychic.”
The police sirens are closer now.
“Your father has died and I’m staring at him right now.”
“I demand to know what’s going on,” Alexia says, as she wipes her eyes. I can tell fear has gripped her vocal chords.
I’m feeling it too. I had no idea I was dead.
“There’s a woman here - her name is Joanne Stinson. She was killed a month ago during her first jump too. At least that’s what I’m being told.”
Both Owen and Alexia appear stunned.
I
can’t believe this woman.
I can hear police cars pulling up out front. Doors are slamming shut.
“Okay, maybe you should step outside,” Owen says.
“No way. I’m not taking my eyes off Alexia,” Kramer says. “Try me. Just try to remove me.”
Feet slapped the pavement outside. The door flew open and two policemen stepped in behind Kramer.
“She’s right over there,” Kramer says, pointing at Alexia.
Two officers hustle over to Alexia and grab hold of each arm. “Ma’am, please come with us.”
“Why? On what charge?”
“That’ll come later once we receive a full statement from Kramer, unless you want to offer a confession,” one of the officers says.
“Either arrest me, or get your hands off me,” Alexia demands.
“Ma’am, we can hold you for twenty-four hours without a charge and we intend to do that.”
“But why?” she asks.
Kramer steps forward. “Because of Joanne and your father. You folded their chutes, didn’t you?”
Alexia looks at Owen. I look at Owen. I can’t believe I’m hearing all this. The whole time, no one looks at me. Am I dead? Was I murdered by my own daughter?
Kramer continued. “Joanne found out about your plan to kill your father. Was it insurance money? Is that why you did it? You folded the chutes so they’d tangle, isn’t that right? You made the reserve chute useless.” Kramer shakes her head. “If it was for money, you may be rich now, but a lot of good that’ll do you in prison. I can prove what you did because I can talk to the dead. Joanne is here and she’s telling me everything.”
“Bullshit,” Alexia spits on the floor of the building. “I would never kill my father. I made sure those chutes were perfect. No way did I meddle with them. I’m no murderer. I’ll sue you for this.”
“Go ahead. I’m insured.”
I’m lost. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My own daughter wanted me dead, but every part of my being feels Alexia is telling the truth.
“Kramer,” I say, hoping she can hear me. The two officers are leading my daughter away now. “Can you hear me?”
I see her look my way and then nod.
“I don’t feel Alexia did this. I know my daughter. She’s not capable of murder. She can barely step on an ant.”
“I know. This is the only way. Let me handle this.”
The cops step out, Alexia between them. As far as the living can see, it is only Kramer and Owen in the building now.
I watch as Owen steps behind his desk and plops down in his chair.
“This has been a horrible day. First, Alexia’s dad dies in the jump, our second at the chute school, and then his daughter gets arrested for double homicide. I feel like I’m in a state of shock.”
Kramer steps closer to his desk. “I know how this may be a lot to handle. I just wish we’d been here sooner. Then, maybe, we could’ve saved Mike.”
Owen grabs a pencil off his desk and starts tapping it on the paper calendar he has spread across the surface. “Are you really psychic?”
Kramer nods.
“Then you can see dead people?”
She nods again.
“And they can tell you secrets. Like what happened to them and how it happened and the police take that as gospel.”
“Yes. Where are you going with this?”
“Come on, I’ll take you out to the plane and show you the other chutes. Take one home with you. I’ll sign it out. Hand that to the police and show them how Alexia set it all up.”
Owen walks over to the large board on the wall and writes the name Kramer.
“The plane has chute six and seven. I’ll sign out lucky seven to you. Come over and sign here and I’ll help you load it into your trunk.”
Kramer walks over and takes the pencil out of Owen’s hand. She signs the board and follows him to the door.
I have to hurry to catch up, not remembering I’m dead. Instantly I’m there, right behind them. I feel different though. Something’s wrong.
“Kramer, can Owen hear me?”
She looks sideways at me and shakes her head.
“Okay, something’s wrong. He’s angry. I think Owen means to hurt you in that plane.”
She raises a hand and tries to brush me off.
There’s nothing more I can do. Even if I want to step in, how could I?
They reach the plane and enter the fuselage through the side door. Owen reaches out to lend a hand to Kramer. The inside is dark, but I can see just fine.
“It’s over here. Step in a little farther,” Owen says.
Someone else is here. I panic and shout for Kramer to look out. Before Kramer has a chance to respond to my warning, Owen has spun around and sucker punched Kramer off her feet. She hits the floor of the plane hard.
“Should’ve minded your own business, bitch.” Owen steps forward and flips switches in the cockpit. Lights turn on in the area where Kramer is on the floor. The engines sputter and start up. He steps back to address Kramer. “I did it
for
Alexia. Joanne said she’d tell her we slept together. Joanne told me she would ruin me. She went to Alexia’s dad and started blabbing, but he didn’t believe her.” Owen stepped over and slammed the plane’s door shut and then continued. “I had to make sure that Joanne had an accident after that. It bothered Mike, but he let it go. He just felt bad Joanne had died. Although, he wouldn’t let Alexia date me. He became a hurdle, the last one between me and Alexia. Offing him was a piece of cake. It was my idea to celebrate his birthday here. It was all so easy, and now you’re going to jump with chute number seven and no one could ever prove shit.” He leans down and brushes Kramer’s hair out of her face. “Once you’re dead, the police will have nothing to hold Alexia on. We’ll be home free. It’s over, bitch, it’s over.”
The other people in the plane, the ones I felt earlier, step out of the shadows; it’s the two officers who escorted Alexia out, not fifteen minutes ago. I watch all this in stunned silence.
“Owen Henkin, you’re under arrest for the murder of Joanne Stinson and Mike Hortenson. We have your full confession on tape.”
Owen turns to run, but then thinks better of it as the only door out of the plane is right beside one of the officers, who now has his gun out.
“Get down on the floor and place your hands on the top of your head.”
Owen complies. He’s cuffed and taken outside in under a minute. My daughter steps out of the shadows and walks to the cockpit, where she turns the plane off. Kramer sits up, her back against the wall of the fuselage, rubbing her cheek.
“Why?” Alexia asks Kramer. “Why did my dad still die? I exchanged his chute before the plane took off. I gave him mine. His was supposed to work, it was supposed to work.”
She breaks down in tears.
“I’m sorry,” Kramer offers. “Your dad’s chute was fine. The crazy thing is, he had a heart attack almost immediately after leaving the plane. He lost his ability to function properly and died before he hit the ground. It had nothing to do with Owen.”
Alexia looks up, her eyes awash with tears. “When the police approached me and said that Joanne had been in touch with you, and that they felt Owen had killed her, I couldn’t believe it at first. You helped set this trap for Owen. You all did a great job. Seeing my father killed wasn’t supposed to be a part of it.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. He’s here. He heard everything. He even tried to warn me about Owen. He’s a good man. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Alexia looked up, “Goodbye daddy. I’m sorry. I love you.”
The Numbers Game
An excerpt from The Numbers Game.
I never thought I’d be up on first degree murder charges. The proof is in the numbers. I know this. But they don’t.
I’m a vacuum cleaner salesman. I used to sell shoes, but now I sell Kirby’s. I run door to door and try to sell my G8 Kirby upright vacuums. The killing has nothing to do with me, but one of the people I had just done a presentation for was murdered minutes after I left their house. I’m innocent.
This is my story. Call it a diary. I won’t lock it. Besides, I don’t have a lock or anything metal in my prison cell. They don’t allow those things. So I will write my tale and let everyone know what I do and how I do it so they can see that I’m not a murderer. I can’t afford a lawyer from the money I make selling vacuums, but I’ve got legal aid, although that’s worth nothing. Maybe the Judge will read this.
It’s lights out so I’ll write in the dim glow I get from across the corridor. It’s a short story so I’ll be brief but there’s two things you need to know up front.
I only got caught because I had Mrs. Gavin’s shoes in my apartment, and someone saw my car in front of her home and wrote down my license plate number. That makes sense as I was there doing a demonstration.
I’m innocent. Remember that.
It’s important.
#
Tuesday morning. The sun is shining high already and there’s a slight breeze. I’m off to a great start today. I’ve hit twenty-two houses. Ten doors weren’t answered, and twelve were rejections. The rule is, for every one hundred doors, you get into two. That means by the time I hit fifty, I should get in one door. Once I get in and show them how good the Kirby is, they’ll want one for themselves. Although that’s not always true, because for every four demonstrations, I only sell one. To break it down, I need to hit two hundred doors to sell one vacuum on average.