Cat Striking Back (6 page)

W
ELL
,
HE
HADN'T
killed her, the woman killed herself, falling like that. She could be so damned clumsy, flinging herself away from him, stumbling or hitting something and then blaming him. Every damn time blaming him, and now she'd sure as hell done it, she'd really put him on the spot. He hadn't slept all night, playing it over, seeing her lying there in the mud at the bottom of the empty swimming pool, going down there and realizing she was dead, and then later having to haul her out of there, drag her the whole length of the pool through the stinking mud and up the steps and nearly falling. Wondering what the hell he was going to do with her, trying to figure how he was going to get rid of the body. Why the hell did she have to be so clumsy, why did she have to do that!

It'd happened so fast, he still couldn't believe she'd just swung away from him and fallen. Still couldn't believe she was dead. She'd been a pain in the ass, but they'd had a good thing going, too. And then after it happened, after
trying to revive her and finally knowing she was dead, the way the damned woman had timed it, he'd had to wait hours before it was dark enough to get her out of there. Couldn't bring her up out of the empty pool in the daylight and haul her to the car, he'd had to wait at home worrying that someone would come along and find her.

Right at first, when he realized she was dead, he'd thought of calling the medics or the cops, but what would he say?
They'd
say he killed her, that he'd pushed her. They'd look at that big bruise on the side of her head and they'd think the worst. No, you get cops nosing around, who knew what else they'd find? You bring the cops into it, everything would hit the fan.

She'd start to stiffen up soon, he didn't know how long that would take. Would she be harder to move then? And all the time he waited he was thinking,
Why the hell did she do that? Why the hell did she have to go and screw things up?

He often worked Saturday but had come home early, around five, his last day before vacation. Had been all ready to head out and she knew she was supposed to be waiting, she knew it was important to leave before dark.
She'd
told him that! Had made him promise to be home early, before the neighbors all went in to supper, that the neighbors had to see them pull away.
She
was the one who said it was important for the neighbors to see them putting their suitcases in the car and heading out—and then she'd gone off like that.

She'd left her suitcase by the front door, beside his, had left her purse, too, but no sign of her. With her purse right there, he knew where she'd gone. And didn't that put him in a rage. He'd stood there for a minute swearing,
calling her everything he could think of, then he'd left the house, going out through the back, hoping the neighbors wouldn't see him. Had shut the door real quiet, had slipped through the backyards to the next street, had walked the two blocks and turned back onto his own street, to the empty Parker house. If someone had seen him, if it came up later, he'd say it was a last-minute errand while she was getting dressed to leave.

They'd told everyone they planned to leave early, drive a few hours, pick up a burger, pull in somewhere around midnight. Their story was, drive up the coast then over to Reno for a few days to see her sister, then fly out of Reno for Miami and the Bahamas. So why the hell did she take the chance of going out at the last minute and screwing things up?

Well, she always did as she pleased, whatever spur-of-the-moment notion took her. It had been real hot the last few days, hot for the central coast in June. She liked that, liked lying naked in the hot sun. She couldn't sunbathe naked in their own yard, the neighbors in three houses could see right down on her. She'd tried a few times to do that, and he'd really given her hell. Why the hell did she place such value on an all-over suntan? He'd told her a hundred times not to take her clothes off in public. Now look what she'd done, look where it had gotten her.

Approaching the Parker house, he knew she'd be back by the empty pool, hidden by the overgrown bushes where she thought no one would see her. Walking up the cracked driveway he'd smelled the coconut stink of her suntan oil long before he saw her—but as he passed the empty
house he jerked to a stop: an explosion from the bushes and a white cat burst out from right under his feet, stared at him, and bolted away. Some neighborhood cat scaring him nearly to death. He'd stood, chilled, his hands shaking, trying to collect himself. He never could abide cats—and he couldn't let her see how upset he was, she had no notion how sick cats made him. The look in its eyes before it ran, the way it glared at him, wouldn't leave him.

He'd moved on at last, had found her back there, lying there naked as a jaybird, lying on that blue beach towel, her clothes folded up in the tote bag she carried, a bottle of suntan lotion and a bottle of water beside her. She'd looked up guiltily, and then yawned. Said she fell asleep, hadn't meant to be gone so long. When he lit into her, she sassed him back. Said her tan was fading, and didn't he like her to have an all-over tan? Didn't he like her to look nice?

“Nice for who?” he'd said, thinking about the neighborhood couples they hung out with, the guys he played golf with—the guys he sometimes wondered about.

“Nice for you,” she'd said sharply. “Who else would I want to look nice for, baby?” And she'd reached up to him.

“Get up and get dressed, I'm not rolling around in the dirt with you.” But then he'd laughed. “I'll give you a roll later, in some fancy hotel with a good bottle of Scotch and maybe a mirror on the ceiling.” That made her laugh. But when he'd pointed out that the sun was going to set soon, that it sure as hell couldn't tan her much, she'd snapped at him again, seemed like she was always snapping at him.

“I told you I fell asleep. The cool evening air's good for my skin.” Half the time, the woman made no sense. Except for the one thing she was good at. Then her head was clear, then she was all business.

“Get dressed,” he'd told her. “Get up now and get dressed.”

“It isn't even close to dark yet.” Instead of pulling on her clothes, she'd just lain there looking up at him, and didn't that make him mad. He'd jerked her up, madder every minute. “Get dressed and get home! I'm ready to leave
now!
”

That's when she'd started mouthing off at him. “I'm not your slave. This whole thing was my idea, my planning. I'll get dressed when I'm ready. As for the neighbors, I'll make sure they see us.” When she started getting shrill—that made him nervous because someone might hear her—that was when he smacked her, just a light back of his hand to shut her up, and the dumb broad had swung around and slapped at him. He'd hit her lightly to knock some sense into her, a little whack usually settled her right down. But when he whacked her, that was when she lost her balance or maybe slipped—all of a sudden she was gone, falling backward into the pool, trying to catch herself but there was nothing to grab, and he couldn't grab her, it all happened in a split second. He'd heard her hit the concrete with a hard
thunk,
and then she didn't move. He kept telling her to get up. She didn't move, just lay there facedown, sprawled naked in the mud, her long hair hiding her face.

Swearing, he went around the pool and down the
mud-slick steps, nearly falling, crossed the stinking mud, slipping twice, knelt down, and shook her. Her body was limp, and that was when he started getting scared. He tried to turn her over. When he lifted her head, blood started running out from beneath her hair.

Sickened, he'd pushed her hair away to look. There was blood all over, underneath her hair, her hair soaked with it, a pool of blood that curdled into the sour mud and mixed with the mud on her face. A hell of a lot of blood, some of it running out of her ear. Behind her ear, the base of her head was already swelling and turning black and blue.

But then, even as he knelt there, the blood had stopped running. He kept telling her to get up, he couldn't believe she was dead. He'd thought of trying that breathing thing but it was too late. He looked up to the top of the pool, terrified someone would be standing there, but there was no one. He had to get her out of there before someone saw her, before some neighbor who might have heard them did come nosing around. He couldn't move her until dark—it was the middle of June, it wouldn't be dark until late.

Now, at five thirty, folks would be getting home from tennis or golf or shopping, and the two neighborhood families with kids home from some outing, and kids racing out in the street playing catch or riding their bikes, people going out to stand in their yards talking and gossiping. And
they
were supposed to make a big show of heading out on vacation.

Well, she'd sure as hell screwed it up, and what the hell was
he
supposed to do now? He felt trapped, and his fear
began to build. Standing in the empty pool looking down at her, bloodied and dead, he'd wondered if anyone had seen her going down the street earlier, seen her heading for the Parker place, or seen him slip down there later? Anyone seeing them would wonder why they weren't leaving. She'd told everyone when they'd take off. Had bragged to everyone about the fancy vacation, the fancy Miami and Bahamas hotels where they'd be staying. She knew all the details, flight time, connecting flight, room prices, she'd made it all sound so great. She might be inept and maddening in some ways, but she handled those kinds of details like the pro she was.

He kept coming back to what he was going to do, now that their careful plans were shot to hell. His nerves were shattered, thanks to her. He wasn't sure he could pull this job off alone.

Leaving her lying in the mud, he'd walked home as nonchalantly as he could, as if he was out for a stroll before he got in the car for a long trip. Up ahead three women had stood in a yard talking, but then they'd gone inside. He could hear kids yelling in a backyard, and that had made him sweat, afraid they'd come racing out to the street and see him, and that one of them would remember, later. The yards of the houses on his left were wooded, dropping steeply down to the street below. The street he was on, his own street, ran on up the hill for half a mile, where it ended at a narrow, precipitous drive along the side of the hill, a view of the roofs below. Walking casually past his neighbors' houses, he couldn't stop seeing her dead.

He'd managed to avoid meeting anyone. Slipping into his own house, he'd tried to figure out how to handle this.
He'd never thought too much about how to get rid of a body, how hard that would be. One minute he was glad she was dead, with her bitchy ways, the next minute he was scared as hell, angry that she'd done that to him. In the empty house, he'd stood looking at her purse and suitcase, feeling a stab of loss, and for the first time since it happened, he found it hard to breathe.

It always took a while to catch up with him. He went into the bathroom, got the prescription asthma spray he used.
She
said his inability to breathe was more in his head than in his respiratory system. That was another thing that maddened him, her know-it-all attitude. He'd
told
her he had a mild case of asthma and that it was easily controlled. When they were first married she'd tried to baby him over it, but he'd shrugged that off. She never knew the real cause; he'd tried to hide the severity of those attacks from her.

Usually he could ease the breathing, but he couldn't stop the tightness in his chest that made him feel like he was being crushed, as if he was sealed inside a wall. In the bathroom, inhaling the spray, that dark memory from his childhood filled him.

He'd had the vision for so many years that sometimes he was no longer sure if that horror had really happened. Not sure if he'd
seen
that victim when he was a child, or even if
he'd
been the victim, himself. Or if the vision had come only from Poe's dark tale that he'd read over and over, the story of the man sealed in a cellar wall. Only, this time when he couldn't breathe and that scene hit him, it was
her
he saw, it was
her
sealed, dead, inside the cellar wall.

He'd sat shakily at the kitchen table until the breathing came easier, then he'd gotten up, poured a glass of milk, and found some crackers. And soon, with some food in him, he started wondering if he
could
move her now, if he dared get the car out before dark and go back, if he dared take a chance. The notion ate at him until he headed for the garage, unloaded the car's toolbox and blanket from the trunk to make room, and stuffed them in the backseat. He found the shovel and put that in, too.

He'd checked the street several times, looking out the living room windows. At last he had backed the car out, shut the garage door, and headed down the street—just as three kids careened around the corner on their skateboards.

Losing his nerve, he'd turned around and headed back home. The neighbors, glimpsing the car, might not know for sure he was alone, with the tinted side windows, would maybe think they'd forgotten something. Damn neighbors minded way too much of other people's business—but he needed them. If he went ahead with the plan, he sure as hell needed them.

He had put the car back in the garage, had spent hours pacing the house waiting for it to get dark, sweating and trying to breathe slowly and deeply. At dusk he'd wanted to try again, but when he looked out the front window, two couples were walking their dogs. Puffy little mutts that looked more like wind-up toys than something alive, and their owners strutting along after them like they were some kind of big deal. That was another thing about pets, they were not only dirty and of no practical use, they wasted a person's time, to say nothing of wasting money.
And right now those dogs, bringing the neighbors out on the street, were sure as hell hindering him in what he had to do. She'd never known how he felt about useless animals, he was way too good at making people believe what he wanted them to believe.