Black Widower Read online

  Black Widower

  Thomas Laird

  © Thomas Laird 2016

  Thomas Laird has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.

  This edition published by Endeavour Media Ltd 2018.

  Table of Contents

  Black Widower

  Thomas Laird

  Table of Contents

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PART 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  1988

  She thinks I’m out at the bar again with my cronies, my buddies, my drinking pals. She’ll expect the smell of beer or Jim Beam when I come into the bedroom well past midnight. It’s unbelievable to her that I can rouse myself at 6:00 A.M. every morning that I’m on day shift and get to work. Maybe she doesn’t understand I’m not an old man, yet, who has to watch the news with her at ten and then catch a half hour of Johnny Carson before lights out. There’s not much sex left between us, and she gives me that sideways look of hers that suggests I’m doing someone else on the side. But I’m not looking for any entanglements. I’m unloading the one I’ve got, in about twenty minutes. I’ve got my duffel stashed in the trunk. I have the butcher knives in it, and I’ve got the mini-chainsaw in the trunk, as well. It’s going to be a long drive tonight, but I’ve got a small vial of uppers that’ll get me thirty-six awake hours. The drive is only eleven hours from Chicago to northern Louisiana, and then the work in Farmersville, right by the bayou, should only take me an hour, and then I’ll head back immediately. I’m off the next two days, which I never informed her. She doesn’t have the need to know. She’ll have no needs at all in about a thirty minutes.

  I get off the Eisenhower. The traffic was non-existent because it’s 2:00 A.M. Jennifer can never seem to stayed pissed off enough to stay awake much past one, so she should be out when I arrive. Three more minutes, tops. Just as I pull off the Ike, I see the twirling lights in my rear view mirror. Shit, if he smells booze on my breath, he might want to search the car. The trunk. The best laid plans, right?

  I pull over to the curb, here on Damen Avenue. A few cars pass by us slowly because they got to get a shot at the cop busting me. As soon as he approaches, I pull down the window. I’ve got the air on in the Pontiac, and the humidity rushes at me. It’s late August, and the burners have been on all week. Upper nineties with no let up. “Your right taillight is out,” the patrolman tells me. I show him my ID. “Oh, hey,” he says, almost apologetically. He looks at the detective’s shield. “Have you been drinking, Detective?” he asks. This uniform is tall, maybe six-three. Looks athletic, and like no one to fuck with at this time of the early morning. What I have to do has to be now. I can’t be re-scheduling this because timing is all important. My days off with two in a row won’t come around again soon. “Yes. Just a couple of draughts.” “Would you step out of the car, Detective?” I open the door and step out of my big boat Poncho. “Could you do a little toe-to-toe for me?” “This what you call professional courtesy? What’s your name?” “My name is O’Donnell. Jerry O’Donnell. Would you humor me please, Detective?” So I give him his professional pound of flesh, and I step off ten paces, toe to toe, like he asked. “Thank you, sir. Got anything in your trunk, or anything opened in the car?”

  “Just the usual shit. I’m sober. Can we get this over with, Officer? I have to go on shift in four hours and I wanted to get a little sleep.” “Skotadi. That a Greek name?” “Yeah. The old man was from Athens.” “I don’t mean to hold you up. I really should check your trunk.” Shit. I can’t shoot the guy. Too much traffic even as late as it is. I walk toward the back of the Pontiac. I have the keys jangling in my right hand. I slip the key into the lock.

  Then he gets a call on his radio, and he walks to the squad. After he takes the call, he returns.“That’s all right. You can get on your way. Sorry to hold you up, Detective Skotadi. What bunch you with?” “Vice. Narcotics.” “Oh, the high rollers,” he smiles as affably as he can. “You’re all done, then. Sorry for the inconvenience.” He turns and walks away, back to his one-man squad. I’m hoping he doesn’t remember my name or my face, but it isn’t likely. Especially the name part. Most everyone mispronounces it, but I don’t bother correcting them, anymore. They call me sko-toddy. Its correct pronunciation is skot-doe-di. But I’m used to it, by now. It’s only a few minutes more in sparse side street traffic to the bungalow where I live. I don’t think of the house as where we reside, of course. Not after tonight. I pull the beast of a ride into the sliver of a driveway that runs alongside the brick dwelling, and I pull all the way back near the garage. There are eight- foot- high bushes that block our neighbors’ view of my property. That lush, thick shrubbery will be invaluable, momentarily.

  I get out of the car and make my way to the back door, and I unlock the deadbolt and walk inside. She doesn’t call out to me. The bedroom is just around the corner as you go out of the small kitchen. I enter the bedroom and I hear her breathing softly and regularly. I won’t need latex gloves. So I sit on Jennifer’s side of the bed. Her eyes pop open instantly. “Where the hell have you—“ “Shhhh. I’m home, darling. That’s all that matters. Right? I always come home.” “I just fell asleep. Don’t you have to work in the morning?” I used to think she was attractive. Never beautiful. But she had come-fuck-me eyes. And there’s her body. I’ll likely miss climbing aboard that. Big breasts, small waist, round ass. Her face is only passable, but her sex is obvious when she pouts at you with those full lips. She can do amazing things with that mouth. Someday soon I’ll likely think what a pity, but I’ll get over it. There are too many other women to mount in one lifetime. I will get over the tricks that Jennifer can perform. “Want to go for a ride in the car?” I smile. She has honey blonde hair that goes to her shoulder blades. Another trait I might miss if I ever get lonely enough. “What are you talking about, Derek?” “Why don’t we just take off for Florida, say.” “Now you’re talking crazy. We both have to work in the morning.”

  I see those pillowy lips below me, and I have to kiss her just one more time. Damned if she doesn’t give me tongue and a smile when I pull back from her. “We can play in the morning in the shower, Derek. You like to do it in the water.” “Don’t you like taking it from behind against the shower wall, Jenny?” “You never call me Jenny. What’s wrong with you, tonight?” I figure what the hell. I pull her out of the bed and she gives a stage shriek. “Shhhh,” I warn her again. When I get her upright, I pull the nightie over her head. She’s wearing bikini panties, black ones. I feel myself stir as she giggles her way with me into the bathroom. I open the glass shower door and push her gently inside. Then I take off my pants and polo shirt and put my pistol holster on the mat beneath me. I remove my shoes and socks, and then I step inside and turn the
water on. The spray is cold, at first, on both of us, but she’s into it, now, and she goes down on her knees. When she’s finished with the foreplay, I get her up and I whirl her around. “Don’t play so rough, Derek.” “Since when don’t you like it rough?” Then I’m inside her as she elevates herself for entry. It’s over fast, and so am I. She never takes long to climax, and so it’s done. I look into her eyes. “We’re going on a journey.” Then she feels the pressure of my fingers on her throat. Her eyes pop open in recognition, but I’ve got her air cut off in seconds and her flailing at me doesn’t amount to much. I’m six feet four and I have eight inches and a hundred pounds on her. I’m forcing the back of her head against the shower wall with enough thrust to put her skull through the plastic sheeting. She tries feebly to throw her knees and arms at me, and she tries to slap at me with both arms. Then it’s finished. She goes dead-fish limp under my grip, and I let her slide down to the wet tiles under our feet. I turn off the water. Jennifer’s eyes are staring at my knees. Her tongue lolls in an ugly way out of the side of her mouth, and there’s a bit of foam at her lips. I leave her where she lies. I go out of the john and then down into the basement where I have the giant throw rug that will wrap her body for the trip south. When I get back in the bathroom, I drag her out by her feet into the kitchen. Then I spread out the throw rug, and finally I roll her up inside the maroon and blue carpet. I go back into the john and dress myself with all the fallen articles of clothing on the wet tile floor. Once I have my holster back in place with the .38, I’m ready to get Jennifer into the trunk.

  *

  Eleven hours exactly. Eleven on the noggin as I breeze in early morning traffic on the Interstates all the way to northern Louisiana and Farmersville, the gator farm center of bayou country. I’ve been here before, several times. These prehistoric cousins to the dinosaurs fascinate me. I’ve been to the shows where they feed these creatures, and that’s where I got the idea. What to do with the body. That’s always the hardest thing to deal with. I was on Homicide for four years before I had the issue that got me transferred to Vice/Narcotics. In Homicide we had perpetrators who were not so clever about getting rid of the remains. There was always something they didn’t attend to—fingerprints, hair, blood. Something. Where I’m going, just outside of Farmersville, was once a gator farm, but the owner went bust, and the place is grown over with vegetation and undergrowth, and even the locals don’t approach it because it’s infested with killer alligators. Some teenagers tried to be badasses three months ago—I think there were four of them—and they tried to have a drinking party by the bayou, and none of them ever came out again. Two boys and two girls. I hope they got laid before they got eaten. There’s a dirt road that leads to the edge of the swamp, and by the time I arrive it’s mid-afternoon. But this bayou is so isolated that even the cops don’t want to come out here without an army to back them up. The only backup I’ve got is an M-16 I procured on my first tour in Vietnam, but it should hold off the indigenous critters. And it is broad daylight. If you were going to dump a body, would you do it with the sun still high? No cop would come cruising in the heat of this August day. It’s far beyond tropical outside. Even with the air on in the Pontiac, I can feel the intensity inside the car. And when I step out, the feeling of blistering blaze only triples. I open the trunk, now that I’m parked only a few feet from the water’s edge. There is vegetation of all colors of green floating in that swamp, but I don’t see any eyes swimming in front of me. But then you hardly ever see the gators coming for you, the swamp rats will tell you. I open up the rug, and the smell has already begun to gather. I go back to the trunk and get out the duffel with the knives, and I also retrieve the small chainsaw. It does concern me that someone might hear the noise, but I start it up anyway. I haven’t seen anything human since I got on the backroads that led to this primeval spot. The roar of the chainsaw makes birds take flight, and they screech from the disturbance.

  I remove the head, then the arms, and then the legs. My gorge rises a bit, but it doesn’t seem to nauseate me the way I thought it might. I’m just butchering a cow, I tell myself. That’s what Jennifer was. It began with annoyance, and then it crescendo-ed into rage at the sight of her. When I fucked her in the shower it had nothing to do with desire. It was an act of rage. I pick up the head by her long honey blonde hair, and I fling it in the water. Nothing happens. So I go back and get the legs and then toss them in next. Still no reaction in the water. I have to finish this, so I take the arms and fling them into the bayou, and then I carry over the torso, and as I approach the swamp’s edge, the gator springs out at me. He comes up short by a yard, and I drop Jennifer’s trunk on the grass. I level the M-16 at it, but the gator has some uncanny sense of self-preservation, and he reverses himself right back into the drink. I think I pissed myself, but I have no time for shame. I take the bloodied piece of meat that used to be my wife, and I hurl it with two hands into the bayou. This time, the reaction is immediate. Two of the prehistoric lizards leap out of the water to vie for the food, and within two or three minutes, her remains have disappeared without a trace. I walk backward with the M-16 pointed at the swamp water, and I can feel my heart pounding. I hurriedly roll up the throw rug, and I jam it back into the trunk. Then I get into the Pontiac and turn up the air to max, but the sweat is literally pouring down me like cascading torrents headed downward off Niagara Falls. I try to start the engine, but it stalls. Then I see them emerging from the water, thirty feet from me. They’re in no particular hurry, but they keep right on toward me. I turn it over again. It doesn’t catch. The battery sounds like it’s weakening. I’m protected by the closed windows, right? Then I try the motor a third time, and it kicks over, and I’m in reverse kicking sod out from my four tires. I gun it onto the gravel road, and loose stones and rock are flying out from behind me. It takes an hour before I reach the Interstate headed north, headed back to my home in Chicago.

  Chapter 2

  I am a creature of habit. I rise at the same hour whether I’m off or on duty. Unless it’s the midnight shift. If I work days or afternoons, I’m usually up no later than 5:30 A.M. I try to sleep in, but since Erin’s been gone, since I lost her, I can’t lie still past then.

  I have trouble sleeping at night without her next to me. The bed seems evacuated. There’s someone missing, of course.

  There have been a few women since my wife died.

  There was the policewoman, Rita Espinosa, I was with for a brief moment. But she went off to Champaign-Urbana to get her juris doctor. It wasn’t a long episode, but it hurt like hell when it ended, anyway.

  At the moment, I’ve pretty much retreated from seeking relationships. Losing Erin seemed to signal a chapter of solitude in my existence, and now I’m almost getting used to it.

  “You’re not going to believe this, Jimmy.”

  Doc and I are in my office downtown. I had just got done perusing the lake out of my large window that faces east.

  “Yeah?”

  “I just talked to Donny Malloy from Missing Persons, downstairs, and he says that they got a report about a missing woman just this morning.”

  “And?”

  “It’s Skotadi’s wife, Jennifer.”

  “Really.”

  He nods.

  “So she’s been gone over twenty-four hours?”

  “Yeah,” Doc grins.

  “You have a devious mind, Doc.”

  “Probably. But isn’t it a pretty thought? Skotadi playing pick up the soap in the slammer for twenty to life?”

  “She’s probably fed up and she probably took off on the asshole. Any reasonable female would have done it years ago. The fact that she married this prick is hard to reconcile in my head, partner.”

  I look back out the window at the lake, and I can just barely make out the forms of thousands of sun-baked Chicagoans. Hell, I wish I were with them. I wish it was Erin and me and the kids out there by the still-frigid water of Lake Michigan.

  I have a history with
Derek Skotadi. We almost got into it at a bar a few years back. The Greek had waltzed into the joint with some redhead who wasn’t his wife, and somehow words were said and my partner, Doc Gibron, had to separate the two of us before it became physical.

  Skotadi used to be a Homicide, but he got himself transferred. He wasn’t well-liked in the Murder Squad, and I never could take to him. He’s got a mouth and an attitude, and he said something I don’t even remember in that tavern, and we came close to a physical thing. Luckily Doc stepped in the middle before I got myself killed. The Greek is a lot bigger than I am, and he would’ve wiped the floor with my face. I think it had something to do with his arrogance, but the exact cause is too furry in my head.

  Anyway, I don’t like the son of a bitch, and I was glad when he left Homicide to dirty the waters in Vice.

  I get the phone call about an hour after Doc has to head to a dentist’s appointment.

  “Is this a detective?” the female voice asks.

  “Yes, ma’am. My name is Parisi.”

  “My sister has been murdered,” she says, almost matter-of-factly.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said my sister has been murdered.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. Who’s your sister?”

  “She was married to a cop. You might even know him. His name is Derek Skotadi.”

  *

  I pick up Doc from the dentist’s office a half hour later. When he hears the news, he grabs his jaw.

  “The fuck under-medicated me. Goddam butcher.”

  “You don’t seem surprised.”

  “Nothing about Skotadi shocks me, Jimmy. I already told you he’s evil.”

  Irene Wentworth lives on the far southwest side, out by 120th and Cicero. She lives in an apartment building, we see, as we pull up to the curb by her three-flat building.

  She answers the bell with the return buzzer, and we ascend to the second floor apartment. Irene opens the door before we can knock, and she doesn’t even give us time to identify ourselves, so we walk inside and she points to her three-section couch. We sit as we’re signaled to do.