LOVE HURTS

Love Hurts

The back road was lit by the headlights of two cars. A Sedan and a SUV. Light from a rising quarter moon struck their windshields as the evening dusk faded into night.

Ahead rose the night shadowed hulk of an abandoned, two story mine tipple. The two vehicles stopped at the gate. The first driver, average height and thin, got out. With bolt cutters hanging from his right hand, he emitted a loud grunt to help snap the chain. The SUV pulled through and waited or the first car to pass him. The second man, slightly shorter but with a beer belly, got out, shut the gate and put the chain back in place for the causal viewer.

Both drove behind a brick building where miners washed after work. One man did a check and saw they were out of sight of the road. The heavier man opened the door to the washhouse and turned on his flashlight. The second man went around to his trunk and opened it. He pulled out male department store dummy wearing jeans and placed it in the riders front seats. He closed the trunk gently and walked to the washhouse and entered carrying his own flashlight. In a far corner he saw the light from the first man.

“See anybody?”

“No. Couple of beer cans.

“Good. We can leave a car here”

“Always a chance of discovery.”

“Goes wrong. Time to correct.”

Leaving the SUV hidden from the road, they drove fast in the sedan to the train show two miles away.

“We’ve got ten minutes,” the thinner man said as they pulled into the parking lot.

Inside, the beer bellied hurried over to a dealer and purchased a steam engineers train hat with a Southern symbol. Then they rushed to another vendor.

“How long before you close?” the man wearing the hat asked.

“About another five minutes.”

“You got a high hood, Southern GP-35 with DCC installed?’

They left the train show with the Southern Railway model locomotive and drove back to the abandoned mine. It already wore jeans like both men wore. The beer bellied guy put his shirt on the dummy and his engineer’s cap on its head. “Jim, make sure the Engineer’s cap is on camera at the Pilot store. My alibi. And get their at 8:30. Harry changed the license plates on his SUV. Then he put on a second shirt he’d brought.

“You ain’t right, you know” Harry.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Harry sped away driving fast, but not so fast to get a ticket. He drove half an hour to the farmhouse and picked up the glass cutter off the passenger’s seat and slipped it into his pocket. He stuffed a towel into the back of his jeans.

Harry did a couple of hard raps on the front door. It partly opened and a man peered out.

“You. I don’t want to see you.”

Harry replied, “Yeah, but we need to talk. Just five minutes. Then I’ll leave.” The two men stood not moving. Then Harry said, “Please.”

He followed the man into the den of the house.“May I set here? Across from the couch?’

“She asked you to come here and talk to me.Didn’t she?”

“Of course. But I thought we could work things out. Man to man.”

“You can go to hell.”

“Likely, but please sit.”

As the man lowered himself to the couch, his head bowed down during the motion. Harry pulled out the towel with his left hand. He pulled out the 45 pistol with his right hand. Then put the towel over the barrel. The man on the couch stared in disbelief. Harry pulled the trigger and fired once.

He walked over the man he’d shot to be sure he was dead. Then pulled two plastic gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. With a bit of effort he stuffed the towel and pistol back down into his jeans waist.

In the bedroom, Harry pulled out drawers and dumped the contents on the floor. Swinging around he went to the closet and raked the items off the shelf. More slowly he walked to the front coat closet. He opened it and saw the fire safe she’d said would be there. With his gloved right hand, he opened it, leaving no DNA or prints and emptied it. He didn’t bother to look for anything.

Growing nervous, Harry hurried to the back door. He stepped outside. Then shut the door unlocked. With his glass cutter he cut a pane and pushed the glass inside the house.

Twitchy, Jim pulled away from the mine’s washhouse ten minutes after Harry left. He slowly drove his sedan up to a Pilot convenience store. Jim parked away from other cars and noted one person pumping gas, her back to him.

Jim eyes blinked from the harsh glare of the store’s lights as he entered. He saw an older woman behind the counter. Another customer pulled a six pack out of the cooler. Spotting a security camera, Jim stared straight at it. He walked under the camera and picked up a bag of potato chips.

Jim waited for the man to finish his beer purchase. As he dropped the potato chips on the counter, he spoke to the clerk. “I left my phone in the car. Do you know what time it is?”

She didn’t reply but nodded her head over to the left. Jim glanced over and saw the clock.“It’s ten till nine.”

“I never had no need to read them hands. My folks always had digital clocks. Didn’t need to learn that old fashioned stuff.” She ran his credit card and handed him the timed receipt.

"You know where 1098 Harshstone Dr. is? Gotta meet a friend."

"No idea."

Jim took the receipt and coming out noticed the woman getting gas had left. He turned toward his car. There was a man, long-haired wearing dirty clothes bending down staring in the passenger’s window. “Hey, you.Get away from my car.”

The man raised up and started walking toward Jim, “You got a lighter?”

Jim said, his voice rising, “No. I don’t smoke.”

“Sorry, just need a light.”

Jim pulled out his billfold, opened it and handed the man ten dollars. “Here buy a pack too.”

“God Bless you. That’ll help a lot,” the stranger said.

Jim, smiled. He knew a camera looked directly at the cash register. More proof he was there. Not kindness.

At the red light, Jim remembered he hadn’t put the dummy back inside the car. Harry would be furious. He debated telling Harry he’d stopped and put it back in the trunk.. That way a driver beside him at the light could tell it was a dummy. As the light switched he decided to drive to a nearby Church and put the dummy in the front seat there.

Jim glanced at the time on his phone. He started his car and pulled away from the light.

But then pulled into the parking lot of the Church. He parked far away from the entrance and opened his trunk and pulled out the department store dummy. Placing it carefully in the front seat opposite the driver. Then spun away to Harry’s house.

As Harry opened the door to his house, Jim asked in a soft voice, “Everything all right.”

“The dirty deed is done. Want a beer?”

“Sure.”

“I need to call someone. Prove I’m here with you.”

“ You shouldn’t call Darlene. Call your sister or someone else..”

Harry looked at Jim for a long moment. “Right. You’re smarter than I am. My sister. But you call your brother. You got a good place to burn the dummy and my clothes? And this?” Harry pointed to the towel he’d used to muffle the shot.

“This is tricky. I do it in my fireplace but the police come because we’re on camera together?”

“But it’s up in smoke?”

“You know the police can trace the kind of plastic that dummy’s made of. It’s a lot to burn in a fireplace. Residue.”

Harry, finished off his beer and leaned back in his chair. “Call your bother. Tell him you’re going to spend the night here. That’s we’re going on a beer run and pizza sometime though.”

Jim lifted his cell phone and punched in the numbers for his brother. He saw Harry walk away. When he returned, he handed Jim a pair of plastic gloves like used in hospitals. “Put these in your pockets.”

They drove back to the convenience store and the night clerk was still there. Harry drove up to the front where the thought a security camera could read his real license plate. They walked in together and bought a six pack and two slices of pepperoni pizza kept warmed under two low hanging lightbulbs. Jim bought a lighter.

“Can’t wait to get back. I’m sleepy.” Harry looked at the night clerk and did a big, fake yawn in front of her.

Then they drove back out into the countryside..In a wooded area they turned off the two lane and up a dirt road. It led back to a limestone pit and used by heavy trucks during the day. Something about the road seemed ancient and outside his usual world, Harry thought as he slowly drove up the road. Just a tad spooky. The mere absence of pavement and city lights, he wondered? Harry glanced up and prayed that the heavy trucks covered their tire tracks in the morning.

They stopped. Got out walked a short distance in the weeds and went quiet listening for any nearby sound. Jim lifted his binoculars to his eyes and searched the dark for any light. He saw no light but a spot just off the road where someone had dumped their trash. He pointed toward it and said, “There.”

“How’d you feel? When you did it?”

“Not good. Not happy, Kinda of relieved though.”

“Relieved?”

“Like taking a test and it being over.” Harry took a deep breath. “Damn it. Don’t want to think about it. Ok?

“Are you doing it with Darlene?”

“Not yet.But when the money comes.”

“She owes you one for sure.”

“One?”

Harry opened his trunk. Both men brought out plastic gloves and pulled them on. Then Harry removed a can of paint thinner and carried the folded newspaper under this arm. Jim placed his arms around the male dummy and lifted it out of the trunk.

Jim used his binoculars to study the area. He saw trashed scattered just off the road. They walked over to where the trash pile. Someone’s home repair project they didn’t want to pay the city to dump. “Look for some rocks,” Jim said softly.

“Why?”

“A firebreak.Don’t want to burn the woods now and start an investigation.”

“You’d make a good criminal,” Harry replied.

“Make?”

They found a few stones that had fallen off the trucks as they bumped along the dirt road. Still wearing their gloves, they built a circle of rocks in the dirt of the road and used their shoes to root out the few small weeds struggling to grow around the fire..

Moving one foot slowly in front of the other in the moonlight, Jim walked down the road until he thought he’d gone twenty yards.He popped opened each of the beer cans pouring them into a patch of high weeds. Then carried the empty cans back down to where Harry had placed the newspapers inside the stones. Harry looked up and said, “I’ve been listening. Didn’t hear anybody about. You?”

“No.” Jim scattered the empty beer cans around the fire. They walked back to Jim’s car and again mounted the stolen license plates as a precaution. Finally they walked back to the fire and watched as it burned his shirt the dummy wore and Harry wore when he shot the man. As well as the jeans. They broke up the dummy and dropped parts into the fire. Satisfied the clothes were burned enough, they peed the fire out.

Harry turned to Jim. "Anything we've not covered?" Jim shrugged his shoulders in reply

Back home Harry gave Jim the .45, the glass cutter and the stolen license plate to Jim. “Here, you get rid of them. If asked, I’ll honestly say I have no idea about them.”

Jim placed the pistol and other items into his trunk.

Four days later the police came to Harry’s house. He let the two detectives in. They were polite and asked him to come downtown. Once in the station, he was seated in a small chair against a wall. One detective sat opposite left and the other to his right.

We’re investigating the murder of a Michel Cartwright.”

“Murder?”

“Yes, four nights ago. We’ve talked to neighbors and others who told us you apparently have been friends with them. That Cartwright’s wife, Darlene, was seen alone visiting you a couple of time.”

“Yes, we were friends.”

“Can you think of any reason, Mrs. Cartwright would want her husband dead.”

There was a moment of silence. Harry felt his eyes automatically go up to the right.“ Darlene? Lord no.”

“Just following procedure, where were you four nights ago. In the evening?”

“I don’t recall. I mean I don’t know what I ate for lunch yesterday.”

The older detective smiled. “It was Tuesday night. A bit cool but no rain.”

“Oh, yeah. A friend of mine, we’re members of the local model railroad club. We went to the train show out at the fairgrounds.” He went on to tell about buying the hat. About they got there just five minutes before closing. That his friend drove him back home in his car as he’d not slept well the night before.” Then, Jim Wilson, my friend, told me I fell asleep in the car and he asked a clerk how to get to my house at the Pilot gas station. Next, I woke up hungry and we did a beer run and bought pizza at the same place later.”

“Your friend needed directions to your house?”’

“Oh, he’s always come during daylight. It was dark and he said he was unsure.”

“Then”

“We ate the pizza’s and drank three beers and went to sleep. Have you spoken to him?”

“Yes.. But we’ve talk to the Pilot store lady and looked at the tapes. You went home afterwards?”

“Any phone calls during that time?”

“Yeah, Me to my sister and him to his brother.”

“Were you aware, Mr. Cartwright had a half a million life insurance policy?”

“No”

“Surprised?”

“No. He owned a business. Many business men do that.”

“Are you more than friends with Mrs. Cartwright? One neighbor thought she stayed a couple of hours one visit.”

“I wish. I’ve always thought she was attractive.But she never showed she cared about me in that way.”

“Would you take a polygraph?”

“No. At least not until talking to my lawyer. I mean they aren’t admitted in court for some reason. Otherwise they would be.”

The next day, Harry called Jim and asked him to meet him at the cabin Darlene and her husband owned. When he walked in, he saw Darlene there. Jim sat the kitchen table.

“I just got bailed out of jail. The police searched my house last night. They found my .45. the key cutter, and the stolen license plate.And $10,000 from God knows where?Jim, why?’

“Well, why? Why is half a million divided by 2 is a quarter million each. Divided by three is less than $170,000 each.”

“I’ll tell the police you both were in on it.”

Jim glanced at him. You said were between 8:30 and 9 o’clock when you shot Cartwright. I’m on tape at the Pilot Store from about 8:45 to 9 o’clock. I’ve got an alibi.”

“Darlene, you told me Jim could be trusted?” His tone a bit stunned. “I love you. We had a future?”

“Oh, my. I am ever so grateful you killed my husband, Honest. Did you know he took $10,000 out of his mutual fund this week? To buy a bitcoin meme. And hid it in our front closet? I told the police I asked you for advice about bitcoin memes.”

Darlene started walking toward Harry. ”Sweetheart.. Sorry, if I misinformed you about Jim. . But I do trust him”

There was a sudden, screeching sound of Jim’s chair moving back. He jumped to his feet. The two men glared at each other and Jim raised his fists. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Darlene walking toward him, but glanced back at Jim and thought how best to attack him. Both men stared hard and intensely at each other.

Then he heard Darlene saying, “Suicide.” Something cool and hard pressed against his left temple. He started to raise his left hand as if that could stop a bullet.

Darlene stood over Harry’s dead body. She smiled at Jim. “Was it guilt from killing my husband for the money, or fear of prison?” Darlene said. “Oh, well that’s up to police to work out. Suicide is so terrible.”

“Oh, my God. He was right handed” Jim shouted.