He drove her pieces to the Body Pond, which was a small pond about an hour out of the city. As far as Charlie knew, hardly anybody ever went out to the pond, and he thought it was deep enough that even an extended drought wouldn't uncover the rock-filled sacks.
Of course, he hoped to fill the pond enough that someday he'd be forced to find a new hiding spot.
* * *
'What do you think you're doing?' Alicia asked, walking over to his desk.
'What?'
'What do you think you're doing?'
Charlie squirmed and desperately wished she would leave him alone. 'I'm just trying to work.'
'Everybody else is in the break room having Christmas lunch. Doing work is strictly off-limits. C'mon.'
'I didn't bring anything for it.'
'Why not?'
Charlie shrugged.
'You could have at least signed up to bring napkins. It doesn't take anything to stop on your way here and buy a package of napkins. But I won't tell anyone you didn't contribute if you don't. Let's go get some food.'
'I'm fine.'
'If I called it a holiday lunch instead of a Christmas lunch, would you go?'
'I'm not hungry.'
'How hungry do you have to be for cookies?'
'I don't know.'
'Get up, Charlie. The whole department is having a holiday lunch, and you're part of the department. It's silly for you to sit here by yourself. Don't make me drag you in there by your shirt collar. I'll do it.'
Charlie looked back at his computer screen. 'I'm not hungry.'
Alicia stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged. 'Whatever you want. I'm just trying to be nice to you. Hope you get a lot done.'
She left, and Charlie let out a deep sigh of relief.
* * *
Charlie walked down the sidewalk, hands deep in his pockets, breath misting in the cold air. He had no interest in the Christmas lights or the music that played from one of the downtown shops, but he did enjoy the crunching sound the occasional patches of ice made under his feet as he walked.
The wind was starting to pick up and it was getting chillier than he liked. He pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and decided to cut through Klant Park. It wasn't usually a good idea to walk through the park at night (Charlie was confident in his ability to deal with a helpless vagrant woman; less so in his ability to fend off a group of muggers) but the small park seemed to be empty.
As he walked through the single path, past the swing set, he heard something.
A faint whimper.
He stopped and listened more closely. Definitely a whimper. Not human. Sounded like a dog.
He glanced around, looking for the source. It was difficult to hear over the rush of the wind, and the park was poorly lit, but it seemed to be coming from the opposite side. He picked up his pace a bit, curious to see what was out there.
He walked through the park until he found the source of the sound, which came from beneath a wooden bench. It was indeed a small dog, lying on its side. He crouched down and stared at it with mild interest.
Charlie had never owned pets as a kid, and didn't feel he was missing anything as an adult. He knew that a lot of serial killers started with animals and worked their way up to humans, but Charlie didn't see the point. Anybody could have control over a domesticated dog, unless it went on a wild rampage and started mauling infants. There was no trick to keeping a dog on a leash, no thrill to be gained from causing it pain. Why bother?
He wondered what was wrong with the dog. There didn't seem to be any blood. Maybe it was just starving.
The dog kind of amused him. It had a funny black-and-white face (white down the middle, black on the sides) that almost looked like a clown. He didn't know the name of the breed, but this kind of dog appeared in television commercials a lot. He liked the way its eyes bugged out a little. Very silly.
He gently brushed his hand across its fur. The dog whined, though Charlie didn't think he was hurting it. It wasn't wearing a collar.
Would it bite him if he put his finger next to its mouth? He'd never been bitten by a dog before. Maybe it would enrage him enough to want to bring the dog to his basement. That would certainly be less risky than a homeless woman.
Of course, the dog could be rabid. That was a good reason not to see if it would bite him.
It didn't seem to be foaming at the mouth at all, and it certainly wasn't being aggressive. Admittedly, Charlie knew very little about rabies, but everything he'd seen on TV and movies involved foaming at the mouth and growling. A rabid dog wouldn't just lie here under a park bench; it would be going berserk.
He took off his right glove, extended his index finger and carefully placed it in front of the dog's mouth.
The dog whimpered and licked his finger.
Charlie wiped its slobber off on his jeans. Disgusting.
But he wasn't going to kill it simply because it got some dog spit on him. He put his glove back on and stood up. He might check back tomorrow to see if it had starved to death, just out of curiosity.
As he walked away, the dog let out a pitiful howl. Charlie kept walking. It wasn't his dog, and if the owner didn't care enough to watch his property, Charlie wasn't going to do it for him. If he saw the owner frantically searching for his dog, he might point out where it was laying, but beyond that, the animal wasn't his problem.
He left the park and resumed walking on the sidewalk, once again enjoying the crunch of ice under his feet. He tried to remember which commercials he'd seen that kind of dog in. At least one of them was for flea medicine--the clown-faced dog was scratching and the pug wasn't. Or maybe it was the other way around. He also thought one of those dogs was in a car insurance advertisement. It might have talked.
It was definitely a popular type of dog. Not only would the owner probably be looking for it, but there might be a reward for its safe return.
Charlie had no idea how much a clown-dog cost, and he had no idea what kind of reward might be offered for finding one...but what if it was a lot? What if it was five hundred dollars? Though it was unlikely to be that much, what if the owner was really attached to the dog? It wasn't as if Charlie had anything else to do tonight--he might as well take the dog home and hope there was a reward. If there wasn't, he'd throw it back outside. No harm done.
He turned around, walked back to the park bench, and crouched down next to the dog again. Now that he was looking at it a second time, he seemed to recall that it was named after a state. Or a city. Something like that.
'Don't bite me,' he warned the dog. He was fine with the animal biting him as part of an experiment in rage control, but not when he was trying to help it.
Charlie immediately felt like an idiot. Dogs couldn't talk. And, more importantly, dogs couldn't understand human speech. He was glad that nobody else was around to hear.
He carefully slid his hands underneath the dog's side and lifted it off the ground a few inches, then pulled it out from beneath the bench. The dog whimpered some more, but lifting it didn't seem to hurt it. He hugged the dog to his chest and stood up.
The dog licked his face.
Even more disgusting.
He couldn't wipe it off without dropping the animal, so Charlie merely scowled and left the slobber on his face. The wet warmth quickly turned uncomfortably cold in the chilly night air. Stupid dog.
The dog nuzzled its face into his jacket, as if trying to burrow inside for warmth. Charlie supposed he couldn't blame the poor creature, though he wasn't about to unzip his jacket and let it get any closer to him.
It was a bit heavier than he'd expected, but Charlie was used to dragging corpses around, so he was pretty sure he'd have no problems carrying the dog home.
