Death on Pilot Hill

spoiling a child and letting them get away with bald-faced lies?”

The two university professors had gone overboard in spoiling her as their only child. She always got whatever she wanted from them as a child and it was just as bad after she turned 20.

There was one thing that she had not lied to him about and that was when she told him:

“My parents are idiots. They’ll do anything and everything for me. I snap my fingers and they ask me how high they need to jump.”

Her parents always believed whatever she told them at face value even when they should have suspected some of her behavior as an adult. For example: after she got a drunk driving conviction they believed her lie that she had not been drunk but rather driving impaired because she was sleepy and exhausted from taking care of him and his and her children at home.

“Our poor daughter. She works so hard. That judge was so mean. He simply wouldn’t listen!”

Of course she never told her parents that she had also received a suspended conviction for child endangerment because her son had been in the car with her when she drove plastered with double the legal blood alcohol limit. But to her credit she did milk the drunk driving crash for all it was worth. She stopped doing chores at home and never cared for her son because she had “migraines” and “back pain” from the “accident.”

The second big lie. For that lie her right index finger comes flying off the chopping block.

“Did you know I came from old money on my mother’s side?”

“No,” he said without realizing that she used this lie to make her vulgarity and failed career as a teacher more palatable. He would never have brought a McDonald’s worker into his home as a sex partner let alone a live-in companion. The lie about old money tricked him.

“My poor mother. . she was forced to give me up because her family and my father’s family opposed their union. His family is blue blood if you know what I mean and they couldn’t tolerate her being a commoner even if her family had money.”

He wondered if her endless lying perhaps came from an adopted child never getting over feelings of abandonment. He never had. Nor his brother. Sure they were grateful for the love and care of their adoptive parents. But deep down he always wondered why his mother had tossed him and his brother aside to another set of parents.

Constant feelings of abandonment always left him torn between having to commit to a permanent relationship with a woman versus the convenience of a temporary disposable relationship. Somehow he always wound up with the convenient and disposable relationships because that was after all the relationship that his precious birth mother had inflicted on him and his brother. He also noticed that he always became enraged whenever he thought about his birth mother and her decision which had enormous consequences including the molestation.

Do unto others as you have had done unto you the abandoned.

Does she think the same thoughts I have?

In hindsight he realized that she did indeed feel abandoned. She later admitted that much one day when a few drinks loosened her tongue. And yet she would never admit that she had an unsatiable need to be accepted by someone who would love her and want her and only her. Nor would she admit that she was angry or bitter over the abandonment. Unlike him she never said anything about her anger and bitterness over being abandoned. Not even when he plied her with alcohol to get her talking. She always fell into a silent dark brooding that at first charmed him and later scared him.

When he tortured her would she feel abandoned?

When he snuffed the life out of her would she feel abandoned?

He couldn’t wait to see her reaction to her torture and her own death. Finally she’d get a taste of her own medicine.

The third big lie. For that lie he slowly saws off her middle finger.

“I love teaching elementary school. I’ve always wanted to be an elementary school teacher since I was nine years old.”

Was that her third hook into him?

Did she know that this statement would win him over as a single father?

Of course she did. An elementary school teacher is the ultimate example of a kind and nurturing role model who exercises a positive influence over children especially those living in a single parent household. He’s angry and disgusted by how easily he fell for that lie.

After they got married her mother dropped another bombshell on him when she said:

“Did my daughter really tell you that she wanted to be an elementary school teacher since she was nine years old? Oh no. Absolutely not. She always wanted to be a beauty queen. . and an actress when she got older. . oh yes she definitely wanted to be a movie star when she got older. But she really didn’t have the looks did she?”

He almost told the mother: “But she does have a talent for acting!”

Her talent for acting never failed to impress him. The problem was that almost no one ever saw it was acting until long after the performance was delivered and the desired outcome was accomplished and her gullible audience left ready for more after having swallowed her lies hook line and sinker.

He once met her former mother-in-law (per husband Number Two) who said:

“She always put on a big production. Everything she did was only to impress people. I mean. . goodness me. . well her productions were extravagant. She was after my son and trying to get him to marry her and so she used to bring me and my husband all these flowers and candy and gifts and poems and cards and that all stopped after she got married to my son. She had what she wanted and didn’t need us no more.

“Then she started again with the gifts and cards and phony friendship when she tried to get us to loan her money. She used to make these pretty cards with top ten lists of why we were good parents or friends or whatever and it was incredible how totally accurate she was about us. That was surprising. She knew us very well. . a lot more than we ever knew her.'

“Did she get the loan from you?”

“No and you can imagine what happened when she did not get the loan. . no more gifts or telephone calls or cards or visits for us.”

The fourth big lie. Her finger comes off after he beats it to a pulp with a hammer.

“I was good at swimming. My parents were swimming champions in high school and the university. I even got to national finals in my senior year of high school. I love swimming and competing in sports.”

She told him the lie about her loving swimming after he made the mistake of showing her his high school swimming trophies and medals. That’s when she instantly became little Miss Froken Swimming Champion who loved swimming and competing.

At a high school reunion the swim coach quickly corrected the false information:

“Loved swimming? No. She hated swimming. Her father forced her to do it. She lost her first competition on purpose. She never made it to national finals. That’s a big fat lie! She wouldn’t even jump into the water at the starting line of her first competition. After that she dropped out of the team and never swam or competed again. I never understood how even after she did that her parents kept showering her with money and clothes. They even bought her a brand new Volvo while she was in high school. Can you believe that?”

The fifth big lie. For that he makes her eat her own right pinkie finger which he severs with a cleaver.

“I’m kind of a shy bookworm. . a homebody really.”

Was that another hook into him the introvert who preferred reading for hours in silence at home?

He was soon dissuaded of this wrong impression at a booze-fueled party by one of her friends who was a teacher at the school where the monster briefly taught part-time: