If only I’d kept things simple! But no! I had to get clever and tricky. Make them think she was murdered by a rapist. Brilliant idea!
In the process, I’d turned her into a petri dish of Alice samples.
Sure thing, I thought. What about the
The Thinker returned to thought.
Suddenly, I sat up straight and blurted, “Yes!”
First, I had to find my clothes. I slipped into my shoes—Tony’s loafers. Then I hunted for my cut-offs. I found them on the ground where I’d thrown them during the frenzy with Judy. I put them on the bench so they wouldn’t get lost again.
Carrying Tony’s shirt, I went to the creek. Though I could hear the quiet gurgle and see bits of moonlight glinting on the water, the embankment took me by surprise. It was like stepping off a stair in the darkness. I gasped and fell and hoped like hell I wouldn’t go down on a sharp rock.
Luckily, I hit nothing but water. It was about a foot deep. It splashed up cool against my face and underside as my hands and knees punched through the surface. The rocky bottom hurt my knees a little, but not much. The shirt protected my hands.
I eased myself all the way down into the water so it covered me and glided gently over me. It felt wonderful. It probably wasn’t very clean, though. Not like the swimming pool.
Thinking of the pool, I couldn’t help but remember the prowler. I pictured him floating on his back, and how he’d gleamed with moonlight. So beautiful and dangerous. Then he was out of the pool and squirming against the glass door, throbbing and spurting.
My brilliant idea was suddenly more brilliant than ever.
But it would require a trip to Serena and Charlie’s house.
Not wasting another moment, I pushed myself out of the water. With the sodden shirt in my hands, I climbed the bank and hurried to the table.
Judy was sprawled on top, the same way I’d left her.
Sitting on the bench, I dumped the water out of my shoes. Then I put them on again, climbed the bench and bent over her. Starting at her face, I washed her with the shirt. Water spilled off her, running onto the table, dribbling through the cracks between its boards and hitting the ground under the table with quiet splattery sounds.
I thought the water might wake her up, but it didn’t. She stayed limp.
I mopped her neck, her shoulders and breasts, then decided I needed more water. So I hurried back to the creek. This time, I didn’t fall in. With the shirt sopping again, I returned to Judy and worked my way lower down her body.
I made two more trips to the creek for water.
By the time I was done cleaning Judy, I’d drenched her from head to ankles and scrubbed every inch of her with the shirt.
Every inch of her front, anyway.
I didn’t turn her over, or see any reason to.
She gave me no trouble at all, just stayed limp except for a few times when she squirmed. Now and then, she made soft moaning sounds.
I washed the shirt out a final time and put it on the bench with my cut-offs.
It took a while, in the darkness, to find a good stick. There were plenty to choose from, though. I finally came up with a piece of branch about four feet long. At one end, it was just about the right thickness to wrap my fingers around. From there, it tapered down to about half that size. It had a few small limbs along the way, but I snapped them off.
Then I knelt on the table and went back to work on Judy.
Right away, she flinched and cried out and tried to sit up.
I clubbed her down with the heavy end of the stick. Four or five blows to the head and face, and she was limp again. After that, I focused on the places where I might’ve left bruises with my teeth and hands.
Really laid into her.
The heavy end made thunking sounds when it struck her. The other end whistled each time I swung it down, and whapped her skin like a switch.
She never flinched or cried out. Those early blows to the head had done her in.
At least for now.
Exhausted and drenched with sweat, I went down to the creek. I rolled in the cool water, then lay on my back for a while with only my face in the air. It felt great. But work still needed to be done.
Not quite ready to get going, I stayed in the water and made a list in my head:
It all had to be finished before sunrise. How much time did that give me? Two or three hours, probably.
Plenty of time.
But not if I spent the rest of the night relaxing in the creek.
So I climbed out and returned to the table. Kneeling on the bench, I put my ear close to Judy’s mouth. She didn’t seem to be breathing. Nor could I find a pulse at her neck or wrist.
She seemed to be dead.
But I’m no expert on that sort of thing.
I had to be completely sure.
The best way, I decided, was to cave in her head with a rock. Why use a rock? Because I didn’t want to fire my pistol again, I had no knife or saber, strangling or suffocating her seemed iffy, and drowning her in the creek would’ve been too much work. With a good, heavy rock, I could crack open her skull and spill her brains out and
To get one, I returned to the creek.
Standing in the water, I reached down between my feet and plucked out a rough-edged rock the size of a baseball.
It should do the job fine.
With the rock clutched in my right hand, I climbed onto the bank and took a couple of strides toward the picnic table.
And stopped.
The top of the table was speckled with moonlight.
A flat, empty surface.
17
GONE
