My Michelle Ch. 04

The author waives all liability for any technique described herein even more so than usual. Weak stomachs please bail out here.

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Things had been going amazingly with Michelle. The one problem was we just seemed to keep bumping into my former neighbor and her former cocaine dealer Joe. Every time we ran into him on campus, which our class schedules made nearly inevitable, Michelle got depressed and shaky, which did not do wonders for her state of mind. She would come out of the depressions fairly quickly, but I had finally made the very coldblooded decision that Joe really wasn't very much use to me alive.

The preparations to dispose of him were fairly simple for someone with the proper training and background. I admit this would be my first solo job on American soil, but one does what one must. I picked a random weeknight, one where Michelle had an extra load of studying to do. Everything was in place, and an ongoing reconnaissance program had proven the target would probably be there. If not, I'd try again later.

I kissed Michelle goodbye at the front door like normal people do. "Remember to lock the doors, honey, and if anyone tries coming in, feel free to shoot them. Unless it's me of course."

"Are you sure I can't go with you?"

"Michelle, I'm just going to go run a few errands and grab some groceries, and if I have you along it will spoil any surprise presents I get for you." We kissed again.

"All right, sir, I promise I'll be good and I'll be waiting for you."

"That's what I wanted to hear. See ya soon." She and I still didn't say "I love you" since the weirdness of our master/slave, rehabber/rehabee relationship was precluding much hope of real emotional love so far. It was not what any normal person would have considered healthy, but I fell off the normal train about 1979.

I didn't just have my usual .45 with me tonight. Tonight I'd pulled a genuine relic out of storage. I was carrying a .22 High Standard target pistol modified with a 1944 Bell Labs sound suppressor assembly, what most people think of as a "silencer". It had fallen off the Army inventory at the end of WWII when the Office of Strategic Services deactivated, and came into my hands when a dying old man passed it on. I had known him for a few years. He knew I walked the same path he did, and he hadn't wanted his grandchildren to know the sins of his past. Some of those sins had been weighing heavily on his mind as the cancer got worse. They got his medals and some stories. I had the High Standard, some other very illegal tools and toys, and an education in advanced homicide. I also carried an electric stun gun, one of the early ones.

My Cavalier had been outfitted for the night's work while Michelle was taking a nap. The trunk was double-layered in heavy black plastic sheeting. There were two other license plates in the trunk, both acquired around campus out of trash cans, and both were redone with the best home-made hand-painted registration stickers I could do. A couple layers of heavy clear packing tape would give the fake "sticker" a realistic glossy look in the dark. I'd been saving them for a rainy day. Both were fitted with magnets and would slap on or off in a pinch. My old Papa John's Pizza delivery shirt was in the car, along with a pizza delivery bag I'd saved when I quit the year before. Neither design was obsolete yet. And the lack of a car-top sign was no big deal. Most of the delivery drivers in Cambridge skipped them. You only got paid a quarter extra per run to have the sign on your car, but it was a neon sign for the cops so the added attention didn't pay off. And by my last count, there were 17 red Cavaliers, 1991-1993, on campus. Ideally I'd have a sterile car for this job, but I didn't have the budget of the CIA or the Mafia. Assumption of some risk.

The target lived in an out of the way area off the Cambridge cops' patrol routes, and was very close to the road I would be taking into the heart of the adjoining National Forest off Highway 30. The idea was to get clear of town without seeing anything with a blue light on it.

I pulled over in the dark and changed shirts. My faded black Pink Floyd shirt went in the glove compartment. I was now a Papa John's delivery driver again on a very temporary basis.

Pulling over again much closer to Joe's house, I executed the license plate swap. The magnets slapped the Alabama tag on neatly and removed the front tag. Alabama only uses rear ones. The cordless electric drill with a screwdriver bit had the front plate off, including the bracket, in forty seconds. The screws went into the ashtray and the plate went under the passenger seat.

I stopped a little up the block from Joe's. I took an old pair of 7x50 artillery spotter's binoculars from under the passenger seat and eyeballed the house. No other cars were there, and only one light was on. I was having to cut it short on the surveillance. I didn't like this, but I was trying to keep this whole operation totally secret from everyone for obvious reasons, including Michelle. And it's hard to have an intelligent, perceptive woman in your house and not have her notice the preparations for a very thoroughly premeditated murder. I knew she'd be happier knowing Joe was gone, but I didn't want her knowing how he'd gone. Several cold-case homicides a year are solved when ex-wives or old girlfriends talk, and I never wanted to be in that position. I trusted Michelle to a point, but why take chances?

I got out of the car, opened the trunk, and then pushed it back down until it almost latched. The trunk light burned out years before, so there was no telltale gleam.

Pulled the hat down way over my face and using a gloved left hand, I unscrewed the porch light bulb just until it went out. I then kept that gloved hand under the pizza bag which had a nice piece of 3/4" plywood in it to give it shape. It would also make a dandy impact weapon in a pinch if the two pistols and the stun gun failed me. The High Standard and the stun gun were on tape loops on the plywood, while the Colt was under my shirt. I elbowed the doorbell. Again, I was happy there was no storm door in the way.

"Who is it!" I heard from inside. Joe's voice.

"Pizza!"

He opened the door. "I didn't order any-wha?" but it was too late. I drew the stun gun and tagged him in the neck. I threw the stunner back in the pizza bag, and slid my arm around him. In the dark, I looked to anyone watching like a guy helping a drunk buddy. Yeah, I helped him right into the trunk where some half-inch wide 36" cable ties quickly hogtied him. I duct-taped his mouth shut, and slammed the trunk. I could return and burgle his house at my leisure later.

I jumped in, fired up the car, and headed for the National Forest. I'd had a hole waiting for a while. It predated Michelle's arrival in my life, going back to my original feud with Joe. It was a "just in case" measure I'd learned from another old gentleman with an Italian last name. Ten feet deep, three wide, and six long. It had taken me a couple weekends of digging, and it was covered by more plywood and a thin layer of dirt and leaves.

The rest of the dirt was scattered around conveniently, along with six fifty pound bags of quicklime wrapped in plastic. There was a neat trick I learned years later with a stepped hole, a plastic liner, and gallons of industrial drain cleaner, but you never know what you don't know. Quicklime alone was hard to get. The Mafia had used it to dispose of inconvenient corpses for years to the point it was generally restricted. This stuff I'd gotten off the loading dock at the Southaven sewage treatment plant.

Before exiting the car, I put the sort of Tyvek shoe covers worn by house painters on over my jungle boots. The boots were a worn-out pair due to be resoled. The shoe shop in town had done several pairs for me over the years and would see nothing unusual in this even if asked about it. But no fresh National Forest dirt would go home with me tonight. I pulled on another pair of heavy household rubber gloves.

I pulled a steel folding chair out of the back seat, and pulled Joe out of the trunk. More zip-ties quickly secured him to the chair. I then pulled the duct tape off his mouth.

"All right, Joe, we're going to do this fast and accurately. Where are you keeping your cash these days?"

"Aw, fuck you man, you're just fucking nuts over 'Chelle's pussy. She ever tell you how many times she fucked me for some coke?"

I decided I was going to have to take a bit more time with the morality lesson than I intended. Punching him in the side of the throat to keep him quiet and cooperative, he gasped for breath as I pulled the same roll of two-inch green mil-spec duck tape out of the trunk. I wrapped it around his mouth four times. Looping twice more around the top of his head and under his jaw locked the whole mess shut. He was about to scream loudly enough with enough jaw extension that just tape-gagging him the conventional way across his mouth wouldn't work. I'd just have to cut it quickly if he puked, otherwise he'd drown in it like Jimi Hendrix or Bon Scott. I didn't need him dead yet.

I then pulled an eight-pound sledgehammer out of the back seat. "Joe, this is your last chance to start talking to me before I fuck you up so badly you're walking funny for the rest of your short-ass life." I still read a mixture of defiance and disbelief behind his eyes. Too bad for him.

An eight-pounder is not the heaviest sledgehammer they make. You can find 12 and 16 pound varieties in your average hardware store. But as a longtime winner of the ring-the-bell-with-the-hammer games at various Renaissance Festivals and carnivals with the skill I picked up working construction, I prefer a lighter hammer for control and velocity. That control was essential as the hammer whipped through a controlled arc and landed directly atop the arch of his left foot. It was safe to say he fairly exploded in agony. Tears burst, he convulsed all over, and I was right. If it hadn't been for the extra loops of tape, his muffled scream would have escaped the gag. "Joe, it never pays to anger a man who might well just beat you to death with a hammer before this night is done. If you tell me what I want to know, and the data checks out, then I'll even drop you off at the hospital myself and we'll say you fucked up your foot changing a tire. So leave Michelle out of the conversation. She's mine."

He frantically nodded.

"Think about this for a minute."

I walked off, out of his field of view. I sipped my Mountain Dew, fifth of the day, and thought about it. I was taught never to trust anything you get before three good shots of the hammer, but Sergeant Major was used to dealing with the Viet Cong, the Pathet Lao, and the Sandanistas of Nicaragua. Those fellows would die for a cause. Joe was a two-bit rich suburban kid who wanted more cash than Mom and Dad would give him, more pussy than his looks and personality deserved, and figured dealing coke was the way to do it. He'd break quickly.

I walked back over into his view. "Now, as yours is a cash profession, you accumulate a lot of it before you go to your wholesale supplier and buy more product, correct? He nodded. "Do you keep it in multiple places?" Nod. "Three?" A shake of the head. "Two?" Nod. "Unprofessional, Joe. Multiple cache sites are key to maintaining operational security and redundancy." He had no idea what I was talking about, but a firmly delivered, calmly phrased monologue reinforced his lack of control here. "Now where would I find this money of yours? I'll take a guess and say most of it is in your house, and maybe some hidden elsewhere, like a safe deposit box." He nodded again, a frantic look in his eyes.

I actually knew about the safe deposit box. He talked too loudly in the days when he and I had apartments that shared a wall. It was a damn shame I couldn't get the safe deposit box money, but I certainly couldn't take Joe to the bank and pick it up. The box was right on the Square in downtown Cambridge across the street from City Hall, and Joe was never leaving these woods alive even if he was too naive to know it. Ripping off his house was enough of a risk. But eventually the box rent would be unpaid and the bank would probably skim the money for themselves.

"Joe, your next problem is that I don't believe you." I picked up the hammer again. "Maybe if I bust your knee...." I made a great show of thinking about it. While his eyes were watching the hammer, I then stomped down on his shattered foot with a boot heel. Again, he exploded with the agony of it. It was great misdirection. I was proud of myself for coming up with that one.

"Now Joe, I'm going to hit you with this thing one more time, just because you piss me off." I walked around him a couple times. His forearms were tight against the steel chair, hmmm, might not break the bone but I knew it would hurt like hell. With me behind him, he was trying to look back over his shoulder to see what was coming. Too late. I wound up and swung, catching his right forearm with the hammer. The impact almost knocked him over onto his face. There was a lot more muffled screaming and sobbing. I then gave the forearm a good shake. Yep, it was broken all right.

I walked back in front of him. "All right, Joe, I'm going to cut the tape, and you're going to answer a few questions. There's no one out here but us, some meth cookers, and deer poachers, and they won't care if you scream. Just in case, if you do scream..." I went over to the hole and pulled the last piece of plywood back, "I have a nice unmarked grave here with your name in it. If you do anything to draw attention to our little chat, I can have you dead and into that hole long before help arrives, and still have a pretty fair chance of getting out of here down the logging road."

The look in his eyes was no longer one of defiance, but instead one of absolute defeat. I peeled back the tape. He sat without a word. "All right, now where is the money, and how much are you holding?"

He spit blood from where he'd bitten his tongue. None landed on me. I made a great show of scooping up that contaminated spot with the shovel and throwing that dirt down in the hole.

"Dave, man, you don't have to do this-"

"Joe, I'll tape your mouth back up and break both your fucking legs in the next two minutes if you don't shut the fuck up and tell me what I want to know. Now, what's in your house and what's in your bank box?"

"I can't believe you're going to kill me over a piece of ass."

"I'm going to kill you because you're pissing me the fuck off." I picked up the tape and peeled the end off the roll. That was all it took.

"The cash is in my house. I only have ten grand in the box, that was my emergency stash. The bank's never open when I need it to be."

"Anything else in the box?"

"Just a pistol."

"That lousy Ruger 9mm you bought that time?"

"Yeah."

"Forget it, I'll pass. They're a revolver company. Their semis suck". Fifteen years later they still haven't made one to my taste. I digress. "How much is cash in the house?"

"I'm saving up for a five-key deal and a new car."

"Numbers, Joe."

"Probably a hundred and fifty thousand. Fucking take it, man. Look, I know people you can get rich working for doing what you do. Fuck, I can make you rich. This is the perfect audition for a hitman. Just don't kill me."

Right. Joe was buying his cut product from another suburban Scarface wannabe up at Memphis State. I was working a target folder on him a few months back, just to stay in practice. He was probably the one buying it from the Bloods or Crips or someone with the infrastructure to move real weight from the point of importation down to the city level. I couldn't figure why Joe would want to go for five keys, he didn't go through that much product. Eleven pounds of cut cocaine, jeez. That was enough to last Sorority Row for most of the semester. Maybe he was promised a volume discount. But I didn't see anyone in his chain who was set up to make me rich as a professional "mechanic", let alone him, and I had Michelle to worry about now. I wasn't killing Joe because he was a drug dealer, I was killing him because he was a negative influence on my....possession? Girlfriend? Anyway, Michelle would not be getting much better as long as she had Joe's shadow around. Better to make him disappear for her sake. The money was incidental. Nice, but incidental. If he was telling the truth about what he was holding, it would make a nice reserve with which to start my post-college life without having to work bail bonds, deliver pizza, bounce bars, go back in the Army, or do other sleazy semi-violent jobs to make ends meet. Believe it or not, I really didn't enjoy doing shit like this. I just happened to be good at it.

"Joe, I would say it wasn't personal, but it wasn't business either. You you're your problems my problems, and you're such an unlikeable shit you made it personal for Michelle's sake." With that, there was nothing else to say. I shoved the High Standard into the hollow behind his ear and fired two subsonic rounds up into the brain pan. Both made less noise than fingers snapping, and neither exited the skull. The 40-grain soft lead projectiles, as planned, just whizzed around inside the skull causing instant death via brain trauma. Neither would be in any shape to give a ballistic trace even if Joe was ever found under ten feet of north Mississippi dirt.

I cut off all the cable ties and threw them in the bottom of the hole. The two shell casings went in the hole. Then Joe went in the hole. I busted him in the mouth with the hammer to confuse the dental work a little just for extra piece of mind. The three hundred pounds of quicklime covered the body and would start dissolving the flesh soon enough. A five gallon water jug from the back seat of the car gave the reaction a nice chemical kick-start.

All the plastic wrapping from the trunk of the car went in the hole. The steel folding chair was wiped down with an ammonia-soaked rag to mess up fingerprint oils or blood traces and went in the back seat. It would be sanded and repainted at earliest opportunity, then mixed in with the three hundred or so identical chairs in the music building's back room where I'd borrowed it. The Papa John's hat, shirt, and pizza bag went in the hole. So did the Alabama license plate. A Missouri plate went on in its place. I wouldn't uncover my normal one until I was safe in the driveway. Joe's wallet would be left in a bar bathroom in Memphis minus the cash to misdirect anyone looking for him. Meanwhile I'd leave it in a plastic bag out here in the woods. I sure as hell wouldn't keep it near me. His car keys would go into the Tallahatchie River, a detour on the way home. Yes, it's that same bridge Billie Jo McAlister supposedly jumped off in that old song.

A fair bit of shovel work later, it was time to carefully restore the clutter of the forest floor. I'd check it again later in daylight, as this road did lead to a clearing the ROTC battalion once used for a helicopter landing zone. I'd call it a picnic or hike if I was ever seen. Hell, I suspected some hippies from campus had a marijuana patch out here someplace near the cadets' land navigation course.

Before I swung my legs into the car, the Tyvek painter's booties went into a McDonald's bag. The bag would go into a public dumpster on the side of the highway. The boots would go to the shoe shop to be resoled tomorrow.

I fired up the car and drove back down the old logging road to the highway, and drove back toward town. The bag went in the dumpster as planned.

I pulled up and parked half a block away again. The porch light was still out. I quickly entered, and began a slow methodical search of the house. A fresh pair of rubber gloves kept me from fingerprinting anything. I was a year or two from having to worry about leaving a stray hair. Cambridge didn't have that sort of CSI equipment or resources anyway, and it was known I'd been to Joe's house socially in happier times.