Past Tense, Imperfect

A slip of the tongue gets you in hot water. Explain what you do about it.

Approx. 2,204 words

I can't believe I said that! How could I have been so totally dumb? Frank and I were each nursing a beer at The Dugout, a sports-bar on Madison. Frank has been retired from the LAPD six years. I met him here two years ago during NBA playoffs and we hit it off quite well.

This morning, Frank sensed I was a little down and, knowing about the problems between Ruth and I, he began drawing me out with innocent conversation, trying to help patch things up between my wife and I, Frank didn't know I had accidentally killed Ruth. How could I tell him the guilt I felt? I never meant to kill Ruth, but when I hit her she fell onto the brick hearth of the fireplace and hit her head. Instantly I knew she was dead.

Fortunately, our bungalow has an attached garage and I knew I could load her body into the trunk of the car while hidden from the prying eyes of neighbors. Before blood began pooling on the carpet, I slipped newspaper under her head, put on her gardening gloves (quite a snug fit!) and quickly retrieved four large trash bags from the kitchen. I slipped one bag over her upper torso and one over her legs, then repeated the process for good measure, and sealed the seam with duct tape. Then I struggled with her 115 pounds until I succeeded in loading her body into the trunk of our sedan.

"William, my boy, you've really done it this time," I thought to myself. It was but a few minutes after 7 p.m. in Anaheim, and I felt I would have several hours to formulate a plan, drive out to the desert and bury her, then return home before sunrise. I resisted the temptation to have a drink or six before putting my plan into action… how many times in the movies have you seen the bad guy getting stopped for a minor traffic citation with discovery and arrest imminent?

At 9 p.m. I put Ruth's garden shovel in the back seat and took the Riverside Freeway to I-10, then headed for the desert beyond Indio. Somewhere near Eagle Summit I turned off and found a barely used road heading into the darkness of the night. There were no lights of homes or businesses that I could see. When I found a dirt track leading east, I followed it for about half a mile, stopped and turned off my lights, then waited twenty minutes, which seemed more like twenty years, while I walked around my car and smoked three cigarettes. No one appeared out of the darkness to question my activities so I grabbed the shovel and began digging Ruth's grave about thirty yards off the dirt track.

Desert soil can be hard as a rock in some places, but when I broke through the top foot or so, the digging became relatively easy, still it took me two hours to dig a five-by-two foot hole to a depth of three feet.

I rolled Ruth's body into the makeshift grave and quickly backfilled the hole. Finally I pulled an old piece of carpet from the trunk, the one I put under the car when I'm changing the oil, and drug it over the grave several times, then back to the car to erase my tracks where I had dragged her body. Satisfied, I made a two-point reverse, being careful to avoid the calamity of being get stuck out here, and moved the car down the road a short distance before returning to drag the carpet over the car tracks where I had turned around.

What more could I do? I had concealed any traces of my nocturnal activities, and three months later there still had been no report of a body found in the desert. I felt safe, but I also felt eaten up with guilt, way down deep in my guts. It could still happen any day now, coyotes or wild dogs might dig up the body and a hiker or dirt-biker might find her. I had not been sleeping well since it happened, and had been losing weight too.

And this morning, while waiting for the A's to play the Giants, I had blurted out to Frank my confession of murder, instantly regretting it.

But, had he really understood what I had said? The Dugout is not a place for clandestine meetings of secret lovers, the bar is lighted too well. About the same time I made my confession to Frank, he spotted a brother officer entering the joint and waved to him.

"Hi ya, Smitty! How about them Cardinals last night?" Frank was a rabid Philadelphia fan, and now that it appeared they would be in the series against Saint Louis, Frank wanted to make a bet with Bob Smith as to which team would emerge victorious. Frank layed a hand over my forearm and muttered, "Excuse me just a minute, Bill, I gotta get a bet down with Smitty while he is still laboring under the illusion Saint Louis will beat the Phillies."

Frank left the table but returned before long, leaving me to regret my folly while I was alone. What could I do now? What should I do now? I had apparently gotten away with Ruth's murder by spreading the word how broken up I felt after she left me. I reported her to missing persons, but of course they hadn't turned up anything because I had done a good job disposing of the body. Then I screwed everything up by blurting out my crime to Frank. He might be a retired cop, but old habits die hard. How long before detectives from the Homicide Squad would knock on my door? With no corpus delecti, would they be able to convict me? It wouldn't set a precedent in legal history, it had happened before.

By the time Frank returned to the table I had decided he needed to be killed also; it would be the only way to conceal my crime. But how? I didn't plan to kill Ruth, and I had been lucky while disposing of her body. I couldn't depend upon luck a second time. First I would need a fool-proof plan, and I would need it fast!

I'm not a violent man by nature. Killing Frank in cold blood would take more guts than I believed I possessed. I had to kill him before he discussed Ruth's murder with the police. California uses lethal injection and I wasn't looking forward to a quick departure for an unplanned vacation in eternity.

Frank was a dedicated jogger, it must have been a habit he developed while a member of the police force. In summer, he always jogged early in the morning at San Sebastion Park. On Monday morning, when I figured most people would be preparing for work instead of jogging, I rode my bicycle to San Sebastion and found a deserted spot along the jogging trail.

My weapon was cunning. I don't own a gun and if the police were summoned before I could make a getaway, I didn't want to be caught with a knife. I knew I wouldn't draw any attention to myself if I appeared to be a fitness nut myself, bicycling along the dirt track, so I prepared a "needle" for my bicycle pump. The kind you use to inflate basketballs or footballs is only an inch long, so I extended the length by soldering the tip from a syringe used to refill ink-jet cartridges to the needle inflator. When I finished, the needle was three inches long, more than adequate for my needs. The human heart is larger than a grapefruit and I would have no trouble hitting the target.

After concealing my bike well off the trail, I moved to a point where I could see the parking lot. When Frank arrived, he spent about five minutes doing warm-up exercises and then hit the trail. I was waiting, crouched behind a bush as he came jogging up the trail.

He was too surprised to resist me. When he was but six feet away, I withdrew the plunger of my hand pump, stood up and thrust the needle into his chest. As I pushed down the plunger, at least a pint of compressed air was shot into his heart. Death would occur in seconds, bit I didn't hang around. I let his body fall to the ground, put my bicycle on the trail and rode away, as nonchalantly as any other person out for some healthy exercise in the early morning hours.

On my way home, three miles from the scene of the murder, I unscrewed the needle tip from my bicycle pump and dropped it through the grate of a storm drain. End of story. I had done it! My stupid confession, a slip of the tongue, was safe now! I would get away with it!

* * *

Seventy-two hours later, Bob Smith had me seated in an interrogation room at Huntington Division.

"Honest, Smitty, I didn't even know Frank was in the park on Monday. I didn't even know he'd had a heart attack until I saw on the news at noon that his body had been found in the park."

"It wasn't a heart attack, Bill, the coroner says Frank died from an injection which caused an air-embolism. We made plaster casts of the bicycle tracks found near the body and I just received word from the detectives executing a search warrant at your home, the tracks match your mountain bike.

"We found several cigarette butts where you waited in the bushes for Frank to approach. I had a hunch Frank must know something about your wife's disappearance and you needed to keep him quiet, permanently. We obtained a warrant to get a sample of your DNA from the tooth-brush in your bathroom. It's a match to the cigarette butts. We've got you dead to rights. Why don't you come clean?"

Did they have me? For certain? "You can't prove I was at the park at the same time as Frank, Bob. You won't be able to establish motive, weapon, and opportunity. You've got nothing on me so I think I'll just be on my way home. You can't hold me."

There was a knock on the door which opened without waiting for a response. A pretty female officer came in and handed a note to Smitty.

"I'm afraid you won't be leaving, Bill, the lab just matched blood from your bicycle pump to Frank's DNA. I'm arresting you for the murder of Frank Murdock. I think it's time you got yourself a lawyer, Bill, but what I can't figure out is why you had to kill your friend?"

They had me now. Not even OJ's lawyer could get me out of this; he was dead anyway. How could I have missed a tiny drop of blood where my needle injector attached to the bicycle pump? Nevertheless, I'd missed it and I was a done goose!

"I had to, Smitty. I really didn't mean to kill Ruth, it was an accident, honest. Once she was dead, there was nothing I could do except try to cover it up and spread the word she had left me. Her body is out in the desert east of Indio.

"It began on Saturday. Frank and I were at The Dugout, you saw us there when he made that bet with you on the series this year. I felt more guilty than ever that morning, and I blurted out my confession to Frank, just as he turned his head when he saw you come into the bar. There was no way I could take back my words, so I had to kill him. I hated to do it, but I didn't want to end up on Death Row."

"I'm afraid that's where you'll be headed now, Bill, as soon as the trial is over and your found guilty and sentenced. What a waste. All for nothing. Frank was my friend, too, and you didn't have to kill him. I hope I'll be there when they stick the needle in your arm, Bill. I hope you suffer. What a needless waste."

"But I had to, Smitty. I just had to do it!"

"No, you didn't, Bill. Didn't you ever wonder why Frank preferred The Dugout with twenty-five inch televisions instead of one of those sports bars with the six foot projection TV's?"

"I did mention that to him once, but he just brushed it off, saying he preferred the atmosphere at The Dugout."

"He did prefer the atmosphere, Bill, and he preferred the lighting. Those big projection TV's require a darkened room for good viewing. Frank was retired from the force six years ago when a meth lab exploded just as he entered. His partner was killed, but Frank only suffered permanent ear damage.

"Frank was deaf as a post, but he could read lips in a well lighted bar. When he turned his head to talk to me, Frank couldn't read your lips. He wasn't aware of your confession, Bill! You didn't have to kill him!"