Continued...

* * * *

With Zelda down for her nap, Art’s mind began to wander. It was certain from what Shannon said that Corey Kruse was wheedling his way back into their — her — life. Art wouldn’t mind Shannon taking off — truly he wouldn’t — if Corey were a different sort of guy. His initial hope that they’d marry had been replaced by a desire for Kruse’s immediate removal from the planet. There was Zelda to consider now.

  An old fireman immediately thought of the possibility of a fire when he heard about an unlicensed handyman — if you could even call Corey that — playing around with electricity. It would be simple for Art to stage such a fire. He’d investigated enough suspicious fires for insurance companies — an easy way to pick up some extra cash for his retirement — to know just what to do. He could be in and out of that house in minutes — another trick he’d learned was how to get through a door cleanly. He prided himself on not taking doors down with a fire ax if at all possible. Quiet would be called for: stealth. And, of course, he’d make sure Carleen hadn’t come back early, that no one else was inside.

  The two hours Shannon promised came and went. Right now they were probably rolling around together in Kruse’s house. Making another baby perhaps — another baby for Kruse to ignore. The phone rang and he jumped.

  “Art?”

  The voice was unexpected but familiar. “How are you, Stan?” Stan was his oldest friend.

“Hey, boyo,” Stan said. “I saw you walking down Mack Avenue, looking like you meant business. I nearly stopped but the light turned. Made me wonder if you’d want to roll a few frames tonight?”

“You haven’t heard about my bum back?”

“That’s what happens when you become a grandfather, I guess. You take on the aches and pains of the job. Ever get out of that house, man?”

“Sure. How about a movie?”

“Shit! I knew there was something. Did I leave those videotapes over there?”

“What?” An elevator rapidly descended in Art’s stomach.

“That porn I brought over last fall. Remember? We were going to watch one or two, but found a Pistons pre-season game.” Stan giggled. “Whoa, those babies were hardcore if I remember right.”

Art wondered how Stan would feel if he told him Zelda had caught a few minutes. “I forgot all about them.”

“Well, how about watching them tonight?”

“I’d better pass, Stan, but I’ll drop them off in the next day or two.” Agreeing with Stan’s observation that he was turning into an old lady, Art hung up. Did this news really change anything, he wondered, after several minutes of a sort of fleeting relief. Perhaps Kruse hadn’t brought the videos inside his house, but he was putting something worse inside his daughter.Shannon came in looking exhausted ten minutes later. “I had to ref and then clean up the locker rooms.”

“Want a Coke?” She nodded, and he pulled one out of the fridge.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a swig. “Look, Dad. I don’t have the stomach to watch those videos. Could you just get rid of them?”

“Sure, sure. You know I’ll take care of things — like always.” That settled it; maybe it was time to admit his mistake. She looked so damned down. “Look, Shannon, funny thing. Stan just called and — guess what?”

“I was fooling myself thinking Corey had changed,” she interrupted. “How could he bring those videos into his own kid’s house?” She shook her head. “The fact that he just doesn’t get it is pitiful. I thought. . . ”

Art felt a kind of throbbing somewhere behind his eyes, a pulsing beat that was red and hot. “Don’t make a big deal out of it with him, baby,” he finally said. He was only letting it happen, right? “Corey probably wouldn’t even remember.” He swallowed hard. “You know men. What means a lot to a woman, might not. . .”

She nodded, the color slowly returning to her face. He watched as she drained the bottle and set it down on the table with a thump. “Some men anyway. He’d never be able to put Zelda first. Not like you do.”

Later that night, after both his girls were in bed, he was only able to enjoy only a fleeting satisfaction from Shannon’s words. Soon, she would bring the videos up with Corey and he would deny bringing them to the house and ultimately, she would believe or excuse him. Love did that, made you ignore things you’d normally see. The little fucker would blink his big cow eyes at her and she’d go limp. Shannon was just like him at heart, unable to move on. Bound to that one soul-mate for life. But she hadn’t chosen well. Not at all.

  It turned out that killing Corey Kruise was fairly easy; Art snuffed Corey out in his narrow, childhood bed with a feather pillow smelling faintly of mold, pressing down mercilessly with the strength of the righteous. He just hadn’t expected it to be so simple but the acrid odor of booze as he bent over the corpse explained the lack of fight.

  Covering his tracks would be the harder task. After it — after standing over Corey with a sourish mixture of regret and satisfaction churning in his stomach — he moved through the dark house with his dim beam on, looking for the electric drill that had to be there. Corey was a surprisingly tidy handyman; all his tools had been cleaned and returned to their proper case. But there is was finally, tucked away in a kitchen cabinet.

  Art had given some thought to using a typical accelerant for the fire, but it was hard to get away with it nowadays. Insurance and police investigators knew every variation, the precise look of an accelerant-set fire, the residue of chemicals left in the ash. It had to appear electrical, something related to Corey’s weekend work for his mother. In the past, Art would have tampered with Corey’s drill, making it into a lethal weapon with aluminum foil or nails that would go undetected. No more. Police work had gotten too sophisticated for a stunt like that.

  The drill Art had brought with him had been expertly redesigned but never used by a professional arsonist on an investigation Art was in on six or seven years ago. A string of fires, each brilliantly conceived and imaginatively executed, had led to the creation of a special task force. He found the drill himself when he went through the arsonist’s tool shed, a place that looked like it had been designed by California Closet’s resident pyromaniac. He had brought the tool home as a souvenir after the man’s incarceration when it was no longer needed as evidence, never imagining he would use it himself.

  The drill burst into life in a small but lethal explosion on the floor by the dead boy’s bed. Art used his cell from outside the house to make it detonate. Several cans of paint sat nearby, fostering the fire’s growth. There was still the chance it would be judged arson, but a better one it wouldn’t once the investigators learned of the home improvement project, once they saw the dingy row of poorly maintained firetraps on the block. He eased down the street feeling surprisingly peaceful as flames rushed across the small house.

  When he got home, he could hear Zelda moving about in her crib. She was making that keening sound she used when she was frightened and trying to soothe herself. Soon she would be shaking her crib rail, making her bed move as she tried to reach him. Then she would call out his name. His name! He made his inexorable way toward her.

© Patricia Abbott 2007 All Rights Reserved