THE PERFECT MURDER
By
Pamela White

I knelt down to get a better look under the old workbench in the cellar. That's where Serena said the safe would be, hidden back in the shadows. I peered into the dark, disregarding the dirt floor in the old home's cellar and what it would do to my pantyhosed knees. Stretching, reaching, I grasped it with both hands and tugged. Bit by bit, the small fireproof safe scooted forward under my determined efforts. It was extremely heavy just as Serena had warned me. I could lift it. For her I could do anything.

"So you are the famous Kelly Pointer," a male's voice sneered from the doorway of the cellar.

I jumped to my feet, fought the dizziness I felt in my head, and focused at the man with the gun.

"How nice of you to agree to steal my safe for the lovely Serena. Get real. Serena's not going to get her way this time." Waving the small gun in hypnotizing arcs, he moved forward one step, then another into the small storage room of the large cellar. I knew nothing about guns, but it looked real enough to me. From what Serena confessed about her marriage, this husband of hers, this big, bad Brock Evans was practiced in violence against women.

I stared at the still moving gun, forgetting to breathe. I had no doubt he meant to kill me right there in that filthy cellar.

"Stupid bitch, get out of my house. If you or Serena try to get back in here to steal MY safe again, I'll use this." More gestures with the gun. More menacing steps toward me.

I couldn't speak. Visions of Serena being slapped around by Brock, of being picked up and slammed into walls, of being threatened with the exact same gun filled my mind. My consciousness shut down. I moved away from the hiding place of the safe and started retreating. Instinctively, I wanted to flee, but Brock hindered access to the door. He stalked closer. The terror I felt run down my spine as I backed into the solid stone wall was nearly complete.

Nowhere to run.

It was time to fight.

My compassion for Serena came from my own experience. Summer weekends with my grandfather involved hours in the hunting camp through the woods, far from the watchfulness of my parents and grandmother. He had guns too, so the truth went untold until my family was gone, and I found my way to a therapist. Part of my "recovery" included a self-defense class. The goal was self-empowerment. The result was simply to cement my belief that the sickos in the world would find me sooner or later.

My urge for flight stymied by limitations of my situation, I reached behind and to my side hopelessly searching for a weapon. If I was going to die, at least it would be in battle. Victims no more and all that.

My hand swept behind me along the wall, and felt, of all things, a bat. Perfect. Brock had moved in closer, his anger at my continued presence mounting. Did he really think I was going to run past him while he waved that, that deadly thing in his hand?

I tried to remember my self-defense lessons. Grasp the weapon (the bat) at the end. Use the leverage. As in the all-American game, swing the bat. Make contact with the ball (or the bad guy). Hit a home run.

Suddenly, before he could figure out what I was doing, I brought forth the bat with one hand, grabbed on with my other one and swung straight for his ribs. Aim to maim. My eyes closed involuntarily as I yelled out my war cry, "Never Again!"

The force of contact jarred my entire body; I tried to swing the bat back for another defensive whack but it wouldn't budge. My eyes flew open. I'm not sure if they understood what they saw. Brock, with his soundless mouth opening and closing, began to sink to the floor, as if he was melting. I let go of the object I was holding, still attached to the dying man. Shocked to the core, I realized it wasn't a baseball bat. It was a genuine galvanized steel tipped, top of the line, lifetime guarantee, garden rake.

Didn't they have a gardener? Why would this thing be down here in the cellar? The incongruity of my concern over the presence of this tool versus the fact that a man was dying, probably dead at my feet, by my hands, didn't occur to me. Tools should be in the tool shed. For that matter, why was I not surprised about the presence of a bat. That is, when I thought the rake was a bat.

I hadn't thought, I saw that now. I had reacted. A very bad way to live your life, I had learned in my group therapy sessions. Very bad, indeed.

With my hands quaking, I reached toward Brock's body. It was true, just like they say. It was obvious that the life had leaked out of him in the few seconds since I punctured any number of vital organs in our contretemps.

I had to focus on Serena now. My poor Serena. She had hated and left her husband, but it would still be a loss for her, I was sure. Then it hit me. Murder in the first degree. Here I was sheltering this man's wife while she fought for her share in the marital assets during the nasty divorce. I probably hated him more than she did, I was in his home, ostensibly to steal a safe with all their combined legal documents. He may have surprised me, but what if the police thought that I hid in the cellar until he came down so I could kill him? What if they thought Serena was in on it?

I had to protect her, and hope against all hope that I could protect myself at the same time. It was a cold night, and I still had my gloves on from the drive over. I had let myself in with a key, and gone straight to the cellar. Serena also wanted me to pick up her clothes and jewelry, but the safe was most urgent. She had stressed that over and over while we were making the plans for my trip to the Evans home.

I walked into the adjoining room scanning the shelves of paints, brushes and mineral spirits. Latex gloves. I pulled a pair on over my own gloves. I had never read a detective novel all the way through, nor was I interested in police dramas. Did I need extra gloves, anyway? What other things besides fingerprints could be used to identify criminals. DNA? What if I left hair? Could that be tested? Or was that just science fiction still?

Don't react, stand back and think, I reminded myself. I still wasn't breathing normally, but I gave myself a mental shake. I can't face all the errors I might be making.

One thing at a time.

Remove the rake and take it over to the washbasin, rinse it off. Lean it back on wall.

Open package of plastic drop cloth. Use duct tape to manacle his hands together, same with ankles. Wrap him in plastic. Drag it under table with safe. Sorry, honey, I won't be bringing the safe home tonight, but at least he won't be able to keep those most important papers out of your hands for much longer.

Now what?

Walking up the stairs, I tried to formulate a clever plan. I didn't know how long it would take before anyone would find him, down there in the cold damp cellar. I didn't know who would even bother looking since his wife had left him. I knew that sooner might be better. Serena was at a charity dinner auction or some such thing this evening. She would have an alibi, so sooner would be better. Couldn't they tell the time of death? Yes, Serena needed that alibi.

Besides an anonymous 911 call, I could only come up with one way to get police involved. I painstakingly climbed the stairs, heavy in my heart, and heavy in my body. I wearily searched through the rooms for paper and pen. X marked the kitchen desk.

Serena had drawn me a map of the relevant areas in the house: the back door entrance, the hallway to the cellar, the safe's location and the stairs to her room. The kitchen's location hadn't seemed material to the success of this mission. It took me a few minutes to find what I needed, but eventually I sat at the kitchen desk, holding a pen in my double gloved hands, shaking so hard I couldn't get the pen to paper for several seconds. Breathing deeply I began to write:

"We have Brock Evans. Follow my instructions and he will not be hurt."

Not very eloquent. What kind of ransom demand seemed appropriate? During my dramatic junior high days, I had read a novel about a kidnapping. The fictional ransom was equal to twice the value of the kidnappee's home. What had Serena said? Her share of the estate's worth, while modest by some standards, would still equal $350,000. That made the house worth $700,000 and the likely ransom to be $1.4 million. Just one problem. Who should receive this note? Not the police directly. Not Serena. Number one priority was to leave Serena out of it. Brock was a financier, probably crooked, and he had a partner. Not having much time to come up with a better plan, I decided this partner fellow was the best bet.

I continued the note: "$1.4 million dollars in unmarked, small bills will be delivered to me by this Friday at midnight. Further instructions to follow." It sounded corny, even to me. Maybe I should write more. "You will be called Friday morning with the details." I could say that; if Mr. Partner man called the police and they searched the house, no one would be surprised that there was no phone call. I found Brock's business cards, addressed an envelope to his partner and stamped the letter. Still shaking, I put the letter in the mailbox on my way down the long driveway, muddy from recent late fall lawn work.

I drove home.

"Kelly, you're home!"

Serena's happy voice was a shock to hear. Too much had happened for her to remain cheerful and innocent.

"Why aren't you at your dinner?" I asked out of concern, albeit a bit harshly. She needed that alibi, dammit.

"I was bored there, I just wanted to have a quiet evening at home with you." Her eyes were bright, the question unasked.

"Um, I had to work late, then I went looking for a new bathroom rug." I looked at the floor while I lied. "The old one, you know, it's starting to disintegrate. So I didn't get around to stopping by your old stomping grounds. I know you wanted the safe and clothes, but.... Please forgive me."

I expected a look of disappointment and some sharp words: Serena wasn't one to accept a setback, but she shrugged. "Don't worry. Brock will be out of town another time and we'll get my stuff then."

For obvious reasons I didn't tell her that her information about Brock traveling this week had been incorrect.

"I'm gonna take a hot bath, Okay? It's been a long day, and I'm really beat." I headed for the kitchen and a makeshift martini. Taking a large drinking glass, I poured an overabundance of gin and added three olives for texture. I couldn't stand to be in the same room with Serena, the woman who had awakened my hopes of someday being loved. The thought of her cool hand touching me gently on the shoulder as she walked by turned my stomach. Her blameless smile was discordant with my current reality. I had to put a door and some running, steamy water between us.

I lay back in the tub, half of my drink doing a dance in my empty stomach. Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly, my breath was gone and I saw the body before me. I had killed a man, I had murdered a man, and I had left the scene because I didn't want to get pushed around by the police after having been pushed around my men my whole life. How's that for pathological?

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," welled forth from my inside, part prayer of confession, part plea for forgiveness, part terror of the price I'd have to pay. Weeping, I let myself sink slowly under the water, a liquid baptism to clean my soul. And all I could think of: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." My liberal arts education was finally paying off.

***

All my life I had managed to manage. That is, I told myself that what happened in the past, was past. Live for today, blah, blah. I was okay wasn't I? A simple attempt to buy a washer showed me how wrong that belief was.

The rage, a seed sown by my grandfather but watered and fertilized by my mother, father, teachers, boss, boyfriends, and all, had apparently been kept under wraps long enough. This day, the appliance salesman tried the old bait and switch on me. I exploded. One minute, I'm a demure woman asking about washers, and the next I am shrieking obscenities and throwing signs and his clipboard through the air. I loudly shared my belief that this place was a den of thieves with the other customers.

The police didn't exactly arrest me, but they did scare me into seeking help. I found a therapist who saw through my calm, quiet exterior and pushed me to admit that yes, all those years ago, my grandfather had used me, and yes, my family knew but probably had been abused by this man in their own time. And that yes, all my subsequent problems with people, especially men, were rooted in my denial of the damage done to me. I continued seeing her privately once a week, and in a group setting once a week. The group therapy fascinated me. It was a women's support group: everyone had self-esteem problems and the goal was to work on how to change the way we reacted to others, so that our lives would be fuller, happier, more whole.

Serena was a member. She bravely opened up about her abusive husband. I was made courageous by her actions and resolved to tell the truth about my past. Two days after my first tough session telling on my grandfather, I ran into Serena in a deli. We sat down together. She told me we could help each other, even outside of group, a big no-no therapy-wise. Still, we knew each other's pain, and I didn't see how it could do us any harm. I admit I was smitten with her clear blue eyes, and sweet smile, her perfect hair. It had been years since my last boyfriend left with my TV and La-Z-Boy. My emotions had been dead so long, I knew resurrection was impossible. But there I was feeling some new stirrings sitting across the table from Serena.

Of course, if I had taken this issue to my therapist she would have explained it as my need for mothering. That, logically, I was drawn to a woman exhibiting kindness and understanding of my pain, as a mother-figure would.

I never took it to my therapist, for I didn't want to analyze my love for this woman; my only desire was to experience it while keeping it hidden from Serena. It hadn't been more than three months after that first private talk that she showed up on my doorstep, sobbing, and bruised. Brock had been after her, for the last time, she swore. But she needed a place to stay, just for one night, until she could get to the bank the next morning.

She'd been my roommate ever since. I worked very hard not to show the depth of my feelings, to allow her the illusion that I took care of her because she was wounded and I was a good friend. I rationalized this deceit that I was merely her mother-figure just so I could keep her close.

Last night she had come to me as I sat on the couch reading yet another magazine article about how to melt the fat away juxtaposed with an article on the most decadent chocolate cakes ever. She laid her cool hand on my cheek and said, "I hate to ask this of you, you've been such a wonderful friend. I've never had such a friend. But I need your help desperately."

Her lawyer had said that Brock was hiding the deeds to their home, as well as to other property. I explained to her that deeds and such were public documents. He only had a copy; her lawyer would get all relevant information for her. For a minute I thought I'd overstepped my bounds as her eyes narrowed and a red angry spot appeared on each cheek. She sighed and said she had a confession to make.

"There are some letters in there too, I'd rather not talk about them, but if he uses them against me, and he will....why I'd end up with nothing. And don't you think I should be able to at least have some money to get started on my own?"

She was making sense to me; if my grandfather had been alive when I'd made the horrific realization that it wasn't my fault, I'd have wanted a payback too. I agreed to help her out.

She knew where they were, but because of all the bad memories, she was too fearful to go to the house to get them. But, she did know that Brock was out of town this week, and if I was willing to do this huge, enormous, lifesaving favor, well, then she'd draw me a map and give me a list of what she needed.

Still in the tub, in a near-drunken state I remembered the gun. Where? Had I left it on the floor, wrapped it in the plastic, kicked it under the table? And the muddy driveway - wouldn't my tires have left telltale tracks? And no matter what I did, wouldn't the police come after Serena?

As a murderess, I sucked.

It was self-defense, which no one would believe now. Why hadn't I just called the police from the house? Why had I been so afraid? Well, the gun, for one thing, although I had no notion of where that gun was now. The gun and Serena's witness of his violent behavior would certainly back up my claim of... Oh, it was too late for that now. I had killed a man, it would never look like self-defense. No decision would be made that night, or ever, to go to the police. It looked like I would be forced to forever hold my peace.

***

Sleep eventually came that night, helped along by a second gin-filled olive-enhanced water glass. The next morning, Serena was gone when I awoke to the first snowfall of the season. I went through the motions of preparing for work. Another forward step made as a result of therapy was a job change. I was never meant to be in the service industry, dealing with the public. My group had talked me into searching out more suitable, less stressful work.

Instead I found a job working alone in a cubicle, proofreading. My only contact with other employees was brief and minimal through out the day, as they would peek over my partial walls and inform me that such and so article was ready for my final reading. It was easy work, detailed and tedious, which kept me from thinking at all during the day. Thank God for that now.

Two days passed automatically. I passively allowed myself to continue as if nothing had happened that dusk in the cellar. Serena was sweet and loving, but I tried to avoid her, probably out of guilt, but some unacknowledged bit of information was knocking on my brain desperate to get in. All I knew was that it was something that I didn't want to know. I fought it off. An abusive childhood had given me the skill of compartmentalizing my emotions, my life. I shut the door on the murder, then I shut the door on whatever warning flare was firing.

Serena met me at the door on Wednesday night, breathless and oddly excited.

"Oooh," she gasped, "It's horrible. Robert called. Brock is gone."

So the news had finally broken. Robert was the partner who had received the ransom demand. How nice of him to tell Serena about her kidnapped husband.

"It's horrible news, Kelly. The absolutely most frightening thing is - the police think it was an inside job. His murder, I mean."

Murder? That was fast work on their part. I swallowed hard. At least it was easy to act upset and frightened. My hands were back to their old quaking selves. Geez, who was acting?

"How? When? The police?"

"Kelly, they think it was the night you were supposed to get the safe, and you know, my clothes! I'm so glad you didn't go. In fact, I think we should just not mention that at all." Her expression changed nearly imperceptibly as she said this; her eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid they will suspect me - you know, motive and all. I am the estranged wife, we have a history of fighting and of course, I get it all: money, house, insurance. It's ridiculous really, but there you have it. Brock's dead. I'm sure they'll think it was me."

"No, they won't. They won't, they can't. You're absolutely right, we won't tell them I planned to be there that night. Won't say I was to get the safe." I paused, grateful that she had introduced the topic, indebted that she wished no mention made of our plan. "Have you seen, well, have the police been here?"

"Well, Robert called to let me know, and then the police called and asked me to come in for, you know, questioning. Will you come with me?"

"Oh, I think ...well, don't you think ....a lawyer. Much better. Take a lawyer, just in case."

"But I want you with me," Serena tilted her head sideways. I looked away.

"Sure, just let me go to the bathroom, then we'll go. Is that good?"

"Yes," she sniffled but managed a brave smile.

I splashed water on my face. I was terrified, I should have realized the only way to keep Serena from being suspect number one was to confess.

We entered the station with an air of anticipation on Serena's part, total guilt on mine. couldn't they see I was the one? Didn't they know by looking at me that I had killed a man?

We needn't have worried. They had asked her in for questioning to solidify their case against the prime suspect.

When Robert got the letter asking for ransom, it took him several minutes to read the shaky handwriting. How was I to know that sometimes business partners don't really like each other? Robert waited a day, I guess trying to decide whether or not to act on the kidnapping note, before calling police claiming that he had been busy trying to gather up the ransom money. The police were unimpressed and immediately went to the possible scene of the crime: the Evans home.

Once there, they apparently turned into keystone cops, bumbling their way through the home, walking over my tracks from the cellar through the downstairs into the kitchen. They dusted the entire house, save for the kitchen which was the immediate choice for the police's temporary HQ, and the cellar, which no one seemed curious about. They found lots of fingerprints though, and that kept them busy for awhile. During the time the detectives were conferring in the kitchen further destroying any possible evidence, the future prime suspect, Robert, decided to do some investigating on his own. And the detectives let him!

He wound up down in the cellar and, gagging at the smell, rushed over to the washbasin to vomit, further confusing any possible evidence. He saw the body wrapped in plastic pushed under the workbench, which certainly aroused the suspicion of the police. And now the case was murder, so more police were called in, more dusting for fingerprints, more checking for method of entrance.

Curiously enough the house's cellar had windows near the ceiling. They were simple and old - small, but not too small for a man Robert's size to squeeze through, and they actually were latched into place from the outside. No inside screens or glass blocked the perpetrator's admission to the home. The recent snow had obscured any possible tracks. Neighbors had seen nothing of the dastardly deed done that night. A writing sample taken with Robert's right hand, not his dominant left one, produced a shaky and illegible scrawl that had experts crowing about a 45% matchup with the ransom note.

Due to the Medical Examiner's personal schedule, the autopsy took place 36 hours after the body was found. Time of death was quite randomly established, leaving Robert without the possibility of a definite alibi.

The clumsily cleaned galvanized steel tip, top of the line, lifetime guarantee rake was nowhere to be found in the cellar, a terrifying reality for me. Someone had found the weapon and removed it. Someone knew.

Police assumed, incorrectly, that the murderer had taken the strange unknown weapon with him, although they were fairly certain it was a sharp ended cylindrical device that had been used to pierce Brock's lung and heart at evenly spaced intervals. And the gun? Brock's little gun was real, but it didn't belong to him. It was Robert's gun all along. Kept at the office, easily accessible to Brock on the one night he had an unexpected intruder of the female persuasion. That gun just served to confuse the case more - it belonged to Robert, had only Brock's prints on it, and it had never been fired.

As the "facts" of the case became known, public outcry against the brutal murder of Brock Evans by his partner increased. A rational district attorney who never felt the circumstantial evidence was enough, kept the case open, but untried.

The murder and all its fallout proved too much for my unrequited love for Serena. I couldn't stand to be near her, her tender expressions became for me a mask that kept the truth under wraps. I never told her what happened but I was certain she knew.

The nagging thought knocking at my brain finally found a chink and worked its way in through that small opening; it was the undeniable truth that Brock Evans knew that I, Kelly Pointer, would be in the storage room of his cellar on that deadly Monday evening. He knew what I would be looking for and where I would be looking. He knew the time, and he knew my name, even though I was certain my existence was not known to him.

The papers have analyzed the Evans murder, of course focusing on his partner. Serena was scrutinized but with her blue eyes and fragile emotional state along with her therapist's deposition as to the brutal facts of her marriage kept her from being a true suspect.

I don't know where Serena is today. She took the money and ran, claiming she had to leave the sad memories of her old home, placing it on the market for $700,000. She could have asked more because of its notoriety, but then on the flip side she could have gotten less because of its murderous history. I don't know whether she put the rake there, intending it to be the murder weapon, but no one else could have removed it from the cellar. I try not to speculate on whether she was willing to let me die there in that cellar if her plans had gone awry.

Rumor has it that a book is due to be published on the second anniversary of the dastardly Brock Evans' demise. The thesis of this book is that someone unknown, aided and abetted by the bumbling police, Robert and Brock's deteriorating partnership, snow storms and cellar windows, accidentally committed the perfect murder.

I guess that would be me.