Killing Katie (An Affair With Murder) (Volume 1) (5 page)

“A Twinkie?” he asked, excitedly. His voice sounded lower and I noticed a rougher quality and a break in its tone.

Was his voice changing? Puberty? Already?
I realized with a stabbing sadness just how quickly my little boy was growing up.

I waved two fingers, bouncing them up and down in front of him. His eyes lit up with a hungry spark.

“You rock, Mom. Thanks.”

“But only after you’re done eating.”

“I know,” he countered, and then hitched up onto his toes for a kiss. Leaning over and planting my lips on his cheek, I realized Michael seemed taller too. I felt a mix of pride and sadness as I watched him spin around and sling a backpack over his shoulder. I followed his footsteps as he traipsed across the lawn toward the school bus stop. The nighttime chill and the autumn air had set the dewy grass to frost. My son’s size fives cut into the carpet of white. Other paths cut in from all different directions—a mix of size fours and sixes and a few eights from the older kids. The paths tracked across the lawns of our small neighborhood, following a course that had been set for them.

My emotions began to mingle with my earlier revelation and the sentiments that came from watching my son. I was a mother, a wife, and a homemaker.

This is the way it is supposed to be
.
I’m happy,
I told myself. But I was immediately struck with the fluttering reservations I’d searched for earlier.
Who am I to risk everything, anything? But Steve,
I demanded. Sure, there were jobs that didn’t risk my going to prison, but my mind was set and I wasn’t going to change it.

I stood on our porch and felt the cool air run across my face and through my hair. In my mind, I imagined that I was a winter butterfly, cocooned and living inside a lie. Something ticked inside me then, some deep, selfish notion that I embraced and held onto like a starving animal with food. I’d lived the life that had been scripted for me, and now it was time to hunt, it was time to eat, it was time to become
me
.

O
UR HOME COMPUTER
never looked so intimidating before. The large, blank screen stared at me, daring me, as if knowing what I was about to do, as if knowing what subtle treacheries my fingertips would search for. I quickly pushed my thumb against the power button and listened as the computer’s guts whirred, coming to life.

I twisted Katie’s friendship ring—a nervous habit I’d developed soon after we’d given them to each other. I had no idea where to get started. Just exactly how did one become a murderer? I doubted that I’d find a wiki page online, offering a step-by-step guide . . . or maybe there was? I simply had no idea.

But there were other things that I wanted to do too. There was so much more than just the web searches. I needed a new box, a secret box. One that would keep my designs safe. I’d kept my first one, and I often thought of it fondly. I knew that it would always be safe from curious eyes. I’d hidden my secret box beneath the floorboards of my old room. While just a beat-up, tattered cigar box from a great uncle whose face I can barely remember, I knew its every detail. When I had last opened, the faint cigar smell was as I remembered it: old tobacco, tangy but pleasant. The batting I’d lined it with had thinned and lost its cloud-fresh white, but the corners had stayed true, securing the secrets of my youth. And inside, my first Killing Katie
designs were still legible—once the paper’s endless curl had been straightened.

Tapping my finger atop Steve’s desk, I considered my needs. The first was a new box. The screen flickered something at me, offering a list of cryptic messages about drivers.

We need a new computer,
I thought as the familiar frustrations began.

We’d needed a new computer for a while. The screen rolled up, spouting message after message. Steve had mentioned that I should wait before touching the mouse and the keyboard. I stared, trying to be patient.

Maybe there was a digital box that I could use? An online version? A folder that only I could access?

I’d need to be able to get to it from anywhere and from any machine. Surely, something like that existed.

But how traceable would it be? How would it work? Would it be too risky?
I wondered.
Worth the risk?
After all, my high—my need to feed the hunger—came from the planning and the designs too; half wouldn’t be an option.

The computer screen blinked a flash of blue before showing a collage of last year’s vacation pictures. My gut twisted at the sight of our family photos. I pressed my fingers against the cool screen, touching one of them. The photo was of the four of us sitting together on the beach, a tall ocean surf climbing behind us. A helpful stranger had taken ten minutes out of his own vacation to try and get the best angle.

“I can’t do this,” I mumbled, running my fingers to another photograph. Anxiety lurched inside me, telling me this wasn’t right. “Not here.” And not just because it felt risky, but because it felt dirty somehow, like having an affair in the bed I shared with Steve.

The computer’s screen faded and then flashed another set of photos at me, but not before I saw the smudges from my fingerprint.

Gotta clean that
.

I suddenly felt like an amateur and also felt equally overwhelmed, maybe even a bit stupid. I had to be smarter about what I was planning, what I was going to do. The first thing I had to do was to clean my smudgy fingerprints from the computer screen. Steve hated it when anyone touched the glass.

The screen is for looking, not touching,
I could hear his voice saying in my head.

I cradled my chin, my elbows leaning on the desk as I watched more photos come to life. A holiday party, complete with a pair of horribly loud Christmas sweaters and floppy Santa hats. I think Snacks had just turned two back then. Oh, and that night. That had been a good night. I shifted in my seat, titillated by the memory. That was the night Steve and I ditched the wool sweaters and wore only our Santa hats. I wore mine in the traditional style. And Steve? Well, he wore his Santa hat somewhere else. He’d joked, asking if I’d like to visit his North Pole. The urge to laugh came to me, but I couldn’t.

My eyes wandered back to the smudges.

My fingerprints. Evidence.

Steve was smart about that stuff, and the detectives in his division were
very
smart about that stuff. The excitement from earlier began to fade with the screen’s photos. A stack of case folders lay there on the desk next to me; I recognized them immediately. There was a mix: some from the city, some local. The two offices often crossed since our town bordered the city, and as Steve would say, “Criminals respect no boundaries, geographic or otherwise.”

The sight of the folders spurred a memory from the year before—just after I’d made a habit of reading through them. There had been a particularly disturbing case that I’d pored over one evening. Nearly a half bottle of wine warmed my belly as I disappeared into my favorite reading chair. Yellow light from my lamp shone down—soft and familiar and in a perfect round halo. I’d opened the case file and learned more than I ever wanted to know about a dangerous pedophile. Worse yet, this man my husband was trying to put away lived fewer than five miles from our house. I’d known that last part only because Steve had openly talked about the case. I shook in disgust, recalling some of the things he’d done and the lives he’d ruined.

“I’d definitely kill the creep if given the chance,” I’d mumbled, adding his name to my list. “The world wouldn’t miss him.”

My husband had almost lost that case, though. The conviction had hinged on a key witness who’d backed out of testifying. And to make matters worse, they’d found nothing on his computer.

“It’s as empty as our case,” Steve said gravely. He’d come home late, flustered and defeated and upset that the guy was going to walk. I couldn’t shake his mood—no matter what I tried.

“You’ve got nothing else?” I’d asked, thinking through every crime scene television show we’d ever watched.

“Guys like him, they usually keep trophies,” he’d said in a rant. “Thought for sure we’d find something on the computer.”

And they did find something. It was a chance find. Luck, really. Dust on a bookshelf pulled the eyes of a young police officer trying to prove himself. A thin gray coat covered the shelf, hinting that none of the books had been read in a long time. That is, all except one book. That book had no dust in front of it.

“Like someone had drawn an arrow and pointed to it,” Steve told me. “Just needed to pull the book open.” Inside, they’d found the pages had been welled out to store a portable hard drive. Thousands of images were recovered. They had their evidence. It was all they needed to convict the bastard.

But the pedophile was out already. Free these days. A year in jail, and he was sent home. The dust on the shelves had become thicker, but offered no more clues. “A courtroom fuck-up,” Steve had called it. “Ten years’ probation and registering as a sex offender.”

“He’ll be one of the first on my list,” I mumbled.

With that thought, I swiped the sleeve of my shirt over the screen, erasing any traces of having used the computer. I snapped at the power button like a yapping dog, annoyed and disappointed by the lack of progress I’d made that morning.

“If I’m doing this, then I’m going to do it right!”

S
UNLIGHT CREPT OVER
Katie’s shoulder, throwing the rest of her into a harsh silhouette. I covered my eyes, but not before waving her toward our table. She saw me and hurried over at once, carrying the sun behind her until she was beneath the small café’s awning. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust; I blinked away the colorful sunspots.

“Outside?” she questioned as she began to pull a chair out.

“Might be our last time before the winter sets in,” I answered. She sat across from me, her smile waning. Katie’s eyes were puffy and glassy, as if she’d been crying. I sighed quietly so my disappointment would go unnoticed. This was going to be a
Katie
lunch, filled with
Katie
moments. Meaning something had gone wrong, and we were going to talk about whatever it was the entire time.

I shrugged to shake off my concern, realizing it was fine. I just hoped that I’d have enough patience to stomach the conversation. After all, if we were talking about Katie, we wouldn’t be talking about me. And the only news I had to offer was about having decided to murder someone—not exactly the type of news one shares over a meal at a small café.

“Feels good in the sun,” she said, anxiously playing around with the dishes and tableware, trying to fill the time until she could spill what was bothering her.

“Things aren’t good?” I asked, feeling impatient and wanting to shortcut the filler, but making my voice sound concerned. Katie stopped fidgeting and nearly broke down, covering her mouth. She swiped at her eyes impatiently and waved off my question.

“Let’s just eat and have a drink or two . . . or three,” she answered. “We’ve got an hour before I have to get back to the office.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, uncertain if I should nod or shake my head. She nodded for me, confirming. “When you’re ready.”

I glanced at my phone, noting the time. Michael wouldn’t be home from school for at least another four hours. Steve’s mother often offered to sit for Snacks—frequently hinting around that it looked like Snacks was going to be her last grandbaby. Shamelessly, I took advantage of her time every chance I could, especially on nice days like today.

“That can’t be right,” I mumbled. I felt giddy, realizing I’d have a small pocket of free time after our lunch.

“What? What is it?”

“Sorry, nothing.” Three hours! I shook my head. Three free hours after lunch! Free time doesn’t come by very often. Three hours doesn’t sound like much, but to me it was a universe of time to do some more planning.

Katie had checked her phone too, but for her the phone was a tether back to her office, a virtual leash that constantly nagged and yanked on her for attention like a needy toddler. A sporadic mess of rat-a-tat-tat clicking sounds volleyed over the table as her fingernails hit against the phone’s screen. And as she tapped message after message, I looked at Katie’s business suit and felt a sudden, and surprising, twinge of jealousy. Katie and her husband Jerry stopped having children after their boys came into the world, which was great for my Michael. Growing up at the same time, the three boys were as close as cousins.

As best friends, though, work was where our lives went in different directions. From those first moments in the tub together, and through decades of being joined at the hip, we found ourselves separated now. Katie had gone back to working full time as a business analyst and process owner for a big nonprofit firm. She always joked that for a nonprofit, they had more money to spend than most small countries. As for me, I stayed home. I didn’t get to trade in my mommy clothes for a slim-fitting pantsuit and tall, sexy heels. I didn’t get to plan out morning coffees and business lunches. Another pang of jealousy leaped up to nip at me. Although I was happy with living simply, the envy I felt at seeing Katie dressed up for work took me by surprise.

I remember wanting to go back to work, however. I had planned to go back to work; Steve and I talked about it and had even set a date. But then Snacks came to us as a bit of a surprise, and I never gave work another thought. Not until now, that is. Not until the fear of losing Steve had become very real, very possible.

For now, I’d at least dressed the part, deciding at the last minute to put together an actual outfit for lunch. And seeing how Katie killed it with her gray pantsuit and heels, I felt relieved that I had taken the extra time when picking out what I wanted to wear. I decided on a shorter skirt that rode high and let my legs show a little more than usual. Adding in a new pair of open-toe heels and a champagne blouse, I felt comfortable sitting across from her. Anyone passing by could easily have mistaken us as having a business lunch.

As if she’d been reading my mind, Katie said, “Love your outfit.”