After that, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
So Tony had to go.
Tony and his car, if he’d driven one here.
Obviously, I had a long night ahead of me. But I stayed sitting on the marble floor for a while longer, wondering what to do first, where to start.
Finally, I decided to start by changing my clothes.
No matter what I might end up doing, I didn’t want to do it wearing Charlie’s robe. I liked the robe too much. It was bound to get bloody if I kept it on.
Whatever got bloody would have to be destroyed.
For that reason, I couldn’t wear clothes belonging to Serena or Charlie. I wasn’t eager to sacrifice any of my own clothes, either, but figured it had to be done.
Which meant a trip to my place above the garage.
Now that my mind was made up, I stuffed Tony’s hanky and comb and everything else into the pockets of my robe. Everything except the pistol. I held on to that.
Then I went out the front door again.
I didn’t plan to go back inside the house until everything was taken care of, so I locked the door and shut it after me.
Just for the hell of it, I went over to the porch light, reached up and gave the bulb a twist.
It turned easily.
The light came on, almost blinded me.
“Very interesting,” I muttered.
Had Tony loosened it? Had someone else? Or had the bulb simply worked its way loose all on its own, with nobody’s help? (Light bulbs do that, you know. Almost as if they’re living creatures unscrewing themselves for sport or for reasons we’ll never guess.)
I left it screwed in.
All the better to see by.
Here’s the deaclass="underline" I wasn’t worried about anyone noticing Tony’s body on the lawn. That could only happen if a person came down the driveway.
Not likely to happen at this hour of the night—or morning.
His body couldn’t be seen from the street because a thick, tall hedge stood in the way. Hedges also ran along both sides of the lawn.
In addition to that, we had no neighbors.
None close enough to worry about, anyway.
There were vacant lots to the right and left, and a string of vacant lots across the road. The nearest house, a couple of lots to the left, was empty and up for sale. The nearest occupied house stood about a quarter of a mile to the right, and on the other side of the road.
We were pretty much alone out here.
It couldn’t hurt to leave the light on. But then I thought, why take the risk? I wouldn’t have any use for the porch light until I came back from the garage.
As I reached up for the bulb, though, my eyes strayed over to Tony.
I hadn’t really seen him before. Not in halfway good light, anyway.
From the chin up, he was a horrible wreck.
You wouldn’t recognize him as the guy in his driver’s license photo.
He looked like a nightmare.
Considering the gory ruin of his head, I was surprised to notice how clean his clothes seemed to be.
With the light still on, I went over to him and checked more carefully. His shirt had a few spots of blood on it, but nothing obvious. His jeans seemed fine.
Why not?
First, I took the purse off my shoulder and removed my robe. I left them on the dry concrete of the front stoop.
Then I crouched over Tony and stripped him. It wasn’t easy, especially because the night was so hot. Even though I’m in pretty good shape, I ended up out of breath and sweaty.
When I was done, I slipped into his loafers. They were a little too big for me, but I could walk in them okay. I carried his jeans and shirt over to the stoop and dropped them.
Then I stretched out naked on my back for a rest.
The concrete felt cool and nice.
Too nice. I could hardly force myself to get moving again.
Finally, though, I stood up to put his clothes on. I started with the shirt. It was very large, and hung halfway down my thighs. But it would do just fine. Next, I slipped his shoes off and climbed into the blue jeans.
They were way too big. When I had them all the way up around my waist, my feet were still inside the denim legs. Also, I had a huge amount of spare room inside the waistband. Looking down the gap, I could see all the way to my knees. I fastened the belt, anyway. It had enough holes to let me cinch it tight and keep the jeans from falling. With that taken care of, I bent over and rolled up the legs. The cuffs reached almost to my knees. I looked like I was wearing waders.
The jeans felt too hot and too heavy.
I needed them, though. I wanted the pockets; otherwise, I could’ve gotten rid of the jeans and just worn the shirt like a dress.
What I finally did was use the saber to cut the legs off. I took the legs off very high, then slit the sides almost up to the belt.
After that, the jeans felt light and airy.
What was left of them.
I returned all of Tony’s belongings to the pockets where I’d found them. I also slipped my own key case into a pocket.
Then I unlocked the front door and went back inside the house, but only long enough to put my purse and Charlie’s robe in the living room.
I left again.
Reaching up, I unscrewed the porch bulb. It was pretty hot by then, and made my fingertips smart.
7
CLEAN UP
Ever try to carry around a dead guy?
Let me tell you, it isn’t easy.
So I left Tony sprawled on the lawn, right where he’d fallen, and went hiking up the driveway without him.
On the road, just to the right of the driveway entrance, a car was parked at the curb. It was the only car in sight.
The driver’s door was locked, but one of Tony’s keys did the trick. I climbed in and tried a key in the ignition. The engine started. Keeping the headlights off, I swung away from the curb, did a U-turn, and drove into the driveway.
When the trunk seemed to be even with Tony, I stopped the car. I got out and opened the trunk. It looked pretty empty except for the spare tire. Leaving it open, I went over to Tony.
I picked up his legs by the ankles, turned him, and started dragging him toward the driveway. The grass was still wet from the sprinklers. The wetness helped his body slide, but also made my footing tricky. A couple of times, my feet flew out from under me and I landed on my butt, which didn’t feel too swift.
By the time we reached the edge of the driveway, I knew we had a problem. Not to be too graphic about it, his split head had left a trail across the grass. The stuff on the grass wasn’t what worried me, though. Most of it would go away after the automatic sprinkling system had gone through a few cycles. Birds, ants, and so forth would take care of the rest. The problem, for me, was whatever might get on the driveway. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and find bloodstains on the concrete. They’d be hard to get rid of.
At first, the only possible solution seemed to be a plastic bag over Tony’s head to catch whatever might want to slop out.
But I was in no mood to run around hunting for a bag.
Finally, I came up with a simple answer to the problem. All I had to do was turn the car sideways so its rear jutted out over the grass.
So that’s what I did. The driveway was wide enough to make it fairly simple.
I lined the car up with Tony, backed up until the rear tires almost went off the edge of the driveway, then climbed out and looked at him.
Loading his body into the trunk was going to be a bear.
And messy, too.
But it couldn’t be avoided.
Before getting started, I took off the shirt and cut-off jeans and tossed them onto the driver’s seat. For one thing, I didn’t want them to get gory. For another, the night was too hot for clothes, especially if you’re doing hard work.