Trailer Park Noir

Twenty-One

“Can you wait right here?” Reznick said.

Anna stood nearby crying quietly. “What-huh?”

“Wait right here. I have to go to my trailer and get some stuff. I’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay.”

He broke into a jog and returned to his own trailer. At the rear of his carport was a small metal shed he’d had since he’d lived in the smaller trailer park over on River Valley Drive. He went into the trailer to get his keys and a flashlight and, from a bedroom dresser drawer, a pair of work gloves, which he put on. From the top shelf of his closet, he took a roll of duct tape. Then he went back outside and unlocked the padlock on the shed. He turned on the flashlight and looked around. There were a few boxes of junk stored in there. On top of one stack of boxes was an old duffle bag he hadn’t used in many years. He picked up the duffle bag and opened it wide, and put the duct tape in. He put the bag on a box, then looked around for something else.

There they were – weights he hadn’t used in ages, dumbbells that had been tucked away in this shed over in the other trailer park for years. He removed the weights from the bars and put them in the duffle bag. He put all of them in the bag and tried lifting it. It wasn’t easy, but he could manage.

Standing in the back corner of the shed was an old rolled-up canvas he’d had so long that he’d forgotten why he had it. He stepped over a box and wrapped an arm around the rolled-up canvas and carried it clumsily to the door.

It wouldn’t work. He couldn’t carry it all at once. Using both hands, he carried the bag of weights down to unit five, then came back and hauled the rolled-up canvas over, with the flashlight in his right back pocket. On his way to unit five with the canvas, he thought, Why am I doing this?

The response was a long time coming. But when it came, it was strong, and it was enough.

I’m doing it for Kendra, he thought.

When he reached the attractive new trailer, he exhaled loudly as he leaned the canvas up against the side of it. He blew air out through puffed cheeks. Stinging sweat had sprung up on his neck and forehead and trickled down his back.

“Whew,” he said, “didn’t think I was gonna make it over here with that load.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“You’ll see. Take off your flip-flops,” he said, slipping out of his own.

“What?”

“Take off your flip-flops. I want to wear them in there, so it won’t look like there were two different people walking around in all that blood.”

“Oh. Okay.” She pulled her feet out of the flip-flops and stepped away from them.

Reznick put his feet into the flip-flops, which were much too small for him, but he would make do. He wrapped an arm around the canvas, picked it up, opened the screen door, and climbed the steps, hefting the canvas into the trailer.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.

It was even worse than it had looked through the screen. A large butcher knife lay on the floor beside the dead body. He could not tell the color of the shirt the man was wearing – it was too soaked in blood. It was torn and tattered, and Reznick assumed the man was just as torn and tattered beneath it. He might not have to puncture the lungs and stomach after all – it looked like she’d probably done that already.

The air conditioner was running on high in the trailer, but the smells of blood and feces were still heavy in the room.

Inside the trailer, Reznick walked on the balls of his feet so his heels wouldn’t sink into the bloody carpet over the ends of the short flip-flops.

Reznick took a good look at the face. Sure enough, it was one of the two men he’d seen in that house with Alicia Carey. It seemed that Anna Dunfy had done half of Mo Carey’s job for him. Mo would no doubt be happy to hear about it. Then again, he might be angry that he was robbed of the pleasure of doing it himself.

He put the rolled-up canvas down on the floor beside the body. He picked up the knife, went to the door, and opened the screen. “Here,” he said, holding the knife out to her. “Hold onto this for me.”

She took the knife without saying anything.

Reznick unrolled the canvas, then rolled the body onto it, rolled the canvas out some more, until it was all the way open. He rolled the body onto it further, then rolled the canvas up over the body. He went to the door and opened the screen.

“Anna,” he whispered. “Hold this screen door open for me.”

She went to the door, held it open with her left hand.

He went back to the rolled-up corpse, bent down, and took the foot-end. He pulled the body around and dragged it feet-first toward the door. He dragged it out the door and down the steps. The head thunked against the steps on its way down. On the concrete below, he turned the body until it was parallel with the Porsche SUV parked in the carport, then dropped the feet to the concrete.

Another long exhale through puffed cheeks. He felt itchy as sweat trickled all over his body.

“Okay,” he whispered. He kicked off the flip-flops, walked over to his own, and put them back on. “You can put your flip-flops back on now,” he whispered.

She did.

“Put down the knife by my duffle bag.”

She did that, too.

“Now,” he said, “this is going to be a lot easier if you can lift up one end of this thing and carry it.”

“Where are we taking it?”

“To the pier.”

“Oh. Well, I can try.”

“Take the feet, I’ll take the head.”

Reznick went to the head and lifted it off the concrete. Anna went to the other end, and with a grunt, lifted the feet.

“No,” Reznick said. “Turn around and lift it from behind so you don’t have to walk backwards.”

Anna dropped it, turned around, then bent at the knees and reached behind her, picked it up again. She straightened up with another grunt and started moving forward.

They passed through the rear of the carport and went through tall pale weeds, between two tall, fat oaks. It was dark back here and Reznick wished he could use his flashlight.

“I can’t see,” Anna said.

“Yes, you can,” he said. “Just go slowly.”

They went slowly down a gentle slope that led to the riverside and moved to the left, toward the pier. It was white and stood out, even in the dark, but it was another thirty or forty yards away.

The night was hot and muggy. Reznick felt sweat running down beneath his shirt. It trickled down his temples and forehead and dripped into his eyes and stung. He stopped a moment and wiped the back of his hand over his eyes, tried to get the sweat out.

“Want to stop and rest?” Reznick said.

“Yeah,” Anna said, panting.

They put the body down.

“What’re we gonna do with it?” she said.

He walked over to her and stood close, whispered, “Be quiet. We don’t want anyone to hear us. We’re right behind these trailers, and most of the bedrooms are in the back. Some people are already in bed. Whisper only, okay? And only when absolutely necessary.”

“Okay,” she whispered. “What’re we gonna do with it? Throw it in the river?”

“We’re gonna weigh it down first.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Wanna try again?”

She took a deep, steadying breath. “I feel so… numb.”

“Yeah. It happens. Let’s go.”

They returned to their positions, lifted the body again, and carried it the rest of the way over uneven ground thick with weeds and stickers that tore at their bare legs. They came to the sandy shore of the river, then to the pier.

“Take him all the way out,” Reznick said in a loud whisper.

Anna was panting heavily, grunting between breaths.

They reached the end of the pier and Reznick said, “Okay.”

Anna dropped her end with a heavy thunk. Reznick put his end down and went to her.

“Now stay right here,” he whispered.

Reznick took the flashlight from his back pocket and turned it on. He hurried back up the slope at an angle. Halfway up, he stopped. He looked at the back ends of the trailers that were visible from there. Only one had light in the windows, the others were dark. But no one appeared to be looking out their windows, thank God. He returned to the trailer. He grabbed the knife and the duffle bag, then turned around, heavily weighed down now, carrying the bag with both hands, and hurried back to the pier, but not as fast as before.

At the corpse’s head, he put down the bag and the knife, then went to the side of the rolled up body and unrolled it just enough for the body to be exposed. He gingerly pulled up the corpse’s shirt to expose the torn and tattered abdomen and chest.

“What’re you doing?” Anna whispered.

“Just watch and see.” Reznick looked the body over. “You really did a good job on this guy.” He handed her the flashlight and said, “Hold this on him for me, okay?” Still wearing the work gloves, he picked up the knife. Starting at the sternum, he cut straight downward through the abdomen.

“Oh, Christ, what’re you doing?” Anna rasped.

At the top of the incision, he made another, this one horizontal.

Reznick whispered, “The biggest mistake people make when they get rid of a body by throwing it in the drink is that they don’t puncture the most buoyant parts of the body – the lungs and the stomach, and with a woman, the womb. Then the body bobs to the surface and the cops have something to go on. Before you know it, the killer’s arrested and the game’s over.”

Reznick pulled the incision open wide with his gloved hands, making an ugly wet sound. He winced, disgusted by what he was doing.

“Yeah, looks like you did plenty of puncturing,” he whispered. “But we’re going to make sure.”

He stuck the knife up under the rib cage on the right side and sliced, then the left side and sliced. He then cut the stomach open. The sounds it made were awful, the wet smacking sounds, a small farting sound. The smell of fecal matter rose from the body’s opening.

“That oughtta do it,” he breathed.

Anna made disgusted noises.

Reznick opened the duffle bag. He removed the first round, disk-shaped weight with his right hand, used his left to hold the incision open, and stuffed the weight as deeply as he could into the cavity. He did the same with the next weight, and the next, and the next, until the duffle bag was empty except for the roll of duct tape.

Then Reznick removed the duct tape. He pulled a strip off the roll and stretched it taut across the corpse’s abdomen. He covered the opening with duct-tape, until the body looked like a duct-tape mummy. He wrapped the body up in the canvas again, then used the duct tape to wrap up the canvas.

“Whew,” he said, standing when he was finished. He scrubbed a hand down his sweaty face a couple times.

“What now?” Anna whispered.

“Now, we throw him in. You think you can manage with all those weights in him?”

“I’ll try.” She turned off the flashlight and put it down on the pier.

“You pick up his feet.” Reznick went to the head and scooted the rolled-up body around so it was lying across the pier. “Okay, you ready?”

Anna went to the foot of the bundle. She bent her knees, clutched the canvas, tried to lift it. With a big grunt, she tried again. She could only raise the legs. Reznick raised his end. The middle sagged.

“C’mon,” he said, “we’ve gotta be able to give it a little swing.”

They both tried harder and managed to raise the middle just a bit, just enough to swing it back and forth a couple times before tossing it in. They did not toss it far.

Reznick quickly swept up the flashlight and turned it on, sent the beam searching for the bundle, found it.

The current of the Sacramento River swept the rolled-up body away and twirled it around for a long moment. For just that moment, it danced on the water’s surface, bobbing up and down and spinning around like a wobbly top.

Reznick’s gut became icy and frozen. For a moment, he was afraid the body was not going to go down.

Then, as if suddenly realizing it was too heavy to float, it sank out of sight and disappeared as if it had never been there.

Reznick bent down, picked up the knife, and threw it hard out into the river.

They returned to the trailer in unit five and Reznick locked the door and pulled it closed, then closed the screen. He carried the duffle bag in which he’d put the flashlight and the wet, bloody gloves, and duct tape.

“I hope Kendra’s not awake,” she whispered.

“What are you going to tell her if she is?” Reznick said. “How are you going to explain the fact that you’re covered with caked blood?”

She sighed. “I have no idea.” She turned to him, fidgeting nervously and wearing a deep frown. “Look, Marc… I-I can’t thank you enough. What you’ve done… you’ve saved my life.”

“We’ll see. You’ve got one thing in your favor. He runs a bunch of porn websites, and he takes pictures and videos of a lot of women. Porn pictures and videos. He could have been the victim of any angry husband or boyfriend, or even an angry woman. The field of possible killers is big. They’re liable to talk to you, the cops. They’ll talk to everyone in the park. You’ll just have to keep your cool when they do.”

“Yeah. I… hope I can.”

“Well, I think we’re through for the night, Anna.”

She released a long, trembling sigh. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me. You owe me big-time after this. And one day soon, I’ll collect.”

Reznick could not tell for sure in the dark, but it seemed a curious frown passed over her face.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay, if you say so.”

Reznick turned to go back to his trailer to close up his shed, throw away his bloody work gloves, and take a long hot shower.

Anna went to her trailer. The door was still open. She looked through the screen door and listened.

Kendra was still lying on the couch, snoring softly.

Dexter stood at the door, scratching on the screen.

Anna opened the screen and let Dexter out. He dashed down the steps and went out in the yard. Anna waited while he did his business. When the dog was finished, he came back up the steps and went inside, and Anna followed him.

She quietly went through the living room and hurried to the bedroom. She found a clean tank top and pair of shorts, then went to the bathroom. She pulled the shower curtain aside, reached in, and turned on the shower. Then she turned and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink.

She looked like something out of a horror film. She looked like Carrie after the prom. She looked almost as if she had bathed in blood. It was all over her. Her T-shirt hung on her, heavy with blood. Her hair was matted with it. It covered her face like some kind of exotic cosmetic mask. It was on her arms, and when she looked down, she saw it on her legs. It was caked now, thick on her, like a second sticky skin.

Anna wondered what she was going to do with the clothes. If she had a fireplace, she would burn them. Instead, she would put them in a bag, then put the bag in a garbage bag, and put them in the bottom of the big green garbage can outside.

She peeled the clothes off of her like dead skin. When she got into the shower, the hot water felt so good, she started crying again. But she cried silently. She pressed her lips together until they were white and held back the sobs, still unable to believe what she had done that night, that she had taken a life.

But he had deserved it, she felt no differently about that.

The blood looked black in the bottom of the shower as it swirled around the drain and was sucked out of sight.

Afterward, she dried off with a towel and put the tank top and shorts on. She looked at the flip-flops – they would have to go, too, because they were coated with blood. She went to the kitchen barefoot and got a brown paper bag from under the sink, took it to the bathroom, and stuffed the clothes and flip-flops into it. She went into her bedroom. There was a stapler in the top drawer of her night stand. She got it, folded the top of the brown bag over, and stapled it closed. She replaced the stapler, slipped into her slippers by the bed, and took the bag outside and put it in the big garbage can. Back inside, she went to the kitchen and took the mostly full white garbage bag from the can under the sink. She tied the bag closed, then went to the bathroom and got the garbage in there. She carried the bags out to the green garbage can outside and dropped them in on top of the brown bag containing her bloody clothes.

Back in the trailer, she got herself a beer. She stood by the open refrigerator, enjoying the chill from it, as she drank it.

It felt good to be so clean again. But she was still stained. It was a stain that would never go away. It was the stain of having slid a blade into a man’s gut again and again. The stain of spilling his blood. The stain of ending his life, no matter what he had done to deserve it. She suspected that stain would never go away. Part of it was now knowing how it felt to stick a blade into a man. She could feel it now – the blade pressing the flesh, then piercing it, then sliding in deep, then being twisted. It was a feeling like no other, and it would be with her forever.

She thanked God for Marc Reznick.

But don’t forget, Anna – you owe me, he’d said. You owe me big-time after this. And one day, I may collect.

Anna wondered what he’d meant by that. How did he expect to collect? Did he expect her to give him money? What did she have that he would want? Her? Did he mean he would want to sleep with her? It was the only thing she could think of that he could be implying. She decided she would not be averse to such an arrangement. Marc was a handsome man, and if he wanted to sleep with her, she would not argue or complain. The more she thought about it, the more she decided that was probably what he meant.

“Mommy?”

Anna closed the refrigerator and went into the living room.

“What, honey?” she said.

“Mommy, my finger hurts.” Kendra was sitting up on the couch and her face was tightly screwed up in a look of pain. She held her left wrist with her right hand. “It’s throbbin’ real bad and making my whole hand hurt.”

“Well, it’s been awhile since you’ve had a couple pills. Let’s get you a couple more, okay?”

“Okay.”

The orange bottle was on the kitchen table. Anna went to it and shook out a couple pills. Then she put them in her pocket and went to the counter. She took a slice of bread from the loaf, put it in the toaster, and pressed the lever on the side.

“I’m gonna make you a piece of toast to eat with the pills so you don’t get sick, okay, hon?”

“‘Kay,” Kendra said. There was pain in her voice.

Anna poured milk into a glass and took it and the pills to Anna. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

As Kendra took the pills, Anna watched her and wondered. How did she bring it up with Kendra? How did she approach it? She had posed for those pictures – but how? Why? Surely she had not done it because she wanted to. Then again, maybe she really didn’t know any better. Maybe she didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.

Anna remembered all the times her sister Rose had lectured her about having The Talk with Kendra. Maybe if Anna had talked with her about the birds and the bees, she never would have posed for those pictures. Anna could not hold Kendra responsible for them, no matter what.

However Anna chose to broach the subject, she could not do it tonight. Her emotions were too close to the surface. She had just killed the man, for God’s sake. It would have to wait. Maybe tomorrow night, or the next night, she could talk to Kendra about it without flying apart in a million pieces like a plane slamming into the side of a mountain.

The toast popped up and Anna returned to the kitchen with the empty glass. “Would you like some jam on your toast, or just butter?” she said.

“Jam’s good,” Kendra said. “Do we have raspberry?”

“We sure do, honey. Comin’ right up.”

Anna got raspberry jam from the refrigerator and spread a generous helping on the toast, then put it on a small plate, and took it to Kendra in the living room. She was still watching the Game show Network. Match Game was on. Anna sat down beside her and watched her eat the toast. She reached over and ran a hand through Kendra’s long, shiny hair.

Kendra was almost done with her toast when she said, “How come you’re starin’ at me, Mommy?”

“I’m sorry, was I staring?”

Kendra smiled gently, as much as her pain would allow.

“I guess I’m just thinking about how much I love you,” Anna said, her voice breaking. “You know, sweetheart… there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.”

“Me, too, Mommy. I mean, there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for you, neither.”

“Either.”

“Either.”

“How’s your toast?”

“It’s good.”

Kendra finished the toast and handed the little plate to Anna.

Unexpectedly, even to Anna, she flung her arms around Kendra and held her tightly. Anna’s eyes stung with tears and her throat felt thick. She kissed Kendra on the forehead, then stood and quickly turned and went back to the kitchen with the plate, before Kendra could see the tears in her eyes.

His hair still wet from the shower, Reznick stared at the pictures on his computer screen. He enlarged them one at a time and looked at them, studied them, absorbed them.

It was, indeed, Kendra. She did not appear to be under duress. Her smile seemed genuine, and her eyes sparkled. The sight of her naked body made his heartbeat quicken, made him harden. She was everything he’d expected and more. Her large breasts were firm and unblemished, with rosy, puffy nipples he could imagine touching with his tongue, tasting, sucking on.

Seeing her naked on the computer monitor only frustrated him more. He wanted her naked in front of him where he could touch her, hold her, kiss her.

And he would. He’d told Anna she owed him big-time, and that he would collect. Kendra would be his payment. Anna might never know about it, but if she found out, Reznick would not worry about it. He would not feel guilty as he would have before. Now, Anna was in debt to him in a big way, and if she didn’t like it, a single anonymous phone call would send the cops in her direction.

He looked at the pictures over and over again. The last one was of Kendra’s laughing face spattered with semen. She seemed to be enjoying herself. That was good to know – that she enjoyed that. That meant she would enjoy it even more because, after all, she had a crush on him.

Reznick did not plan to wait around, either. He planned to go to work late the next day, if at all. He planned to drop in on Kendra in the morning.

He would be gentle and loving. Much more than that cretin with the website, he was sure.

That night, Reznick did not sleep well. It was not the heat that kept him awake. It was thoughts of Kendra, of those pictures, and of what he would do the following day.