Death Fits Like A Glove Read online

  Death Fits Like A Glove

  A Short Story

  By Don Weston

  © 2012 by Donald G. Weston

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

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  by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the

  publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at

  [email protected].

  First Electronic Printing, December 2012

  First Print Publishing, July 2017

  Turpin Publishing Company

  Portland, Oregon

  Thanks goes to:

  I would offer my gratitude to my critique group friends,

  second readers, writing teachers and peers and friends who

  encouraged and supported me.

  Death Fits Like a Glove

  By Don Weston

  Most of my neighbors know me and not

  because of the sign hanging from my porch featuring

  the portrait of a woman in an overcoat and the

  inscription, Billie Bly, Private Investigator. I’m the

  only person on the block whose garage has exploded.

  So when Louise Parker paused on the sidewalk

  recently after a curt good morning as I sipped coffee

  while sitting on my front porch’s wooden steps, I

  naturally assumed she wanted something. Otherwise

  she would have continued her brisk walk and not

  looked back.

  Likely, she was still peeved about my garage

  going up in flames. I don’t understand why. She lived

  safely two houses away and the firefighters kept the

  wind-whipped flames from reaching her house.

  I returned to my Sunday newspaper and a news

  item about another missing woman, this one from

  Forest Park, a 5,000 acre recreational area near our

  neighborhood, stretching along most of the West Hills

  of Portland. She was the fourth woman to go missing

  from a Portland hiking trail in the past year.

  I snuck a peek over the top of my paper and

  Louise stood in the same spot, talking to herself. In

  her hands was a sheaf of colored flyers. She wore a

  loosely buttoned green raincoat, although at the

  moment the May sun shone through charcoal clouds.

  A typical spring day in Portland, Oregon.

  Don Weston

  She walked deliberately to my stoop and

  managed a grim smile as if the sun was in her eyes.

  She wore her blonde hair in a tight bun, and I noticed

  her green eyes were red and puffy. She sorted through

  the handful of papers, trying to tidy them by squaring

  the corners.

  “Did you want something?” I asked.

  “I . . . I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting,”

  she said. “I guess I thought you were a menace to our

  neighborhood. I never thought much about how you

  must help people.”

  I sipped my coffee. Most of the houses on my

  street start at a million dollars. An uncle left me my

  home in his will and not much else, and I’ve

  struggled each year to pay the property taxes. I

  always felt my neighbors looked down their noses at

  me because I didn’t have money.

  “It’s just ever since you’ve moved in some

  strange things have happened,” she said. “Drive-by

  shootings, your car blowing up in your garage, police

  stakeouts, and seedy people wandering through.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Well, I guess I never thought about the people

  you help,” Louise said. “I’m sure you don’t go out

  and intentionally antagonize people into trying to kill

  you . . . do you?”

  I had to think about it. “Yes and no. You see, I

  start out trying to help clients, as you said. But

  sometimes it means pissing people off. And pissed off

  people tend to react poorly. Especially the guilty

  ones.”

  “I guess I can understand that,” Louise said.

  “You don’t intentionally piss—uh, upset them.”

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  Death Fits Like A Glove

  “Sometimes I do. To get respect. Some people

  think because I’m blonde, I’m ditzy. Men think

  because I’m a woman, they can walk all over me.

  Now and then they will even make passes at me.”

  “Really?” she said. “I don’t mean you aren’t

  pretty, but you have a demeanor which I would think

  puts men off.”

  “Did you want something, Louise?”

  “I’m sorry.” She winced. “I guess I have a way

  of putting people off too. It’s about Georgie.” She

  took one of the flyers from her sheaf and offered it.

  “Your dog is missing?” I looked at the poster .

  Georgie, three years old, Scottish Terrier, Very

  Friendly. Missing Near Food Front Grocery, May 3rd

  at 3 p.m. The picture showed a black Scottie, posing

  with alert ears and tail. I wondered why he wasn’t

  with her. They were inseparable.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “If I can be of any help. . .”

  “You can.” There was a bit of sparkle in her red

  eyes. “You can help me find him.”

  I frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t do missing pets.”

  “I’ll pay you. I was thinking of offering a reward,

  but maybe it would be better to hire a professional.”

  She peered around the neighborhood in a surreptitious

  manner. “I think there’s a dognapper at large.”

  “Well, maybe,” I said. “There are some people

  who will kidnap dogs, especially if they’re registered

  with papers as Georgie must be.”

  “I’m not the only one who has lost her pet,” she

  said. “Mary, two houses over, lost her Pomeranian

  last week. Have you been down to the telephone pole

  at the corner and seen all the Lost Pet Posters?”

  “Not lately,” I said.

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  Don Weston

  “Come with me.” She grabbed my hand and

  pulled me off the stoop, spilling my coffee.

  “I can’t. I’m in my pajamas.”

  “Nobody will notice,” she said. “It’s only a block

  down the street.”

  “To Northwest Twenty-Third? It’s the breakfast

  hour on Sunday. There are three cafes and two

  bakeries on that corner. Everybody will notice.”

  She tugged again, so I set down my newspaper

  and padded down the street in my Dearfoams slippers

  and pink-flannel pajamas. When we arrived, Louise

  pointed to a pole and on it I counted seven posters of

  small breed dogs and three of cute cats.

  “See,” she said. “It’s a conspiracy.

  “It does look fishy,” I admitted, sipping my cold


  coffee.

  “So you’ll look into it?”

  I was about to say no, when she hit me with the

  closer.

  “Three of these missing pets are on our street,”

  she said. “If you can find out who is behind this, you

  would be a hero.”

  I was thinking how it would be nice to be thought

  of as a hero instead of a leper in my neighborhood,

  when Louise moved in for the kill. “I’ll pay your

  daily wages for two weeks and a thousand dollar

  bonus if you return Georgie alive.”

  I needed the money to pay my property taxes, not

  to mention Angel’s salary. Angel is my secretary, and

  I was a couple weeks behind with her check. Luckily,

  she’s also my best friend, but money can put undue

  stress on friendships.

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  Death Fits Like A Glove

  I sighed. “Okay. I’ll start on it first thing

  tomorrow.”

  “You’ll start today,” she said. “The first forty-

  eight hours are crucial in an abduction.”

  “That’s for people,” I said. “When did Georgie

  go missing?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. I took him with me to

  Food Front and tied his leash to a pole. I was only

  inside for ten minutes and when I came out he was

  gone, leash and all.”

  “You left him outside alone?”

  “It was only for five minutes.”

  “I thought it was ten.”

  “Apples, oranges,” she said.

  “Maybe you didn’t tie the leash tight enough.”

  “I don’t know. All I know is he’s gone, and I

  want him back,” she sobbed.

  I left her to begin her task of stapling posters

  around Stumptown and went home to change. I

  returned to the street thirty minutes later dressed in

  blue jeans and a long sleeve velour sweatshirt. In my

  pockets I stuffed a small notepad and pen, a mini

  flashlight, and some kibble Louise gave me, in a

  plastic bag.

  My plan was to do a grid search six-blocks in

  each direction from Food Front. I started on our

  block, knocking on doors, showing Georgie’s poster,

  and asking permission to search around yards. Two

  people, who also lost dogs, chatted me up and made

  me promise to keep an eye open for their pets.

  One owner told me her mini poodle was taken

  from a plastic crate tied down to the back of her

  Vespa scooter. The dog sat helplessly as this

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  Don Weston

  demented girl drove through the streets of Portland

  without regard to what would happen to the poor

  poodle if she hit a bump, stopped too fast or, heaven

  forbid, got into an accident. The dog was taken from

  the scooter while she stepped into a coffee shop. I

  hoped someone had rescued it and gave it a better

  home.

  The other person lost her dog in a New Seasons

  grocery store as she culled through the cucumbers.

  Her black Pug jettisoned its leash as she sorted. New

  Season’s employees searched the store and came up

  empty. I wondered if a shopper stepped in doggy doo

  and purloined the culprit for revenge.

  When people didn’t answer their doors during

  my search or wouldn’t give me permission, I took to

  spying into their backyards and shining my flashlight

  under their wooden porches anyway.

  After an hour and a half, I traversed one-third of

  my objective and came up with nothing. I thought

  about finding some coffee and possibly planning a

  new strategy, when I saw it.

  Freshly unearthed dirt heaped into a tidy mound

  in an empty lot. Two branches tied with string marked

  the grave with a cross. It didn’t look like much, but to

  somebody searching for a lost pet the little grave

  stuck out like a Great Dane among a pack of

  Chihuahuas.

  I walked into the vacant lot to examine the

  marker. The grave was the size of a breadbox. I

  picked up a nearby branch and dug into the freshly

  turned dirt. It took a few seconds to unearth a

  cardboard shoe box. Too small to be a dog or cat, I

  thought. I looked around the lot, ostensibly to see if

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  Death Fits Like A Glove

  there might be anyone nearby I could con into

  opening the tiny coffin.

  Seeing no one, I pried at the shoebox with the

  branch. The lid flipped off and I was rewarded with a

  not so pristine view of a flattened brown squirrel. Its

  beady yellow eyes stared vacantly. I sighed, put the

  lid back on the box, and pushed dirt away to rebury

  the rodent.

  Another crude stick-built cross sprung from the

  ground about twenty feet away. I walked over to it

  and kicked at the dirt. This burial appeared older, the

  dirt dry and tamped soil solid. I glanced around the

  grounds and spotted a third marker near blackberry

  bushes. I walked the entire lot and spotted four more

  crude gravesites. It was too much work to accomplish

  digging with a branch. I walked home and found a

  shovel and gloves inside my rebuilt garage. I could

  still smell the smoke a year later.

  It took forty minutes to break into six little

  coffins and discover two birds, a rabbit, a mouse, an

  opossum and something too decomposed to identify.

  The birds’ and the rabbit’s necks lay twisted and

  broken. Surgical cuts amputated the mouse’s tiny

  legs and the opossum, too, suffered surgically sliced

  body parts. I grimaced at each malevolent act.

  My first thoughts conjured images of a future

  serial killer, possibly a neighborhood boy, sharpening

  his skills. I shuddered. So far no dogs, thank God.

  After unearthing each victim, I returned it to its

  makeshift grave. I wanted to quit and go home and

  take a shower to wash the death from my hands, and

  yet, something pulled me toward one last grave near

  the blackberry bushes.

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  Don Weston

  This last one, like the first tomb I dug into,

  looked to be a couple of days old. A chill crawled up

  my arms and caused the hair on the back of my neck

  to bristle. I scrutinized the lot for a watcher because

  the emoted fear came either from a human source

  somewhere nearby or the dirt at the end of my shovel.

  I stepped on the spade and scooped a mound

  of dirt. This body rested deeper than the rest. I kept

  digging. I’d gone more than eighteen inches, before

  my shovel stalled. I scooped carefully around a black

  plastic trash bag. This body was larger than the

  squirrel and birds, about the size of the opossum. I

  pulled some gloves from my back pocket and

  fingered the dirt away.

  The bag didn’t come out easy. It tore it as I

  wrestled it from the ground. The carcass slipped

  through the hole revealing fir, orange with bits of

  white and black, and a bloated cat slid out against me

  and onto the ground. I dropped the bag and brushed

  th
e cooties from my legs.

  The little calico face mirrored one from a flyer

  on a telephone pole on Northwest Twenty-Third. Its

  name was Marmalade. I poked at the cat with a stick

  to turn it over and get a better look. No obvious signs

  of mutilation. I decided to rebury the animal and

  notify its owner. I wasn’t about to deliver Marmalade

  home. Her owner could come and get him.

  “What are you doing?” a high pitched voice

  wailed behind me. “What are you doing to Spunky?”

  I turned to face a red-mopped boy about eight-

  years-old, holding a handful of yellow dandelions in

  his fist.

  “I’m burying him,” I said.

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  Death Fits Like A Glove

  “You dug him up? You dug him up!” The

  freckle-faced boy came at me swinging a hand-

  gardening shovel and connected with my knee. I

  grabbed it and wrestled it from him. He kicked me in

  the shin.

  “Stop it,” I said, holding my tender shin. “Let me

  explain.”

  He tore into me swinging his little fists into my

  stomach. I fell backward holding my leg and

  clutching my stomach. Before I could breathe enough

  to speak, he attacked me again with the branch I’d

  used earlier. He wound it up like a batter going for a

  home run, but before he connected an umpire stepped

  in.

  It was an older boy, same red hair, trimmed

  shorter, same freckles, maybe thirteen. He took the

  stick from the younger boy and pushed him to the

  ground.

  “You shouldn’t go digging up Randy’s burials,”

  he said. “He’s very sensitive.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to get up off the ground.

  “I tried to explain.”

  “You stay out of this,” Randy said. “It’s between

  me and her.”

  “I’m Ray,” the older boy said. “This here’s my

  little brother.”

  “She dug up Spunky,” Randy said. He started

  crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There have been a lot of

  dogs and cats gone missing in the neighborhood, and