She'd been distracted by sudden death. Her mother died last year. Her father's death was less than year later. She was now driving to her oldest brother’s funeral.
Divorced recently, she would not ask her ex-husband, Douglas, to babysit. He was an alcoholic and a cocaine addict, so there was no way she would let him have the kids for a weekend. The judge had denied him any visitation rights. He was also ordered to have no contact via phone and letters except for texts and emails, with the caveat the if he abused them, they would become part of the no contact judgement along with postal letters and phone calls. And since Joan had feared her husband's vengeful rage, the judge also issued a restraining order to keeping her ex-husband physically at least one-hundred feet away from both Joan and the children.
Joan had already made arrangements to take Friday off from work so Thursday evening she packed for her and the boys, then after breakfast Friday morning she started her all-day drive to the out of state funeral scheduled for Saturday afternoon. She made arrangement to stay overnight with the boys at the Hampton Inn. She did not want to stay at her sister’s in law home since they never had a good deal to say to each other.
While they were away that Friday morning Doug bought an oval-shaped, prefabricated, fiber-glass pond that could be placed into a shallow hole in the ground at the home’s backyard. Joan had already reluctantly gave permission to do the job, thinking that it was easier not to have to argue, plus Doug probably wouldn’t do it anyway.
Before noon Doug brought the pool to the back yard and laid it where he wanted the hole to be dug. The pool measured eight feet in length and five feet at its widest spot. It was approximately eighteen inches deep. Since the shape was made of fiberglass, it was light and easy to handle. He and Joan had talked about doing it to spark up the looks of the back yard. The added decoration would look nice, but at that time Doug wasn’t one to carry through with his thoughts, so the project was forgotten.
Doug was afraid to be seen by neighbors digging in the back yard by neighbors who knew about the hostile divorce and the sanctions against him. He was afraid that the sight of him there would cause one or more of them to call the police. That’s why Doug had already hired an illegal Mexican handyman whom he’d heard about at a local bar. Doug made arrangements with the guy to arrive about 1:00 p.m. Friday afternoon to dig the hole in Joan’s back yard, using the prefabricated form as a reference for the size and shape of the hole and for the location of the hole which was already determined by Doug to be in reach of a water hose.
Doug had put himself on an anti-drug, anti-alcohol, increased physical exercise schedule immediately after the divorce. His withdrawal discomfort, though frustrating and sometimes painful, was gone. His exercise program in these two months had done wonders for his body, which he had abused for over a year.
In the middle of the week, before the funeral, Doug texted his ex-wife to ask permission to put the pool in the back yard while she and the kids were at the funeral. Reluctantly she gave him permission with the caveat that he be nowhere in sight when she and the kids returned home. Doug quickly agreed. Prior to their marriage problems, they had talked about doing this decorative backyard pool project to enhance the look of the backyard. Accessories were not decided on, but the possibilities were discussed, about having lily pads, goldfish, minnows and turtles.
Doug refrained from any hint of verbal abuse, but deep within him he hated Joan for taking nearly all contact with the two boys away from him. He smiled, though, at the fact that she knew nothing of his determined drug, alcohol and physical self-rehabilitation programs.
Doug made sure to tell her that he had already paid the handyman to do the work so she would not be responsible for any costs required for installing the pool.
That Friday afternoon when the handyman finished the job, Doug would get a call to come and inspect the work while the man was still there. Even if it was a semi decent job Doug would approve it, pay in cash, say good-bye and good luck to the guy, then leave at the same time as he did. As they walked to their vehicles Doug asked the handyman if the handyman would be around in case he was needed to finish the job, if Doug, for some reason, that he couldn’t finish it was planned. The guy, in broken English, said he’d be around the area for another week. Then they both departed with friendly waves, though Doug’s face smiled while the handyman’s face was sad.
Doug would return in the dark of quite early Saturday morning, dressed all in black, including a balaclava head mask and black gloves. As an added touch Doug painted the metal and handle of the spade shovel black. He dug the hole the center of the hole three so he could put Joan in a tight fetal position in the center of the hole. He didn’t want the handyman to know about this, or he could have had the guy do the whole job. His plan was to kill Joan the night she returned Sunday or an hour or two after midnight Monday morning. He’d kill Joan, stuff her into the hole in a fetal position, then cover Joan’s body with dirt to the level that the handyman had dug the original hole. He would then stick the prefab pool loosely in the hole, later make a call to the handyman to come and do the finishing details as early as possible Monday morning to get the job done before noon. The guy agreed enthusiastically when Doubt offered the guy a bonus of one-hundred dollars if the job was done right and was finished on time. He stated that an envelope would be under the front doormat containing his pay, plus the bonus he promised. Doug hoped he could rely on the guy for even coming close to what was expected because he had told the guy that he may not be there to inspect it, thus leaving the money for him was a risk. Even if he had to look underneath the pool, he’d just see the dirt. It would look like he was only there for a few minutes during his two visits to the back yard.
The broad smile on Doug’s face was because he was thinking that Joan wouldn’t be getting up with the kids Monday morning.
Most amateur plans always have a wrinkle, or crack and some sort of casualty with the plan or the planner. Where the plan is supposed to slide, it gets gritty, where it’s supposed to fold precisely, it blows open, where the plan is to take thirty minutes, it takes and hour, and where the plan, beforehand, seems to have been perfectly born, it gets aborted. However, so far, Doug’s deceitful, slippery plan was working like WD-40 said it would.
Doug parked his truck away from his house, which was now hers. His anger bloomed like a mushroom cloud when he thought about Joan being able to steal his home and kids. In addition to that he was still expected to pay the mortgage. To him, justice slammed into the husband like a bulldozer, but only tickled the wife with a feather. He knew she was laughing at him. He pictured her smug face, her triumphant smirk, and the wink she had given him when the judge kissed her ass with favorable divorce terms, then shit on him. He sat, awaiting the arrival of Joan and his precious boys.
Her arrival was much later than she had estimated, well after dinnertime. Doug thought, She must have stopped for dinner along the way. When they arrived, he especially watched his boys. He missed them tremendously. He knew he wasn't the best dad he could’ve been, but he couldn't try to be a better dad, either, not with Joan’s suffocating, and nauseating presence. He had made up his mind about her. He thought about his own form of justice, then sneered as the light in the master bedroom came on. Doug thought, Joan’s is a giant pain behind that pane.
He saw the bathroom light go on and remembered Joan’s routine for bathing his sons. The boys were a cute six and eight years old and both looked more like him than her. He had named the first boy Jack, in honor of his father. Joan had named the second boy in honor of her father, Robert.
The bathroom light looked like a spotlight in the middle of darkness. Doug thought, Joan must be in a hurry, so she only turned on the essential lighting. In twenty minutes the light was turned off, but a dim light from the hallway could be detected. Then the boy’s bedroom light flashed on. He could see one taller shape and two short ones moving around. Then only Joan’s shape was visible because the boys were in bed. Joan pulled down the window shade. A couple of seconds later the room went dark. Doug smirked at the irony of the house being dark because his mind was in the same condition. When he and Joan were first married and happy, one of Joan’s girlfriends was killed by her abusive husband. He remembered something that woman told Joan and Joan told him. She said, “Men are afraid women will laugh at them, but women are afraid that men will kill them.”
The master bedroom light was on and Doug could see Joan’s shape walking to the bathroom, then the bathroom light came on. Joan was going to take a shower before getting into bed.
When the entire house darkened, so did Doug. His mind slipped deeper into that darkness. A screaming skull dominated his vision. He waited for two hours envisioning dark shapes, forms, shadows, symbols.
An hour later, Doug used his house key to enter the house through the back door. He thought, “How stupid can you get not changing the locks? You have a contentious divorce, a restraining order, but you aren’t bright enough to change the locks. Yep. That was Joan.”
Joan had been exhausted from her trip to attend the funeral, plus the stress of the funeral itself, then the long drive home culminating in an unanticipated late arrival made her feel enveloped in stress. She hoped it wouldn’t affect her work tomorrow.
Doug found her deeply asleep in his bed. Doug looked down at her like a man looking down at the shit he just stepped into. He smiled at her sleeping form, then happily suffocated her slowly, enjoying her struggle, feeling every flail of arm, humping body movements, legs kicking furiously, moans that barely penetrated the pillow. The thrill, the exhilaration, and the blessed adrenaline high. There was absolutely nothing like it.
He placed her on the floor then made the bed and fluffed the pillow. He rolled her over onto a painters tarp,He must be then kept rolling her into a tube shape. He easily picked her up and carried her flaccid body to the pond hole.
He had already dug the hole two feet deeper, so he dumped Joan’s body into the hole, covered her with dirt, leveled the dirt so it looked the same as the handyman had done, then placed the prefabricated pool on top and leveled it a little higher that the lawn’s surface.
The next morning the boys woke up with no mother in the house. Jack, the oldest boy, remembered that if there was an emergency and he could not get his mom, then he was supposed take Robert and go to their closest next-door neighbors, Sally and Rick Moore.
The boys exited the front door but heard noises coming from the back yard. They peeked around the corner and saw the handyman working on the final details of the pond. Their mom had already informed them that they would have a pond being built in the back yard, so they accepted it without questions.
The neighbors were good friends with Joan, and their kids usually played together.
The boys were in pajamas when they ate breakfast at their neighbors’ house. Sally’s husband had already gone to work, so Sally called to a few other neighbors to see if anyone had heard from or had seen Joan. Joan’s employer was also called, but he reported that Joan didn’t usually come to work that early in the morning due to taking her kids to school.
Sally Moore brought the boys back to their house to get them dressed and then bring them, along with her own children, to school.
She noticed the handyman busy at work. Jack explained that his mom was having a pool put in the back yard and that they might be able to have lily pads, fish, frogs and turtles in it. Sally’s kids got excited, saying, “Can we see it when it’s finished?”
“Of course you can,” Jack replied.
Sally got Joan’s and her own children safely seated in her car for the trip to school. She noticed that the handyman was finished and carrying his tools to his truck. She thought it was unusual for a handyman not to have advertising and phone number on his truck. She thought, He must be the Jack-of-all-trades, probably the friend of a friend. But it occurred to her that Joan hadn’t mentioned it when they had evening tea together the day before they had left for the funeral. She looked again, but from the front of the house the pond couldn’t be seen except for a slim black ridge that stuck slightly above the grass.
When she returned to the house from school, she thought about Joan’s car in the driveway. Where could she go without her car, Sally wondered. She checked the house to see if Joan had returned. She also checked for notes that might have been left in the house. Nothing. Then she checked Joan’s phone answering machine. Also nothing.
She returned home and checked her own answering machine, but there were no messages from Joan. She was pacing back and forth in her living room as she was worrying about Joan. She didn’t know what to do. She thought that if Joan didn’t show up by noon she’d have to call the police. As she waited she kept pacing and worrying. She’d look out the window, bite a fingernail, scratch her scalp and stare at Joan’s car until she was too frustrated and suspicious to wait any longer. As she called the town police, her hand trembled and the beginning of a panicked feeling assaulted her. She reported Joan as a missing person. She was now so highly suspicious of Doug that she mentioned Doug and the nasty divorce that had occurred recently. A patrol car showed up quickly, the patrolmen came to her house where, again, she informed them of Joan’s recent hostile divorce from her husband, Doug.
That afternoon the police came to Doug’s workplace, introduced themselves at the reception desk, then asked to speak with Doug. When Doug arrived he was informed that his wife was reported as a missing person by Sally Moore, their neighbor, who took the boys to school. They asked what he knew about the situation.
“Are you shitting me!” he exclaimed. “How long has she been missing? Where are the boys?” he shouted in panic. He paced around in front of the policemen, his hand wiping at his face, his fingers rubbing the tears from his eyes and cheeks. “I need to get the boys when school is over,” he pleaded with the lead policeman.
“No, Sally Moore has made arrangement to pick up your boys and have them stay with her until this situation is settled, or until Social Services takes the boys.
“Social Services…” Doug started to say.
“ Listen. Right now we need you to come to the police station to help give us the information needed to find you wife.”
Both policemen were watching Doug closely for signs of his involvement, but so far they’d decided he was either a guilty Oscar caliber actor, or he had nothing to do with his wife’s disappearance.
“Will you come to the station with us?”
“Of course!” he stated loudly as if insulted. “You need to find her. We’ve had our problems and we recently had a bad divorce, my fault for being the jerk but she’s still the mother of our boys. If it’ll help find her sooner, then sure, let’s go.”
The cops didn’t know what to think of that. It certainly was an unusual reaction according to their many experiences. Guilty people almost always hesitate to go to the police station. Guilty persons know that the interview is really an interrogation, and a way to trap them, so they initially oppose going to the police station. Naturally, the husband is the first one suspected when his wife disappears.
An investigative detective was in charge and asked what Doug knew about her disappearance.
“Look for her car, dammit. When you find it, you’ll probably find her or, at least, find some clues to where she might have gone. Oh, wait a minute, she was out of town at her brother’s funeral. Did Sally tell you that? I texted her about putting a small, decorative pond in the back yard. She said it would be all right as long as I was not there when she got home…”
“Why was that?”
“I have a restraining order to stay physically away from her. I told you I was a jerk during the divorce. I admit that. Look, I’ll give you the license plate number on her car.” He started looking in his wallet where he had it written down.
“I don’t need that. Her car is in the driveway.”
“Well, shit, man, then she’s in the neighborhood, somewhere.”
“We checked. Couldn’t find her. Your kids got up this morning, and couldn’t find their mom, so they went to the neighbor’s house. A Mr. and Mrs. Moore. She got them dressed and drove them to school with her own children.
“How could you text her, if you had a restraining order?”
“The order was for no physical contact and phone calls. I was still allowed to email and text her. That’s how I got permission to put the pool in the back yard. I was going to do it myself, but the neighbors might see me and think I was burying her. That’s why I hired a handyman to do the job. I had permission to put the pool in. I mentioned that, right? The only condition was that I am not to be there when she got home. I didn’t know, for sure, when she’d get home so, playing it safe, I just hired this guy to finish the job.”
“How did you get in touch with him?”
“I was at Delco’s Bar one night and I heard about this guy who did good work for cheap pay. Supposedly he was only looking for small handyman jobs. Quick jobs, quick pay, I guess. I asked about him and one of the guys pointed to a cork board where he left his name and phone number with the word ‘handyman’ after it. The next day I called, gave him the address, told him I marked where the center of the pond would be. He didn’t speak English well, but he understood enough to know what to do.
“His name.”
“On the cork board it said Jose, but when I met him he told me to call him Joe.”
“Hispanic?”
“Definitely. Mexican looking. Oh, shit! You think he was an illegal alien?”
“Perhaps.”
“So I dialed the phone number given in the ad and had to leave a message for him to call back. I was surprised when he didn’t want my phone number. He said, ‘Eeen mall.’ I asked him if he meant ‘email’ and he said, ‘Yas,’ so then I knew he understood me, and I understood him. I gave him my email address. He only emailed be twice. The English was good, so someone must have written it for him. That first email asked for the money in advance, which made me hesitate, but I put a hundred dollars, in twenties, in an envelope and stuck it under the front door Welcome Mat. The second time is when he finished. The email was one word: done. But you said Joan disappeared the same day the handyman finished the job?”
“No, it was the next morning that it was noticed by your boys. Doesn’t this procedure seem overly secretive to you? It didn’t alarm you?”
“Well, now that we’re examining it, it does sound suspicious, but I was in a hurry to get it done. Joe said he was leaving town and needed the money for gas. So we both wanted it done in a hurry.”
The detective checked the information and found that the cork board did indeed have the information I told him about. My phone was checked and the calls I said I made were recorded, the times approximately correct, but the two drunks could not be found. The bartender said he didn’t know any of them and with the bar being close to the main bus terminal, a lot of strangers come in while they wait for their bus connection.
“The phone he used to call you must have been a ‘burner phone,’ untraceable, he said.” He had even checked under the Welcome Mat and found the dusty, dirty imprint of the envelope, plus the faintest outline of the bills inside of it.
The police investigation found no proof of Doug’s involvement. The detective was now trying to find the handyman who had dug the hole and finished the pool job.
“He said he had to go out of town. He’d finished the job, so I didn’t think about him anymore.”
Your across the street neighbor said she saw him, but couldn’t describe him since he wore well-worn work clothes and a baseball cap. He even wore gloves, but many workmen do that.
The detective said, “ He may have been an illegal alien doing odd jobs, probably slept in his truck and had no regular employment.
The investigation went nowhere. After a few weeks, the incident became a cold case, although the detective assigned to the case was still suspicious of the husband. He thought it might be a well-planned crime. As a last resort he got a warrant to search the backyard, especially the pool area. He dug up one end of the pool, lifted it a foot, then shined a light along the ground. Nothing but dirt. Nothing more for him to do except put the pool down and apologize for the disruption. Definitely a missing person case that would go into the ‘Cold Case File.’
Doug’s exemplary behavior leading to his excellent rehabilitation, plus his clean criminal record convinced the judge to award him custody of the boys until their mother was located.
Doug remarried a month later. His new wife moved into Joan’s house (Doug’s house). Doug had his truck and now Sharon took possession of Joan’s car. They made a happy, cozy home for themselves, the boys looking forward to basketball, baseball and football that Doug promised them. Doug was already building a basketball area on the driveway.
Doug was on his absolute best behavior, but occasionally Doug would get home from work stressed and depressed. He’d walk out to the backyard, stand at the pond, stare into the water, then return to the house happy with the stress and depression drained from him.
One day Robert asked, “Dad, why is their always bubbles in the pond water? And Jack told me that, in the right sunlight, the water looks pinkish.”
“Well, son, the bubbles are from the lily pads. They need to breath, too, you know. They absorb carbon dioxide in the air and give off oxygen that causes bubbles. The pinkish color is only a reflection of the goldfishes scales. Since the goldfish are always moving, the pinkish color can only be seen as the right light source reflects off the moving fish. OK?”
Yeah. I like being near the pond. It makes me feel close to Mom. Jack says the same thing. When can we get a couple turtles?”
“Very soon, son.”
“Do you think mom will ever come back?”
“I don’t know, Robert. Sometimes when people run away, they stay away because there is something wrong with them and they can’t handle the responsibility for their kids and all the work it takes to help their kids grow up to be good adults. Sometimes it’s the stress from where they work. They want to get away from all of that, so they run away from all their problems. Usually they come back all by themselves, or the police find them.”
Robert said, “Oh,” then ran off to play while Doug stood still in the sunlight, looking at his own reflection. The breeze caused small ripples in the water making his reflection wobble and distort his facial structure. He smiled, thinking about how clever he had been. He thought, Who says you can’t get away with murder? You just need to be smarter than the investigators and be a clever sociopath who pays attention to every little detail, and as he giggled, he whispered, “And be a better actor than most of the Hollywood dickheads had to offer.”
One more smile, then he turned and walked away feeling happy.
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