Authors: Christopher C. Payne
I decided that I would make the drive this weekend and finalize this chapter of my life. It was time to escort Jill out of my conscious thinking for good. I had not been contacted by anyone from the police since that initial call. I had destroyed my phone, and I just needed this to be over. Maybe I was not the serial-killer type. Maybe I was just a plain ordinary guy who made a mistake and needed that mistake to be buried. Again, it was not like I had killed anyone. I was not even there when it happened.
I already felt more comfortable. I left my doctor’s office, promising that I would not be returning. I felt like I had just turned a corner. My neurosis was healed, and I truly felt that I was on the road to recovery. I went back to work feeling better than I had in a long while and made plans to go to the mountains over the weekend.
Removing a burden that has been weighing you down is a refreshing, wholesome time in anyone’s life. At that exact moment it feels like someone injected you with pure oxygen as the flow of youthful energy rejuvenates your essence. I felt reborn with a new outlook on life; and even though I knew the feeling was fleeting, it was nice to sit back and enjoy it today. I did not want to worry about possibilities and maybes that could or might occur down the road.
Sudhir spent the next few weeks canvassing the local establishments, talking to Jill’s friends and relatives, and reviewing the same data and facts over and over again. They had set up a small task force and spent several days at the Hammel’s house going through all of Jill’s belongings. Sudhir had gotten to know Jill’s parents (Bob and Rae) and her autistic daughter Riley. He felt like he was part of the family and, therefore, was sharing in their pain and the same sense of loss as if Jill had been his sister. Mike and Scott had long gone from the case. Although they were still listed as primary detectives, Sudhir was the only one spending any time or effort to find Jill or figure out what happened.
The computer had proven helpful. Jill definitely had gone out to meet somebody named Lewis for an initial date. Sudhir had tracked down the profile and found it led to a lock box address that had been opened for a very brief period and had not been used since. The person who had opened the lock box paid in cash, and there was no other current mail being delivered there. He had the forensics team come down and look for anything around, in, or by the lockbox, but they had come up empty. They had managed to pull the fingerprint of the local mailman, and he was quickly dismissed as a non-factor.
Sudhir had slipped back into his old routine of kids, drinking, and miscellaneous minor work-related duties. He continued to spend all his free time on the data surrounding Jill’s disappearance. He just could not accept that it would be written off as one of the hundreds of unsolved cases, pushed aside by the many undermanned and underpaid police departments across the country.
Janine had taken to more business trips the last few weeks. It seemed that she was gone two or three days every week. He still could never figure out what the hell she did in human resources that required her to be gone so much, but the last thing he wanted to do was ask. That would require a conversation between the two of them, and he avoided talking to her at all costs. Once you got her going, there was no real way to stop her, and her monotonous rambling was more than he could stand.
Sudhir was looking forward to this weekend. He was having a barbecue at the house, and several families were coming over to hang out. He was planning and implementing most of the associated tasks, but it would be nice to hang out with the gang again. They really didn’t get together enough. Ken would be there, and several other guys ranging from the local corporate accountant that Sudhir had grown up with, to his brothers and his wife’s brothers whom he saw most every weekend anyway. It was a good excuse to eat some grilled chicken and drink beer. He was Indian, so his barbecues did not consist of the traditional hamburgers and steaks, but nicely grilled chicken and turkey dogs for the kids. They were always a big hit.
Lately, he had fallen into drinking more than normal. He even had reverted to his old ways of slipping a squirt or two of vodka into his coffee at work. He was well aware of his drinking problem, but seemed to lack the ability to control it. He was pretty sure that he no longer cared. He was still able to devote energy to his kids, even when he was several drinks into the day. His sobriety was never questioned, as he liked the numbness that alcohol could bring, but he never pushed himself over the edge to inebriation. He was always in control, but could never muster the energy of facing the day or evening without the fogginess that a quick sip helped provide.
Nobody other than himself was really aware of his excessive habit. He kept it well hidden. Everyone knew he enjoyed his gulps now and then, but not to the everyday extent that was reality. He really had his mouth to thank for even giving him the brief respite from his normal routine. If it weren’t for his doctor’s advice, he might not have ever tempered his habits, but the medication had forced him to slow down and so he had. He had given up dipping completely, cut back on his smoking, and slowed his drinking. His drinking and smoking had reverted to their old ways, but he would never dip again. The growth in his mouth had cured him of this, if nothing else.
Isn’t it odd to refer to a cyst as a cure? It had enabled Sudhir with the strength to stop dipping once and for all. His wife, of course, hated it. That was not always a good sounding-board, as she tended to hate everything. She was turning bitter in her middle age; and if the trend continued, it would push her over the edge at some point. His love for his wife was genuine and he knew he didn’t believe or condone divorce but….marriage, in his mind, was for better and worse. While the worse part had taken control of their union and dominated their relationship, he held out hope that better would resurface at some point down the road.
The difficulty of staying married over an extended period of time is mostly challenged by the changes faced by couples as each one grows and adapts to new circumstances. As Sudhir got older, he realized that the metamorphosis needed to occur as a couple, so you alter as a team and a union. He now realized, and hopefully not too late, that they had started leading separate lives long ago. As they started changing individually that is where the rift threatened the foundation that began when they first said the words “I do.”
Sudhir was surrounded by divorce, and it seemed several couples he knew were splitting up. With the spoiling of children in today’s society, it was most likely only going to get worse. Our humanity seems to be built on the “me” and the “now,” and marriage cannot work if both parties are focused on themselves and not their partners.
He had no idea how to convey this to his wife, whom he still loved deeply despite their current state. If Jill’s case did nothing else, it was reminding him how important his family and marriage were. He still held a passionate desire for the person she used to be. They both needed to refocus their energy, and he only wished that he could help guide them back to that directional path. He was going to look into counseling again, see if they could go back to weekly sessions, and maybe the dialogue would help foster a catalyst to better times. As soon as this case was concluded, he would refocus on his marriage; and, with the reprioritization of energy, maybe they could find a way.
I packed my car after work on Friday. I again did not need a lot of items, but I did bring my laundry basket of dirty clothes as my new mini-mansion in Burlingame did not contain a washer and dryer. I seem to have a roadblock against buying them. The biggest obstacle was financial, but that had not stopped me from spending freely in the past. Since my separation from my wife, the financial burden of keeping two houses running was having its toll on my credit card debt, and each month the mountain continued to grow.
After loading up, I ushered my dog from the basement, and she excitedly made a beeline for the back of the SUV. She had her spot on a very well-worn moving blanket nicely folded for a bed behind the third row of seating. Not much room for her to move around, but she loved the prospect of going anywhere and was always exuberant to make a trip. She leaped into the back of the truck, and I closed the hatch right after throwing her a rawhide bone.
As with most labs, I imagine, Delilah could chew through a single large rawhide bone a day. She ate them like candy; but the more she chewed on them, the less she chewed on furniture or shoes or anything else within her reach.
I jumped into the front seat, started the SUV, and headed out. I turned on the music and listened to the songs my oldest daughter had recorded on my XM radio. I sang along with most of them as the trip to my cabin home progressed. I am one of those individuals that must be moving and/or active at all times. I am constantly flicking a pen, tapping my foot, or padding my hand. The music and singing helped me divert my overly active energy in a positive direction.
I hit traffic at the 880 Interchange, which happens more times than not, and instantly knew that this would be a nighttime drive. I was already leaving toward the end of the day, but had hoped to make the bulk of my journey in the waning light. It was not to be the case. As I sat in traffic, I contemplated what I would find and tried to block it out of my mind. It only made me anxious, and I was starting to lose the ability to control my anxiety. My neurotic preoccupation with fantasy STD’s was just starting to lapse, and I did not want to replace this with anything else right now. My nerves really needed time to heal.
As I finally made it through the Los Angeles-like congestion of Pleasanton/Dublin/Tracey, the evening was now well into night. It was approaching 8:30, and the sun was a good hour into its round trip on the other side of the world. That was when I received my first e-mail from my ex-wife-to-be. Our current mode of communication was e-mail. We had attempted face-to-face discussion. That never ended well. We then had moved into phone conversations that always erupted into a brawl that could be turned into video game, and had finally ended contently with e-mail as our only conduit for discussion.
You can say whatever you like through e-mail and vent your frustration in a one-sided conversation. If you chose, you don’t even have to read the response. Her monologue started off blaming me for taking files, two pictures she had thrown in a closet, my grill, and two lawn chairs from our house. When I had picked up the rug the other day, I had also grabbed a few other items.
I was a little taken aback at first on how to respond logically, which my wife does not understand the definition of anyway. I took our files as I had told her I was going to since in the few months after I had moved out she had not looked at them once. Ironically, she continued to ask me questions about their contents even while they were in her possession. I had finally stated in e-mail that I would just pick them up as it didn’t seem to make sense for her to have them if she were never going to even look at them.
I took a grill, which she had never used. I took two of the nine lawn chairs, which seemed reasonable, and two paintings that she hated and kept in the back of a closet. This was the kind of person that I was trying to deal with in a reasonable manner. I stated the above to her as nicely as I could and kept my response brief and to the point. I think that is how you are supposed to try and reason with crazy people.
She replied, calling me a thief and a liar. Telling me how underhanded and sneaky I was and how she couldn’t believe I had sunk so low as to steal things from her house. Keep in mind that the divorce was still not final. I had taken relatively nothing from the house at this point, and she was calling me a thief. The conversation took a negative spin from there, and we continued to banter back and forth calling each other names and genuinely being childish.
God, she really is the definition of insanity. I only wished that I were low enough to forward these e-mails to her group of alcoholic friends, so they could see the instability that I had to deal with for 15 years.
My wife had become a deranged sperm bank for anything with balls on Match.com, and now she was accusing me of pilfering leftover junk that she didn’t even want. Apparently too much semen intake through the mouth starts to rot your brain. It must be something like eating too much candy rots your teeth. Her head had liquefied into a slushy, salty repository that was devouring her ability to think clearly.
Unfortunately, this interaction reached its crescendo just as I was exiting the freeway at Manteca. I was now on the little two-lane highway that twists its way up the mountains toward Yosemite. During the 20-mile stretch between Manteca and Oakdale I happened to see a car pulled over on the side of the road. A lady waved her arms frantically. Since my blood was at a boiling point, I pulled over in front of her car and backed up to within inches of her front bumper.
As I exited the car it was very dark. The streetlights were nonexistent, but the road was, instead, lined with pecan trees neatly stacked up in never-ending rows. She informed me that her car had broken down, and her boyfriend had left 15 minutes ago to jog ahead to the nearest gas station and ask for help. She anticipated his being back in another 30 minutes or so, but was growing apprehensive being on the side of the road alone.
She was in her mid-20’s was my guess, very slim, with what appeared to be sandy blonde hair. At one point it had obviously been bleached blonde, as you could see her root structure in the dark of night lit by the glow of her headlights. She was around 5’3” and about 110 pounds. There is no way that the large protruding breasts that shot out of her skin-tight tank top could be real. Not sure why she didn’t have a coat on, but the chill of the night had added a perky benefit pointed in my direction. Her nipples protruded straight ahead like the tip of a ballpoint pen that has just been ejected from its resting place.
I walked up to her, balled up my right fist, and cold-cocked her right in the head. It was like slow motion. I watched my hand slowly moving forward, my fingers clenching in a tight, round ball shooting through the air. My knuckles became redder with each inch of motion as I compressed my fist into a small sledge-like sphere. My middle finger knuckle connected first, as my fist flattened out against the left side of her nose and cheek. The cartilage and bone seemed to cave inward with a snapping sound that for some reason brought back the memory of the Rice Krispie commercial where “Snap, Crackle, and Pop” were featured.
She went straight down like a tree that has just lost its roots and has no ability to stand on its own. I still had the chloroform in the car from my previous encounter and dumped some on my hand and quickly pounced on top of her, covering her mouth and now bloody, squirting nose with my hand. She was groggy from the shock of the moment and did not even put up a fight before she lost consciousness. My hand smothered her face with blood shooting between my fingers. Her nose was like a little volcano that was having a small eruption.
I moved her to my car and threw her in the back seat, not even bothering to tie her down. I ran to the driver’s seat and jumped in, throwing it into gear and slamming on the gas. I squealed off of the curb, throwing gravel into her headlights as the car twisted onto the road and sped off. What in the hell was I thinking? It was one thing for my wife to push me over the edge, but another thing to act stupidly without thought of the future. My goal from the beginning was to always be smart, and I was being anything but.
Delilah was standing up in the back, staring over the row of seats at our new addition. She had a quizzical look on her face, as if she were wondering what had happened—and if I knew how ludicrous I had become. I looked back and did not see anyone behind me. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of the blonde’s belly button ring protruding out from where her tank top had bunched up underneath her large, supple breasts. Her tight designer jeans were about two inches too long and frayed on the bottom, covering her sandals of which she only had one remaining on her left foot.
God, she was beautiful, even with the swelling and redness that now covered her face and seemingly dying her hair an unnatural reddish color from the blood. The eruption had already slowed to a steady trickle. The color of her skin was turning a dark purple and grew each minute as the swelling moved over her features. She was going to be very sore in the morning, or at whatever time she gained consciousness.
The additional hour drive through Oakdale along the twisting, curving highway toward my house in Twain Harte was uneventful. I again pulled through the main street underneath the arch that proudly displayed the town name, welcoming you to this sleepy, quaint village where kids could play on the street and nothing of any significance ever seemed to occur. If they only knew the acts that were now being committed, I wondered how many of them would remain or if the town would be forever tainted by the memories that would be instilled.
I hit the garage door opener as I pulled into my driveway and watched the door slowly being sucked back into the garage by the chain installed on the roof overhead. Delilah as normal was antsy to relieve herself and bolted from the back immediately upon my raising the rear hatch. As usual she reacquainted herself to the area, sniffing and zig-zagging back and forth. She finally found that perfect spot that had been reserved this day for her and her alone to saturate with her bodily fluids.
Everyone needs that one true connection to reality that keeps you grounded and focused on what is real and what is just sheer fabrication. Delilah was my link. She was the source of my connection to understanding the lines that I was crossing as I stood on the brink of moving into another world. My kids were my only hope at being a whole person, and the love that they projected was a gift that cannot ever be taken for granted, but Delilah was always there for me. Dogs are the perfect companions because of the non-judgmental, unconditional love that they will always have every single time you open the door—no matter into what kind of monster you have evolved.