Ideas of Murder in Southern Vermont continued


Ray's Ford F-150 is parked in front of the Paul Revere statue at the lower end of the Southbury commons.  The red brick buildings of the college clutter the hillside.  A summer school student in lime green, see-through camisole meanders by.  Ray smokes a cigarette and watches her with psychosexual interest.  He has no recollection of how he or the truck got into town.

Twombley's Tap Room is located in the Millard Fillmore Hotel -- parking in rear.  Ray turns down the alley.  Behind and below the Fillmore East, as it's called by a few diehard hippies, is an open parking area covered in crushed stone.  Wooden stairs of dubious pedigree wobble up to the ground floor of the hotel.

Ray sees the Camry in the third slot from the end.  He wants to pretend it belongs to someone else.  There's an open space right next to it, so he pulls in.

Rex, the afternoon bartender at the Tap Room, nods.  Ray nods back, walks to the bar and shakes loose a cigarette.  Rex lights it.  This is not a pickup move.  Anything between them happened when they were on the wrestling team together back in high school.  As Rex pours a jigger of Old Crow, his eyes travel in an arc toward the back of the room.  Ray squints in that direction.  He's forgotten to put in his contacts.

But there's no mistaking Gillian's cascading tresses and shapely arms.  A guy flaunting a straw Stetson sits on the reverse side of the same booth.  Ray edges his drink down the bar until he can make out the cowboy's walrus mustache.  When the cowpoke gets up to go to the john, he appears tall and lanky and dangerous.

Ray waits until the ranch hand disappears through the swing door to the pissoir.  Then crosses from the end of the bar to Gillian's booth in a single bound.  A Colt pistol with a pearl handle appears from somewhere.  At the distance of twelve inches, it's hard to miss, especially when you pull the trigger five times.  Blood spatters everywhere. Dropping the gun, Ray turns and walks out of the bar.  Rex nods again as he passes.  No one moves to stop Ray's exit.

When the shots ring out, the cowboy pisses himself in the shoe.  He stays in the men's room until a buddy gives him the all clear.

When he hears the Camry's tires on the gravel driveway, Ray opens his eyes.  It's Gillian, back from town.

He's sitting in an Adirondack chair facing the setting sun.  The empty Old Crow bottle is at his feet, but hidden in shadow.  He stands and raises a hand.

"Ray, honey, help me out with these groceries.  Then I'll make you a cup of tea."

As he walks toward her, he notes there are no bloodstains on his khakis.  Maybe I should lay off the hooch, he thinks.

Gillian kisses him on the mouth.  Her body pushes into his.   As his tongue chases hers, she shoves him away; then does a half-assed pirouette.

"Do you like my hair?"

"Looks about the same."

"Ray, baby, how come you're always such a fucking romantic?" 

She sets her grocery bag on the table, shaking her head.  Next she puts on the teakettle to boil. 

"Personally, I need a pick-me-up." 

She waltzes into the dining room and comes back with a crystal tumbler half full of Cutty Sark, to which she adds ice.  Gillian never has a drink, thinks Ray. 

By now the teakettle is roiling and tooting.  His stomach suddenly queasy, Ray chooses a mint teabag.  An ill omen.

Ray sits at the table with its embroidered tablecloth, made by some ancient relative of his or Gillian's.  Gillian sets the everyday teapot on the table.  The scent of the mint steeping rises like a Levantine ghost.  She sets a cup and saucer in front of him, and a pitcher of cream.

"I baked this morning.  A chocolate cherry cake.  Your favorite."

She puts the cake on the table.  It's fallen in the middle, like a subsidence above an old mineshaft.  She cuts a huge piece and places it on a plate in front of Ray.

Gillian never bakes, goes through his head, as he swallows the first bite.  Gillian is staring at him.  Waiting for something to happen.

He carves out another large hunk of cake onto his fork.

He knows, of course, that it's spiked with a deadly poison that leaves no trace after five hours.

The things we do for love, he thinks, as he chomps on the second bite and goes for the third.

END