They were identical, well almost identical. Their pale champagne colored hair was the envy of women who paid piles to their hairdressers trying to produce that very shade of blonde and their tall athletic builds were still curvy enough to garner whistles from the construction workers peppered throughout the city. Both girls were extraordinarily bright and would be graduating college in just months, both summa cum laude. The one noticeable difference was the color of their eyes. Emma’s bright green eyes smiled when she did, which was often. Elise had grey eyes with strands of barely blue folded into the irises; think wolf. Oh, in addition to eye color, there was one other difference, Emma loved animals and Elise didn’t.
The twins were looking forward to spring break, a stretch when they got to spend quality time with their parents. They resided with their mother and father in a spacious park side triplex , but hardly saw them. Their parents were rare coin dealers, internationally renowned and respected but always traveling, always off somewhere brokering a deal. The girls agreed to chill a bottle of wine and prepare a cheese board to welcome them home from their latest trip. The two were en route from the airport and would arrive in less than an hour.
Emma sought a quick nap. Her small dog lingered in the kitchen with Elise hoping for a doggy treat or a bit of cheese. Elise was having none of its cutsie begging routines. She kicked the animal in the underbelly, hard. The pet yelped so loudly she didn’t hear the rap at the front door. The rap turned to pounding before she heard and answered. It was the police to report that her parents were killed in a horrific traffic accident as they made their way home. Elise woke Emma who went into shock when told the news, then she collapsed and had to be hospitalized overnight for observation.
Elise moved forward. She notified family and friends, composed the obituaries for the newspaper and hired a string quartet for the prelude to the church sermon. She dealt with the florist, the limousine service and the caterers with calm, detached efficiency. The security detail she put together for the funeral procession was parade worthy. When she made the final decision on the caskets for her parents, the mortuary director remarked how well she was holding up considering the ordeal she was going through.
Emma sat in the church pew hunched and heavily medicated. Elise laughed to herself,
“Tortoise shell sunglasses that cover half of her face! Who does she think she is, Jackie O?”
Elise posed leaning against the balustrade in the chapel foyer and thanked the mourners as they left the service. She couldn’t wait to be done with the tedious chore, she was famished.
The last person to exit was a most attractive gentleman; tall, ruddy, perfect teeth, well dressed, older. He explained that he had worked for her parents while he was attending university. He’d never forgotten their many kindnesses and regretted that it wasn’t more than a holiday card he sent each year to keep in touch. When he read about the accident in the newspaper he felt compelled to attend the service. She thanked him and invited him back to the apartment for something to eat and drink. He accepted her invitation.
The post service gathering went well despite Emma’s presence. She did not respond when several guests patted her hand and said “sorry”. She sat propped in a corner, mouth agape, somewhat sedated and refused to remove those enormous sunglasses. Once again, Thomas Parker was the last to leave; Thomas Parker , that was the name of the handsome gentleman who so captivated Elise. She made sure to give him her telephone number and asked him to stay in touch. He promised he would call soon and insisted that she attend to her sister. He assured her that he could let himself out and with that took his leave down the marble staircase. Emma’s cat was sleeping on the hook rug in front of the door. He stomped on its tail as hard as he could with the heel of his shoe and left. The poor cat yowled and ran for cover.
Elise was agitated. Not a single congratulatory card or call when she received her degree. She was also agitated because aside from walking the dog, her sister rarely left the triplex and spent most days moping around wearing those ridiculous sunglasses. Elise was most agitated with Thomas Parker, he promised he’d call and he hadn’t. She wouldn’t dare deign to search for his telephone number and call him. Perhaps, he lost her number; now, that was something she could remedy.
Puncturing Emma’s neck with her father’s gold letter opener was easy, she bled out in minutes. Elise melted the murder weapon in the crucible her father used to scrap his damaged coins; nine troy ounces for her trouble. Her alibi held up, she knew it would. The doorman swore that he saw Elise leave at exactly 10:00 A:M for her run in the park and return at exactly 11:45 A:M. She found the body when she entered the apartment, about five minutes later. The doorman insisted that he saw Emma leave the building at 10:15 A:M with her dog and return at 10:25 A:M. The time of death and some of the forensics didn’t add up, but Elise passed three polygraph exams and the detectives deemed her grief genuine. The case went cold, ended up classified as a robbery/homicide.
Elise knew that killing those creatures every summer at the country house was the precursor to something big. She wondered if the cemetery she created with all the little bones of the chipmunks and squirrels and mice she slaughtered was still there? Maybe Thomas Parker would drive up there with her and then she could have a look see. He showed up, Thomas Parker that is. She knew that he would, all she had to do was recreate the event, the circumstances. The timing may have been a tad unscrupulous, nevertheless, Emma’s funeral was lovely.
Elise and Thomas Parker shared an interest, it was carnal. They sated their desires daily, until the shine on the apple began to dull, so to speak. Elise was the first to mention that she was ready for a change. He didn’t object. They agreed to meet the following morning for the last time as she needed a lift to a vacant lot; the cat and the dog had to go.
Thomas Parker arrived early and let himself in through the service entrance. As if by premonition the cat escaped lickity split as he entered. Elise was at the top of the staircase holding the dog by its leash. She looked sensational, tight pencil skirt, almost sheer blouse and stiletto heels. He let out a long, low whistle. Starved for attention, the dog thought the whistle was for him, got excited and ran circles around Elise’s ankles causing her to become bound by the leash and launch torpedo like down the marble stairs. Her skull split into thirds, blood and brain matter were strewn from her ears down and a large splintered bone jutted out from her shin. The dog was beneath her gasping for air, whimpering.
Thomas Parker poured himself a blackberry brandy and sipped contentedly as he watched the morning news waiting for the dog to go silent and only then did he call for help. ‘Accidental death by falling’ was the coroner’s ruling. There wasn’t a funeral for Elise, just a simple standard cremation. Thomas Parker allowed a year to pass before he relocated to the island of St. Celestina. A decade on and Thomas Parker still marveled at his good fortune. He was quite satisfied with his new life on St. Celestina; the island in the Caribbean not governed by a distant nation, not beholden to any sort of extradition treaties. He basked when the islanders referred to him as ‘the gentleman captain of the grandest catamaran in the harbor’. He knew he’d retain that title until the day that he died as long as no one uncovered his back story. Ah, the back story.
Thomas Parker worked for Elise’s parents when he attended law school. They were kind, caring, trusting folks which made it easy for him to steal the odd gold coin to pawn and put extra cash into his pocket. When he passed the bar exam and started practicing law the couple asked him to draw up a new will and review their estate plans. They were childless at the time and made him their primary beneficiary, they loved him as their own and they had assets worth millions. He couldn’t eat, sleep or think when he dreamed of his future inheritance. He knew he had to accelerate his collection date, but how, without getting caught?
Three years on, a stone in his shoe; a ‘change of life’ pregnancy they called it. The twins were born. Thomas Parker revised their will and laughed when he told them to tape it under the top drawer of their bedroom bureau and save the expense of a cumbersome safe. He never did destroy the first will. Nineteen years passed and finally, they died in a car crash. Thomas Parker tampered with the brake line of their collectible vintage car fifteen years earlier, but the foreign made vehicle was so well constructed it took that long for the part to break down.
Elise murdered her sister Emma and saved him the trouble of having to mail order the arsenic, that’s how he planned to kill the twins, with poison. He still couldn’t believe that the forensic team neglected to examine Elise’s running shoes. Had they bothered they would have seen what he did, tiny clumps of coagulated blood in the grooves of the sole beneath bits of earth and gravel from the jogging path packed on top. In that order, coagulated blood first and earth and gravel second, the dimmest investigator on the case should have figured out that Emma was dead before Elise went running.
The doorman got the times right, but it was Elise who doubled back and used the service entrance to quick change into a shift dress, flip flops and those hideous sunglasses to be seen walking her sister’s dog. Surveillance cameras weren’t ubiquitous back then. She ransacked the triplex the evening before adding credibility to the robbery aspect of the crime. A diary that he snatched made reference to the valuable coins she let slip from her fingers into the deepest part of the water as she rowed a rented boat around the lake melding with the gaggle of tourists enjoying the view of the skyline. The list of ‘missing’ coins kept the detectives busy for weeks scouring pawn shops and rousting the known illegal fences. The mishap with the dog’s leash, pure godsend.
Thomas Parker was able to retrieve the revised will on a visit to the restroom at the post funeral luncheon, it was taped to the underside of the bureau drawer in the bedroom. No problems were encountered when he claimed his inheritance. He dispersed his new found wealth into multiple off shore tax free accounts and settled in St. Celestina.
These days, to keep busy, he ferried the wealthiest one per cent on his catamaran to a secluded cove reserved for all sorts of anything goes debauchery. He transported trust fund babies who demanded instant gratification, inbred nobility, Wall Street bandits, doctors who became millionaires defrauding government programs and once, a lawyer who bragged how he billed a client for the time he spent in bed with her.
“Despicable, the whole lot of them!” whispered the islanders.
Thomas Parker disagreed, he contended that ‘eccentric’ replaced ‘despicable’ if you had oodles of money.
At sunset he was booked to shuttle a woman who married for money to the cove for an anniversary surprise. She was quintessential trailer park white trash; too buxom, too blonde and too tan. The sea was unusually calm. Past experience meant there was trouble ahead when the water was this still, a storm; perhaps. He feigned interest as the woman yammered on about the beautiful changing colors of the sky as the sun set. He never heard her husband creep up from the hull with a machete. The couple, who had fallen on hard times turned pirate and reset the course due south. They were in the pulpit of “The Disappearing Act” laughing manically and shouting, “Man overboard!” when they parceled out Thomas Parker’s body parts to the sea.
Coreen Falco
© 2016 Coreen Falco
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