No Redemption ~ A short story
“This is crazy,” she muttered, and put her foot on the gas. She glanced at her watch, eleven thirty now, she had an hour and a half.
She didn’t turn around.
A half hour later she pulled into a small shopping center just outside of Kirks, Pennsylvania, took out her cell phone and called her sister. “Susan can you do me a favor and pick up Nadine from school?”
Catherine’s eyes scanned the parking lot, barely registering her sister’s answer. “Un-huh, One O’clock.”
Across the street a blond got out of a red Mustang and walked into a deli.
"I have to go, Soose. I owe you one.” Catherine’s pulse accelerated.
There was no sign of Greg and that was a good thing. If she saw him here, she didn’t know what she would do. Confront him? She was beginning to sweat and turned the air conditioning up another notch.
The woman came out of the deli carrying a small white paper bag and a paper cup. From Catherine’s view point she couldn’t see the woman’s face but this was the one all right, she recognized the license plate. It cost forty dollars to do a search on the Internet and get an address for that plate. It was registered to a flower shop in this shopping center. The closed sign was still hung on the door of the shop and Catherine wondered what kind of business woman opened her shop at noon. Ridicules.
One month ago to the day, Catherine had deviated from her normal routine of going straight home after dropping Nadine off and decided to go shopping. That’s when she spotted her husband’s blue pickup truck tucked neatly in beside this same red Mustang at the Angel Falls Motel. It was barely ten a.m.
She staked out the room for two hours before they emerged. TWO HOURS! They were going on in there for two hours. All Catherine could think of was why he wanted this blond, all two hours worth of blond, more then he wanted his own wife? What had she done wrong?
She kept a clean house, did his laundry, cooked his meals, took good care of their daughter and did her best to be a good wife. So what had she done wrong?
Sitting this hot minivan Catherine had to admit her body wasn’t what it was before Nadine’s birth. Her hips had gained an inch or so and the skin on her abdomen now hung slightly. No matter how many sit ups she did, that layer of flab refused to tighten. Was that her fault?
She watched the Mustang now and remembered the look on Greg’s face as he came out of that motel that day. How his eyes darted guiltily for a minute before looking back to Miss Blondie and smiling. The woman touched his cheek as she kissed him goodbye, then got into the Mustang and drove off. Greg was whistling as he got into his truck.
Now she was sitting here watching the woman leave the deli with a cup of coffee and some treat in a little white bag and before she knew what she was doing, Catherine put the minivan in gear and followed the red Mustang around the side of the shopping center and into the back parking lot. She looked at her watch, Nadine would be getting out of school soon. Soose promised to take her to McDonald’s and have her back around four. Greg usually came in about five thirty or six. She’d never have time to fix dinner, she’d have to get a pizza for tonight.
The woman drove along the back of the stores where there were a number of doors leading into the shops. Catherine followed at what she guessed would be a safe distance. Miss Blondie parked and Catherine drove past, eyes averted. She pulled in behind a dumpster two doors down and slipped quietly from the van. Miss Blondie was just going into her shop. Above the door was painted, “FLOWERS BY LORRIANE”. Catherine edged her way over and peeked in through the screen door.
Lorraine. The woman who was sleeping with her husband was named Lorraine. The blond hair, tight petite body and shapely legs were named Lorraine. How Catherine hated her.
The door opened into some sort of a workroom and the heady scent of roses filled the air. A large table in the center was covered with flowers, pruning shears and bits of foam and wire. Catherine could hear the woman moving around out front.
“This is ridicules, Catherine,” she whispered to herself as she eased open the door and stepped through. “What are you going to say to her?”
The phone ran and footsteps clicked against the tile, moving closer. In a moment of panic Catherine ducked beside the large refrigerator just as Miss Blondie entered the room.
She watched as the woman, her back still to Catherine, reached for the phone.
“Hi, honey!” Miss Blondie cooed into the phone. “What’s up?”
She paused to listen, then laughed. The laugh grated like sandpaper on Catherine’s already jangled nerves.
“Do you want to meet me there?” she asked. “Okay, you got a date.”
All Catherine could think of was Greg. How he pecked her cheek as he went out to work this morning, lips barely touching her skin before drawing away. He spent more and more time at work and not nearly enough with her and Nadine. She thought of how he smiled at Miss Blondie and rage welled up inside of her. Now they had another “date”. Miss Hot Pants and her husband. A woman who jumped into bed with married men, doing God knows what for TWO HOURS! For Catherine the world took on a red haze.
Grabbing a large ceramic vase off the counter, she raised it high and in two quick steps brought it crashing down on top of that blond head. The woman dropped like a stone, face down on the floor and all Catherine could do was stare. Blood, bright red, pumped out of a gash on the side of Miss Blondie’s head, she twitched once, twice, and then lay still. The red stain of her blood soaked the blonde hair as it worked its way into an ever-widening circle like some bloody angel’s halo.
A little bell chimed as someone came in the front of the shop, the sound snapped Catherine’s head around so fast the muscles in her neck strained. She could hear someone moving about the shop and that was enough to put her feet back into motion. She tried to step over the woman on the floor but miscalculated. Her heal caught the edge of that bloody circle and she slid, split style, her one knee going down onto Miss Blondie’s back. Catherine’s breath was coming in short hitching gasps as she used the edge of the table to pull herself back up. The blood beneath her foot brought her down again and this time she sat down hard on the dead woman beneath her. Not worrying about anything but getting out of there, Catherine rolled over onto her knees and then scrambled to her feet. Blood staining the legs of her jeans as she half slid, half ran to the back door.
She jumped into her van and tore around the other end of the small shopping center, forcing herself to slow down as she reached the front so she could blend in with the rest of the lazy afternoon shoppers.
***
“Are you trying to get drunk?” Greg asked that night as Catherine poured another glass of wine after dinner. “That’s your fourth glass.”
“It’s been a long day,” she answered. All night she had been watching him for a sign. Did he know anything? Had he tried to call Miss Blondie’s shop? Taking a hefty swallow of wine she settled herself on the other end of the couch.
Catherine was sure she could see a person’s soul through their eyes. She should have turned that woman over and peered into her eyes. To see her soul or lack there of.
Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not kill….
Did she kill? Catherine wasn’t sure, but there was so much blood. How could anyone bleed that much and not be dead?
Half of her brain told her the woman deserved what she got, but mostly Catherine was worried about her own soul. If the woman was dead would Catherine burn in hell or was she exempt from this sin because the sin of adultery was there first? Was the killing not a sin because it was the cure of the first sin?
Catherine took another deep sip of wine. Those commandments needed to be more explicit. Thou shalt not kill came after thou shalt not commit adultery so didn’t that make adultery a worse sin? She didn’t know. Or was the murder commandment first, making it more important than the adultery one? Catherine glanced toward the shelf where her Bible sat nestled between her cook books and a dictionary. She was going to have to look it up.
Greg’s cell phone chimed sharply and she nearly jumped through the roof. He glanced at the screen and went to the kitchen as he answered it. Her heart accelerated. She could barely hear his muted words as he spoke but she knew what it was about. It seemed like forever before he came back into the family room. His face pale and she wondered if he would tell her now. Would he confess to cheating now that his lover was dead? A small part of her took pleasure in his pain. She drained her wine glass.
“Catherine,” he stood before her. “I have to go out.”
She tried to act indifferent. “Oh?”
“The girl in my office,” he hesitated. “Her mother was murdered today. She owned this little flower shop and they think she might have walked in on a robbery. Tracy is upset and…”
Catherine’s blood ran cold. Tracy? Greg continued to talk but she couldn’t hear him over the rushing sound in her ears. Tracy? A girl in his office?
Had she killed an innocent woman? She was going to burn in hell now. Lost in the limbo of fire for all eternity.
Greg gathered his coat and keys and Catherine stood on wobbly legs.
“Why do you have to go?” Catherine asked, her voice tainted with panic, hands shaking.
At this Greg hesitated, anguish straining his features. “I’ve met her, she was a nice lady. Tracy’s a loyal employee and...I just have to go.”
That’s it? Catherine thought at panic bubbled up inside her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. As much as she feared the loss of her soul, this was supposed to keep Greg home. Make him realize that woman was just a mistake, a blip in their marriage that would just disappear. Ashes to ashes and she’d be gone.
“Greg,” her voice shook as she moved to stand in front of him. She wanted to demand answers. Make him confess his sins and tell her it was all a mistake. She placed her palms on his chest. “She’s just an employee. It’s not your place. You should be here with your own family.”
Greg stared at her and for one split second Catherine felt he knew what she did. As his hazel-green gaze bored into her's she could swear he could see her sin. She froze as ice cold centipedes skittered up and down her spine.
Then Greg stepped back and pushed her hands from his body.
“I have to go,” he said evenly and walked out the door.
Catherine knew he was going to her, that sinful bitch, and her anger rose. Here, she had risked her very soul for their marriage and Greg pushed her off like some stray dog looking for a handout. Maybe Miss Blondie wasn’t the problem here, maybe the sin was inside her own husband. Maybe he had a demon thing inside him that made him do these things to her. Made her sin and risk her very soul because he had a wandering eye. His sin, not her’s. She was just a pawn in his evil game of Black Matrimony.
“Well, one sin, two sin,” she said glaring at the door. “We’ll see who wins.”
A small smile lit Catherine’s lips as she walked into the kitchen to pour another glass of wine and wait for her husband to return.
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