The Crime of Stan Digory

The room was cold all over with the exception of the aura of heat that emanated from the corpse and the murderer looming over it. The victim, Randall Kane, was a large man. His size alone would confound any detective as to the true size of his assassin, Stan Digory. Stan breathed slowly and heavily, the blood collecting around his feet in a hot sticky puddle. He breathed the sour air that stank of rust and flesh, closed his eyes and felt his head pulse with blood. Each artery branching throughout his body expanded and contracted with the rhythm of his tired heart.

Time seemingly slowed down behind his eyelids, but rushed to catch up with itself as he opened them. The light rushed through his pupils with such great force that his irises struggled to keep it out. Stan’s heartbeat quickened as he turned his head and caught a glimpse of the clock on the mantle. His wife would be home in two hours.

“I have to get rid of the body,” Stan uttered the words through his clenched teeth. He planted his feet into the floor and clumsily dragged the body of Randall Kane across the kitchen floor. The heels of Randall’s shoes streaked pink ribbons onto the linoleum like some morbid candy cane. Perspiration began to bead across Stan’s forehead as he saw the mess he was creating. He ran into the bathroom and tore off the plastic shower curtain. They were out of garbage bags.

“I’ll tell her I slipped and tore the curtain trying to hold myself up,” he said. Stan was amazed at how clearly he could thing. The bitter taste of bile fought its way to the back of his throat at the sight of all the blood, but he forced it back down into the depths of his gut. He laid the shower curtain on the kitchen floor against the glass door leading to the backyard and heaved the bloody lump of a body onto the center of it. Stan was very careful to wrap the shower curtain around the body so that it no longer resembled that of a bloody corpse.

The glass door slid open and a red handprint can be seen on the glass and the sunlight shone through it like a grotesque stained glass window. “I’m going to have to clean that up later,” Stan thought to himself. He dragged the body around the back yard and dropped it by the fence. Two streaks in the wet grass were wet with the blood of the victim. “I’ll just hose that down afterwards,” he had everything figured out. Stan peeked outside the gate and saw no neighbors or passersby, but he did see Randall’s car untidily parked in the Digory driveway.

“Once I get it in the trunk of his car all I have to do is have it towed away.” So far, so good. Stan lifted the creaking latch to open the gate and dragged the body towards the car. Suddenly he heard the rustle of footsteps among the tumbling leaves in the street. It was Stan’s neighbor. Stan could feel the blood rush from his head and the strength of his arm sapped into the atmosphere. The neighbor just stood there for an eternity and Stan couldn’t move not knowing if he was seen. Almost as if his lungs had the capacity to control themselves, Stan’s breathing slowed to a stillness that could only be matched by the breathing of the corpse. Just then his neighbor turned slowly towards him. He had been spotted!

“No, not now,” he prayed, but to whom Stan didn’t know. But instead of an incriminating look of condescension, the neighbor simply waved. Stan forced a smile through his lips and forced his cheeks back, hoping the gesture appeared genuine.

“Did you need help there, Stan?”

“No! I’m good. Thanks!” The weight of the body was pulling Stan’s shoulders towards the earth.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve got it. I appreciate the offer!” The sunlight made the contents of the plastic shower curtain begin to reek of sulfur and rancid meat. Again, the contents of Stan’s stomach clawed its way to the back of his throat. One large gulp forced it back down his gullet.

Finally, he had reached Randall’s car, but relief was not there waiting for Stan. He reached into the sticky mess inside the shower curtain and pulled out the car keys that had the appearance of marble from the trickling blood. By this time the corpse had stiffened enough to make stuffing it into a trunk a rather difficult task. Determined, Stan forced all of his weight into the bloated stomach of the corpse. There was a sickening crack as Randall Kane’s body was forcefully wedged into the compartment.

He went back into the house through the backyard careful to take care of the stripes of blood on the grass with the hose. Stan went through the back door and made sure to clean his bloody track every bloody step of the way. The house echoed with the squeaking of the glass doors being scrubbed clean so that not even a cloudy residue of the cleaning agent that removed the blood would remain. Stan was so careful and mopped up every inch of the kitchen’s linoleum floor.

The receiver clicked as Stan lifted it and dialed the number of a random towing company. “There’s a car in my driveway and I don’t know whose it is. I’d like for it to be taken away, please. Twenty minutes will be perfect.” He was beginning to think he could get away with it all. He scrubbed the floor, every fraction of every square inch so that no evidence could be seen by the naked eye.

There was nothing left to be done, he thought to himself, until he stood up and realized that there was blood on the soles of his shoes. Stan left pink footsteps following his moves around the kitchen floor as if some spirit watched over him. Just then he heard footsteps slowly approaching the front door.

“It can’t be! She’s early,” he wondered how his wife could possibly be home early. “She hadn’t even left work yet. She couldn’t have left early, not without calling me.”

Panicked, Stan threw his shoes into the sink and a rag onto the floor. He scrubbed the footsteps of blood with his feet while reaching with his hands in the sink to wash the blood from the soles of his feet. He could see the shadows of two legs stopping just in front of the door. “I need more time,” Stan whispered to himself. “That can’t be her, not yet!” And with that the mail fell through the mail slot. Never has the falling of bills and advertisements on the hardwood floor been such a beautiful sight to Stan. “It was just the mail man.”

But there was only half an hour left. The tow truck had finally arrived and had taken away the car of the recently deceased (its owner neatly packed in the trunk). When Mrs. Digory arrived, she wondered why a car had been towed from the front of the house. As she opened the door, an unusually eager Stan greeted her with a hug and a kiss.

“What was that all about?” she asked.

“I just missed you today is all. Can’t a husband miss his wife?”

“That’s sweet, but I’m talking about that tow truck. Whose car was that?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I had it towed.”

Mrs. Digory went to the bathroom to freshen up.

“Honey, why is there no shower curtain in here?”

“Oh! I had a horrible spill today. I slipped in the shower and grabbed onto the curtain and ended ripping it off. I’ll get a replacement.”

“You slipped? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. I’m perfectly all right.”

“You’re a horrible liar, Stan,” she replied. She gestured to his right ear where there was a spot of dried blood caked into a chalky, brown spot.

“Oh, that…” Stan could feel the blood rushing from his temple, his face tightening, his hands growing cold and clammy.

“I don’t see a cut anywhere, but you were lucky this time. Next time you need to be more careful. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Mrs. Digory walked to the bedroom and began changing out of her work clothes. Stan told himself that he had gotten away with the perfect crime and no one would be the wiser. He gave a quick glance at the backyard and kitchen floor and saw no immediate signs that would implicate him of any wrongdoings.

“By the way, Stan?” the woman of the household asked.

“Yes, honey,” he answered, still scrubbing away at the most minute details to rid the house of any traces of Randal Kane’s blood.

“You said that you had some big problem that you had to work out today.”

“That’s right,” he responded, “It was a huge problem.”

“Well, did you take care of it? I was hoping to go out for dinner tonight.”

“Yes, actually,” Stan smiled to himself, “In fact, I took care of it just before you came in.” What Stan didn’t tell her was that the problem actually had just been towed away moments before his wife pulled into the driveway.