Snow Creek(45)

“They keep coming, Amy,” Regina says cuddling in bed with her wife.

“You keep us safe.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes, babe, I do.”

Even after the fight. The really bad one.

Even then.

Even now.

Regina looks at the ceiling and Amy’s hand rests on her shoulder.

“I never should have tried to stop you, Amy.”

“I know you did it because you love me. I forgave you long ago.”

Regina’s tears flow. She tells Amy that she hoped this day would never come. She never imagined trying to protect their own privacy; getting rid of the man’s body.

“Seen his kids up that road a few times over the years,” Regina remarks.

As Regina mixes rat poison into a bowl of water, she thinks back to the big fight and how it all started. It was the fall before the last. Back then, Amy barely spoke to Reggie. And when she did it was only one subject.





“I don’t want to live here for the rest of my life, Reggie. We agreed it was for a few years. Great. Fine, but, babe, that was a dozen years ago. I want to move on.”

Reggie ignored the remark for the longest time.

Amy finally spoke up.

“You are making me do something that I don’t want to do.”

That got Reggie’s attention.

Amy was full of resolve, but she’s crying anyway.

“I don’t love you like I did, babe. I want out. I want a divorce.”

Regina’s eyes bulged and she dove for Amy.

“You can’t leave!”

Amy pushed back hard. Regina was stronger, tougher and equally full of resolve. She wasn’t going to stop until she got what she wanted. “You aren’t going anywhere. You love me. You said so.”

“I did. Really, Regina, but it was a long time ago.”

“You little liar,” Regina growled as she went for Amy’s neck.

In a flash, Amy grabbed a knife from the counter, and swung it wildly, before ramming its tip into Regina’s eye. Blood squirted and Regina screamed at the top of her lungs.

“What did you do to me?”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“Never leave me. Not ever.”

Somehow, they’d managed to fight their way across from one room to the next. What started in the bedroom had moved them to the kitchen. Blood gushed from the spaces between Regina’s fingers as she pressed over the agony that was her right eye.

However, Regina’s reflexes were sharp. She knocked the knife out of her wife’s hand and threw herself on top of her.

“You said you were mine forever.”

By then, Amy could no longer speak. Her eyes, wide open, began to bloom blood as the capillaries burst. Regina’s hands tightened around her neck. She wanted to stop. It’s impossible. It’s the kind of thing for which there was no turning back.

Regina stared at the ebbing life force. It’s like a beautiful, nearly invisible vapor that curls above before vanishing out the window.

“You’ll never leave me.”

“I would never leave you,” Amy insisted. “I love you, Regina. I’m sorry.”

Regina sat awhile, thinking. Her eye. She couldn’t go to the hospital. She made her way, nearly stumbling as she walked, to the bathroom. She took off her clothes, took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and washed herself in the outdoor shower.

She tried not to cry. It hurt so much. Without a nanosecond of delay, Regina stepped away from the water, leaned back and poured the contents of the bottle into her eye socket. She screamed louder than she ever had in her life. Foam collected in her where her eye had been and she poured more, again and again.

Always with a scream.

That’s when the idea came to her.





Amy doesn’t say a single word while she watches Regina mix the powdery and crystalline poison she’d used to kill the barn rats. She’s sitting up in bed, and when Regina sits next to her, Amy reaches out and touches her tenderly. She holds the juice glass with the poison; they stare straight ahead.

Regina cries from her single eye.

Amy trembles.

“I am sorry,” she whimpers.

“I know.”

“I love you, Regina. Always have.”

“Always will.”





Twenty-Nine





I can’t face the tapes right now. I can’t face going home. I think of returning Dan Anderson’s call, but that would make me feel like a jerk for not phoning sooner. So, I don’t. Instead I drive to the waterfront, to the bar, The Tides, a place Mindy and I frequented back in the day. I miss seeing her. Hayden too. My list is short.

I’m feeling sorry for myself and I know it.

My focus and my brain and yes, my emotions, should be aimed solely on the case.

I don’t know any of the staff at The Tides. I’ve hit the point in life where I’m nearing that middle part where no one sees you anymore. Service at a bar or restaurant is slower. Talking with the waiter or anyone is nonexistent. Unless I’m willing to dress a little more provocatively, I’ll always be a Soup-for-One girl.

The Tides is authentic, not one of those chains that brings in some buoys and floats with netting that had never seen seawater. It’s a converted warehouse at the end of the dock. It’s painted blue and features a broad white and navy stripe on its awning over the door. The Tides is spelled out in thin pieces of driftwood.