Chapter 3

Ury and Rita

24 hours later

It’s 2 am on a Monday night and Mark drives his patrol car to the west end of town towards the river road bridge. The bridge, built in 1957, is worn from years of traffic and repairs and spans the width of the Mason river, it is a favorite fishing spot for locals in town. Slowing down fifty feet before the edge of the bridge, Mark takes a side spur gravel road that veers right and drives the patrol car down the path watching for racoons, possums and any other critters that might be out tonight. He takes a hard left off the main road and parks the car in a small area used by local fisherman under the bridge. To the right the river road continues parallel to the Mason river for the next twenty five miles. In this secluded spot, he can watch the water from the river as it slowly slides past his front bumper in the bright moon light down as far as he can see until it disappears in the distance. He rolls down his drivers side window and shuts off the car letting everything go dark. Only the light from his dash cam stays on letting him know that everything is being recorded.

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A moment later he unclips his microphone, sets it on the dash, opens the drivers side door and exits the vehicle walking towards the bridge. He looks up and shines his flashlight up onto the supports of the bridge looking for anything out of the ordinary. All he sees in concrete, steel and lots of graffiti from years of use and abuse by the local kids in town. The sound of the water is soothing and the warm summer breeze feels good on his skin. He is disappointed though, his search has yielded little and he was expecting to meet someone, or something.

Then he sees a shadow moving on the pylon above and the familiar sound of breathing.

He shines his light on the spot above and spies what he is looking for, a troll. Not any troll, but his troll friend Ury and now her lesbian girlfriend Rita.

“Hey,” he yells. “Get down here, I want to chat for a while.”

“Give me a second,” Ury replied. “Rita is having one of her moments.”

Clueless to what is going on, Mark folds his arms and keeps an eye on the couple perched above on the concrete pillar and watches as Ury tries to coach Rita to come over. With a few grunts and growls, Rita climbs on Ury’s back and Ury slowly climbs down the face of the concrete with her claws digging into the cracks for support. In a few seconds, both Ury and Rita are on the ground and Rita climbs off Ury’s back and starts talking to concrete as if it were alive.

“What the fuck is she doing?” Mark asked staring at Rita who is now carrying on a very real conversation with either her shadow or a tree limb sticking out of the water.

“She’s talking to a tree, I don’t know,” Ury replied. “She’s schizophrenic, she has hallucinations and delusions and hears all sorts of voices. Problem is that she likes to reply to them.”

“How do you get along? I mean, does she think you’re real?”

“I don’t know what she thinks, all I know is she’s one hell of a fuck.”

“You’re kidding me,” Mark stated. “Taking advantage of a person with disabilities is a felony.”

“She’s a troll dumbass, not a human. You’re laws don’t mean anything to us.” she replied with a Patrickle.

Ury, four hundred pounds of pure bitch troll smiled at Mark and scratched her left tit with the claws on her right hand. Her breasts were gigantic, pendulous globs of fat covered with fine hair with a nipple the size of a pill bottle on each breast dangling towards the ground. She was as ugly as any troll could be, naked with the face of a bull dog, the body of a hog and the smell of one too.

“If you don’t mind me asking, why her?” Mark asked.

“Trolls don’t grow on trees you know. I’m not really a lesbian either. You have to make due with what you can. I haven’t seen a male troll in twenty years. Hell, I only came across her a few years ago on accident. You think I like banging troll pussy? Well, actually I do now, but not by choice.”

“That actually makes sense.”

“Damn right it does.”

“How do you have lesbian sex with a troll?” Mark asked.

“Do you ever look at internet porn?” Ury replied.

“No, I mean you have claws and sharp teeth and a very nasty patch of pubic hair down between your legs. No offense, but you are disgusting.”

“I was going to let you fuck me in the butt, but now that you said that.” Ury said with a laugh. Oh you pencil dick, humans are so pathetic. So what the Hell do you want?”

“I had an interesting night last night and I wanted to share the story with you. You always have an interesting insight into things.”

“Is it about that cunt that got killed? Gary’s wife?”

“How did you find out?”

“I don’t have much of a life here other than banging Rita and eating racoons and squirrels. When I hear a story, I remember.”

Mark raised an eyebrow inquisitively and responded, “What did you hear? And who did you hear it from?”

“The who is none of your business, the what is that she was drunk and spun off the road and flipped her truck and got her head tore off with some barbed wire.”

“You need better sources, but you got the overall gist of it.”

“What does this have to do with you?” Ury asked.

“Oh, I killed the bitch.” Mark stated as a matter of fact.

Ury stood silent for a moment and thought about her next comment. “You hungry? I got some fish over by Rita.”

Mark stood dumbfounded. “I just told you I killed a woman and all you can do is offer me rotten fish?”

“That’s not rotten fish, that’s Rita’s poon your smelling, the fish are fresh.”

Mark gagged a little and replied, “No thanks, I have my lunch back at the law enforcement center in a vending machine.”

“So why did you drive down here to brag about killing the bitch? Don’t you have any friends?”

Offended Mark replied, “I have friends, I thought we were friends?”

Ury laughed and snorted and scratched her tit again. “Damn chiggers always getting under my tit. Just because you are the only human that talks to me doesn’t mean we are friends. I’m your token “troll” friend that you can tell your mother about to make yourself look better. You only come down here when you want something.”

“Not true,” Mark replied offended. “I come down here all the time with no other purpose than to chat.”

“Uh huh,” Ury replied. “You didn’t even know Rita was schizo.”

“I thought she was retarded.”

“You need to work on your empathy skills white boy. Hey I have a question for you.”

“What?” Mark asked.

“Didn’t you tell me you own a white G30 Chevy van?” Ury asked.

“I don’t remember telling you that, but yes I do, why do you ask?”

“What’s the plate number?”

“4H2 C7M, I don’t think I like where this is going.”

“No, you’re not going to like this. Unless your kids are out screwing in it two nights a week at lovers spot about three miles up river.”

“My kids are too young to drive.”

“Then I guess someone is stealing your van and returning it,” Ury Patrickled.

“What’s going on?” Mark asked.

“Every night Rita and I go up and down the river coon hunting and we usually check lovers spot to see what kind of action we can see. Over the last few months this white three door van has been parked there most Monday and Thursday nights till around 4am. Hell, it’s there right now.”

“And you’re sure it’s my van?” Mark said sternly.

Ury hobbled over to the tall grass and pushed around the vegetation until she found what she was looking for and tossed a license plate at Mark landing in the mud splattering on his pant leg. He leaned over and with his finger flipped over the plate revealing the number and his skin began to crawl as a shot of adrenaline raced through his blood. “What the Hell?” he said under his breath, “When did you get this?” he asked.

“Last Thursday, thought you might want some proof. Didn’t you notice the plate was missing?” Ury asked.

“We keep the van in the garage, she drives it, I never really see it very often.”

“You might want to go see it now,” Ury stated with some urgency. “She’s not alone and this dude is one ugly mother fucker.”

2 hours earlier at Lovers spot

The full moon lit up the white van like beacon anyone could see for a mile around.

Parked in a secluded area on the mowed grass close to a campground, the van was hidden partially by trees on two sides allowing the people inside all the privacy they needed. Setting a few feet away was a dark green SUV with no one inside, the driver had left to go to the van. The side door of the van was open and the owner, Shirley, the wife of deputy Mark Jones spread out a blanket and set some pillows up against the back of the drivers bucket seat. From behind, Mitch, the owner of the SUV reached around and put his hands under Shirley’s breasts and gave them a little lift.

“You can wait a second,” Shirley said, “Let me get the wrinkles out of the blankets first.

Mitch slid his hands down to her waist and then let go as she leaned into the van and smoothed out the blankets covering the floor of the back of the van. She then turned around and looked up at the man she had been meeting at this location for the last year.

She put her arms around him and pulled him down close to her placing her tongue in his mouth as she kissed him and pulled him close. “I am so fucking horny for you right now,” she said as she rubbed her hand across his crotch feeling for his erect penis under his pants. “Now that is what I am here for.” she said and continued to stroke and kiss him.

Mitch reached down, unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them down to her knees where they fell to the ground. He stopped kissing her and got down on his knee to pull off her flip flops and remover her pants all along smelling the vaginal secretions from her aroused pubic area. She was wearing black bikini style panties and she never let him take them off of her until she was ready.

“Now it’s my turn,” she said “Stand up.” She ordered him and unbuttoned Mitch’s pants and reached into his underwear and pulled out his throbbing cock. Like drinking from a coke bottle, she put his penis in her mouth and began to bob up and down while her hand stroked the shaft back and forth. Mitch moaned and tried to maintain his balance watching his woman go down on him and thought how great it was to get this kind of free action. “Now take off your clothes and get inside the van,” she said as she stood up and removed her shirt and bra. Her large breasts and pencil eraser type nipples bounced in the moon light as she sat on the edge of the van and watched Mitch get naked.

“You’re tattoos make me so hot,” she said. “I like my bad boys, not like that wimp gay husband of mine.”

“Why do you bring him up?” Mitch asked, removing his shirt.

“Because you are a man and you make me feel like a woman. He makes me feel like a fence post. I like my men thick and short enough I can look in his eyes while he nails me with his cock. Not like that Amazon freak I’m married to. He should be a basketball player on an all gay team.”

“You really hate him don’t you?” Mitch asked.

“Yes, I hate him more than I can describe. He doesn’t do the things you do for me, he is selfish and ugly, like a pig.”

“I’m starting to lose my boner here,” Mitch said. “All this talk isn’t getting me off.”

“I’m so sorry,” Shirley replied. “Let me fix that for you,” Linda reached over and grabbed Mitch by the penis and pulled him close and began to stroke it as she looked into his dark eyes. “Is that better?” she asked.

“Do you want to do it in the van again? We can do it on the grass with a blanket?” Mitch asked.

“In the van,” Shirley replied, I don’t want chiggers crawling up my ass after you unload in it.”

“Oh, you want that again?” Mitch asked.

“Yes, I love the feeling of your cock in my ass. It makes me feel so submissive. To feel you behind me pounding away makes me want to wash your clothes and cook for you and make a butt baby.”

“Butt baby?” Mitch asked.

“It’s a girl thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

Shirley let go of Mitch’s erect penis and scooted backwards into the van leaving him room to get in. “Lay down right there,” she said pointing to the center of the van. “Move the pillow down and put it under your head.”

Mitch complied and Shirley mounted Mitch in a sixty nine position and scooted her labia onto Mitch’s welcome face. Before she could get his cock in her mouth, he began to lick her pussy and tickle her clit with his tongue. He moved his head out for a second and said, “Hey, you took a shower this time.”

“Yes honey, anything for you,” she replied and grabbed his cock by the base and began to suck on his dick.”

Shirley knew that Mitch liked to have his balls played with and took her other hand and scooped them up and rolled them around being gentle not to hurt him.

Occasionally she would take his penis out of her mouth and insert a ball and roll it around in her mouth.

The hair on his pubes excited her as she shoved his penis onto her face and tickled the head with her ear.

“I like that,” Mitch said, pulling his tongue out of her pussy. “Do both of them,” he said and went back to stroking her labia with his tongue.

Shirley switched balls and continued to stroke Mitch’s cock with her right hand cupping his balls with his left. Feeling Mitch wasn’t putting enough effort into his part, she scooted back and crammed her pussy onto his face and began to rub back and forth like a dog in heat. The pressure increased and she could feel herself starting to cum.

Mitch moaned and Shirley put his cock back in her mouth. Back and forth they stroked each other and the moans were louder and louder until Shirley felt Mitch’s cock throb hard and felt his hot molten cum squirt into her mouth. She had no choice but to take the juice and allowed Mitch to empty his balls into her awaiting mouth. She swirled the juice in her mouth a few times savoring the flavor and swallowed reluctantly.

“Sorry, Mitch said.” pulling his mouth out of Shirley’s wet hole.

“That’s ok,” Shirley said. “We have three hours, you will do it right the next time.”

“Hold on a second,” Mitch said. “Do you hear something?”

“What?” Shirley asked.

Mitch rolled over and looked out the passenger side window in time to see a patrol car pull up behind his truck and park. “Holy fuck,” Mitch said. “That’s your husband ” he yelled scrambling to find his clothes.

Shirley scurried to the back of the van and opened the doors allowing a cool breeze to blow into the van. Her skin became covered with goose bumps as she slid out onto the grass naked, looking to see where her husband was.

“Close the fucking door,” Mitch yelled but it was too late, Mark had walked to the back of the van and was now shining his flashlight into the eyes of the man who had been eating out his wife’s pussy moments ago. Shirley stood a few feet away, naked with her breasts lit up by the light. Mark aimed the light at her face and scanned down her body taking note of the shiny liquid running down her leg into the grass.

“How long has this been going on?” Mark asked his wife.

“For about three hours,” She replied.

“No, I mean in general.”

“About a year or so, wouldn’t you say Mitch?”

Mitch remained silent and tried to hide under the blankets as far away from Mark as he could.

“Is that right?” Mark asked. “Mitch, I’m asking you a question, is she right?”

“You got a gun.” Mitch replied.

“Yes, but I’m not using it now am I?” Mark replied. “Now answer the question.”

“I have the right to remain silent, I plead the fifth ”

“You’re not under arrest dumbass, now answer the question before I decide to turn this into a crime scene.”

“Yeah, what she said, about a year.” Mitch replied.

Mark, pissed as hell and completely in disgust swallowed hard and thought for a second. Before him stood his wife of twenty two years naked with another mans splooge dripping from her crack and in his van was a man he had only met a few times before at Shirley’s job as news reporter at the paper. “What do you do?” Mark asked Mitch.

“What do you mean?” Mitch asked.

“At the newspaper, what is your job?”

Mitch hesitated for a moment wondering why this was a concern now of all times. “I work in the press room. I load the paper spools and package the papers when they are printed.

“What is your education level?” Mark asked.

“High school and a semester of community college,” Mitch replied.

Mark turned to his wife who was now shivering in the chill of the night and asked, “Why are you banging an idiot who makes less then ten dollars and hour? Is that right Mitch?

Do you make more than ten dollars an hour?”

“No, I make eight fifty,” Mitch replied.

“There you go, eight fifty,” Mark stated as fact to his wife. “He’s an idiot, and has a bright future ahead of him.”

Smugly Shirley replied, “At least he paid attention to me. When you were off doing all your stupid hobbies, he was texting me and making me feel important. All you cared about was your stupid games.”

“So this bastard tells you what you want to hear and you spread your legs like dime store whore?” Mark said sarcastically. “He played you like a retard with a gumball machine. He kept putting in the quarters and you kept shooting out the gum.”

Mark stood for a moment and thought to himself. Looking around he wondered how many people had used this place to sneak away and cheat on their spouses.

What a perfect little hiding place she had and now it made sense why she stopped having sex with him and why she claimed she had to work late so often. “Ok douche bag,” Mark said to Mitch. “Get the fuck out of my van.”

“You’ll shoot me.” Mitch responded.

“Get he fuck out of my van now ” Mark demanded. “If I were going to shoot you, I wouldn’t do it where your blood would end up in my van I’d do it out here in the grass.”

Mark thought for a second and realized that statement didn’t help his argument any and rephrased, “Get out of my fucking van or I will drag you out ”

“Ok fine,” Mitch replied and started butt scooting towards the rear of the van. Mark backed up and Shirley moved to the side as Mitch slid his feet to the ground still wrapped in the blanket from the floor of the van.

“Is that my blanket?” Mark asked Shirley.

“Yes, the one off the couch from downstairs.”

“Now I know why it always smelled like it did. And I used to sleep with that.”

Mitch slowly turned and gathered up his clothes and pulled them out of the van and started to get dressed.

“I ought to make you drive home naked you son of a bitch,” Mark said.

“Hurry up.”

In less than a minuted Mitch had his clothes on. He kept his eyes away from Mark and acted like no one else was around. He wanted to slip away in the darkness and pretend this episode never occurred. Then he opened his mouth and said something stupid. “I don’t know why you don’t have the balls to make your old lady talk to you about this.”

“You know her,” Mark replied.

“There is only one part of her I know, the fucking nutty part that would fuck around on her old man.”

“There’s a question, what did she say about me?” Mark asked.

“That’s between you and her, I don’t listen to shit like that, we never talked about you, I just came here to get laid is what I did.”

“She never said “Mark is a douche bag Mark is an asshole?”“

”Yeah, she’s talked shit about you, says your fucking lazy and stuff, you’re never around.”

“And where was I when this was all going on?”

“I don’t know, it’s not my job to keep track of you. Most of it happened at night after work, we’d meet at the bar.”

“So she claimed she was working late.”

“I don’t know what her excuse was. It wasn’t an every day thing, or an every week thing, there were times we never met at all for two weeks. Don’t get it in your head we met every day or every night, fuck you, I have a life too you know. I don’t let people get into my personal shit, so you don’t have to know why I did it. I will tell you one thing as far as your woman goes, she is probably going to lie to you.”

“Fuck you asshole,” Shirley stated. “This didn’t happen in a vacuum, you are as much to blame as I am.”

“You are a fuck, that’s all.”

“You texted me that you loved me ”

“Of course I did you stupid bitch, how else was I going to get you to suck on my cock?”

Mitch asked with a smile.

After a moment of awkward silence Mark spoke up, “Get your shit and get out.”

Without saying a word, Mitch walked away from the van back to his SUV and got inside.

Peering back at Mark through the passenger window, he started the vehicle, put it in reverse and backed away from the patrol car and turned the wheel allowing him to maneuver back towards the front gate. He shifted into drive and without much fan fare, drove over the grass, back onto the gravel road, through the gate and out of sight past the trees. He was gone.

“So,” Mark said looking at his naked shivering wife. “What now?”

“What do you want to do?” she replied.

“I’m really in no mental condition to make any decisions right now. The best thing to do is for you to go home and we can talk about this after you get off work tomorrow night.”

“You’re not going to hit me?”

“If I were going to hit you, you would have been hit by now,” Mark replied. “Don’t push my buttons and try to piss me off any further. Get your clothes back on, get our van back in the garage and spend the rest of the night thinking about what just happened. I don’t get to go to bed, I have to work till noon, so I will be spending most of that time running this back in my head over and over. I don’t understand this, I am completely shocked, and I have to let this soak in before I make any informed decisions.”

Shirley started back at Mark and didn’t say a word. She looked at his body language to see what he was going to do next and Mark could tell from her look that she wasn’t going to do anything as long as he stood there. Mark backed away and shined the flashlight one more time into the van and spotted a shiny object reflecting back at him. It was a cell phone left on the floor of the van. “Is that yours” he asked.

Shirley looked at the cell phone, shook her head and leaned over to pick it up.

No, no, I’ll get that,” Mark stated. “I will be making a delivery in the morning. You get your ass back home. If I see this van parked anywhere besides home in the next thirty minutes, you better plan on not coming home ever again. Got me?” he stated.

“Yes sir,” she replied and under her breath said, “Asshole.” She climbed back into the back of the van and gathered up her clothes, Mark shut the doors with a defiant slam and made his way back to the patrol car and got in. In disgust he started the car and spun around back onto the gravel road and headed down the same direction Mitch had driven. He was long gone and in his rear view mirror could see the lights of the van come on and knew she would be leaving soon as well. “What a fucking night,” Mark thought to himself.

Chapter 4

The Newspaper Office

Frank Borman, editor and publisher of the local newspaper sat in his office reading the regional news off his computer screen from his own papers website. He dug some earwax out of his right ear and smeared it under the edge of his desk as he maneuvered his mouse across the top clicking on different stories. “What a bunch of shit,” he said quietly, referring to a local story about a business deal gone bad with the city council. “Now they have to pay all that back those stupid bastards,” he thought with a Patrickle. Then the intercom came to life and the receptionist voice spoke over the speaker. “Mr. Borman, there is a women here to see you about a story, can I send her in?” she asked.

Frank pressed the respond button and said, “Yes, send her on in.”

It was a long hallway from the front of the building to the rear where Franks office was and he knew it would take a minute for this lady to get there so he continued to click away at the web page looking for a way to waste time. A click on another tab and a favorite porn site popped up on the screen and a smile crossed Frank’s face. It was his company, his website and he could surf anything he wanted whenever he wanted. He liked his porn.

A knock on the door and Frank told the woman to come into his office. She was over fifty, some grey hair and a fiery bitch look on her face. She stepped up to his desk and stood there looking down at the man who’s computer screen had a video of three lesbians in a sex act. The screen faced away from her and the sound was turned down.

For a second Frank imagined this woman as one of the women on the screen and his smile flattened to a stare. “What can I do for you miss?”

“Mrs, Boswell is my name. You should know, it was in your paper all over the place last week.”

“Oh really?” Frank asked with a smile. “And how is that?”

“You are the editor right? Don’t you know what you print in this rag of yours?”

“Yes, I am the editor, but I can’t micro manage every word that we print. I do have a column to write you know.”

“I’ve read your column, you could use some lessons in compassion and humility.”

“Point taken, now what is your concern?”

Mrs. Boswell folded her arms and reaffirmed her dominance in the conversation looking down at Frank. For a moment she was silent breathing deeply setting a tone and a mood.

“Would you like to sit down?” Frank asked gesturing towards a folding chair in the corner.

Boswell thought for a moment, looked at the hard chair and then back at Frank who was grinning from ear to ear. He looked like he was doing a bad impersonation of Gene Wilder from Willie Wonka. “No thanks, I’ll stand. I’m not as lazy as you and your staff, I don’t have to do everything sitting down.”

Hanging his head in a submissive manner, Frank nodded his head and motioned for Mrs. Boswell to continue with her story.

“You put my boys pictures on the front page of the paper last week.” she stated firmly.

“And your point is?” Frank asked trying not to offend.

“My boys were set up, they are innocent. You have condemned them before they have had a chance to see a judge. Just because someone is arrested doesn’t mean they are guilty you know ”

“Ma’am, we are not in the judging business, we are in the reporting business. I remember the pictures now, and if I’m correct, they were arrested and are being held in the jail until they can post bond. All we did was report on the arrest, we didn’t pass any judgment.”

“What do you think the pictures will say to everyone who sees it at the store or in a newspaper stand? They can’t read the fine print, they just see my three boys in orange suits staring at them like criminals.”

“We run our paper like every other paper out there. If we didn’t run the pictures on the front page, everyone else would. It’s our local story and we have the right to publish those pictures along with the facts from the sheriffs report.

“Bullshit ” Boswell yelled. “You have no right to ruin my family and ruin our good name.”

“Good name?” Frank replied with a lilt in his voice. “There are at least two from your family on the local sexual offenders list and if I am correct, your brother is in prison for drugs and assault upon an officer. I’m not sure what good name you are referring too.”

“Oh now you’ve done it ” Boswell shouted. “I wasn’t going to push this but now you’ve gone too far. My brother is not a drug addict or a dealer. He got caught up with a bad crowd and was busted with just over an ounce of pot in his car.”

“I think it was more than that if I’m correct,” Frank stated. “I think he had his own meth lab and was caught after the house he was using caught fire. Is that right?”

Mrs. Boswell stood silent and glared down at Frank fuming. The room was quiet and tension filled the air as both parties were locked in a death stare.

Boswell curled her bottom lip under her top teeth and started to blink rapidly, her arms and hands shaking in anger. Frank, noticing a key scene in his lesbian porn video looked away briefly and then back up to Mrs. Boswell.

“What is so God damned important that you can’t pay attention to me for five minutes?” Boswell asked.

“Nothing, I was checking the forecast for today. I was planning on going boating after lunch if I can get my wife to take the kids with her to her mothers after work.”

“Why? So you can spend the day banging your girlfriend out on the lake?”

Boswell asked mockingly. She was now playing the one card she had been holding the whole time.

“Girlfriend?” Frank asked. “I’m a married man.” he stated.

“I know all about your other woman, she is a friend of mine and has told me everything about what you two have been doing. She says you like to play weird sex games and crap like that.”

“What does this have to do with what you came in here for?” Frank asked, getting tired of the conversation and more and more interested in his internet lesbian porn video.

“I want a retraction on the front of your paper, or I am going to tell everyone about your affair,” she stated with a smirk of defiance.

For a moment Frank sat quiet and pondered her threat clicking on the porn site selecting another lesbian clip. He looked up at her and back down at the girls on the screen licking each other and said, “So what?”

“You don’t care if everyone in town knows about your girlfriend?” she asked. “How about your wife?”

“My wife doesn’t care, she says as long as we stay out of her bed I can do whatever I want. After fourteen years of marriage and sex with the same woman, she’s glad to pawn me off onto someone else. That way she gets out of having to do anything and I get what I want.”

“Are you fucking serious?, you have one of those open relationships?”

“No, not exactly, there are a few more rules, so it’s not as open as I would like, but I can usually get what I want when I want. She doesn’t like sex so I don’t have to worry about her getting any on the side.”

“I see,” Boswell stated realizing her blackmail was not going to work.

“So if you are a rich businessman in this town you can basically do whatever you want.”

“Basically,” Frank replied. “Women like money, I like sex, it’s like legal prostitution.”

Taking in a deep breath Mrs. Boswell replied, “Fine, there are more than one way to deal with this situation and reached into her purse. In a panic, fearing she was looking for a gun, Frank pressed a button under his desk and a trap door under her feet released dropping her from his sight. With a scream that quickly faded, she fell to the basement and landed on an old mattress in a dark locked room. Frank quickly got out of his chair and ran over to the trap door and pulled it back into position with a pull on a short rope tied at the end. It locked with a click and reset the trigger device plugged into his desk. He could hear her yelling below but it was not loud enough that the employees at the front of the building could hear her. That is why he put the office in the back in the first place years ago.

Once the woman was pretty much silenced, Frank opened the door to his office and walked a few feet down the hall to the side door that led to the parking lot. Again, he opened a door and proceeded to the outside where it was hot and sunny and searched for a rolled up hose hanging from a hook next to his office window. He grabbed the hose, and took the free end to the back of his pick up truck and stuffed the end into the tail pipe. The other end was securely embedded into the concrete and ran down inside the building to the chamber under Franks office where the trapped woman lay screaming for help.

Once Frank was sure the hose was in place and wouldn’t fall out, he pulled his keys from his pocket and opened the door to his truck and climbed inside far enough to reach the ignition switch and start the truck. The sound of the starter gave way to the purr of the engine as the lights and monitors came alive on the dash and the radio started playing some hideous country song by Tim McGraw. This was not the first time Frank had done this so he knew he had about twenty minutes to kill so he grabbed his cell phone and started to play Angry Birds.

It wasn’t more than five minutes later when Frank noticed in the rearview mirror the sight of a deputy sheriffs patrol car and he went into a panic. The car slowly made its way through the alley behind him and began to turn into the parking stall two cars over.

“Shit,” Franks said over Tim McGraw and shoved his phone back into his pocket.

Deputy Mark Sanders exited his vehicle with the cell phone he had found in the back of his own van hours earlier. He was planning on dropping it off to Mitch, the man who was fucking his wife, and who should be at work in the press room around now.

Mark looked at his watch, it read 10:25 am and thought for a second about throwing the phone at the wall before returning it to its owner. Instead he scratched the screen with the metal band of his watch and his face lit up with a smile.

“What can I do for you officer?” Frank asked as he shut the door to his truck which was still running pumping carbon monoxide into the basement of his building.

“I came to return this phone to one of your employees. Is Mitch working today?” Mark asked.

“No, he called in sick, said something about the flu.” Frank replied.

“Could you do me a favor and give this to him?” Mark asked.

“Sure, no problem,” Frank replied and reached out for the phone.

Mark noticed the hose running at his feet from the back of the truck to the building and looked up at Frank with a curious look in his eye. “What are you doing with the hose?” Mark asked.

“Cock roaches,” Frank replied. “It’s the only way to kill them. They get into our soy based ink and eat the shit out of the place. I have to gas them about every three months or so.”

“Don’t you have to have a exterminator license to do that? There are people in that building.”

“The basement only runs about a third of the building, most of the building isn’t even connected to this part, it was added on back in the eighties. There is no way the gas can get from one section to the other.”

“I remember now,” Mark said. “When I was a kid this used to be a butcher shop or something didn’t it?”

“Yes it did, when my father ran the paper, he bought this building and added the other part for storage.”

“I remember back when I was around eleven,” Mark said. “There was a story about a guy who worked at this place who went missing.”

“Yeah, that is true,” Frank replied. “The owner had a guy working in the back cutting meat who was from a group home. Turns out the guy was kind of slow and the owner used to abuse him real bad and got away with it for years.”

“Really?” Mark said with a droll.

“Yeah, the owner would tell the cops that the guy was bruised because of the type of work he did, it was very physical and he was always around cutting tools.”

“So what happened to this guy?” Mark asked.

“Oh he’s still around somewhere, the owner was the one who turned up missing. Or at least missing for a while that is. One of the kids at school found a fingernail in his sloppy joe and they traced it back to this butcher shop.”

“A fingernail?” Mark asked disgusted. “I remember one day at school when the police showed up at lunch and shut down the lunch room and they sent us all home for the day. They told us one of the kitchen workers had let a dog into the kitchen and it needed to be sanitized before they could use it again. My brother said the truth was that they found a fingernail in someone’s food and nobody believed him. Oh my fucking God, I ate a human being.”

“That’s some pretty sick stuff,” Frank said. “They paid my dad pretty good money to keep it out of the paper.”

Mark stood there in disbelief shaking his head thinking about how when he was a kid he digested a person. “The world is a truly fucked up place,” Mark said aloud and turned back to his patrol car. “Thanks for the chat, “ he said to Frank, “I better get going, my shift is over pretty soon and I have to type my reports.”

“No problem,” Frank replied and looked to his watch. It had been about ten minutes by now and the deputy was pulling out of the parking lot so Frank decided to go check on the woman in the basement.

Turning off his truck he recoiled the hose back on the hook, and made his way down to the basement and flicked on the lights. In the poorly lit basement, there were spools of newsprint and fifty five gallon drums of black soy ink along the walls and old equipment stacked on benches and shoved under tables. Next to the stairs was the door to the room where the now silent woman was trapped behind a simple padlock and latch.

Frank flipped on a switch and a large ventilation fan kicked in a blew the carbon monoxide gas into a vent and outside through the roof. It only required about sixty seconds for the fans to make the room safe to enter.

“What are you doing boss?” Mitch said coming around the corner from a joining room.

“I just told the deputy you called in sick,” Frank replied. “You really need to watch who your banging, a cops wife is not a good choice.”

“Hey, I understand. We got away with it for a year and we got sloppy, it won’t happen again.” Mitch said.

“I’m not your mother, you don’t have to apologize to me. Now give me a hand here, do you have the key to this lock?”

“It’s hanging on the nail right next to you,” Mitch said with a grin. “I thought you said it was lost?”

“I replaced the whole lock and key last week,” Mitch replied. “You know what?” Mitch asked.

“What?” Frank replied in frustration.

“I never thought about this before, but we have a classic Schrodinger’s cat experiment going on here.”

“What?”

“Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects, resulting in a contradiction with common sense. The scenario presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event.”

“How do you know that?” Frank asked in a mocking tone.

“I looked it up on Wikipedia after the last time we disposed of a body.”

“How does this pertain to this situation?” Frank asked.

“Well, until we actually open the door and look at whoever is in there, the person is both alive and dead at the same time. It’s not until you make the direct observation that you can objectively make the determination.”

“You got that from Wikipedia?” Frank asked.

“I also have a semester of community college,” Mitch replied.

“In an odd way I guess you have a point. I am assuming she is dead based on all the other times I’ve gassed someone with my truck in that room, but you may be right, she may be in there waiting for us to open the door to escape and we won’t know until we open the door.”

“Correct,” Mitch replied.

“But that doesn’t make her alive and dead at the same time. She’s still either one or the other.”

“Which is it?” Mitch asked.

“Let me open the door and I’ll tell you.”

“No, no, that’s not how it works. If we’re going to play the game, you have to follow the rules.”

“You know what?” Frank said as a matter of fact. “I’m willing to bet she’s dead so let’s open the door anyway. If she runs out, hit her with that bucket full of screws there and I’ll put her in and gas her again.”

“No problem boss, you sign my paychecks,” Mitch said with a grin.

Frank unlocked the padlock, unlatched the door and swung it open revealing a dead woman on the mattress inside the small room. “She’s dead,” Frank said.

Look at her lips, blue as the sky on a rainy day.

“You are a poet,” Mitch said.

“I went to writing school dip shit,” Frank stated, “Stop brown nosing and pull her out and take her over to the hooks.”

Mitch stepped into the small room and grabbed the woman by her wrists and pulled her small frame out onto the concrete of the basement floor with ease. He made sure nothing was behind him and drug her lifeless carcass around the corner and about thirty feet down the other side to a spot where there were meat hooks still in the ceiling joists from the old butcher shop. “I don’t think I need the lift this time,” Mitch said as he lifted the woman onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and maneuvered her legs towards the hooks. Wrapping the hooks around her ankles, he let her body hang with her hands dangling down to the floor below. Normally he would have had to skewer the ankles with the hooks, but since this woman was so small he was able to put them inside the hook and let here heels hold her in tight.

“Here’s a bucket,” Frank said handing a bucket to Mitch. “I think it’s clean enough.”

Mitch placed the bucket under the woman’s hands and positioned it so it was directly below her. “Hand me a cutter,” Mitch said to Frank pointing at the tool rack on the wall.

Frank pulled down what looked like and industrial sized box cutter and handed it to Mitch who then used it to slice the woman’s wrists open and allow her to bleed into the bucket. “This will take an hour so if you want to leave, I’ll take care of it,” Mitch said.

“Fine,” Frank replied. “That’s why I pay you eight fifty and hour, to do my dirty work. And make sure her blood is in this weeks paper. It won’t be fresh enough to wait till next week.”

“No problem boss,” Mitch said with a smile. “The hard part is explaining to the cops where she went when they come looking for her and that’s all on you.”

 To be continued...