Page 40 of Too Old for This
Debbie taught me about a lot of things that day, starting with luck. Who felt it and who needed to feel it.
She also taught me about the hammer. After leaving her house, I drove straight to the hardware store and bought one. In my head, I’ve killed Detective Burke with that same hammer so many times.
But today, I used it on Kelsie.
CHAPTER 21
My original plan wasn’t to kill her. But when Kelsie was so ungrateful about the money and then ordered me out of her house, she didn’t leave me a choice.
I put on a pair of gloves and wrap her head with a plastic bag.
No tile in the kitchen—just that linoleum—so the grout isn’t a problem. I grab her arms and drag her toward the hallway, through her bedroom, and into the bath. Kelsie is fairly small, but it’s still a difficult task. Dead weight always is.
I remove all her clothes. Again, not easy when I have to move her limbs to get it done. But on the upside, getting her into the bathtub is easier than getting a body into the freezer.
The positioning is where things get tricky.
About halfway up the wall, there’s a shelf built into the tile. I remove the bag from Kelsie’s head and summon all my strength to hoist the top part of her body up to it. Then I slam her head into the shelf. Hard enough to crack both.
When I let her go, her body drops with a thump. A long smear of blood runs down from the shelf to the tub.
Good, that looks good. Convincing.
I don’t want anyone looking too close at that wound. It needs to be an obvious slip-and-fall death, the kind of thing a police department won’t spend a lot of money or resources to investigate.
The vanity in her bathroom is small and covered withlotions, soaps, and makeup. I lean against it, trying to catch my breath. All that exertion is either very good or very bad for my heart, and I’d rather not find out which. Good thing I took some ibuprofen back at the coffee shop. You never know when you’ll have to exert yourself.
Kelsie’s body is not my only problem. I return to the kitchen and get her phone. I have to use her face to open it.
The first thing I do is delete the pictures of me and the Spokane newspaper. I delete her internet history and search for anything else related to my past. The only thing I find is another old newspaper headline.
The She-Devil of Spokane?
Delete.
But I can’t take her phone with me, and I can’t destroy it. That won’t work at all.
The money I brought goes back into my bag. My initial $4,500 payment may still be around. I need to look for the envelope, and I need to search for anything else linked to my past.
Her bedroom is as cluttered as the rest of the house. I drop the clothes she was wearing on the bed and floor, assuming that’s what she would do before taking a shower, and start looking in the obvious places. Her dresser, duffel bag, and purse.
Kelsie’s gun is in the nightstand. The closet is a disaster, with clothes and shoes everywhere. On the top shelf, she has another gym bag, but the only thing inside is a water bottle and another pair of sneakers.
I find two more doors in the hallway, another bathroom, and a second bedroom. She turned that into a workout space, with a treadmill, some weights, and a TV screen. Exercise was an obsession for Kelsie. This is why I hate to do it. All that movement can get so out of hand.
Back to the kitchen, the space where Kelsie seemed to spend most of her time. What a mess. On the table, her laptop, several half-filled glasses, an empty plate, a stack of mail with lots of junk and overdue bills.
The laptop has a password. Of course I can’t get into it, so I must get everything else right.
In the living room, I look in the entertainment center, the drawer beneath the coffee table, the bookshelves, even the ottoman with a removable top.
Nothing.
I stand in the middle of the room and look around, wondering where someone like Kelsie would put that much money. It may already be gone, given how much she needed it, but I have to be sure.
The trash.
She has a large aluminum can in the kitchen with a rounded top. It’s only been two days since I gave her the first payment. If she took the money out, she would’ve tossed the envelope. And it has my fingerprints on it.
