Boobytrap

From the notebooks of Donald Michael Latimer

Mon., July 1–1:30 P.M.

I didn’t want to kill the old man. Last thing I wanted to happen, somebody to die up here before Dixon shows and pieces of Mr. Prosecutor go flying through the air. But what choice did I have? Damn Osterfart, he didn’t even give me a chance to take him out my way, with a bomb, destructive device, boobytrap designed for a meddling old bastard like him.

Knock knock, and there he was. Like to talk to you, he said, hard-eyed, mind if I come in? and before I could say anything, react to stop him, he was inside. Looking around the way cops do, acting like he owned the place. I’d covered up the table before I went to the door, but the jar of marbles, the tools, my notebooks made lumps and shapes and he could see the carton and the bubble wrap on the floor.

What’re you building there? he said.

Not building anything, I said.

No? he said, and the way he said it, I knew he’d been snooping around outside, looking through the window. The shade was down, but there might’ve been just enough of a gap. What’s under the sheet? he said.

Trout flies, I said. It was the only thing I could think of. I tie my own flies, I said.

That so? he said. Mind if I have a look?

Rather you didn’t, I said. What do you want, I said, this time of night?

His eyes shifted to my binoculars hanging from the back of one of the chairs. Saw you out on the lake, she said, anchored over on the north shore watching cabins through those glasses. On more than one occasion, he said. Seems you spend more time looking than you do fishing, he said.

I tried to bluff him, make him believe he was imagining things. He wouldn’t bluff. Shrewd old bugger knew something was up and he’d keep picking at it, picking at it until he found out what it was.

His eyes were back on the lumps and shapes, the carton and bubble wrap. Let’s have a look at those flies of yours, he said, and he started over there and I knew I’d have to kill him, right then and there, no dicking around. I picked up a chunk of firewood from the basket and he was just lifting a corner of the sheet, bending forward to look underneath, when I eased up behind him. He never knew what hit him. He pulled the sheet half off the table when he fell, knocked off a screwdriver and the soldering iron, thump, thump, and then the big Thump when he landed. A quick look was all I needed. Skull cracked, blood oozing but not for long. One dead Osternosy.

So then I had his scrawny corpse to deal with. Had anybody seen him come here? I took a quick look outside. Nobody around. And I didn’t see his pickup. Parked it in those trees where we found it today, cat-footed over here to see what he could see. Ostersneaky.

Back inside I thought it all over carefully, weighing my options. Not good, any way you sliced it. (Sliced options? Hah! You can slice an onion, but you can’t slice an option.) Make him disappear completely or make it look like an accident, those were the only two that made any sense. Wait until late, take him out in the woods somewhere and bury him, nobody’d ever find his grave except animals and bugs — easiest and safest way. But when he turned up missing there’d be search parties, county cops tramping all over the area for days. The more cops and people around, the bigger the hazard to me and the less likely Dixon does what he’s supposed to do when he finally hauls his ass up here from the city. Everything has to seem normal when he shows, more or less normal anyway.

Accident was the smart way to go, I decided. I wrapped the old bugger’s body in the sheet, the bloody chunk of wood in a towel, waited until late, made sure I was alone, carried him out and drove him to the first deserted cottage that had a woodpile, carried him down there and arranged him and laid the bloodstained wood next to his head where it’d look like a piece from the pile, and got the hell out of there. Hard work, sweating like a pig when I got back here and burned the sheet and towel in the fireplace, but worth the effort and the risk.

Handled it all just right, too. Accident. Everybody thinks so, Judson and the others and the sheriff’s deputies.

Everybody except that smart-ass private cop?

Him. That one. I was sure he’d buy it along with the rest, and maybe he did, but now I’m not so sure. All those questions he asked, but then he backed off and said he had no doubts it was an accident, but maybe he does have doubts and he’s planning to do some snooping of his own. Another one like Osternosy and twice as dangerous if he gets the scent. Deadly enemy — I knew that the first time I laid eyes on him, didn’t I? I should have handled him differently, but it’s too late to worry about that now. Hindsight, the great teacher.

Ticklish situation. I could take him out, fix up a little surprise for him, boom! I know just how to do it, too — now. But I don’t want to risk it before Dixon comes unless I have to. Another dead cop blows the whole game sky high. Dixon, Dixon. He’s the one who has to blow sky high.

Won’t be long. Another day, two at the most. And even if that geriatric Mike Hammer is suspicious and comes snooping around here, so what? Nothing for him to find. All my tools, components, everything — locked away in the car. Put it all in the trunk last night while I was waiting to get rid of the old man’s corpse. Cleared up what little blood there was, put the place in apple-pie order.

So let him snoop. Let him ask as many questions as he wants. I know how to deal with him now, one way or the other. No damn private dickhead is going to screw things up for Donald Michael Latimer and his personal and private interpretation of Chapter 3.2, Section 12355, Subdivision (c) of the fucking California Penal Code.