Nichols frowned as he surveyed the scene. This was the second time in three days a masked man had attacked Evan Smith. Why Smith, what was so special about him? And now he was missing. Smith's buddies or guards or whatever the hell they were had all woken up hogtied in the parking lot with the office on fire. No bodies were found inside, but the goons in the parking lot claimed that the masked man had driven his car into the front of the building and then beaten them all senseless. No one saw what happened to Smith or how the masked man got his car out of the building before the fire started.
"What a mess," Nichols muttered.
"What's the matter, Nichols? That big brain of yours finally get stumped?" Quimby laughed cruelly.
"What's his motive?" Nichols asked himself. "Revenge? Money? A woman? What's that skinny kid's name, the one that does everybody in town's taxes?"
Quincy snorted derisively. "Bartlebee Bean the bean counter? What do you want that little shit for?"
"If it was about money who else would know besides the bean counter?"
+
Arthur buried the last bit of Smith's body in the swampy wetlands a mile or so behind his parents' house. He and Sam had been all over the county disposing bits and pieces creatively where it was unlikely they would ever be found.
Both he and Sam were covered in mud and sweat. Arthur had shot Smith at a little after nine in the morning and he had quickly formulated a plan to extricate Bartlebee's car using Sam's truck and then burn the place down to hide all the blood. From there they had dropped Bartlebee and Desiree to Arthur's house so she could clean all the bits of Smith's skull out of her hair. The rest of the day had been spent in various remote locations with Sam making morbid arts and crafts out of Smith’s body.
Sam sat down in the mud with a squish. “Let’s not do that again. Ever. Okay?”
“Agreed.” Arthur sat down beside her.
“I can’t believe you killed a guy,” she said as she leaned her muddy head against his equally filthy shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Weirdly okay, yeah. I don’t know...Smith was a bad guy and he was going to kill Bartlebee and probably us too.” Arthur leaned his head on top of Sam’s.
“We should get out of this swamp,” Sam said after a while.
“No arguments from me.” Arthur helped pull Sam up.
“Why don’t you come over to my place and get cleaned up?” Sam asked as they made their way back to her truck.
“What’s wrong with my house?”
“So many things!” Sam laughed. “And you know...Desiree and Bartlebee are there. Don’t you want to give them a little privacy?”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah, I guess we should.” Arthur felt stupid for not thinking of that. Desiree had latched onto Bartlebee after she got drenched in Smith’s blood and she hadn’t let go the whole way back to Arthur’s house.
“Why am I not surprised that never occurred to you?” Sam shook her head. “I can’t figure out how you get dressed in the morning, much less run a criminal operation with your keenly tuned intuition.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad! Well...I’m a little bit that bad, but you don’t have to make fun of me for it.” He stuck his tongue out at Sam.
“I do as I please. I’m high class, successful lady-type.” She jumped into the cab of her truck and revved the engine.
“High class, my ass! All that mud makes you look like you’re going for dual gold in the mud wrestling-wet t-shirt biathlon!” Arthur scoffed as he climbed in beside her.
“So you did notice, I was beginning to wonder if you’d gone blind!” Sam giggled. They sped off towards her apartment.
+
Bartlebee kept his arms wrapped tight around Desiree to let her know he was still there for her. She had finally stopped sobbing after they cleaned the last of the blood out of her hair. Bartlebee didn’t know exactly what to say, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave her alone after what she’d been through the last few days.
After a long time Desiree turned around so she was facing him. She didn’t say anything, just stared at him. Bartlebee had no idea what he was supposed to do. He panicked and kissed her.
Evidently that was the right response, because Desiree threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Bartlebee wished for just a split second that they weren’t both wearing Arthur’s faded old sweats, but then he forgot about everything that wasn’t Desiree’s tongue in his mouth.
+
“Hurry up in there! I’ve got mud soaked so deep into my skin people will think I actually managed to get a tan this summer!” Bartlebee shouted at the bathroom door from Sam’s kitchen.
He heard the shower finally shut off.
“About damn time! What the hell is your water bill like if you take showers that-” Bartlebee forgot what he had been about to say.
Sam was standing in the kitchen doorway with a towel wrapped around her body that barely covered everything Arthur wasn’t supposed to see. Her red hair was loose and extra curly after being pulled back all day. “You were saying?” Sam asked with a somewhat gloating glint in her green eyes.
“Ummm…”
“So articulate.” She patted his cheek as she walked past him to grab her phone off the table. “Pizza sound good to you for dinner?”
“Yuh...uh...ummm…” Arthur finally cleared his throat noisily before spitting out, “Yeah, that works for me.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter, trying to be nonchalant, but he hadn’t factored in that when he had turned to watch Sam walk past he had moved about a foot to the right, thus when he leaned back all he accomplished was to nearly sit on the trash can, knock it over, and fall gracelessly on his boney ass.
Sam laughed so hard her towel almost came undone, which would have been just such a shame, Arthur felt. He had always known Sam was cute, but he had obviously never paid close enough attention to her cleavage or how magnificent her legs were.
“That’s how we say we want pepperoni and jalapenos on our pizza back on my home planet of Dorkulon,” Arthur said just as coolly as he could after a maneuver like that.
“I know what kind of pizza you like, silly.” Sam pulled him to his feet and all the sudden they were unbelievably close together and the room felt about twenty degrees warmer to Arthur.
There was a loud knock on Sam’s front door and they both groaned. “Why know?” they moaned in unison before exchanging slightly confused, yet pleasantly surprised looks.
Arthur went to answer the door. When he looked through the peephole he cursed. “Shit, go get dressed.”
“Why, who is it?” Sam asked worriedly.
Arthur pursed his lips. “It’s Varner. Stay in your bedroom unless he tells you to come out here.” Sam ran to put clothes on and Arthur pulled open the door. “Mr. Varner, what a surprise to see you. Here. And at this hour. Please come in.”
Varner looked grouchy, which did not bode well for Arthur. “A bit dramatic how you took care of things for me, don’t you think, Mr. Knob?” Varner asked as he sat down at the kitchen table. His man Hank stood at the door with a silenced pistol in his hand.
Arthur sat opposite Varner. “It wasn’t what I had planned, but we got the job done.”
“Did you? The police did not find a body at the scene,” Varner said icily.
Internally, Arthur heaved a huge sigh of relief. Varner had obviously gotten his information from the police, who apparently did not know whether Smith had been killed or not. Outwardly, he kept his face calm and replied evenly, “Nor will they ever find the body after the work I spent the rest of the day doing.”
“So the situation is resolved then?” Varner pressed.
Arthur nodded.
Finally, Varner smiled. “Very good, Mr. Knob. Very good. I’m pleased I didn’t have to kill you tonight.” He and Hank left without another word.
Arthur finally breathed again. “Jesus Christ, if he keeps doing that my heart is going to give out before I turn thirty!” He walked slowly back to Sam’s bedroom to find her in her underwear with a sawed-off shotgun in her hand. Arthur could only stare. At Sam or at the gun, he wasn’t sure, but staring was all he could manage after today.
“What? A girl has to be prepared!” Sam said defensively.
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