Hello Detectives,
Such a pity you wouldn’t get to see this note. In fact, by the time my crew is finished with this place, you would be none the wiser. Wouldn’t even be able to tell that a crime was committed here, which was the plan. Since no one but my people are going to read this card, I guess I can go ahead and reveal who I am. My name is Mae and I’m the Lady in Red Heels.
It was a sunny Sunday afternoon. The children were out of school, most playing catch out on the lawns. The joyful cheer brought a smile to this old man’s face. He remembered when he was younger and could go out and play like that.
He’d loved children, though not for the reasons his wife would have expected. No, that he kept hidden from her. Since it was Sunday, she was in the kitchen hell-bent on baking her famous apple pie for the bake sale. He’d been focused on the television when he heard the knock.
‘‘Darling, are you expecting someone?’’ No, she replied. Thinking it was odd, the children would have walked in, he went to the door.
A surprise in the shape of a pretty woman with a wonderful bodice. She'd taken off her hat and sunglasses, pushed her cleavage in his face and puckered her lips. And just like the heels she’d worn, they were sinfully red.
Even though his loins had ceased to work, he felt them stir as his eyes drank everything she had to offer. Blonde hair cut close to her face, grey eyes with a mole under her lips. She hadn’t even opened her mouth, but he was already entranced by her.
‘‘Pardon me. Good afternoon and sorry to disturb you this beautiful Sunday afternoon. It’s just that my car broke down a couple blocks down the road. My mechanic has been unresponsive since then. So, I’m wondering if I could borrow your phone to get a tow truck down here? I promise I’ll just be in for a couple of minutes.’’
He’d moved out of the way before realizing.
‘‘Darling, who was that outside?’’ Yes, his wife. Had he forgotten all about her because a pretty woman battered her eyelashes. When he looked at her again, he nodded his head.
‘‘Nothing to worry about darling. Some city folk said her car broke down and she needs to use our phone. I let her in.’’
She moved through his house like she’d been there before. He pointed at the phone on the table and went to take his seat. All the talking and moving around had made him tired.
‘‘Thanks for the assist. But the phone isn’t working. It keeps saying disconnected.’’ She’d taken the phone to where he’d sat and thrust it in his face. But it wasn’t the only thing she thrusted. He got more than an eyeful of her assets.
While he was focused on inspecting the phone, she’d injected him with a sedative and when his wife appeared, she did the same.
‘‘What is it you want? Money? Jewelry? You can have it all, please just leave us alone.’’ Every time they wailed, she twirled around the house. There was nothing of value, if she’d been a house burgler. But this was not an a random act, she’d chosen them on purpose. If only they could see it and quit with the whinning.
‘‘Hello? I’m still here and the crying, I’m going to need you both to stop that. Nothing you do is going to stop this or make me change my mind. So either, get with the program or be here for a long time.’’
His wife hiccupped, she was probably blaming him in her head or herself, the detail didn’t matter.
‘‘Your husband was a child psychologist? Come on darling, I don’t have all day. Either nod your head or make some type of noise. I need to know that you’re paying attention to what I’m saying. Did you ever wonder why he brought all those patients’ home? Or why they were always female? Cute, little girls, blonde with nice eyes?’’
She nodded her head. The tears kept falling but she was responsive, unlike her husband. He sat there, bound to the chair and doing nothing.
‘‘You guys have a wonderful movie collection. Do you watch any of them?’’
She looked at the bookshelf, then at her husband before shaking her head.
‘‘You’re kidding! Well, why don’t we watch one?’’
Like a chicken brought before the slaughterhouse he began trashing. Unlike his wife who’d calmed down, he screamed at the top of his lungs. Mae watched him, but when the tape began playing, he settled down. It was too late.
As it played out, Mae watched the wife scream. Even after the video had faded to black, she kept on crying. When she moved closer, there were some words his wife muttered. They faintly sounded like ‘‘forgive me.’’
Mae felt pity. ‘‘I’m sorry for doing this.’’
She’d planned a torture scene, a messy one in fact but at the sadness in the wife’s eyes, she couldn’t go through with it. Mae pulled her .17 pistol, attached the silencer and shot them in the head. A mercy killing.
She should have tortured them, maybe locked them in the house for days; however long it took to go through all the tapes he had hidden in movie cases, but she didn’t.
‘‘Hello, I’m done. You guys can clean up.’’
With nothing else to do, she brushed her dress, placed the card near the wife’s fingers and walked out of the house. There was an old lady, watering invisible grass who saw Mae when she left. But no words were exchanged.
Back at the house:
‘‘You know she’s mad right?’’ The other looked from his post and fixed his second with a drone stare. This hadn’t been the first time they had the conversation and he knew it’d happen again. ‘‘What did she do now?’’
‘‘This! She’s risking the mission for a side order of revenge. Now she’d get caught in a web that didn’t need to be spun and we’d be there, as always, to clean up the mess. I’m tired of doing that.’’
‘‘Shut up. We have a job to do. When we’re done, we can go to the bar and complain.’’
‘‘Fine.’’ Just like that, they were done and the last evidence was the card left at the scene.
‘‘Do you want to leave it behind?’’
She hissed at him. ‘‘I’m angry. But I’m not a fool. Our job is to remove all evidence. That’s what we’ve done. And will do to this.’’
For months, the house gathered dust, with no one checking on the couple who lived there. And it remained that way, until the lady in red heels was ready to open that can of worms.
