Read Online The Killing of Bobbi Lomax by Cal Moriarty - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Cal Moriarty
Tags: Crime
Ads: Link
luck.
Instead, spooked maybe by his scent or something, a whole gaggle of the fuckers were shifting quickly again now, heading for the coop. He couldn’t wait any longer: he had to move fast up and over the fence.
He was on the outskirts of the gaggle now, felt the beginnings of even hastier movement and frantic noise amongst them. He was primed to react, but so were they. More so than him. And faster. He pushed forward, reached down amongst them, deep into the huddle. One was all he needed. His hand connected with a neck and he pulled its wriggling body out of the melee around him. They were all squawking and fleeing, flapping their useless wings in a concerted effort to frighten off this predator in their midst. He waded out through the racket back towards his car. As he did so, he placed his hands tightly around its neck and it wriggled furiously, evolution must have warned it what was coming. Soon its body went limp.
He headed for the car, back up the track to where it was parked close to the perimeter fence, its dark silhouette barely visible. He was grateful for the fact there hadn’t been the usual September rain, otherwise the entire field around the coop would have been a giant shit-fest. Grateful because he’d remembered to wear his old tennis shoes, knowing he could just sling them in the washing machine when he got home. Get them washed and dried under the boiler before Edie and Jack got home in the morning. When he was working on one of his special projects, any nights he could subtly persuade Edie to spend at her sister’s – and take Jack – were like a gift from the gods. He liked to work knowing he wouldn’t be interrupted by the unpredictable rhythms of other people’s lives.
He had a clean trash bag ready. He shoved it inside and slammed the lid of the trunk back down. He had to get out of there fast before the squawking woke the turkey farmer and brought him, armed and irritated, out of his house.
*
He plucked the best feathers out of its left wing. He was right-handed so it had to be the left wing, that way the feathers wouldn’t be in his sightline as he wrote. The long, fine feathers had the sturdiest of tips. He’d washed them and dried them, slicing them like a flower stem diagonally across the base, and now he was dipping the first one into his ink-pot, squeezing and drawing it out, careful not to waste any of the precious ink.
Probably the ink had been the most perilous ingredient to obtain. Following instructions from an old ink recipe he’d found in a library book, he had been burning pages he’d ripped out of another book when Edie and Jack had come back early from a Faith-organized Saturday playgroup. Jack had eaten too much cake, guzzled too much OJ and trampolined until his brain hurt. Triple whammy. He’d been violently sick in the Mission side hall and Edie, apologizing profusely, had hurriedly bundled him out the door and into the car as some of the other Faith mothers kindly took to cleaning up the mess.
When he’d heard them pull up to the garage Clark quickly slammed down the hood of the barbecue, sending smoke seeping out the sides of it. He’d yelled out to Edie he was just cleaning it in case she got the idea he might be prepping a cook-out. Not today, he had more pressing things to attend to. She didn’t look like she believed he was cleaning anything, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. As Edie ushered Jack through the front door and upstairs towards the bathroom Clark quickly wrenched open the barbecue hood before all the ash from the precious pages evaporated to nothing. He gathered up as much of it as he could. This would be the base ingredient with which he would make his ink. He’d sliced the blank back pages out of an 1840s book he’d found in the folio section of the university library. That way the carbon and thus the ink would be genuine nineteenth-century, not some hokey late-twentieth-century version. It was true what he’d told Edie: he
Instead, spooked maybe by his scent or something, a whole gaggle of the fuckers were shifting quickly again now, heading for the coop. He couldn’t wait any longer: he had to move fast up and over the fence.
He was on the outskirts of the gaggle now, felt the beginnings of even hastier movement and frantic noise amongst them. He was primed to react, but so were they. More so than him. And faster. He pushed forward, reached down amongst them, deep into the huddle. One was all he needed. His hand connected with a neck and he pulled its wriggling body out of the melee around him. They were all squawking and fleeing, flapping their useless wings in a concerted effort to frighten off this predator in their midst. He waded out through the racket back towards his car. As he did so, he placed his hands tightly around its neck and it wriggled furiously, evolution must have warned it what was coming. Soon its body went limp.
He headed for the car, back up the track to where it was parked close to the perimeter fence, its dark silhouette barely visible. He was grateful for the fact there hadn’t been the usual September rain, otherwise the entire field around the coop would have been a giant shit-fest. Grateful because he’d remembered to wear his old tennis shoes, knowing he could just sling them in the washing machine when he got home. Get them washed and dried under the boiler before Edie and Jack got home in the morning. When he was working on one of his special projects, any nights he could subtly persuade Edie to spend at her sister’s – and take Jack – were like a gift from the gods. He liked to work knowing he wouldn’t be interrupted by the unpredictable rhythms of other people’s lives.
He had a clean trash bag ready. He shoved it inside and slammed the lid of the trunk back down. He had to get out of there fast before the squawking woke the turkey farmer and brought him, armed and irritated, out of his house.
*
He plucked the best feathers out of its left wing. He was right-handed so it had to be the left wing, that way the feathers wouldn’t be in his sightline as he wrote. The long, fine feathers had the sturdiest of tips. He’d washed them and dried them, slicing them like a flower stem diagonally across the base, and now he was dipping the first one into his ink-pot, squeezing and drawing it out, careful not to waste any of the precious ink.
Probably the ink had been the most perilous ingredient to obtain. Following instructions from an old ink recipe he’d found in a library book, he had been burning pages he’d ripped out of another book when Edie and Jack had come back early from a Faith-organized Saturday playgroup. Jack had eaten too much cake, guzzled too much OJ and trampolined until his brain hurt. Triple whammy. He’d been violently sick in the Mission side hall and Edie, apologizing profusely, had hurriedly bundled him out the door and into the car as some of the other Faith mothers kindly took to cleaning up the mess.
When he’d heard them pull up to the garage Clark quickly slammed down the hood of the barbecue, sending smoke seeping out the sides of it. He’d yelled out to Edie he was just cleaning it in case she got the idea he might be prepping a cook-out. Not today, he had more pressing things to attend to. She didn’t look like she believed he was cleaning anything, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. As Edie ushered Jack through the front door and upstairs towards the bathroom Clark quickly wrenched open the barbecue hood before all the ash from the precious pages evaporated to nothing. He gathered up as much of it as he could. This would be the base ingredient with which he would make his ink. He’d sliced the blank back pages out of an 1840s book he’d found in the folio section of the university library. That way the carbon and thus the ink would be genuine nineteenth-century, not some hokey late-twentieth-century version. It was true what he’d told Edie: he
Similar Books
