The Afternoon That Changed Everything and Nothing: Part 2 of 2

Part 2:

Liz’s heart was beating so hard and fast that she could nearly hear it herself as Luke turned the door handle and stepped inside.
“You staying out there?” he said as he put his bag down and popped his keys into the bowl on the table by the door. Liz could hear him smiling through his question. She closed her eyes and walked slowly towards the front door. As she slowly approached, Luke popped his head out, smiling, making her fear and dread mount higher.
“Come on, Liz! It’s almost like you’re not even happy to see me.”
“Of course I’m happy to see you Luke. More than you know. But I’m afraid,” she replied truthfully.
“What are you afraid of Liz?” Luke asked peering into her eyes. “And why is it so dark in here?” he added.
“You’re going to find something in here today that will change your opinion of me forever. And although I should be sorry, I’m not.”
“What is it? Liz?” Luke looked worried. “Are you having an affair?”
Liz was horrified. She glared at him. “How could you? What makes you think I am having an affair?” she asked him, annoyed that he thinks she would do something like that.
“Well, I don’t know. What else could it be? Something that will change my opinion of you…?” he retorted defensively.
Liz took a deep breath and thanked her lucky stars that she had managed to keep Luke facing away from the body for this long.
“Luke, do you remember that man we once saw at the petrol station by the motorway? The one whose son looked like he had been beaten black and blue, the man who was really rude to everyone and looked like she should have been in a Quentin Tarantino movie?” she tried to trigger his memory.
He looked at her wondering how this was relevant. “The one with the banged up old Space Wagon?” he asked her, almost visibly trying to piece together an image of this man.
“That’s the one!” she cried. “Do you remember him? Do you remember his story?” She tried to encourage his memory to bring up the nasty details that they had found out about this man.

It had been around three months now to the day when they had seen him at the petrol station. ‘Turtle Man’, as they had called him, was filling up his banged up old car, when a small child who must’ve been no older than two or three, appeared from nowhere and peered over the side of one of the doors and out of the window. Liz could clearly see that he had bruises and a few cuts on his face. He also looked like he hadn’t been bathed for days, with dirt on his cheeks and around his mouth. Liz had quickly noticed him and signaled to Luke, who was at the time filling up the tank of their car, to look over. They then both saw Turtle Man bang on the window of the old Space Wagon and shout at the child with rage in his eyes.
“OI! Sit. Down,” he boomed. Everyone else in the petrol station looked over at him wondering what was going on. The child quickly obeyed and ducked out of sight. Liz then went in to pay for the petrol and asked the lady at the till what the story was with this man but the only thing the lady would give away was his name. Eric Sanders. Liz and Luke Googled him when they got home that afternoon and found out that Eric had been heavily involved in dealing drugs to teenagers who hadn’t been particularly interested in using. He was a heavy drug user himself and had also been involved in a string of armed robberies. Rumour had it that he killed his wife a year ago by giving her too much heroin and had been living with the child ever since. The authorities always let him off with a slap on the wrist because he kept them sweet by snitching on rival dealers and gangs.
“Turtle Man?” Luke asked, still confused. “The drug dealer? I remember him; what about him?” he added, searching for answers in Liz’s face.
“Well, I saw him there again this morning and spoke to him in the shop. Actually, he spoke to me and I pretended I had no idea who he was. He then switched on the sleaze and started telling me how ‘attractive’ I was and I just wanted him to go away, but then I was also really curious. Especially when I noticed that the little kid wasn’t with him,” Liz explained nervously.
Luke looked at her in disbelief. “What happened? Did he hurt you?” he asked urgently.
Liz shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me. But he did end up following me home and when he came to the door, I let him in before anyone outside saw him lingering around.”
“You let him in the house? Why? What happened then? How did you get him out?” Luke asked all these questions quickly.
“Well, I didn’t exactly get him out… there was a bit of a scuffle but it’s fine. I just… I just need your help now,” she said, her heart starting to pound hard and fast again.
“Oh gosh, Liz. What happened?” Luke asked, looking horrified and confused when he saw the body.
Liz slowly walked round Luke and headed towards Turtle Man’s body. “Basically, I clubbed him round the head with this lamp,” she said quickly, nodding at the lamp on the side-table by the sofa.
Luke still looked horrified. “He’s not dead is he? That couldn’t have killed him. You’re not that strong!”
“He is dead, but I don’t think the hit on the head is what killed him. I poisoned him. At least I think that is what killed him. You see when I let him in, I thought it best not to try and fight him off right away. After all, I didn’t actually know what he wanted,” Liz started to explain as Luke rolled his eyes. “So I offered him a drink and while he paced around the living room, I put some rat poison in his water and gave it to him. He downed the whole glass and then he started talking about the weather. After he waffled on about the weather and the supermarkets and how expensive food has become for about 20 minutes, I said to him that I had to go out and run some errands,” Liz was looking down at his big body and then looked up at Luke.
“That was when he turned sour. He started going on about how women like me are to blame for everything that went wrong in his life and as he got angrier and angrier, he talked about people getting what they deserve in life. That is when I started getting really anxious for him to leave. I asked him firmly to leave, and that was when he snapped,” she paused to hold back the tears, as Luke rubbed his temples with his fingers. “He lunged towards me with such an angry look in his face, so I grabbed the lamp and swung as hard as I could. It didn’t knock him out but I think he had just about started to get drowsy from the poison, which I didn’t even think had worked by the way. Within moments he was on the floor, he started frothing at the mouth and then died. And now I don’t know what to do with him.” Liz took a deep breath. In that moment of silence she searched Luke’s eyes for any signs of which way he was going to take this.
“Ok. Ok Liz, here’s what we’re going to do,” Luke said with purpose. Liz looked at Luke and could almost see him putting his practical, problem-solving cap on. She looked on with admiration. Her partner in crime; he was going to help her get through this, just like she would help him if he was in the same situation. A problem shared is a problem halved, they say and right in that moment she understood the meaning of that saying. Luke had always made her feel like she could be herself, but now she felt like there was nothing that could tear them apart. She knew that everything would be ok now, because they were in it together and because there was no problem that Luke couldn’t solve. Liz felt a flush of love and pride running through her veins and she quickly snapped her attention back to Luke, and waited readily for his instructions, like a child being bribed with ice cream.

“Right, I think we should ring the police and omit the fact that you put rat poison in his drink. We don’t even mention that he asked for a drink or that you offered. In fact, the drink has no place in this at all,” Luke said, almost as though he was thinking aloud. He then looked up at Liz and continued, “You invited him into the house because he got a flat tyre outside and you were on the drive, getting out of your car.”
Luke then felt around Turtle Man’s pockets and pulled out a mobile phone.
“He didn’t have his phone on him and couldn’t change the tyre himself because he had a bad back. You then invited him in to use the phone and wait for assistance,” Luke said with a proud smile growing on his face.
Liz smiled at him and then stopped herself getting too excited and said, “Well, how did he die then? I mean, do we say that he tried to attack me or do we say he just keeled over and died? People don’t just drop dead.”
“Well, Liz, they do when they have heart attacks,” Luke replied.
“But what if they test his blood, which I’m sure they will,” Liz said.
Luke looked at her blankly. What was going on with him? She was right and he knew it; he was a scientist. The first thing they would do was test his blood to find the cause of death. The solution then popped into his mind. They would have to somehow cleanse his blood of all traces of the rat poison.
“Well we’re going to have to get rid of the evidence then, aren’t we?” he said.
Liz looked at him with confusion, trying to understand and work out how exactly they might do this successfully.
“A blood transfusion,” he explained. “We will need to find out his blood type, then I will go down to the lab and find a pouch of blood that matches up. Then all we need to do is a dialysis session and we’re done,” he said as if he was simply planning one of his experiments at work or pick up the shopping.
Liz thought that scientists and researchers were more practical than that. Luke was panicking and his everyday rational logic was waning.
“Luke, we don’t have time for all that if we’re going to call the police. They know how long people have been dead for. I’ve seen it on TV; they know these things,” Liz said, her fear visibly increasing.
Once again, she was right. It would have taken him at least four or five hours to sort all that out. How would they explain the delay to the police? There was only one solution left.
“OK, fine. The only thing left to do is destroy him altogether,” Luke said holding his hands up in front of him.
“Like melt him?” Liz asked in disgust.
“Can you suggest anything else?” he asked her impatiently.
Luke had access to all the chemicals they needed from the lab. They had to melt the body, Breaking Bad style.

The following morning, Liz switched on the television and sat down with Luke sat down at the dining room table. They had been up all night sorting the mess out and looked exhausted. They listened carefully to the news, expecting each bulletin and news item to report Eric Sanders missing. But it didn’t come.

After a month of watching, reading and listening to the news intently, the missing person’s report still never came. Liz and Luke walked away from their experience unscathed to the outside world. On the inside though, they both secretly felt like this was their highest accomplishment to date and likely to have been the proudest achievement throughout their lives.