THE JOGGER
By
Tom Ray
Sarah walked
to the end of the driveway to pick up her morning newspaper. Her silk
pajamas didn't reveal a lot of bare skin, but did cling to her in a way that
showed off her curves. The jogger coming up the street was just short of
the driveway when Sarah bent over to pick up the newspaper. Standing back
up, she said a cheery "Good morning."
He looked
surprised, but delighted. She could tell he'd gotten a good view of her
cleavage.
"Doing
something constructive this morning, I see."
"Just
keeping the old heart and lungs pumping," he said as he continued
on. He was tall and thin with dark hair cut short, a long, narrow face and
bug eyes behind unfashionable, black-rimmed glasses. Still, he was in better
shape than Sarah's husband Steve. When they became a couple, comments from
friends about her being taller than Steve irritated her. This had gotten worse
after fifteen years of marriage, as she maintained her athletic figure while
Steve grew fat. The jogger was taller than Sarah, his long, lean legs
exposed by his running shorts.
The next
morning she was out again in different pajamas, still silk but paisley instead
of solid purple. As the jogger approached she said, "Wow, two days in
a row. Do you do this every day?"
He slowed,
and then stopped, still breathing hard. "Yeah. I've been doing it almost
every morning about this time for the last eight years."
"That's
wild. We've lived here five years, but I've never seen you before, and now here
we are, two days in a row."
"Yeah.
Funny." He smiled as he said it.
"I'm
Sarah Woodside, by the way." She extended her hand and they shook.
"Brian
Voorhees. I'd better get going." He seemed reluctant to leave, but
resumed his run.
The third
morning she said, "You look so tired. Would you like to come in for a
minute, for a coke, or some water or something?"
He had
slowed to a walk as he approached her. "Yeah. Some water would go
good right now."
Once he was
in the kitchen she offered him a seat at the table and poured him a glass of
bottled water over ice. She sat down with her coffee. "My husband is out
of town, and it's lonely at breakfast."
Brian got
the message, and soon they kissed, and then moved into the bedroom. He
apologized for being sweaty, and for his breath smelling bad since he hadn't
brushed his teeth yet. She assured him that was no problem. He was a decent
lover, his lean jogger's body sexier than Steve's.
Afterward
she told him this episode was the result of a whim, and she didn't want to have
a permanent relationship with Brian. It was hard, though, with Steve being out
of town so much, and she said she would like to do this again with Brian
sometimes. He agreed; he didn't want to divorce his wife, but he was
really fond of Sarah, and she was so beautiful.
They agreed
they would have to exercise caution, never contacting each other by phone or
email. Fortunately, all the neighbors along this block were still asleep
during Brian's early morning jogs. He always got up in the morning before his
wife was awake, so she wouldn't notice how long he was gone.
# # #
It became a
routine. If Steve was out of town Sarah came out to get the newspaper as
Brian came up the street. That was the signal. When Steve was at home
she would stay inside until Brian passed.
If Sarah
told him in advance that Steve was away, Brian left his house earlier and cut
short his jogging route. They could spend more time after the sex,
talking.
She
told
Brian that Steve was a successful management consultant. Brian said his
wife
Janie was an attorney with a company headquartered there in
Knoxville. Sarah was a free-lance interior designer operating out
of her home, Brian the
head of IT for a regional bank. Brian was feeling alienated from Janie;
she'd
grown cold, and went out of her way to criticize him and complain.
# # #
Sarah hadn’t
figured out the next step yet, but she was sure something would turn up. Then
she got a call from Morgan Hofstadter, a man whose home she had redecorated.
Morgan and his wife Lucy had referred many of their rich friends to
Sarah.
"Well,
Sarah, I finally retired."
"You're
too young to retire, Morgan." He was pushing eighty.
"I wish
that were true. Anyway, we've bought a little retirement place."
"I
thought you already had a place in Florida."
"We're
going to keep that, but we wanted something closer to home, in the mountains.
We've bought a cabin near Asheville. And we want you to come and redecorate
it. The previous owners weren't very sophisticated. We need your
touch."
"I'd
love to do it. How big is the cabin?"
"It has
four bedrooms, and a huge den, and a deck that gives a tremendous view of the
valley."
"Sounds
lovely. When can I come and see it?"
They
compared calendars. She agreed on a day when Steve would be home at night.
"You
can spend the day with us and stay the night if you'd like."
"That
works for me," she said. She anticipated that invitation, knowing how
much Morgan and Lucy liked company.
# # #
As Brian was
coming out of the bathroom Sarah said, "See that thing on the
bureau?"
"That?"
He pointed to an abstract sculpture about two feet tall, a gray column
decorated with filigree.
"Yeah.
Pick it up."
Picking up
the piece, he said, "Jesus. This is heavy."
"Solid
cast iron. Avondale Foundry gave that to Steve. The president's wife is an
artist and designed it, and they cast it especially for him. See on the
base?"
"'To
Steve Woodside, in Appreciation for His Service to the Avondale Foundry.'"
He examined it from base to top, turning it over in his hands.
"Yeah.
The company was in trouble, and he came in and did a review of their processes.
The management gave him a lot of grief after his initial report, but he
convinced them to stick with his recommendations. After a couple of years they
saw that he'd saved them a lot of money and improved their response to
customers. Basically saved the company. They invited us to a big dinner and
presented him that."
Brian said,
"Something to be proud of," but she could tell he was jealous.
"He's
good at what he does. He can solve certain kinds of problems, but he doesn't
always take care of things at home."
"Tell
me about it," he said, and his jealousy seemed to have past.
"Anyway,"
she said. "I've got to get going. I'm meeting with clients in Asheville.
I'm spending the night there. I couldn't see you tomorrow, anyway. Steve will
be back tonight."
"Oh.
OK. See you the next time you come out on the driveway."
# # #
She had a
good day at the Hofstadter's "cabin." She arrived there shortly
before noon, had lunch with Morgan and Lucy, then set about taking pictures of
the house, taking measurements, and making sketches.
Morgan
grilled steaks for dinner. Both of the Hofstadters drank cocktails during the
afternoon, and wine at dinner. Sarah drank part of a glass of wine with her
steak, leaving the remainder of the bottle for Morgan and Lucy, who finished it
along with another bottle. They stayed up after dinner talking with Sarah,
happy to have somebody to entertain. Even so, by nine o'clock they were
struggling to stay awake, and both retired to bed.
Sarah waited
in her room. If she got back to Knoxville too early the neighbors might
still be up. At midnight she stood at Morgan and Lucy's bedroom door,
making certain from their loud snores that they slept. In a few minutes she was
on Interstate 40 headed west.
When she
pulled in next to Steve's car in the garage her watch showed three o'clock. She
put on a cheap plastic raincoat she'd bought a few days before, and surgical
gloves.
Steve was
passed out on the bed, fully clothed and drunk, as usual. Grasping the
sculpture from Avondale Foundry, Sarah bashed his head with it four times.
After checking to make sure he had no pulse, she unlocked the front door. That
would account for a murderer getting in without a key. Taking off the
blood-spattered raincoat and gloves in the garage, she put them in the garbage
bag she'd brought in the car.
In the open
country along the highway back to Asheville she threw the garbage bag out the
car window. She'd gassed up the car in Asheville the previous day, before going
to the Hofstadter's house. That gave her enough fuel to make the trip to
Knoxville and back. There'd be no surveillance footage of her stopping at a
filling station along I-40 that night.
# # #
When Lucy
woke her up at ten in the morning Sarah said, "Oomph. I shouldn't have had
that wine last night. I don't drink much, and just one glass puts me to sleep
real good."
"I'm
sorry to wake you, but I was afraid you might need to get back home today.
You're welcome to sleep in if you want to."
"No,
that's fine, Lucy, I do have to get back."
It was early
afternoon by the time she turned into her street. A crowd milled around in
front of the house and a TV news van, two police cars, and an unmarked van she
guessed was also from the police were parked on the street. One of the police
cars blocked her driveway, and she had to park down the block. She got out
of the car and ran to her house. Police tape stretched across the front of her
property.
A policeman
stopped her as she lifted the tape and stooped to walk under it. "Ma'am,
you're not allowed in here. This is a crime scene."
"What
are you talking about? This is my house." She tried to walk past him, but
he grabbed her arm.
"What's
your name, ma'am?"
"Sarah
Woodside."
"Just a
minute." He spoke into the microphone strapped to his shoulder, and a
voice answered him.
In a minute
a man in civilian clothes came out of the house. "Ms. Woodside? I'm Lieutenant
Simmons. Please come and sit with me." He guided her to an unmarked sedan
she hadn't noticed before. They sat in the front seat.
"I hate
to tell you this ma'am. Your husband has been killed. Don't go into the house
just now. He's been moved to the morgue, but your house would be very upsetting
if you saw it."
She
screamed, cried, said Simmons must be mistaken, and finally quieted down.
"Are you sure it's my husband?"
"The
license in his wallet says Stephen Woodside. You'll have to identify the body
later, but it is in all probability your husband. He was supposed to fly out of
town today with an associate, but when he didn't come to the airport or answer
his phone, the associate came here to check on him."
"I
don't understand how this happened."
"If I
may ask, where were you last night?"
He went on
asking her questions in a tactful way, but she could tell he was trying to see
if she had an alibi. She gave him contact information for the Hofstadters. He
asked about things like who might have wanted to kill Steve. The questioning
took less time than she’d expected. He must have felt she had recovered well
enough to go into the house, because he asked her to see if anything was
missing. After looking around the bedroom and living room she said nothing was. The
sculpture she’d bludgeoned Steve with was lying on the bedroom floor.
As Simmons
led her outside she tried to look dazed without overdoing it. Becky Winstead, a
nosey little woman who lived two doors down, volunteered to take Sarah home for
a while. That struck Sarah as especially gracious, since Steve and Becky had
quarreled in the past when Becky walked her dog Coco. Steve accused her of not
cleaning up after Coco.
# # #
After a few
hours Sarah left Becky's house and checked into a motel. The next day she went
to identify the body. It made her queasy to see what she'd done to Steve's
head, but that helped her look upset. Afterward Lieutenant Simmons asked her to
come to his office.
She and
Simmons sat facing each other across his desk, his partner Sergeant Lane
standing near him. After some initial small talk Simmons said, "Do you
know Brian Voorhees?"
"No. He
may be one of Steve's clients."
"No.
He's a neighbor of yours."
"Oh. I
don’t think he lives on our block.”
"No. He
lives a few blocks away. His wife saw the news about Mr. Woodside's murder on
TV last night and called us this morning."
Sarah
concentrated on looking puzzled.
He paused,
watching her before continuing. "She said your husband had been having an
affair with her."
She stared at
him, trying to look shocked. "I don't think that's possible. What did you
say her name was?"
"Janie
Voorhees. Her husband is named Brian."
"She
must be imagining things. I think I would have known about that."
"Sometimes
our spouses surprise us, deceive us. The thing is, she suspects her husband
killed Steve. She assumes he found out about their affair and killed Steve in a
fit of rage. She takes a sleeping pill at night, and says her husband could
easily have slipped out of the house, killed Steve, and returned without her
knowing it."
"I
can't believe this." She stumbled on her words, trying to maintain the
illusion of being stunned.
"I
don't think we told you this before, but the murder weapon was a piece of metal
sculpture found in your bedroom. It was bloody, and the wounds on your husband
were consistent with an object like that. Brian Voorhees' fingerprints were all
over that sculpture."
She gasped.
"We
questioned Voorhees and fingerprinted him. We told him his prints were on the
murder weapon and asked how they could have been there. He claims that he's
been having an affair with you and handled the sculpture during a visit with
you when your husband wasn't there."
"That's
ridiculous, it's crazy. I don't even know any Brian Voorhees. And I don't
believe my husband had an affair with his wife."
Sergeant
Lane said, "We're sorry to upset you, but our forensics team got into your
husband's laptop. He and Janie Voorhees emailed each other a lot, starting
almost a year ago. It's very explicit. There is no question they were having an
affair."
Now the
hardest part, trying to pretend she still didn't believe Steve had been having
an affair with Brian's wife. She became agitated, then feigned hysteria, and
gradually calmed down. Sergeant Lane got her a glass of water, which she sipped
as both men looked on with discomfort.
Simmons
said, "You are absolutely sure there is no way that Brian Voorhees would
have been in your bedroom, or handled that metal sculpture?"
"I'm
sure of it. This must be a mistake."
"From
your husband's email we know Janie Voorhees is telling the truth about their
affair. It looks like Brian Voorhees is our man."
She cried
some more. Lieutenant Simmons continued talking, trying to comfort her. After
"calming down" she left.
# # #
Lieutenant
Simmons recommended a service that cleaned crime scenes, and they did a good
job. She was back home in a month, thinking it would look suspicious to go
back right away.
It all
worked out. No messy divorce, no dividing the assets, just probating the will,
and collecting the life insurance.
Poor Brian
foolishly pled not guilty, rather than some kind of insanity defense. Nobody
bought his explanation for his fingerprints being on the murder weapon. An
affair between a nerd like him and a woman like Sarah strained credulity.
Brian's
obliviousness to Janie's affair with Steve amazed her. Sarah had figured out
something was going on months before she hacked into Steve's emails. The emails
gave her the information she needed about Janie. From there it was easy to find
out about Brian. His jogging route was a stroke of luck, but if he hadn't come
by her house every day Sarah would have found some other way to trap him.
# # #
A few weeks
after Brian's conviction Becky Winstead rang Sarah's doorbell. After Sarah
invited her in Becky said, "I just wanted you to know, I'm behind you a
hundred percent."
"Thanks,
Becky. I can never thank you enough for letting me stay at your house after
Steve was killed. It gave me a chance to get myself together. I don't know what
I would have done without you."
"I was
glad to do it. I always felt you had such a burden to bear, being married to
that man."
That was an
odd thing for Becky to say, and Sarah knew she had to be careful in answering. "Steve
could be a challenge, but he never did anything to deserve being
murdered."
"Oh,
no, I didn't mean to say he did. But I know he had a mean streak, the way he
talked to me about Coco. And he must have been terrible to you, to drive you
into the arms of that ugly Brian Voorhees."
Sarah tried
hard to disguise her shock at Becky's reference to Brian. "What? I don't
understand."
"I wake
up at all kinds of odd hours. Sometimes I wake up at five or six in the morning
and can't get back to sleep. In those early morning hours I used to see Brian
out jogging. I saw him stop at your house once and kiss you in the driveway
before you both went inside. To kiss such an ugly, skinny, sweaty man must have
been terrible for you. I can understand you being lonely, though, married to
that monster Steve."
"Becky,
I don't know what to say...."
"Oh,
I've scared you. Don't worry. Like I said, I'm behind you a hundred percent.
I'm sure you didn't want Brian to kill Steve."
"If you
believe I had an affair with Brian, why didn't you say something to the
police?"
"We
girls have to stick together. You shouldn't have had to put up with Steve or
Brian either one. You deserve a break. Besides, Brian did it and deserved
to be punished. Why should I muddy the waters by bringing up his stopping at
your house?"
Getting up
from her chair, Sarah joined Becky on the sofa and hugged her. "Becky,
you're so sweet. Thank you so much."
They talked
on for a while before Becky left.
A problem
might arise if Brian lived to complete his prison sentence. She would address
that when the time came, just like she'd addressed Steve and Janie's affair.
Her immediate issue was Becky, and she was sure she'd find a way to take care
of that.
Tom Ray devotes his time to writing adult fiction. His stories have been published in numerous journals and in the print anthology Unbroken Circle: Stories of Cultural Diversity in the South. He is a native of Knoxville, Tennessee, and a graduate of the University of Tennessee. After two years of active duty in the U. S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam, he entered U. S. government service as a civilian. He retired after working thirty-five years in the Washington, D.C., area, and currently lives in Knoxville.
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