His wife said she wasn’t suspicious. The old man liked that about her. There is only today, they told each other.
Today she left him alone. She insisted on working still at the emergency room. Too many troubles in that hospital, the old man thought. His wife thought she could help.
The old man sat at his desk and looked out at the water and thought about burrowing owls. When he was hiding in Punta Isles and courting his third wife, not counting the three he didn’t marry, they loved to drive over to The Point in the green Mustang with the top down and and watch the burrowing owls poke their heads up. Those wise birds, so little and cute with bright eyes, reminded him of her. The old man was not so young even then. But she was.
The locals were getting suspicious of the old man who wore a stars and striped tie over a starched stiff white shirt and pleated khakis. Wore a flag pin and pretended to be a pest control salesman and a respected community leader. The old man couldn’t remember which was worse.
That’s when he decided to kill again. He’d been good too long. And he was too good at it to let that annoying piece of shit councilman breathe another breath of Peace River air. The old man had known some good spooks and he had known some bad spooks. Really, who gets drunk at the Slip-Knot and announces to the bar he’s ex-C.I.A.
A raging hairy fat bald douchebag, that’s who. Had to admit he was a little scary, so the old man didn’t apologize for sneaking up from behind the rusted green dumpster and leaving that hairy fat balding scuzbucket bleeding out face first next to an abandoned fishing trailer. The old man saw his shadow bouncing over puddles in the parking lot. His shadow told him he was in the clear.
The sticking point – almost always – was how to get rid of the body. The old man chuckled as he thought of the woodchipper in the movie Fargo. Forensic science had made gigantic leaps forward, if he could believe half of what he saw on CSI and Chicago P.D.
Law and Order not so much. He liked Criminal Minds the best because of those quotes bracketed every episode. Something David Rossi said years ago stuck with him: “Scars remind us where we’ve been. They don’t have to dictate where we’re going.”
Television may be educational. Think about it, the old man wondered. Where have you learned the most new shit? TV, right?
He didn’t think that way. The way he thought was that’s what people think. How do you know it’s so, you ask them. And you hear back, I heard on television. So, why isn’t there any history on the History Channel; why no tunes on the Music Channel? The old man remembered when you could believe what you read in the newspaper. And now that’s gone. And most of the newspapers with it.
The old man learned the best from old cowboy movies and country & western songs. You stepped in when it was time to step in and the rest of the time you stayed out of the way. And when you got where you were going, you found the time – whatever time it took – to do what needed doing.