Spilled Rice

With Simon at a gig downtown, Stu stood outside the tunnel entrance behind the four-car garage, clenching a slender flashlight in his mouth. Wielding a pair of bolt cutters he’d procured from a local hardware store in town, he pinched the padlock shackle between the iron jaws and squeezed the extended handles to break the hardened steel. He laid the bolt cutters on the ground and tossed an identical padlock at his feet to substitute for the one he destroyed. Then he took the flashlight out of his mouth and descended the wooden stairs beneath.

He knew better than to go exploring where he didn’t belong, but numerous questions had gone unanswered. He didn’t buy Simon’s pet cemetery confession and confronting him about the tunnel seemed foolhardy.

He wiped a cobweb from his nose and turned abruptly to aim the flashlight at the wall. He grimaced when a mouse scampered across his path, prompting him to dig a folding pocketknife from his jacket and open the blade. He advanced slowly, afraid of who or what he might discover in the underground space. He pictured the rosary beads hanging from Jared Finley’s rear-view mirror. The same beads with the initials JF carved into the olive wood cross. The same beads he found floating in Simon’s pond with dead fish and an oily sheen he never gave a second thought about, until now.

If Jared Finley met his fate at the hands of a cold-blooded killer, where was his body? Buried in the garden or entombed in his car at the bottom of Simon’s pond?

He continued through the narrow corridor and shined the light at the wooden support beams overhead to reveal dust particles floating like tiny asteroids. The space around him smelled of raw earth and a foul chemical odor that resembled the pool acid he used to balance the water pH.

He traversed a labyrinth of offshoot passages that brought him back to the same location he started from, as if the tunnel served no purpose. But he knew Simon Hollis well enough to know Simon found purpose in all things. The tunnel existed for a reason.

To push you out of your comfort zone and discover your primal instincts. To let the world see who I really am. Do I look like a murderer to you? Have you ever wanted to kill somebody?

Frustrated at the absence of any meaningful discovery, he left the way he’d entered through the shuttered opening at the back of Simon’s garage. He replaced the broken padlock with the new one he’d scuffed and scratched by kicking it through the dirt to mimic the aged appearance. He tossed the bolt cutters in deep bushes with the broken lock and returned to safe harbor within the confines of his furnished guest room. He peered out the window overlooking the front of the property. His watch read 2:45 a.m.

Book deal or not, his sanity was worth more than the publisher was willing to pay. He missed Lisa terribly and relished the thought of sleeping in his own bed without wondering if Simon Hollis was the killer the jury convicted, or the man he pretended to be, or both. It was time to do what he should have done all along: take his story and the rosary beads to the police.

He searched the room for his phone and opened the dresser drawer, where he stashed the beads behind his socks and underwear. His mind in ten places at once, he failed to find the simple object he was looking for, pawing through his clothes in disbelief before he forced the drawer off the tracks and dumped the contents on the floor.

He searched a second drawer with the shirts Simon loaned him, convinced he must have misplaced the beads and the phone Simon bought him. He scoured the room and his carry-on bag from the closet before he charged downstairs for the landline phone in the kitchen. But the phone was gone, and with it, his chance to reach the outside world for help.

He left the house with his laptop, his sneakers sloshing through puddles from the previous storm. When he entered the four-car garage through the side entrance, he ripped the cover off the vintage Mustang and dropped the laptop on the passenger seat. Breathing heavy, he opened the garage door, half expecting to see Simon standing guard with an ax.

In the absence of a phantom executioner, he snatched the Mustang’s key from the tool pegboard and climbed behind the wheel. In his haste, he fumbled the key, dropping it between the seat and the center console. He jammed his fingers into the narrow opening, but the farther he wedged his hand between the seat and the plastic console, the more the key slid out of reach.

He shifted his weight and forced his hand down another inch, his fingertips almost brushing the key. He pulled his hand out and tilted the backrest forward to access the space behind the seat, probing the metal track to find a better angle from which he could reach. Wide palms and stubby fingers hindered the simple task. He tugged on the seat bottom in frustration, tearing at the sutured fabric seam before he relented and retrieved a pair of needle nose pliers from the toolchest.

He shoved the pliers between the seat and the plastic console, leveraging his weight to force the issue. He dug for the key and pinched it between the narrow metal jaws, snagging the compromised seam hard enough to tear it open and prompt the sound of spilled rice from the rush of human teeth pouring out of the hole.

A man has to feed his hunger. The car was my therapy when I was home from tour.

Jolted by the gruesome discovery, he jammed the key in the ignition and cranked the V-8 engine to life. He pushed the clutch in and shoved the manual transmission into first gear. Then he mashed the gas pedal and spun the rear Dunlops momentarily.

He bumped the Mustang sideways when he shifted into second gear and roared beyond the pond toward the closed iron gate. Braced for impact with his seatbelt secured and both hands on the wheel, he never saw the tire spikes protruding through a buried metal conduit transecting the driveway.

Instead of punching the Mustang through the gate, he lost control and swerved across the lawn, slamming the passenger side against a massive oak tree.