Clever Magazine, Vol. 6, #3 " Dead Man's Curves " (www.clevermag.com)

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Dead Man's Curve

by Pamela Kimmell

How typical of me to misplace my car keys. That old saying about “if my head wasn’t screwed on tight I would have misplaced it too” came to mind…I’d been getting more scattered lately as if pieces of my already tenuous sanity were slipping quietly into the place other “lost items” went.

I pulled open every drawer in every cabinet, desk, and cubbyhole. I searched every pocket, purse, and seat cushion. The keys were just plain gone. Even Jasper, my one-year-old tabby - who had been known to “steal” things was apparently innocent - I’d checked his basket and other hiding places.

Tears traveled down my face leaving tracks in my carefully applied blush…how could I have lost my car keys?

Jasper hopped up on my lap and purred loudly as I stroked his back - calming myself in the process. Just like the medical journals said…stroke an animal and you settle yourself at the same time.

It was as my mind was actually resting and no longer in the panic mode that I realized where I had not looked. I deposited Jasper on the rug and went to the hall coat closet. There on the floor, directly under my coat, were my keys. Hole in the pocket…had to be a hole in my pocket! The thought had just popped into my mind and I was grateful for it because I was already 28 minutes late for my doctors’ appointment.

Keys held tightly in a veritable death grip, I donned my coat, grabbed my purse, made sure I had my house keys and left.

Doctor Parkington was sympathetic - as usual.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself” she said in her monotone but soothing voice. “It happens to all of us and doesn’t mean a thing except you are distracted….and that is understandable.”

Indeed. Understandable. I’d been in therapy for six months already and still I was grateful for her assessment of my mental instability as “understandable”.

“Other than the key incident, what else has happened since our visit last week?”

She didn’t really want me to tell her. She just had to ask because it was her job to do that. Poking and prodding at me to see what little bits of pain I could spew forth so she could analyze them and me half to death.

I lied.

“Not a thing. Everything is fine. I’m getting along great at my new job, and making new friends. Things are just fine and dandy Doctor Parkington.”

She looked right through me with her green eyes. I could feel her scratching the surface of the lies and letting the truth seep out.

“Uh huh. I see.”

No, she didn’t...or maybe she did. Maybe she saw much more than I ever had told her and that scared me.

“Have you been to the grave yet?”

Oh, God. I knew she would ask me that. This time I couldn’t lie. I just couldn’t.

“No. I haven’t been and really I don’t see why I should Doctor Parkington. I mean, I know Jason is dead and buried. It’s not like I don’t know that. Why should I go visit the grave? Why stare at that headstone and the indentation in the grass and the dead flowers - I don’t feel like that’s necessary.”

“You have been, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

There was no point in lying yet again. I had finally been to Jason’s grave and said my goodbye - the one I couldn’t say on the day of his funeral because I’d refused to attend it.

“Good. There’s some closure there then.”

Closure she called it. Oh, but she was ever so wrong. There was no closure and there would never be closure. I dreamt about Jason every single night and thought about him every single hour of every single day. There had been no closure in any way, shape or form. It was my punishment.

“Has there been any progress on the investigation?” she nonchalantly asked.

“No. Nothing.”

I’d gotten away with it. The police didn’t know what I’d done and apparently never would. If I just kept up these weekly appointments with Doctor Parkington for two more sessions, I’d be finished with this therapy that everyone expected me to have to help me cope with the tragic loss of my husband. It would be over. Well, it would be over except for my guilt. Even though he deserved what happened, I had murdered him just as surely as if I’d shot him or stabbed him or poisoned him or pushed him off a cliff.

What I’d actually done is followed him one night as he went to visit his mistress…a sweet young thing who worked in his office. He didn’t know that I knew. Nobody knew that I knew. But I did. So I followed him there to her apartment, and when they exited an hour later giggling and holding onto each other and stopping for a kiss on the sidewalk by his car and eventually drove off - I followed them. I followed them as they made their way along Compton Pass up in the mountains on their way to our cabin. And when we came to that last big curve I came up behind them in the heavy fog in my pickup truck and honked my horn about two inches off his bumper...I must have scared the crap out of Jason because he jerked the wheel hard to the left and went right over the skimpy little guard rail and down, down, down they went. I saw the explosion. Hell, I felt the explosion - it was so loud and violent.

Then I went home. Satisfied.

I played the role of the distraught little wife ever so well when the police came the next day. In fact I was the consummate actress for the days and weeks that followed. I had to be. I’d killed Jason and his girlfriend. And it was no accident of course as they thought it had been.

So now, as I lie on this couch in Doctor Parkington’s office, lying my head off yet again, I’m thinking that except for the fact that Jason will haunt me forever, I’ve gotten away with murder. Good for me.

“Well our time is up,” Doctor Parkington, said as she rose from her burgundy leather chair.

“Thank you Doctor. I always feel better after our talks” I said as I accepted her hug and left.

Just one last thing to do now. I have to drive up to the cabin to meet the new owner today. It will be the first time I’ve driven through Compton Pass since...well, since that night I’ll be extra careful on that hairpin turn...after all, Jason will be with me in the front seat - where he’s been every minute of every

hour of every day since I killed him. I’ll have to keep a close eye on him so he doesn’t grab the wheel and do something stupid like jerk the wheel to the left and make me join him in hell. Hell no. Can’t allow that.