= A Second Look

by Marianna Heusler

He watched her walking towards him, cocky and self-assured, her skirt hitched up
way above her hefty thighs, her scarlet sweater outlining her ample curves as well
as her flabby rolls, her makeup caked on her face, her lips slippery with colored
Vaseline, her hair sprayed and gelled in some elaborate do.

She barely glanced at him and why would she? Girls like that never gave him a
second look. The truth was that no one ever gave him a second look, which really
worked out well. Because later when the police would ask passersby for a
description of people who were in the area at the time of the murder, they never
thought of him.

He knew exactly where she lived. He had been following her for weeks. He had a
plan, and he'd written it all down in his marble composition book, neat and clean
on those blank black lines.

Of course, she would not understand. In the final moments of her life she was bound
to wonder--why her? And he would not bother to tell it that it really was quite
simple.

She reminded him of someone.

She did her laundry on Thursdays. He had watched her dragging her cart across the
yard, always at the same time, three-thirty in the afternoon. She strutted over the
pavement, with her Walkman on, blissfully unaware, never dreaming for one moment
that she was being stalked.

He planned it for March first. On that rainy spring afternoon he sneaked into the
laundry room at precisely two o'clock. He carried an enormous laundry bag.

He had scouted out a hiding place under the stairwell, deep in the bowels of the
basement. So he sat and waited as the warm steam jutted through the narrow space.

He had thought about bringing a book, but he wasn't much of a reader, and he'd
decided against his own Walkman because it might possibly distract him. If someone
else came down those stairs to do the laundry, it was important that he hear. So
instead he sat still and worried about everything that could go wrong and wondered
how he could make absolutely certain that nothing would.

He had been lucky the first two times--or maybe it wasn't luck at all. Maybe he was
just good at what he did. And God knows he wasn't much good at anything else, which
is what she kept telling him.

The slut was late, fifteen minutes after her usual time, and at first he thought
that might be a really bad sign. What if she wasn't alone? What if she brought a
friend? What if someone else decided to do the laundry at the same time?

He was taking a chance, but chances were what excited him.

Then he heard the sound of those ridiculous high-heeled boots she wore, and he
smelled her--a musky, sexy odor that invited "Come get me." Today she was alone.
She wasn't speaking to anyone, as she dragged her duffel bag down the long steps,
so he guessed it would be all right. She had earphones on, attached to a CD player
and she was mimicking the words to some stupid rap song, swaying to the beat,
totally unaware that she had minutes to live.
She walked straight down the long, narrow corridor to the machines. He followed her
silently from behind.

When she finally arrived in the laundry room, she whirled around. Seeing his
friendly grin, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh, it's you," she said, and then he knew that she had seen him in the
neighborhood and the stupid bitch thought it was going to be all right.

He threw his laundry bag on top of the washer.

"How many machines you gonna use?" she asked, sounding slightly annoyed when she
saw the size of his sack.

"Only one."

"Good, because I need three."

She opened her duffel bag and dumped her laundry on the cold hard cement floor,
while he removed a single towel and a long, skinny piece of wire from his. She
barely glanced at him--instead she was studying a pale blue shirt, probably
debating whether to put it with the whites or the colors.

A pale blue baby's shirt. He was not wrong about her then. She had gone and got
herself knocked up. She was just like all the other whores.

She bent down, gathered the white clothes, and dragged them over to the washer. If
she suspected that he was studying her, it didn't faze her in the least. Girls like
that, they liked being watched.

When she finished pouring the detergent into her last batch, he sneaked up behind
her. For a spilt second, she hesitated. He thought she might turn around, but he
never gave her the chance.

He slipped the wire in front of her neck, swiftly and soundlessly. She let out a
small squeal, barely audible and then with all of his strength, he pulled the wire
taut.

She wasn't going easily--not this girl. She was a fighter, a nervy aggressive
bitch, who took advantage of the guys who loved and cared for her. Well, she
wouldn't be doing that no more.

She tried to pull the wire from her neck, a wasted effort. If she were smart, she
would use her waning energy to injure him somehow, so he would release the weapon.
Dumb cunt.

It was over in minutes.

She stopped struggling--her breath receded, no longer coming in strange little

gasps, her body went limp and she fell with a crash on the concentrate floor.

He was putting her in the duffel bag when he heard footsteps on the staircase.

He realized then what he should have realized all along, this was not a safe place.
But he was learning to think fast, so he finished stuffing her body in the sack,
and when the old man came in to use the one free machine, he acted real casual
like. He walked out as though he were carrying a ton of fresh laundry, and he made
a mental note that he'd have to come back for her clothes later on. After he dumped
her body.
There must be no connection between the dead girl and the laundry room.

He lifted the duffel bag up the decrepit stairs and dragged it home.

He hid the body on the far side of the cellar, in the old freezer. She never
bothered to go down there anymore; it was his job to clean the basement. She just
sat around all day, gossiping on the corner with the neighbors, and then at night,
she'd throw some frozen shit in the microwave and call it dinner.

He found it difficult to close the lid of the freezer and he struggled with it for
a while. The other two were fatsos--he would soon have to make other arrangements,
cause it was getting mighty crowded in there.

By the time she came home from getting her two-inch nails wrapped, he was in the
living room, watching TV and eating Cheese Puffs.

She glared at him for a moment before starting in. "I work all night, watching that
dying bitch and you sit around doing shit."

He didn't respond, just slouched back into the sofa and licked the orange off his
fingers. Anything he might say would just enrage her. Her resentment had turned to
anger a long time ago. There was no good answer for that.

"You know I gave up everything for you. I could have been an actress or model--"

Short and stubby, he thought, with a whiny voice. Yeah, people would really pay to
see that.

"You know, I could still do it. I could leave you at any time." She was always
threatening him. Why don't you just go, he wanted to shout, and set me free?

And then the thought crossed his mind, and not for the first time either, that
maybe he could just tell everyone that she had abandoned him. She could be just
another tubba lard in that freezer downstairs.

If only he could summon up the courage to do it.

"It's Thursday night, you're supposed to take the trash out. I bet you didn't take
the trash out, did you?"

"I'll get to it."

"You'll get to it, that's what you always say. I guess that explains why you're
where you're at. Thirteen years old and you're still in the damn fifth grade. Mark
my words, you don't do good in school, you're going to turn out to be a juvenile
delinquent."

"I ain't going to be no juvenile delinquent, Mama."

"You ain't smart enough to be nothing else. No one will ever give you a second
look. Now take the trash out."

He wished he could tell her that he was smart enough to be a serial killer. Well,
she'll find out soon enough, he smiled as he headed for the kitchen.

MARIANNA HEUSLER is the author of over a dozen short stories. Her work has appeared
in magazines such as WOMEN'S WORLD, WRITERS INTERNATIONAL FORUM, CALLIOPE, and
MYSTERY TIME as well as anthologies. Wordbeams.com published her novel BURIED IN
THE TOWNHOUSE last year, and the book was nominated for the Frankfurt Award. This
winter The Larcom Press will publish THE NIGHT THE PENNINGTONS VANISHED, the first
in her young adult series.

Copyright (c) 2001 Marianna Heusler