Fiction: The dead husbands club
"Aren't you tired of burying bodies? I am but I've got to do it." Emer's voice seeped up to my bedroom upstairs as I lay in bed with the flu. Whatever the reply was, I couldn't hear a word of it. To whom she was speaking, I didn't know. Emer had not called her friend by name and I had never met her. Her steps, when she entered the house, was slow and uneven as if she was dragging one of her foot.
I was renting a room in Emer Burmer's three-story house along with Bella Joel. Bella had lived here for three years while I had just moved in last week. I thought it was not too bad an idea to live with two women who were also widows. Like me, they were in their mid forties.
Emer didn't charge us much rent which was good because neither Bella nor I had much money. While Bella had a minor legacy from her father's insurance, I had a small inheritance from my parents. When I asked why Emer didn't charge more, she said she was just glad for the company. As the house was right next door to a graveyard, no one wanted to live here. I certainly didn't but due to my lack of finance, it was all that I could afford. At first, it was a bit weird to look out the window at a bunch of tome stones but I got used to it.
The house was originally built for the graveyard caretaker and his family. Emer's father was the last caretaker. Before he died, he had the chance to purchase the house and the property around it which included the graveyard and after her father's death, Emer inherited the house and property.
Sometimes it did feel like we lived in a world all our own because we had no close neighbors as almost all around us was empty land. And we had none of the modern technology such as smart phones or computers. Emer insisted the only thing we needed was a telephone which was a landline and only one was installed in the livingroom.
My silver charm bracelet jingled against the teacup as I took a sip of the tepid tea. Downstairs, the doorbell rang ting-ting-ting signaling a visitor. I heard the door opened. Someone entered and closed the door. It must be Bella. She was always forgetting her keys. We kept reminding her but as one of us was always home, it wasn't much of an issue. Besides, she made the best fried chicken this side of town.
When the front door closed again, I knew Emer's guest must have left. Footsteps on the carpeted stairs told me someone was coming up. Judging by the light steps, it must be Bella as Emer's steps were always heavy as she was a heavyset woman but she had great strength that was a surprise to me. Last Thursday evening, the three of us were in the kitchen after dinner. I was flipping through my mail when one of the letters slipped under the fridge. I asked if there's something we could use to retrieve it. Emer put down her knitting and lifted the fridge to the side. I hastily picked up the letter and she put the fridge back and returned to her knitting as if nothing had happened. Bella looked up from her book and grinned at me.
There was a knock and Bella entered my room. She had a dirt stain on the front of her white skirt. "Dinner time! And here's your pills. Take them after you eat. Emer left with her friend so she won't be back until very late." She set the tray on the side table and picked up the other tray with the teapot and teacup. "I'll make you a fresh pot."
"Thank you, Bella," I said.
Bella smiled. "Oh, it's nothing. You know I used to be a nurse before they fired me for that dumb incident. I'll be back in a few."
That dumb incident was when Bella outed a doctor for giving a patient the wrong medication. If Bella hadn't said anything to the patient's family, there wouldn't have been a lawsuit against the hospital. Bella didn't much mind getting fired, she just hate that it was for being honest.
After dinner, I did some light reading but the medication was making me too drowsy to stay awake so I called it a night.
Later, I was woken by the sound of voices. The door to my room was slightly ajar.
"Shush. She can hear you," whispered a voice that I was certain it was Emer.
"Relax. That flu medication makes her so drowsy, she couldn't tell left from right," said a voice that I was sure it was Bella.
"Still, we must keep quiet," said Emer.
"I told you. She's too drowsy to care or she's probably sleeping," said Bella.
What would they doing up so late? I looked out the window. It was raining outside. I pulled the cover off and shifted to the side of the bed and slipped my feet into my slippers. Carefully, I picked up the blanket off the chair, wrapped it around me, made my way out the door and I peeked below.
Emer, in her yellow raincoat and Bella, in a red one, were carrying something wrapped in plastic out the front door. The door closed with a soft bang. I ran down the stairs and had to pause at the bottom. My head was spinning. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe they were just throwing out an old carpet. Emer said she had not yet threw away a lot of her parents' things.
I opened the front door. The cold wind sent chills through me. The old red pickup was already heading to the left toward the graveyard. If they were to throw away a carpet, the graveyard was not the place for it. But maybe they weren't going there, maybe they were going into town. I returned inside. Swiftly, I kicked off my slippers and put on my rain boots and winter coat. On the way out, I picked up an umbrella from the large canister and headed out.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The October wind made the night chilly. The umbrella was useless as the spokes were broken so the canopy wouldn't even stayed up. Thankfully, my coat kept most of me dry. I used the closed umbrella like a cane as I half-ran and half-walked but I didn't have to go far. The graveyard gate was opened and the red pickup was parked in the middle of the pathway inside.
I hid behind a tree. In the distance, there was Emer and another person in an orange raincoat. A lantern on the ground lit them. They were digging. In the pickup, there was Bella in her red coat. I veered my eyes back onto Emer and the other person. The rain was distorting my view here and there but I couldn't help but think there's a body wrapped in that clear plastic. They lifted it off the ground and dropped it into the hole. Was I seeing things?
After they finished covering up the hole, Emer and the other woman paused for a rest before starting to dig at another spot. Emer was quick in her movements while the other woman was slower.
The longer I watched, the more convinced they were burying bodies. By the time they started on the third hole, my head ached and I had a terrible urge to sleep. I didn't want to stay out in the cold and rain and yet, I couldn't make myself leave. Should I confront them? What would I say?
The rain started to pound down. I veered about looking for shelter but finding none.
"Iris, won't you come and join us in the truck?" shouted Emer.
I had no choice and beside that, I was freezing. My winter coat was too old and too thin to keep the rain out, not when it was pouring. I got into the back seat and turned to face the unknown woman. The hood of her orange raincoat was down revealing a set of short brown hair and a young face of perhaps late twenties. Bella and Emer in the front seat with their raincoats' hoods down were looking at me.
"This is Margaret Stone, my former sister-in-law. Marge, this is Iris Trapper, my new tenant whom I had thought wasn't this nosy." Emer smiled, showing nothing but friendliness.
Margaret nodded with her lips pressed together. She stared at me with sleepy eyes. Bella was smiling.
"Hello." I didn't know what else to say after that.
"What do you think we should do with her? She can't tell people what she saw tonight. That would be bad," said Emer.
"We'll have to kill her," said Bella.
"Agreed, we must kill her," said Emer.
"And bury her," added Bella with a grin.
Margaret tilted one corner of her lips in a half smile.
"Wait! Don't kill me! I won't tell anyone what I saw tonight. I promise." I held up my hands.
The three women exchanged glances and then they bursted into laughter. Bella's laugh was like a tinkling of bells while Emer's laugh was like a horsed piggy and Margaret made no sound but her mouth was wide opened as if she was laughing.
"Did you really believe that?" said Bella as she pulled a stray of blonde hair behind her ears. There was a cut on her chin. "We were just joking. There's a very simple explanation for all this. Emer and Marge are gravediggers. You see, poor folks can't afford a coffin so they wrap the bodies in plastic to protect them from the elements. It's all legal. Em enjoys burying bodies, don't you, Em?" Bella giggled.
Emer nodded. "Sure." She turned to Margaret. "Marge rarely complains but I know she hates it."
Margaret shrugged.
"What did you think? We killed these fellows and buried them? Like we keep bodies in cages in the basement or something?" Bella giggled. "There was some mixup tonight so we did have three guests in the basement. We would have told you but we didn't want you to freak out so soon after moving in."
"Why do the burial in the middle of the night then?" I asked.
Emer and Margaret exchanged glances. Margaret nodded. "So, maybe it's a little illegal. Sometimes we help folks who would otherwise dump bodies into the river or let them rot at home. Believe us, they all died natural deaths," replied Emer.
"I'm not part of their business. I'm only came tonight because Marge broke her ankle and couldn't drive or move too well."
"And we are grateful for that, Bella, by paying you for tonight's work," said Emer.
"And I thank you for the payment." Bella grinned.
"But you refused to dig." Emer pointed Bella.
"And get my nails dirty? No way," replied Bella.
"Marge, let's get back to work and do it as quickly as possible. I'm sick of this rain." Emer got out of the truck followed by Margaret.
"Doesn't she talk?" I asked.
"You mean Marge? No. Her husband beat her nearly to death when she tried to leave him. She had so many broken parts, no one thought she would live. But we are grateful she is still with us even though she can't talk. That a-hole just served three months and then they him let go. That pig!" Bella let out a short breath and smiled. "Just relax, Iris. They'll be done shortly." She turned around in her seat.
I stared out the window as the rain struck the glass. My head was throbbing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the morning, most traces of the rain was gone. In the kitchen, Bella, Emer and I were sitting around the rectangle table and having breakfast with bright sunlight all around us. Emer and I were having toast and tea while Bella was enjoying oatmeal with milk.
"So, Iris, did you kill your husband?" said Bella as she calmly stirred her oatmeal.
I glanced at Emer. She was buttering her toast with an expressionless face. I stared at my toast in my hand. "I didn't kill my husband," I said.
"Neither did I," said Bella and she grinned.
Emer glanced at me and took a bite of her toast.
"I really didn't kill him. He just forgot he shouldn't mix alcohol with the heart pills he had been taking. I swear I had nothing to do with his death despite what everyone thought." And it was the truth. Carl wasn't one to bother doing anything that required work including reading labels. That jackass left everything to his mistress including the house I helped paid for.
"I did. At least, the police and the court and everyone, even my in-laws, believed I killed the bastard. I served ten years. But I swear I didn't do it. Men just covered for men. It's the hard truth. His brother did it and blamed it on me. Said I seduced him to make him kill his brother." Bella scoffed. "Yeah, like I would seduce a bald guy with a beer belly and hair coming out of his nostrils and ears but they said I did because that's how I trick men into doing my biddings. Yep, that's me the seductive murderess." She stabbed at her oatmeals. Sighing, she took a sip of her milk.
"Emer too. She didn't kill her husband. Was it so hard to believe a man would stab himself to frame his wife? He did. That's how crazy he was. Thank goodness one of the cops was smart and proved it was a self-inflicted wound or else Em would have to go to prison." Bella scrapped the last bit of oatmeal onto her spoon and ate it.
"So you're all innocent?" I said. Emer took a sip of her tea.
"Not according to the men," said Bella. "Let me break it to you, Iris." She calmly looked up at me. "No one believed our innocence and no one believed yours."
I dropped the toast onto the plate with a thud. "But I didn't kill Carl! He did himself. Accidentally." I was almost begging them to believe me.
"We believe you, Iris. But others don't or won't," said Bella. "And that's why you're a perfect candidate for our club. Isn't that right, Em?"
"Yes." Emer took a sip of her tea and then started buttering another toast.
"What club?" I said.
"The dead husbands club. Since we all have dead husbands." Bella smiled.
"But we're not the dead husbands," I said. "Shouldn't we be the living wives of dead husbands club?"
Bella shook her head. "No, too long."
Emer chuckled.
"So will you join us?" said Bella.
"What do I have to do to join?" I hoped nothing too difficult.
"Well, first you must kill your husband, which you did." Bella used air quotes for the last word. "Now all you have to do is say yes and you're in."
I smiled. "Yes, definitely."
"Congratulations and welcome to our little club. Remember, you're a murderess now," said Bella. She stood up, leaned over, picked up my hand and shook it. Emer did the same thing.
"So what do we do in the club?" I hadn't been in any club, not even in school.
"Oh, just a meeting here and there. If anyone needs to talk, we just call on each other. If necessary, we pool together resources or money to help those who needed it. But mostly, we support each other by insulting our dead husbands and remembering we are good people." Bella stared at her oatmeal. "I wish I had someone back then."
Even though I was cleared of all charges, no one believed I was innocent and when I needed money to help pay the lawyer and living expenses after the trial, most of my so-called close friends declined and some didn't even answer their phones. If my parents hadn't left me some money, I would have been left with nothing.
"Guess what Em did to her husband? She didn't bury him." Bella smiled and started on another bowl of oatmeal.
"I can't guess. Just tell me." Before I started panicking for no reason, I added silently. I glanced at Emer. She was putting a slice of bread into the toaster.
Bella glanced at Emer and back at me. "She sent his body to the teaching hospital to be used as a cadaver. Can you believe her? She got a good price for him too." Bella pursed her lips into a wide grin.
"That was gutsy and creative. I wouldn't have thought to do it," I said. I took a sip of my hot tea. My tongue burned and I had to spit the tea back into the cup. I wiped my mouth with a napkin.
Bella laughed. "He wasn't what you would call a model husband. Left Em with so much debt, she had to sell her house, car and most of her belongings. If it wasn't for her parents leaving her this house and property, she would have been destitute. Trust me, that bastard deserved worst." Bella sighed and picked up a piece of bread and bit into it.
Emer simply buttered the new toast. Was that why Emer did odd jobs and went in and out of the house at all times? Was she still in debt? There was the ting-ting-ting of the front doorbell.
Emer got up. "That's for me. I must go. There's a triple funeral today." She put her empty plate and teacup into the sink and left us.
"It's not all that weird, you know," said Bella. "People die and they have to be buried and that's a fact. Emer's just doing her part." She grinned and pointed at me. "You should see the look on your face when I said we should kill you. You were adorable!" Bella laughed lightly and scratched the small cut on her chin which now had a bandaid on it.
"Uh-huh." I didn't think it was all that funny. But at least, I didn't have to worry about living with murderesses as I was one of them now.
This is very interesting, thank you for writing.
ReplyDeleteEchoing River. And sadly many people will indeed remain convinced that they murdered their husbands.
ReplyDeleteSpine chilling short story. Suitable for publication for sure.
ReplyDelete