You Did What?

When I answered my phone, my cousin’s panicked voice cut me off before I could say a word.

“Shawn, you gotta help me! Oh my, God, Shawn! I’m in so much trouble! You gotta help me, Cuz! I’ve really messed up now! Oh my, God, I can’t believe it! You gotta help me!”

It took several minutes for my cousin to stop ranting long enough to take a breath. I could hear the sobs in her voice.

“What’s going on, Kim?” I nearly yelled into the phone trying to find out what was wrong, “Kim! You gotta talk to me. I can’t understand you. What the heck is going on?”

Kim finally was able to draw a breath and talk to me.

“I killed him, Shawn! I killed him! He’s dead! He’s for real dead!”

I thought Kim might be talking about her cat. Kim’s cats were her babies. I knew if something happened to her cat, Kim would be crushed.

“Ok. Who did you kill?” I asked with sympathy.

“I don’t know! I don’t know who he is. I just know I killed him! He’s dead. For real dead. He’s dead, Shawn. I don’t know what to do. He’s dead,” Kim continued to ramble and I still didn’t understand who or what was dead.

“You killed who? Kim, I don’t understand. Calm down, Cuz. You gotta calm down. I can’t help you if I don’t know what you are talking about! I can’t understand a word. What’s going on? You gotta breathe, man. I can’t help until I know what’s happening.”

Kim drew a ragged breath and tried to gain control. She finally was able to gasp out what she had been trying to tell me.

“I killed him, Shawn. I really did. I don’t know who he is but I killed him.”

My blood became ice as I realized Kim was serious. She was finally calm enough that I could begin to ask questions and get somewhat reasonable answers.

“Who did you kill? Why? What the heck? Surely you didn’t really kill someone. You are not that kind of person,” I said.

“I did kill someone. Look, just get to my house now. I can’t tell you over the phone,” Kim said and the phone went dead.

Despite my shock, I immediately grabbed my keys and was on my way to Kim’s in mere minutes.

There was no question about me going, Kim knew she could count on me. Kim and I had always had each other’s back. The whole time we were growing up and even into our adulthood. We had always been able to count on each other. We had been there for each other when our parents had died. If one needed help the other was always there. Kim needed me and I was there. If the situation was reversed, Kim would do the same for me.

Fortunately, Kim only lived about 12 minutes away from my house and it wasn’t long before I skidded into her drive. I didn’t see Kim’s truck. It was always parked in front of her house if she was home and I thought this was very unusual. I jumped out of my truck and ran to the porch. Just as I was about to get to the porch, Kim came out the door. And I could see she was shaking and I could tell she had been crying. Then I asked the dumbest question.

“Where’s your truck?”

Seriously? After the phone call we had just had, that’s the question I asked my cousin? Sheesh!

“It’s around back,” Kim answered and motioned for me to follow her.

“I’ll show you. Shawn, you gotta see this to believe it.”

As we walked to the back of her house, Kim seemed oddly calm. For some reason, this made me even more nervous. Sure enough, Kim’s truck was parked behind her house; it couldn’t be seen from the road that ran in front of her house. Kim walked to the back of her truck and let the tailgate down. I saw a bundle in the back of her truck covered with an old blue tarp. I couldn’t see anything unusual yet. We always were carrying stuff in our trucks covered in tarps. Then, Kim threw the tarp aside and I nearly fell to my knees.

I stood staring at the dead body with a bloody head in the back of my cousin’s truck and the ability to speak left me. I turned aside and threw up on her rose bush. I couldn’t help it.

“He’s, he’s, he’s dead,” I finally, was able to gasp out, although it did sound like someone else’s voice, “He’s dead.”

I freaked. I was stammering and stuttering and I know I wasn’t making any more sense than Kim had on the phone.

“Oh my, God! He’s dead. Kim, he’s really dead. What? Why? He’s dead,” I stammered as I looked again at the body in her truck.

It was Kim’s turn to calm me.

“I know, Shawn,” Kim said, “I told you.”

I realized I hadn’t really believed her until now, but a dead body in her truck proved it.

“What…?” I tried to ask but Kim interrupted me.

“He came here he said to buy pies.”

Kim sold fried pies for a living. She had a state-certified kitchen in her house. While she mostly traveled to arts and crafts fairs and carnivals and such, it was not uncommon for people to come to her house to purchase extras or special orders.

“He didn’t have any special order. He said he just wanted whatever I had on hand. I just got back from Conway and I had sold out. I was actually finishing unloading my truck, that’s why I was at the tailgate. I told him I didn’t have any extras right now and it would be a while before I could cook anymore because you know how long it takes to heat up the fryer. He got really mad and began to yell and cuss. I told him to leave. He said ‘no’ and then he tried to hit me with this black book he had. I ducked out of his way and my hand came across the tire iron I carry in the back of my truck. Shawn, I just reacted. I grabbed the tire iron and I just swung with all my might. It hit him right on the side of his head,” Kim explained.

That explained the blood on his head. A head versus a tire iron doesn’t end well for the head. Kim continued the story.

“Anyway, when I hit him, he fell down and hit the edge of the tailgate. Blood went everywhere. He fell down on the ground and didn’t get back up. I tried to wake him up but he didn’t have a pulse. He wouldn’t wake up. I shoved him in my truck and drove around to the back of the house. What are we going to do?”

“Why didn’t you call the police? That would have been the sane thing to do!” I yelled.

“No way. No cops.”

“It was self-defense! When you tell them the story-,” I began.

“When I tell them the story, they will not believe me. It sounds kind of far-fetched doesn’t it? No cops,” Kim insisted, “What are we gonna do? How am I going to get out of this?”

“Besides,” Kim said, “Look what he had on him. The cops will never believe me when they see this.”

Kim pulled the tarp back a little further back and I saw a black book lying beside the man. When Kim opened the front of the book, it revealed a hollowed-out chamber full of cashMy mouth fell open.

“There’s $20,000 here,” Kim said, “I counted it. No way will the cops believe me when they see this money. They’ll think it’s just a drug deal gone bad. How are we going to fix this?”

I began to think quickly.

“I think I have a solution,” I told my cousin, “But let’s get into the house first. No one needs to see me here.”

We entered the house through the back door and once inside, I immediately began to lay out the plan. My cousin and I had gone to the same college which was about an hour away from our houses, so we were both familiar with the drive. Alongside the road to our college was a pond, a nasty yucky pond that was covered in slime and gunk. I remembered thinking that would be a perfect place to hide a body if I ever needed to do that. Well, right now, I needed to do that.

Also, it was just a symbol of our like-mindedness, but my cousin and I had bought the same identical truck. We had been unable to see each other for a few months due to her work and my work which made it even weirder. It had been a crazy coincidence, but now that coincidence was a major part of my plan.

“Ok. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to leave my truck in your front yard. Since it’s the same, people will think it’s just you. When it gets dark, we’ll drive your truck to get rid of the body. My truck will stay here. People will never know,” I explained to my cousin.

“Where are we going to put the body? Just dump it on the side of the road?” Kim asked.

“No. You remember that old pond beside the road on the way to college? We’re going to take the body and we’ll dump it there around midnight. We can put weights in the tarp so it will sink. Then we drive away and it’s like it never happened,” I stated.

“What about the money?” Kim asked.

“We’re not stupid. We keep the money. No one will ever know. We’ll split the money. Half for you and half for me,” I said

We agreed to the plan.

We waited until it was almost 11:00 that night. Then we took off on our mission. Everything went according to plan. We drove to the pond and traffic was almost non-existent. We got to the pond and we drug the body from the truck and threw it into the pond and we heard the sucking sounds of the water as the body sank beneath the surface. We both leaned against the truck and heaved sighs of relief. Just then headlights came around the corner. Kim and I both froze. We nearly panicked when the headlights pulled over behind us and we realized it was a cop. The cop got out of his cruiser and shone a flashlight on us.

“Are you ladies ok?” the cop asked, “I’m going to run your plates right quick. Just following protocol.”

I looked at Kim and I knew we were both on the verge of panic. Then suddenly, I got a brilliant idea.

“Sorry,” I muttered to Kim.

She looked at me in confusion for a second, then anger as she saw what I was doing. I pulled the knife I always carried on my belt and opened it quickly and discreetly. With one hard thrust, I shoved the knife into the back tire on Kim’s truck. I held the knife there and let the air ease-out softly. I put the knife back in my pocket just as the cop walked up to the truck.

“We have a small problem, Officer,” I said, “Our tire is flat and we were trying to change it but we don’t have a flashlight.”

The cop shone his light on the tire and could see it was flat. He smiled.

“Well, then it’s a good thing I came along,” he said cheerfully, “Heck if one of you will hold the light, I’ll even change it for you.”

Kim and I glanced at each other. She reached for the light and held it as the cop quickly gathered the materials needed to change the flat. For a moment we both nearly quit breathing when he reached for the tire iron in Kim’s truck. What if he discovered blood on it? Thankfully, however, Kim had wiped the tire iron off before we left the house. The cop was very efficient and changed the tire quickly. He wished us well as he walked back to his car and we got into Kim’s truck. We eased out onto the road and the cop turned and went the opposite way. At that point, Kim and I both let out a deep breath. I don’t think either of us had breathed the whole time the cop was talking to us. Kim and I just looked at each other, barely lit by the dashboard lights. Neither of us said anything the entire drive home.

Kim and I did split the $20,000 but we never mentioned that incident ever again. No one ever found the body.