Don't Look Too Closely

Peggy’s sweaty palms fumbled with the lid of the paint can.

The storehouse was suffocating. Every time she gasped for breath, her lungs filled with steamy hot air. Deep in the bowels of a Georgian summer, there was no reprieve from the heat, even on a dusky evening like this.

White, crusted paint had welded closed the lid of the paint can. “Where are the tools?” she bemoaned, her voice hoarse, frantic.

Over there, idiot, she heard Hank growl.

Ignoring her husband’s silent disdain, Peggy launched herself towards the toolbox she spied in the corner. Hank had used this storehouse as his work area since they’d moved in as newlyweds fifteen years ago. His favorite pastime was carpentry. In fact, he was now resting in a freshly painted wooden chair he’d finished a few days ago. Because he preferred comfort while he worked, the area was complete with a TV and a table where he liked to clean his gun.

Securing a screwdriver, she dashed back to the paint can and pried it open.

The paint was murky and split. In her panic, she had completely forgotten to shake the can. A whimper escaped her lips.

Stop your whining! came his bark.

Relief trickled through Peggy’s body when she spotted a maulstick jutting out from the inside of an empty paint can. Of course, it would be among his recently used paint supplies.

After retrieving the stick and stirring the paint, she carefully–so carefully–laid the now dripping stirrer in a trash bag, thanking whatever divine being was watching over her that she had at least remembered to grab a trash bag. Unsuccessfully searching for a usable paintbrush, she seized the only thing she could find: a small foam paint roller.

This isn’t going to work, came Hank’s taunting voice. They are going to notice.

“Shut up,” she spat. All she needed was enough paint to cover the mistake.

Hopefully they wouldn’t look too closely.

She had meticulously planned everything–the place, the how, her alibi–having memorized Hank’s boastful accounts of catching killers in the act. She had even calculated exactly how long it would take for Burt and Fred to get here from the station once she’d placed the call.

Her plan had gone so smoothly until she had noticed the bloody fingerprint on the back of the chair behind Hank. All at once, she had the overwhelming realization that while she had been laying out his gun’s cleaning supplies, she must have touched his chair.

The sound of sirens in the distance created an urgency in her bones. Peggy’s heart hammered inside her chest as she approached the bloody scene. His torso splayed across the table, blood dripping onto the floor and swirling in and around the cleaning rods and brushes.

Peggy’s hands quivered; she feared the paint would drip on the floor–or worse, onto Hank’s shirt–before she would be able to apply it.

With precision, she gently rolled a thin but adequate layer of paint over the tiny fingerprint. Paint smeared with the residue from the blood, but aside from the obvious wetness of the paint and a slight discoloration, she had effectively covered her mistake.

“Maybe they won’t notice.” Her voice shuddered.

I’d notice.

The sirens grew ever closer, and she needed to dispose of the painting materials. In a mad frenzy, she closed the can, threw the roller into the trash bag, and rushed to the corner of the storehouse to dispose of the evidence. Days ago, Hank had left what materials he had used on his new chair in a heap. She hoped her additions to the pile would blend in. The crunching of tires on the driveway informed Peggy that she had mere moments left.

Returning to stand by Hank’s lifeless body, Peggy took one last look. For the last time, she glared at the weapon in his hands. Any other day, the gun would send shivers of terror through her body–not because he had ever threatened to kill her with it, but because the backside of her head was well acquainted with the butt of his gun. The memory made her reach back and touch the dent in her skull and feel the hidden half-moon scar.

Today, however, the gun lay uselessly in his limp hands, placed there with care and purpose. Today, it was a promise, not a threat.

“You cannot hurt me… anymore.” Peggy felt a rush of relief at the truth of this statement.

Blood oozed onto the table from the gaping wound in his neck: a calculated shot. The gold star on his chest–once a symbol of power–now merely a memory of it.

You’ll pay for this, you bitch.

Acknowledging his final, voiceless insult, she whispered, “Never again will you make me feel small.” With this, she silenced him forever.

The sound of the squad car parking in the driveway… car doors slamming closed… hurried footsteps running towards the storehouse door…

This was it. The moment it could all fall apart or fall into place. There was no hope now of fixing anything else she’d missed. All she could do was pray they would see the terror in her eyes and assume she was in shock. She hoped they would base their judgments on her perfect track record as a devoted wife. She hoped that because no one knew who Officer Hank truly was behind the closed doors of his home, they would believe her story rather than suspect her crime. She hoped–however impossibly–they wouldn’t notice the wet thumbprint-sized paint stain on his chair or the recently used materials in the corner.

She hoped they wouldn’t look too closely.

An hour later, she was sitting in a cop car, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There was yellow tape and somber excitement around the bag bearing her husband’s body, his death deemed an accident–a gun-cleaning gone terribly wrong.

In the frenzy…no one noticed the smirk that crossed her lips.