"Give it everything you got," Alcide advised me, and on a count of three, we yanked with all our might. That got the bundle half out, and the end of it protruded over the tailgate in a nasty way. "Ready? Let's go again. One, two, three!" Again I yanked, and the body's own gravity shot it out of the truck and onto the road.
If we could have driven off then and there, I would have been much happier; but we had decided we had to take the shower curtain with us. Who was to say what fingerprints might be found somewhere on the duct tape or the curtain itself? There was sure to be other, microscopic evidence that I couldn't even imagine.
I don't watch the Discovery Channel for nothing.
Alcide had a utility knife, and I did let him have the honor of this particular task. I held open a garbage bag while he cut the plastic away and stuffed it into the opening. I tried not to look, but of course I did.
The body's appearance had not improved.
That job, too, was finished sooner than I expected. I half turned to get back in the truck, but Alcide stood, his face raised to the sky. He looked as if he was smelling the forest.
"Tonight's the full moon," he said. His whole body seemed to quiver. When he looked at me, his eyes looked alien. I couldn't say that they had changed in color or contour, but it was as if a different person was looking out of them.
I was very alone in the woods with a comrade who had suddenly taken on a whole new dimension. I fought conflicting impulses to scream, burst into tears, or run. I smiled brightly at him and waited. After a long, fraught pause, Alcide said, "Let's get back in the truck."
I was only too glad to scramble up into the seat.
"What do you think killed him?" I asked, when it seemed to me Alcide had had time to return to normal.
"I think someone gave his neck a big twist," Alcide said. "I can't figure out how he got into the apartment. I know I locked the door last night. I'm sure of it. And this morning it was locked again."
I tried to figure that out for a while, but I couldn't. Then I wondered what actually killed you if your neck was broken. But I decided that wasn't really a great thing to think about.
En route to the apartment, we made a stop at Wal-Mart. On a weekend this close to Christmas, it was swarming with shoppers. Once again, I thought, I haven't gotten anything for Bill.
And I felt a sharp pain in my heart as I realized that I might never buy Bill a Christmas present, not now, not ever.
We needed air fresheners, Resolve (to clean the carpet), and a new shower curtain. I packed my misery away and walked a little more briskly. Alcide let me pick out the shower curtain, which I actually enjoyed. He paid cash, so there wouldn't be any record of our visit.
I checked out my nails after we had climbed back in the truck. They were fine. Then I thought of how callous I must be, worrying about my fingernails. I'd just finished disposing of a dead man. For several minutes, I sat there feeling mighty unhappy about myself.
I relayed this to Alcide, who seemed more approachable now that we were back in civilization minus our silent passenger.
"Well, you didn't kill him," he pointed out. "Ah - did you?"
I met his green eyes, feeling only a little surprise. "No, I certainly did not. Did you?"
"No," he said, and from his expression I could tell he'd been waiting for me to ask him. It had never occurred to me to do so.
While I'd never suspected Alcide, of course someone had made the Were into a body. For the first time I tried to figure who could have stuffed the body in the closet. Up until this point, I'd just been busy trying to make the body go away.
"Who has keys?" I asked.
"Just Dad and me, and the cleaning woman who does most of the apartments in the building. She doesn't keep a key of her own. The building manager gives her one." We pulled around behind the row of stores, and Alcide tossed in the garbage bag containing the old shower curtain.
"That's a pretty short list."
"Yes," Alcide said slowly. "Yes, it is. But I know my dad's in Jackson. I talked to him on the phone this morning, right after I got up. The cleaning woman only comes in when we leave a message with the building manager. He keeps a copy of our key, hands it to her when she needs it, and she returns it to him."
"What about the security guard in the garage? Is he on duty all night?"
"Yes, because he's the only line of defense between people sneaking into the garage and taking the elevator. You've always come in that way, but there are actually front doors to the building that face onto the major street. Those front doors are locked all the time. There's no guard there, but you do have to have a key to get in."
"So if someone could sneak past the guard, they could ride up in the elevator to your floor, without being stopped."
"Oh, sure."
"And that someone would have to pick the lock to the door."
"Yes, and carry in a body, and stuff it in the closet. That sounds pretty unlikely," said Alcide.
"But that's apparently what happened. Oh, um ... did you ever give Debbie a key? Maybe someone borrowed hers?" I tried hard to sound totally neutral. That probably didn't work too well.
Long pause.
"Yes, she had a key," Alcide said stiffly.
I bit down on my lips so I wouldn't ask the next question.
"No, I didn't get it back from her."
I hadn't even needed to ask.
Breaking a somewhat charged silence, Alcide suggested we eat a late lunch. Oddly enough, I found I was really hungry.
We ate at Hal and Mal's, a restaurant close to downtown. It was in an old warehouse, and the tables were just far enough apart to make our conversation possible without anyone calling the police.
"I don't think," I murmured, "that anyone could walk around your building with a body over his shoulder, no matter what the hour."
"We just did," he said, unanswerably. "I figure it had to have happened between, say, two a.m. and seven. We were asleep by two, right?"
"More like three, considering Eric's little visit."
Our eyes met. Eric. Eureka!
"But why would he have done that? Is he nuts about you?" Alcide asked bluntly.
"Not so much nuts," I muttered, embarrassed.
"Oh, wants to get in your pants."
I nodded, not meeting his eyes.
"Lot of that going around," Alcide said, under his breath.
"Huh," I said dismissively. "You're still hung up on that Debbie, and you know it."
We looked right at each other. Better to haul this out of the shadows now, and put it to rest.