Viola's Hammer

Ray drifted back to reality.  He noticed that her wheelchair was pushed back a little, but faced the body as though waiting to resume its job of supporting its master.  Near her left foot was a light-colored, red-tipped, 10-12 inch long, cylindrical form.  Ray suddenly realized what it was and felt a wave of deep-pitted nausea fall over him.  He couldn’t think of its other name.  It was an artificial penis.  It had another name, vulgar and revolting.  What was it?  Poor Ray wasn’t having much luck with words tonight.  Then he remembered.  The word crashed into his mind as loudly as the roaring wind outside.  It was like a spear thrown from across the room.  It had the same effect as Mr. Shakespeare’s words he’d recalled while standing in the blizzard.  He hadn’t heard the word since his days in high school.  It was a dildo, a big flesh-colored one with what looked like blood streaked down from the tip.

Bizarre sexual thoughts jumped into Ray’s mind.  What sort of sexual perversion had this woman been involved in?  Ray’s stomach was twisted in an uneasy knot, now tighter than his throbbing befuddled brain.  There were the stories of different men coming and going at all times of the day and night.  Could they possibly have been true?  Next to her head, almost touching it, was the business end of an immense claw hammer.  Hair and blood were stuck to the hammerhead.  The long blue handle pointed away.  Yep, it looked like someone had hit her in the head.  Not just once, but over and over again.  It looked like murder.

“Well look at that,” Ben said, camera pointing down at the floor a few feet in front of him.  A brownish rust-colored, jagged grid pattern covered the gold linoleum that had a dated orange flowered pattern in it.  The rust marks appeared in three spots, each about twenty inches apart.  Ben zoomed in to catch it on video.

“W-w-w-w, what is it?” Lloyd asked.

“The killer’s footprints,” Ben answered.

A chill went up Ray’s spine.  To see the mark of the person who killed her brought the murder very close, and suddenly very fresh.  Maybe he was still in the house.  Did Ben have his gun?  Poor old Ray’s heart beat faster.  He shook his head.  This just didn’t seem right.  How could someone do this to a cripple?  How could anyone, even in a fit of rage, hurt a paraplegic?  Garber had never had a murder before.  A suicide here and there, yes, but never a murder.  Now, suddenly, there was a cold-blooded killer in their midst.  Garber was a quiet little town.  How could something like this happen here?

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Ben held up the case.  “Matchbox cars.”

“Let me see it.”  Bonnie came over and held out her gloved hand.  Ben handed it to her, wondering why she might be interested in such trivia.  Bonnie walked across the room and carefully placed it on the corner of the oak table next to the door leading into the kitchen.  She placed the case on a clear corner and gently opened the lid.  Ben watched.  There were slots for as many as fifty cars, but no cars were seen.  Almost all the slots had a small wadded up piece of saran wrap stuck inside.  Bonnie looked at Ben.  Ben looked at Bonnie.  Both frowned.  This was suspicious.  Bonnie carefully reached in with a gloved hand and pulled out one of the small wads of plastic wrap.  She held it up to look at it in the light.  Inside the saran wrap was an oval ring, about an inch and a half in diameter.  The ring was coffee colored and it had more material of the same color wrapped around it.  Bonnie was trying to figure out what it was.  Ben thought it might be a big rubber gasket like the one you put in the end of a garden hose so it won’t leak when you fasten it to the faucet.

“Oh my God,” Bonnie said, dropping the specimen on the floor instantly.

“What?” Ben answered.  Had it bitten her?  Was it poison?  What the hell was it?

Bonnie had stepped back when she dropped it.