Rhonda woke up as she always did, sleeping alone on one side of a king-size bed. Occasionally she would tell herself that it was time to downsize to a one-person bed. Gary had been gone for almost a decade. She didn’t like to use the word ‘missing’. It sounded overdramatic; the type of word they used in old mystery shows. But she had yet to come up with a better word. Her husband had run to the store to grab some eggs for her and vanished. The police conducted something that passed for an investigation—mostly just interrogating her with a side-eyed stare until they lost interest. Ten years later and Gary was still in whatever blackhole he’d fallen into, but Rhonda still couldn’t bring herself to be rid of the bed she’d shared with her husband for so long.

            As a retired baker, one that had been well renowned in eminent culinary circles, her days were now mostly routine. Wake up, make coffee, enjoy it with a book in her backyard, make lunch, nap, bake something just to keep her chops up, run errands, have a small dinner, and watch a little TV before getting in bed with her book. That was her normal day. However, this morning, her routine didn’t even make it through coffee.

            At first, she thought the wind must have just carried something into her backyard and it had landed in the pool. She never swam in it anymore so to see something at the bottom of it caught her eye. Of course, this suspicion didn’t last long because few things are shaped like a dead body, and it was clear that was exactly what it was. Her coffee mug met the stone at her feet and exploded. The hot liquid sprayed across her ankles and the pain brought her out of her shock. She went to scream but the fear-induced lump in her throat forbade it.

*****

“Ma’am? Mrs. Loving?”

            Rhonda was in her favorite patio chair when the world started coming back into focus. She had no recollection of calling the police or them arriving or much of anything that happened after seeing the body. The shattered mug was still over by the pool where she’d dropped it. There was a bustle of people running around and there was now crime scene tape running across her pool. Her backyard had transformed into an episode of CSI.

            “Mrs. Loving. I’m Detective Rodriguez.”

            “Ms.”

            “Excuse me, ma’am?

            Rhonda was regaining her wits about her. “It’s Ms. Loving. My husband has been gone for some time. If you insist of formality, I prefer to be called Ms. Loving.’

            “My apologies,” the detective offered.

            “There was a dead person in my pool. I got up this morning, made my coffee, and came outside to read as I do every morning and there was a dead person in the pool. I swear that I haven’t a clue how a person wound up at the bottom of my pool.” The words spewed from Rhonda’s mouth like a busted pipe.

            “Well, they drowned, Ms. Loving.”

            “Cut the bullshit, detective. My name is Rhonda.”

            The detective fought back a grin. He was aware the of the older woman’s reputation for baking bread, but no one had prepared him for her abrasive charm. “Rhonda. Does the name Ronny White ring any bells for you?”

            Rhonda didn’t even have to think long about that one. Gary was the all the family she’d had when he disappeared. They’d chosen not to have any children—well, she more or less made that decision. Aside from a couple of friends she played cards with every other weekend, the only company she kept were the fictional characters from her books and TV shows. “I haven’t any idea who Ronny White is, detective.”

            Detective Rodriguez pointed with his eyes towards the far side of the pool. Rhonda followed them to a paramedic zipping up a body bag on the ground. She managed to sneak a glance at the dead man’s face. It was the face of a complete stranger.

            “I didn’t figure you knew him. His rap sheet is…was impressively long. Most of it was breaking and entering. Didn’t seem like the company you’d keep,” the detective said.

            Rhonda understood that Detective Rodriguez was complimenting her, but she fought the urge to be offended by this assumption. He didn’t know her well enough to know what kind of company she kept. Just because she was retired and living her twilight years didn’t automatically mean she was some frail, little old lady that shot a suspicious glance towards anyone under sixty. She resented the stereotype implied by the detective but kept it to herself. “He was certainly no acquaintance of mine.”

            “If it’s all the same to you, Rhonda, it looks like a simple robbery gone wrong. We figured he hopped your fence, didn’t notice the pool and fell in.”

            “And what? He couldn’t swim?” ask Rhonda. She didn’t want an investigation or anything of the sort that would keep these people in her backyard any longer, but her adoration for logic demanded a better explanation.

            “Maybe not. But if that was simply the case he probably would have been splashing around and making a ruckus, screaming for help and no doubt would have woken you up. The guy was wearing work boots, blue jeans, a t-shirt, hoody, and jacket—more than enough layers to weigh him down. Panic probably set in. He more than likely fought with all his clothes rather instead of making his way to the shallow end of the pool and drowned as a result.”

            It wasn’t perfect, but it satiated Rhonda’s curiosity enough for her to let it be. “So, I assume you’re wrapping things up and will be out of my backyard soon?”

            “We should be out of your hair in less than twenty. If anything comes up and I have additional questions, I won’t even bug you here at your home. I’ll just give you a ring.”

            Rhonda loved that answer, and her opinion of the detective went up a rung. That was something few people rarely accomplished with the old baker. She reached her hand out to shake the detective’s hand to illustrate this newfound respect of the man.

            True to his word, everyone was cleared out within fifteen minutes and Rhonda was in her kitchen making a fresh cup of coffee. She knew it was silly, but she didn’t feel much like reading outside near the pool. She chose to read her book that morning on her couch.

*****

Rhonda woke up in the middle of her bed, clutching what used to be her husband’s pillow. It had been three days since the incident (that’s what she referred to it as) and she’d been waking up like this ever since. The stress had seemed to bring back her need for Gary. The whole ordeal had shaken her up and having someone else to share in the aftershocks of the nightmarish experience would have been nice.

            Rhonda’s shower had been extra-long that morning. She felt like she still needed to wash away the horridness of it all. Finding a dead man in her pool was more surreal than anything. That was almost easier to digest than the fact that someone had intended to break into her home to rob her. What if this Ronny White person had more malevolent intentions? Maybe murder? All Ronny White had robbed from her was her peace. She hoped time would bring it back, piece by piece.

            She threw her pajamas back on and tossed a robe over them. She didn’t anticipate leaving the house today. But she also didn’t’ want to be alone. Maybe she’d call her friends over for some afternoon tea and an impromptu card night. She actually hadn’t told them about the excitement of her week, yet. Perhaps telling them about it would help alleviate some of the discomfort that the incident had caused her.

            Rhonda pulled her mug from under the coffee maker. She brought it to her nose to take in the aroma of the black coffee. Another break in her routine over the past few had been the forgoing of her normal sugar and cream. She didn’t want anything getting in the way of the caffeine. If she could inject it directly into her veins she would.

            The faint sound of a splash came from the sliding glass door that led to her backyard. Rhonda’s eyes shot toward the floor to ceiling curtain that she’d kept shut the past few days. She hadn’t want to lay eyes on the pool since the incident. She sure as shit didn’t want to look now.

            An internal conversation began in her brain. There was an urgent desperation in trying to convince herself that the sound wasn’t real. It was an auditory hallucination. It was just from the stress of the whole situation. Rhonda searched her head for a memory, just one single instance in the last few days where she thought she’d heard a splash or some other noise from the backyard. Anything that could give an explanation to the sound she thought she heard. She needed a justification not to look. But she came up with nothing.

She placed the mug down. Rhonda didn’t want to take any chances smashing another one. Her socks rolled heel to toe across the carpet of her living room—as if she was stalking around in her own home—trying to be silent as possible so as to not alert anyone to her presence. Once she reached the curtain, she just stood there—too terrified to draw it back. She closed her eyes and opened her ears, hunting for any sound that might push her towards the courage she needed to look.

Silence.

A sigh of relief passed through Rhonda’s lips. Perhaps it had been some hallucination of the ears, a trauma-induced misfire of the brain that made her hear something that wasn’t there. She cracked open a small slit in the curtain and made herself take a peek.

“Oh, please no.” Those three words were all that she could muster as her eyes locked on to the ripples from the bubbles coming up to the service from her pool.

Rhonda slid the door open, throwing it off its track and rushed outside. There were a pile of clothes sitting next to the pool that definitely didn’t belong to her. She hurried to the edge of the pool and caught a horrific sight. A person, what appeared to be a naked woman, was thrashing around at the bottom of the pool. All the movement was coming from the kicking of her legs and her head shaking in a violent motion underneath her long, floating hair. Her arms were still though. They were wrapped around something. Rhonda threw her robe off and dove in.

*****

“It was one your path stones.”

The world around Rhonda was spinning and covered in a haze. A white light crashed into her retinas followed by the face of Detective Rodriguez coming into focus. Rhonda was sitting on the back of an ambulance, draped in a blanket. Her hair was still dripping wet. The paramedic blasted her other eye with his little flashlight.

“Couple of cuts and bruises seems to be the worst of it,” said the paramedic. He gave Rodriguez a nod and walked off.

            “What did you say?” Rhonda asked.

            You have a stone path from your back patio that runs to your gardening shed. The woman was hugging one when she jumped into your pool.”

            “You mean…”

            “Looks like a suicide,” Rodriguez said.

            Rhonda shivered. She was still in her pajamas, now soaked and reeking of chlorine. But it wasn’t her wet clothes that sent a chill running through her.

            “I’m sorry, Rhonda. But I have to ask you a couple of questions. The woman’s name was Lindsey Pollard. Does that name mean anything to you?”

            Rhonda kept her eyes down and just shook her head in silence.

            “Alright. Well, this woman wasn’t a model citizen but there’s no criminal history of breaking and entering.”

            Rhonda found the energy to say something. “But…why? I don’t understand. Why my swimming pool?”

            Rodriguez took a seat next to Rhonda on the back of the ambulance. He reached into the collar of his shirt and fished out the rosary we always wore around his neck. “We are looking into a connection between Lindsey Pollard and Ronny White. Hopefully, we find something there and we can explain it away as a woman who had some attachment to the man who died here a few days ago and came to…join him, I guess.”

            Rhonda could tell the detective didn’t buy what he was selling. She could hear the puzzlement in his voice. And the fear that was rooted just behind it.

            “Some of my guys found a cover for the pool in your shed. I’m going to have them cover it, if that’s alright with you?”

            “By all means. I don’t plan on ever swimming in it ever again.”

            The detective laughed. It was an attempt to calm them both down.

            “I’m also going to post an officer in your backyard for a couple of nights. Just in case.”

            Rhonda looked up at Rodriguez. She’d have been lying if she said she wasn’t relieved. Maybe she’d finally get some decent rest. But those words, just in case, made her uneasy.

            “Detective Rodriguez. Do you think something else might happen?”

            The detective didn’t say anything. He just kept rubbing the beads of his rosary between his thumb and fingers. The flashing red lights of the sirens reflected off the cross that dangled from his hand. A gurney with a closed body bag was rolled past them on its way to a different ambulance. Rhonda was tempted to ask to see the woman. Her struggle with the drowning woman raced through her mind like the scariest kind of movie. The woman clearly wanted to die. She fought Rhonda’s every attempt to save her. But Rhonda never got a clear look at her face. Her hair, waving through the water, kept it concealed. Maybe the name Lindsey Pollard didn’t sound familiar, but it was possible she’d recognize the woman. Maybe. But Rhonda was in no mood to find out.

            “I think we’ve reached the point where you can just call me Mike.”

            Rhonda watched as the body bag was loaded into the other ambulance. She was glad she hadn’t asked to look inside.

            “You didn’t answer my question, Mike.”

            The detective pulled the rosary up over his head. He reached over and gently placed the rosary in Rhonda’s palm and closed her fingers around him.

            “I’m not religious, detective.”

            “That’s OK. I’m not superstitious. But there is something unnatural about your pool, Rhonda. Something that scares the hell out of me.”

*****

Rhonda’s eyes flew open. She was completely on ‘Gary’s side’ of the bed. She looked back over towards her nightstand. The alarm clock said it was a few minutes past four ‘o’clock in the morning. What had woken her up?

            Footsteps. They were coming from outside. Her bedroom window was just above the backyard—above the swimming pool.

            She gently lifted the covers up and lowered her feet to the ground. She eased herself onto the floor and crawled towards the window. Her mind was racing in a thousand different directions, but they all led to the same crazy conclusion—her swimming pool was about to claim another victim.

            Don’t be silly. She told herself over and over again that she was letting a crazy week of bad luck go to her head. She was spooking herself. Her swimming pool was just a swimming pool. Nothing more. There was no sinister element to it. It couldn’t claim victims.

            Rhonda reached the window and gently brushed the curtain aside, just enough to peek down below.

            It was just the policeman. Rhonda let the tension escape her body. The officer was pacing back and forth. Rhonda figured he was just fighting sleep, doing whatever he could to stay awake and fulfill his duty.

            Rhonda was just about to get up and go downstairs to offer the policeman a cup of coffee when he abruptly stopped his marching. It wasn’t a natural stop in movement, but like something had frozen the man still. Her curiosity grew and she moved the curtain wider. Suddenly, the cop’s head looked up, directly at her. Rhonda stumbled back. She grasped at her chest. Get it together, girl. She was being foolish again. The officer was simply tired and had decided to get up and move around and he just happened to notice her in the window.

            Calm down, Rhonda. Your nerves are just shot. Let’s just open the window and ask the nice policeman if he’d care for a cup of coffee.

            She moved back to the window. The officer was still staring up in her direction. She offered a wave. The cop offered nothing in return. As she unlatched the locks and went to lift up the window, the officer, with sudden, jerky movements, reached down to his sidearm. He pulled it out of the holster. Before Rhonda could scream, he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

******

The sun was rising. Rhonda had shut every curtain in the house. She’d turned her living room into a cave. A faux-fortress that was more psychological than anything—like a kid who believed their blanket could save them from the monster slithering from out of their closet. Little strips of the pink, early morning light peeked through the slits in the curtains. The fabric was beginning to glow from the sun of a new day. There was a comfort that came with it, but she shuddered to think that the night would inevitably come. And it was capable of bringing new terrors with it.

            Rhonda was on her couch, sipping on a coffee someone had handed her with no intention of ever getting up again. She wasn’t even aware that she had a tight grasp on the rosary beads in her left hand. Detective Mike Rodriguez had yet to make an appearance. He’d been pretty spooked the last time. This one must have finally scared him off. Rhonda hoped Mike wasn’t close to the man who’d shot himself.

 Instead of Rodriguez, a man in a suit had shown up that morning and now sat across from Rhonda in her living room, studying her every move. He’d introduced himself as a Special Agent with the FBI—Special Agent Norris.

            “Rhonda, I need to ask you some questions.”

            Rhonda looked up at the man. She desperately wanted Detective Rodriguez. He’d been on this roller coaster with her so far. She didn’t much care for this new guy. “It’s Miss Loving.”

            “Sorry. Miss Loving. When did you purchase this house?

            “I don’t see how that information possibly matters…”

            Special Agent Norris shot her a snide look. “Ma’am, I don’t think you understand the seriousness of this situation you’re in.”

            Rhonda matched Norris’s glare with an even nastier one of her own. Her eyes shot darts at him through the steam rising from the mug in her hands. “I’m in? Are you saying that I’m in some kind of trouble?”

            “Three dead people in your backyard in a single week. That’s not a good look, Miss Loving.”

            “But Mike… excuse me, Detective Rodriguez has already ruled two of the deaths as suicides. I watched that police officer shoot himself.

            “You ever hear of Jonestown, Ms. Loving? Norris continued without waiting for an answer. “Mass suicide down in South America. However, because a lunatic with a god-complex convinced all those people that suicide was a good idea, I prefer to think of it as a mass homicide.”

            “Are you insinuating I convinced these three people to kill themselves?”

            “I’m saying that something doesn’t smell right. Of course, I have to take into account that beyond these three bodies you also have a husband that up and vanished ten years ago.”

            Rhonda was ready to pounce on the FBI agent when Detective Rodriguez burst through the hall. Another officer came in chasing after him.

            “What the hell is this?” Rodriguez shouted.

            Special Agent Norris jumped up from his seat. “I said to keep everyone out of here!”

            The cop that came running in behind Rodriguez threw his hands in the air. “Sorry, man. I tried. But I gotta work with the guy, ya know?”

            “Who the hell are you?” demanded the detective.

            “Special Agent John Norris. FBI.”

            Rodriguez hated how much those three letters kicked him in the gut. Part of him expected this was going to happen. His only move was to insist on seeing the man’s credentials but that would just emasculate his own authority even more. Besides, Rodriguez could see the patronizing look in Norris’s eyes. He was higher up the food chain and Rodriguez was just a pissant, small town detective who was clearly in over his head. The agent’s eyes were filled with the kind of condescending superiority that pilots probably reserved for the flight attendants on their planes. Yeah, we may all work on the same airplane but I’m the only one who can actually fly the son of a bitch. So, put your smile on and go serve your diet Coke and cold sandwiches and leave the real work for me.

            “Isn’t this a little small time for the feds to get involved, Agent Norris?”

            “Three mysterious deaths on three separate nights in a single location? We live for this stuff in the Bureau.”

            “With all due respect, we can handle it,’ replied the detective.

            “Oh, I think the second you lost one of your own, it was pretty clear that your department could use an assist.”

            Rodriguez’s fists clenched at his side. Agent Norris noticed and smiled.

            “Detective, are you even aware that Ms. Loving’s husband disappeared some ten years ago.”

            The detective’s face dropped, and he immediately looked towards Rhonda. She had let her gaze drop to the ground. Norris’s saw all of this unfold, and his smile widened. Rodriguez was furious at himself for letting his emotions show.

            “Of course, you didn’t. Well, detective, why don’t you go back to your precinct and dig around. I’m sure that case file is buried under a pile of other shit your department hasn’t solved.”

            Rodriguez wanted to put the smug bastard through the wall. Rhonda slammed her mug down on the coffee table and stood up. “Enough!”

            There was a pause in the pissing match between Norris and Rodriguez. They diverted their attention to the old woman who was clearly starting to unravel.

            “Agent Norris, if you have something to charge me with then go on and do it. Quite frankly, spending the night in jail seems like a much better alternative than waiting around here just to see if another body shows up in my pool. But if you are just here to make my day even worse than it already is, then I ask that you please see yourself out of my house.”

            Norris’s brows furrowed and he went to straighten his already straight tie. Rodriguez held back a smile at the agent’s clear discomfort. His respect for little ole’ Rhonda was now through the roof. If she hadn’t been so talented with an oven, she would have made a great career on the force. She’d thrown this FBI agent off his bad cop routine with almost zero effort.

            “Miss Loving, you have thirty minutes to pack a bag. Until further notice, you’ll be bunking at a motel.”

            Rhonda’s eyes widened. “Mike, do something!”

            Rodriguez stepped forward. “Now wait a damn minute…”

            “And as for you, detective. You only have ten minutes for you and your team to get off the property. You guys are done. This is the FBI’s crime scene now. And if either of you step foot within a hundred feet of this house, I’ll throw you both in jail.”

            Norris stormed out of the room. Rhonda and Rodriguez stood there in silence, neither one wanting to cross the line first that Norris had just drawn between them. The detective finally relented.

            “Why didn’t you tell me that your husband was a missing persons case?”

            Rhonda fought a laugh. “Case? What case? I know you weren’t around back then, but your department hardly conducted what I’d call a search for my husband. They cast all suspicion at me and then lost interest the second they figured I didn’t butcher him up and serve him as a meat pie.”

            “Well, congratulations, Ms. Loving. You have the FBI now.” Detective Rodriguez stormed out of the room faster than he’d barged in. Rhonda heard the front door slam and she fell to her couch and began to sob.

*****

The Moonlight Motel sounded more exquisite in name than it had any right to. Rhonda had no say in her accommodations. Norris had driven her there personally. She hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot with the man and she figured the less-than-stellar motel was an intentional move on his part to get the last laugh. Her being dumped in the seedy lodging with no vehicle to get around with was definitely by design. It had been five days in the Moonlight Motel without her being able to go anywhere other than the gas station across the street. The dingy surroundings were starting to get to her.

            The motel wrapped around a courtyard. Rhonda’s room was on the second floor. She stood outside of her door and looked down at the swimming pool in the motel’s courtyard. This was the kind of place you’d speed past in your car and hurl prejudices at it with a snort of superiority. Drug deals were happening out in the open. Prostitutes were working the sidewalk just outside the front office. It was a place your survival instinct told you to avoid.

Rhonda stared into the water rippling in the pool. She couldn’t help but marvel at the reality that more people had died in her backyard in the suburbs than had probably died in the Moonlight Motel pool. The pool was full, which was sort of surprising to Rhonda. But the water had a green tint to it that seemed to warn any potential swimmers that there was risk involved.

She kept staring into the water. It was hypnotic. She wasn’t aware of it, but she was leaning over the railing, inching a little bit more with every passing minute. She was in an out of some trance, one that she wondered if the three people who died in her backyard had also experienced. It wasn’t a voice, but that forbidden thought came and went. It’d be so easy when you really thought about it. Every human had the ultimate power over themselves. All it would take is a single second and they could make the whole world go away.

“This place is a real dump.”

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she jumped back. It startled Rhonda out of the danger she was wandering towards. Rhonda turned and to see Detective Rodriguez. She eyed him up and down. He was in jeans and a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt that looked old enough to have seen their last Super Bowl victory back in the Troy Aikman era. She had a stack of files tucked under his arm and a six pack of beer in the other.

            “You don’t look dressed to solve the mystery of the murder pool.” It was an attempt at a joke. Rhonda had a good idea as to why Mike was in civilian dress and drinking.

            “Nothing to solve. A thief drowned in your pool in a freak accident and two others committed suicide.”

            “That FBI agent pulled you off the case, didn’t he?” Rhonda asked.

            “Actually, no. Not yet. He probably will. But that’s why I went ahead and filed my reports. No signs of foul play. As far as our department is concerned, the cases are closed.

Mike pulled a beer from the plastic ring and popped the tab open. He took a swig and let the alcohol do its work. He put the other five up to Rhonda and nodded for her to take one. Rhonda hesitated. She wasn’t much of a beer person, but she figured if there was ever a time to become one, there was probably never going to be a more perfect time than this night at the Moonlight Motel.

Mike finished off his beer. “Anyway, closing those files should really piss Agent Dickwad off. Best case scenario, he gets so annoyed that he’ll just throw his hand up and haul the hell out of our lives. And you’ll get to go home.”

            Rhonda took a sip of her beer and almost spewed out the little she had in her mouth. Partly because it tasted awful. A lifetime of her tastebuds tackling baked sweets meant they weren’t programmed for the bitterness of the beer. But she also laughed at Mike and his final proverbial middle finger he was giving to the FBI agent. It was a genuine laugh, too. It felt nice. Somewhere along this path of chaos this detective had become a real source of comfort for her.

            “Well, if my case is closed, what is with the files you have there, detective?”

            Mike looked down as if he was surprised the files were there. “Unfortunately, if this Norris guy chooses to keep at it, he’ll get the cases reopened. I’ve just put a good chunk of paperwork in his way. I figured I’d just get out in front of him if it comes to that.”

            “I’m all ears,” replied Rhonda.

            “The bad news is that the only thread that runs through each of the three people who chose to bite it in your backyard is that they all have pretty serious domestic abuse charges on their files. I’m still digging but maybe they all knew each other from a court appointed anger management class or something similar.”

            “Does the force make a habit of hiring wife beaters, detective.”

            “I wish I could tell you that was an oversight but most of the boys knew about that officer’s past. Sometimes the thought is that a badge can make a person better.”

            “That’s rarely the case, isn’t it?” It was more of a statement than a legitimate question.

            “It’s probably never been the case, Rhonda. Anyway, I have the files on all the other reported domestic abuse that’s come through our office in the last decade. Was going to start matching dates and contacting some of these people to see if they knew of any of the three from any of those classes. It’s a needle in a haystack, but it’s a start.”

            Rhonda eyed the file. It was bulky but she was impressed at how small it was considering that it spanned ten years. Of course, she also knew the reality wasn’t that her little community was immune to domestic violence, but like most other, just didn’t report it that much. It was a truth she was familiar with. Ten years. Her file should have been towards the front of that stack under Mike’s arms. But it wasn’t—like so many others.

            “I’m guessing you have Gary’s missing persons file in there somewhere.”

            Mike let out a big sigh. He looked around, seeing half a dozen crimes happening all around him. But he wasn’t looking to bust anyone. He was searching for the words he needed to say.

            “Look, Rhonda. I’m sorry about the other day.

            “Yeah, me too. I guess I should have been more forthcoming about my husband “being gone.”

            “I understand, Rhonda.”

            It was Rhonda’s turn to let the air out of her lungs. “Gary used to beat me.”

            Mike’s body language changed. His face took on a transformation as well. He changed from normal citizen to detective right before Rhonda’s eyes.

            “Beat the hell out of me, really.”

            “Rhonda…”

            “Shush it. Let me finish. I need to tell you all of this.”

            “I’m a cop, not a priest. Anything you say is not protected information.”

            Rhonda looked at Mike and shot him a grin. She pushed him on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t get excited. This isn’t a confession. I wanted the man dead. I wished for it every day. But I didn’t kill my husband.”

            The detective’s body relaxed a little. “So, what happened.”

            “I’m to old to make excuses for monsters. And that is exactly what Gary was. But I was no angel of a wife. We were married thirty-eight years when he disappeared. The first thirty-five—it was a my-way-or-the-highway marriage. Gary wanted kids. I didn’t. So, we didn’t have any. Gary wanted to live back west. I said we were headed east. So, that’s where we moved. End of discussion. What I said went—until it didn’t. I guess after thirty-five years of eating my shit, Gary decided to feed me his own in the form of his fists.”

            “Rhonda, I’m so sorry…”

            “Again, I’m not justifying any of it. I may have been a bitch of a wife, but I didn’t deserve the black eyes, the bloody lips, the missing teeth, the cracked ribs…none of it.” Tears were beginning to well up in Rhonda’s eyes.

            “Of course, you didn’t.” Mike put an arm around Rhonda. She began to sob. For the first time since Mike had met her, she looked her age. Frail and old.

            “Now, maybe you can understand why I didn’t bring any of that up. I never reported Gary and I sure as hell wasn’t going to after he disappeared. I know you weren’t around back then, but those cops looked at me like a murderer. ‘Men in their sixties don’t just run off’ is what they said. But when they couldn’t tie anything to me, they just shrugged their shoulders and lost all interest.”

            Mike didn’t say anything. He just kept rubbing the old baker’s back. Rhonda shot her gaze up and locked her red, swollen eyes with Mike’s. “I didn’t kill Gary. I wanted to but I didn’t. I hope he’s dead. I hope something awful happened to him. But I didn’t do a thing to him.”

            Mike dropped the files at his feet and let them spill across the balcony floor. He put both his arms around Rhonda and let her get out ten years’ worth of tears into his chest. Any other place than the Moonlight Motel and the scene might have drawn the attention of more curious eyes, but no one there made a habit of looking in anyone else’s business but their own.

            Rhonda’s body heaved up and down with her sobs. Mike kept hold of her and was willing to console her forever if that’s how long it took for her to feel peace again. But something caught his eye that made him loosen his grip on the poor woman. Rhonda grabbed at him, but Mike gently eased away from her grip. Rhonda looked at the detective and noticed that his eyes were locked onto something. Her eyes followed him as he stepped behind her and knelt down and came up with a file.

The contents of the file had slid out just enough to reveal a picture. Rhonda glanced at it and her eyes widened with fear. According to the file, it was the picture of a man with multiple charges of domestic abuse against his wife. It was a familiar face.

            “Agent Norris?” Rhonda said.

            “Holy shit,” Mike responded. “He’s not FBI. His name isn’t even Norris. It’s Randall Jacobs.”

            A page fell from behind the rap sheet that Mike and Rhonda were scanning. The sheet of paper looked similar to the one for Gary Loving. It was a missing persons report. Mike handed Randall Jacob’s file to Rhonda as he bent down to pick up the paper.

            “Rhonda. Norris… I mean… Randall’s wife went missing about fifteen years back.”

            There was no response.

            “Rhonda. Did you hear what I said?”

            Silence.

            Mike turned around. The paper was shaking in Rhonda’s hands. Her lips were quivering.

            “What…what is it?” Mike asked with a catch in his throat from the trepidation boiling up inside of him.

            Rhonda held out the paper and simply pointed with a trembling index finger. The address for Norris at the time of his last arrest—it was Rhonda’s.

*****

Mike hit the wooden fence with a lot of force. His service-issued sidearm was back at his house in the holster sitting next to his badge. Luckily, he carried a spare gun in the glove compartment of his truck, but it was a gamble if it would even fire. He was hoping he’d only have to flash it and there’d be no reason to roll those dice. The detective pressed his ear up to the fence. There was a faint sound coming from the backyard. He couldn’t quite make out what it was.

            When he pulled up to the house and saw the imposter FBI agent’s vehicle in the driveway, his adrenaline spiked. He was already unlatching the gate to the backyard before he noticed Rhonda had followed behind him.

            “Get back to the vehicle!” It was a whisper, but it was a firm order. It was a tone Mike had mastered in a long career behind the badge. But it didn’t faze the baker.

            “Like hell you’re leaving me alone, right now.”

            Mike tried to meet her stern gaze with one of his own, but it was no match. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone and slammed it into Rhonda’s hands.

“As soon as I open this gate, call 911 and just tell them someone has broken into your home. The second you tell them your address; they should be pretty speedy given recent events.”

“Very funny.”

 “Look, you’re a tough cookie. But I can’t be responsible for what happens once we go in. Stay far behind me back by this gate and don’t do anything stupid. If things goes south…run. Run and wait for the back up.”

Mike didn’t wait for confirmation. He unlatched the gate and went in. The pistol led him forward. The backyard lights weren’t on. But a bright glow was coming from the pool. Mike observed an extension cord running from the house and down into the pool. The pool was empty.

Mike eased up to the ledge and aimed his gun down into the depths of the cement bowl before his eyes could even process what lay below.

            “Freeze!”

            Randall Jacobs had shed his Agent Norris skin. He was wearing nothing but blue jeans and some work boots. The work light he’d set up reflected off his sweat covered skin. There was a sledgehammer at his feet. The cement on the floor of the empty pool had been broken up. Randall was holding a shovel in his hands. He’d been digging into the earth below the pool’s surface. Randall turned around and looked up into the barrel of Mike’s gun.

            “Rodriguez? I guess I underestimated your detective skills.”

            “Cut the shit, Randall! Drop the shovel!” Mike yelled.

            “Randall? Damn boy! You are good!”

            Mike fired a warning shot wide to the right of Randall. Mike could count on one hand how many times he’d ever had to fire a gun in the line of duty. His training had taught him that his gun was a last resort, and he took that rule even further. He’d only ever pulled the trigger after being shot at first. He’d been lucky and never had to take a life. But this was the first time he’d ever fired his gun with no visible threat to his life forcing him to. But there was something not right about any of this. The three bodies. This guy showing up out of nowhere and posing as a federal agent. His missing wife.

            His missing wife.

            “Miss Loving! Is that you? Welcome home!”

            Mike snapped his head to his left and saw that Rhonda had snuck up next to him. “Rhonda! Get back right now!”

            “Oh, let her stay, Rodriguez! I’ll be out of your hair in a second.” Randall went back to digging. Mike’s finger tensed up on the trigger, but he caught himself and eased back on it.

“I actually used to live here. I’m sure you guys already figured that out. Put this pool in myself. But I forgot something that I buried here in the backyard, right underneath this swimming pool. And I just couldn’t take a chance on you guys sniffing around too much or Rhonda deciding to rip out this pool and finding my buried treasure.”

The shovel hit something solid. “There she is!” Randall threw the shovel to the side and knelt down and started sifting through the disturbed earth.

 Curiosity had overtaken Mike. The road had run out for the man at the bottom of the pool. There was nowhere to go, and Randall must know that he was busted. His only options were leaving Rhonda’s property in the back of a cop car or the back of an ambulance with no need to turn the siren on.

Randall stood to his feet, holding a skull in his hands. He turned around and held it up towards the baker and the detective. “Meet my wife!”

A gasp escaped Rhonda. She was gripping the rosary in her hand. Mike prayed for the sound of approaching sirens. He wanted out of the situation. Something felt wrong. There was a thick sense of dread in the air.

All of a sudden, water shot up from the hole that Randall had dug. Randall stumbled forward, dropping the skull. Mike thought maybe the guy had hit some underground water line but the amount and force of the water spewing from the ground was too much for that.

The pool was filling fast. Randall scrambled to his feet and tried to make his way to the pool’s ladder. But his foot was caught on something. He turned around and reached down to free himself. The fast-rising water made it hard for Mike and Rhonda to see what Randall was ensnared on. But as soon as they saw his hand reach below the surface of the muddy water and grab at this foot, the man screamed.

It was a scream of pure fear. The kind that could only come from someone faced with some horror that could only be defined as abnormal. Randall thrashed around the water like a man on fire that was desperate to extinguish the flames eating away their flesh.

The screams never stopped until the water rose high enough to drown them. The first responder in Mike told him to jump in. Randall Jacobs was far from a saint, but he was still a person with the constitutional right to live to face the court system for their crime. Some other part of him, humane or murderous, told him to empty his clip into Randall. The guy had earned every bullet. But Mike didn’t move a muscle. He and Rhonda just stood there and watched the pool swallow Randal Jacobs alive.

*****

Rhonda and Mike sat on the patio furniture and watched the chaos around them try to restore order. Cops, paramedics, firemen—they all rushed around her backyard. The tape was going back up. The little crime scene markers were sprouting back up around the pool. Red and white lights flickered through the night sky. They’d both already given their reports as best as they could. Both had left out the details that they still couldn’t explain to themselves. It all felt familiar to Rhonda by now. But this time felt like the last.

            Rhonda rolled the rosary beads between her fingers. She watched as Randall Jacobs body was fished out of the pool. There would be questions. Questions no one could answer. How do you explain away four bodies in one swimming pool as some coincidence? Where did that water come from? What had hold of Randall has he fought to escape his fate?

            “Did you see it?” Mike asked.

            Rhonda looked at Mike. “Depends. What did you see?”

            Mike stared forward. He didn’t say anything for a minute. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to say the words out loud. As long as they went unspoken, maybe he could convince himself that he wasn’t crazy. He could go one believing that the world and everything in it was explainable. Easy to digest. But the image of what he was saw was too heavy to carry all the way to his grave. He needed to unburden himself and get the words out. Or it would eventually drive him mad.

            “A hand. All bone. No flesh. No skin. But I saw it. I swear I saw it reaching out of that hole and grabbing that man’s foot.”

            Rhonda reached out and grabbed Mike’s hand. She opened his fingers and placed the rosary in his palm and then closed his fingers around it. “She got her revenge, Mike. And I’m glad she did.”

            The night was far from over. It would be a long, few weeks for both of them. More questions to try and answer. Rhonda had a house to list for sale. Mike had a badge to turn in. Life changes were coming for both. And that was alright by them.