Shred of Evidence

Joanne was torn from a deep sleep when she felt a vise-like grip on her shoulder.

She blinked vacantly at the dark-clad man who pulled the bed sheets off of her. A part of her mind refused to believe that this was actually happening; Joanne thought she was still dreaming. But once the man effortlessly pulled the young woman out of her bed and held her close to him with his hand over her mouth, Joanne realized with growing horror that this was all too real.

“Is Denise here?” he whispered into her ear. He held a box cutter close to her face. “Just answer with a shake of your head for ‘no’, or a nod for ‘yes’.”

Denise? That was Joanne’s former roommate. Joanne finally got rid of that nuisance a couple of weeks ago. What was this guy doing looking for her? A better question would be what the hell was this man, a total stranger whom Joanne had never seen before, doing in her house, threatening her with a box cutter? Joanne shook her head—at least as much as the man’s grip on her mouth would allow—to indicate that Denise was not here.

“Are you alone?” he asked. “Again, answer with just a shake or a nod.”

Joanne hesitated. She presently lived alone in her deceased parents’ old house. While she wanted nothing more than to scare him off by saying that there was somebody here with her, he would find out the truth soon enough. And a nervous glance at the box cutter made Joanne realize that she really didn’t want to risk getting him mad at her.

When Joanne reluctantly nodded her head, to indicate that she was alone in the house, the man removed his hand from her mouth. But he still held her arm, with the box cutter at the ready to slash her. “Where is she?” he asked her, his tone intense. “Where is Denise right now?”

“I don’t know,” Joanne nervously croaked. She hoped to God that he believed her. “She moved out a couple of weeks ago. She never told me where she was going. So I don’t know where she is now.”

The intruder let out a curse under his breath. His brown eyes were large and bloodshot, his black hair was unkempt and he needed a shave. He appeared to be a very desperate, short-tempered man. He reminded Joanne of the junkies that the security guards would chase away from the front of the Save-Mart, where she used to work as a cashier.

Joanne let out a startled cry as the intruder abruptly turned her around and pulled her arms behind her back. Her eyes grew wide with terror when she felt her wrists behind bound together with tape.

“You better not be lying to me.” The intruder said those words in such a flat, monotone way that sent chills up her spine. When he finished binding Joanne’s wrists, he spun her around so that they were face to face again. “You’d better not be protecting that bitch, because if you are…“

He left the threat unspoken; yet he raised the box cutter to her face to make his point clear. Joanne took a deep breath and said, “I swear to you, Denise no longer lives here. We had a falling out, and she left for good.”

The intruder glared at her in disbelief, which scared Joanne badly. “What was the fight about?” he asked.

“We didn’t get along,” Joanne replied. When he gave a slight nod, she felt heartened to continue. Perhaps if she kept him talking, it would calm him down. “Denise and I were like oil and water. She was irresponsible. She always stole from me. I couldn’t trust a word she said.”

The intruder laughed bitterly. “Yeah, that sounds like my Denise, all right. She stole something from me, too. It was a lot of money. I don’t suppose she ever spoke to you about that?”

“No, she never mentioned it.” Joanne furtively tested her bonds, but the tape bound her hands together too securely; she needed a sharp instrument to get free. Her best chance would be to keep him talking. If she could earn his trust, Joanne might get him to free her and leave without incident. “You can see why I got rid of her. I just couldn’t spend another day with her in this house. After our fight, Denise just left. She never told me where she was going, and I didn’t really care.”

The intruder cast a thoughtful gaze at the floor. Joanne stood and watched him for several agonizing seconds, wondering if he was thinking about what he would do with her. Clad only in her panties and a black T-shirt, with her hands bound behind her back, Joanne never felt as vulnerable as she did right now. She gazed longingly at the baseball bat by the door. Yet even if she could somehow get to it, with her hands secured behind her back, it would be a useless gesture.

Finally, the intruder glanced at her. “You say she’s been gone for two weeks?”

“Yes, just about,” Joanne said quickly.

“Has anybody used her bedroom since then?”

“No. I haven’t been in there since she left.”

“Where is her bedroom?” the intruder asked.

“Right across the hall from mine.”

“All right,” the man said, with a deep breath. It looked as if he had come to a decision. He glanced around Joanne’s bedroom until he picked up a scarf. He rolled the scarf up into a ball.

“Look, just take whatever you want and leave, ok?” Joanne said, as she nervously watched him. “I won’t tell a soul about this, I swear!”

He grabbed Joanne by the back of the head and stuffed the balled-up scarf into her mouth. Joanne tightly bit down on the ball—it was all she could do to keep it from choking her. The man then covered her mouth with several strips of tape. Joanne let out a muffled groan when she was shoved facedown on her bed. Yet as the intruder bound her ankles together with more tape, Joanne was actually relieved, because it was a hopeful sign that she might be left alone. She cast a glance over her shoulder and watched the man leave the bedroom.

Joanne let out a heavy exhale through her nostrils as she lay her head down against the mattress. Thankfully, the intruder bought her lie when she told him that Denise never said anything about taking his money. Denise had indeed bragged about how she stole a large sum of cash—because that was the sort of backstabbing bitch she was. She was drunk that night, on both alcohol and arrogance, when she laughingly told Joanne about how she had pilfered a backpack filled with cash from her boyfriend Kyle’s apartment. Since Kyle was a drug dealer, Denise figured he wouldn’t miss the money, anyway.

That turned out to be the last straw for Joanne.

Joanne flinched when she heard a crashing noise from outside her room. Kyle—there was no doubt in Joanne’s mind as to who this was now—was trashing Denise’s old bedroom in his frantic search for the money.

Kyle appeared to be getting even more agitated, and Joanne realized that this was a dire situation that would become even more dismal by the moment. She did not want to leave her fate in the hands of a man like this. Now that he was busy with his futile hunt in the adjoining bedroom, Joanne had to use this time to try and get herself free.

She glanced over at her nightstand, and saw what she needed. Kyle had absently placed the roll of tape he had used to bind her with on the edge of the nightstand—along with the box cutter he used to cut it with. Kyle’s mistake could be the one thing that saved Joanne’s life.

Once she turned on her side and brought her knees up to her chest, Joanne swung her bound legs off the side of the bed and sat upright. From where she sat, it was a simple matter for her to reach out with her trussed hands and grab the box cutter. Well, it appeared simple, but since Joanne had no experience in grabbing things with both hands behind her back, she had to make multiple tries before she finally grasped the thin metal sheath.

It was a long and tedious struggle just to get the sharp end of the box cutter into the right position. But Joanne was finally able to slice through the tape that bound her wrists. As she desperately worked to free herself, a part of Joanne’s mind could not help but acknowledge the irony of this situation. Denise had been nothing but trouble when she was here. And now, even after she was long gone, Denise still managed to be a major nuisance in Joanne’s life.

Joanne would have never gotten a roommate in the first place, but she needed help paying the bills after having been laid off at the Save-Mart. When Denise answered her ad, she appeared to be a Godsend; a prim and proper fellow college student who swore that she would be too busy hitting the books to do any partying. That turned out to be Denise’s first lie to Joanne. Once she had moved in with Joanne, her wild side soon emerged, and Joanne soon regretted the day she had ever met the low-class bitch. But then again, Joanne still managed to make the best of that bad situation—at least she thought so, until now.

Joanne grunted with satisfaction when she felt the bonds on her wrists finally grow slack. It was now an easy matter for her to pull her wrists free from behind her back. She pulled the tape from her mouth and spat out the scarf. Then she quickly bent down and cut the tape that bound her ankles.

Once she was finally free, Joanne quickly strode over and picked up the wooden baseball bat from its place by the side of the doorway. Then she left her bedroom and went across the hall, her bare feet silent on the carpeted floors. When she peered into Denise’s former bedroom, she saw that it had been turned upside-down. The bed had been torn apart, with the mattress and box spring flung up against a wall. Empty drawers were removed from the dresser and tossed in a pile all over the floor. Even the area rug had been pulled up thrown in a corner.

Kyle sat in a heap on the floor, with his back turned towards Joanne. He stared into the vacant closet as if he were expecting something to happen. Joanne warily came up behind Kyle, and swung the bat with all of her might right at his head. The bat struck the back of Kyle’s head with a satisfying crunch; the blow sent him careening side ways, where he landed face down on the floor.

That should have been enough to kill him—one hit with the bat had been enough to put Denise down for good. But Joanne once more slammed the bat hard into the base of Kyle’s skull, just to be sure. The blood splatter all over her bare legs was disgusting, but at least it assured Joanne that Kyle would no longer be a problem.

She dropped the bat on the floor and wearily went back into her bedroom. Calling the police was not an option. Although there was ample evidence that Kyle did break in her home and held her hostage, Joanne knew the police would have asked too many questions—questions that she did not have any inclination to answer. Besides, at this point, Joanne was fed up with having strangers invading her life and ruining everything.

Joanne went into her closet and pushed a ceiling tile to the side. She reached into the empty hole, grabbed the strap, and hauled the backpack down from its hiding place. She placed the backpack on her bed and opened it. The sight of forty thousand dollars greeted Joanne when she opened the flap of the backpack. She just needed to see the cash as a way of bolstering herself for the grisly task of disposing yet another body.

‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now,’ she thought with a slight chuckle.

She glanced out the window, which offered a view of the backyard. It was dominated by a large flowerbed, which Joanne had installed by herself about two weeks ago. Although she had not planned for it at the time, there was still more than enough room out there for Kyle.

“You’re about to get a neighbor, Denise,” Joanne whispered at the flowerbed. “How does that sound?”

If the dead woman in the shallow grave had heard her, she did not give any response. Instead there was only total silence.

Which was just how Joanne liked it.