J. Konrath: Fuzzy Navel

“Alexandra Kork died this morning.”

I blow out air through my mouth, and my shoulders sag.

“It appears to be a suicide,” the woman continues. “She set herself on fire with some aerosol spray.”

That sounds like Kork. She’d kill herself in a horrible way like that.

“Are you sure it’s her?” I ask. “One hundred percent sure?”

“The body was badly burned, but we confirmed it with dental records.”

I picture Alex’s face, pretty as a model’s when I met her. Not pretty at all after we tangled. She’d gotten close, fooled me completely, made me doubt myself unlike I ever had before.

One of the things I’ve learned as a cop is that everyone considers themself the hero in the story of their life. Even bad guys who killed children and blew up hospitals believed they were good guys. Everyone can justify their actions. Everyone believes they’re in the right.

Kork was different. She knew she was the bad guy, that her actions were evil. It didn’t bother her at all. Or maybe it did. Maybe she finally realized what an awful person she was, and couldn’t cope with it.

“Ms. Daniels? Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s no next of kin listed. Would you like us to release her remains to you?”

“No. The state can bury her. Thank you for calling.”

I hang up and pop a few more antacids.

“Are those mint flavored?” Herb asks.

“Alex Kork is dead,” I tell him. “Suicide at Heathrow.”

“World is a better place without her in it. Gimme one of those antacids.”

I pass the roll to Herb, thinking about the last words Alex had said to me.

“You beat me this time. But it isn’t over.”

It’s over now, Alex. You’ve haunted me in countless nightmares, but you won’t haunt me anymore.

Not ever again.

“WHERE’S THAT PSYCHOTIC CAT you have?”

Mary Streng stares hard at Alex Kork. The woman who broke into their house is taller than Jacqueline, with broader shoulders. Her body is angular rather than curvy, and Mary can see the muscle striations in her bare forearms. Alex has straight black hair, shoulder length. This woman might have been pretty once, but the left side of her face, from her chin to her missing eyebrow, is a knot of pink scar tissue, puckered with patchwork skin graft zigzags and pockmarks from countless stitches.

“At the vet,” Mary answers. “Bitten by a dog.”

Alex winces. No – it only looks like a wince because the ruined half of her face stays immobile. It’s actually a smile.

“That’s a shame. Such a cute kitty, being mauled by a big, bad canine.”

“He’ll be fine,” Mary says. “The dog isn’t expected to recover.”

Alex sits on the sofa next to Mary. She’s tucked her gun – a small-caliber revolver – into the back of her jeans, which rankles Mary.

I’m an old lady, and she doesn’t consider me a threat, Mary realizes.

It’s true, and it hurts. Sharp as her mind still is, her body has grown old and weak. Osteoporosis is shrinking her. Rheumatoid arthritis has turned her hands into agonizing claws. Her figure, once a perfect hourglass, is now shaped more like the box the hourglass came in. What she would give to be young again, just for a minute, to show this young punk-

“Are you sizing me up?” Alex asks.

Mary lowers her eyes.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, Mom. Or I’ll start knocking you around.”

Mary stares at her, projecting defiance instead of fear. Alex’s face twitches into a half smile. Up close, the scars are white and look like rubber.

“I know you used to be a cop,” Alex says. “I bet this really makes you feel helpless.”

Mary doesn’t answer. Jacqueline has told her all about Alex and her nightmarish family. Like most cops, her daughter kept her fears hidden away. But Mary knew that Jack feared Alex. And now she can see why. This scarred woman sitting next to her doesn’t have a soul. Something, some vital part, is missing from Alex. The part that makes her a human being.

Mary had only seen it once before, more than forty years ago, on the Job. A homeless man had killed his friend over half a bottle of wine. Mary had hit the offender with her billy, over and over, but he wouldn’t go down. He just continued to stare at her with those black, bottomless eyes. Eyes without a trace of humanity. Eyes that dared her to kill him.

The same eyes Alex has.

“I bet it hurt,” Mary says, “when my daughter tore your face off.”

Mary doesn’t see the blow coming – it’s too fast. But she feels it, the fist connecting with her mouth, the explosion of pain in her lips, her head snapping back. She had been punched before, in the line of duty, but never so hard or so viciously.

Then Alex is standing over her, running a hand through Mary’s gray hair in a warped parody of kindness.

“Maybe later I’ll show you how much it hurts,” Alex says.

And Mary Streng realizes she’s going to die.

It isn’t as scary as she thought it might be. She’s lived a long, full life. She’s done everything she ever set out to do. She’s made some mistakes, of course. Some big ones. A failed marriage. A child out of wedlock, put up for adoption when she was still a teenager. A feud with her mother that never got resolved before she died. But Mary managed to forgive herself, to learn from her errors, to keep on going. She knew she could meet death – even an unpleasant death – with grace and dignity and no regrets.

But this isn’t just about her. Alex also wants to kill Jacqueline.

That scares Mary to the core. Mary would die for her daughter. She’d also want to die if her daughter were killed. Parents aren’t supposed to outlive their children, and Jacqueline is too good a person to be murdered at the hands of this lunatic.

She has to warn Jacqueline. Has to make sure Alex can’t get her.

“Do you bake?” Alex asks.

“What?”

“I know it’s a stereo type, that all old women bake. But do you?”

“Yes,” Mary says.

“What do you bake? Cookies? Bread?”

Mary doesn’t like these questions. They seem too intimate. She forces herself to say, “I make pies.”

“What kind of pies?”

“Peach. Cherry. Apple. I was going to make an apple pie today, for after dinner.”

“You’ve got all of the ingredients?”

Mary nods.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Alex says. “Let’s make a pie.”

Alex takes Mary’s hand, leads her into the kitchen. Mary doesn’t understand where this is going, what Alex’s ulterior motive is. But she has no choice other than to let it play out.

“What do we do first?”

“There’s some dough, in the refrigerator.”

Alex opens up the large stainless steel door and takes out a bowl with a wet towel covering the top. Mary stares at the gun in the back of Alex’s jeans. She needs to get closer.

“This the dough?” Alex asks.

Mary nods. “Yes.”

“It’s done rising, or what ever?”

“Yes.”

“What else do we need?”

“Apples. Brown sugar. Lemon juice. Flour.”

“You want to lend a hand here, Mom? This pie isn’t going to make itself.”

It’s silly. Mary has been slapped, punched, and threatened, and she stayed stoic. But a simple act of baking makes her eyes well up with tears.

Maybe it’s the perversion of a normally enjoyable activity. Mary loves to bake. It’s one of the simple joys of life. But being forced to by this murderer makes the whole experience seem tainted, dirty.

Alex acts normal the whole time. She rolls out the dough. She slices the apples. She’s chatty and cheerful and asks many questions about the process. But she never lets down her guard and gives Mary a chance at the gun.