The Body in the Suitcase

“You’re a loser,” she screamed. “Nothing but a fucking loser. I don’t know why we ever got married.”
“Maybe it was because you’d claimed that I’d gotten you pregnant,” Joe replied indignantly. “I wonder whose child it really was?
“It was probably a good thing that she miscarried,” he thought.
He had just returned home, staggered through the door and told her that he’d been canned from his job for drunkenness; the fourth job from which he’d been fired in the past year... each time for the same reason.
“What kind of man are you that can’t hold a job,” she asked, scornfully. “What the hell is wrong with you? Only a bum goes to work drunk.”
“It’s your fault, you bitch,” he screamed, finally losing his cool. Your incessant nagging has driven me to drink. And what pleasure do I have in life aside from getting drunk? You certainly don’t give me any in bed.”
“That’s right, asshole. Blame it on me. You come to bed every night stinking like a brewery. Believe it or not, that doesn’t exactly turn me on. If I feel sorry for you and offer you some honey, you either can’t get it up or you come so quickly and roll over that I’m left to satisfy myself. You’re just a pathetic excuse for a man.”
“Am I? We’ll see about that,” he retaliated. He grabbed her roughly by her tee shirt and pulled her to him, tearing the shirt and exposing her breasts. He clumsily embraced her and locked his mouth on hers, slobbering all over her face.
“Get off me you creep,” she screamed as she pushed him away. “You are so disgusting; you make me want to puke.”
Joe erupted like a volcano. He couldn’t understand why the bitch would not respond to his advances. He called her every name in the book and even cursed her mother. Undaunted, she laughed disdainfully, slapped his face and spit right in his eye. Something in him snapped. Without thinking, he grabbed a marble paperweight from the coffee table and struck her on the head. He hit her several more times before she collapsed, dead before she hit the floor.
“Omigod,” he cried afterward. “What have I done? What will I do now?”

***

After fortifying himself with a couple of shots of whiskey, Joe attempted to stuff the body into his largest suitcase, bending the limbs at impossible angles in a monumental struggle to get it in. The room echoed with loud cracks as joints separated and bones actually snapped. He was soaked with perspiration and his muscles cramped from his efforts but try as he might, he could not get the cadaver to fit. Frustrated by his failure, he frantically fought back the urge to scream, knowing that he could not afford to wake the neighbors. Out of desperation, he sat down on the floor, put his head in his hands and proceeded to weep.”Why do these things always happen to me,” he whined. “Why do I have such rotten luck?” When the tears finally subsided he raised his eyes and stared forlornly towards the kitchen. Suddenly his gaze alighted upon a meat cleaver hanging from a hook on the wall. Filled with renewed optimism, he rushed into the kitchen and snatched the implement from the wall. He ran back out to the body and immediately began hacking away at whatever body parts would not fit into the suitcase. After he chopped off both hands and both feet, the corpse could almost, but not quite, fit. Before the frustration returned, he decided on a final solution. He calmly removed the mutilated body from the suitcase and laid it on the floor. He raised the cleaver over his head and violently swung it downward onto her neck, neatly severing the head from the body. It rolled a short distance before he picked it up and placed it inside the suitcase near the hands and feet. Now the body fit easily into the leather coffin.

***

Dressed all in black and walking unsteadily, Joe furtively wheeled the suitcase to the parking garage, his eyes maniacally darting back and forth in search of witnesses. He had bided his time in the apartment, drinking whiskey and cursing the dead woman in the suitcase. It was 3:00 A.M. and the possibility of running into another person was quite slim but he was taking no chances.

Relatively confident that he was alone in the garage, Joe clumsily lifted the suitcase into the trunk of his black BMW 530i and then slammed the trunk closed so quickly that it narrowly missed crushing his hand. He lost his balance while pulling his hand out of the way and fell to the floor. He choked back the high-decibel profanity that was straining to escape his mouth, frightened that he might be overheard. Silently, he picked himself up from the floor and brushed himself off. Now that the suitcase was safely out of sight, he stumbled to the front of the car and hurriedly got inside. Whether it was due to inebriation or nervousness, it took several attempts to get the key into the ignition; at first he was unable to get it into the hole and then he dropped it onto the floor. He cursed loudly as he banged his head on the steering wheel after finally retrieving the key. At last, he got the car started and slowly pulled out onto the street, alertly swerving out of the way of a speeding Subaru.

After hitting a huge pothole on East 84th St. and ruining his wheel alignment, he finally entered the FDR Drive at 86th St. and took great care to drive below the speed limit and stay in his lane. Being pulled over by the cops would not be in his best interests. He took a swig from the bottle of Black Label that he kept in the glove box in order to calm his nerves and sharpen his concentration. Humming softly to the pop music on the radio, he drove north on the FDR Drive to the Major Deegan Expressway to the New York State Thruway and kept driving until he reached the New Paltz exit, never exceeding 65 mph and treating himself to an occasional calming sip of scotch.

By the time he reached his ex-wife’s house, a slightly neglected salt box on a deserted country road, it was past 5:00 A.M. He was feeling good as he banged loudly on the door. All his worries had been drowned by the liquor and his brilliant plan for disposing of the body.

“Hi honey,” he said sweetly. He smiled at the red-headed woman with the sleep-swollen face who answered the door. “It’s really great to see you.” He lost the smile and took a step backwards when he caught a whiff of her morning breath. It took the woman a moment to focus before she recognized her estranged husband. Her sleepy eyes suddenly flashed fire.

“What the fuck are you doing here you creep? How dare you wake me in the middle of the night when you know damn well that I never wanted to see you again. Get the hell off my property.”

“But honey,” he whined. “I thought you would be happy to see me. I’m certainly glad to see you. Anyway, I only wanted to ask you a small favor. I just need to bury something in your back yard. Would that be okay honey? After that I can leave if you’d like but I was hoping that we could rekindle our romance.”
She’d added a few pounds to her voluptuous figure since he’d last seen her but still the sight of her aroused his little pecker.

She was stunned. She didn’t know whether to laugh at his bizarre request or punch him in the nose. “Are you crazy?” she screamed. “Get out of here before I call the cops, you asshole.” Then she slammed the door in his face.

Joe didn’t know what to do. He’d thought for sure that she would welcome him into her house if not into her bed; or at the very least, allow him to bury the suitcase in the back yard. He’d obviously forgotten what a disaster their marriage had been and how bitter their divorce. Now the bitch had screwed up his plans to dispose of the body. Disheartened, he returned to his car, trying to think of a Plan B.

He had another swallow of scotch to help him think and after a few minutes came up with a new idea. He left the car and surreptitiously made his way to his ex-wife’s tool shed where he found a shovel. He put it into the car, jumped behind the steering wheel and floored it onto the road. He drove west without any particular destination, finally coming upon a large wooded area. He pulled off the road and struggled to remove the suitcase from the trunk. It was heavier than he remembered and he was suffering from an alcohol-induced clumsiness. The suitcase fell from the car to the ground, breaking open and spilling its contents. Joe had to chase after the head as it rolled down a hill. After tripping over a tree root, ripping his pants and skinning his knee, he finally caught the runaway head, returned to the car and stuffed everything back into the suitcase. He dragged the suitcase deep into the woods and returned to the car for the shovel. “Shit,” he cried after he tripped again over the same damned tree root. Treading carefully now, he went back to where he’d left the suitcase and began digging a grave. Over an hour later, he wearily made his way back to the car. When he placed the shovel back in the trunk, he was overcome by the sight and smell of the blood that had seeped from the suitcase. He quickly turned his head and vomited on the ground right behind the car, unfortunately soiling his shiny shoes. He nearly jumped out of those shoes when, from out of nowhere, an early-morning hiker appeared. The stranger stopped about five feet from Joe and looked him over with obvious concern. “Are you okay mister?” he asked. Is there anything I can do?”
“Fuck off pal,” was Joe’s rude reply. “If I had needed any help, I’d have asked.” Without another word he slammed the trunk shut, got into the car and drove away, leaving the amazed hiker in his wake. Joe did not notice the beautiful sunrise as he looked east towards Poughkeepsie nor did he pay any attention to the stately Shawangunk Mountains to the west. What he did notice was a full service car wash in the heart of New Paltz. He staggered into the manager’s office and offered him an exorbitant tip to clean the trunk as well as the car’s interior and exterior and left the vehicle there while he went for lunch.

***

“How long has it been since you’ve seen her, sir,” the portly policeman with the pockmarked face asked.
Joe was back home. He’d showered, taken a nap and called the police to report his wife missing. He had also phoned his friend Robert, who rushed over immediately to lend him support.
“Sir,” the cop, repeated, “I asked you how long it’s been since you’ve seen your wife.”
“Oh,” said Joe. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit distracted. I’m sure you understand. The last time I saw her... um... it was yesterday morning when I left for work.”
“Did she say anything that might help our investigation?”
“Well, no. She was fast asleep. We’d been up all night doin’ our thing... you know what I mean. I guess I wore her out...as usual.” He winked at the cop and flashed him a foolish grin.

After about an hour, the interview came to an end. The detective (whose name, interestingly enough, was Tracy) shook hands with Joe and left his card, instructing him to call if he thought of anything that might help. He didn’t like what he’d seen of Joe. His story didn’t quite add up and he seemed like a real jerk. Tracy also wondered about the effeminate bleached blond gentleman sitting at Joe’s side, quietly drinking, who kept patting Joe on the back and squeezing his shoulder. “Something is fishy about this story,” he told himself. “I’d better look into this guy”

***

Meanwhile, back upstate, the early-morning hiker, after hours of deliberation, entered the Ulster County Sheriff's office to report the strange behavior of a well-dressed middle-aged man in a black BMW early that morning. He told the Sheriff that he had immediately been bothered by the appearance of the car in the woods. In his many years of hiking those woods, he’d only ever seen rugged, off-road vehicles there, and very few of those. “A man in wingtip shoes and a luxury car are as out of place there as a man in scuba gear and a sailboat. The gentleman appeared to be nervous and disoriented and I thought that I’d seen him throwing up. When I asked him if he needed any help, he became very nasty and then hurried off.”

The Sheriff didn’t really believe this to be a serious matter but it was a slow day, so what the heck. “I’ll send a man out to investigate,” he told the Good Samaritan.

He actually sent two men and it didn’t take long to find the body. Joe had not done a very good job of burying the suitcase. One corner of it was sticking out of the ground for the deputies to see. A pack of coyotes was sniffing around the grave when the cops got there but scattered when the men got close.

Later that day, Joe’s ex visited the Sheriff’s office to report the theft of her shovel. She didn’t really give a shit about the shovel but anything that she could do to get that bastard in trouble was well worth the trip into town. She made sure to let the Sheriff know that Joe had wanted to bury something on her property.



***

Detective Tracy returned the following morning with a search warrant and a forensics team. After ringing the bell for several minutes without a response, the cops were about to enter the apartment on their own. Finally, a bare-chested Joe opened the door. Tracy immediately smelled the liquor on his breath. “Yes, officer? What is it?” Joe was clearly annoyed at the early morning intrusion.
“I have a search warrant, sir. My team would like to inspect your house.” He showed him the warrant and breezed by. He was startled to see Robert lounging on the sofa.
“What are you doing here,” Joe asked. “Why aren’t you guys out looking for my wife?”
“Well, you know how it is. The husband is always a suspect.”
“Suspect? What am I suspected of?”
“Nothing yet,” Tracy replied, “but often when a man reports a missing spouse, she turns up dead.”

****

In a small town, news spreads like the plague. Word quickly got around that a woman’s body had been recovered in the woods. The manager of the car wash wasted no time getting to the Sheriff’s office to report that a stranger had paid him a lot of money to clean blood out of the trunk of his BMW. The manager had been smart enough to copy down the car’s plate number.

***

The NYPD forensics team spent several hours combing the apartment. They immediately discovered a wet spot on the carpet. They packed up the paperweight which, incredibly, still lay on the floor and a sharp-eyed technician noticed the meat cleaver in the sink. The team left with their evidence and Tracy requested 24 hour surveillance on Joe’s apartment.

***

The coroner’s report was delivered to the Ulster County Sheriff that afternoon. It identified the body as that of Joe’s wife and the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head. The Sheriff immediately contacted NYPD. It was a matter of minutes before the Sheriff was connected to Detective Tracy. It was decided that Tracy and his team would arrest Joe and hold him in New York until the matter of jurisdiction was decided.

***
“Police! Open up!” Tracy banged on the door after ringing the bell several times. He knew that both Joe and Robert were in the apartment because the surveillance team had not seen them leave. Tracy turned the door knob and found it unlocked. As the cops entered the apartment, the two men simultaneously rose from the sofa, smoothing their rumpled clothes and swaying slightly. The place reeked of alcohol and two empty bottles of Black Label lay on the floor. Another half-full bottle sat on the coffee table.

“Joseph Parker,” Tracy said, “it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest for the murder of your wife. You have the right to...”

The panic-stricken idiot turned and bolted for the nearest window, meaning to flee via the fire escape. Incredibly, in his drunken state, he had forgotten that there was one window in the living room that did not open to a fire escape. Of course, the drunken fool picked that window. “No!” Robert shrieked as Joe flew out of the room. Like a wounded bird, he plunged through the sky, dropping thirteen stories and landing on the pavement with a resounding thud.

The tabloids had a field day reporting on the bumbling wife-killer of the Upper East Side. For days, pages were filled with lurid details and engrossing anecdotes. Joe’s name appeared nationwide in countless “America’s dumbest criminals” features. Most interesting to the scandal-seeking scribes and their thirsty readers was the presence in the apartment of his presumed homosexual lover and the fact that the broken body that lay sprawled on the pavement was discovered to be dressed in black-lace women’s underwear.