In Their Likeness by Denise

Author:Denise
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-12T14:13:28+00:00

44

He remained seated for a moment, looking at the misty raindrops speckling the windshield. He was fully focused on the task ahead and wide awake despite the early hour and the few hours of sleep he’d gotten.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pelican waddling lazily across the lawn. The animal looked as if it wasn’t really awake yet.

He left the key in the ignition when he got out of the van. If something went wrong, he could get away faster.

But nothing will go wrong.

He leaned back into the car for the small crowbar he’d placed on the passenger seat and slipped it into the waistband of his pants under his jacket. With brisk steps and head held high, he walked around the car to the back door, opened it, and quickly unloaded first the wheelbarrow then the black sack, which any casual observer would suspect to contain humus, compost, or something similar.

I wonder if I’m being watched.

The nape of his neck prickled as he grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and pushed it toward the low gate behind which lay his destination.

He quickly forced open the padlock. His destination was only a few yards along a narrow path lined with stone slabs, past sage and other plants such as a withered hemp bush. He had noticed these details in his careful explorations of the place in recent weeks.

At the end of the short path, he steered the wheelbarrow to the left. The pink door with the black handle looked as if it had been freshly painted.

Everything is kept in perfect condition so that all the tourists coming here get a good impression.

Once he was definitely out of sight, he didn’t bother with picking the three locks on the door but pulled out the crowbar. The wooden door gave way even more easily than he’d hoped. He threw the crowbar into the wheelbarrow and pushed the door open with his foot. Then he heaved the black plastic bag onto his shoulder and entered the small cottage.

His work would be quick. There would be no Styrofoam boards, no rods or strings, and no complicated poses. He didn’t even have to glue open the eyelids of this corpse, for Henry Wallis had painted Chatterton with his eyes closed.

He slit open the plastic bag. First, he pulled out the pillow and sheet and draped both on the bench under the window that looked out over the lake. Then he lifted the barely cold body of Chatterton out of his improvised body bag and laid him on the sheet.

He made sure that Chatterton’s head wasn’t on the pillow but just in front of it so that only his red hair touched it lightly. The face tilted to the side, the left hand resting on his chest, the white shirt unbuttoned. The right hand hung down, touching the floor.

He took two steps back and let the image sink in.

The legs aren’t right.

He stepped toward Chatterton and carefully placed the left leg on top of the right, making sure the left foot was tucked behind the lower leg.

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