Final Fling

At the end, hiding in the concrete pipe as the diesel roar of the giant bulldozer thundered down at her, Alix would recall the instant it all started to come apart.

For a dozen years she'd held it all together. Kept the lid on. Worked herself doggedly toward resolution. But this late spring evening, on the sprawling patio of the Holyoke Township mansion, during a routine business party, as twilight grew across the Huron River valley, it all began to unravel –

When Officer Raymond Onderko, in full police uniform, strutted up the driveway, heel plates clicking.

She recognized him at once. He hadn't changed much. No way could he ever recognize her. She'd changed a lot.

He strutted past her and vanished. Party music boomed, people circulated around Alix with their plates of buffet food. She stared into space, her brain playing a fantasy, the latest of many. Only this time the fantasy quickly mutated into a plan.

So audacious, so improbable, her knees nearly buckled.

But why not try? It was simply a series of steps. At each, she could change her mind. If any step went wrong, she could forget the whole thing.

First she stole a steak knife from the buffet line. No one saw her.

Next she slipped away from the party. Walked down the long dark driveway, through a stretch of thick woods to the country road. Unobserved.

Then she waited on the shoulder, alone in the dark. Had the departing Onderko swung his patrol car left onto the country road, the whole thing would have been over. But he turned right. And as his headlights advanced on her, Alix could simply have trudged along without looking at him. But she waved her arms frantically, tears running down her face. He might have blown right on by. But of course he stopped.

And he might have had a partner in the car. But he was alone.

He told her to get in. Hey pretty lady. Different town, different decade, way different girl. But that same voice.

Now, in his presence again after all this time, she was too far gone. Babbling some kind of tale of distress, gripping the steak knife out of sight in her right hand, palm damp on the handle, she waited to be sure the road was deserted.

And then whirled her fist around and dead-center into his chest plunged the steak knife. Held him fiercely as he heaved and bucked and gasped blood. Heard herself shouting "Swallow it! Swallow it!"

Which was, of course, what he had shouted at her the other time they met, a dozen years before. . . .