DIE, CHERIE!

By David B. Smith

 

The wind was cold by the Bay in the winter, but it was warm compared to what Ted and Cherie Marshall were used to. They lived in Central Oregon were there was snow at this time of year, and temperatures sometimes below freezing. They came to San Francisco to visit Cherie’s mother, who Cherie felt that she never got to see enough of since moving north with her husband.

It wasn’t just because Ted had taken her baby away to Oregon that Vera Hudson despised him so. She had never thought much of him to begin with. He was smart and talented – no one would argue that point. But he was too lazy to do anything with his intelligence and his talent. And he drank way too much. Vera believed (and her friends at her card club assured her that she was right) that Cherie could have done much better.

Cherie was a successful businesswoman. It was her money that kept her and Ted going. It was her money that bought him the BMW that he had always wanted. But Cherie had faith in Ted where most others did not. She was sure that his only problem was that he had never received the encouragement that he needed to be all that he could be. And she made it her personal goal to encourage him every day.

To Ted, Cherie’s encouragement sounded like nagging. He never told her so because he felt that he was at a disadvantage, since she paid the bills. But every time that she told him how he could be so much more, he became increasingly angrier. Now he was becoming particularly concerned because something new was starting to happen that had not happened before: He was beginning to have thoughts of violence. He feared that he was a time bomb, ready to blow. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

Ted told Cherie that he wanted to take his time driving home. He hoped that by him and his wife spending some time together he could strengthen his relationship with her. He didn’t want to hate her; but he secretly resented the fact that she was the successful one. And all of her “encouragement” only served to rub his face in it. All of her admonishment that told him that he could do better only served to remind him that he wasn’t good enough.

They spent the day that they left Vera’s as tourists in San Francisco. They had lunch at the pier, and visited various stores. By the time they stopped to see the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin Headlands on the north side of the bridge, it was already starting to get dark. They parked the car and took a moment to decide if they wanted to get out or not. Ted pointed out that the view of the city lights from there was still pretty amazing. Cherie smiled warmly at him.

“I had a great time hanging out with you today,” she said.

“Yeah,” Ted replied, “see I’m not so bad to be around.”

“No, of course not,” Cherie said, “you’re great to be around. You’re funny and you’re smart. You’re a pretty amazing man.”

“Here it comes,” Ted thought to himself, “another lecture.”

“I wish you could see yourself how other people see you,” Cherie continued, “you have a lot more on the ball than you give yourself credit for.”

Ted squirmed in his seat. “In other words I could be doing something with my useless life, is that what you’re saying?” he thought.

“You know something, honey?” Cherie said, reaching over to put her hand on Ted’s, “I have complete faith that one day you’re going to do something that is going to make everyone so proud of you.”

It was all that Ted could take. Five years of listening to her covert nagging had finally come to a sharp, blistering head. He pulled his hand away from hers and grabbed her by the hair. He screamed, “SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” as he repeatedly slammed her face into the dashboard of the car.

Cherie wrestled a little bit, but Ted’s attack had caught her completely off guard. When Ted finally realized what he was doing and came to his senses enough to let go of his wife’s hair, her limp body collapsed into his lap. The dashboard and her face were covered in blood.

“Cherie?” Ted inquired pensively. No response.

“Cherie?” he said again, this time shaking her a bit. Still there was no response.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Ted cried out hysterically. He shook Cherie’s limp body more vigorously, but she did not come to.

As mortified as he was with what he had just done, Ted believed that his actions now must be for the sake of self-preservation. He looked around outside of his car to make sure that no one was nearby. When he was sure that the coast was clear, he pulled Cherie’s limp body from the car and began to drag it over to the edge of the Headlands cliffs.

“People must fall from here all of the time,” he said to himself, “no reason to think it wasn’t an accident.”

Ted dragged Cherie’s body, walking backwards towards the edge. The edge of the cliffs seemed to creep up quickly. Suddenly Ted found himself stumbling and falling. Now it seemed that he, as well as Cherie, would be dead. He was already shaken as it was, and now his mind went numb with shock so that when he landed hard on the rocks below, he didn’t even know how far he had fallen. He squeezed his eyes shut and wondered if he was dead. Finally he opened his eyes and realized that he had only fallen a few feet from the top of the headlands to a small landing just beneath it. He lay still until the panic sensation wore off some, and then he managed to pull himself up again.

Back on the edge of the cliff Ted wrestled with Cherie’s body to push it over. He was sore and weak – and his mind began to play tricks on him. He moaned, and thought he heard her moan. He stopped pushing, but she was already in motion. Just as she began to fall, her eyes opened and met Ted’s eyes. She wasn’t dead after all! Ted made a desperate attempt to catch her, but it was too late. She cried out his name as she fell, and Ted watched helplessly as her body made its descent, bouncing from the sharp rocks on the side of the cliff until it disappeared into the darkness below.

 

·          

Ted Marshall was not your typical, every-day murderer. He hadn’t planned on killing his wife, and now that it was done he really didn’t know what to do next. If he had thought things out more carefully it probably would have occurred to him that the police would find it more than a little suspicious that his lap and dashboard were covered with blood, given his planned claim that his wife fell from the Headlands cliffs by accident. And so some might think it fortuitous for Ted that his cell phone said “No Signal” when he tried to call the police.

He didn’t really want to call the police. He didn’t really want to face the situation at all. He got in his car and drove north, back towards Oregon. And when he had driven until he was completely exhausted and didn’t recognize his surroundings at all, he stopped at a hotel called the Last Stop Hotel to get a room for the night.

The hotel clerk seemed exhausted and detached. His skin was pale and his eyes were sunken, and his hair was like frail thin wisps that hung down in his face. He gave Ted the key to his room – room 13. Ted tried to make conversation with the man.

“Kind of warm weather for this time of year,” he said, “it was cold before.”

The man just stared at Ted as though he weren’t used to visitors trying to start up a conversation and didn’t know how to respond when one did. He acted surprised when Ted offered payment for the room. Ted wondered silently to himself how he would pay for anything anymore, now that Cherie was gone.

Ted stumbled into his room and headed straight for the bathroom. He turned on the water and the pipes made a loud moaning noise that squealed in his ears and sounded like a person in agony. The noise reminded him of the moan that Cherie had made before she rolled off of the cliff. It went on the entire time that the water ran, and Ted continued splashing water in his face until he could not take it any longer. He turned the water off and buried his face in his hands and wept. Suddenly a familiar voice came from outside of the bathroom:

“Honey,” said the voice, “you’re not going to wear that same shirt again tomorrow, are you?”

Ted whirled around and looked toward the door. It was Cherie’s voice.

“No,” he said to himself, “it’s impossible!”

He stepped slowly towards the door and pushed it open. Maybe she was there. Maybe the killing had just been a bad dream. He stepped through the door and looked around.

“Cherie?” he called out, but there was no answer. He took a few more steps into the room and continued looking around.

“Cherie?” he said again. There was still no answer. He was exhausted, and he knew he must have imagined it, even though it seemed as real as any voice he had ever heard before. He fell face first onto the floor and began to sob. “What have I done?” he asked himself repeatedly. Then he began to try to convince himself of his innocence:

“I didn’t push her off,” he told himself, “she rolled off. I mean, I was pushing her, but I stopped… and then she rolled. So I really didn’t kill her, did I? She really did fall off. I’m not lying when I say that she fell.”

Ted tried unsuccessfully to convince himself for what seemed like hours. Finally, exhausted, after almost falling asleep on the floor, he mustered the strength to pull himself up onto the bed. Then he got up and rummaged through his bag until he found the bottle of Jack Daniel’s that he had stashed away there. When he pulled it out, it was empty.

“That’s weird,” he thought to himself, “I don’t remember polishing that off.”

He lied back down on the bed and fell into a fitful sleep. And he dreamt. He dreamed of Cherie, her moan rousing him and her eyes piercing his soul as she fell from the cliff. Her voice called out to him as she fell.

“Ted!”

The voice sounded real again, and it woke him from his sleep. He sat up in bed, turned on the lamp and looked at his watch. It had stopped – right at 6:15 and eight seconds. He shifted his weight over towards the middle of the bed and when he did, he felt something – or someone – lying in the bed beside him. He jumped up from the bed and looked. There, lying in the bed was the broken and bloody cadaver of his dead wife, Cherie.

Ted screamed, and sat up in bed. He looked beside him – nothing. It had only been a dream. He lay back down again and continued to sleep fitfully, dreaming of his dead wife.

It was afternoon when Ted woke again. He was perspiring and his pillows were drenched with sweat. He looked at his watch. It had stopped – at 6:15 and eight seconds. “That’s odd - I thought I only dreamed that” he said to himself.

He walked back into the bathroom and turned the water for the shower on. This time the moaning in the pipes sounded exactly like a woman screaming. He turned the water off again, quickly. Suddenly, the voice of Cherie from the other room came back to haunt him again.

“Ted, are we going to do something today?” queried the voice; “I don’t want to be stuck in this hotel all day.”

Ted was flustered, but he bravely walked back to the other room expecting that he would find nothing there, as he had the night before. But this time he entered the room to find the body of his wife lying in the bed.

“NO!” He shouted. “NO! You are NOT real! You are NOT there!”

He put his hands firmly over his eyes and told himself that she would be gone when he removed them again; but when he took his hands off of his eyes, she was still there. He walked gingerly over to where the dead body lay. “She’s not really there,” he said, “and I’m going to prove it.” He reached out towards her slowly with his hand, hoping that the only thing that he would feel would be the cloth of the blanket on the bed that lay beneath his vivid hallucination. Chills went up his spine when he felt the cold skin of his wife’s dead flesh. He jerked back and began to cry like a little baby.

“I have to think… I have to think… I have to think…” he said frantically to himself. He would have to get rid of the body, but he would have to wait until well after dark. He couldn’t chance being seen.

When the time came, he wrapped the body in the hotel blanket that plainly bore the label, the Last Stop Hotel. He was a smart man, but not a very smart criminal. It didn’t occur to him that the blanket could be traced back to his stay at the hotel. But this time he wasn’t being so careful in considering how he would dispose of the body. He hadn’t even called the police yet, and at this point he knew that he would most likely not be doing so.

After a somewhat careless attempt at making sure that no one was watching, Ted placed the body wrapped in the blanket in the trunk of his car and drove away. He drove until he found an industrial area. There were no cliffs here to push Cherie’s body off of. This time he threw her into a dumpster, and sped off into the night.

 

·          

It was fairly unusual for Ted to go as long as he had without alcohol. He would probably have been craving it by now anyway, but so much more now considering all that he had experienced in the last couple of days. He stopped at the first bar he saw.

The scenery was a bit different than what he was used to seeing. There was a woman who appeared to be a beverage server. She was wearing an outfit that might have normally been meant to entice men; but there was nothing enticing about her. She was morbidly unattractive, and her skin was covered with open scabs and blisters. Ted quickly looked away from her.

He walked up to the bar where a man who appeared to be a biker sat talking to the bartender. The two men stopped talking when they saw Ted, and looked at him disdainfully.

“Can I get a shot of Johnny Walker Red?” Ted asked. Both the bartender and the biker laughed as though Ted had said something funny.

“Yeah,” said the bartender, “that would be nice, wouldn’t it?” And with that he and the biker resumed their conversation.

Ted sat and waited for the joke to be over, and for the bartender to give him his drink. But it didn’t seem like he was going to. He looked around the bar and saw an old man with a desperate face, staring into an empty glass. He turned back to the bartender and the biker.

“That guy they called Thrasher,” the bartender said to the biker, “didn’t you used to hang out with him?”

“Oh man,” replied the biker, “that guy was pure evil. They hauled him off and stuck him in the belly.”

“They stabbed him?” Ted asked. The bartender and the biker both turned and shot hard looks at Ted again.

Just then the door burst open loudly, and a large bald man with a long trench coat stepped inside. “Does someone here drive a white BMW?” the man in the trench coat asked.

“Yeah,” Ted replied, “I do.”

“Well,” said the man, “your wife is waiting for you. She asked me to tell you to hurry up.”

Suddenly panic gripped Ted’s entire being. He got up to move and fell from the stool onto the floor. The bartender and the biker laughed at him again. Weakly he fought his way to his feet and managed to make it out the door to his car. Cherie’s body was in the passenger seat. Ted opened the passenger door and pulled the bloody body out, and left it lying in the parking lot and drove away as fast as he could.

He looked around. There were no road signs; he had no idea whatsoever where he was. He began talking frantically to himself again. “She won’t go away,” he said. “She won’t just be dead and gone… she just keeps coming back!  SHE JUST KEEPS COMING BACK!”

As he happened to glance into his rear view mirror he saw that Cherie’s body was in his car again – sitting in the back seat. He screamed and lost control of the vehicle. It flipped several times before landing upright in a ravine.

When Ted regained consciousness he was sitting in his wrecked car, the dead body of his wife beside him; practically on top of him. He struggled to get out. The doors wouldn’t open at first – he had to lean his body back into Cherie’s so that he could get some leverage and kick the door. Once it was opened, he tried to jump out as quickly as he could, although he was not moving very fast.

He fought his way out of the ravine and ran at a slow pace down the road. The sun beat down hard on him, and he felt faint. He fell hard on his face on the asphalt, and he could feel the weight of the body that also fell on top of him. He pushed Cherie’s body off of him, and rose to his knees. He put his head in his hands and began to cry again. After a while of crying, he wiped his eyes, and for the first time took a real good look at his dead wife. He could see where her right leg was broken and twisted around in an unnatural fashion. Her eyes were open in a wild stare, and her mouth was agape. She had a look of sheer horror. Ted cleared his throat and began to speak:

“Cherie,” he said, “Honey, I am so sorry for what I’ve done. I know that doesn’t mean much at this point… but I’m going to do something that you’ve always wanted me to do. It’s something that I always refused to do. I’m going to be responsible.” He cried some more.

“I’m going to turn myself in to the police, honey” Ted said. “I’m going to confess to what I’ve done to you, and I’m going to face the consequences.” He looked at her for a while longer and then said, “I just wanted you to know that.” And with that he got up and walked away.

 

·          

Lieutenant Harper hated his job. He realized of course that the purpose of his job was not for him to love it; but that didn’t make it any easier. He scratched himself and yawned. Nothing much ever happened.

Suddenly a strange man stepped in through the doors. The man looked like he had been beaten up and left to die.

“This is the police station, right?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Lieutenant Harper replied, “it is.” But he couldn’t imagine why it would even matter.

“Well,” said the man, “my name is Ted Marshall. I’m here to confess to a crime.”

Lieutenant Harper regarded the man with disregard and disbelief. “It’s a little late for confessions, don’t you think?” he asked.

“What?” Ted asked, confused. “I don’t think you understand. I killed my wife. I mean… I mean I murdered her. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

Lieutenant Harper’s eyes grew narrow, and he looked the strange man up and down. He decided the guy must have been some kind of stupid, coming here to confess to murder. But he did confess, and the Lieutenant had a job to do.

“Marshall?” Harper asked, “Ted Marshall?”

“Yes,” Ted said.

“Wait here,” the Lieutenant said, and disappeared into another room.

After a few minutes Harper came back into the room and addressed Ted who was still standing.

“OK, have a seat,” Harper said, “They’ll be here to get you momentarily.”

“To get me?” Ted asked, perplexed. “I thought this was the police station here. Don’t you do all of the paperwork and everything here?”

Harper looked up at Ted and smiled. He lived for moments like these.

“You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” he asked. Ted shook his head, acknowledging that he did not know. Harper smiled even wider as he drew out his gun and pointed it at Ted.

“Whoa!” Ted objected. “Wait a minute!” But it was too late. Lieutenant Harper fired his gun, and shot Ted in the chest. Ted flew backwards, and slumped up in the corner. Harper was laughing hysterically as Ted put his hand to his chest and looked at it to see that it was covered in blood.

“You shot me!” Ted cried out.

“One of the only pleasures I have in this place,” Harper replied, “which is more than I can say for you. Where you’re going there won’t be any pleasure at all.”

Ted groped for the door. “Now just hold it,” Harper said. But Ted was already staggering out the door.

“Help!” Ted cried out as loud as he could muster. “Help! I’ve been shot!”

An old man with gray eyes walked past. “Help!” Ted said, pleading with the man, “I’ve been shot! I need to get to a hospital!”

“A hospital?” the man replied with contempt. “Hospitals are for people who still have hope.”

Suddenly Ted felt a heavy hand on his shoulder that spun him around. It was Harper. He had is gun drawn, and pointed squarely at Ted’s face.

“You just calm down there boy, or I’ll put another one in you.” Harper said.

Just then a police car pulled up and a second policeman emerged from the vehicle.

“Is this the guy?” the second policeman asked Harper, gesturing toward Ted.

“Yeah, this is the guy.” Harper answered. “Says he killed his wife.”

“Please!” Ted said to the second policeman. “I’ve been shot! He shot me!”

The second policeman looked back at Harper and smiled. “Been shooting the new guys again, eh Harper?”

“Well, you know,” Harper replied, “we have to have at least a little fun around here.” And both Harper and the second policeman laughed as they ushered Ted to the car.

“Where are you taking me?” Ted demanded.

“Where we take the worst of the worst.” The second policeman answered. “Where we take all murderers. You’re going to the belly.”

With that they pushed Ted into the back of the car, where a familiar dead body sat waiting for him.

When the police car drove off the old man with the gray eyes walked over to where Harper was standing.

“Why are they taking that boy off to the belly?” the old man asked. “He’s bad, but he aint that bad.”

“What are you talking about, old man?” Harper asked. “I thought you were a seer. I thought you knew secret things. Don’t you know that boy killed his wife?”

“No,” said the old man, “he didn’t kill her. He thinks he did, but she aint dead.”

“Well it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Harper pressed. “He thinks he did it so he might as well have done it.”

 

·          

Cherie Marshall was still unconscious when she was discovered laying at the edge of a cliff at the Marin Headlands. Her nose and jaw were broken, but she would live. It didn’t take the police long to discover the broken and bloody body of her husband, Ted Marshall on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

“OK, what do we have here?” Inspector Gary Dunham arrived at the scene a little late. But his partner, Inspector Roy O’Neal would bring him up to speed.

“Well, seems pretty simple,” O’Neal explained. The guy beat his wife’s face into the dashboard of his Beemer over there, and either because he thought she was dead or because he didn’t want to face spousal abuse charges, he pulled her over to the edge to throw her off and try to cover up what he did.”

“So?” Dunham asked, “What happened?”

“Well, guess he was pulling when he should have been pushing.” O’Neal said. “We found his body down at the bottom of the cliff.”

“Does his wife know?” Dunham asked.

“I don’t know,” O’Neal answered. “I don’t think so.”

But Cherie did know. She had regained consciousness just briefly just when Ted went over the edge. Their eyes had met for just a moment, and Ted had reached out to try to grab her. And although her jaw was broken, she somehow mustered the strength to call out his name as he fell to his death.

“Do we have an estimated time of death?” Dunham asked.

“Well, we kind of got lucky with that,” O’Neal responded. “See his watch busted on impact so the time it’s stuck at, I’d say that would be pretty close to the time he died. Assuming his watch was correct of course. 6:15 and eight seconds.”

 

·          

After the death of her husband and her own harrowing experience, Cherie Marshall moved back to San Francisco with her mother. There was no more reason for her to live in Bend Oregon now. She never really even liked it there.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Cherie learned late and hard that her mother (and her mother’s friends who were members of the card club) were right about Ted all along. He was no good. Cherie was sorry that it took him trying to kill her for her to see it. She knew she would not be getting over this one quickly.

Vera Hudson did what she could to help and to comfort her daughter. She had long conversations with her, and she tried very hard not to say, “I told you so.” She also helped to unpack her bags and launder her dirty clothes, among other things. It was very strange to her when she pulled from Cherie’s bag a bloody blanket that bore the label, the Last Stop Hotel.

“What is this?” Vera asked.

“Oh,” said Cherie, “just a souvenir I picked up on my trip.”

 

“…out of the belly of hell I cried…”

Jonah 2:2