One Way Love

"Shit," I said. "I probably shouldn't have called YOU! Mom always liked me better. Maybe you're jealous."

"Ha ha ha, asshole," he said. He looked at my car and shook his head. He walked completely around the car. "There isn't a scratch on it. What makes you think someone tampered with it?" I just looked at him.

He picked up his phone and called someone named Bert. He told Bert to get his ass over here and gave him the address. We went into a diner and got breakfast while we waited.

About a half-hour later an older pick up pulled into the lot. Ray and I went out to the truck. Once I saw the truck and now high it was raised off of the ground, I had an image of Bert in mind.

I pictured Yosemite Sam, complete with huge handlebar mustache. Boy was I wrong.

Bert was a SHE. And boy, what a She. Bert, short for Roberta was four feet eleven inches of red hair, long legs, and huge boobs for her size.

Ray pointed at my car, and she walked over to it. Walked is probably not a strong enough term for what she did. When she got to the car, she walked a complete circle around it.

"He thinks..." began Ray. Bert quickly put up a tiny hand to silence him.

"I do th' thankin' around here," she said. Her obvious Southern accent was countered by the high pitch and squeakiness of her voice.

"There's nothin' wrong with this car," she proclaimed. "Ceptin' th ownah is probly one a them Gothical types. Ever thang on this car is black. It's probly just outta gas." She pronounced gas with two syllables so it sounded like "gayass."

While listening to her, I was looking at what she probably called her "ayass," and falling in love with her. Everything she said made me think I could smell the magnolias in bloom.

"Bert, this is my brother, Terry," said Ray, sharply. "This is his car. And he thinks his brake lines have been cut."

She looked over and did a slow circle around me the same way she'd done the car.

"Do ya' live in this here parkin' lot?" she asked.

"Nope, ah don't," I said. Without realizing it, I was I starting to talk like her. She raised one eyebrow, and my brother started laughing.

I opened the door and started the engine. She tried the brakes and noticed then that there was no pressure to the brakes.

"How the hell did you get it here safely?" she asked. I noticed that when she was being professional, her accent dropped off somewhat. "That is, assumin' a course, that your brakes really was tampah'd with."

"Drove it slow, used the incline to bleed off the little bit of momentum that I had, and did a big circle with my foot off the gas. When I got slow enough I just jerked the wheels into a sharp turn, and as soon as it stalled I threw it in park," I said.

"Are ya sure that somethin' didn't just come loose?" she asked. "Who did your brakes? It wasn't one a them quickie places was it?"

"I did my brakes," I said. "They were fine."

"Let's jack it up and take a look," she huffed. "Maybe ya missed something. I'm a certified automotive technician. I work with the po' leese ta investigate damage ta cars and a course them E' leegal modifications."

I did get a bit nervous since my off-road X-pipe wasn't technically legal in Michigan, but I wanted to see what she thought about my brakes. So I got my jack out and raised the front of the car. We took off the driver's side front wheel. Then we put a jack stand that she had in the truck, in the jacking point on the frame.

"Holy Shit," she said. "Way oversized Brembo six piston calipers, slotted and cross drilled rotors and braided stainless steel brake lines. None a this is stock. And looked there ... your brake lines do appear to have been cut. Can ya see this? Look at that it's a straight, sharp break. When the stainless ones do go, which almost never happens, they tend to either fray along the area from rubbing on sumthin' or they get pulled apart, which makes them all uneven. Are you a mechanic or sumthin?" she asked. I was staring into her clear blue eyes as she looked back at me.

"Or something!" I said.

"He's an automotive engineer," supplied Ray.

"Ohh!" said Bert, staring up at me. "Why'nt ya tell me that frum the start?"

Ray pushed his way between us then.

"Alright Terry, this is now an official investigation," he said. "I'm going to bring both of them in for questioning.

"That's not a good idea," I said. He just looked at me.

"I'm the trained police officer here," he said. "If we let them know that we suspect them of trying to kill you, they won't try it again."

"But if we let them think they succeeded, not only will they not try again; we might get them to admit to it," I said. "Your way, they'll just say that they had nothing to do with it, and it'll be my word against theirs. And since I'm currently trying to divorce her and blame him for the divorce, it'll seem like I'm trying to pin it on them."

"What do you have in mind?" he asked.

The next few hours were a flurry of activity. We barely managed to pull it off. If Ray hadn't been very highly ranked in our small town's police force, we might not have been able to.

Bert helped a lot too. We got on the computer and found a wrecked Mustang that had recently been totaled. We got a crew to quickly spray paint the red wreck black, to match my car. And dropped it in the grass near the freeway's circular on ramp. Although it was supposed to appear that the brakes hadn't worked we still had to scuff up the grass and weeds near the wreck. We did that by running Bert's truck roughly through the foliage several times and skidding around directly behind the wreck.

Just in case Britney demanded to see a body, we had the body of a homeless guy who had recently been found burned to death. He and two other men had been squatting in a shack done near the river and had brought a fifty gallon drum inside of the shack to attempt to cook on. Their cooking fire had set the shack aflame during the middle of the night; two of them had gotten out with minor burns. The third man who may have been drunk or in poor health had regrettably burned to death.

He would serve as my stand in. In exchange for his posthumous service, I'd arrange for him to be buried.

I have a new respect for morgue workers. There was no way that I could have managed to put my wedding ring and watch on that badly charred corpse. It was disgusting and smelled awful. It was all I could do not to hurl the contents of my stomach when I saw it.

Both Bert and Ray laughed at me when they saw my face. We returned to the wreck then and applied a few final touches. I was not willing to deface my car, but we did get, at my expense, yellowish fog light lenses to make the wreck look like my car. I was also not willing to let Bert take the calipers off of my car, but I had an idea about that.

I was sure that Britney couldn't tell my Brembo calipers from any others, so we painted the calipers on the wreck black and got two officers to fake a conversation for Britney's benefit. I was sure it would work. We also doused the wreck liberally with starter fluid. Just before Britney arrived, we would light wreck and let it get really hot and then douse the flames when Britney arrived.

As soon as everything was ready, Ray left to make another stop. He went to my job and explained what was going on to my boss. The two of them announced my death to the staff at the company. It's interesting to see how the people you know and work with react to news like that.

Most of my colleagues were saddened by the news. A few of them began to speculate who would get my job. I wished I could have been there to see it. Ray told me later that he was really sure that Christina had nothing to do with my death, unless she was the best actress on the planet.

They had to call the medical staff to tend to her. He also noticed that her heart rate was literally off of the charts, and she had to be medicated and sent home. Even then the counselors they had assigned to help everyone through their grief were unable to console her.

Ray asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell him. There was no time left to talk though.

While Ray went to break the news to Britney. I sat in Bert's truck, wearing a disguise, just in case she saw me. My disguise was ludicrous. I had a sun visor with long hair attached to it covering my short brown hair. I wore big sunglasses, and Bert had used stage glue to attach long side burns and a fake beard to my face.

When Ray and Britney arrived, I saw a real shock on Britney's face. Ray wasn't as easily convinced as I was. He was sure that Britney had known before he mentioned it that I had been in an accident. He told me that in his opinion, the only thing that shocked her was that I had been killed. His opinion was that Britney had hired someone to hurt me, not to kill me, but that it had gone wrong.

This was where two other parts of my plan came into play. The first was that the announcement at my job had a purpose. Since the steroid king had a brother who worked in engineering with me, he would obviously have heard about my death. Although we wouldn't be able to gauge his reaction as we had Britney's, he would surely try to contact her or see her.

The second thing was that while Britney stood there in tears staring at what was left of my smoking car. The tech guys that my PI had hired would be able to sweep the house and find out why my surveillance gear wasn't working. If they couldn't determine the reason behind the failure, they would have to install cameras that would function.

Ray stayed with Britney for a while. From what we were told Britney was taken to the hospital after she fainted again. Bert thought the idea of Britney's fainting was hilarious.

"That's what ya git fer marryin' one a them prissy little women," she chuckled.

"Uh, Bert," I said. "Britney, is about five foot six. You're what, four ten maybe?"

"I'm taller than that," she hissed. "I'm five foot negative one, and I'm not flat chested like your Britney is. She may be taller than I am, but she's built like a boy."

I sat down and started laughing. "Bert, everyone is built like a boy next to you," I laughed.

Bert and I got something to eat and waited for Ray to come back. When he returned, he was all smiles.

"I think it's a tie," he said. I looked at him in confusion.

"I was trying to figure out which one of your women faints the fastest," he said.

"They're the swoon sisters," laughed Bert.

"Ha ha ha. The two of you should be on the comedy network," I said. "Ray you can take me back to the house. I need a shower and a snooze."

"You can't go back to the house, Terry," he laughed. "You're dead remember?"

"But, Britney is in the hospital," I said. "She'll never know I was there."

"Yeah, but her lover is probably watching the place to see when she returns," he said. "I'm gonna stash you at a safe house ... wait a minute, I just got a better idea."

Bert and I followed Ray in her truck. I was still trying to find out why Bert was still hanging around us, but I guess she pretty much did as she pleased.

Ray drove slowly and made a lot of sharp turns as if he didn't know where he was going. We caught up to him and noticed he was looking down.

"GPS," spat Bert. "He don't know where we're goin' neither."

Finally, we pulled up in front of a nice condo complex. "We're going to the fourth floor," said Ray. We got into an elevator and took it up.

We walked down a carpeted hallway and Ray stopped in front of an apartment. It sounded as if there was someone sobbing inside of it.

He knocked on the door, but no one answered. "Shit, we need to be quiet about this," he said.

"Lemme handle this," said Bert. "Ah'm a perfessional." She walked quietly over to the door, and Ray stepped aside. Bert extended her hand with her pinky stuck outwards at an angle. She took a deep breath and then kicked the door several times as hard as she could.

"Open this fukkin' door right God damned now, ya whiny bitch," she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The door was yanked open and an angry Christina confronted Bert, with fire in her eyes. "Oh look," she said. "I thought I heard a mouse squeaking out here. But it's the dwarf with the double D chest and the single D brain."

"Told ya she was jealous of mah titties," said Bert. "They're double Fs, if you really want to know."

"No one cares about your balloon boobies, you Hobbit," said Christina. "Have you forgotten your way back to the Shire? I'm sure Frodo misses you."

"I've got your Frodo right here," said Bert. "And I'm..."

"Ladies!" Interrupted Ray.

"She ain't no Lady," quipped Bert.

"Right back at cha, Golem," said Christina.

"Can we come in?" Interrupted Ray.

"You two can," said Christina. Ray and I walked in. It was all I could do not to laugh. When Bert followed me inside Christina huffed.

"No wonder True Blood is off the air," she spat. "It was a bunch of bullshit. I thought you vampires couldn't come inside a person's house without being invited in?" She looked at Bert as she said it.

"Grrr, I got your vampire, right here," said Bert.

"Christina, this is official police business," said Ray. "We need to use your apartment."

"For what!" asked Christina.

"We need to hide an important witness here," said Ray.

"Aren't you supposed to be finding out who killed my ... I mean Terry," she said.

"That's really not important right now," said Ray. "Will you help us?"

"No," said Christina. "Until you find..."

"Christi, you have to..." I began. Her head snapped around as soon as I spoke. She looked at me and got weak in the knees. She reached for me and yanked my fake beard off.

"You asshole," she screeched, wrapping her arms around me. "I thought you were ... I was so..." She turned to Ray.

"He can stay!" she said, quickly.

"Ah'm not sure this is a good idea," said Bert. "It's filthy in here. What if he gets sick. I've got plenty of room, and I am a deputized consultant to the police department, so he..."

"Ray, get out of here and take this troll with you," said Christina. She pushed Ray and Bert out onto the hallway and closed the door after them.

Christina literally threw herself at me. She wrapped herself around me and couldn't stop laughing. It felt weird.

"I'm so glad you're not dead," she gushed. That evening all we did was sat on her sofa with her hugging me. After a while, it began to feel weird. I wasn't used to having women other than Britney hugging me or holding me. I knew I needed to get over that. So I just let Christina do what she needed to do.

We spent a couple of days like that. Just vegging together. We watched movies, and Christina went it and got food for us. I missed working on my car, but I knew that it would be a while before I saw either of my Mustangs again. The Black one was in the police garage. Bert was supposedly going over every detail of it to make sure it was safe.

The 67 was still in a million pieces in my garage. And speaking of a million pieces, my heart was shattered into about that many. I was having a lot of trouble digesting the fact that Britney had been a part of planning my death.

The only time I was alone for more than a few moments was when Christina decided that she just had to go to my funeral. It wasn't really a funeral; it was a closed casket cremation ceremony.

Christina came back with a video the police had taken of the ceremony. I saw that Britney's parents; my in laws, Mr. and Mrs. Spores were there. They seemed to be really broken up by my death. I would have to make it up to them when this was all over.

The biggest shock to me though was Britney herself. Britney, there's no other way to say it, is beautiful. Or at least, she was. Britney looked like hell at the funeral. Her eyes couldn't focus on anything, and her head lolled from side to side. Ray and another officer had to walk her to her seat. It took me a while to see it, but then I noticed that she was heavily sedated. Britney was barely conscious. Seeing that made me very sad.

"I didn't even have the heart to kick her while she's this down," said Christina. "The bitch is so depressed that they have her on suicide watch."

I was trying so hard to keep my face straight. I was glad that Christina was so locked in her description of the events that she wasn't really looking at me.

All I could think about was that Britney needed me. I wanted to rush to the hospital where she was and comfort her. Then I remembered that the reason that Britney was in the hospital was probably because she felt guilty about trying to have me killed.

Maybe it was worse than that. Maybe she just felt bad because she knew that she had failed.

"Two buckets was there too," she said.

"Who the hell is two buckets?" I asked.

"Your little playmate from the other day," she said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. "One of the cops told me that they called her two buckets because a couple of years ago, she wore a bikini to the police picnic. They held it on the beach that year. Anyway, she was running around in a bikini and broke her bra. She ended up using two of those buckets that come with a kid's sandbox kit and some string. From what they tell me, she filled those buckets up, too. She wore a nice black dress to your funeral. It was funny. She's so short and her tits are so big that she just looked fat in the dress."

As she spoke Christina was shedding clothes. A jacket was discarded by the door. She unbuttoned her blouse while she walked towards me. She paused just long enough to shinny out of her long tapered skirt and then plopped herself down on my lap in only a tiny pair of panties and a matching skimpy bra.

One arm snaked its self around my neck, and she pulled our faces together. We looked into each other's eyes.

"This is going to happen," she said.

"Christi, I don't want to mess things between us up," I said. "You're too important in my life for that."

"Uh huh," she said. "Tell that to your dick. It's hard as a rock and slowly boring its way between my ass cheeks. You want me."

Before I could answer her, someone knocked on the door. Christina picked her clothes up from the floor and ran into her room. I went to the door and looked through the peephole. I didn't see anyone. "Who's there?" I asked.

"It's the police, God dammit," someone yelled.

I opened the door to find Bert there in the black dress that Christina had told me about.

Bert sashayed inside the apartment through the open door. She wiped a finger across the coffee table and looked at the finger.

Christina came out of her bedroom wearing a long robe. "Oh shit," she said. "The trick or treaters are here already. I didn't even know it was Halloween."

"You had to know," said Bert. "Why else would you have covered everything around here in dust if you weren't shooting for that haunted house look? Plus, you put on your skeleton costume under that robe."

"Ha ha ha, two buckets. That's really funny," said Christina.

"Ha ha right back atcha, Christina Angularis," spat Bert. Christina and I looked at her wondering what the hell she was talking about.

"My boobs are big enough to fill two buckets," said Bert. "But real women have curves and all you have is lines. You've got those pointy little tities that men hate."

"So what exactly are you doing here?" spat Christina.

"I started thinking about the fact that nothing has happened in the case since Terry has been here with you," said Bert. "Maybe you're the perp. If so, having him living here with you isn't really very safe."

"And maybe his crazy assed wife and her cohorts haven't been able to do anything because she's under constant scrutiny," said Britney.

"That actually could be true," said Bert. "Where do I sleep?"