Jeremy Hollingsworth’s garage was not attached to his home. In, fact it was pretty far removed and secluded. It was unfinished and barely big enough to store even a small car in. It leaned to the left, buried in a copse of trees about a hundred yards up a rutted trail that ran past his white gabled farmhouse. The garage was isolated and dark inside. Surrounded by at least five acres of farmland, forest, and pastures. But it still had everything I needed to hang a man to death. Which was why I was there to begin with.
When I stepped off the Hollingsworth property and back on to Town Route 8A, Jeremy was swinging from that garage’s rafters by his neck. Strangled to death with a noose I had fashioned from a bright orange, heavy duty extension cord. I was real good at tying knots and hitches. The US Navy had taught me well. I made sure to practice that art often.
Town’s short winter was supposed to be coming to an end, but a thin layer of crusted snow stubbornly lingered. I lit up a new Camel filterless to generate some heat around me. Then shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my leather coat. It was time to start walking back to my apartment over Mai-Mai’s used bookstore. Fuck. I needed to buy a car already. This constant walking in the cold, the wet, and the heat was getting tedious. A waste of time. Aggravating.
