CaptainNapalm

Here's the first chapter of my murder mystery novel. There's some graphic language (even though the really juicy ones have been bl**ped out). Read at your own risk. Critiques, please!

Thanks!

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Amy's internal clock woke her predictably at six-o'clock. People assumed she was a morning person, because she could wake up and be immediately alert. Amy hated mornings. Life should not start before double-digits. Regardless of what her body wanted, her mind told her to get up. Old habits die hard, I guess, she thought.

She rolled to her left and saw her mattress companion, Dale, laying with his back to her in quiet slumber. You're no morning person either. Put on a good show of it for the twits at the office, though. She chuckled quietly to herself. Dale called it his "game face." Amy called it "corporate bulls**t," but only out of earshot, since Dale was, technically, her boss at ChemiCo.

Amy crawled lithely off of her side of the bed and stretched her arms toward the ceiling. Her slim figure threatened to slither out of her makeshift pajamas; Dale's t-shirt and boxer shorts fit far too loosely on her athletic figure. She only wore them by request, though she was sure it was a twisted male perversion that she did not attempt to fathom.

Amy glided out into the expansive living room. The bare dawn slinked in between the long, vertical blinds, illuminating Dales monotonic decorating style in slivers. Pervaded by gray plastic and chrome, the apartment screamed "middle-aged divorcee." Only one feature in the entire place, the floor, was actually made from real wood. She looked in sardonic awe of the overly-compensatory stereo system; the sleek stack of electrical components, complete with five-foot-tall speakers, had cost more than Amy's used Honda.

As Dale's Personal Assistant, Amy was privy to both his personal and financial information, which for Dale were largely one-in-the-same. He figures I'll be impressed by his bottom line. Dale was high enough up in ChemiCo, a multi-billion-dollar chemical company, to be loaded, but not high enough to have really earned it. Even after the obligatory deductions had been siphoned from his income and into the bank accounts of ex-wives One and Two, he still had plenty of disposable income. He just blows it like he's on permanent spring break, she thought, shaking her head.

In front of the door to the hall closet sat a five-gallon plastic carboy of Optimo Spring Water. She sighed at the sight of the squat bluish bottle blocking her way. Typical, she thought dryly. Dale had the infuriating habit of leaving the heavy bottles there intentionally, knowing she kept most of her belongings in that closet. When she wanted to get something of hers, Dale would deign to prove his stalwart manliness by saving the damsel in distress from the big, mean bottle.

Determined to steal his macho satisfaction, Amy crouched down and wrapped the container in her slender arms. "I'm in better shape than you are, tubby," she muttered of her middle-aged boyfriend as she hoisted the weighty bottle from the floor. Damn, this thing is heavy, she complained in the silence of her own mind, rather than risk waking Dale and suffering his bruised machismo.

She plopped the bottle down far enough away from the door to prove her fitness to nobody but herself. Who pays six-bucks-a-gallon for water? She glared at the bottle, as though its very existence were an insult. It's f*****g water! What good is pure 'gourmet' water if you're only using to choke down bad Chinese takeout every other night. Next time, shell out for a treadmill instead of a sixty-inch plasma screen.

Between Dale's blood pressure medicine, his cholesterol medicine, and that little blue pill he never admitted to taking, Amy surmised that his continued breathing counted as a certified miracle. Even the fraternity of vitamins he forced down daily, "alpha"-this and "omega"-that, administered little by way of obvious healthful benefits. Do a damn sit-up once in a while.

Amy swung open the closet door and extracted a green gym bag, from which she liberated a Spandex exercise outfit. Squeezing into the tight-fitting garments, she unfurled herself, face-down, onto the pristine hardwood. Consuming a deep, deliberate breath, she began robotically pumping-out military-style push-ups in the breaking light of dawn. I really hate mornings.

* * *

Amy lathered her slim body in pure French Castile, shrouded in the dense mist born of hot water caressing cold air. The shower stall was bigger than her apartment’s bathroom. This is so nice.

One of the benefits of getting carnal with wealthy executives, she surmised, was the bathrooms. Dale’s facilities, decked out in polished grey-white marble, imported Italian tile and gold-plated fixtures, were the living definition of "the whole nine yards." She knew that this particular renovation would have paid her rent for nearly a year.

She knew because she was the one who filed the paperwork, dealt with the contractor and signed the final bill in Dale's stead. He’s the perfect boss in that respect. Dale was content to wile away his nine-hours-a-day either lounging in eternal board meetings or inflicting his seminar-learned management style on all his peons. Amy, he left blissfully alone to take care of his more menial tasks.

Amy loved the freedom, but could have done without the requisite leg-spreading that such liberty cost. The dual shower heads are nice, though, she thought as she plunged her face greedily into the steamy streams of water.

Rinsed clean, she stepped out of the cloud and onto the plush gray bath mat. She looked at her naked self in the heated fog-free mirror and shook her head at the view. Look at you. Amy couldn't help but lament the boring person that scowled back at her from the silvered glass. Completely ignorable. Average height. Boring mousy hair. S**t brown eyes. Physically, she was planted dead-center between "breaking hearts" and "breaking mirrors," in a lonely place called Forgettable. Even her sculpted musculature looked out-of-place under a face so plain. You’re drop-dead average, she accused.

She threw one last rueful look at the mirror before drying off. Being boring makes me good at what I do, she convinced herself as she wrapped her protean physique in fine Eqyptian cotton and walked into Dale’s bedroom.

The clock on the nightstand glared "6:42" in angry red numbers. Pushing seven and still asleep? She scoffed. Not like you did anything last night to earn a sleep-in. Even Dale's Sildenafil-enhanced lovemaking was nothing to write home about. Would a little foreplay kill you, you selfish prick?

She sighed, reconstructing her role of demure girlfirend. "Dale?" she called out softly, "Sweetie?" Ugh! "You're gonna be late if you don't get up soon."

Dale's lay undeterred in his slumber. She crawled gingerly onto the satin bedspread and slinked toward her sleeping boyfriend. "Hey," she whispered in his ear. No response came.

Her hair stood on end. Oh, f**k. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him roughly. "Dale!" she barked. His skin was cold. "Oh, f**k."

She snaked her hand around his trachea, hoping to locate the rhythmic throb of his carotid. Nothing moved. Amy jumped off the bed and turned on the lamp by the bed. The greenish palor of Dale's face meant he had been dead for some time.

* * *

Amy paced back-and-forth at the foot of the California king-sized bed that cradled her ex-boyfriend's body.

"What now?" she asked. Amy stopped and took a breath. Keep it together, Amy.

Her mind ran with a programmed itinerary of things to do, starting with getting dressed. As she pulled on her blue off-the-rack business suit, she considered her options. Do I just bail out? No. Too suspicious. Everyone knows I'm here. She shot a sideways glance at the bed. Thanks, Dale. The late-executive had been none too careful about keeping their relationship clandestine. Their fling was the hottest water-cooler talk among the significant catty-b***h population at the office. No, I have to be here for the discovery, which means this place has to be clean.

Fully dressed, Amy scoured the vast apartment, searching for anything out of place, anything that could put suspicion on her. Other than my being here with a dead guy? she thought sarcastically. I didn't kill him, so I shouldn't have to make up too much for the cops. She stopped and sighed, hands on her hips. Everyone knows I’m here, so my prints should be everywhere. No need to wipe anything down. She checked her pockets. All the good stuff is at home. Then, she spotted her gym bag. All but that, she amended, reaching into the green duffel and extracting a blocky 9MM semiautomatic pistol. Can’t dump you. Better plant you.

She jogged into the bedroom and peeled back the blanket. Gently rolling over the corpse of her former boyfriend, she systematically scanned his body for anything out of the ordinary. No stab wounds. No bullet holes. Nothing obvious. Maybe it was an accident. After all, the man was a walking prescription. She thought for a minute. Maybe. Her gut kicked in. No. Too convenient. Someone had a hand in this.

She looked into his puffy face at his peacefully closed eyes. Salt-and-pepper gray hair lay plastered against his head. His left cheek bore patchy purple splotches. Bruising? No, pooled blood. He died where he laid, poor bastard. Ironically, when he was alive, she could barely stomach him. In death, she finally felt something for him, even though it was just pity. You didn't deserve this. You were just a means to an end. Just not the end that you thought. There are bigger a**holes out there who deserve this.

Amy lifted a pair of socks from the top drawer and donned them like mittens. Drawing the magazine out of the gun, she thoroughly wiped away her prints from everything, inside and out. With the gun in her stocking hands, she popped each bullet out of the magazine onto the gray silk bedspread. She moved Dale’s hands as though he were a macabre marionette, pressing his right thumb onto each round before clicking them back into the magazine. She pushed his dead fingers onto the gun in several different places before returning the magazine to its home inside the grip.

Rolling him back into his original position, Amy covered his body with the blanket and tucked gun away in the top dresser drawer. That serial is clean, so it shouldn't pop with anything. Thanks to the agency. Too bad that's my only clean piece, she thought. I'll have to hit up Harris when this blows over.

She scanned the room one last time. That should do it.

She checked the clock. After seven. I gotta call now.

Amy snatched the cordless phone from the nightstand, and then paused for a moment of thought. Greiving girlfriend? No, too far over the top. Everyone thinks I’m the heartless gold-digging bitch. She stretched the tension out of her neck as she planned her mood. Not too broken up. Or too nonchalant. Upset, but not inconsolable. Just enough sympathy for a fellow dead human being that you were banging. Okay... She punched the “talk” button and three digits, waiting for the response.

The operator picked up immediately. "911, this is Sandra, what's your emergency?"

With a well-rehearsed quaver of desperation in her voice, Amy replied, "Umm, m-my n-name is Georgia...I think... I think my boyfriend is dead."

__________________
Ted
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Mathematics are well and good but nature keeps dragging us around by the nose. ~Albert Einstein

A-L

That was good so far. I don't think I saw anything wrong with it, and if there was it didn't jump out at me. Good job on this.