Walking the Gallows ✔️

Chapter 5

He was struck speechless by the words Earl had uttered. Andy's hands almost dropped the hose he was holding to water his plants.

"She had it coming." his eyes went wide as he heard his neighbor repeat the words he had only heard moments before. The second girl found dead had only been found a few hours beforehand. When he came outside to water the mango tree and flowers, Earl had called out to him. Guilt washed over him like a damn giving way to a flood.

"How can you say something like that?" Andy exclaimed while staring at the top of the fence. The faceless voice answered.

"Rumor has it she was havin' an affair with a known man in town. I don't know who he is, but that lil' miss shouldna be comin' in between a man in his wife!" Andy knew the second he heard Earl say those words that something wasn't quite right.

"Earl..." A part of him didn't want to acknowledge the fact that he had let something slip that Andy probably should not have known. Even though he hesitated at first, the words came through anyways.

"Earl, how do you know who she was? They haven't even identified her yet." His eyes were pasted to the top of the fence expecting that at any moment, Earl's unseen face would be revealed for the first time. He looked dead straight ahead to the tall wooden planks that stood between his neighbor's house and his own.

The fence stayed quiet. Not another sound was made from that house for the rest of the day. It was so quiet, Andy had assumed that he wasn't even there anymore. All while his brain was ticking, he began to immerse himself once again into his art. He had lost time between going from his backyard to his art room.

He groaned when he realized that he had left his brushes in a jar of water that had long gone cold. Many of the bristles had bent irreparably. Being a low budget artist, he pulled out the hairs that were damaged and dried the rest of the brush as best he could. It didn't bother him too much as after all, he was laying the imperfections on the kin of the woman he had started painting only a few days before. Imperfect painting could lead to imperfect portraits, he supposed.

Before all of that, he added the definition the half-naked woman needed. The shading of her cheekbones, the shine of her bare thigh or the shadow of her body; it was all added. Then came the freckles and scars. He didn't often make his portraits have scars, but this one needed it. Leaving her perfectly shaped and rounded left him feeling more naked than she was. He added small freckles and spots over her body. There weren't many and they were very small, but it brought the woman to life.

Andy stopped short just before he added the final spot to her right shoulder. He knew it belonged there and added it anyways. It lay facing forward pointing in the direction that her eyes looked; back into the soul of the artist.

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Days had passed since he had last spoken to Earl. Every time he had walked outside, the opposite side of the fence was quieter than ever. Still, the flowers were watered and the trees were tended to as usual. The mango tree seemed a lot shorter than usual. Upon further inspection, he realized that the soil had in fact slightly lowered where the tree was placed.

Maybe the summer had the ground dry and crumble underneath, he thought. Still, he was in awe of the sudden difference in height, despite it being only a small change. The thought of Earl possibly digging into his own backyard and somehow shifting the dirt crossed his mind. He came to the conclusion that he should not be jumping to blame. He knew almost nothing about landscaping and the possibility of his garden being affected by something his neighbors did was probably impossible. Not the mention that Earl hadn't been outside in days, at least from what Andy had heard.

All the water could be making the soil less sturdy, he thought. With that, he cut down the watering by almost half.

Andy went back into the house to clean the mess from Vin's drunken episode. Only broken glass lay infused in the carpet. He did his best to vacuum the shards out. The smell of alcohol was constant, but the vomit scent hadn't been present. When the vacuum had been turned off, the sound of the radio caught his attention. He hadn't remembered turning it on.