The kitchen noises stopped abruptly and were superseded by a variety of grunts. Vi called, “My hip bothers me, Mister Faffner; it’s going to rain!”
Alex acknowledged this forecast with a non-committal “nyuh” and said archly to himself, It won’t be bothering you for long. He smiled at his ominous little joke and almost regretted that, under the circumstances, he was unable to share it with her.
The kitchen noises resumed. Through the open doors, he caught glimpses of her moving about in the kitchen: tidy, but somewhat lumpy, in a cheap percale housedress, moving laboriously in worn carpet slippers. She was a little taller than he, and she was fat. In a happier day, he would have called her plump. But there was no longer any need for euphemizing. Studying her, she seemed strange to him, in a way that all things lose their familiarity under scrutiny. This was Vi, his wife, upon whom his head and heart had directed his hand to fall in murder, premeditated in the fields, and in the barn, and on his bed, and on the velour couch: unfamiliar to him now after two years of courtship and seven of indifferent marriage.
Vi had been a country schoolteacher when he met and courted her, a plum, just barely within his reach, which he hungered for and plucked. During the courtship, he had not considered whether or not she would make a good farm woman or even if the laughter would last, just as he did not consider now whether or not he would be caught and punished for the crime he was to commit. Vi had turned out to be a good farm woman and more. She managed the house, the chickens, the canning, the milk records, of course; but she could, as well, swing an axe and handle a plow with the best of men. But the laughter and romance had gradually lost its urgency and then, at no particular moment, had disappeared completely among the chores. In quiet moments, Alex remembered them and missed them. It is reasonable to suppose that Vi did, too.
Well, thought Alex, why worry about it? He had gone over these things in his mind often enough. The time for feeling sorry for himself was past. “My mind’s made up,” he mumbled, half-aloud.
How was it to be carried off, this thing? That was what he had to think about now.
Alex swung heavily off the couch, and smoothed his hand over the velour couch where he had been lying. He went into the kitchen, where he took his cossack and cap off the hook behind the door. Avoiding Vi at the sink, he spoke to the empty hook, “Got to go out and see about a few things.”
“All right, Mister Faffner,” said Vi wearily.
When he got outside, Alex smiled at her manner. That was something else that got him: that “Mister Faffner” business. She said it with equal emphasis on each word so that her tone suggested cold formality rather than mockery. Still, he really didn’t know what she meant by it and, at the moment, the insinuation didn’t seem to make much difference. Clear of her, Alex took a deep breath of Vi-less air. He picked a stem of timothy grass, bit into the soft end, and, chewing it meditatively, looked at the sky. He noted the fleecy cumulus clouds, which gainsaid Vi’s hip. It would not rain. He began to walk.
He found it difficult to concentrate on a plan for doing away with Vi and decided to wait until he had passed the distractions of the barnyard. The newly plowed fields stretched out before him and their very expanse seemed to reassure him: surely in the fields he would find the answer. He could postpone the ache of concentration until he reached them.
Alex walked aimlessly at first, following the fresh furrows, and then, as he had often done as a child, stepping from crest to crest of the furrows. He was annoyed that the seed of murder, already firmly implanted in his brain, did not spring full-grown. As a farmer, he should have known better; but he was impatient. He put his head down and began to walk as fast as he could over the land, slipping and stumbling, hoping that a solution would emerge from all the joggling. Little tableaux of murderous acts appeared to him, disconnected and incomplete; distorted guns, knives, poisons and ropes flashed through his mind in a crazy montage. He saw little cinematic snatches of conspiracies, plans, alibis, getaways, and hideouts. These visions frustrated him and made his brain ache. Well, how could he, Alex Faffner, a simple farmer, know about the techniques of murder? Poisons, for instance. What could he know about the subtleties of poisons? It suddenly occurred to him that he was not even sure of the spelling of the word. Were there two o’s in it, or two i’s? This seemed a pressing matter to him, and he was relieved for the excuse it gave him to leave the larger struggle while puzzling over it. He stopped, rested on one knee, and smoked a cigarette. Poison? Poisin? He arranged them in his mind and then wrote them side by side in the earth with his finger. Yes, of course: poison — but, perhaps: poisin.
He dropped the subject, and looked about him. He was now far out in the fields, with a good view of the whole farm: the house and barn in the distance, the rolling fields and pasture land. Then, suddenly, the scheme did spring full-grown, and the icy tingle of a thrill going up his spine and around the base of his skull brought him to his feet.
Of course! This was perfect. The farm. He rubbed his hands with excitement. The closest neighbor was Richard Kulze, almost a mile away and with no clear view of his farm. He studied the terrain hurriedly to make sure of it. Yes, on the farm they were all alone, Vi and himself: no one to see them, no one to pry, no one to suspect. A straightforward method would do, then. The plan came easily and quickly to him now. He’d dig a pit in the plowed field, go down maybe eight feet, just to make sure there’d be no slip-up. He’d get Vi out there on some pretext or other and then, Kee-Whango! Alex liked the sound of this magic word, which seemed the key to his liberation, and he repeated it aloud with relish: “Kee-Whango! Kee-Whango!” That does the trick!
Then he’d fill in the pit again and run a furrow over the ground with the plow, restoring the pattern. He began to laugh at the clever simplicity of it all. And then, afterwards. Well, afterwards, he’d tell folks that Vi had gone to visit her sister in Milwaukee. And, later, he’d admit grudgingly that perhaps she had left him for good. Anyway, there was plenty of time to work all that out and he was I confident now that he could.
He was so pleased with the plan that he permitted himself the wistful speculation as to whether the corn would have a better yield over Vi’s pit. He returned to the house in a happy mood.
At dusk he told Vi that he had to “run over to the Kulze place to see Dick about something.”
“All right, Mister Faffner,” said Vi.
He threw a spade into the box on his pick-up truck and drove by a devious route to a clump of trees on the far end of the fields. He concealed the truck in parking it and, carrying the spade, walked quickly to the place in the fields he had selected that afternoon. He spat on his hands and began to dig competently.
The digging went quickly, more quickly than Alex had thought it would. The earth was easy to handle and he seemed to have a strength he had not counted on. Everything was going his way. He sang as he worked, songs that were popular when he first met Vi. He might have finished the digging that night, but decided that he could afford the luxury of waiting one more day. Perhaps it was wiser to wait, anyway, he thought, for there was more than digging to be done and Vi was, after all, a strong, big woman. He would come, then, on the next night to finish the pit. And to finish the whole business, with a Kee-Whango.
Alex crawled out of the hole and looked down into it. He realized for the first time that what he had been digging was actually a grave. The thought of this shocked him momentarily and he wavered. Then, realizing that what he had wanted so badly was within his grasp, he turned away from the pit, laughing at his sentimentality of a moment ago. You don’t think about those things, anyway, he told himself, just as you don’t think about getting caught. You plan it all, if you’re smart, so that you don’t get caught, but you don’t think about it.