Free Fury From Hell by Rochelle Campbell Page B

throb.  She peered into her vanity mirror and saw her face was scrubbed clean.  The pain made her check.  She lifted her white tank top and saw a faint scratch that was scabbing over.  On her right thigh was a longer scratch; a bit deeper that was smarting.  She looked back up into the mirror.  Jennifer saw panic in her own eyes but there wasn’t a trace of make-up to be seen.  She strode into her bathroom and flicked on all of the lights; still not one iota of make-up anywhere.
    “What’s wrong, Jennifer?”
    She ignored Betty and said, “Let me call you back.  I gotta figure something out.”
    Jennifer clicked off before her friend could complain at her.  She opened her hamper and stared into it not believing what she saw.
    There was nothing in it.
    She knew that it was half-full yesterday morning; she had planned to do the laundry today; her day off.  She walked into the bedroom and pulled open the closet.  Nothing was out of place.  She walked out of her bedroom through the living room and into the kitchen.  She checked the tiny garbage bins that were never full due to her lack of usage of this particular room.  Then, she checked the bin in her combo den/office; all were empty.  Spotless.  Pristine.
    Jennifer walked back to the center of the apartment, the living room, and stood there gazing at nothing in particular.  She crossed one arm across her chest and used the other to rest her chin.  She blinked rapidly as she tried to stem the flow that was threatening to come.  She blinked faster and out-blinked the hot salty stream that threatened.
    Looking at it from the most objective angle, it almost appeared to Jennifer as if the only heterosexual fairy she knew of — Mr. Clean — had come through, did a very thorough deep clean and then had thrown everything away.
    She grabbed her trench coat out of the small vestibule closet and rushed down the stairs in the 3-family house she lived in on St. Mark’s Avenue off of the ever bustling Flatbush Avenue.  She was intent on rummaging through the trash receptacles in the front of her building.
    Jennifer stopped cold when she opened the front door.  The trash cans were by the curb.  It was Friday; garbage pickup was Monday, Wednesday and… today …Friday.
    Back upstairs, Jennifer sat down in a slump on her couch; her trench still on.  Even her stylish futon with the tan fabric, reminiscent of burlap, with the dark brown leather and the snazzy hand placed rhinestones to make the initials of her name twinkling at her on each of the front planks of the couch didn’t bring the usual smile to her face.  She grabbed her favorite embroidered throw flower pillows in gauzy dark brown organza and hugged it close as she stared again into the distance.
    Why would I come home well after two in the morning, take off my clothes, scrub my face, shower then empty all the trash in my apartment including the clothes I wore last night, and the small thing of laundry?  Only to come back in and play the role of Mr. Clean with the magic eraser sponges making everything spotless?
    Looking at it with her cop eyes, she knew the behavior was to cover up something possibly criminal.  But Jennifer had never committed a crime other than jaywalking and defending her childhood self from an unprincipled uncle…
    Refusing to recall the gory details, Jennifer refocused.  She knew certain things about herself.  By nature, she was a neat freak; everything had its place and there was an organizational system for everything including her color-coded rubber bands.  Jennifer pursed her lips and crossed her arms.  Her cop-mind took over.  It shouted, Murder cover-up!   Why else would clothes be thrown away, and all surfaces scrubbed with such efficacy?  She tried to ignore her twitching eyebrow and shoved the memory back of the huge bottle of bleach the younger Jennifer had hauled out of the pantry and wobbled up the stairs with…
    The other tack her cop-mind pulled was that she