Sculpture Of Secrets

The room was cold and barely lit by the flickering fire place. The curtains were closed and Kimberly Kent was getting everything ready for her husband to come home from work. Slippers by the door, ashtray on the table by his armchair in the corner and warming the oven to cook him dinner.

A loud slam of the heavy front door and a sharp gust of wind means he's home. Kimberly emerges from the kitchen with a soft smile but is greeted with an ill-tempered John.

“Bad day at work?”

Kimberly questions as she picks John’s coat up off the floor and hangs it close to the fireplace so it dries from the damp snow. John Kent is the towns local governor after all, the stress of having the responsibility of everyone living here must be enormous. Kimberly only works in the later months of the year as an ice sculptor even though being married to John is a full-time job. She is met with nothing but a groan.

“What would you like for dinner dear?”

She walks into the kitchen to try and piece together a meal from the ingredients in the fridge. Carrots, cheese and milk.

“Kimberly, stop for a minute”

John bellows from the living room.

Kimberly nervously shuffles into the front room but still manages to conjure a smile on her face through her anxious energy.

“This isn’t working, my job takes me away too much and I can’t pretend anymore. I think you should go live with your sister.”

The words John spoke acted like a knife into Kimberly’s heart. She has been with him since she was sixteen. Thirty years of her life wasted. She stays silent and drags herself into her workshop in the basement. Her breath becomes shallow and starts to warm the room up. Her ice sculptor stands tall in the middle of the room. A king on his horse with his sword drawn. Poseidon. She breaks the tip of the icy trident and runs back into the living room.

John doesn’t even look at her. He is just facing towards the fireplace with a cigar in his mouth.

“Well?”

He grumbles.

Kimberly drives the frozen dagger through his back and straight through his heart. He tumbles to the ground. She falls back against the wall as she watches the ice start to melt away from heat of the fireplace. What has she just done? She has just killed the man she gave her life too. It must be the stress of the Christmas market next week getting to her. There is a sculpting competition and the winner gets a grand prize. If she wins, it means she will never have to work again.

One deep breath brings her back to reality. She must act quickly. Kimberly picks up the melting ice and strides downstairs back into her workshop. She slowly shaves off the blood from the ice and crafts it back into her statue. Good as new. It looks like nothing ever changed. Kimberly looks over at the bloody ice and runs it back upstairs next to John’s body. The fireplace is on so it should melt in time.

Wrapping herself up in her best fur coat, she makes the journey to the local corner shop.

“Hey Jerry, got anything that will go well with carrots?”

She buys a chicken to roast and slumbers off into the night. On her way home she tells herself;

“You are going home to your husband who must be oh so hungry from a hard day’s work. You better hurry home to start on dinner.”

Keys jingling, she fumbles to unlock the door. She takes off her coat, hangs it up and starts to holler out.

“Sorry John, I had to run up to Jerry’s to get something to cook the carrots with.”

She turns into the living room and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. So convincing she even believed it herself. She calls the police.

“Please hurry, he’s dead, someone has killed my husband.”

The handler on the other end of the phone asks the address.

“541 Mongrove Road. John Kent’s residence”

Once the call had ended, she leaves the chicken by the living room door and sits waiting, for the detectives to arrive. She knows they won’t take long. He is the governor remember? He’s friends with everyone at the station. A measly five minutes go by and the blue flashing lights pierce through the drawn curtains. She stands up and wipes her sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress.

Two detectives rush into the room. One heads straight over to John laying on the ground and the other escorts Kimberly to another room.

She goes over what happened.

“I was looking through the fridge when John got home to see what I could make up for dinner. We didn’t have much other than carrots so I gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him I was popping down to Jerry’s on the corner to try buy something to cook the carrots up with. I went down and bought a chicken to roast up and walked home. When I walked into the living room, I found him dead on the floor and called you straight away.”

The detective looks over at a uniformed officer who starts to run in the direction of Jerry’s corner shop.

She said that story to every officer that would listen. Always sticking to the same tale. The uniformed officer reappeared ten minutes later and gave a nod to the lead detective that had first questioned her. Once they had taken John’s body away, they asked Kimberly if anything had been missing in the house as they couldn’t figure out what the murder weapon could be. She gave a somber shake of her head and forced tears to fall. Detectives called her sister and she stayed with her that night.

A week later the town’s Christmas fair arrived and the ice sculpting competition began. The winner was the centre piece of the entire market. Kimberly Kent entered her King statue but changed the face to look like John. She left a memorial marker that read

“In memory of loving husband and dedicated Governor John Kent.”

Kimberly Kent won the competition and the statue stood proud in the middle of the town all throughout the winter months.

Kimberly Kent left town with her prize money and was never seen again.