We Repossessed Something we Shouldn't Have

"Poor guy seems almost happy to be rid of it."

Jack looked at the man framed in the window, turning away with some effort.

"He probably is," Jack said as we climbed into the cab of the truck.

He stood at the window as we pulled away, just silently watching us drive up the road with his missing wife's Toyota Corolla.

When the order came in today, I expected it would be one of the bad ones. Given the circumstances, the bank had extended his payments for as long as possible, but the time had finally come to call in their debt. I've been a repossession specialist, a repo man, for about three years now. I work for a private outfit, Larken Brothers, out of Atlanta, Georgia. In a city that size, you see a lot of unpaid car notes, so there's always business for a man in my line of work. I've seen a lot in three years. I've had people attack my vehicle, pull guns on me, and try to drive cars off my truck after I've chained them in.

This repossession, though, was definitely the most shocking thing I've ever seen.

David Gurshly had become something of a local celebrity after the disappearance of his wife, Evelynn. David was a heart doctor whose practice was frequented by many. He was touted as a miracle worker and had performed many complicated procedures that his colleagues refused to take on. He was well respected in the community and well-liked by his patients.

So when his wife had disappeared, David had not been at the top of their suspect list.

We pulled out of the gated community and onto the main road. As the traffic cruised, I caught myself looking at the car in the rearview mirror as Jack made his way for the lot. It was pristine, only having a few dings from the various adventures Mrs. Gurshly had taken it on. It was a wonder the wheels were still on it, given Evelynn's track record.

If David Gurshly was famous, Evelynn Gurshly was infamous. Evelynn was a staple in Atlanta's social scene. She was out every weekend, carousing, drinking, and calling the local hospitals looking for David. She had been in several tabloids, the papers bemoaning that such a man as David had such an embarrassing wife as her. David was no angel, of course. Their fights had been heated, her breakdowns were epic, and if I was David Gurshly, I think I'd have been relieved when she just went missing.

Looking in the rearview mirror as Jack drove, I did a double take and almost told him to pull over.

I looked at the mirror again and shook my head as I saw nothing was there.

I had been sure that I could see someone in the driver's seat, a woman with long blonde hair as if the ghost of Evelynn Gurshly were taking it for one last spin.

"You okay, kid?" Jack asked, and I nodded as I looked out the window instead.

I guess everyone was hoping to see Evelynn Gurshly these days.

David had reported her missing a few days after she'd left in her green Corolla, but she hadn't been officially classified as a missing person until they found her car by the side of the road. That had been about a month ago, and everyone was keeping an eye out for her, though most assumed she was out on one of her typical benders. Evelynn did these sorts of things, after all, and it was expected that she would show up again after her credit cards stopped working.

We pulled into the lot, and the gate chugged shut behind us. I got out and helped Jack unload the car. The tires bounced a little as they hit the ground, and I could have sworn that something bumped in the trunk. It didn't sound like the usual bump of a spare tire banging around, that semimetal thunk of the rubber circle coming loose. It made me want to open it so I could investigate, but that was a big no-no. We were paid to bring the cars to the lot, not inspect them. That was a different department, and the boss didn't like it if the jumpsuits, as they called us, went rifling through the cars in the impound.

Besides, we had more work to do.

As we rode to the next stop, I couldn't help thinking about the car and the missing lady who had once driven around in it.

Evelyn Gurshly hadn't been officially missing till after her car had been found. It wasn't uncommon for Evelynn to just go off for days at a time, but she always sobered up and called her husband for money so she could get home. She had been missing a few years ago, back when I was in high school, and I only remember it because the football team, of which I was a member, had gone to help look for her. We had canvassed the area around their house, the nearby bar she often drank at, and the surrounding woods where her car had been found. Her husband had come with us, and I had talked with him a few times as we canvassed. I had liked David, he was easy to talk to, and you could tell that, despite how his wife acted sometimes, he loved her too.

When she called him from South Florida after a week of being missing, he had wired her money for a plane ticket, and the search was called off.

So when she had been reported missing this time, no one really expected much of it. She would call soon, maybe from Jamaica or New York, and he would send her money so she could come home again. It was easy to roll your eyes at the pair, but I always kind of felt sorry for him. Doctor Gurshly did more pro bono work than any other surgeon in the state, and he was one of the most respected heart surgeons in his field. Were it not for his wife, he would have nothing but his glowing reputation, but people love to see someone fall. They always harked on the idea that he couldn't control his wife and her drinking problem. He had long ago stopped bringing her to large functions, but that hardly stopped her from showing up and making a scene.

As we hooked the car to the ramp, the owner already shouting from the porch about getting his lawyer, I wondered why he didn't just divorce her if she was such an embarrassment.

I supposed maybe he didn't want her to drink up the half of his money that she took, but that was only a guess.

When we got back, Lisa was waiting for us on the curb. Lisa was our receptionist, a cute little dark-haired girl of the Latin persuasion. She could be fiery, she could be fiesty, but the look she wore now led me to believe that she was about to turn pleading. Lisa was a good worker but didn't like going back into the impound area if she could help. The keys she was holding in her left hand made me think she was probably about to ask Jack or me to get a car for her, and I rolled my window down and told her to toss them in.

She smiled, "You're a peach. It's the red Fiesta in spot fifty-five. If you could bring it up while I do the paperwork, I'll buy you lunch sometime."

I caught the keys and told her it was a date as Jack and I rumbled into the impound.

"You know when she says lunch, that's all she's talking about, right?" Jack asked as the gate closed behind us.

I snorted, "You don't know that. Maybe that's just how it starts."

He rolled his eyes, "Whatever, Casanova. Go make sure everything's ready for this puppy to roll off."

I climbed out and went around to the back, checking the leads and ensuring everything was ready for a smooth touchdown. As I watched the truck begin to lower the back, a loud and unpleasant process, my eyes strayed to the Green Corrolla we had parked earlier. It looked kind of forlorn just sitting there, that faithful engine that had taken Mrs. Gurshly to so many watering holes and returned her safely home again.

As I looked at it, something was dripping from the back of it. It was slowly dripping onto the sand and grass of the impound lot, and the drops were thick and viscous. It looked like radiator fluid, and I wondered if we had broken something in the trunk when we dropped it down? Maybe some chemicals or spare engine fluids? I was drawn back to reality as Jack yelled at me to get out of the way, the ramp missing me by inches as I jumped back. I helped guide the car back, unhooking the chains when it was level, and Jack groused at me for daydreaming as I came back to the cab for the keys.

I parked it in spot sixty-eight, and as I drove past the Corolla in Lisa's Fiesta, I was glad to see that the puddle had stopped growing.

I didn't think of the Corolla again until Friday.

I was getting ready to go get some lunch; Lisa prepared to make good on her promise when my boss asked me to pull the Corolla from Doctor Gurshly to the inspection bay.

"The dealership wants to pick it up today, and we need to get it inspected so they can have it."

I nodded, grabbing the keys and heading into the lot to get the car.

Inspections are mostly to ensure that we hadn't screwed anything up while repoing it and that any damage from the owner was cataloged. As I climbed in behind the wheel, I knew something was amiss at once. It had been hot the last few days, an absolute scorcher, and the car smelled like there might be rotten food in it somewhere. No, not old food. More like someone had hit an animal, and it had gotten knocked into the undercarriage. I cranked the car and rolled the windows down, powering through the task as I tried not to lose my appetite along the way. Marge was waiting for me, a stocky middle-aged mother of three who runs the detailing area, and she pinched her nose as she smelled the aroma through the windows.

"Jesus, what an odor."

"Yeah," I agreed, "kinda smells like roadkill. Maybe something in the undercarriage?"

"I'll get it on the hoist and have a look. Thanks for bringing it around."

I waved at her as I moved off and met Lisa by the front as the two of us headed off to lunch.

On that score, Jack had been right, but the real surprise was what awaited me as I walked back alone.

Lisa had paid for lunch, but she had taken hers to go so she could run some errands with her boyfriend. Eating my barbeque basket took some of the sting out of this revelation, but it made the walk back by myself twice as pathetic. I had struck out again, but at least there were another three hours of work to keep my mind off it, right?

I had just stepped into the repo lot to look for Jack when someone screamed like they were being murdered.

I saw Jack heading for the inspection bay on the run, and I was right behind him as another scream shivered into the afternoon sky.

It was Marge, and it appeared that she had found the terrible smell.

It hadn't been roadkill or even old food, but it had solved the mystery of what had befallen Evelynn Gurshly.

The corpse had been in the trunk, its flesh mostly liquified by now, and the face stared out at us from two empty pits. The eyes were gone, the face eaten by bugs until the skull peeked out, but it was nowhere near as grizzly as the wound on her chest.

Someone had cut her chest open, and the place where her heart should be gleamed wetly from her putrefied flesh.

The police came quickly when we told them what we believed we had found and whose trunk it had been inside.

They questioned all of us, wanting to know everything we had seen since taking the car.

It didn't take long before Doctor Gurshly was taken into custody, and the cop confided in me that he hadn't fought them.

"It was like he was just waiting for us to come and find us."

Over the next few days, the details came out in the news, shedding some light on why the beloved David Gurshly had murdered his wife. Evelynn had caught him cheating, that much was known, but the two had seemed to reconcile. Evelynn hadn't wanted to leave. She had the best possible life, and with David's money, she could continue to drink and cavort as she chose.

Then David met Linda Smalls, and things changed.

Linda Smalls was a pillar of the community. She organized charity events, worked to set up soup kitchens and clothing drives, raised her five boys, and became the breadwinner for her home after her husband's stroke last year had left him partially paralyzed. She helped so many, but it seemed that no one would be there to help when she was in need.

No one besides David Gurshly.

David had been following her case, hoping to find a proper donor for her. She had the same blood type as Evelynn, but the two couldn't be more different. David tried his best to find her a donor, but as her time grew closer, he realized she wasn't going to find a new heart in time.

Not unless he took drastic measures.

"He cut out his wife's heart, using the skills he had developed over years of doing the same for patients, and donated it to Linda Smalls anonymously. He told the police that he was beginning to wonder what he would do with the body, hiding it in the basement of their home, before the police brought her care back. After that, it was just a matter of picking the right time to stash it in the trunk."

They said that as calm as David was, Linda was a basket-case.

"The revelation that someone had committed murder for her had caused a lot of stress to Linda Smalls, but she has taken it as an opportunity to do good works with the sacrifice that was made for her."

I think back on that every now and again, telling the other new guys about it now that it's my turn to drive the truck since Jack retired last year.

From then on, the boss made it a rule to check the trunks of cars before we left them in the lot. All vehicles are searched for anything suspicious before we sign off on them so that nothing like this happens again. We're more careful now, but I doubt we'll ever encounter a situation that weird again.

At least, I hope not.