Chapter 12 – She Would Pay
Ed Peletier sat in his chair in front of the TV. The papers that had been served to him an hour ago sat on his TV tray along with a week and a half's worth of dirty dishes. He had no desire to pick up after himself, that's what she was for. When his good for nothing wife came back, he would make her lick every bowl clean like the dog she was. It served her right for the way she took off on him like that.
As soon as he had woken up the morning after she'd served dinner, he had known that bitch had slipped him some sort of mickey. No whiskey was strong enough to knock him on his ass that hard. Sorting through the kitchen detritus, he found the sample packs of Ambien. That proved that the worthless bitch had been behind his passing out. She had planned it and executed it, and now she had to pay. He had leapt out of his chair to grab her by the hair. She wasn't there. Soon, he came to the obvious conclusion she wasn't coming back. She had left his ass, and he was pissed.
When he realized she wasn't in the house, he finally realized how late in the day it was. He was already hours late for work. He had called in sick that day and every day since then as he trashed the place looking for a clue as to where she could have gone. Her clothes were all there except for maybe a pair of her jeans and those damn boots he had caught her with. She had taken nothing else as far as he could tell, at least nothing of value. He had all his money still in his wallet, his credit cards were untouched.
Ed may not have been an educated man, but he was no dumbass. He knew most people would consider him to be an abusive fuck. But he really didn't care. In his eyes, it was justified to lay hands on a woman if she behaved like a stupid worthless cunt. All women were good for was to spread their legs and do whatever their men told them to do. That was what was wrong with the world, too damn many women in positions of power telling women they could be anything, do anything. Worse, was the women politicians. They would just sit and dole out laws dictated by their monthly cycles, when they had to have fucked some man good and hard to get to where they were. What a crock of shit.
Ten days gone and she had already filed for divorce from God knows where in Georgia. The papers gave no address for her, just that they were filed from Cobb County. Along with the papers was a notice that the bitch had requested that her location and lawyer's name to be sealed by the court as a matter of protection and privacy. He couldn't believe that even those inbred hicks down there had obeyed her request. They just rolled over like the dogs they were. She probably grew a larger set of tits and fucked somebody down in Georgia to get that done. He always knew the woman was a whore at heart.
Only ten days had passed, and the woman had somehow made it to Georgia with enough money to afford a lawyer. How the fuck had that happened? He knew she hadn't used his money. She had no access to the checking or savings accounts. Any shopping she did was done with cash he gave her. He always made sure she provided him with receipts to prove what she had purchased and collected any change remaining. That bitch knew her place when she lived under his roof. She had forgotten that her place was one of subservience to him, and him only. She would pay dearly for that.
He had assumed all this time that she had left for some damn shelter locally or down in Detroit. He had scoped out every single one of them, waiting for her to show her face outside one of those buildings. Four shelters in eight days had been sat on by him, with each shelter being watched for two days. Then, he had given up. He accepted she wasn't there. He had spent the last two days sitting at home wondering where the fuck she could have gone. He hadn't gotten anywhere with that until today when a cop showed up to serve him those bullshit papers.
Those documents gave no answers but did provide him with direction. She hadn't taken the car and the bitch was terrified of flying. She had also needed enough time in Georgia to find a lawyer and get an expedited hearing on the sealed divorce process. That meant that she hadn't driven or flown there but had gotten there quickly enough to pull this shit. She was too scared of men to hitchhike. That left the bus or train. Both were available from Detroit, but the bus was the only one that had a local depot. He would start there.
At the bus depot, nobody recognized her picture. They also would not tell him if she had purchased a ticket due to privacy issues. What they were able to help with though was a detailed route itinerary of their buses. He now knew that the route to Atlanta was the only one passing through Cobb County the night she left. He also learned that the only depot stop in Cobb County was in Kennesaw. He would have to start there. With the stop-by-stop itinerary in hand, Ed only stopped home long enough to grab some clothes and call into work. He had one week left of sick time. He would have to find her fast.
He knew he had to be sure to stop in every little place that Greyhound listed as a registered stop along the way. The way he figured it, is that if the woman had gotten on the damn bus, she had to have changed something about her where nobody recognized her picture. Her long gray mousey hair was a dead giveaway, yet nobody saw the bitch. If he talked to people at the stops, maybe he could find out if she had gotten off the bus long enough for the staff at the depots to notice. If he didn't get a lead on her that way, Kennesaw had to offer some sort of clues. If not, the next stop was Marietta, the county seat.
He left in his Cherokee, bound for Georgia. That bitch was coming back home with him, or she was going to pay. Oh, she was going to pay regardless.