Tammy had been casing the park bench for days. She’d linger in the woods or behind some bushes, careful to remain concealed. Her mission was to receive a thumb drive from a Russian agent who worked for a group of businessmen. The drive contained insider information about Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook that could be used to manipulate markets around the world.
Tammy worked for a financial news program but her investigative work was less than stellar. As a result, she mostly proofed scripts and fetched coffee. The thumb drive promised detailed information about the long and short-term plans of some of the biggest companies in the world. Her task was to release the information which would, in turn, shift the buy and sell pattern of the stocks. The Russians knew all the information and when to buy and sell. Tammy’s fortune would rise in the financial news industry and she hoped to fulfill her dream of hosting her own show. She knew the ethics of the situation were fuzzy, but if she didn’t use the information someone else would. At least if she did it, she reasoned, she could release secrets in a responsible way and still get all the credit.
Which is why she was spending her accrued vacation and sick leave stalking a park bench. As soon as the sun rose she’d take up her position in the brush and watch the geese, the people who fed the geese, the joggers, the moms with baby strollers, the speed-walking retirees, and the office workers who used the bench to eat lunch or enjoy a smoke break. A flock of eleven geese had staked out this bench as their territory, ferociously hissing and pecking at any competing fowl that might try to malinger into their turf. The goose feeders came in regular shifts throughout the day, all with various assortments of day-old bread. White bread, whole wheat, dinner rolls, focaccia, black rye, and even muffins. The geese greedily gobbled up every crumb. It was Fall and brilliantly colored leaves had begun to fall, the temperature was dropping, and Tammy’s fingers and toes were painfully cold by the end of the day. The bushes Tammy hid behind would soon be bare and she’d lose her cover. She was glad the handoff was happening the next day.
Tammy was to sit on the bench wearing a blue scarf and wait for a man with green corduroys to approach in her line of sight. As he walked past, he would drop the thumb drive in her lap. She’d return to her office, download the drive and start generating career-making stories. She told her contact to have the man in the corduroys meet her at two-thirty, a time when the bench was quiet.
She dressed carefully that morning, selecting a neutral outfit that would be easily forgotten by any witnesses. Laying her clothes out on the bed, she decided on a chocolate brown knee-length skirt, softly-patterned blouse, a light grey sweater and the blue silk scarf. On her feet, she wore simple flats. Looking in the mirror she was certain she looked pleasant but forgettable and pulled her hair back in a business bun. She walked to the park and took her position on the bench fifteen minutes before the drop-off. She pretended to read a book which she could use to both catch and cover the thumb drive. Five minutes before the drop-off a woman with bags of day-old bread joined Tammy on the bench. She had dirty grey hair, sweatpants, an old cloth coat with the elbows worn out and a baseball cap that said “Big Johnson” on it. She also smelled of the previous night’s liquor. Tammy didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t one of the regulars. The woman tore open the bags and started tossing the bready morsels. The geese pushed in close, clapping their beaks and snapping at each as they fought over the bread.
“Um, could you feed the geese somewhere else please?” Tammy asked the woman.
“Free country, lady. You don’t like geese?” the woman asked.
“No, and normally it would be fine, but I’m meeting someone. A man,” Tammy said and smiled her sweetest smile at the woman.
“A booty call? On a park bench? That’s sick. Kids come to this park,” the woman said.
“No, nothing like that,” Tammy paused, trying to think of an angle to get rid of the woman quickly. “What if I paid you? Fifty dollars if you just leave and come back in half an hour.”
“You think I need your money?” the woman yelled. As she ranted, she stopped feeding the geese and they crowded in closer. “You think you can buy me? Let me tell you something, I’m not for sale!” The woman resumed tossing bits of stale bread to the beaks that now snapped and clattered in her lap.
Tammy saw the man in the green corduroys approaching from the right, he seemed unfazed by the woman and her geese. Maybe he thought it was all part of the cover. He met Tammy’s gaze, did a slight nod and started toward the bench. Tammy positioned her book like a chute to ensure the thumb drive’s safe journey to her lap.
The man walked up to Tammy, smoothly pulling his hand from his pocket with the thumb drive concealed in his fist. He dropped it just as he passed and quickly disappeared into the bramble.
As he was dropping the thumb drive a goose noticed it, snapping his beak to catch it. The drive bounced into a frenzy of beaks and , looking not unlike a chunk of dark rye, the disappeared into a goose. Tammy’s eyes widened and her heart stopped for a moment as everything went to slow motion. She tried to identify which goose had made the grab, but it was impossible to distinguish one from another in the feverous flock. She quickly counted them. There were eleven, the same gang as always. She looked around for the man in the green corduroys, but he was long gone. The woman was running out of bread and the geese were beginning to lose interest. As one goose wandered off Tammy jumped up and grabbed it by the neck. A honking protest ensued. The woman yelled at her “What the hell are you doing! Let go of the goose you crazy bitch!”
Tammy let go and the goose ran to the pond, eager to get on the water. Tammy’s mind was racing, she couldn’t lose the thumb drive. Not only would her dreams be dashed but some very powerful people would start sending thugs to remove thumbs, toes, and God knows what else.
“I should call the cops, turn you in for animal abuse,” the woman said.
With that, Tammy walked behind the bench and after looking around removed her blue scarf and started to strangle the woman. The woman tried to stand, but Tammy held her fast. Again looking around, Tammy dragged the woman to the edge of the pond, the geese giving her a wide berth. She shoved her head into the water and loosened her grip just long enough for the woman to inhale some scummy pond water. Tammy then tightened the scarf again until the woman stopped struggling. She rolled the body into the water, giving it a kick to set it adrift. Tammy stood, looked around and still saw no one. She gathered her things, went home and shakily poured herself a drink.
It had all happened so quickly that she wasn’t sure what she’d done. Had she killed that woman? That wasn’t possible. She wasn’t a killer. She must have slipped into a fugue-state and dreamed it. But she was certain she didn’t have the thumb drive. Or did she? Tammy emptied her purse, tearing out the lining hoping to find the drive hidden in some forgotten fold. In a frenzy, she went through her coat, and every other garment in the closet just in case. No luck. She then wondered if maybe the thumb drive was still there, just lying on the ground somewhere. Maybe a goose hadn’t eaten it. Everything happened so fast. She needed to go back and check. Don’t they say that criminals always return to the scene of the crime? Maybe there was a reason for that—a good reason. After all, it was just instinct. She panicked and had to protect herself. It wasn’t her fault. That woman was killing Tammy’s dream—it was her or Tammy, somebody had to go.
Tammy drank until she was able to fall asleep.
***
The next morning, the dead woman found in the park was the lead story on the local TV news. A reporter stood on the dewy grass next to the police tape tied to the park bench—Tammy’s bench. The police were trying to herd the geese in the background as the reporter prattled, “So far, there are no leads in the death of this apparently homeless woman.”
Tammy’s head felt like it was filled with dried paste. Her mouth foul, her eyes sticky and her forehead throbbing. She knew she had to return to the bench, somehow kill and dissect the geese, recover the thumb drive and get her plan back on track. She decided she had to risk going back to the scene.
“Lots of people are probably stopping by to have a look,” she mumbled to herself as she brushed her hair and hurriedly applied a bit of makeup. “Gawkers wanting to see what happened. I’ll just blend in and get a lay of the land.” She pulled on some slacks and nearly fell over, not fully recovered from her bender. Her head pulsed as if her brain was about to burst from her skull. She finished dressing and headed to the park.
Once there she was surprised to see no one at the crime scene. The police tape was still in place, and the geese floated in the water near the lip of the pond, but Tammy was otherwise alone. She pulled out her phone and pretended to scroll through it as she eyed the ground beneath the bench. Tammy approached it, her heart beating so hard it rattled her ribcage. She looked out at the geese, imagining how she might collect and explore their entrails.
“Geese giving you trouble?” said a woman who suddenly appeared, holding Tammy by the elbow. Tammy swung around, and the woman deftly punched Tammy in the chest sending her backward into the bench. Tammy gasped for air, putting her hands up in surrender.
“You shouldn’t give up so easily. Your instincts are sound,” although elderly the woman stood with a straight back and relaxed ease of an athlete. She was wiry in her jogging tights with the calm authority of a headmistress. Tammy fell to her knees, her vision narrowing.
“Get up,” the woman said. “I need to know you can get up.” Tammy steadied herself on the park bench, and stood, her breathing still labored.
“Excellent,” the woman said.
“Just arrest me and get it over with!” Tammy blurted.
“My dear, I’m not here to arrest you, I’m here to offer you a job. That drunken woman with the bread who you so cleverly dispatched worked for me. She was part of your test.”
“What test?” Tammy asked.
“Well, we certainly weren’t going to hand over trade secrets to just anyone. We had to find out what you were made of. It seems you have much more in you than we’d hoped. Our agent was supposed to disrupt the thumb drive handoff to see what you would do. She was no rookie, and you managed to kill her without any witnesses. You have a gift. I’m here to find out if you’d like to develop that gift.”
“And if I say no?” Tammy asked.
“Then our business here is done.”
At that moment the man formerly in green corduroys appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He was calm but with his eyes locked on Tammy. She noticed that he was wearing black latex gloves.
“I’d like to develop my gift?” Tammy said with uncertainty, but sure that it was the correct answer.
“Excellent. We’ll be in touch.”
The woman walked away, but then stopped and said, “Tammy, all your dreams are about to come true.”