Putting my free hand on her shoulder, I told her the truth. “Doesn’t matter, honey. A jury will decide whether you meant to kill him or not. His ATV purchase could be reason enough for them to convict you when they realize you’re behind on your mortgage payments. Money’s a common motive for murder. Now get out of here. No one will know.”
She looked at me in disbelief. “You’re kidding?”
“I’m dead serious. With your husband gone, your children will need you more than ever, so go on. Get!” I knew because my daughter was now a struggling single mother.
She hesitated. “You’ll cover for me?”
“Honey, I’ve been in your shoes and feel your pain. Now get out of here. Don’t speed. Just get in your car, go home to your children, and wait for the police to call you. You weren’t here and will be shocked to hear about your husband’s accident. Don’t volunteer anything. If they question the accident, reluctantly claim that he was upset and despondent about your finances.”
Narrowing her eyes, she focused, clearly understood my reasoning, and then looked around the parking lot and at the storefront. Both were empty. “Thank you,” she said, and left.
I watched her car disappear down the road, then scurried to open my car trunk and put on the gloves I kept there. I grabbed the package of bleach wipes and obliterated any fingerprints on the crossbow.
Looking around, I hurried back to the husband. The lot was still empty. This would work. Once the husband loaded the arrow, he could have turned the crossbow around and hit the pulley release accidentally. Or even on purpose. I bent down and placed the crossbow backward into the man’s hands, pressing his lifeless fingers around the bow and on the pulley release so he looked like the total idiot he was.
I stashed my gloves and wipes in my trunk, then repositioned my beach chair between the cars so I had no view of the ATVs. When the police arrived, I could easily say I didn’t see anything.
When Joe died, I was lucky. I told his doctor how he grabbed his left arm before keeling over. Given Joe’s heart condition, which his physician had been treating, attributing Joe’s death to a heart attack was no problem. After his physician said Joe’s heart attack wasn’t surprising, the authorities hadn’t performed an autopsy.
Joe had no remorse about wiping out my grandchildren’s college fund, so I’d had no remorse about lacing his nightly bourbon and soda with some extra doses of his heart medication. If they had done an autopsy, I’d have blamed his suicidal overdose on his ProTrout spending spree. I was prepared to tell them how distraught he’d become about his inability to control his spending. But I was lucky. I didn’t need those explanations. Passing on my luck to that young mother, who had also reeled in a dud for a husband, seemed like the right thing to do.
And this time, without Joe, my college-savings plan for my granddaughters would work.
An author and beach bum of note, E. B. Davis writes short stories and novels in the mystery and paranormal-mystery genres. After graduating with a master’s degree from George Washington University, she continued to degrade her writing skills working as a government-contractor analyst and as a construction manager. When she is not writing or blogging, she can be found at the beach, the setting for many of her stories. She is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and Sisters in Crime. She blogs at http://writerswhokill.blogspot.com. Look for another of her stories, “Daddy’s Little Girl,” at http://voicesfromthegarage.com/story/daddys-little-girl.
MURDER BY MEDIATION, by Jill Breslau
Rainey drummed her fingertips on the polished conference table. She looked at the clock on the wall, and then at her watch, as if that would make a difference. Her mediation partner and their clients were all late. She drummed some more, listening to the soft click of her nails against the wood, and then glancing at her right hand. The French manicure looked perfect. Actually, she thought, leaning forward to admire her crossed legs, the shoes were perfect, too-expensive cobalt blue leather with four-inch heels. They matched her silk blouse and looked stunning with her classic black, barely knee-length suit.
Her own admiration was appropriate, she thought, unlike the sleazy admiration of certain judges she knew. When she’d been a trial lawyer, before she discovered mediation, one judge actually told her in open court that he couldn’t hear what she was saying because he was so busy looking at her great legs. She wanted to use one of those great legs to kick him, hard, but she smiled sweetly and said, “Your Honor, I hope that isn’t true, because we’re on the record here, and I’ve just offered Document Eleven into evidence.” She liked to look good, but she detested the cloying, hypersexual way that some men interpreted her style.
Lawrence, her mediation partner, was different. He was a truly nice man with good boundaries-and a great ass, thanks to all his bicycling. The thought popped into her mind unbidden, and she crushed it quickly, like squashing a bug, with a brisk reminder to herself: And a wife and two children. Cute, short, round-faced. He wasn’t really her type, anyway.
She looked at the clock again. Usually Lawrence arrived promptly for their pre-session meeting to make sure they were on the same page, tuned in about the agenda. They had been a team since they’d heard of divorce mediation. It worked well for them, Rainey, who had been a tough litigator, and Lawrence, a social worker. Lawrence was gentler, more relaxed; Rainey was crisp, organized, and thorough. She enjoyed the intellectual quest for common ground as much as she had enjoyed skewering witnesses on the stand, which was saying something.
The door opened and one of the clients, Henry Linnet, stuck his head in. “Hi, Rainey. If they aren’t here yet, I’ll just pop into the little boys’ room.”
Rainey nodded and smiled, though she felt a spike of annoyance whenever adult males referred to the “little boys’ room.” For God’s sake, do they ever grow up?
“Fine, Henry,” she said.
Henry’s wife, Barbara, and Lawrence still hadn’t arrived when Henry returned. He sat in the swivel chair across from Rainey, gripped the table edge, and leaned forward, frowning. His wispy brown hair was disheveled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, as usual, and the buttons strained across his chubby torso. Rainey had privately agreed with Lawrence that wearing Hawaiian shirts was probably the most daring thing Henry had ever done.
“Rainey, can I speak to you in confidence?”
She shrugged. “Everything in mediation is confidential, Henry, unless it has to do with abuse or anticipated violence.”
“No, this isn’t about that. This is about Barbara.” He paused, and his eyes widened, as his head bobbed affirmatively. “I can’t shake the feeling that she’s having an affair.”
Rainey’s eyebrows lifted. “Barbara?”
“Don’t be deceived by her demeanor, Rainey. She may look sweet and bland, but she has a wild, passionate streak.”
Rainey struggled to keep the disbelief off her face. Barbara was the least sexy woman she had ever met. She had flat brown eyes, light brown hair, the same color as her husband’s, and very small, white teeth that looked as if she’d never lost her baby teeth. She spoke in a girlish, breathy voice, like Marilyn Monroe. Unlike Marilyn, she wore long, baggy earth-tone-colored skirts and loose tops that she didn’t tuck in, as if she had done all her clothes shopping sometime in the ‘60s. Rainey referred to her privately, and to Lawrence, as “Miss Mouse.”
“What makes you think she’s having an affair?”
Henry frowned again and looked at her. “She’s too happy. We’re in a divorce. We’re arguing about custody of the children. We’ve got to divide up all our property, and she won’t have as much money as she’s used to. She’s going to have to start tutoring, as well as teaching, to make the budget work. But she’s happy, almost giddy.”