21 Tales (3 page)

At the time the police didn’t tell me anything, and I didn’t find out about Cheryl until the next day. That night they took me in for more questioning. I was asked several times if I wanted a lawyer, and each time I declined. At one point I was asked if I’d be willing to take a lie detector test. I told them I would. They then left me alone for several hours. I was then brought to another room, hooked up to a polygraph, and questioned. I answered each question truthfully, and they seemed satisfied with the results.

I think it was past nine o’clock the next morning when I met with the District Attorney. He looked uncomfortable as he told me about Cheryl. It was the first I heard of it and it took a moment for it to register. When I finally made sense of what he was saying, I just started sobbing. I couldn’t help it and I couldn’t stop myself. I just sat there sobbing uncontrollably, sobbing until it felt like my chest was going to break apart.

In the end the District Attorney decided not to press charges against me. While I acted criminally in trying to defraud the Nigerians, it was hard to muster much sympathy towards them. He was also convinced that I didn’t intend for any harm to come to Cheryl. When the Nigerians were arrested they had confessed fully and bitterly, explaining why they had hacked my wife to pieces. The D.A. decided not to hold me criminally negligent, even though in his opinion I acted stupidly. We agreed that I would turn over the seventy-two thousand dollars to a local youth group. I think it really got to him the way I reacted when I heard about Cheryl. He knew my reaction was genuine, he knew I wasn’t faking it, but he completely misunderstood the reason behind it.

I was lucky to pass the lie detector. I was lucky that all they were trying to do was verify my statement, and I had been completely truthful with my statement. If they had had some imagination I would’ve been sunk. To be honest I never expected the Nigerians to send me any money. Up until the point where they told me they were mailing me the money, I was just playing around. But from that point on I guess my mind was spinning with different ideas of how I could make it more than a scam. I knew that they wanted to send a check instead of wiring funds to my bank so that they would be able to follow me when I picked up the money. And I saw the Nigerians watching my mailbox when I picked up the check. I saw them when they were following me home; I even slowed down several times so I wouldn’t lose them. And I had no intention of spending any of that seventy-two thousand dollars on a mink coat for Cheryl. I told them that to infuriate them, to give them ideas. And I found reasons to stay late at work to give them time to do what they were going to do.

The thing of it was Cheryl and I had drifted apart over the years. We didn’t really talk much any more, and we didn’t really like being with each other. It had been over a year since we’d had sex, and even longer since I cared about it. A divorce would’ve been costly and unpleasant. So while I had to give up the seventy-two thousand dollars, I was paid six hundred thousand dollars from her life insurance policy. Her parents are now suing me for it, claiming I negligently contributed to her death, but my lawyer doesn’t think they have much of a case. I’m not worried about losing the money.

No, the D.A. wasn’t even close to understanding why I broke down the way I did. It had nothing to do with Cheryl’s death. It just hit me all of a sudden as to what I had done and what I had become. It took me a while to get used to it. But I’m fine now.

Flies

 
We had a dead mouse in our basement, and the inspiration for this story came from the swarm of flesh-eating flies that came afterwards. And like my noir hero in this story, I hate those damn flesh-eating flies!

As I was trying to figure out how to finish the paragraph I was working on, a fly flew past my ear and another two landed on the monitor in front of me. Carol found it pathetic the way I reacted to flies, but I couldn’t help it. Flies unnerve me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get any work done knowing they were buzzing around, ready to land on me at any moment. This specific type of fly I recognized. Larger, sort of greenish, with a big head. We were once infested with them. It turned out we had a dead mouse in the basement. According to our pest control person, these were flesh-eating flies, and any time you had a dead mouse you’d end up with hundreds of these.

By the time I grabbed and rolled up a magazine, the two flies on the monitor were gone. I slowly walked around the room until I spotted them. Two on the window panes I got with the first strike. Another on the wall required three swings before I hit it, and the damn thing left a red smear behind. I was thinking how I was going to have to use some disinfectant to clean off the mark when I noticed Bowser standing in the doorway with his head cocked to one side, staring at me. Bowser was a white Bull Terrier, and as bullheaded as they come.

“It’s not my fault,” I told him. “It was her decision.”

He just stood staring at me, letting me know that he wasn’t going to let go of his grudge. Watching him, I felt myself losing my temper

“This is your doing, isn’t it?” I yelled at him. “About all these bloody flies! You got into the basement again, didn’t you?”

As he realized my discomfort, he started chortling. Anyone who’s ever had a Bull Terrier will tell you that they do chortle. A soft wheezing-type noise. Unmistakable. After that, he sniffed in disgust and scampered out of the room.

Bowser was ostensibly my dog. Carol had bought him for me when I decided to try writing fulltime, thinking that an author should have a dog like a Bull Terrier lying by his feet. He was really Carol’s though. Any time he could he would plop down next to her, or when she was in the kitchen, squeeze himself between her and the cabinets. Me, he would tolerate. I was good to rub his belly or give him food from the table, but that was about it. I had the basement door closed. How he ever got down there was beyond me, but he was a bright dog and somehow had figured out a way.

I knew I’d have to go down to the basement and take care of what he had left behind, otherwise I’d have flies bothering me all day. There was no way I’d be able to get any writing done with flesh-eating flies buzzing around my ears. I started to get up, but felt my strength drain out of me. I just didn’t feel up to it. Later, after I rested a bit, I would take care of it.

We still had a dirt floor in the basement and I think that was how we were getting mice. Not that we were getting a lot of them. A few here and there, but enough to be a nuisance. I had bought the materials so I could put down a sub floor and pour a layer of cement over it. Carol had laughed when I told her I was going to do that, but I don’t see what was so funny about it. Maybe I don’t work much with my hands, but I’m capable, I can read how-to books as well as the next guy. In fact, I was planning to take a break from writing in the next day or two so I could put down the new flooring. Get my hands dirty for a change.

I got the disinfectant and scrubbed the red spot on the wall until it was gone. Then I picked up the dead flies with tissues and flushed them down the toilet. As I sat at the computer, I tried to get my mind back into writing. I was a hundred and eighty pages into my novel and I had to push myself to get it done. I’d been struggling with the damned thing for almost two years.

When I quit my job two years ago to try writing fulltime, Carol at first was supportive. Before that I had worked eighteen years as a software engineer, writing short stories whenever I could squeeze in the time. Mostly crime fiction, a few sci-fi and fantasy stories. I was starting to get published in magazines and was also achieving a few other successes. One of my stories made honorable mention in a best mystery fiction list, another was picked up by an anthology published by a large New York house. After eighteen years of pure drudgery developing software, I got lucky. A startup I was working for got bought and I made some pretty good money with my stock options. Not enough to live extravagantly, but enough to quit and give writing a shot.

Carol’s support faded quickly, though. It was as if I was always in her way. I tried to hang out mostly in my study, but it didn’t matter. Any little thing I did would get on her nerves. If I went into the kitchen to get something to drink, next second she’d be standing behind me, exasperated that I was interfering with her making dinner or whatever. If I tried helping out by cleaning up something or tidying up, she’d be ready to explode because I wasn’t putting things in their proper place. It went on and on like that. Eventually she started finding reasons to be out of the house. One of those reasons was David Bryce. Supposedly he was just a friend, someone to play tennis with, or to accompany her to a new restaurant. After all, I would be too busy with my writing and she wouldn’t want to disturb me. I guess it was possible they were just friends, at least at first. Bryce is a good-looking man, and Carol, quite frankly, isn’t at all attractive. She’s one of those nondescript women. Looks no different than any one of a hundred women you might find on the street.

The real bone of contention between us came six months into my fulltime writing gig. I had spent eighteen years dreaming of the day when I would have the time to focus on my writing. I guess Carol spent a lot of those eighteen years dreaming of when she would have the opportunity to travel. And not just to Disney World, or even Hawaii, but to more exotic locales like Africa, India and Bangkok. I don’t know why she was so hung up on those places, especially Bangkok, but she was. She knew I had no interest in going to any of those places, but she didn’t care. Actually, I don’t think she even wanted me to go with her. I think she preferred that I would tell her to go off with Bryce if she wanted to, but I wasn’t going to do that. As it was, all the pressure and stress she put me under affected my writing. I was originally hoping to get my book done in six months and that was now dragging out to over two years and with no end in sight. And she let me know about it. God, did she let me know about it.

Last week it all came to a head. She was sick of me, found me repulsive, and would rather be touched by a corpse than by me. As if that came as any surprise. After all, she had stopped having sex with me over a year and a half ago. Not that we ever really had much before then.

So there she is, yelling at me, telling me how absolutely nauseated she is at my very sight—

Damn it! More buzzing! Four more flies this time. How am I going to make any progress with this going on? I had kept the magazine by my feet, and now have rolled it up and am hitting those flies one by one. This time around it was easy. All four dead in less than a minute.

So where was I? That’s right, Carol’s telling me how she’s going to divorce me, and how she should be entitled to most of the money. While I might’ve earned it, she was the one who had to put up with me all these years. Put up with my neurotic behavior, my craziness, my poor hygiene, and the list went on and on. A lot of it was just meant to hurt me, especially the poor hygiene part. She knew I took great care in my appearance. Nevertheless, though, she was serious about the divorce. Now the idea of her walking away with more than half the money was laughable, but even losing half of my money would mean I’d have to give up my dream of writing—and I never even had a shot, not a fair shot anyway, not with all her sniping and bitterness. If I lost that money, I’d have no choice but to go back to the drudgery of writing software. Or worse. With all the work they’re outsourcing these days, I didn’t even know if I could still get a job as a software developer. Especially after being out of it for two years.

I begged her to reconsider. She’d been talking all this time about traveling. I got on the phone right in front of her and bought her a roundtrip ticket to Bangkok. I asked her to go on her trip, take a month, see some of the places she always wanted to, think things over.

That was a week ago. Her plane to Bangkok left three days ago. And well …

Bryce stopped by earlier today looking for Carol. I told him she went on a trip by herself. He didn’t seem to believe me, so I gave him the flight information. Let him check for himself. If he asks around he’ll find out that a woman matching Carol’s description boarded the plane and used Carol’s passport. Of course, sometimes people disappear in Bangkok. It’s been known to happen. Sometimes they just never come back.

As I said before, Carol is nothing special to look at. Could be any one of hundreds of other slightly dumpy women in their late thirties. If you try hard enough you can find one of them willing to fly to Bangkok for free. One of them that looks enough like Carol where she can use her passport and get away with it. It will cost you, quite a bit actually, but still much less than what I would’ve lost in a divorce settlement. At least now I have a chance of finishing this book. If only these damn flies would leave me alone!

More flies! I had no choice. I had to take care of what Bowser had left me in the basement. This was the third time he had done this. That’s the thing with Bull Terriers, they’re tenacious, and they can dig like hell. Smart too. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me. I wish I could figure out how he keeps getting into the basement.

I spot him now, staring at me intently. Damn, that dog can hold a grudge. “Look,” I yell at him, “it wasn’t my fault. Can’t you understand that?”

He doesn’t want to listen. He turns around, looks over his shoulder, grinning sardonically. Who would ever have thought a dog could grin sardonically? Well, this one sure as hell can.

As he walks away I yell at him. “Four feet’s not enough for you, huh? How deep do I have to dig this time? Damn it, how deep?”

She Stole My Fortune!

Like my noir hero in this one, I had all these publishing deals in the works that seemed imminent, then they all fell apart. Things worked out in the end, but this is one of those stories that helped me work out some issues.

“She stole my fortune!”