How to Kill Your Wife

by James Hockings

  “Peter, are you all right?”

  “No. Get Wilbur here.”

  “I’ll put him on the phone after I tell him what happened. Hold on.”

  When Wilbur came on the line, Peter said, “They have me cuffed to a table and have been grilling me for hours, but I won’t talk to them until you get here.”

  “I’m kind of busy here now. Did you kill her?”

  “No, you asshole, but they seem to think I did.”

  “Okay then, do what I told you the last time. Just tell them the truth, and they’ll let you go.”

  “They will? They tell me they’ve solved the crime and are just tying up a few loose ends.”

  “Nonsense, just tell them the truth, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll see you in the morning at the bail hearing. Try not to slip in the shower.”

  “Are you nuts? Wilbur, are you drunk or on crack?”

  “That’s no way to talk to your representative. I am an officer of the court. Have some respect. I will see you in the morning.” And he hung up.

  Detective Robinson asked, “When’s your lawyer coming?”

  “Tomorrow at the bail hearing. He told me to tell you the truth and you’d let me go.”

  “Are you sure he’s a real lawyer? I never heard a lawyer say that in my life. So, are you going to talk to me?”

  “I guess. I was with a friend. Her name is Francesca Fox and you can find her number on my phone under ‘Frannie.’ I was at her farm out of town, and we were sitting in her living room talking until about 1 a.m. I never left her sight except to go to the bathroom. If she backs me up, will you let me go?”

  Another cop who was there chimed in, “We know all that, shitbird. We talked to her already.”

  “We’re executing another search of your house now, and we’ll see what dirty little secrets this one turns up,” said Detective Robinson.

  Then they left him alone. The police seemed reasonably nice; too nice for cops, anyway. They were more like bored bureaucrats than paramilitary monsters. But Peter was not thinking straight or maybe thinking at all. He was in shock. His calmness and rationality were a result of feeling like a stranger in a film or TV series. Peter saw himself from a place outside of his body. He saw his own face and body with his own eyes and it was not a mirror image. He heard his voice as though it was coming through a cracked television speaker. He saw the police station as a sound stage and the other people present as actors.

  Peter left his body the moment they put the cuffs on. He just kept repeating that he wanted a lawyer because that’s what they said all the time in films. He couldn’t think of any other lines - he was too busy looking at all the dusty details on the table of the interview room, and listening to the drone of the air conditioning system. There was so much to distract him that he couldn’t remember what to say. He wondered what Elaine was doing, and he wondered if Frannie would ever forgive him for being late with his web designs. He wondered who would feed Rex, and then remembered that Rex was dead and that he had shot him. He started to cry. He was glad he was momentarily alone in the interview room.

  Two uniformed officers came for him and took him to a solitary cell. There were prisoners in the other cells and they all yelled at him while he walked down the hallway, but he couldn’t understand what they were trying to say. It all sounded like waves crashing on rocks, or a train rushing through a tunnel.

  A detective came to his cell to question him. Peter really tried to understand him, but he couldn’t. The roar of the train was too loud and the light was too bright to see the man’s face. Peter was crying and everything looked like it was underwater and very, very bright. Peter was not aware that he was crying. He tried to call Rex back from the other side, but he couldn’t remember how to form the words or push the air from his throat. So Rex just got further and further away until Peter knew that even if he succeeded in calling, Rex wouldn’t hear him anyway.

  Peter felt an awful tiredness and the next thing he knew, he was in a strange bed in a plain little room, with people in white uniforms talking to each other at his feet.

  Chapter 53

  “Where am I?”

  “You are in the infirmary of the regional correctional facility.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine.”

  “Day or night?”

  “Night.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m a doctor and he’s a nurse. It appears you were in shock. We’ve given you medication and fluids. You should be feeling better.”

  “I feel drunk or something.”

  “That’s the drugs we gave you.”

  “Can I go home?”

  “No, Mr. Broviak, you are in jail. You don’t remember being arrested?”

  “Sorta. I remember a big guy making funny sounds and I remember laughing. Was he arresting me?”

  “I don’t know whom you’re talking about, but you were arrested today. Have you talked to your lawyer or asked for one? I don’t see a lawyer on your visitor sheet.”

  “I don’t know. Should I call one now? Can she get me out of here?”

  “I don’t know if your lawyer can get you out of here, but feel free to call her. There’s a phone by the bed. It’s monitored and recorded, but when you talk to a lawyer on it, we can’t use the tape. We hang up when the conversation starts.”

  “Hey, that’s good. I want to call her now. Can I?”

  “Sure, we’ll leave. A guard will be watching from that camera there, and the one over there, but the sound will be off. Okay?”

  “Gee, you guys are polite. The lawyer is my girlfriend too. Maybe we’ll have phone sex. Have you guys ever looked at that ceiling? It looks like Moses from the Bible over there. What time is it? I forgot.”

  “Five after 9.”

  “Day or night?”

  “Night.”

  “Good, good. She goes to bed early, you know, and she’ll be pissed if I call after 9:30.”

  Peter dialed Elaine’s private number from memory and the doctor and staff walked out of the room. Elaine picked up on the first ring.

  “Hi, Elaine.”

  “Peter, what are you doing calling me at home so late?”

  “Is it late? The doctor said it was five past 9.”

  “Peter, have you been drinking? You sound strange. What doctor?”

  “The one by my bed.”

  “Are you in a hospital?”

  “No, I’m in an infirmary, but it’s in a correctional center. They arrested me. That’s what they told me. A guy who was making funny hand gestures arrested me.”

  “This is not funny. Why are you laughing? Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. In a bed. In a detention center. That’s what it is - a detention center.”

  “Peter, let me get this straight: you are in a bed in the hospital wing of the detention center, and you have been arrested. Okay? Have you called a lawyer?”

  “Aren’t you my lawyer?”

  “No, I’m not your lawyer. I was your lover. Maybe I still am. I don’t know.”

  “But you are a lawyer, huh?”

  “Not a criminal lawyer. What kind of drugs did they pump into you? Did you call another lawyer? Did you call Wilbur?”

  “The drugs are pretty good. I feel good.”

  “Did you call another lawyer, Peter?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t tell me that. They told me there was no lawyer on my visitor sheet, so maybe I forgot to call Wilbur. He’s a criminal lawyer, isn’t he?”

  “Peter, can you put someone else on the phone?”

  “No, they all left to let me talk to my lawyer in private.”

  “Listen to me, Peter. I’m going to call Wilbur right now and tell him to get his lazy ass down to the jail and get you out. What happened to you since we last talked?”

  “I don’t know. I killed my dog. I’m sorry.”

  “Look, Wilbur will be there soon. Hang on and don’t let them give you any more drugs. Be careful what yo
u say. You’re so stoned you might admit to assassinating Kennedy. No more drugs, okay? Do you hear me?”

  “Okay. Say hi to Wilbur. Won’t he be surprised I’m in the hospital!”

  “Peter, shut up. Tell them, ‘No more drugs.’ I’m on this. I … I’ll take care of you.” And she hung up.

  Chapter 54

  Elaine showed up at Peter’s bedside about an hour and a half later. “Peter, wake up, it’s Elaine. Wake up.”

  Peter squinted at her and managed a grin. He was staring at her chest.

  “Peter, stop looking at my tits. We have work to do. Do you know where you are?”

  “With you.”

  “No, where are you?”

  “I’m in jail. They think I killed Kathryn.”

  “Good. Do you remember being arrested?”

  “Some of it … I flushed the dope down the toilet.”

  “What dope?”

  “A little baggie of dried-up pot I found in one of her drawers.”

  “What else?”

  “I heard a robin, a blue jay, a crow and a dove.”

  “Where?”

  “In the driveway, when they handcuffed me and searched me. All my neighbors were watching.”

  “Do you remember telling the cops anything?”

  “I told them the truth, that I was with Frannie when Kathryn was killed. I told them I wanted to see a lawyer. I talked to Wilbur on my cellphone and he told me to tell the truth, and he would see me in the morning.”

  “Do you know why I’m here?”

  “Wilbur sent you?”

  “No. I called Wilbur to come down here and take care of you and he was dead drunk. He just swore at me on the phone and called me a whore. I had to come here myself, and it’s way past my bedtime.

  “Peter, here’s what I’ve done. I warned the police not to interrogate you without me or another lawyer present. I have a retainer agreement for you to sign, so I can be your lawyer until we find someone else. I also warned them to keep you here in the infirmary and not in a cell or I’d sue them. You’re a sick man and in shock. Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, I am seeing a therapist.”

  “Peter, give me the name of your family doctor and the woman who can alibi you.”

  Peter gave her the names, and then added, “I’m mad at them. I didn’t do this. I’ve been set up.”

  “I know. Just shut up and look sick. I’ll be back.” She touched his cheek and let her finger linger for a second. She left.

  Peter felt more alone and helpless than ever. He looked at the filthy Lexan window in his room covered with a steel grill, and the heavy metal door that had closed behind Elaine. He saw no way out on his own. He was at the mercy of his captors and the unnamed forces that had brought him to this state. His thinking was still clouded from the drugs that dripped into his arm, but his feelings were clear as a bell: he was fucked.

  Chapter 55

  Peter’s bail hearing the next morning was close to being a comedy of errors, but it wasn’t truly funny because it involved his future. The hearing started with Elaine and Wilbur both walking into court with the idea of representing Peter. After a whispered shouting match, Wilbur withdrew, chuckling all the way to the courtroom exit doors. Elaine glared at his back. Wilbur turned and winked at Elaine when he got to the doors. Peter sat in the prisoner box in his orange jumpsuit, still hooked up to an IV pole and looking at the floor. Peter was grinding his teeth and his jaw muscles were jumping.

  Elaine was unprepared for the hearing, even though she had crammed for hours the night before, poring over criminal law books and trying to imprint their contents on her sleep-deprived brain. She as much as admitted this to the judge in a “lawyerly” way, and the judge seemed sympathetic. Elaine argued that the prosecution had no physical evidence to present, no eyewitnesses and no confession to pin the crime on this model citizen. She spent some time trying to convince the judge that Peter was neither a danger to the public nor a flight risk.

  The judge listened to this with half an ear. He had been ordered by his superiors to keep the dangerously overcrowded state jails as empty as possible. The state was bankrupt and was in grave danger of bouncing state employees’ paychecks. He was a state employee.

  So he granted bail, more because of the state’s financial condition than the strength of Elaine’s presentation. He set bail at $1 million. The judge also ordered Peter to wear an electronic ankle monitor and put him under house arrest.

  Elaine argued against the amount of the bail, but was unable to budge the judge. Peter glowered at the prosecution table and arresting officers when he was not engaged in staring at the floor. The drugs they had given him in the infirmary had worn off and had been replaced by a bad hangover and a worse temper.

  Later, at the prison hospital, Elaine visited Peter at his bedside and had him sign a power of attorney for financial matters, giving her the power to remortgage his house in order to raise the cash to give to a bail bondsman. The bondsman would then post the full million. Bail bondsmen usually took 10% in cash to post a bond, and there was enough equity in the house to raise that amount. She explained all this to Peter.

  Peter responded by repeating over and over that he didn’t do it and that she should talk to Frannie. Although not drugged any longer, Peter didn’t feel like he was in the real world. This had to be a movie or a dream. He couldn’t accept helplessness as a natural state. There had to be something he could do, but he had no clue what that might be.

  “Peter, I’ll talk to Frannie and make sure she keeps her mouth shut from now on, and that she’s a credible witness.”

  Nothing short of getting out would make Peter happy, but he replied, “That will make me happy.”

  Elaine left without kissing him or saying any words of endearment. She almost touched his cheek, but pulled her hand back at the last moment. Peter hoped that she was just shy because of the cameras in the room.

  Chapter 56

  Back at her office, working the phones, Elaine soon discovered that there were no bondsmen in the city. She had to look to a bigger city to find one. Even finding a bondsman there proved to be difficult. Some wouldn’t deal with her since she wasn’t locally based. One said that he didn’t do bail over $100,000. Another said he didn’t do bonds for capital murder.

  Finally, one bondsman did “help” her. When Elaine told him she could raise the 10%, he just laughed. He stated that while the non-refundable percentage of his bond was only 10% - as mandated by state law - he also wanted a further refundable deposit of cash or assignable collateral of $200,000. Elaine gave the bondsman all of the information he requested and an assurance she would raise the full $300,000. She was not sure of the legality of his demand, but was not about to argue. He was the last name listed in the yellow pages.

  Elaine was not sure she could raise that kind of money. Elaine was not even sure why she was doing this. She was pissed off that she had been dragged into this mess. She was pissed off at Wilbur for giving Peter bad advice and then leaving him in court. She was pissed off at having to talk to Peter’s “friend” Frannie, even if she was the key to getting Peter acquitted.

  Elaine phoned Frannie and set up a morning meeting. After the call, Elaine went home, had a long talk with her cat, drank a big fat martini and went to bed.

  Chapter 57

  The next day, Elaine met Frannie in her office.

  “I’m so glad you could make it in to see me this soon, Ms. Fox.”

  “Call me Frannie. Did you say you’re representing Peter? I thought he had Wilbur Dupuis.”

  “Do you know Wilbur?”

  “I’ve heard of him.” Frannie sounded evasive on that.

  “From Peter?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “How long have you known Peter?”

  “A few years.”

  “What is the nature of your relationship with him?”

  “I am his client. We are casual friends.”

  “Nothing more?”
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  “You get right down to it, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Look, honey, I had sex with him. Is that what you really want to know? I jerked him off a few times and gave him some blow jobs. Then I stopped doing that. I don’t allow men to fall in love with me - rules of the game, you know. I stopped because Peter was besotted with me, and dying of jealousy. Tit for tat, lawyer lady: are you fucking him?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “That answers my question. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. I read people like a book, and you, lady, are a large-print edition. Besides, I know about Peter’s fetishes and you have at least a cup size on me. In my experience, the only ladies with tits as big as yours are strippers or trannies. Did you strip your way through law school or are you really a guy?”

  “Can we get back on track?”

  “What track is that?”

  “Getting Peter out of jail.”

  “I’m all for that. I gave him 4K in cash to do a project for me. He can’t work for me in jail.”

  “Ms. Fox, he can’t do it at home either, because his computer and external drive have been seized.”

  “Yeah, the cops told me about that when they phoned me for his alibi. So why don’t you go see your client and get my money back until he can do it, or I’ll have to find somebody else to do the work. Shit. What did I do to deserve that idiot? Don’t get me wrong, counselor - I like the man and his work. And don’t get your knickers in a knot; I’m not going to steal him from you.”

  Elaine’s mind was racing in several directions. “What’s that you said about a fetish, for what, tits?”

  “Just the kind of tits we have: bolt-ons. Does that disappoint you, lawyer lady? Now what, you’re worried he just loves you for your tits?”

  “I have a name. Please use it,” Elaine said with ice in her voice.

  “Fine, Elaine. You don’t need to get all high and mighty about this fetish thing. Peter’s normal. Big deal. He’s a kind and sensitive person. What’s more, he’s a genius. Have you seen his paintings?”