The Wrong Husband 2

by B. M. Hardin

  It would only make things worse. And things were already bad enough.

  At the changing of the light, Polo went straight and at the last minute, I turned left. Sleeping with him wasn’t the answer. It wasn’t the solution. I talked to myself aloud, but even I couldn’t convince myself not to do more damage than good. Instead of trying to open my legs to Polo, I needed to be trying to find Eddie to give him a piece of my mind! And maybe a two-piece with my fists too!

  You know what…

  At the stop sign, on the next street, despite my thoughts, I turned around. I turned up the radio to drown out the voice in my head. Glancing briefly into my eyes in the rearview mirror, I frowned but yet I still drove…

  All the way to Polo’s house.

  ~***~

  “Sassi uh?”

  “It’s Sassi Sampson...now and forever. How can I help you?”

  I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to try to convince Eddie to take me back anymore. Hell, he wouldn’t even want me back anyway after all of the nasty, freaky stuff that I’d done to and with Polo the other day.

  I just didn’t think it was worth it after what I’d found out and I didn’t even care if Eddie found out. There was no point in trying to fix something that was obviously broken way before I even had an affair.

  But I’d vowed to myself that Polo and I would never cross the line again either. I’d only used him to get back at Eddie, though Eddie didn’t even know about it.

  “We wanted to know if we could come in and ask you a few questions,” the officer said.

  I moved out of the way and let them in.

  “How can I help you?”

  I offered them a seat.

  “Well, I know that you’re a beneficiary of Patrice Peterson’s will correct?”

  My stomach started to boil.

  Uh oh.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if you know this but it was changed only two days before she was reported dead.”

  “Maybe she had a change of heart or something. I didn’t know that it was a crime to change your will. I thought that you could change it anytime that you wanted to.”

  “That’s right. And Patrice died from a tumor?”

  “Yes. From my understanding. I didn’t even know she’d died until afterwards.”

  “Did you know that there’s no record of Patrice going to the hospital within six months of her death? Or to her primary doctor’s office?”

  What? That just couldn’t be true.

  I looked at the officer and awaited his next words.

  “Are you aware of who Patrice’s father is?”

  “Of course. We’d been friends for years. He is a big time movie producer but more than anything he was a father.”

  Once Patrice’s mother passed away, he spent all of his time spoiling Patrice, and giving her the world, until he got remarried.

  He married some French woman, and though he didn’t have as much time to spend with Patrice, he loved her like crazy.

  “He suspects foul play. He’d finally gotten around to cleaning out her house. He saw a few papers that were supposedly from a doctor about a tumor but he found out that all of the documentation was false. Patrice didn’t have a tumor. There were no real records of it. At all.”

  What!

  “Who made the documents, we aren’t sure. The doctor on the papers and the prescription bottles is a fake. The doctor doesn’t exist. The pills in the bottles were tested and they were just sleeping pills and aspirins. No recent hospital visits. No recent doctor office visits. Her insurance hadn't been used, or billed, for any reason for months. Being that there was so much documentation on the supposedly tumor, her father hadn't demanded an autopsy before. Devastated that his daughter hadn't shared her secret with him, he’d simply grieved and laid her to rest without too many questions. But as he was cleaning out her place, something told him to look a little deeper, and the truth was something that he hadn't expected. The tumor story was a lie. So, now he wants the truth. He wants his daughter exhumed and he wants to know the real reason and cause of her death. He thinks that she was murdered.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears.

  So, Patrice didn’t die from a tumor?

  She was murdered?

  Possibly?

  Probably?

  “And it’s from our understanding, from other interviews, that you and Patrice were very close.”

  “Yes we were. But a lot of people didn’t know that we weren’t exactly speaking. Actually, I didn’t even know that she was in town until after she died.”

  “But yet you didn’t come to the funeral.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t know that she was dead. I didn’t find out until after meeting for the will at the lawyers office.”

  “Um huh. And you two weren’t on speaking terms?”

  “We weren’t. I’d found out that she’d had a sexual relationship with my husband before we were married and with my father. But I didn’t do anything to her. I loved her. I wish that I could see her, just on last time.”

  “Yeah. Everyone says that you two were very close. We don’t believe that you had anything to do with her death, but we are sure that someone did. Anyway, we just wanted to make you aware of the matter at hand and I wanted to see if you’ve heard anything or seen anything suspicious?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Okay. Well, if you do, could you please let me know? In the meantime, we will be digging up Patrice’s body to see what the real reason behind her death was. I got a feeling that we will be dealing with a homicide. But let’s hope that I’m wrong,” the officer gave me his card and headed out the door.

  I took a deep breath and stared at the officer’s card in my hand.

  What the hell was going on around here?

  I took a seat.

  Patrice didn’t have a tumor?

  But she was dead.

  So the question was…who in the hell killed Patrice?

  And why?

  ~***~

  I stared at Eddie.

  I wanted to stab him or punch him in the face or something.

  “What’s your problem?”

  His phone started to ring and he glanced at it.

  But he didn’t pick it up.

  “Who is that?”

  “None of your business Sassi.”

  With what the cops had told me about Patrice, my mind had been all messed up lately. I couldn’t help but wonder who would have wanted to kill her. And furthermore, I wondered if I knew her killer.

  Patrice was a difficult woman, so it could have been a number of folks that probably wanted nothing more than to see her dead. But my intuition was telling me that somebody around me knew something.

  And somebody was going to slip up at sooner or later, so my eyes were open.

  Hell, I wondered about Eddie. If he would have drugs put in my bag to try to have me sent to jail, was he capable of murder too? And what would have been his motive? We were past the confession of his and Patrice’s past relationship, so he wouldn’t have had any reason to want her dead.

  But somebody did.

  Of course I hadn't heard anything else from the cops about it or anything, but only time would tell.

  Eddie’s phone made another noise and he picked it up.

  He smiled but hurriedly made it disappear.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Nothing.”

  He put his phone back down.

  “Who is that on your phone Eddie huh? Obviously they are making you smile.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about Sassi.”

  Eddie started to play with our youngest son and simply ignored me and my questions, turned his phone on silent and put it in his pocket.

  For the rest of the evening we barely said a few words to each and once he was gone, I sat in front of my laptop and got to work. Our phones were still on the same plan since he paid the
bill. So, let’s see what I could find out.

  I created an online account with our cell phone carrier. The phones were in Eddie’s name, but of course I knew all of his information so it really didn’t make a difference.

  I started to look around. Immediately I noticed something wrong. Imagine my surprise to see that it wasn’t just two lines on our account…there were three.

  Who in the hell has the third line?

  Immediately I grabbed my phone and dialed the number.

  I called private a few times, back to back, but no one answered the phone.

  Hmm…

  Why in the hell had he never mentioned this before?

  Sure even when I worked, I had some bills that I took care of but Eddie had always been very proactive, busy, but very much so in the loop, especially when finances and bills were involved.

  The cell phone just happened to be one of the bills that he’d always handled.

  And now I know why.

  I went looking through everything else. I came across the monthly bills and guess what else they had…statements!

  I couldn’t see text messages, but I could see each lines total usage and call logs.

  The mystery line didn’t have one single outgoing call to Eddie, not even once.

  But the other line was very active. It had called other numbers before so I called a few of the numbers that were listed.

  A few folks answered the private calls but none of the voices belonged to anyone that I recognized. I always stayed on the phone until they hung up.

  Just in case they uttered a name but they never did.

  I headed to study Eddie’s calls more in depth.

  There were plenty of calls back and forth from mine, his parents, and even Polo. There were even a few from my mother but there were a good bit from another mysterious number.

  Maybe this was the number of whoever had been making him smile. They talked often. There were at these twenty calls either made or answered from the number so I dialed that number too. This had to be some woman that he was seeing but I was about to mess it all the way up.

  I waited to see if someone to answer and finally they did.

  “Hello?” she said.

  At first I just sat there.

  I didn’t say anything as she repeated hello a few more times. Finally, I figured that I might as well at least ask her name. And I could think of a few more questions that I wanted to ask her too.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “You called me remember? So, who is this?” she asked politely.

  “I’m Eddie’s wife,” I said to her.

  “Oh really? Is that so? Funny. I thought that I was.”

  What the hell!

  ****************************

  Chapter 4

  “How the hell did you get in my house Polo?”

  It was 3 a.m. in the morning and I woke up to find Polo sitting on the edge of the bed looking at me.

  “I stole Eddie’s key and made a copy of it.”

  “If you don’t get your crazy ass out of here I’m calling the police!” I bellowed.

  “I’m not crazy. I knew that I might need it one day.”

  Polo was a lunatic!

  “I love you Sassi.”

  “Get out Polo!”

  “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “At three in the morning? And you couldn’t call me private like you always do to talk to me about it?”

  I pulled the cover up around my neck to make sure that none of my naked frame was exposed. It wasn’t like he hadn't seen all of my good stuff but I had enough on my plate already and I didn’t need to keep bringing Polo into the mix. Again.

  So, of course the woman, on the phone, from the other night was only kidding about being Eddie’s wife. She and Eddie weren’t married. She was just being a bitch because I’d called her phone.

  But she did reveal to me that she and Eddie had been getting to know each other for a little while, which he’d conveniently never mentioned.

  She even knew the truth about what had happened with us and that I was the one that had stepped out on our marriage and cheated with his best friend. As private as Eddie was, I was surprised that he’d told some woman so much. I couldn’t believe that he’d told her what I’d done to him, which could only mean one thing. He liked her and he was really trying to move forward with her.

  But for some reason, I didn’t really care as much as I thought that I would and of course the drug incident had something to do with that I was sure.

  He’d even let her meet our kids, so the truth to the matter was that bastard had no plans on giving us another chance, and

  considering what I’d found out at the grocery store, he didn’t have to.

  I stared at Polo.

  Nah. We could never be anything more.

  I wasn’t Eddie’s biggest fan at the moment but I had to stop entertaining things with Polo too. As we all know, if you keep playing with fire, you are bound to get burned. And I’d set fire to enough things in my life already.

  “I’ve convinced Eddie to take you back.”

  I looked at him confused. One minute he says he loves me.

  The next minutes he’s trying to hook me back up with his best friend, who I didn’t even want anymore.

  “No thanks, I’ll pass.”

  “Don’t say that. You both still love each other.”

  “It’s too late. I don’t think that I want him back. And besides, he’s moved on. But I’m sure that you know that already.”

  “Who? Lola? Oh no. He was hoping that you found out just to make you jealous. She’s a nice girl, but his heart belongs to you.”

  Well, of course Polo would know the truth if anyone did, but knowing him, his proposition came with a catch and I didn’t have time to play around with Polo, Eddie, or even my life anymore.

  I just wanted to be happy.

  “I’m worried about him. Eddie isn’t as put together as you may think Sassi.”

  “What do you mean Polo?”

  “I’m not the only one pretty good at pretending. He needs you. He’s miserable and I can see it. As his best friend, as his brother, I have to try to fix this. I have to make it right.”

  “Polo, it’s just too late.”

  “No it isn’t. I’m going to disappear for a while. I told Eddie that I was going to go on a long vacation, to get myself together. I’ll be back. But by then, you and Eddie should be fine; maybe even headed back down the road towards marriage or something. I’m doing this because I love him. I’m doing this because I love you.”

  For the first time, like ever, Polo seemed to become emotional. And I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.

  He was so crazy, and unstable, that you never knew how to take him. But as I always said. If he didn’t love anybody, he loved Eddie. That was the only thing that I knew for sure.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible after…”

  “Sassi you didn’t even go to jail,” Polo said knowing that I was about to mention the drugs that Eddie had some woman to put in my purse.

  “Polo that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is? You didn’t get hurt. Nothing came from what he’d tried to do. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was in a bad space. Forgive him and move on. If he forgives you for what you did with me, you surely can forgive him.”

  I guess he had a point.

  “Forgive him Sassi. You’re fine. Nothing happened to you. I’ve had this same talk with him too. I told him that he needed to forgive you and fix things with you. To be honest, I think that he just wanted my blessing. He’s going to completely try to forgive you and work things out. He trusts my judgement. He trusts my opinion. I screwed him over but I think he just wanted to know that if he continued to love you that I wouldn’t be an issue anymore. I won’t. So get over it. I know him ten times better than you do Sassi and he needs this. He needs you. Patch things up. I won’t stay gone forever. But
I’ll stay gone long enough. With me out of the way, you two will fall head over heels in love again. I’m sure of it.”

  This was so grown-up of Polo that it was almost a turn on.

  I admired his selflessness. This isn’t what I expected from him and it made him look so damn sexy in a sense.

  I sat up.

  I thought about the past and the future. I thought about what I’d done with Polo and even about the woman that Eddie was dating. I thought about forever.

  “We have a third phone on our phone bill. Do you know who it belongs to?”

  “No,” Polo said bluntly.

  Well, he was probably lying, but I guess that was something that I could ask Eddie.

  “I’m giving you what I know that you want. I’m going away. I’m going to leave in the morning.”

  I stared at Polo.

  I couldn’t believe that he was doing this for us. Maybe he just really did care about Eddie’s happiness.

  I took a deep breath.

  I thought about my life and what I wanted for myself and my kids. I thought about my future.

  Maybe Eddie and I could try this thing again. I guess I could get over what he’d done to me and just move forward. If he could get over my wrongs, I could surely get over his.

  “Okay.”

  Polo nodded.

  He still appeared extremely sad and a part of me wanted to comfort him. He really didn’t have anybody, but Eddie, that didn’t just want to use him, so the fact that he was willing to go off for a while, all alone, I knew that he really had to be concerned about Eddie and his happiness.

  “Thank you. Though I’m a little made at him, I do still love him you know.”

  “I know,” Polo said and stood to his feet.

  Polo was wearing gym shorts and a tee-shirt.

  He had his hair in a pony-tail and even though he wasn’t trying to be sexy or attractive, he absolutely was!

  “I’m doing this for him Sassi. And whether you believe me or not, in my own way, I really do care about you.”

  I believed him.

  “One time for the road,” Polo grinned.

  “Get your ass out of here,” I said to him.

  He couldn’t help but chuckle.