I was just about to launch into a story—something about this woman, Gretchen, being a maniac, a psychotic stalker who I’d somehow unfortunately made the random acquaintance of—when Monica suddenly got up and walked across the living room to the antique cabinet where she kept miscellaneous items like arts council literature, travel brochures, spare keys, and the like. She slid open the bottom drawer, and reached all the way in.
When she turned around and came toward me, there was something in her hand—something I dimly recognized.
She sat next to me and in her palms gently cradled the object as if it were a bomb that might go off at any second.
Damned if it wasn’t Wellington’s billfold. Now I knew why I kept thinking I’d forgotten something. In all my panic in the aftermath of his murder, I’d left it in the glove compartment of the Saab, the car that Monica never drove. Well, she must have taken it out one day and for some reason opened the glove compartment. Looks like I hadn’t been so perfect after all.
“What is this, Richard?”
Where was I going now? That was the question.
Having Monica in my corner was the only way I was going to slip out of the noose. Especially since it was just a matter of time before she’d know everything.
“We have to talk,” I said.
“It would be a good idea, I think,” she agreed.
And that was it. I told my wife about Gretchen Trecker, leaving out certain hurtful details. I even told her all about the earlier ruse I’d employed to keep her in the dark about what I was going to do. And that I knew she’d set the private dicks on my trail, and how my plan had worked to perfection.
Near perfection.
It all seemed to fascinate her, though she said nothing.
Then it was the moment of truth. I admitted to killing Norman Wellington, who was about to blackmail me, pleading a mistake in judgment, an act of pure desperation. “Manslaughter” was the word I used. Because I needed an ally now in the worst way, and my wife was the obvious candidate. Maybe, just maybe, she would understand. Judging by the new softness I saw in her gray eyes, I was convinced that she would. Because I knew Monica. I knew her better than anyone in the whole world. And I knew she loved me.
“I know it sounds preposterous—even insane—but I killed Wellington to protect us. You, me, Diane. I swiped his billfold to make it look like a robbery, then forgot to take it out of the glove compartment. I’m sorry you had to find it. If you hadn’t, then maybe you would have never known . . .”
“And George? What happened to poor George? Did he somehow find out from you what happened to this man Wellington and then . . . ?” Her voice trailed off when she realized.
I didn’t have the heart to come right out and tell her. But I didn’t have to.
At that moment Monica looked painfully old to me. For one horrifying instant, I felt like I’d confessed to my mother instead of my wife.
“If you’d talked to me before you got involved with this . . . tramp, Richard, I would have told you that you were better off at home.” She looked nostalgic then, as if she’d lost something extremely valuable and would never have it back again. “But I suppose it’s a little late now for learning lessons.”
“I’ve already learned my lesson. Believe me, I’ve learned my lesson.”
“It’s funny,” she said, delicately hefting the chunk of leather. “I’ve been holding this billfold for a couple of weeks now. I knew it meant something—I didn’t know what. But I had a funny feeling about it all along, especially when you came home with that gouge in your head . . .”
“You did?”
“And that’s why I didn’t say anything to you about it. I knew something was going on. Exactly what, I wasn’t sure. But I was just about to send the private investigators out again.”
“You were?”
Monica nodded thoughtfully. Then, in the flicker of an instant, her eyes turned cold and hard again. “Oh, dear. Now we’ll just have to cook you up an alibi, won’t we?”
My heart took a flying leap. I felt like someone who’d just won a reprieve from execution.
At the same time I couldn’t help but be aware of how there were entangling strings everywhere I looked now, ropes and steel cables even, and I was flailing in them like a big, helpless fish.
29.
Gretchen Trecker never made it over to Rensselaer Road. She was arrested for murder last night. That’s what they say on TV. It’s only a matter of time before she blabs everything and I’m dragged straight into the sordid mess.
What am I thinking? She’s spilled everything already—she’s had to, in order to try and save her own ass.
I’d bet anything the New York City police are on their way for me right now. No doubt Hackett is just hovering like a vulture, too. Frankly, I’m shocked he hasn’t already shown up. When they converge on Rensselaer Road, my fate will depend entirely on my wife. If she swears that I was with her when Norman Wellington and George Addington were killed, I might stand a chance. Otherwise—
This morning Diane was driven to school by a friend’s mother who’s part of the carpool. It was very quiet around the house, and my daughter remains oblivious.
As Monica and I sit in front of the TV watching a clip of Gretchen being deposited in a squad car, she says, “I’ll try to protect you for as long as I can, Richard. For Diane’s sake, mostly. But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do it. I mean, if there’s pressure from the police, or . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“This time I think you were just a little too clever for your own good.”
I smile, a little sadly. I can’t disagree. “You’re right, honey.”
On TV they’ve gone on to talk about the weather. I move closer to Monica. My gratitude for her loyalty has spilled over into something else—I want to make love to her.
“What are you doing, Richard?”
“I’m going to kiss you,” I whisper.
“No. Oh, no. I don’t ever want you touching me again.”
“But—”
“Until you find another place to live I’m going to move your things into one of the guest bedrooms. We’re finished, Richard. Obviously I can’t trust you.”
Though I shouldn’t even be surprised, I’m angry, infuriated even. I know what this means. It means that Monica is not going to stand by an alibi if the cops turn the heat up. It means she’ll talk the minute they start backing her into a corner.
It means I can’t trust her.
“Sure, you can, baby,” I assure her.
As she fixes me with those big gray eyes of hers, I slip my hands around the wrinkled flesh of her throat . . . and begin to squeeze.
“Richard—stop. Richard . . . what are you doing? Richard! Richard!”
It’s so much easier the third time, much easier than I thought it could be, even though this time it’s my own wife.
I’m not thinking of anything now, not life insurance policies, not the fact that everything will be mine—nothing, except that no matter what, I have to save myself.
I’ll figure out what to do with Monica’s body later, when she’s dead.
Maybe I’ll drop her into the trunk of one of the cars and take a nice little ride out to the ocean, since it’s only an hour or so away. This time of year there’s no one around the marina. I’ll stuff her into one of the big coolers, then board and cruise out into international waters . . . With the autumn sun shining and bright, it’s the perfect day for a burial at sea.
On the way I’ll cook up something plausible to tell Diane.
I’d better move fast, especially since Gretchen is in police custody.
I squeeze hard, harder, until I hear a crack.
There, that’s it.
The important thing is that there are no witnesses.
And there will be no witnesse
s.
No witnesses to anything.
Whatever goes down, it will be my word against Gretchen’s. Richard Marzten is clean. Hell, there’s even a report up in Monica’s desk to prove it.
EPILOGUE
“You’re telling this court that there never was such a man as Leonard Trecker, is that correct, Ms. Neill?”
It’s the second day of my trial for first-degree murder in the death of Norman Wellington, and already I’m bored shitless. Does it matter what happens to me now? Everything that I tried to hang on to is gone. Diane isn’t even in the courtroom, and when this is all over, the next trial I’ll have to stand is for the deliberate murder of my wife, Monica. They’re convinced I was behind the death of George Addington, too, but they don’t have enough evidence to indict me—so far.
Monica, poor Monica. She truly loved me at one time, I’m convinced, until I crossed certain lines that she couldn’t abide.
In jail I received a letter from Diane telling me that under no circumstance can she be here for the legal process, and so it’s best that she cuts all ties with me now. Monica’s cousin has come from California to stay with her, so I shouldn’t worry about her welfare.
I don’t care. No, none of it interests me in the least. It’s true that looking at “Gretchen”—the Ms. Neill up there on the stand—and imagining how we used to make love, holds a certain degree of fascination, but otherwise it’s all meaningless.
“That’s correct,” she says, trying not to look in my direction.
“Can you explain how he came into being, if I might put it that way? How Leonard Trecker came to exist?”
“He was used as a ruse to set up Richard Marzten.”
“To set him up . . . ? Please explain to the jurors what you mean by that.”
“To set him up for blackmail. Extortion. Whatever word you want to use.”
“You’re saying that you and Norman Wellington worked a scam together, that you told Richard Marzten that you were married to Leonard Trecker—the fictional Leonard Trecker—so that he would be taken in and—”
“Objection! Counsel is leading the witness!”
“Objection overruled. You may proceed, Counselor.”
I don’t have to listen anymore—I know the rest of it already. Gretchen knew I was fixed because I told her about it up front—practically right in the ad I’d run. She and Wellington had pulled the same scam a few times before, or at least they’d tried. In fact, she’d been working another couple of saps at the same time as she was working me. Springing for hotel rooms was an excellent way to suck a rich guy in. All the way in. And what’s curious is that an “L. Trecker” was listed in the Long Island white pages. I checked. As far as I was concerned, Leonard existed.
Then something happened. “Gretchen” fell for me. And when she did, Wellington had to step in and move things along before it all got out of hand. At least that’s what I want to believe. What Gretchen hadn’t bargained for was that I’d do something as crazy as strangling her partner to death.
“And you freely admit that you are guilty of one crime, the lesser one, but not of the other, more serious—”
“Objection!”
God, why do they have to drag this out? What’s the point? We all know what’s going to happen, don’t we? If I were sitting on that jury, I’d believe her, too, it wouldn’t take all that much . . .
No, what’s happening up there doesn’t really interest me at all.
In my mind I keep going back to that late November evening, when I sat in the Beau Soleil after watching the green-and-white cooler that held Monica’s remains sink into the Atlantic. And what I still don’t get is how Hackett knew I was out there, how he came to be waiting on the dock when I pulled in a couple of hours later. Because I hadn’t seen anyone following me. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as I thought after all. Had I known he was going to be there, everything might have been different. Why, I might be lounging on an island in the Caribbean right now, instead of sitting here waiting for the parade of witnesses to end and the jury to find me guilty. Coming straight back in after dropping my dead wife into the deep was just a matter of lousy bad luck.
But that’s the thing about luck. You never know when it’s going to run out, do you?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2011 Lorrie G. Foster
Mark SaFranko’s novels have garnered rave reviews and a cult following throughout Europe, particularly in France. His stories have appeared in more than sixty magazines and journals internationally, including the renowned Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. In 2005 he won the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for his short story “Rescuing Ravel,” published in descant magazine. He was cited in Best American Mystery Stories 2000 and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. SaFranko is also a playwright whose work has been performed on stages in Ireland and the United States. As an actor, he has appeared in several independent films, including Inner Rage, A Better Place, Shoot George, and The Road from Erebus.
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