by Karen Woods
Michael’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry for the pain that she caused you, Daisy dear.”
“You aren’t responsible for her actions, Michael,” Hunt said again.
“In spite of what she said, I really did love her,” Michael said.
“She isn’t responsible for her actions. She’s more than a little crazy, Michael,” Maggie said quietly. “And the penalty she’s given herself is much worse than any which a court would have imposed on her.”
Michael’s face crumpled. Maggie scooted her chair over to sit beside her stepfather. Her arms went around him. He buried his face on her right shoulder and wept freely for a long time.
Hunt stood behind his wife, lightly stroking her hair as Maggie allowed her stepfather to work out his grief.
When Michael had composed himself, more than a half-hour after Susan had left the kitchen, the Senator had gone in search of his wife. But, he hadn’t been able to find her. She wasn’t in their suite. She wasn’t anywhere that she normally would have been found. Michael called down to the gate to see if she had left the grounds. But, she hadn’t. The stable hands hadn’t seen her.
While Michael was searching for Susan, Hunt and Maggie cleared away from the uneaten meal. They had just gotten the dishes loaded into the dishwasher when Michael appeared at the door.
“Will you help me find Susan?” he asked in a near panic. “She’s still on the grounds. But, no one has seen her.”
So, Michael and Hunt went room to room throughout the upper floors of the house looking for her, while Maggie searched the rooms on the ground level. By the time that Maggie got to the south wing, Michael and Hunt had joined her.
Susan wasn’t in the weight room. She wasn’t in the dojo.
Maggie shrieked as she spotted a bikini clad Susan on the bottom of the deep end of the pool. Hunt beat Michael into the pool. They pulled Susan’s body up from the ten-foot bottom. Getting her on the pool deck, they began to administer CPR and Rescue breathing.
While Hunt and Michael were trying to revive Susan, Maggie found Susan’s suicide note. She folded it, and tore it into more pieces than a nun with infinite patience could have reconstructed. Then she took it to the shower room, burned it, and flushed the ashes from the note down the john.
“This is an accident,” Maggie said quietly when she returned to where Michael and Hunt were trying to revive Susan on the pool deck. “An unfortunate accident. Susan never was much of a swimmer. But, she wanted to be able to join you, Michael, for your morning swims. So, without telling you, she had taken to working out alone in order to develop her skills. And today, her luck ran out. She drowned.” Maggie looked at her stepfather. “Do you understand, Michael? No one needs to know about Susan. No one needs to know what she has done. It’s better this way. A scandal just now would serve no purpose and would ruin your political career. And the truth would mean that I would face charges because I just destroyed evidence from a crime scene.”
Michael nodded. “You had better call emergency services then,” he said wearily. “Susan drowned. It was a horrible accident.”
The county medical examiner was an old friend of Michael’s family. He came himself when the call came in. The man took one look at the body and pronounced the cause of death as drowning and that there was no need for an autopsy.
The police took all of their statements. The story was that they had eaten breakfast together, Susan had excused herself leaving Maggie, Hunt, and Michael to talk. After about a half-hour, they went to look for Susan, hadn’t found her, called around the estate, and then found her at the bottom of the pool.
It wasn’t long until the press was clamoring at the gate. Michael, Hunt, and Maggie went down to the gate to face the reporters.
“Are you withdrawing from the race?” a reporter asked.
Michael smiled sadly. “This election was something that my wife wanted for me. It would be untrue to her memory to withdraw now. I have postponed my plans for the campaign tour that was to have begun today. And I will be making no campaign stops for a week or so, in order to give me some time to begin to work through my grief. At the moment, this all seems less than totally real.”
“Have funeral plans been made?” another reporter wanted to know.
Michael looked pained. The photograph of that expression made the papers. “Susan was a Presbyterian. Her memorial service will be according to the form of her faith, and it will be private. She wanted to be cremated. That will be done. I owe it to her to abide by her wishes.”
Returning from the gate, Michael excused himself and went to his room. Maggie took Hunt’s arm. She kissed his cheek. “It’s over,” she said quietly. “My long nightmare is over.”
Hunt nodded. “Now, you can get on with the rest of your life.”
“Now, we can get on with the rest of our life. As soon as I am on my feet, we have some traveling to do.”
Hunt smiled at his wife. “I think that we’ve both had enough excitement to last a lifetime or two. I’m ready to settle down someplace quiet and raise orchids and kids.”
Maggie looked at her husband questioningly. “Do you really think that anyplace where we would settle would be quiet for long?”
He laughed quietly. “Now, you wouldn’t want life to be boring, would you?”
“Somehow, I don’t believe that you and I will ever have that problem.”
Hunt laughed as he urged his wife toward the south wing of the house and toward their suite.
– THE END –
About the Author: Karen Woods lives quietly in West Central Illinois.
