EDGE OF SUSPENSE: Thrilling Tales of Mystery & Murder

by Flowers, R. Barri

  Was he even worth fighting for? Or should she be grateful that he had revealed his secret life, thereby making him worthless to her?

  Maybe he was telling her this because the affair was now over and he wanted her forgiveness.

  Could their lives ever possibly be the same again?

  Or had his admission made trust impossible from this day forward, no matter what else happened?

  "Who is she?" Emma asked him pointblank, as if she needed to know in order to put a face and body to this nightmare where there seemed no escape.

  Was it Doris Applegate, his editor that he had been spending an increasing amount of time with over the last year? She was an attractive bottle blonde, a few years younger than Emma, and couldn't seem to find enough reasons not to see Harrison.

  Or perhaps it was Lena Richardson, the thirty-something vivacious organizer of the nonprofit group offering assistance to runaway children? Against Emma's wishes, Harrison had insisted on volunteering his services in raising money and counseling youth on the pitfalls of running away, though he himself had come from a functional family and never saw fit to run away. For this Lena Richardson was eternally grateful.

  Then there was Samantha Winningham, their newly widowed next-door neighbor. She was barely forty, lonely, rich, and made no secret of her attraction to Harrison. He, of course, scoffed at the notion, insisting that she meant nothing to him. But that didn't stop him from feeling obliged to assist her with household maintenance now that she was left without a husband to do it. Or apparently the will to hire professional help.

  Harrison hastily poured himself another drink. "It's not anyone you know," he said, as if she should somehow applaud him for this consideration. "We met at a book signing earlier this year and we hit it off right away. Like we were—"

  He checked himself, as if the weight of his words was too haunting for even him to say.

  "Meant for each other," Emma finished for him.

  He drank more wine and sighed. "She's young...in her early twenties. She's actually read everything I've ever written. Even those pieces that appeared in obscure magazines—"

  He was obviously flattered by the ego-tripping worship from his young tart, Emma thought disgustedly. She too had once fed his ego till it had become more accommodating than honest.

  Harrison's eyes alighted as if he was floating on a cloud of energy. "She makes me feel young, alive...needed—"

  But she needed him, Emma thought. She had always needed him. Why couldn't he see and respect that?

  When had he stopped needing her?

  "Do you love her?" The words played back in Emma's mind like a broken record. Waiting to hear the answer was like being strapped to the electric chair and waiting to see if there would be a last second reprieve or a violent, painful death by electrocution.

  Did she want to hear his reply?

  Could she stand it if he actually loved this girl toy that had made him forsake his marriage vows?

  The thought of not being loved was the worst thing Emma could think of, with the possible exception of loving a bastard who had ripped her heart to shreds.

  * * *

  She should hack him up into little pieces and send his remains to his starry-eyed little whore.

  Along with the burned pages of his damned manuscripts.

  Or perhaps it would be more appropriate and painful if it was he who burned to death. Emma was surprised by the wickedness of her thoughts. She could imagine pouring gasoline or cooking oil over him and his mistress while they were asleep after making love. She would wake them so they could see the revulsion in her eyes, just before she dropped the match.

  Their inflamed bodies would light up like a torch. Deathly screams would roar from their mouths while the flesh melted on their limbs. Soon they would be reduced to nothing more than charred bones and ashes.

  All the while Emma would watch this horror unfold and curse Harrison for turning her into an unforgiving beast who no longer cared about life, living, and compassion.

  "I hope we can still be friends," Harrison told her.

  He was putting clothes in a bag atop the bed two days after telling Emma that he was in love with another woman. She had slapped him, but felt as if it was she who had been hit harder than she could ever have imagined. She had told him to get out, hoping that he might somehow come to his senses, tell her it was all a mistake, and beg her forgiveness.

  But it was not to be.

  He had left without so much as a meager attempt at reconciliation, having clearly anticipated such, and even making plans for living arrangements.

  Plans that no longer included Emma.

  "The moment you walk out that door," she told him, "you end any chance of us remaining friends. I have no intention of going from your wife and lover to someone you think you can come to for comfort when your little bimbo decides you are too old, unsatisfying, and too much of an asshole for her."

  Harrison flung several pairs of slacks into the bag, and hit Emma with a contorted glare. "Sorry you feel that way. I was really hoping we could somehow end this more civilized."

  "No you weren't," she challenged him. "You were hoping to get the best of all worlds, just like the characters in one of your damned novels. But it doesn't work that way in the real world. You made your uncivilized bed, Harrison. Now I hope you and your mistress lie in it and rot!"

  Emma found that it had become increasingly easier to vent her feelings. She knew that she couldn't simply go away like the good wife who had been taken advantage of and mistreated. He didn't deserve to get off that lightly. She had worked too hard at making their marriage work to watch it come apart at the seams and dismiss it as if swatting away a fly.

  Harrison zipped his bag, grabbed it, and said colorlessly, "I'll pick up the rest of my things in a few days. I'm sure we'll be able to work out a satisfactory arrangement regarding property and such. Goodbye, Emma—"

  She said nothing, wanting only to hear him leave, for she could no longer stand the sight or smell of him. When she heard the front door click shut, Emma knew that the world she had come to know and love had changed forever.

  And for the worst.

  She sank down to the hardwood floor and cried for the first time. The tears stung her cheeks and seemed to embody all of the feelings that raced through her like a locomotive out of control. She no longer had a husband. Or a lover. Or a confidant. Or a best friend.

  Another woman had inherited the man she had dedicated herself to in body and spirit.

  But instead of being engrossed with self-pity, Emma found herself absorbed with anger.

  Loathing.

  Discontent.

  Revenge.

  She wanted to kill him.

  It was the only way to free her from the feelings of betrayal and anguish.

  And prevent him from taking what was hers and giving it to another woman unjustly.

  She contemplated the many ways in which she could carry out the deed.

  Carbon monoxide poisoning.

  Strangulation.

  Asphyxiation.

  Castration.

  That last thought clung to her like a second skin. She wondered how long it would take him to bleed to death from the source of his abandonment.

  She hoped it would not come too swiftly, for it would only be equitable to what she felt if he were forced to suffer for some time before the end came unmercifully.

  * * *

  The woman sat impassively at the defense table beside her court-appointed attorney. She was on trial for the murder of her husband and the attempted murder of his lover. He had been shot ten times at pointblank range. His lover had been shot three times, miraculously surviving the assault though left a paraplegic.

  Across the room, the prosecutor fidgeted nervously at his table, glancing occasionally at the defendant.

  The jury sat tensely, carefully avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, as if to do so might tip the scales one way or the other.

  The judge too
k all this in, sighed, and looked at the jury foreman. "Have you reached a verdict?"

  "Yes, we have, Your Honor."

  The verdict was passed from the bailiff to the judge, who glanced at it with no indication from her facial expression of what it said, before sending it back to the jury foreman.

  "Will the defendant please rise," the judge ordered.

  Her attorney stood first, and urged his client to stand. The prosecutor joined them.

  The judge knew this was the moment of truth when life and death hung in the balance. She considered this raw power for a moment or two before regarding the foreman.

  "You may read the verdict—"

  The foreman licked his lips, refraining from eyeing the defendant, as if to do so would result in some form of punishment. "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of first degree murder and attempted murder—"

  Judge Emma Kincaid quickly restored order to the court and immediately directed the newly convicted woman to be remanded to the county jail to await sentencing.

  Emma gazed down at the woman as she was being led away by sheriff's deputies. For a moment, their eyes met and Emma felt empathy that she could never express to the woman or anyone else.

  In court she was a judge, sworn to uphold the law to the best of her ability.

  Outside of court, she was a woman. One who had all the frailties and vulnerabilities of a woman scorned.

  This was the woman that possessed her now.

  Emma left the courthouse a short while later and went directly home. She was still thinking about the case she had just presided over when she pulled up into her driveway. Waiting there beside a dark sedan were two men dressed in cheap suits. By their demeanor and respectful but uneasy expressions, Emma knew instinctively that they were police detectives.

  She got out of her silver Lexus. They approached her.

  "Judge Kincaid," said the older of the two, removing his identification from his pocket, "I'm Detective Buchanan and this is Detective Jefferson. We need to talk to you."

  She lifted a brow, wondering if they had somehow been able to invade her thoughts.

  "What is this about?"

  The detectives looked at each other, as if carrying a great secret.

  "Mind if we go inside?" Detective Jefferson asked.

  "Has something happened to my husband?" Emma surprised herself by asking, her voice fraught with emotion.

  Again the detectives exchanged glances and frowns.

  She decided to take control. "Something has happened to him. Has he had an accident?" She wasn't sure why she chose to use the word "accident" instead of "heart attack" or some other reference to death or dismemberment.

  Detective Buchanan looked at her grimly. "There was a plane crash. A twin engine Cessna went down in the Sierras. There were two people on board—Harrison Kincaid and a young woman who hasn't been identified yet." He paused. "I'm afraid that neither one survived."

  Like the good wife, Emma turned white as a ghost and began to wail like a newborn baby. "Noooo," she cried out. "There must be some mistake." She knew there was no mistake. Harrison had told her that he and his mistress were going to the cabin for a couple of days.

  Obviously he never made it.

  When she finally got rid of the detectives a half an hour later, Emma retreated to the study. Admittedly, she was in disbelief over the turn of events. It was almost as if she had willed the accident to happen.

  Yes, it had been an accident.

  She had never even contemplated Harrison's death by plane crash, though somehow it seemed fitting. She imagined the terror he and his ill fated lover must have felt as the plane was spiraling out of control, knowing that death was imminent...mere seconds away that probably seemed like years.

  She wondered if Harrison had thought of her just before the moment of impact.

  Had he considered that the circumstances that would result in his death might never have occurred were it not for his own misguided choices?

  Emma poured herself a glass of wine. She drank it, laughing hysterically, while saying aloud: "To my darling late husband. May you and your whore rot in hell!"

  She thought about how justice seemed to have a way of prevailing when all was said and done.

  Suddenly she felt dizzy and her stomach tightened. Then her throat felt like it was on fire. She dropped the glass, spilling its contents onto the floor even before it shattered into a thousand pieces.

  Clutching her throat, Emma felt as if her entire body was being invaded by a foreign enemy. One determined to make sure she did not survive. But not before she suffered horribly.

  She fell backwards, her body wracked with pain, before she hit the floor with a thud. Her voice was raspy, but she was unable to scream. Yet her mind was still remarkably clear. She had laced the wine with strychnine.

  It was intended for Harrison.

  # # #

  THE JURY HAS SPOKEN

  The four men and two women sat around the table, a nearly empty bottle of bourbon and half-filled bottles of red and white wine between them, along with a bowl overflowing with cash. A smooth jazz CD was playing in the background, but no one was paying attention to it.

  "Guilty as charged—murder in the first degree," said prosecutor Jay Penchant. "I had the jury eating right out of my hands."

  "Hell, if they'd known where your hands had been, they would've thought twice," remarked Judge Walter Armstrong.

  Penchant laughed humorlessly. "Yeah right, Your Honor. You'd know something about that, wouldn't you?"

  "Let's just keep our focus on the case," defense attorney Lisa Hamilton said.

  "Yeah, she's right," said detective Matt McDonald. "The jury has spoken. Isn't that the bottom line?"

  "Of course," the judge said, sipping bourbon. "I'm just trying to keep things light."

  "We all are," said assistant district attorney Deborah Knight. "None of us can afford to take this too seriously, or we'd all go nuts."

  "Amen to that," said defense attorney Scott Valdez, lifting his drink.

  Prosecutor Penchant smoothed a thick brow. "Now that we all seem to be on the same page, let's take it from the top on how we got to this point. And, more importantly, where do we go from here?"

  "Okay," said McDonald, flipping through a notepad. "Let's see, we've got Thomas Baker, forty-seven, arrested for murdering his thirty-eight-year-old wife Cassandra."

  "Cause of death?" Penchant asked.

  "Blunt force trauma to the head."

  "And the method used to commit the murder?"

  "He used one of his golf clubs and really went to work on her," McDonald said.

  ADA Knight made a face. "Sounds gruesome."

  "You've got that right," the detective said. "Not even a belated attempt to call 911 could save her from the onslaught."

  Judge Armstrong cleared his throat and said, "As I recall, the DNA evidence was overwhelming. His prints were all over the murder weapon and the victim's blood was all over him."

  "Not so fast," argued Hamilton. "The DNA, while certainly powerful, was hardly overwhelming. The defendant never denied he was at the crime scene, especially since he lived there with his wife. But nothing was presented to contradict his assertion that someone conked him on the head and left him in a pool of the victim's blood."

  "Ahh, but that's where you're mistaken, Counselor," said the prosecutor. "We had an expert witness come in and testify that the superficial bump on the back of the defendant's head was most likely self-inflicted to make it look like someone else was there."

  "Yes, and our expert disagreed," Valdez stated sharply. "According to her, it was highly unlikely that Mr. Baker knocked himself out; supporting the view that he was struck from behind as he stated, rendering him unconscious and conveniently caught red-handed, no pun intended."

  "Assuming that's true, and it's a big assumption," said ADA Knight, "it still doesn't explain how the defendant's prints ended up on the murder weapon that was left embedded in his wife's skull."


  "That's an easy one," said McDonald. "Baker was an avid golfer, and a damned good one by most accounts. As such, you would expect to find his prints on clubs he owned. Of course, the fact that no other prints were found on the murder weapon makes it difficult to believe that it was used by anyone other than the defendant to bash his wife's head in."

  Attorney Hamilton scoffed. "Sounds just a little too pat for me. Thomas Baker, a Harvard grad, decides to kill his wife by beating her to death with his own golf club that has his fingerprints on it, leaving no doubt that he did it. Then he concocts the hit on the head story as his rationale for being in the wrong place at the worst possible time. Give me a break." She rolled her eyes. "That's either the lamest excuse ever or he was telling the absolute truth."

  "Sounds like a good closing argument, Counselor," said Prosecutor Penchant. "But you've neglected to include something very important. Thankfully, the jury took this into consideration when rendering their verdict. The defendant had more than one reason for wanting his wife dead."

  "Do tell," Judge Armstrong said eagerly.

  Penchant tasted his wine as he looked around the table. "For starters, the Mrs. had just filed for divorce. Then he discovered that she'd been having an affair with one of his colleagues. Talk about the ultimate betrayal. Oh, and did I forget to mention that Thomas Baker was having his own affair and there was some indication that he wanted his wife out of the picture? Since he had a million dollar life insurance policy on her, she was worth far more to him dead than alive."

  "Well, I'm sure we'd all agree that those things certainly worked against the defendant," the judge said.

  "Yes, but that doesn't mean he killed her," Valdez said. "If you're just looking solely at money as the motive, Baker wasn't exactly poor. His advertising firm is one of the most successful in the city. A million bucks was like a drop in the bucket for him. Not to mention he and his wife each had million dollar life insurance policies long before the crime occurred, which would seem to debunk that theory."

  ADA Knight scoffed and stared at him in disbelief. "Were we in the same courtroom? As was presented into evidence, Thomas Baker's business was failing and he was deeply in debt. Collecting a million dollars while making sure his wife didn't divorce him would go a long way toward solving both of his problems."