THE PERFECT CRIME - ALMOST

He had a lot of enemies because he was a nasty piece of work. And his wife definitely agreed with the consensus of opinions. Because she was tired of his mental and physical abuse, she racked her brains for a fool proof method to do him in. She had persuaded herself that she had to do it for her own self-preservation. The only thing she had to do now was to perfect her plan. An idea had been perking in her mind for a long time because he was so difficult to live with and treated her with such disdain. As she figured out how to send the grim reaper in his direction, she tried to be very careful so that it could not be traced back to her. The more that she thought about getting rid of him, the more it festered within her until it felt like a cankerous sore, oozing into her soul.

When Jimbo told her he was going fishing on Friday because he had the day off, she knew the time was ripe for his planned demise. When he informed her he was going to take her son, she told him that she had to take him to the dentist on Friday because he had a cavity and that this was the only possible time that the dentist could see him. She certainly wasn’t going to let her son get in harm’s way!

When Jimbo took their son to a ball game Thursday night, she carefully dressed in black, tucked her hair into a ball cap, donned a hoodie and black tennis shoes and walked the mile to the boat dock where his boat was moored. She surreptitiously snuck down the pier to his boat. Taking the screwdriver out of her pocket, she loosened the boat drain plug at the rear of the boat near the motor. Visions of a slow leak danced gleefully through her head. She would finally be free of this man! When she arrived home, she noticed mud on her tennis shoes and threw them in the washing machine. Afraid that there still might be traces of dirt on them, she drove five miles and dumped them in a dumpster behind a gas station. She knew that she hadn’t left fingerprints because she had worn gloves.

She was sitting in her easy chair watching TV when her husband and son arrived back home from the ball game. He snarled at her, telling her that she was lazy and worthless. She turned her head and smiled because she knew that she certainly had not been slacking that night! But let him think whatever he wanted to because by tomorrow night, he would be swimming with the fish.

He left early the next morning with a cooler of beer and some snacks without saying goodbye to her or their son. She heard him leaving, secretly glad to see him go, in more ways than one because he would never again be present in her life if she had made the correct calculations. And what could go wrong with her devious plot?

Friday evening when he did not return from fishing, she tearfully called the Coast Guard and reported him missing. She was not crying for him but for the years of abuse she had tolerated. She was surprised when their son didn’t appear overly upset, but she knew that he had also been the brunt of his father’s anger. That night, she slept like an angel diagonally in the empty bed. She could do whatever she wanted from now on.

The next morning, the Coast Guard called and informed her that they were going to do an extensive search for her missing husband. She decided to go down to the boat dock in order to fit the bill of a grieving wife. When the Coast Guard informed her that it was too dark to continue their search that evening, she tried to feign deep sorrow and reluctance as she headed for home.

That evening, late at night, she was awakened by an insistent ringing telephone.

“This is the Coast Guard, ma’am and we have some news for you.”

“What is it?” she said as she tried to control her voice to appear tremulous.

“Have you found his boat? Have you found his body? I have to know.”

“We haven’t found his boat,” the officer informed her, “but we have found him.”

“Oh,” she screamed in faked horror, “can you bring his body into the boat dock

and I’ll arrange to have him taken to the funeral home? I am so upset and can’t imagine what we’ll do without him.”

“Well,” placated the officer, “we have some good news for you.”

“I hope you’re going to say that the sharks didn’t get to his body,” she said sadly.

“Ma’am, there’s been a miracle. A boater found him clinging to a channel marker way out in the water and brought him to shore. Other than a few salt sores, he’s perfectly okay. I’m always pleased to inform the relatives when we have a happy ending. We’ll take him to the hospital to have him checked out.”

When the officer heard her screams, he assumed that they were screams of joy.

She hung up the telephone in complete shock as she began to work on Plan B.

She sobbed as she realized that it was almost the perfect crime. She’d just have to work on a new game plan because she was not going to give up! She assured herself that he did not deserve to exist on this planet even one more week, thinking that when she was successful next time, she would get her wish. She grabbed her legal pad and began to write down her new strategy.