Page 5
Story: My Wife, the Serial Killer
I did one last check around me and then, without glancing at its planned trajectory, tossed the hand into the river, holding extra tight onto Tony’s lead just in case he didn’t think it through and made a suicidal jump after it.
When I looked back, it had all but vanished.
I could only see the top half of the fingers dancing across the spurting streams of water, as if O’Neill was doing a polite little wave goodbye to me.
This part of the river was only half a mile away from the estuary, which was at least a few metres deep.
No one would ever find his remains, and even if they did, the amount of time the body parts would have spent immersed in water would wash away any identifiable prints from him.
What body parts constituted the other half of Mr O’Neill were currently being crushed in a rubbish truck in several layers of extra-strength bin bags mixed in with all the other non-recyclables and waste, exactly where he belonged.
I did make a mental reminder to find out what brand of bin bags O’Neill used, as frankly, they were excellent.
I continued to dispose of nearly everything that was in the bag. I savoured the moment of throwing in his right hand, which had always been adorned with that tacky old ring they all wore. It was just his right foot left, now.
I had waited about thirty seconds between throwing each appendage into the current, aiming to space each of them out.
My brain told me this would help disperse the evidence more effectively.
Although, in the grand scheme of things, I wasn’t sure it would really matter; it was probably more likely superstition on my part.
As I waited, I booted up the notes app on my phone. All the entries were in my little code, of course. Gareth knew my phone’s passcode, and I had no other secrets to hide from him. But it would certainly raise red flags if he stumbled upon: ‘To-do list: clean up murder’.
Clean the wine stain
Wine was, of course, code for blood. That was done.
Warm water and trusty baking soda from O’Neill’s pantry had done the trick on the wine/milk concoction that had brutally stained his carpet upstairs.
A few minutes of scrubbing and dabbing had made his carpet actually look cleaner than before, if anything.
Write the shopping list
This task had been unexpectedly challenging.
I had contemplated staging the scene as a suicide, but I’d known there’d be some detail I’d overlook.
My husband’s work stories and countless TV shows had taught me that murderers rarely manage to leave absolutely no trace of their crime; there was always something that gave them away.
So, I’d settled on making Mr O’Neill’s ‘suicide’ a mere vague, mysterious disappearance, leaving behind a note about how much he’d loathed his life and had chosen to end it.
However, this presented its own set of difficulties.
I knew how the man spoke but not how he wrote.
I hadn’t a clue what his handwriting even looked like, and that could be a dead giveaway if he was still in touch with his daughter.
So, wearing gloves, I’d searched his home for any handwriting samples to mimic.
My efforts were fruitless, save for a handwritten note that simply read:
I’ll kill you
Hardly what I was searching for, but it had left me wondering if perhaps I wasn’t Mr O’Neill’s only enemy.
So, I had to be creative. He was a pretentious prick; I remembered that much about him, so I yanked out a few of his poetry anthologies and swiped to the contents.
I didn’t know who Penelope Thornfield was, but I wished I could go back in time and kiss her for writing a piece of poetry that fit the bill perfectly for my current predicament.
I tore out the piece of paper carefully, as I’m sure he would have, and then really getting into character, I teetered over to the desk in his study and placed it as square centre as I could, trying to mimic his quivering hands.
I’d have tried to get his fingerprints all over it, but they were smothered in blood, so opted not to take that risk.
Reset the camera
Of course, this was, in fact, poor Beryl’s video doorbell.
I did feel bad, and I would own up to it when I got back from walking Tony and offer to pay for a new one, but it would be foolish of me not to expect some police investigation when Mr O’Neill’s carer reported him missing.
So, if the camera had caught me fishing something out of his bin while walking Tony, that wouldn’t help my case.
As it stood, the worst I could be accused of was clumsiness.
I wasn’t entirely sure if the camera had recorded me entering the house in the moments before I killed O’Neill, but if it had, that would only align with my alibi of being a helpful member of the community: helping him with his shopping and taking the bins out for him.
Get rid of the rubbish
Done. One part was halfway to sea, and the other halfway to a godforsaken landfill.
Admittedly, I will leave the gory details of chopping him up to the imagination.
All I’ll say is the knife I’d used had served two purposes, and thank God he had installed a wide, spacious wet room in his old age.
It had made everything so much easier – and cleaner.
Pack the shopping away
That wasn’t really in code at all. I realised after I’d killed O’Neill that it would be unlikely he would decide to kill himself just after he’d bought a bunch of groceries.
I’d debated whether to leave the shopping to go mouldy or not, but then I realised it was a chance to advance my own alibi.
I took off the gloves and put my fingertips all over his shopping as I packed it away in his house – mostly just vegetables, sanitary products, and a carton of milk, half of which had spilt across his carpet.
The knife I cleaned thoroughly and popped back onto the rack at home.
I know, I know, that’s incredibly gross, but someone spotting a missing knife from our board during a murder-by-blade investigation would not exactly be great timing for me.
It wasn’t like I was going to use it when I cooked dinner anyway; it would just have to be purely for display.
Shame really, as it was a good quality Nesmuk knife, too.
I was just about to scroll down further on my phone when suddenly I felt my arm jolt backwards like something was attempting to yank it out of its socket.
I squealed as this shrill demonic roar began to emanate from the world’s angriest Shih Tzu behind me.
I quickly got my bearings and jerked Tony back to my ankle.
Behind me, a middle-aged man: balding, fat.
He held his poodle with the weakest, limpest grip I had ever seen. God damn – his poor wife.
‘You got a feisty one there, haven’t you?’ he said, his face revoltingly plastered with a droopy grin.
Why was everyone in this town so talkative?
‘Yeah, he’s not mine. I’m just walking him around the block for my neighbour,’ I said, taking a quick, uninterested glimpse at him and tugging Tony back to my side.
‘Oh, is that right?’ I could feel his eyes darting to the bin bag. ‘You dumping up here or what?’
I instinctively clasped my hand tight around the strap of the bin bag which still held the final piece of O’Neill. I had my face turned away from him, but I could feel my jaw ever so slightly start to quiver.
‘No, not dumping,’ I quickly responded while my mind started racing to concoct a convincing lie.
This man was a stranger; he’d think nothing of it if I gave him no reason to.
Tony leapt for the poodle again as I lunged forward to yank him back, my hand still firmly gripped on the neck of the bin bag.
‘Oh all right, so what are you doing with that bin bag, then?’ he asked.
‘Nothing special,’ I snapped, turning my head to give a genteel smile as compensation for my aloofness.
I twisted my body back around to face the river.
If I told him anything, he’d want to look.
I knew these kinds of middle-aged pre-retirees; their mid-life crises manifested themselves in an incessant need to know everything .
I’m sure I could tell him I was drowning a bagful of kittens, and he’d ask me what breed they were before trying to intervene.
‘Ah, all right then,’ he said, confused, as he watched Tony’s tiny wet nose eagerly pushing against my wrist, trying to get inside the bag. ‘He looks interested in it, whatever it is.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ were all the words I managed to say as I attempted to gently push Tony back with my lead-holding hand. It didn’t deter him much as he began to nibble at my fingers, piercing the skin with his sharp little teeth.
‘You got some dog food or something in there, maybe?’
I knew if I spoke, my voice would quiver from the sheer adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, but I had no idea what to say.
Tony, however, had now realised he could work smarter and not harder as he began to tear the outside of the bag with his teeth.
The rapid, thunderous beat of my heart had begun to drown out the man’s voice as I could see pink, bloody flesh through the rupture of the bag.
If a bad plan was better than no plan, then maybe a bad excuse was better than no excuse?
‘It’s my mother’s ashes, all right? I’m sprinkling them here; this was her favourite spot, so can you leave me alone now, please?’ I blurted out. ‘This is a… a special moment, and you’re ruining it for me.’
The man physically recoiled, and nodded, like that was a satisfactory answer and no further information was needed.
‘Oh, very sorry for your loss, sorry to hear that. I’ll leave you to… er…’
He was going to say something stupid.
‘… sprinkle in peace.’
I knew it.
I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye as he began to walk backwards, retreating to a safe distance from the weird woman by the river. ‘But just letting you know, best not to be around these parts for a woman alone, a bit murky if you ask me,’ he yelled.
‘Duly noted, thanks,’ I shouted back.
‘And they sell urns, you know?’
Wow. Just wow.
I didn’t even wait until he was out of sight before tossing the foot in the river and shoving the blood-soaked liner in the nearest park bin.
When I hopped back into the car, I let myself relax, loosened my shoulders, and practised breathing exercises I had watched on ‘Meditation Minute’ on trashy daytime TV.
It was done. I had to keep reminding myself that Gordon O’Neill was dead, and I was the one who had killed him.
Part of me almost wanted to tell Gareth, to accept all the consequences of my actions just to be able to confide in my husband, but my better judgement – or maybe self-preservation – won out.
I smoothed my hands over the steering wheel as if it was giving me some kind of stress relief. I glanced over to Tony in the passenger seat, who was still watching me intently, his little body continuing to tremble.
‘I killed him, Tony. I killed Gordon O’Neill, and if you tell anyone, no one will ever believe you,’ I said, jabbing my finger in his direction.
Tony just stared back at me vacantly in response, one of his eyes bulging more bulbously than the other. I think he was still irritated that I had thrown away potentially the most delicious thing that could have ever passed his lips.
I realised that there was one person I could tell, and found Angus in my phone.
I hesitated before pressing the call button, comprehending that involving my brother-who-wasn’t-really-my-brother might just lead to the world’s longest lecture.
But before I knew it, the phone was ringing loudly through the car speakers.
At the first blare, Tony squealed and scrambled to dash into the footwell.
‘Hey, hey, it’s okay, buddy,’ I said, stretching my arm across in an attempt to console him.
I had told Angus about the last time, and he had managed to keep his mouth shut for seven-odd years, so why would this time be any different? I reasoned to myself.
‘Hi,’ Angus answered in his usual miserable tone.
‘Hi, Angus…’
I paused, knowing I should just hang up or ask him how his day was, but I felt like a hyperactive child trying to hold in a secret about where Mum and Dad had hidden the presents on Christmas Eve.
‘I did it,’ I said, trying to suppress the triumphant grin that was pushing through my face. ‘Gordon O’Neill? I killed him. Not only can I send you the photo, but I got his goddamn ring too, just like Macleod.’
There was silence on the other end of the line. I could only imagine the look on Angus’s face right now. Shock, relief, despair, disappointment?
And then, as if on cue, Tony promptly lifted his rear end and began to explosively spray his shit all over the car seat.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5 (Reading here)
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
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- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55