The Proposition

Crime Fiction by Scott McKinnon

For the past week I’d been consoling my wounded ego on a local online discussion forum for wronged spouses and very early on established an easy rapport with a woman who called herself Desperate_Housewife#81. I regaled her with stories of my controlling, narcissistic wife who was bleeding me dry financially. In turn, she told me about her emotionally manipulative husband who she feared would become violent if she ever tried to leave him.

Wanting to make her feel better, I typed, “Send the bully my way and I’ll gladly take care of him.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she wrote back. “These conversations are like a lifeline for me.”

I responded, only half-jokingly, “This is the most satisfying emotional relationship of my life.”

***

The next evening, as soon as I noticed Desperate_Housewife#81 was online, I asked how she was doing.

“Can anyone see your screen?” she typed.

“No,” I responded, wondering excitedly if this was a prelude to her sending me a nude photo. What came next though wasn’t flesh, it was madness.

“If I kill your wife,” she asked, “would you kill my husband?”

I snapped the lid of my computer shut with a bang. My forehead felt flush, and I began to shake and sweat uncontrollably. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart and I grabbed the edge of my desk thinking that I might faint. I looked around the living room full of knick-knacks and family photos and thought, “I’m no killer.” On the desk was a photo of my wife Jill with windswept hair and an infectious smile that I took at the Acropolis five years ago. I used to love this photo, but now it made my stomach churn. I placed her image face down and reopened my laptop.

“Are you being serious?” I asked.

The pixels in the chat box twinkled as she wrote her reply. Based on the time it took, I thought she might be writing a novel to explain herself. However, her response was short and to the point, “We can help each other be free.”

“We don’t even know each other,” I wrote back.

“Exactly, it would be a perfect crime. You have no connection to my husband, and I have no connection to your wife.”

I took a moment to think about her proposition. On its face it was outlandish but had a kernel of genius underneath. If it was done right, the crimes would be unsolvable. “Our alibis would have to be airtight,” I told her.

“That should be easy to work out,” she typed back. “Are you in?”

“We can’t do this online. We need to meet and plan this out.”

“Agreed,” she responded.

***

You may ask, why do I want to kill my wife? That’s a fair question. First a little background. Jill is happy to spend my money but has no interest in where it comes from. It’s just an unlimited fountain of cash to be spent on clothes, boozy lunches, therapists, yoga retreats and winter vacations to the Caribbean. To her I’m a credit card that she has to fuck once in a while. I’m not complaining, with a face like mine, that’s just how it is.

During the recession a few years back, my business began to melt down. If I didn’t take drastic measures, I was going to lose everything, so I embezzled some of my clients’ funds. I’m not proud of it, but you do what you have to do to survive. Think what you want, but you would have done the same thing. To make the scheme work, I needed Jill’s help and more importantly her discretion. Unfortunately, she didn’t want to have anything to do with my plan and couldn’t be reasoned with. So, I went ahead and forged her signature on a few documents that allowed me access to funds I didn’t strictly have a legal right to. It worked. We survived the financial tsunami and for a while everything went back to normal. My business righted itself, I made my clients whole (mostly), Jill kept buying herself six-hundred-dollar shoes she’d never wear, and we made love once or twice.

Then a week ago Jill was contacted by the Financial Crimes Unit who had a long list of detailed questions about transactions she’d made with my company over a five-month period a few years back. She was smart enough not to say anything, but she was scared. She knew it, I knew it and most importantly they knew it. After screaming at me to “clean up this mess,” she packed her bags and went to stay with her mother.

To be honest there isn’t much I could do. The die was cast. Likely they couldn’t prove anything, and if Jill just kept her mouth shut it would all go away. Worst-case scenario is she gets sentenced to a couple months at a posh minimum-security facility. Honestly, a small price to pay when you look at the big picture. If, however, she decided to cooperate, I’d lose my business and go to jail for years, not months.

A dead Jill would make the investigation go away and I’d get my life back.

***

We agreed to meet at an overlooked fountain square in the downtown core where office workers ate their lunches and locals walked their dogs. Though there would be plenty of people milling around, we wouldn’t attract any attention. She’d sit at a bench holding a newspaper and would wait for someone to ask her if she was “Parker”. She would respond by calling me “Jackson.” We would sit side-by-side, exchange dossiers on our spouses and identify a day when the murder could occur. I chose next weekend, because Jill was coming back to the house while I was away on a golfing trip to Arizona – safely 1,500 miles away from the crime scene.

I got to the square a bit late which is not my habit. To be honest, I almost didn’t go at all, because I wasn’t sure I could kill someone. A total stranger at that. What did this guy ever do to me? If I met him at a party, I’d probably think he was alright, but of course he wasn’t. He terrorized his wife and would probably kill her if I didn’t do something, so here I was.

I scanned the square. In the middle stood a massive fountain that shot streams of water from an upper bowl into three larger lower ones. Two teenagers were leaning over the ledge of the reservoir laughing and splashing each other. One of the benches was occupied by a doughy middle-aged man scrolling through his phone. I walked around to the other side of the square and to my surprise I saw Jill. She was sitting on a bench holding a rolled-up newspaper tightly in her hand. Her eyes darted around like a nervous bird. Parker, I remembered, was her middle name.

Before she could see me, I quickly left the square obscuring my face with the collar of my coat and stumbled into the first bar I could find on legs that felt like jelly. Shakily I drank down a double scotch and quickly ordered a second one that I sipped as I thought over my situation.

Jill wanted me dead. What did I ever do to her, except pander to her every whim? Suddenly, I wasn’t feeling so morally conflicted. This was a fight for survival, and I needed to steel my courage.

***

I reached out to Jill on the private online chat and apologized for not making the meeting.

“Why didn’t you show up?” she asked.

“I did,” I wrote, “but I was really late. I’m so sorry but my bitch wife held me up demanding money and then the subway wasn’t working. I couldn’t find a cab anywhere. You were long gone when I finally got there.”

“This isn’t going to work,” she wrote.
   “No, this can totally work. We are so close,” I typed.

“You can’t even show-up to a simple meeting, how can I expect you to do what needs to be done?”

“I can and I will. Let me show you. I’m totally committed.”

“I’m not sure.”

“100% committed.”

There was a long pause, “What now?” she asked.

“Let’s meet again. Tonight. We can do this.”

She took her sweet time but finally typed, “Where?”

***

We agreed to meet at a hillside park at the bottom of a ravine that can be easily accessed from a nice neighbourhood just outside of the downtown core. Above it, obscured by a thicket of urban forest, was a commercial street that was home to some of my favourite bistros. I parked my car in the alley behind one of my client’s cafes, something I did most Friday nights. I made a point of walking into several establishments and made sure to be seen multiple times by dozens of people. With my alibi set, I walked down a little used path through the woods of the ravine towards the park I had arranged to meet Jill. My plan was simple. I would strangle Jill and leave her body hidden in the bushes. In the following weeks she would be found, and the news would identify her as the latest victim of the East side Strangler – a sick bastard who’d killed three women over the past year. After I was done, I would come back up the hill, and enjoy an evening among acquaintances.

The sun was starting to set, and after making sure no one saw me, I squeezed through a hole in the metal fence and made my way down a wooded path that criss-crossed along the slope. At the bottom of the hill was a clearing that featured an empty parking lot, two cement picnic tables, a tipped over garbage can and a gazebo with orange caution tape wrapped around it. Resolutely, I stood in the darkness of the trees and waited.

An hour passed before I admitted to myself that Jill wasn’t coming. Even still, I might have stayed longer but the cool autumn air had seeped into my bones, and I began shiver uncontrollably. So, I walked back up the hill and tried to formulate a new plan. The chat site wasn’t an option anymore. She had lost faith in her co-conspirator, and before long would move to recruit someone else. I needed to find her and end this as quickly as possible.

As I approached the top of the hill, I decided I would drive straight to her mother’s. Jill wasn’t allowed to smoke in the house and would be coming out several times over the course of the evening to light up. I’d wait in the shadows and finish this tonight.

When I got back to my car though, I had a change of heart. I realized that I didn’t need to kill Jill. That in fact killing her was an insane idea she ironically had placed in my head as Desperate_Housewife#81. I was reacting, overreacting and I needed to settle down, get my bearings and take back the initiative.

New plan. I would call Jill when I got home and beg for her forgiveness. I would let her know I was taking care of the situation and there was no chance she was going to jail. Then first thing tomorrow I’d go see the folks at the Financial Crimes Unit to admit that I failed to report Jill’s financial digressions but argue that I worked tirelessly to reverse her embezzlement as soon as I discovered it. I’d spin a story about a money-obsessed, sociopath who she stole from her husband’s clients to fund her lavish lifestyle, and a gullible, protective husband trying to pickup the pieces. Sorry Jill but you brought this upon yourself.

I slid into the car with a new sense of confidence, but, as I was putting on my seatbelt, I noticed that the rear-view mirror had been knocked out of place. “Odd”, I thought, as I reached up to re-adjust it.

There was a blur of commotion behind me, and something was slipped over my head. I couldn’t see and my windpipe pinched closed. I clawed savagely at what felt like a rope around my neck, but the grip on my throat tightened. I couldn’t breathe.

Through the panic, I heard a man’s gruff voice whisper soothingly in my ears, “Nothing personal buddy, just bad luck that I have a wife who needs killing.”

---

Bio: Scott McKinnon is a Canadian-based mystery and crime writer who explores themes of identity and belonging through wry humor, unconventional narratives, and compelling characters. You can find him at his website HERE, You can find more stories from Scott on The Yard.

Photo by: pexels/Paras Katwal

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