Hello there! It's great to try our hands at a different genre. Welcome to my first attempt at a murder story for the RFW March murder challenge. My story has two 'inspirations' -- reading the real-life accounts of rogue ex-soldiers who are so damaged after their tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, they lash out and kill. I'm currently teaching Macbeth to my Year 12 students -- so I couldn't pass up a few well-placed (I hope) references.
MURDER MOST FOUL
I wasn’t at home when my wife was murdered—but Detective Macduff
doesn’t believe me. It’s always the husbands, isn’t it?
“Where were you tonight?” His icy blue gaze unnerves me...just a little...but who does he think he is? I'm Lieutenant General Duncan, (retired), four year tour Afghanistan. I'm not taking any of his shit.
“Where I always am on Friday night—at the Scots Men’s Club.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?”
“Only the 50 or so gentlemen in clan tartans enjoying their Friday
night haggis and whisky.”
“Why should they remember you?”
“I rather stand out in the crowd, don’t I?”
Detective Macduff shifts in his seat--my black leather recliner. He averts his charcoal eyes, which is just how I like it. Eyes haunt me these days--Afghani civilian terrified eyes--Billy’s 'innocent' blues--Delilah’s
big-green-surprised-panicked-oh-so-guilty eyes.
My eyes keep going back to the bloodstains on the floor which have seeped through the flotaki rug and the white chalk outline. Who would have thought Delilah had so much blood in her? Bizarre. Ghoulish. Macabre.
I crane my neck to see past the detective and am amused when he draws back, shakes his untidy locks. Does he think he's next on my murderous rampage?
I settle back in my seat—the silly frilly little orange English
genoa lounge chair my wife always sat in to watch the crime shows every Friday
night when I'm out at the club. She was addicted. Even had me watching Polanski’s
Macbeth earlier this week. Plenty of blood in that one!
Delilah was good at solving the things—it’s all in the
motive, she’d gurgle. Motive, I’d ask? Yes…motive. Passion! Ambition! Greed!
Envy! Revenge! Don’t you get it, Lucifer dear?
Add boredom to the list. I’d yawn and go to bed.
Add boredom to the list. I’d yawn and go to bed.
Clever Macduff says that Delilah was sitting in a chair near the door when she was murdered. He said she was probably napping when the deed was done. Beckett’s Dry Cleaners will never be able to remove that blood, oh no. The detectives have the chair and the hairy rug bundled up in evidence bags along with a pile of other shit like wine glasses and the knife they’d pulled from her chest.
“Where have you taken
my wife?”
Charcoal eyes try to stare me down. “Her body’s been taken to the morgue.”
Why did he insist on staring at me? He wants to see my
reaction. Wants to confuse me. Wants to eyeball me into confessing. Suspicion rages through this righteous man, but he doesn’t arrest me. He’s searching for a motive, otherwise he's
got nothing, nada...
“There’ll be an autopsy.” He looks at me keenly. I try to feign disinterest. “We’ll have to cut her up. Always do when there’s a suspicious death.” Thinks I’ll get queasy with his language use. Queasy nothing. Try a tour of Afghanistan, loser.
“It’s not a suspicious death,” I say. “She was murdered.”
“How do you know? She might have stabbed herself. Might have been depressed with...the...er...way things turned out...”
“You’re a bleeding idiot.
Don't sit here and play games! My wife has been murdered.”
“Allegedly.”
Macduff jumps a little when a loud knock, knock, knock sounds at the door. A pretty blond ladylike creature in a fetching uniform walks over
and touches his shoulder. Ah. So that’s how it is. She leans down and whispers in his ear.
They turn to me, eyes alight with renewed hope. Detective Macduff snaps his notebook
shut and slips it into his suit pocket. “Lieutenant General Lucifer Duncan. We’re asking you
to accompany us to the station...to answer a few questions.”
“I’m a person of interest then.”
“That you are, General Duncan Sir. That you are.”
***
The interrogation went on into the night. I invented interrogation…I knew all the tactics. How hard they tried to break me. Everything but the water board, hahahahahah.
Where was my motive? I loved my wife, allegedly. I was rich, that's for sure. I had no
need of fulsome insurance policies to ease my remaining days. I had no mistress
demanding I divorce Delilah, more’s the pity. What use had I for a mistress?
***
Three in the morning. I roll into an hotel--my home was taped up--a murder scene under investigation.
I can’t sleep...I'm exhilarated.
I'm going to get away with it. I try to clap my hands and nearly fall off the bed.
I run through the steps in my head again—it is a dagger I
see before me, but its handle doesn’t point to me…
Once the detectives do their tests I know exactly what they’ll find.
***
Billy from the Scot’s Club--guilty.
Motive!
They’ll discover his affair with Delilah.
No one knows I know, so that couldn’t be my motive, could it?
The wineglass I’d swopped at the club, then planted on the
rug, will have the bastard's DNA all over it.
The serrated knife I’d got him to cut my haggis with will be covered in his fingerprints.
The semen they found in her can’t be mine, can it?
While they’d caroused on the flotaki rug, I'd gone clubbing.
Captain Billy Banquo left shortly before I got home, but
he was doomed.
I’d committed murder most foul.
***
Going to war was a bitch.
The God of War had been unleased on that unfortunate land for its entire history. I’d seen enough murder and mayhem in Afghanistan to last me a lifetime. The bomb that sent me home was a godsend in the long run.
The God of War had been unleased on that unfortunate land for its entire history. I’d seen enough murder and mayhem in Afghanistan to last me a lifetime. The bomb that sent me home was a godsend in the long run.
I saw Delilah and Billy fornicating when I peeped through
the window while Private Thane got my bags out of the van.
They weren’t expecting me as I rolled inside in my
wheelchair weighed down with gold stars, right sleeve flapping emptily by my side, medals rattling in the
box on my knee like toy soldiers.
They looked so innocent then. So...‘Billy’s just here to set
the fire for us.’ Set a fire for you, you
lying bitch! At least straighten your skirt!
Sometimes only having one arm is a bonus.
You can get away with murder.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WORD COUNT: 996
FCA
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
WORD COUNT: 996
FCA
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