The Loving Wife

She smiled to herself and cleared the cached data. Then she closed the window and shut down the machine. The software was set to launch on startup.

For the next few days she made mental lists of the things she should do to be prepared for MIke's next attack. She didn't know when it would happen, but she was sure based on what she read that it was inevitable. She felt better about herself and the prospects for her kids. She had a purpose in life and she put all her efforts into it. She even realized, to her chagrin, that it would have been impossible for her to do this preparation if she had gone back to work as she wanted to.

For the next few weeks, she checked the computer each day after Mike went to work to see what was in the keylogger. She found entries for the news sites indicating that he was browsing those daily, then she came across long entries of text that he had entered while on the Literotica website. These entries were hard to read, because the file literally contained every key that he typed, and Mike was not a very good typist. She reread the display options for the software and discovered that she could toggle between a display of all the characters as they had been typed, and one that interpreted the key sequence like most word processing software would, taking out backspaced characters, and deleting anything that was typed over. When she did this his typing was much easier to read.

It appeared that he was posting comments about the stories on the website. Some of them were positive and contained phrases like, "gave the bitch what she deserved." Others were critical of stories, or more accurately they were juvenile rants and personal attacks on the author. She pulled up the URLs in the list by clicking on them and was able to identify his comments at the end of each story on the site.

She was dismayed as she identified his posts and the stories they were attached to. He was critical of all of the stories he commented on that contained any consensual wife sharing. Some of his entries were embarrassing, they were so infantile and specious. She noticed that he always posted anonymously, and several times he posted more than once for some of the stories he didn't like.

The posts for the BTB stories were truly alarming to her. He loved all of these stories, and his praise was always the most prolific for the stories where the husband inflicted the most pain on his wife. He wrote about the stories as though they literally happened, and addressed the characters in them as though they were real people.

She learned three things about Mike from this. He felt any punishment was justified for a cheating wife, even murder. He couldn't separate fiction from reality, and he identified with the husbands in the cheating wife stories.

That reminded her of his crazy accusation about her of having a boyfriend just before the first attack. Where had that come from?

A couple days later she returned home from the grocery just before noon, and she found Mike's pickup truck in the driveway. She was not expecting him to be home at this hour, and his presence set off alarm bells in her head. She parked the minivan next to his truck in the driveway and carried the grocery bags into the house.

She found Mike sitting at the kitchen table with the book in front of him. She realized that she must have forgotten to put it away before she went to the grocery, and kicked herself mentally for being so stupid.

She walked to the counter and put the grocery bags down.

"Hi Honey, you're home early." she said with as much manufactured cheerfulness as she could muster.

Mike's face was devoid of emotion. "What's this?" he asked, poking the book toward her with his index finger.

"It's a book a friend loaned me." Mary replied.

"Which friend?"

Mary panicked, and realized she couldn't give Vicky's real name. What if Mike looked her up for retribution?

"Her name is Mary. She is one of the other moms who drop their kids off at Amanda's school in the morning. She said she read an interesting book and wanted to give it to me. I didn't even look at the cover, I just brought it home and tossed it on the table before I went to the grocery." The words tumbled out of her as fast as she could say them. Even to her ears, they sounded hollow and insincere.

Mike looked at her with the same neutral expression on his face. "Mary? Really? The same name as you?"

Mary tried to meet his stare. She nodded, but her upper lip began to quiver. The tic seemed to burst the dam of Mike's anger. He jumped up, knocking the kitchen chair over backwards.

"LIAR!" he shouted.

Mary flinched and took a step back, but Mike strode to her and pushed her backwards onto the floor. As she went down, her left wrist was caught under her, and pain shot up from it to her elbow. Once on the floor, she scooted away from him on her butt towards the interior corner of the cabinets, trying to find sanctuary.

"YOUR BOYFRIEND GAVE IT TO YOU, DIDN'T HE?" he screamed.

"I don't have a boyfriend," Mary wailed.

Mike picked up a can of soup from a bag on the counter and threw it at her. Mary had her hands up in front of her face in self defense, and the can came in low and caught the top of her ribcage, landing like a body blow.

Mike then grabbed the jar of mayonnaise on the counter and threw that at her. This time the plastic jar hit her on the left arm, and fresh pain shot through her wrist. She screamed in agony.

Mike grabbed the ten pound sack of potatoes that were next to the bag. He swung them overhead, aiming at her cowering in the corner. Fortunately, he swung so hard that the force pulled the sack away from him. It struck the countertop above Mary's head, and the mesh tore, raining a cascade of the spuds onto her head and shoulders.

Mary realized that if he hadn't hit the counter and tore the bag first, the blow would likely have killed her. She thought of never seeing her kids again and her fear was replaced with anger.

"STOP IT!" she shouted, jumping up with her hands thrust out towards him.

Her sudden, brave stand shocked Mike, and he did stop attacking her. He seemed to gain control of his anger, but there was no spontaneous display of contrition like there had been six years earlier. He looked around the kitchen and said, "I'll be back later. I want this mess cleaned up by the time I return."

With that, he turned and strode out of the house, slamming the front door. Mary didn't move until she heard the truck start, and the squeal of tires as he roared away from the house. Once the sound receded, Mary allowed herself five minutes of self pity, sobbing and holding her injured arm against her chest.

She pulled up her shirt and probed her rib. It hurt, but not as bad as her wrist. The amazing thing was that the potatoes did not appear to have done any serious damage to her. She inspected the countertop and found the same thing couldn't be said for it. There was a hairline crack in the two inch thick granite from the front edge all the way to the back from the force of the blow it had absorbed.

She looked at the clock. Less than an hour before Amanda had to be picked up from school. She felt much calmer now, and filled with a steely resolve. She called her Mom and asked her if she would do her a favor...

*******************

The pickup truck returned to the house six hours later. The driver parked in the same spot he had left earlier next to the minivan, got out of the truck and staggered inside. No one else on the street saw any of this, since it was dinner time in most of the homes.

The house was silent again, and stayed dark for another 15 minutes. Then there was a loud bang, and a bright flash of light from the window of the study.

Kim and Rick looked at each other when they heard the bang. They had been watching the evening news, sitting on the sofa. Neither said anything as they both wondered if it had been a gunshot. Twenty or thirty seconds later they heard a woman scream.

Rick jumped up and told Kim to call the police. As he ran to the front door, Kim yelled for him to stop. He looked back at her, and she said, "Please be careful."

He nodded and looked out the front door before opening it.

*****************

An hour later, Kim was sitting next to Mary on the sofa in Mary's house, as Mary stared blankly at the empty fireplace.

The police were talking to Rick in the Foyer.

"So you didn't see or hear anything from this house before the shot?" the middle aged detective asked Rick.

"No. Kim and I both got home around five thirty, then we made dinner, and sat down to watch the news. The shot was the first thing we heard all night from over here."

"And you aren't close to..." the detective glanced down at his notes. "Mary or the deceased?"

Rick glanced around the tidy interior of the house. "No, this is the first time we have ever been in the house. Mary and Mike didn't entertain or socialize, that we knew of. They kept to themselves."

The detective thanked Rick and excused him to return to his wife, who was talking softly to the still nearly comatose wife, Mary.

Captain Hernandez, the ranking police officer on duty, came through the front door and found the detective talking to the crime scene photographer.

"What have we got?" he asked.

"I've been collecting statements from the witnesses, such as they are. Nobody saw anything and nobody heard anything prior to the gunshot."

"Where is Vanessa?''

"Detective Scott is in the room with the body." he replied, pointing to a door next to the kitchen.

Hernandez strode carefully to the door and peered inside before entering. Detective Vanessa Scott and an evidence technician were carefully bagging and labeling items on the desk. They were wearing gloves and booties.

"How far out is your perimeter?" Hernandez asked Scott.

"You can come to the front of that chair," she replied, gesturing behind her.

Hernandez moved forward and stopped, waiting for Scott to speak. He looked around and saw the deceased, lying back in the chair with his arms over the armrests on either side, and his palms open outward. There was a small hole in his right temple, and a spray of blood on the wall to the left of the body. At least a .38, he thought, based on the bullet exiting the opposite side of the head and the amount of spatter on the wall.

"Here is what we have." Detective Scott began. "Deceased name is Mike Bronson. His wife Mary is in there on the sofa. He came home about six, and he had been drinking. His wife doesn't know where, but she suggested the names of a two of his friends we might ask. She offered him dinner, but he said no. Unusual because she says he usually has dinner with her and the kids every night.

As for the kids, they are with Mary's mom tonight. She says she called her mom earlier today to ask her to take them so she could have a night alone with her husband."

Vanessa and the Captain exchanged a look. She continued, "I checked upstairs. There is a bubble bath getting cold in the tub, and clean lingerie laid out on the bed. The wife says her husband came in here and she went back upstairs to take her bath. She didn't make it into the tub before she heard the shot.

She ran back down here and found him with this in his right hand." She handed Hernandez the bagged gun. "Glock 19, nine millimeter. It has a full clip, minus the one in the wall over there.

Also found a note, still on the pad." she handed another bag to the Captain. he peered at the handwriting through the bag.

"Dear Mary, I can't take it. I'm sorry." he read. "Not signed." he added.

"Yeah, most guys sign their notes. Women are more likely not to. Also strange to have a greeting but no signature, and its really short, even for a guy. Most suicide notes are longer if they bother to leave one."

"So the wife was the first one on the scene?"

"Yeah, she had blood on her hands, and some on her forehead. The neighbor says he found her with her hands on her husband's shoulders and her forehead against his, crying, when he came in. The gun was on the floor under the right hand of the deceased.

We got her to change out of the clothes she had on, and we bagged them to go for spatter and powder residue testing. I didn't find anything when I did a visual check on them.

We also swabbed her hands in addition to his, and we got a set of prints from her voluntarily."

"You advised her that she could talk to an attorney first, right?"

Detective Scott gave the Captain a withering look and said nothing.

"The gun was kept in the desk here, along with one box of 9 x 19 bullets. The box is full except for the 15 that were in the clip. Mary says her husband bought the gun several years ago. claims she never used it herself, and has never touched it or the ammo. She doesn't know if he ever fired it, before tonight that is. No trigger lock or lock on the drawer it was in.

We will run everything for prints, of course. Checked the rest of the house and found nothing."

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Detective Scott added, "Mary has an injured left wrist. I think she was trying to hide it from me when we got here, but when I asked her about it, she said she fell bringing the groceries in earlier today. The story checks out. There is a torn potato bag in the trash, and a couple of dented cans and plastic jars in the pantry."

"Okay, good work." Captain Hernandez said. "Let's wrap it up in here and let them get the body out."

Later that week, Vanessa stuck her head into the Captain's office. "Got a minute, Hank?"

He looked up and said, "Sure, come on in and have a seat, Vanessa."

"We got the labs from the Bronson case back." she said as she sat opposite the Captain.

"Anything interesting?" he asked.

"Nope. Pretty much what we expected. His prints on the gun and bullets, but not hers. Power residue on his right hand and arm, none on her or her clothes. Blood spatter everywhere except on her or her clothes."

"Sounds open and shut, what with the note he left." the Captain concluded.

"Yeah, but something about the case bothers me. When we started talking to family and neighbors, everyone seemed to hint at marital difficulties. Neighbors heard shouting, mostly from him. and some thought he might have been physically abusive to her."

"But we have no record of domestics to that address, right? And no hospital or doctor's records of injuries of any kind?"

"Right. I just keep thinking of how the wife looked at me when I first arrived." Vanessa told him. "She was crying, like the neighbor said, and I asked her if she was okay. She just nodded and stood there beside her husband's body as I talked to her.

I eventually asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else. I mean, the scene was pretty gruesome. You know what she said?"

"Tell me," the Captain replied.

"She said I'd rather stay here. When I asked her why, she replied 'It's what a loving wife should do.'"

**********************

Mary sat next to her boyfriend on the sofa. Mikey and Amanda were playing happily on the floor in front of them. She looked at Steve, and gave him a smile. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

It had been a year since that awful night. The kids were too young to realize it, but the anniversary brought unwelcome memories back for Mary.

She should be thinking about the wonderful man next to her, she thought. She met him at her job, when she went back to work as an accountant. He was divorced, but he was a good man. He listened to her and could talk about his feelings. Most importantly, she had never heard him utter a single word in anger.

Instead, she found herself drawn back to that night, remembering what happened.

When Mike got home after their fight he was drunk, which Mary had thanked god for many times since then. He staggered in and plopped down on the sofa.

Mary approached him warily, and asked what he wanted for supper. He said he wasn't hungry. He asked where the kids were, and Mary said they were staying with her mother for the night.

That seemed to register with him, and he told Mary she couldn't leave him. He wasn't menacing when he said it, but more resigned and worried.

"You have to get help for your anger." she told him.

He agreed quickly, which indicated to Mary that he was no more sincere about doing it this time than he had been before. She had the book in her hand and she told him she was going to return it to her friend, but she needed his help with something.

"I want to write her a note," she said, "but my wrist is injured and I can't hold a pen. I need you to write the note for me."

If he hadn't been drunk and anxious to mollify her, Mike probably would have questioned why she needed a note if she could just hand the book over to her friend. Instead, he allowed her to lead him to the den and seat him at the desk. She told him what to write, and he labored to get it down legibly.

When he finished, she told him to stay there, and she would bring him some aspirin and a glass of water. Mike grunted and sat back in the chair. His head was beginning to hurt, so he closed his eyes.

When Mary came back five minutes later, he didn't even turn to look at her. If he had, he probably would have asked her what she was wearing.

Mary saw that he was still sitting in the chair with his eyes closed. She knew that she might never have another opportunity like this one. She strode purposefully towards him and raised her right hand. When the gun was six inches from his temple, she pulled the trigger.

If she hadn't planned ahead, she probably would have frozen when the gun went off. It sounded far louder than she expected and the mess from the head wound was considerable. She had researched the gun and how to fire it on YouTube using a tablet PC at an internet cafe. The videos had prepared her to inspect the weapon, load it and make sure it was ready to fire, but it was still surprising to her when the gun actually went off.

She knew she only had a couple of minutes before someone would investigate the noise, and she had to work quickly.

She checked her gloved hands to make sure there was no blood on the palms. then she rubbed the back surface of her gloved right hand against the back of Mike's right hand. She hoped that enough gunpowder residue would transfer to his hand to be detected. She put the gun in his right hand and closed the fingers around the grip, then let go of the hand, and the gun dropped to the carpet below it.

She peeled off the thin plastic painters coverall she was wearing over her clothes and the gloves taped to the sleeves came off with it, just like when she practiced. She wadded it up, inside out, and then pulled up the grill in the floor for the heating system and stuffed the wad of plastic as far down as she could. When she replaced the grill, nothing could be seen in the dark duct below. She had turned the air flow to that duct off at the distribution box in the basement, to make sure the furnace didn't blow the evidence of her crime right out of the floor when the police were there.

She stood up and looked around the room. She checked her face for blood spatter in the mirror. She didn't have to get it off, she just needed to make sure it wasn't obvious. She would end up with blood on her head anyway.

Satisfied, she turned back to her husband. Now that she was no longer on autopilot, the gravity and horror of what she had done hit her. She didn't have to force the terrified scream that came out of her mouth.

The investigation into the shooting had been difficult. She didn't think that Detective Scott bought everything she told her, but apparently there were not enough inconsistencies to warrant further investigation. The case was ruled a suicide, and the body was returned to her after the autopsy.