Little Bitty Piece of Pumpkin Pie

It was late October when I drove up to my house at one am Thursday morning. A silver Mercedes two door was parked in my spot and somehow that sat ill with me. I'm Richard Lawson, an engineer for a company here in San Jose. I'm not the best engineer you can find but there's a shortage of engineers so around here I can get work fairly easily.

Anyway I had been on a trip, and I really needed to get home and shit shower and sleep for a couple hours before starting the rat race allover again.

Now, Erin Lawson, my sainted wife, drives a grey Volkswagen. There's no way I could mistake her car for the elegant monster sitting in front of our house.

I parked my Chevy Vega down the street and walked back to my house.

When I got inside, things were pretty much what I suspected. Somebody was upstairs in our bedroom and they were obviously having a good time with my wife.

Now I don't want you to think I had married an idiot. I had been out of town and wasn't expected home before Friday. Erin could count the days and if things had worked out normally I would have never known what the hell was going on.

Now you might go upstairs and burst in the bedroom and stop whatever was happening. Well you aren't me. Besides, the man had left his clothes out on a hall table. Among his clothes was a modest semi automatic pistol. His shirt had a size 19 neck and a hell of a chest size by the amount of fabric. But his waist size was only 30. This bespoke a rather healthy athletic man.

Now the first thing I did was take a wooden pencil and shoved it up the barrel of the pistol. I was lucky in that the pencil jammed in the barrel after getting about an inch in.

Then I walked down the hallway and found my Polaroid camera. It was the type where you could take one picture after another without waiting.

I walked up, threw my bedroom door open and started snapping pictures.

Erin was bare top to bottom as was the athletic stranger. On the second flash he turned his head around and yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I snapped two more pictures. I really wanted to be sure that I had enough pictures to solve my problem. I finally replied, "The lawyer will need these. You have a wife? Maybe she will want a copy."

He was starting to get untangled from Erin and since I was dressed for the outside weather, I thought it might be wise to get the hell out of there.

I got to the bottom of the stairs when I heard the big man yell, "Stop your sniveling ass. You're not going to keep that camera. You don't stop and I'll shoot you."

I was about to tell him that he wouldn't be shooting any body until he cleaned his piece when Erin said, "Shoot him. We have a double indemnity life insurance and this will just be an unfortunate burglary."

Well I didn't say anything. I turned around and watched as he pulled his pistol up to his face to aim it and then pulled the trigger.

There was a hell of a loud explosion. I thought it might sort of burn his hand but this was so much more.

The pistol had an exterior hammer and that went back into big guy's neck. It must have hit an artery or something because it spurted out and half way down the stairs.

The back of the barrel splintered and that took off part of Erin's face and upper neck. Well maybe it just looked that way from where I was standing. The front of the barrel dropped at my feet. Damn that was a lot from such a little bullet.

I went to the downstairs bathroom and threw up. Then with mouthwash and a tooth brush I got the worst of the sick mess out of me and came back out. I sort of hoped that this was a bad dream but the two of them had collapsed at the top of the stairs and when I walked far enough to see them level. God they were a mess.

I got my ass out of the house and headed for my local office. I spent the morning preparing my trip report and getting the reimbursement for my traveling costs.

About four in the afternoon I got a call from the police department.

They told me, "Mr. Lawson, there has been an accident at your home."

I asked, "Is my wife alright? Which hospital is she at?"

They responded, "Mr. Lawson, I'm sorry to inform you but you wife is dead. Be."

I started screaming and the person at the other end hung up. I guess I'm a pretty good actor. I was making real tears."

One of my coworkers came over and asked, "Rich, what's happening? Why are you crying?"

I answered, "A policeman just told me my wife was dead. He said some sort of accident." I resume weeping.

The coworker picked up my phone and dialed the local police. I leaned back and let him do all the talking. Twenty minutes later, I got another call from the police force. They apologized telling me, "Mr. Lawson, we're sorry that our officer was not as courteous as policy requires. We do need you to come down to the county morgue and identify your wife's body. This is more of a formality but it is necessary."

I looked up the address of the morgue and drove downtown. At least it was against the flow of rush hour traffic.

When I got to the morgue, it took another half an hour to find somebody who would show me Erin's body. Now I expected hell I didn't know what I expected. But when I saw her body, it had been cleaned and any cut skin had been placed back where it came from. She was very pale but she almost looked natural like she might sit up at any minute and say boo.

I remarked on her appearance, saying, "She looks so natural. What happened that she's here now?"

The person showing me her body replied, "I'm not allowed to discuss that. The arresting officer wants to question you first."

I said, "Whoa there chief. Do I need a lawyer? Am I under arrest?"

I waked over to a wall phone, looked up attorneys in the phone book and then dialed up an attorney. I told him what the coroner's assistant said and then what the first policeman said and what I had been requested in the second phone call.

The attorney told me, "I'm right down town and a block from where you are right now. Get out of that building and we will see what we can do about all this."

By the time I had arrived at the attorney's office, he had made calls to the DA and the police chief. My attorney told me, "I'll need a check for a hundred but you're safe now. Do not talk with any policeman and if asked inform them that you already have an attorney on this specific case."

I sat there until the DA came over and told me, "Mr. Lawson, the city apologizes for what happened to your wife and more importantly what happened to you by the unprofessional actions of our employees."

I asked, "I'm still confused. Does this mean that what happened to my wife was?"

My attorney held his hand over my mouth. The DA responded anyway, "What happened to your wife was embarrassing but not illegal. At least as far as it applies to you. The person who obviously hurt and killed her is dead himself. However your landlord wishes that you remove yourself from his premises because of your wife's open and notorious actions. WE have told him that if he follows through with this action that he might be subject to prosecution on various local ordinances that protect renter's rights but he is adamant. He is willing to reimburse you the security deposit and not charge you for the clean up of his house."

Now I'm here in the cemetery. Erin and Freight Train Oliver are buried here. Of course he's in a casket and I had her cremated and then I dropped her ashes under his casket at his funeral.

I walked over to his tombstone. I told it, "If you'd been smart you would have checked your weapon out before firing. But if you were really smart you would have never gotten with the snake that married me. Damn you anyway."

Well I'll be back next year. I guess I owe him. I mean I could have still been married to that witch. And double indemnity applied to her too. Happy Halloween sucker.