Know Thy Self, know Thy Enemy

"I turned off the ignition, gathered my phone and purse and got out of the car. As I walked up the path toward the front door I noticed I was hanging my head a little and feeling apprehensive. I stopped walking, silently chastised myself as a weak child and determined to raise my head and I strode purposefully into the house. After all, Jim was in jail awaiting trial...I had nothing to fear here.

I was unprepared for the sight before me.

As I stood in the foyer I quickly scanned the portions of the house I could see from where I was standing.

The roll top desk that had sat in the foyer was gone. The walls were bare and the living room to the left was also bare of all furniture and decoration. Only the depressions in the carpet and my memories indicated there had ever been anything there at all.

My heels clicked across the tile floor echoing loudly as I toured the house with a gaping mouth finding the same scene in every room.

Everything, including the appliances, was gone. Even the double wall oven, counter-mounted stove and light fixtures were all gone.

The light fixtures for Christ's sake!

I peered out the kitchen window to the back yard.

The patio furniture, garden shed and yard art was all gone. Even the bird feeder and bath had disappeared.

I then rushed to the master bedroom. It too had been stripped of all furniture and décor. My closet was empty. Jim's closet was empty. There weren't even any wire hangers.

Everything was gone.

I whirled around and headed to my study where I kept my most treasured possessions.

All were gone.

I began to weep as the implications of this flooded my thoughts. How could I replace my degrees, my childhood photos, and post graduate thesis? My jewelry!

The bedroom suite we had paid $15,000 for - all of the high end furniture and appliances - my extensive collection of designer clothes, purses and shoes!

Oh God the shoes!

I was becoming sick!

What the hell was I going to do? My ears began to ring slightly and I felt a sickening warmth envelope my neck radiating up around my face and ears. My toiletries alone would cost thousands to replace.

I pulled out my smartphone, swiped it and dialed 9-1-1.

Constable Wood arrived about 20 minutes later to find me distraught and seated on a window sill quietly sobbing.

He had a difficult time understanding me but I managed between sobs to relate to him that that I had just returned from a stay at my Mother's to discover the house had been stripped bare. As he surveyed the house while I continued my piteous sobbing he noted he had never seen a more thorough job. He had to stifle a smile and commented on it to me.

"Damn they even took all of the light switch and AC s plates!" he said quietly.

"Ma'am, do you live here alone?" He had noted an absence of rings on my left hand.

"No, of course not officer. I live here with my husband."

"And where is your husband now Mrs...uh?"

"Scott, Kate Scott." My sobbing was beginning to wane. "He's in jail. He was arrested a couple of days ago for assault."

The constable nodded while pulling out his notepad began wandering the barren house.

I followed the constable maintaining a running monologue of the missing items and my resulting heartbreak.

As the constable made notes he wondered aloud how long it would take to strip bare a house like this. There weren't even any picture hangers or nails, window coverings or vent covers left. He noted, smiling that at least they left the doors and door knobs!

Then he spotted it; an envelope.

Just a letter sized, white envelope sitting on the toilet seat of the half bath adjacent to the kitchen. He noted the toilet paper and dispenser, towel rod and mirror were gone as he read the writing on the outside of the envelope - it simply said "Fuck you!"

"I believe this is for you, Mrs. Scott!"

As I read the 'Fuck you!' with a look of horror I turned the envelope over. It wasn't sealed and there was nothing on the back of the envelope. I opened it and drew out a single sheet of paper. It was not hand written and it was not signed. It read: You have taken from me. My love, my trust, my self-respect. My money, my youth and my naivety. Years of my life that I wish I could have back were stolen by you. I know that you will not miss me, at least not in the way that you should; the way that most wives would, so I took what I thought you might miss.

Everything else.

Fuck you!

"So what happened, Mrs. Scott? Did you ever find out, get your stuff back?"

"I can only guess at this point Detective Mumford. My guess is that Jim stripped the house bare and either gave away or threw everything away. Nothing has ever been recovered."

"And what about the money? I also noted in your Victim Impact Statement that there was several hundred thousand dollars gone as well. Has any of that ever turned up?"

"No, and it's worse than that. Jim drained our savings and checking accounts, cashed out his retirement accounts and took the maximum allowable cash advances on every single one of our joint credit cards. He also refinanced the house to the tune of $375,000. My lawyer estimates that he got away with about 1.2 million in all."

"And it never turned up? He never admitted it? That seems incredible. Has he ever answered direct questions about what happened to it?"

"He claims to have no memory of the money, that he was so distraught about my affair and his beating of Dan that he has no memory at all for about a 2 week period after the beating."

"Well he sure sounds like a first-class dick, Mrs. Scott. I can see why you cheated on him. Why didn't you just divorce him first and avoid this whole mess? I mean you must have had some idea he would react the way he did."

"That is the saddest part in all of this detective Reyes. Jim was a great guy up to that point. I cheated on him because I thought I could, that I deserved it, not because he was a dick. I never saw any of this coming."

-What does Jim have to say?-

"Mr. Scott? James Scott?"

He stared curiously at the two men standing at his front door.

"Yup, but everyone calls me Jim. What can I do you for?"

"I'm Detective Mumford and this is my partner Detective Reyes. Would you mind if we asked you a few questions?"

"Well, you already have. Are there more?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, first you asked me if I was Mr. Scott, then you asked if I was James Scott and then you asked if you could ask me a few questions. That was a few questions."

Reyes dropped his head with an almost imperceptible smile while Gil Mumford sighed and continued.

"Mr. Scott, uh Jim, we don't want to play games. We're investigating the death of Daniel Pratt and wanted to speak with you about it."

He blinked at the two detectives as they gazed expectantly back at him for a few moments. "Mr. Scott?"

"What? You made statement. You didn't ask a question that required a response. You're not very good at this are you Detective Mumford?"

"Mr. Scott may we ask you a few questions regarding the death of Dan Pratt?"

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

"May we come in?"

"Sure. Come on in. Would you like a donut or something?"

"Thanks, no. Let's just sit down and then could you please describe your relationship with Mr. Pratt?"

"Sure. Let me think how best to put this."

Jim stared down at a fixed point somewhere on his table as he gathered his thoughts.

"Well, detective, inside of each of us there are two halves constantly battling for supremacy. One half, good, responsible, loyal and law abiding; the other half, not so much. In most cases, the good half wins out...most of the time. Life is just easier that way. But, we all do things from time to time that seem out of character, that's our baser selves winning temporary custody of our lives. Or more accurately our actions."

"Please Mr. Scott, can you just stick to the question. What was your relationship with Dan Pratt?"

"Sure, sure. That's where I'm headed. Now where was I? Oh, right so most of us are good most of the time but for some of us it doesn't take much to tip the scales to give priority to our lesser side, our bad side and in those cases we suppress our good selves in favor of our bad selves. Some will return after a while, some not so much. We all have that tipping point and we need to understand what it is, what will cause our shift from good to bad. I found mine, and once I embraced my baser self it helped return balance to my life; justice, equity, revenge...call it what you will, once that was achieved I could go back to my former nice guy self. Dan Pratt was my tipping point. And that Detectives Mumford and Reyes, was my relationship with Dan Pratt."

"Isn't it true, Mr. Scott that Dan Pratt was having an affair with your wife? Wouldn't you say that more accurately describes your relationship?"

"Hmm, I'd have to say no. That he was fucking my wife describes THEIR relationship. That I found out about it and what it did to me and what I then did to him, describes my relationship with Dan Pratt, as I have already described."

"Tell us about the discovering your wife's affair."

"Well, I had told Kate on several occasions that I didn't like this Dan asshole. That I didn't want her spending any more time with him, but she steadfastly refused to end the friendship. She started lying to me about her whereabouts and when caught in a blatant lie and confronted she snidely commented that if I hadn't expressed an unreasonable dislike for Dan she wouldn't have to lie to me about having lunch or dinner with him.

They had been working together for about a year and became more friendly about 2 months before I beat him - that I am aware of at any rate. That's when things started to change.

Kate started cancelling plans with me in favor of spending time with Dan. I complained and she told me to grow up.

She started spending significant amounts of our weekend time doing things with Dan (after she had left me with a to-do list of course). I put my foot down and told her enough was enough, that the friendship had to end, it was getting in the way of our marriage. Kate didn't see it that way and simply refused.

That's when the lying started and I knew our marriage was over.

I had already been to a lawyer and was in the process of lining up our divorce when I had my first confrontation with Kate's new asshole boyfriend. I think about a week before I beat the shit out of him. I had lived in the house for a long time - after I graduated from college I bought the house with an inheritance left to me by an uncle who died when I was in my teens. The house was in a great neighborhood and was certainly large enough to raise a family so Kate moved right in after we married. We had become very good friends with most of our neighbors and on this one evening we had invited them all over for a dinner party.

I was happily minding the grill and nursing a beer when I noticed Dan and Kate laughing together in the kitchen.

I was furious. I closed the grill and made my way to the kitchen. When I opened the back door and entered the kitchen their conversation stopped immediately.

"Well, hello there Jimmie, thanks for inviting me" laughed Dan.

"That's James to you asshole and I didn't invite you - you are not welcome here. I suggest you put your drink down and leave right now!"

"Jim!" screeched Kate "Don't be so rude. I invited, Dan and he's always welcome in my home! Apologize to Dan and behave yourself!"

"See, Jimmie, it seems I am welcome here after all. Why don't you run along and look after that grill while I spend some time with Kate?"

I turned to my wife and very calmly said, "Kate, if that piece of shit isn't out of MY house in the next 20 seconds then he'll be leaving by ambulance and you'll be right behind him with a car packed full of your shit."

"Jim what an awful thing to say, this is absurd, Dan is my friend and..."

"Kate you have 10 seconds left! GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! NOW!"

I turned and opened the door to the back yard and whistled loudly for everyone's attention.

"I'm sorry everyone, I am going to have to ask you all to leave now. Maybe we'll reschedule this but it seems Kate has invited her boyfriend to the party and right now she seems to think he's more important than I am. Or any of you for that matter. Things are probably going to be getting pretty ugly and I am just not feeling very sociable at the moment."

I ignored the gasps, open mouths, buzzing and obvious discomfort and turned to see an ashen Kate staring daggers at me.

"Did asshole decide to leave then?" I asked

"You fucking bastard!" Kate howled at me as she launched a glass at me head.

"Fucking cheating cunt!" I hurled right back along with the spatula I had been holding. I just missed the bitch.

The next week was cold and I continued planning my exit. We didn't talk much, she never apologized nor did I. Towards the end of the week she seemed to be calming down while I was still seething. I wasn't planning to have it all out with her. What was the point? I wasn't putting up with this shit anymore but felt I needed a couple of weeks to get things in order to protect myself against any aggressive lawyer Kate might hire once I had her served.

The house was mine before we married but I wanted to be certain of my rights. I knew I'd have to split our assets with her but I wanted to keep the split even and I wanted the house free and clear. We made about the same amount of money and had about the same saved in retirement accounts, we didn't have any kids so no custody or child support issues to be worked out. The checking, savings and investments could be split 50/50, I'd keep the house and she could have Dan.

Unfortunately, for me the activities on the day of my company BBQ forced my hand a little early.

I hadn't told Kate about the BBQ. I didn't want her there but it seems, I later found out, that Dan needed to rub my nose in things - he was pissed about the party at our house and felt I needed a little more humility. He felt he'd be able to safely embarrass me in public and flaunting his affair with Kate in front of my colleagues would just be a nice bonus. Sucks for him he was so wrong about his safety. Of course you know what happened when they showed up.

Anyway, as I drove to the bank after I left the BBQ I called my lawyer and asked if he could have Kate served at work the next day - we had planned on 3 days from then. He said that he could. When I got to the bank, I closed the checking and savings accounts and then headed to Joe's to pick-up John. Then I'd have to rush home to cancel our credit cards before she found our savings closed and ran up the limits."

"So where's the money now?"

"Are you investigating that for her civil case?"

"No, I was just curious."

"Well, I'm sorry to say that I lost it, or misplaced it. I don't know what became of the money."

"You remortgaged the house and cleaned out all of the accounts...you walked away with over a million and you just...lost it?"

"I know right? Hard to believe and I wish I could remember that all more clearly. Oh, well easy come easy go - just like sluts right detective?"

"That was a neat trick cleaning out the house, Mr. Scott. Whatever happened to the contents and how on God's green earth did you get all of that done in under four days?"

"I have lots and lots of friends detective. Didn't you say you wanted to talk about Dan Pratt detective?"

"Right, so, uh, where were you the morning of June 29, 2015 Mr. Scott?"

"Do you want to know where I was the whole morning?"

"That would be helpful."

"Okay, let's see. From 12:01 am till about 6:00 am I was asleep in my bed here, second room on the right down that hall. From 6:01 am to about 6:08 am I was in my bathroom, across the hall from my bedroom the aforementioned second room on the right and then in my kitchen where we're seated now...of course I wasn't seated I was making coffee over there. At 6:08 am - uh, these times are approximate you understand - I returned to my bathroom directly across from my bedroom which as we have established is the second door on the right down that hallway. I stayed in the bathroom for about 10 minutes showering and shaving and then I returned to my bedroom, the second door..."

"Mr. Scott!"

"Hmm, I thought you might appreciate a little detail. Okay. I dressed, had some coffee and a light breakfast. Then I read the newspaper for a while, caught up on some bills and household chores until lunch time."

"You never left your apartment?"

"Nope, well just for the minute it took to retrieve the newspaper at the front door."

"Can you provide any proof that you were here that entire morning, Mr. Scott?"

"Ah, more to the point Detective Mumford; can YOU prove that I was not here?"

Mumford was getting frustrated and angry. Reyes knew this was headed nowhere. Scott had sent 3 years in prison; he wasn't going to roll over and he certainly wasn't going to make anything easy for two cops. He thought he'd better step in before Gil's frustration turned to anger.

"Mr. Scott, were you sending letters to Dan Pratt over the past 5 years or so?"

Jim smiled at the change of interrogator and line of questioning.

"No, not letters. I was sending him my progress reports. You know the parole hearing interview transcripts that sort of thing. "

"Why?"

"He seemed so interested in my going to prison that I thought he'd be interested in my progress."

"Did you threaten him?"

"No, not as such. I did make him a promise though."

"Yes, we saw that in your file. What's the difference?"

"Point-of-view, detective. Perspective and perhaps clarity. I may threaten to do something and never act on it and that's okay but if you promise to do something... well, you had better keep your promises. See the difference?"

"Mr. Scott, did you kill Daniel Pratt."

"No, detective but I sure wished I had."

-Wrap-up-

-Detectives-

"It's over, Gil. We can't prove a damn thing. We've been told to wrap it up and close the case."

"Fuck! You and I both know Scott had something to do with it, Mike!"

"Maybe...maybe Pratt's fear of Scott and his promise pushed him over the edge. Maybe Scott murdered him, maybe he goaded him. We don't know and we can't prove shit. We have no choice Gil. We've got to close this as a suicide. He's clear in 3 weeks anyway, Gil. He'll be long gone in a month. Just let it go."

"Come on, Mike let's just..."

"No, Gil. Cone on let's face facts. Pratt seduced a married woman got cocky and got caught. The husband beat him up and I for one don't blame him. Hell, what man who has been cheated on hasn't thought about that? No Pratt got what he deserved in the beating but he was a piece of shit and the beating scared him. Scott had him figured out. I think he knew damn well that if he kept reminding him of the beating and his promise to deliver another, worse beating in the future that it would eat at Pratt. Consume him. And that's exactly what I think happened. Pratt was an arrogant worthless fuck with no backbone. The only thing Scott is guilty of is recognizing that and using Pratt's own nature against him. He killed himself because he was a coward. End of story."

"I suppose your right, Mike but we can't let people take the law in their own hands."

"Your right Gil but the laws Scott broke he has repaid the State of Texas for, in full. The rest? Well, Scott would have been better served to just move on. He didn't but he didn't break any laws either. Prison sure made him slicker and he sure as hell had a lot of time to plan. Maybe if Pratt had taken his advice and let the beating drop he'd still be alive. Who knows? All I know for sure is no one here won."

-Kate-

Kate ambled up the stairs to the second floor apartment she shared with her cat. She was tired after a long hard week.