No Welcome Home: Before I'll Weep

Meanwhile I got smart. She was changing her password regularly, but all I had to do was copy her email archive file to my laptop and fire it up. I tracked her email every day.

Andrew sent her a message asking if I ever noticed anything. She replied: "No, if anything he is even more loving."

"God, what a fucking wimp he is!" Andrew sent back.

"Yeah, but he'smy wimp. I do love him. But I also love to fuck you. He is so caught up in his writing that the only way he would notice anything is if he wrote it himself!"

"Wimp my ass" I thought. One of my favorite cliches is "he who laughs last, last laughs."

Three months later, it was time for her next seminar, this time in San Antonio. She was going for the usual five days. She was also going to hell, for eternity, but she didn't know that yet!

Yeah, I know. You think I'm a vindictive SOB. Damn straight!

Was I weeping?

"You think I'll weep
No, I'll not weep: I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I'll weep."

Hell no I wasn't weeping!

IT'S TIME TO DIE!

All the planning Glenn and I had done broke into three main parts that had to merge together perfectly:

-How to kill me
-How to get me reborn
-How to send the sinners to hell!

Everything was in place; now it was time to act!

The first problem was money. I had to leave totally transparently. I couldn't take anything with me except the clothes I would have on. I had a commission check I'd been holding on to. As soon as Sandra left I went to the bank and deposited the check, a little over twenty grand. I kept out about $2500, typical for ongoing expense funds. This would get me started – most of that money could disappear with me.

It wasn't near what I needed though.

Sandra had some heirloom jewelry she had inherited from her grandmother. I don't know the current value, but when we had them assessed for insurance several years ago, they came out at spot on a quarter mil! They were too valuable to keep in the house (and too old fashioned for darling Sandra to wear) so we kept them in a large safety deposit box at the bank. They were kept in a lock box within the safety deposit box. Both keys were kept in our safe at home.

While she was still on her previous, infamous trip I went to the bank and took the jewelry out and left a large envelope filled with last years tax papers in the front of the box. I gave the jewelry to Glenn to dispose of. He got just under a hundred grand for it. I gave him ten grand for his help and hoped the rest would last me long enough for the expenses involved with my death and enough to live on for a year or so.

I kept out a beautiful emerald brooch worth around five grand. I would use this later.

A couple of days after Sandra got back from San Antonio I caught her just as she was leaving for work. "Babe, could you do me a favor? I have an envelope with tax papers in the bank vault that I need. Could you run over during lunch and pick it up for me?"

"Sure honey, could you grab the key for me?"

"It's right here – I got it out of the safe while you were taking your shower. Thanks a million, I'll give you a back rub tonight to thank you."

"Oh! I can hardly wait – will you wait hard-ly?" she laughed.

Without the key to the lockbox she wouldn't be able to look at the jewelry… not that she would have any reason to view it. The last time the lock box had been opened was when we had all the pieces appraised.

Now she was on record as the last one to use the safety deposit box. The tax papers I left in my file cabinet at home – ready for anyone that cared to look at if she even remembered picking them up.

Next I needed documentation… I knew this was going to be expensive. Glenn had another "friend." This guy had worked in the documentation section of the CIA for over thirty years. He was essentially paid to forge documents: everything an agent would need to get into a foreign country.

I didn't need that much. I talked it over with Glenn and we figured on a passport (well used), drivers license, car insurance card (with insurance in force if anyone asked), International Drivers License, VISA and AMEX cards, bank Letter of Credit… you get the picture. This was going to cost me $10,000 if I could wait six months or for $20,000 I could get them in six weeks. I couldnot wait six months!

I had letters from my new agent about a romance novel done under my new name. I had a manuscript almost ready for editing.

We started the messy business of killing me. First we needed blood. Glenn knew a guy that had worked in the infirmary at the State Prison. We met in a back room of a bar in Trinidad, south of Denver almost to the New Mexico line. He took about a dozen vials of my blood and put them in a cooler with ice.

I put some blood in the trunk of her car and then did a half-assed job of trying to clean it up. I put a couple of drops of blood in the corner of the trunk along with some fuzz from a burlap bag. I stuck a couple of hairs from my head on the blood while it was still moist. I also put blood on the laundry room throw rug leading to the garage. This I half-ass cleaned up. I added a few drops underneath the rear bumper of the car.

Glenn got a shovel from Andrew's shed and left it in my shed. Again, I put some blood on it and did a little better job of cleaning it off. Butnot perfect!

In the middle of the night, Glenn picked the lock at Andrews's apartment and we went in. I got some hairs from Andrew's brush to put in my brush at home and a couple to put under the pillow in our master bedroom. I carefully got an empty beer can from his trash to put in our kitchen trash. I got lucky and found a tied off condom in the wastebasket in his bathroom. That got thrown behind our toilet bowl in our bath. It would take a good cleaning to spot it… or a good search! Finally I took the emerald brooch, and wrapping in one of his handkerchiefs, put it in the bottom drawer of his armoire beneath some of his sweaters.

Glenn had gotten a cell phone in Andrew's name and I used that to call her hotel. I knew he was not taking his car because Sandra's company always provided limo service for the airport. I took (and later replaced) the key to his locker at Cherry Chase Country Club where he belonged. I went to the club for lunch and then wandered into the locker room. No one was around so I left the cell phone in his locker. Of course Glenn and I were both very careful to leave no signs of our passing presence.

The night before Sandra left I had arranged for Glenn to pick up Sandra's car and drive it down to Denver and back. On the stretch of I-70 comings down from the foothills they have one of those new photo radar detectors. The radar picks up anyone going down the hill more than 10 miles over the limit and snaps a picture of the license plate. It's on trial and it's not clear whether it was legal or not, but we didn't care. We just wanted to place her car there at an early morning hour.

Starting from a few days before Sandra left I was careful to leave no footprints, such as reading my email when I was supposed to be dead. I left my billfold with everything in it in the silver tray in the drawer of my dresser where I always left it. There was a little over six hundred dollars in it – about the usual amount.

Not wanting to leave my usual mess, I ate out, but no more fast food! I just stopped. Quit. I didn't have any coffee, tea, beer, taking nothing in what I did not consider to be my home anymore. In fact, I cut out hard liquor – I needed to stay sharp and not make any mistakes. I was staying with Glenn and driving back and forth. Hell, I didn't even take a piss in the house.

I didn't go to any of my usual hangouts, not my favorite bars, restaurants. I stayed away from anywhere I might run into a friend. All my visits to the house were late at night and I parked Glenn's car at least a block away.

I got a new prescription for my blood pressure and cholesterol medicine from the same guy that drew my blood – I renewed over the internet in my new name and had them sent to Glenn's address. I didn't go to any local grocery stores and drugstores. I was as close to invisible as possible.

I was leaving a lot, a bunch of money, a way of life I enjoyed, and a few friends I would miss. Thankfully there wasn't much family left. My sister was living in Boston and I just saw every other year or so. She would miss me, but with the kids, her husband and her job she would be okay.

I left about $600,000 in cash or near cash in various checking, savings and money market accounts. My IRA was probably around a half mil. The house in Evergreen had about $700,000 in equity. Most of all I left my career as a crime writer. I was good at it. I made tons of money from it. I had four novels under contract, two of which I had already received advances for. One of those was in the editing process and would be published in a couple of months.

I left the my car in the garage, my lovely silver BMW coupe, "The M6." It sure looked like I was going to miss my Beemer more than I would Sandra!

I wish I had kids to leave all this to, but if I had kids I wouldn't have done it this way. Sure, I would have thrown her sorry ass out, but I would have lost this precious revenge. Every day since Glenn and I had started planning this, especially on those nights after we mated (Inever made love to her again after seeing those emails) I pulled my revenge out and caressed it. I petted it. I loved it. It was literally precious to me. Was I vindictive? You bet your sweet ass I was!

Finally it was time for lights out… time to die.

Glenn drove me down to Albuquerque where I gave him a big hug and said goodbye. I caught a bus to El Paso. All my documentation looked used as appropriate. My luggage was even more used. At El Paso I filled the luggage up with new clothes – totally different brands and styles down to shoes, socks and underwear. Then I took a Taxi into Juarez. I caught another bus to Mexico City. There I took a plane to Buenos Aires. I stayed there for a week decompressing and enjoying some excellent food and wine. I got my hair restyled and a more modern look for my eyeglass frames.

I then took a different airline to Madrid and on to Lisbon by train. I settled into a nice apartment. I joined a local sports club and started exercising. I really cleaned up my eating habits… as I said I had cut out fast food cold turkey. I lost twenty pounds in the first four months. It didn't take long before both my blood pressure and cholesterol were down and I could stop taking the pills. As I lost weight I gradually replaced my clothes with a more European look.

I had always looked down on Romance novels, but I knew I was going to have to start earning some money. I was fluent in Spanish so I started reading all the pulp fiction romance stuff in both English and Spanish I could find. I started lining out some story ideas. I wrote a few short stories and then picked up the manuscript I had brought with me. I reworked it based on my readings and started looking for a publisher.

You know what happened with Maria João. I love her very much and totally adore Catrina. I'm picking up Portuguese quicker than I thought I would be able to.

Life is good!

Oh! And my "loving wife" Sandra? Would I ever cry over her?

Nah! I don't think so!

Thanks for reading this story – I appreciate all comments, and will always try to respond to emails.

Thanks to "The Wanderer" for his challenge. It's always fun to put yourself inside someone else's head and try to imagine what they would have wrote. He still might write "No Welcome Home: Dave's Story" and we can find out!

For those of you who are reconciliation fans, sorry! Given what Sandra and done and Dave's response it just seemed pretty hopeless. I couldn't see Sandra getting out of jail 20 years later and bumping into Dave who suddenly missed his former life and wife; meeting again and having a joyful reunion