Copyright © 2001 Judy Kouzel. All rights reserved. 

    Let me start off by saying I never meant to kill my wife. I know what you’re thinking, just because Lucy was 15 years older and stinking rich. But, I’ll say it again, and I’ll say it until the day I die, I never meant to kill her.

    I met Lucy at a local lonely hearts club. I was an on-again, off-again landscaper and Lucy was an avid gardener. We spent hours talking about different plants and flowers. Of course, I didn’t mention that I could have cared less about gardening and my landscaping "business" translated into me mowing lawns for pocket money in between lucky streaks at the pool hall.

          We got married six months later and it was great, for a while anyway. I slept late, ate well and did pretty much whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. Money wasn’t a problem. Lucy had made a bundle investing in real estate before the boom years. We were loaded, so I figured why not enjoy it? So what if Lucy didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did. Of course, other than her friendship with the biddy next door, the only thing Lucy enjoyed was working in her garden. I can see her now, stooped over her flower beds, wearing that ugly straw hat she always wore, working in the hot sun, hour after hour. But it sure was a beautiful garden. Without question, the best I’ve ever seen.

     Our neighbors, Myra and Patrick McNally, had lived next to Lucy for twenty years. If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because Pat McNally is the chief-of-police. He never bothered me though -- it was his wife that drove me nuts. If Myra had kept her nose out of our business, none of this would ever have happened. Lucy would still be alive and I’d still be living high on the hog and seeing Sherry on the side.

     Lucy was probably a looker in her day, although that day was too long ago for anyone to remember. Next to Sherry, Lucy looked like a bag of dirty laundry. Young, vivacious and more than a little wild, Sherry made me feel like a man again. But women like that don’t come cheap and although Sherry never minded that I was married, she let me know right off the bat she expected to be well cared for. I paid her rent, bought her expensive clothes and jewelry and took her to fancy restaurants. Lucy figured things out, of course, although she never let on as much to me. Confrontation was not something that was in my wife’s character. Instead, Lucy poured her heart out to Myra McNally. I can see those two old hens right now, jawing it up about my low-down, no-good, dirty rotten, two-timing ways.

     I could have handled Lucy if it hadn’t been for Myra. Lucy understood our marital arrangement, although I had to remind her who was boss from time to time, as any red-blooded man would do. But Myra was always needling Lucy about my not working and about those nights I didn’t come home. I knew Myra was behind it when I came home one morning, after a night on the town with Sherry to find a suitcase sitting in the front hallway. Lucy was standing there, looking older than ever, telling me she wanted a divorce. I tried to reason with her, romance her, even threaten her, but nothing worked. She wasn’t buying it.

    I snapped. That’s the only way to describe it. I saw my gravy train derailing and something deep inside of me took control. One minute I was talking to Lucy, and the next I was choking the life out of her. The last thing I remember was Lucy slumped against me with my hands clutched tightly around her throat.

          She was dead all right, and there was nothing I could do to about it. I smoked cigarettes and paced the floor all day long, trying to figure out a way out of the mess I was in. But all I could think of was the jail cell I’d soon be calling home. By nightfall, I managed to pull myself together enough to come up with what I hoped would be a foolproof plan. The trick was to manage to stay out of prison while still maintaining the lifestyle which I had so quickly grown accustomed.

          I carefully packed Lucy’s suitcase and put it in the trunk of her car. I wanted just enough of her belongings to be missing, just in case someone had a mind to check. Afterward, I drove the car to the lake a few miles away. I watched as it quietly rolled into the water.

          I would have put Lucy in the car too, but somehow I didn’t have the heart. I had killed her, sure enough, and there ain’t no point in denying it now. But the idea of Lucy spending all of eternity in the dirty water of that lake didn’t set well with me. No, Lucy’s final resting place was in our own backyard, overlooking the garden she loved so much. I even buried her blasted straw hat along with her. Lucy would have liked that.

      "Perfect," I thought to myself as I rolled the fresh sod over the grave so no one could tell the ground had been touched. I was pleased my landscaping skills were finally paying off.

      I told Myra Lucy had been called out of town suddenly to take care of an ailing aunt. She raised an eyebrow, as I knew she would, but what could she say? I knew it was only a matter of time before Myra became suspicious and sent her husband over to investigate. I knew I didn’t have much time -- two weeks at best -- to get what I could and get out.

      Of course, I couldn’t very well drain all of Lucy’s bank accounts at once. No, I played it smart. First, I packed up whatever valuables I could sneak out of the house and sent them to my brother in Texas. Then I emptied Lucy’s safety deposit box. Next came the smaller bank accounts, while I nibbled here and there on the larger ones. It was too bad I couldn’t stick around for the big money Lucy had in her real estate holdings, but I’ve seen more than one guy end up in jail for getting greedy. At night, I went to see Sherry. Sure, I knew it was risky, but I figured I was doing what I had been doing all along. What would old Myra think if I suddenly started staying in every night? She would know for certain something was up then. Besides, with a fat wallet, Sherry and I had the best time ever.

      Time moved slowly. But finally, after what seemed like forever, the two weeks passed. I thought about waiting another week, just to squeeze out every last drop of Lucy’s money, but I didn’t want to push my luck. I had $200,000 in cash, along with a small fortune in jewelry and art objects.

     I bought two plane tickets for Switzerland with Lucy’s credit card and sent Sherry on ahead. Of course, the plane ticket I kept hidden in my suitcase was to Dallas, Texas. I’d borrow my brother’s car and then head for Mexico for a year or two. No one would ever find me.

         Imagine my surprise when the police pulled into the driveway just as I was ready to leave for the airport.

      "You’re under arrest for the murder of Lucille Hoffman," Pat McNally said coldly, slapping the handcuffs around my wrists. "We’ve been watching you since the get-go, son."

      "I don’t know what you’re talking about!" I stammered. It was then I noticed Myra standing behind him holding a dirty straw hat.

           "Take him around back, Pat," she said tightly.

      They led me to Lucy’s garden, which was no longer in the same condition as I remembered it. The once-beautiful flowers were wilted and dying. The grass was turning brown in some places and in need of mowing in others. But the real bombshell was the neat rectangle of dead brown sod lying next to the hole where Lucy had been buried.

     "Lucy would never let her garden go untended," Myra told me callously. "No more than she would have left town without telling me first. Besides, you of all people should know that new sod needs to be watered every day."

          The judge gave me a life sentence, although I’ll be up for parole after 30 years. He told me he wanted me to have plenty of time to think about my victim. But he was wrong, I hardly ever think about Lucy. Except now and then when I’m in the recreation yard and notice the flowers growing wild on the other side of the prison walls.

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