Casualty Of Infidelity Jeff leaned forward against the short brick wall surrounding the roof of the building. He adjusted the focus on the rifle’s scope as he looked through it and into the window on the third floor of the hotel across the street. There she was – he could see his wife through the cross-hairs as she passed by. A tall man wearing dress pants and a t-shirt followed behind. “Just a few steps to the left,” Jeff said to himself, “That’s right, back to the window.” He now had his wife’s lover fixed in the cross- hairs of the scope; he was standing in front of the window, looking out and smoking a cigarette. “Say cheese,” Jeff whispered, and then pulled the trigger… JEFFREY HOWARD, a meek and unimposing sort of fellow, first started to suspect that his wife was cheating on him a few days ago. Not all the signs were there, but being a lawyer, Jeff thought there was enough evidence present to make a case. His first clue was when he left the office for lunch on Monday. His partner Morty had been out of the office for two hours now and Jeff thought that he might as well break for lunch as well. After all, it wasn’t like he had a huge amount of work piled up on his desk – he and his partner hadn’t found any new clients in over a year. But, the regular clients they did have always provided enough work for a few hours a day. He and Morty would show up and work six hours a day just for the sake of getting out of the house and working. Jeff decided he would walk down to the supermarket on Shade Avenue and pick up a sandwich – and maybe a Coke, maybe. It was getting harder for him to handle carbonated drinks at what he considered to be the advanced age of sixty. After arriving at the store and making his purchase he walked back to the office at a leisurely pace, while nibbling on his sandwich. When he was three blocks from his office, Jeff saw his wife walk out of the Hillview hotel. That’s strange. He thought about running after her, to catch up and ask her what she was up to, but decided against it. He was at the advanced age of sixty after all. He would see her in a few hours back at home anyway. Why exert himself? He was back at the office a few minutes later, finishing the last few bites of his sandwich when Morty walked in. “Hell of a long lunch,” Jeff said to him. His partner looked winded, and his cheeks were red. “I’m sure I missed a lot,” Morty returned, “I don’t know why we even bother coming in five days a week.” “You come in, because you have nothing better to do. I come in to get away from the wife.” Morty didn’t appreciate Jeff’s fine sense of humor. Jeff was home by two-thirty that afternoon and his wife, Celia, was watching Judge Houghton on the television and sewing up a tear in a pair of his pants. Jeff never understood why she was so into those court shows. The things that happen on those shows rarely, if ever, happen in real court. It looked like some stupid kid smashed his friend’s car into a parking meter and the other kid’s parents were suing him. Judge Houghton was reading them the riot act. “How goes it Celia?” Jeff asked, leaning in to kiss her. “It goes just fine,” she said, returning the kiss. During their thirty-five years of marriage, this had been their way of greeting each other – How goes it? It goes fine. It was more of a habit now, rather than an endearment. “How was your day Celia?” “Same old, same old. How about you? Anything exciting happen – can you hand me the remote?” He handed her the remote and she muted Judge Houghton in the middle of a speech about taking responsibility. “Nope, same old grind. Although how we can get anything done with Morty taking two hour lunches is beyond me. What’s at the Hillview hotel?” Celia tensed and she paused her needlework. “What do you mean?” “I was on my way back from the market around lunchtime and I saw you leaving there.” She continued her needlework, staring down at it so she wouldn’t have to meet Jeff’s gaze. “I …” she paused for a second, “I missed the mailman when he came by today. The Hillview’s the last stop on his route, so I asked Millie over there to mail something for me.” “Oh. What’s for dinner?” Jeff asked, dropping the subject completely. That was his first clue. The second clue came two days later on Wednesday. Jeff was sitting at his desk with his hands behind his head and his feet propped up on the desk. It was a few minutes past ten o’clock and Morty had just left for an early (and probably late) lunch. He had finished the entire day’s work in the first hour he arrived at the office and he was bored as hell. There was nothing else to do and Jeff was starting to consider going back home for the rest of the day – he could go home and spend some time with Celia. Maybe watch one of those court shows with her. A car drove past the office and Jeff looked out the window on the street side of the building. The window provided him with a view of the front of the Hillview, and today it also provided him with a view of his partner walking in the front door of the hotel. He couldn’t imagine why Morty would be going to the hotel, other than to go to the bar in the lobby. But Morty wouldn’t do that – he hadn’t had a drink in fifteen years. And besides, his partner was at the even more advanced age of sixty-three and a tumble off the wagon could really hurt. No, Morty wasn’t there to drink. So why was he there? Jeff received his answer less than a minute later. When he saw his wife walk inside the hotel. That was his second clue. The thought that Morty – his partner, hell, his friend – was fooling around with his wife was too absurd for him to take seriously. Then why is he over there with my wife? Jeff and Morty started the law firm of Howard and Greenbaum thirty-four years ago: Jeff had been married for just a year and the ink was still wet on the two young lawyers’ diplomas. They scraped together what meager amount of capital they could get their hands on and rented the office on Baker Avenue. The two of them had spent two years of ninety hour weeks and more than a few sleepless nights worrying over and building their business. After the initial two years they had developed a solid client base and were known throughout the county. They were by no means a huge or famous firm, but they had enough work to keep their bank accounts steadily rising and food on the table. They had been through a lot together, especially during that bad period in ’84 when their client base had all but dried up and they were looking at closing up the practice. No, Morty couldn’t be screwing his wife. Because that would mean, potentially, losing both his wife and his best friend. He trusted Celia – and he trusted Morty. But that didn’t stop him from thinking about it for the rest of the day. He didn’t say anything to Celia about seeing her over at the hotel a second time, and he didn’t mention anything to Morty either. The idea was preposterous – his wife and his partner had known each other for forty years – but then again, that made it more plausible, didn’t it? And hadn’t things slowed down in the bedroom with him and Celia in the past year or so? No. They didn’t slow down; they came to a grinding and screeching halt. And hadn’t she seemed a little more distant as of late? And what about Morty? What about those two hour lunches he had been taking all week? Jeff imagined himself in court with Morty on the witness stand, as he paced back in forth in front of the jury: Jeff: We’ve already heard testimony from two witnesses employed by the Hillview hotel that Mrs. Howard has been seen entering the hotel between the hours of 10:00 am and Noon, every weekday for the past five days. Now, tell me Mr. Greenbaum, what time to you normally leave the office for lunch? Morty: (quietly) Between 10:00 am and Noon. Jeff : I’m sorry, I didn’t quite hear you. Could you repeat your last statement? And this time make it loud enough for the jury to hear. Morty: (louder) I said, between 10:00 am and Noon. (audible gasp from the courtroom audience) Jeff : And it’s just a coincidence that those hours happen to be the same exact hours of Mrs. Howard’s frequent visits to the Hillview? (another audience gasp, followed by the judge banging his gavel and calling for order) Morty : Yes, I believe it is a coincidence. Jeff : Did you know, Mr. Greenbaum, that the Hillview employs a system of video cameras throughout the building, as a security measure? Jeff didn’t want to think about it anymore. Thinking about it made him angry, and angry wasn’t something a man of the advanced age of sixty was supposed be. He didn’t think about it anymore that day, and he went on not thinking about it for part of the day Friday – until he went to the bank. Normally Morty would take care of the financial aspects of the business; he had a head for figures. Jeff was more of a people person; he could develop an instant rapport with almost any client. They each had their own strengths at the firm, and because Morty’s strength was the financial side, he always made the deposits on Friday. Of course, there weren’t always deposits to be made on Friday. Sometimes people would pay their bill in ways other than cash. Take Mrs. Vernon: she had a few small legal matters to be taken care of after her husband had passed. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon had never been wealthy people and after Mr. Vernon died, the funeral took almost all of her savings, so she offered to pay her bill with homemade cup cakes on the first of every month. Jeff and Morty happily accepted. But this Friday there was a small deposit to be made, and since Morty was taking one of his epic lunch hours Jeff decided to drop the weekly deposit off at the bank on his way to the market. When he arrived at the bank, he started filling out the deposit slip and walked over to the teller’s window. “Morning Jeff,” the teller, Annie Cummings, said in her usual bright and cheery manner. “And a good one to you too.” “What can I do for you today?” Jeff handed her the deposit slip. “Just making the deposit. Say, how’s that kid of yours doin’?” “I swear to God, she grows a shoe size every week, you wouldn’t believe what…” Annie paused in the middle of her sentence and tapped her keyboard a few times, looking at her monitor, puzzled. She tapped the keyboard a few more times. “Is everything alright Annie?” “It says here that your account is closed.” That was news to Jeff. “No, I’m sure there’s just been a mistake. Tap those keys again; I’m sure the account will come up.” “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, it says your account was closed at 11:45 yesterday morning.” And so there it was, another piece to the puzzle. An hour long conversation with the bank manager revealed that Morty had withdrawn all the money, twenty-three thousand dollars, from their business account, closing it. The bank manager recalled seeing him there yesterday. Jeff was astounded. How could Morty do this to him? But that wasn’t the end of it. There was an old phrase that said: Bad things come in threes. The missing money from the business account was one, and Jeff found out the second while he was still at the bank. Even though he was so angry he could strangle Morty (the fact that Morty could’ve just closed the account at this bank, and taken up an account at another bank hadn’t occurred to him) he still had to a deposit to make, so he decided to deposit it into his personal account. He hit the roof when the manager came back and said he was sorry, but his personal account was closed to. Celia had come in yesterday and withdrawn every cent. Jeff was furious, and started to shout at the young bank manage, but the manager said there was nothing he could do, the business and the personal accounts had both been joint accounts. This meant that either person listed on the account had the ability to close the account. Somehow, Jeff had managed to make it the half mile back to his house. He was still angry enough to spit fire, and there was a tightness in his chest he’d never noticed before. He was ready to have it out with Celia; this was it, the last straw. She was either going to explain what was going on – the hotels, the money, everything – or they were through. And as far as Morty was concerned, he was ready to have it out with him too, and if it came to blows, it would come to blows. When he walked through the front door, the phone was ringing and Celia was nowhere to be found. Jeff picked up the phone, “What?” “Jeff, how are you? You sound upset.” It was Louis, their travel agent. Jeff was in no mood for small talk. “What do you need Louis?” “Actually, I was calling for Celia, but I guess I can talk to you about it.” “Get on with it then, I’m in a hurry,” Jeff said. “It’s about the plane tickets to Spain that Celia ordered for tomorrow. I was just calling to tell her that I was able to get her a reduced rate for the first class tickets, so I went ahead and purchased them instead of business class. Just tell her she can come pick them up at the office any time she’s ready.” Jeff missed the last few words of the conversation; he had pulled the phone away from his ear and was staring at it. So there was clue number three. His wife was planning on running away with Morty. They had both the money from the business account and from the personal account and were going to run off and leave him with broke and holding on to a bankrupt firm. Not if I can help it, he thought. He thought there still might be time. He had at least until tomorrow. A note was left on the fridge, it was from Celia, saying to meet her in room 307 at the Hillview, she’d explain when he arrived. She’s gonna rub it in my face, isn’t she, Jeff thought. Oh, I’ll meet her there all right. In lieu of payment, a financially deficient client had bought Jeff a high-powered hunting rifle, complete with shoulder strap and scope. Jeff had never been hunting a day in his life and to this day, he had still never used the rifle. He felt too guilty to sell the rifle, so he kept it in a locker in his den, along with a box of ammunition. Jeff ran into the den and tried to open the locker, dropping the keys twice in his haste. He finally opened it, grabbed the rifle, and loaded two bullets. Instead of walking to his office building he put the gun in his car and drove over there. He parked in front of the building. He took the hunting rifle out of his car and went in the back door to his office and then up the stairs to the second floor. The second floor fire escape provided access to the roof and Jeff climbed up, puffing and wheezing the whole way. “Okay. Room 307,” he said to himself, looking over at the hotel. He counted three floors up and then seven windows over. “That should be room 307.” He was off on his counting by one window, which was a maintenance closet window and not a room, but he made the correction when he saw, through the rifle’s scope, his wife walk by the window next to it. He then saw Morty follow behind her and stop near the edge of the window. “Just a few steps to the left,” Jeff said, that’s right, back to the window.” Now he had Morty fixed in the cross-hairs of the rifle. He was standing in front of the window, looking out and smoking a cigarette, wearing a pair of dress pants and a white t-shirt. “Say cheese,” he whispered and then fired. The shot was dead on. The window shattered and Morty collapsed to the floor. He put the gun back over his shoulder by the strap and looked into the window. He could just see the top of his wife’s head at the bottom of the window as she knelt down to check on Morty. Her. Her – I want to take care of in person. Jeff climbed down off the roof and then ran downstairs. He flung the front door of his office open, not bothering to close it, and ran across the street, his gun still hanging from his shoulder. He walked through the front door of the Hillview and upstairs to the third floor, ignoring the front desk clerk who was shouting at him. Someone yelled, “He’s got a gun,” and Jeff ignored him too. He reached the third floor a minute later and hurried down the hall to room 307. He took care of his wife’s lover, and now he was going to take care of her, and oh no, it was not going to be quick and painless. With a grunt, Jeff kicked in the door of room 307, stepped inside and raised the rifle to his shoulder. The room was full of people, and music was playing softly in the background. A crowd was gathered around Morty’s body at the window. Everyone turned to look at Jeff when he burst into the room, and a second later the music stopped. Celia was still on her knees beside Morty. Jeff, in his rage, didn’t take any time to look around the room. He stomped over to his wife, screaming her name. That was when Celia looked up and saw him pointing the rifle at her chest. “Jeff?” she asked confused. “Not another word out of you,” Jeff screamed, “Not another word. You’re gonna pay for doing this to me, and you’re gonna pay with interest.” Celia’s eyes lit up with understanding and she said, “You did this Jeff? You shot Morty? Why?” she whispered. “You’ve been sleeping with him! I’ve seen the two of you go into this hotel every day for the last week!” Jeff screamed. “Oh Jeff,” Celia said, her voice thick with sorrow and pity, “You don’t understand.” “Oh is THAT it?” Jeff yelled. “Is THAT what it is? And I suppose I don’t UNDERSTAND about the money Morty stole from the firm? Huh?! And maybe I don’t UNDERSTAND about the money you stole from our bank account! Or maybe I’m just a LITTLE confused about how you and Morty were going to run off to SPAIN?!” Everyone in the room was silent, all of them staring at him. “Listen to me Jeff, just listen,” Celia said. “Oh, I’ve listen to QUITE enough already!” Jeff yelled and then leveled the gun at her. “Jeff, calm down for a minute and look at the wall,” Celia said as she pointed toward the wall across from him. A banner hung there that said “Happy Anniversary”. “Our anniversary isn’t until next week, but I wanted to surprise you,” Celia said, and then added, “Morty and I have been here at the hotel every day this week planning this party.” Jeff was dumbstruck. “No – that’s not true,” he said, keeping the gun leveled at her. “Look at all the people here Jeff.” She gestured around the room, pointing out all the people. “But, but, what about the money from bank?” “Morty told me you never bothered with the financial part of the business, so he didn’t bother telling you that he had switched over to another bank in town that had better rates.” Jeff went pale. “But… our bank account.” “When Morty told me about the deal he was getting with a new bank, I opened up an account and moved all of our savings over to it.” The arm that was holding the gun slowly started to lower. “The…the trip to Spain, you were going to run away with him,” Jeff said. Celia walked over to him and said, “The trip to Spain was going to be my anniversary present to you.”
Copyright © 2006 Johan Keylay |