A Matter of Conscience
Joe assumed there would be some guilt. Nothing he couldn’t deal with, but a few pangs of remorse were to be expected. He was pleasantly surprised when there were none.
Forty years of incessant nagging. Forty years of Edna controlling every aspect of their lives, including their finances. Especially their finances. He had nothing. In the end she’d left Joe no choice but to get rid of her.
He’d smothered her with a pillow. He was doing her a kindness really. She’d been miserable while living, so she might appreciate being dead. No mess involved. “A bloodless coup,” was how he liked to think of it.
One hot night several weeks later, Joe stood beneath the cool spray of the shower, eyes closed in ecstasy. But, wait, what was that rusty odor? The water seemed cloying too. He opened his eyes and wailed in horror. His body was cloaked with something red and viscous. The shower stall was streaked with blood running down the walls and pooling about Joe’s feet. In panic he tried escaping the stall. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell, face first, into the puddle of thick blood.
The body was discovered by the cleaning lady. It was pink and puckered from hours spent beneath the shower. The authorities assumed that Joe had suffered a heart attack brought on by the recent loss of his wife. Of course, in a sense, the authorities were right.
