Dishonor Thy Wife (24 page)

BRAD

I sleep a couple of hours under my bed and then stew the
rest of the night thinking about Jayden and Vanessa. Jayden and Barbie. Jayden
and Ronni. I wish with all my heart that I never met my twin brother. If Canada
has the death penalty, I am wearing a mask to attend his execution. I am, after
all, a master of disguises.

I plan to carry the bag with the murder weapon between home
and office once I go back to work. A killer should destroy evidence, but the
knife is a souvenir.

Lack of sleep always puts me in a foul mood. I rifle through
my clothes for a shirt to wear to work.
I should just call in sick to my
stomach.

What the fu…? Where did this shirt come from? I whistle
through my teeth as my heart skips a beat. Even after imagining watching Jayden
hang, I can still get sentimental over my brother.

The initials JT
stitched on his white shirt are soft,
delicate, and silky against my cheek.

Your brother carelessly left another shirt behind where the
housekeeper or Ronni could find it.

Ronni is like a nosy detective. Ronni found the travel
bag. Ronni found the murder weapon.

Your wife knows something, which is why she wants a
divorce.

Nah! The idea is preposterous and I yell at my inner voice
to “Shut up!”

Sniff the shirt to see if your wife was all over your
brother!

What the…Ronni’s perfume!

I ball the shirt up, balling and balling and kicking the
shirt. I then toss Jayden’s threads into the trashcan, making a perfect basket.

Okay, calm down. Dumb Ronni probably never noticed the
initials on the shirt.

She would have said something, surely. Look how she believed
my excuse about the bloody kitchen knife in the travel bag. I roll around the
carpet, laughing.
I cut up some meat for supper, Ronni.
A cow named
Vanessa. Moo!

Another panic attack is coming on and I am practically
kissing my knees because the ache in my stomach is excruciating. Where is the
travel bag? The bag was here a few minutes ago. Earlier, I threw the bag in the
closet and then went downstairs to get the newspaper.

Ronni must have crept up here for the bag. She knows about
the knife. She saw the blood. She plans to go to the police, which is why she so
smugly asks for a divorce. She is not giving up anything to be free of me. She
is putting me away for life or pulling a switch on the electric chair. She will
be a rich widow.

Ah, there is the travel bag in the corner sort of hiding.

Zip!

Good. The knife is still there. Good.

I zip the bag up. I had not noticed before…why didn’t I…how
could I be so frickin’ stupid! Jayden’s nametag and address are under a plastic
holder on the side of the bag!

Ronni saw his name on the bag, which is why she wants a
divorce. She read in the Victoria newspaper that Jayden Tremblay was arrested
for stabbing his wife to death. Maybe she even saw the news on Canadian
television on cable. She saw his picture and thinks I killed Jayden’s wife. She
believes I am Jayden and have been living a double life.

Well, a dead wife cannot divorce her husband and then
testify against him.

I stuff the travel bag into the closet and pile even more stuff
around it.

I sit in the dark closet, banging my head against the wall and
humming,
how to get rid of Ronni, how to get rid of Ronni, how to…

She will not be easy to kill like Vanessa. Ronni is legally
Brad O’Boyle’s wife. True, she has no family who will miss her, but that nosy
friend Riley hates my guts. She would come sniffing around if Ronni
disappeared.

Ah-ha! The waste container has the shirt with Jayden’s
initials. Let Jayden kill Ronni just as Jayden murdered Vanessa.

I try on the white shirt with the JT initials stitched
across the pocket and the shirt still fits my perfect body. Jayden’s shirt is
not garbage after all.

I shake out anxiety pills from the bottle, toss back my head,
and swallow a couple.

Killing Ronni is Jayden’s fault for being such an idiot as
to leave his shirt behind where Ronni can find it.

Jayden stares back at me from the full-length mirror. All it
takes to become Jayden again is to wear my brother’s shirt. I even smile like my
brother with kind eyes from a sensitive face. All the women love Jayden.
Vanessa. Ronni. Barbie.
My
women love Jayden more than they love me.

“Jayden,” I snarl and bring the knife down, repeatedly stabbing
the mirror. Click. Click. Click. Tiny mirror shards accumulate in the sink
until I finish killing my imaginary brother.

It is now I looking back from the mirror, no longer kind, sensitive,
or beloved, no longer loving, but alone. They are all gone, my wives. Vanessa,
my second wife is dead, her throat sliced by Jayden, a fitting end for a number
two.

And Ronni will soon be dead.

I stroke the initials JT
on my brother’s shirt and
smile at Ronni’s bloodstains. Vanessa needs company. Once Ronni is dead, the
icy hand will quit stroking me. Vanessa will quit singing to me. I can sleep on
my bed again instead of under the bed. I will not jump every time a phone rings
nor duck my head when a police car pulls up beside me in traffic.

A perfect murder is all in the planning. In Canada, I met a
man at a bar who knows some people, who knows some people who can forge some
documents. I have his card and he will create Jayden Tremblay’s passport with
my picture. I will fly to Victoria as myself and then fly back to Austin as Jayden
to commit another perfect crime. I already have a history of flying to Canada
on business. Or was it Jayden who always flew to Canada while I flew to Austin?
The logistics matter not. We are the same, with identical DNA.

I dress for work and then stroll down the stairs, whistling.

A man with a plan does not have panic attacks or need
anxiety medicine.

JAYDEN

“Well,” Frisco said as if surprised, “your story seems to
check out, Dr. Tremblay.”

“You and this Brad O’Boyle left a travel paper trail behind
you,” Lead-Belly added.

“It seems you were in Austin when your wife was killed.”

“Brad’s wife,” I repeated like a scratchy record.

 “We dusted your house for another suspect’s prints and it
seems that’s where the suspect stayed while in Victoria.” He shrugged his
shoulders. “You say your house guest, the suspect, is this O’Boyle guy.”

“You’re free to go, Dr. Tremblay, for now.”

I’ve got to get to Ronni and Traci!

“Not so fast.” Lead-Belly pushed me back in the chair.

“You’ll be released as soon as we get the paper work to the
judge,” she said.

“The courthouse closed about six minutes ago so I’m afraid
you’ll have to spend one more night in jail.”

“You’ll be free in the morning, Dr. Tremblay, after the
judge signs the papers.”

“I need to make a phone call. It’s urgent!”

“Until the judge has signed the papers, you’ve got to abide
by the same rules as before,” he said.

“But...”

“No buts,” Frisco said.

“Don’t worry about your sister-in-law. We plan to work with
the Austin police to investigate Dr. O’Boyle. The police need to fingerprint
him to verify he is the same Brad O’Boyle who was posing as you in your home. If
he is a suspect, then we can talk extradition as soon as red tape is cleared
both here and in America.”

“It sounds like the process may take awhile,” I muttered.

“Just don’t leave the country, Doctor. You’re not home free
yet,” she said. “We first have to check out this Brad O’Boyle to confirm his
DNA is a match.”

“And just because O’Boyle was in Canada doesn’t mean he
killed Vanessa,” Lead-Belly added.

“You know, Dr. Tremblay, it’s against the law to fly under someone
else’s name and identity.”

 “The airlines might want to press criminal charges.”

“And you’re both doctors. Isn’t there some crime about that?”

“Could be.” Frisco shrugged her shoulders.

As if I gave a crap. I was more worried about Ronni.

The detectives escorted me back to my cell and walked away.

Frisco spun and marched back to the cell. “What’s odd is
that Air Canada has four reservations for next week. Two reservations are in
your name and the other two are in O’Boyle’s name. O’Boyle is to fly from
Austin to Victoria, and then you are to fly on a round trip to Austin
afterwards. There is an additional ticket for O’Boyle to fly back from Canada. They’re
not coordinated trips like before where you met up.”

“But I didn’t make a reservation. I got back my passport
from Brad the last time I saw him. Why would Brad still be impersonating me?”

“Why indeed?”

“Hey, Frisco, I’m starving. Let’s get lunch,” Lead-Belly
hollered.

“Coming, Lead-Belly.”

The detectives walked towards the exit.

My mind churned away. The time lapse in the travel itinerary
would allow Brad to fly to Canada as himself, and then hop on a plane and fly
back to Austin as me.

He must know
that the police are going to free me.

I pounded on the bars of my cell and yelled at the top of my
lungs. “He’s going to kill Ronni. He’s going to kill her!”

The main door slammed behind the detectives.

I crumpled to the floor, sobbing, “He’s going to kill her.”

BY MY CALMNESS, YOU WOULD THINK I HAVE FRAMED SOMEONE FOR
MURDER BEFORE when I myself am the killer. The secret to my serenity is in the
zygote, a shared experience with my identical twin. I can feel his presence in
the plane as if my brother is sitting beside me. He is my navigator as I fly into
the abyss. I see his face in the mist and hear his voice.
Why didn’t you love
 me? Why, brother?

* * *

JAYDEN

They released me from jail and my lawyer read me the riot
act about how I should not leave the country. Naturally, I caught a taxi and told
the driver, “Ignore my lawyer. Try not to run over his toes.”

“But he said that’s his cell phone you’ve got there, buddy,
and to give it back.” He looked at me with suspicion having just picked me up
from jail where I had stood waiting at the curb beside my lawyer and holding a
small suitcase.

“Just drive,” I barked. “Get me to the airport as fast as
you can.”

I dialed my lawyer’s cell phone.

The answering machine picked up at Brad’s office and recited
a message about the office being closed for a funeral. My first thought was
that Brad murdered Ronni and got away with it.

His cell phone went straight to voice mail.

There was no answer at his house.

I took a deep breath and dialed Ronni’s cell phone.

Come on. Come on. Pick up
.
Somebody pick up the
damn phone.

But nothing.

I blinked back my tears, trying to calm down.

Later, it felt strange flying into Austin as me, departing
the plane, claiming
my
luggage.

I kept trying and trying to reach Ronni by phone as I wheeled
my suitcase.

I turned a corner at the airport and ran smack dab into this
morning’s news. I would never have even noticed the
Austin American
Statesman
had the picture of Brad on the front page not been so large.

The headline screamed bloody murder, or was it an accident
as the killer claimed?

“I’m too late,” I mumbled and dropped my lawyer’s cell phone.
The battery had run down. The cell phone was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

With a hand that had to try three times before I could sink
a quarter into the slot of the machine, I finally opened the little door and
grabbed a copy of the
Austin American Statesman
.

Everything turned black and I almost did not make it to a
chair.

I sat down so hard on my butt I might have chipped my tailbone.
The only pain I felt was in my heart.

It felt incredibly eerie to see my face staring out from the
front page stating that the man who looked exactly like me was dead.

A picture of the murder suspect was on page two, Barbie Simpson.
She was barely recognizable because the photo was of an ugly woman with a
crooked nose and uneven jaw. One eye was half-closed.

Millionaire’s Wife Kills Lover in Revenge Murder
, the
article was entitled. Next to Barbie’s picture was a photo of Bubba Simpson, a 70
year-old man with beady eyes who ate too much rich Texas barbeque and resembled
a balding, red-headed hog with streaks of grey in his hair that he combed from
one side of his head to the other. From the way he dressed, the man had the
class of trailer-trash and the look of a used car salesman, which he was though
he now owned a chain of them.

The article stated that early in the morning two days ago someone
shot Dr. Brad O’Boyle at Barton Springs Pool. The gun had her prints on it but Barbie
claimed she was innocent.

It was surprising her husband was not a suspect since he had
threatened to kill Brad.

Bubba Simpson had lots of money to pay for the best lawyer
for his wife but he refused to pay a plastic surgeon to fix her ruined face. Considering
how rich and powerful he was, more than likely Barbie would get away with
murder.

There was a news report on the television screen at the
airport. Barbie stood on the stairs of the courthouse, straightened her
peroxide blonde hair, and winked at the press with her good eye. “I’m a former
Texas beauty queen,” she purred, though she was a bit hard to understand
because of her wired jaw. “I barely knew the doctor, what’s his name, Bad O’Boyle.”
Barbie deliberately mispronounced Brad’s name. Already, she was painting him as
a bad man. “He did this to me.” She pointed to her face and then tried to blow
kisses at the press but her mouth was puffed up with lip fillers.

There was much speculation in the press as to why Barbie would
kill Brad O’Boyle. Was the murder the result of a jealous spat or her man done
her wrong?
City Confidential
already swooped down on Austin, Texas
preparing to film a documentary of the sordid mess. The fact that the scandal
involved a love triangle with a former Texas beauty queen, a bigamist doctor, and
her millionaire husband ensured a movie of the week—Sex, Texas and Death. In
addition, there was the added bonus that Dr. O’Boyle had been living a double
life in Canada and murdered his second wife. The dead wife in Canada had been
pregnant with his baby.

I sighed with relief that the paper mentioned Brad’s wife
and daughter survived him in Austin. The paper did not mention that Brad had a
long lost identical twin brother. The police in Canada were keeping quiet since
Brad posing as me was part of their murder investigation, and they did not want
any leak to the press.

No wonder Ronni was not answering her phone. The article
mentioned her
as part of a
love quadrangle.

I darted into a gift shop and purchased a Texas Longhorns baseball
cap, which I yanked over my forehead. I placed some sunglasses over my eyes and
walked with my head down.

I darted into the airport bathroom and splashed water on my
face, barely recognizing the man staring back at me from the mirror. My face
was pale from time spent in jail and worry about Ronni.

I threw a balled up paper towel at the mirror.
So now
what do you intend to do, fool?

Here I was in Austin all ready to play the hero with Ronni
but she was no longer in any danger from Brad.

So now what?

Obviously, my sister-in-law’s bed with me posing as her
husband was out of the question since Brad was now dead. I intended to do the honorable
thing. I would hole up…hide out in a hotel until my brother’s funeral, which I
had every intention of attending.

Honor they brother. Honor they brother.

I called my housekeeper and asked her to send a black suit
to Austin, Texas along with some additional clothing.