As dead as Bob is
My name is Uriah Muller and I’m making this statement of my own free will
I admit that 24 hours ago, I wanted to see my best friend Bob dead.
This is because I kept seeing him with my wife in every cheap hotel in town.
No, in my imagination.
I didn’t actually catch them together until last night.
But I heard word about them.
Everywhere I went people kept telling me.
It all added up.
So I set off to find him, knowing that if I didn’t catch him quick I would cool down and just feel hurt.
I guess I always had high hopes for me and Dora.
After all our years of struggling, some of my land deals were about to pay off.
Then this happened.
I knew that if they knew I knew they would scoot out of town. So I hurried over to his place.
No, I didn’t bring my Colt.
I deliberately left it in the safe at home so I wouldn’t have it.
I’m bad with numbers when I’m upset so I couldn’t have remembered the combination.
As much as I wanted Bob dead, I didn’t want to do it so fast. I wanted to beat Bob dead with my bare hands.
But I found him dead when I arrived, the small Colt lying near his head, the smell of burnt gunpowder telling me it had just happened.
The gun looked familiar and I nearly picked up, halting only when I remembered about the fingerprints.
But I looked at it close and saw how much it looked like the Colt I had locked up at home.
The same model.
The same pearl handle.
In fact it had the same notch mind had in the handle from the time I dropped it at the range.
It took me a moment to realize that it was my gun.
That’s when I picked it up. The metal was still warm.
That’s when I heard a woman laughing in the other room and found my wife sitting on the bed just hanging up the telephone.
She told me she and Bob had a good thing going, and had even plotted out my death so they could run off together.
But Bob got greedy when he heard how rich I got, and wanted us both dead.
She killed him first.
I mistook her meaning.
I thought she was sorry for it all and had killed Bob out of self defense.
She shook her head.
She said she just called the police to tell them how I had killed Bob in a jealous rage.
She even laughed, saying how she would take my money and find another Bob while I served my time in jail.
I don’t think straight when I’m upset.
I didn’t even realize I was shooting until the gun was empty and the hammer clicked on expended shells.
But I do remember seeing Dora drop to the floor, dead as Bob was.
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