In the story below, we're bringing back one of our favorite recurring characters; Karin Roland, a private investigator, most recently starred in last year's 'Karin and Katiana'.
Everyone portrayed is over eighteen. This is fiction; as always, all characters and events, etc. are figments of our imagination and have no connection to any living or dead persons, or true events.
Electric Dreams
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Derek Miller's first words in the last thirty minutes jarred his wife from whatever she was thinking, which wasn't the panorama.
"What?" Zoe Miller's answer confirmed that Zoe was a million miles away, and not for the first time this past weekend.
"The leaves, the mountains, the river; it's all so beautiful."
"I guess." Zoe's response was the verbal equivalent to a shoulder shrug.
Rather than get upset, Derek simply let it go. "Crap, what a fucking waste of a weekend and six-hundred dollars this turned out to be." Derek was thinking to himself as he continued to drive west on one of the prettiest roads in the country. Derek had taken the scenic Columbia River Historic Highway instead of Interstate 84 on their way back from Hood River. It was a last ditch effort to salvage what turned out to be a bust of a weekend. He began to wonder why Zoe even agreed to spend this weekend with him. As Derek thought back on it, Zoe hadn't exhibited more than a few moments of pleasure since they left Portland Friday night. The one attempt at love-making at the Inn was emotionless, he would have gotten more response from a blow-up doll.
Derek's interruption of her day-dream was just one more thing to piss off Zoe. Luckily, Derek had no idea what she was thinking to herself. Having to spend two days and nights with her asshole husband better have been worth the effort. Zoe had done her part; she got Derek out of town and gave Paul a key to the house. Now, Paul better have finished everything on his 'honey-do' list.
Zoe wondered how her hatred and disrespect had grown to such a monumental heights that she would even contemplate the course of action she now found herself taking. When did the love and admiration for her husband - the man she vowed to love, honor and cherish - turn to hatred?
$$$$$ -----$$$$$
It was nine months ago, the day she came home excited after an afternoon of shopping, a pair of Jimmy Choo heels and a new dress in the Nordstrom's bag. Derek had thoroughly spoiled her good mood with his line of questioning. That's the day she realized she hated Derek.
"You spent how much today?" Derek asked when she came home Saturday afternoon.
Zoe reluctantly answered him. "A thousand dollars. Why?"
She couldn't understand why Derek was beside himself. All Derek seemed to think about lately was how much they were sinking into the damn 1920's Craftsman house they bought the previous year. "I'm working every other Saturday doing bookkeeping and you're out spending a thousand dollars on clothes? What about the plumber's bill? How can you possibly spend a thousand dollars on clothes when we owe the plumber three thousand?"
She never answered Derek questions because she walked out of the room sobbing and went into their bedroom, slamming the door. When Derek tried the bedroom door, it was locked. Zoe sat on their bed thinking, "Well, at least something works in this damn house!" Derek knocked on the door and waited.
Half a minute later, she opened the door, but rather than talking to Derek as he hoped, she rushed past him. Just as Derek came down the stairs and entered the kitchen, she came up from the basement holding two red, Milwaukee tool cases.
"What about these? You get to buy things for yourself and I can't?"
Derek stood there with a stupid look on his face. "Yes, I bought a power drill and a sander. Both of which I'm using to avoid having to hire a handyman or painter."
She didn't know how to answer that, so she took the easy way out, told him to "Go fuck yourself!" and left the kitchen. Things stayed frosty the rest of that weekend. Few words were exchanged between them, they slept in the same bed, but didn't kiss goodnight.
By the time Zoe got to work Monday morning, she needed to vent her frustrations. Unfortunately for her marriage, she chose one of her co-workers, Paul Roberts, as her confidant. Paul had stopped by her workstation to say 'hello' and ended up listening to Zoe vent. After a mild rebuke from their supervisor to get back to work, Paul suggested they continue the conversation over lunch.
During that lunch, Zoe pouted and between bites of her salad, told Paul how tired she was of being on a budget. Paul listened to Zoe's litany of grievances. Paul thought Zoe was being a bit of a bitch; she obviously didn't think about any of this from her husband's point of view, but like any guy trying to get into a married woman's panties, he pretended to fully sympathize. Paul said all the right things and they made plans to have lunch again on Tuesday.
Zoe and Paul ended up having lunch together every day that week. By Wednesday, Paul was making derogatory comments about Derek; how he must not appreciate what a wonderful wife he had in Zoe.
Before the end of that first month, Zoe was convinced everything wrong in her life was Derek's fault, especially the lack of disposable income. Even though buying the fixer-upper was mostly her idea - she needed a house and a yard before she'd even think about having their child - Zoe blamed Derek for the time and money needed to bring the house up to code. The plumbing was old, the electrical panel and wiring were old, the woodwork and floors all needed to be refinished.
The more time she spent with Paul, the more Zoe lost respect for Derek, to the point that after the first month, she now spent every Saturday in Paul's bed. Zoe's adultery only magnified her loss of respect for Derek. The more she fucked Paul, the more she grew to hate Derek. Gone was any of the love she felt when she married Derek five year earlier.
Then came the day, Zoe was lying in bed next to Paul, basking in the after-glow of their second round. Zoe was beside herself in lust with Paul, the man could turn her inside out with his love-making. No man ever got it up three times, something Paul seemed to have no problem doing. The orgasms sent her into orbit, she once nearly passed out from the way he banged into her pussy from behind. Paul brought it up. "It'd be nice if we could do this every day."
As much as Zoe loved hearing the words, there was a problem. "It'd be nice, but not very practical. If I divorce Derek, I'd be responsible for half our debts. I've already talked to an attorney about it. I'd be responsible for half the mortgage and all the other money we owe buying that money-pit fixer-upper. Derek's income is the only thing keeping us afloat. Even together, you and I don't make enough for me to divorce him and pay off what I'd owe."
This was the tricky part for Paul, knowing when to broach the subject. He had an idea how to solve both their money problems, the Millers weren't the only ones with crushing debts. But Paul decided that it was still too soon, he'd wait just a little while longer.
Over the next few Saturdays and during their lunches, Paul occasionally brought up that it was only a lack of money keeping them apart. Finally, a month after the first mention of it, two months after the beginning of their physical affair, it was Zoe who brought it up. Once again, Zoe and Paul were lying in bed.
"Derek has a million-dollar life insurance policy and I'm the beneficiary."
Paul could hardly contain himself. "What are you suggesting?"
"If we could find a way for him to die, I'd get the insurance money and we could be together."
Paul continued to play dumb. "Have you thought about how it could be done?"
"No, I haven't. I've never killed anything bigger than an insect. I wouldn't know how to do it, let alone get away with it. It wouldn't do any good to kill him and end up in jail."
Paul agreed. "Well, I bet people get away with murder all the time. It's a matter of being smart about it."
Zoe sat up and looked into Paul's eyes. "Could you kill him? Maybe you could pretend like it's a hold-up and shoot him with a gun."
Paul didn't like this idea at all. He'd seen too many movies, movies such as 'Body Heat', where the wife gets some chump to murder the husband. The wife gets her freedom and the insurance money, the man gets set up and ends up taking the fall. If he and Zoe were going to pull this off, Zoe was going to do the killing. He'd been giving this a lot of thought, but once again didn't want to make it seem as if he was too anxious.
Zoe and Paul were lying in bed naked while brainstorming how to murder her husband. Paul didn't want to tip his hand too early, so he listened to Zoe's ideas, most of which were so outlandish that it took all of Paul's self-restraint not to laugh at her. Finally, he couldn't wait any longer. "Didn't you say that the electrical panel was old?"
"Yea, Derek complained because he had a hard time finding the right kind of fuse when one burned out. It uses old-school, screw-in fuses. He had me run out to some special store to get replacements when he found they carried them. Derek plans to replace the panel as soon as we can afford it."
"Well, that's it - that's how we'll get him." Paul explained how they could bypass the fuse with pennies placed in the fuse socket. It was a matter of making certain the coins only had Derek's fingerprints on them.
Paul told her how it would work, and Zoe listened as Paul explained that she'd be the one to commit the final step in his plan. She was amazed it had come to this, to the point she'd even consider murdering another person, let alone the man she so desperately loved not that long ago. Of course, if Zoe was honest with herself, the million-dollar insurance policy - a policy that Derek had bought last year when the couple first started talking about a family - was the determining factor.
