Loving Wife? Yeah Right!!

Loving Wife? YEAH, RIGHT!!

This story is a little bit dark. I don't think I've ever read one exactly like it before. But it seemed like one that begged to be told, maybe in my own mind. We'll see.

Read it, and enjoy, I hope. Thanks.

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My name is Mike Rangle. I'm a cop--a two-striper, on the N.Y.P.D. I have been a cop for almost six and a half years. I have been married for almost five. Saundra, my wife, is a commodities trader, on Wall Street. She makes a little more than twice what I do. Our sex life is great. At least it used to be. That is the reason I'm now a basket case. And a single dad.

We have two children, Mike Jr. just over three, and Alison, just one year old. Saundra has just gotten off maternity leave. Yeah, I know, guys, you have to make allowances after childbirth. I'm not a Neanderthal, I love my wife. Well, I did.

You'll see what I mean.

We met at college, where she was majoring in financial management (?) and I was taking criminal law. I graduated and she took two more years for her bachelor's, but we were an 'item'. After she graduated, I was getting out of the police academy, and she and I moved in together.

But she came from money. Her parents didn't approve of me. And she had a trust. So 'Daddy' insisted on a pre-nuptial agreement. Because, obviously, 'I was only after her money'. My sister had just started at the D/A's office, so she reviewed it, made some adjustments, and said, and I quote, "Don't sign if they change ANYTHING! And get an official notarized copy, with all signatures. Right away. Don't let them bullshit you!" So I did, and it was locked away in my sister's office file cabinet. Then we got married, even though 'Daddy' was somewhat pissed at everything.

Now, like I said, I love my wife.

At least I did. She started cutting off the affection just after our son was born. She said she was just too tired and didn't have the time. You know, her work, my work, the baby, 'things'.

What the fuck?

She used to have waist-length blonde hair, but now it's trimmed to shoulder length. Her make-up is more 'pronounced', shall we say, and she dresses more provocatively. For work. On Wall Street. Shuffling papers in a computer-filled office. See what I mean?

I didn't. So I'm stupid. I'm dense. I'm in love.

At least I was.

She started working later, on occasional weekends, and then the bi-monthly trips to D.C. and the coast. Then she got pregnant. Again. I immediately did the math to see if it could have been mine. Didn't think so. Maybe a miracle.

But I didn't think so.

So I started paying more attention. Nothing yet, but you'll see.

It was a Friday night. I was walking patrol in the theater district, a second shift. My trainee, Juliana Sanchez was walking with me, about two and a half feet away on my left. She was coming along nicely. A rookie, she was only 23 years old but very street-smart.

Saundra was at home with the kids and I would be getting home probably about 1:30-2:00 a.m., after paperwork.

Uh-huh.

The early show was just letting out, and the crowd was thinning when my world screeched to a halt. There, laughing and snuggling with some piece of shit was my wife. Wearing the cape I had given her on our first Christmas when I really couldn't afford it.

(I got socks. Yeah.)

She was wearing what appeared to be a deep blue cocktail dress, one I'd never seen before, dark black hose, and four-inch heels. Make-up was done to perfection if you were a high-end escort. I almost lost the lunch I had just barely finished.

Then the universe said, "No problem, officer. We got this."

Two low-lifes rushed up, one grabbing Saundra, the other the prick who was with her. "Gimme that, bitch," the first one said, grabbing at a diamond tennis bracelet she was wearing.

Oh, I had never seen that before, either.

He pulled a gun and shoved it into her throat, as she screamed. The other one had his gun out and was pulling at what looked like the prick's Rolex (Pretty confident that's his name. Joe Prick) and growled, "I'll take that."

Now what is it about felons? They don't look around, don't scout the surrounding crowd, they just rush up to the first person who looks like they have money, stick a gun in their face, and demand everything. Yeah, straight out of the bad guy's handbook. 'Mugging,101'.

Like the cheater's handbook, that every adulterer has memorized?

Anyway, Saundra was struggling, and Joe Prick was whining about 'Don't take my Rolex'. So my partner and I chased the other patrons away, spread out about six feet apart, and drew our weapons. My first thought was 'Who do I shoot first, asshole #1, asshole # 2, Joe Prick, or my soon-to-be ex-wife?'

The cop in me took charge. I would deal with her later. So I shouted,

"POLICE! Drop your weapons and lay down on the ground!" Juliana imitated me almost perfectly, drawing down on the guy accosting 'Joe'. That's when it really went to hell.

In the space of about 5 seconds, as documented by our body cameras, Saundra looked up in my direction and her world disappeared, the color draining from her face and chest. Her eyes bugged out. She bit the guy just as she screamed, "NOOO, MIKE!!" He screamed and jerked the pistol, which discharged a round-directly into the left side of her neck, and exited out the right side just below her ear. Her eyes went from bug-eyed to rolled back in her head, she went slack, like dead weight, and sagged to the ground, blood gushing from her wounds, and her mouth.

I snapped. "MOTHERFUCKER!!" and placed two 40 caliber soft points center mass into the asshole's exposed sternum. It crushed his breastbone and blew his spine out. He dropped like a wet blanket and I spun towards the other guy.

But Juliana was on it.

"SIR, DROP THE GUN. NOW!!" The guy had managed to pull Joe's' watch off and as he let him go, his weapon went off and a bullet slammed into the prick's gut. This startled the guy and he looked up at the two of us. Unfortunately for him, his gun came up too. We both fired and each hit him once. Two guys down. By this time the place was alive with screams and crying. Juliana got on her radio, and called it in, "Two perps down, two civilians injured, request a bus and supervisor immediately." I was over, cradling my wife's lifeless body after kicking the asshole's piece away.

I knew she was gone. But it didn't matter.

Juliana tended to Joe Prick (we later found out his name was John Hanstedt. Worked with Saundra. No shit.) She cuffed the second dead guy (procedure) and then came to me.

"Mike? Mike! What are you doing?" That's when she noticed my hat on the ground, lying in Saundra's blood, and as I raised my face to her, the tears in my eyes, on my cheeks, saturating my shirt. She quailed and stumbled to her knees. At about that time the supervisor and EMTs showed up. They pulled me away and the EMTs and the crime scene guys took over, them and the detectives. The Sergeant asked what happened, and then he looked down and recognized Saundra.

"OHH, SHIT!" He hauled me over to the second ambulance and grabbed an EMT. Then he took my weapon.

"You are to go home, and stay there until we come for you." He got on his radio immediately, and my secondary emergency contact was notified.

My primary emergency contact was unavailable.

Forever more.

My secondary was my older brother, a Lt. in robbery/homicide, downtown. Shit started to move quickly. When Bobby (my brother) and another officer got me home, we found our favorite babysitter there. She had gotten a call from my wife and agreed to watch the kids until she got home from a 'late meeting with a client'. Bobby paid her, got me undressed and showered, threw my clothes in the wash, and got me to bed. He called his wife, explained the situation, then called our parents and waited till they showed up.

The next morning, I asked to see her body in the morgue. Bobby wasn't sure I could handle it. But I was adamant. I knew I could. I had to.

We arrived and I was taken in the back door, to avoid the few reporters at the front. We went down to the morgue and were ushered into the cold, dimly lit sanctuary. You know how they show it to be nasty, with guys wiping some mentholated cream on their nose, to counteract the smell? Well, it's not that bad.

It's worse.

I identified myself, signed the log and they took me to drawer 321. The coroner's assistant opened it, pulled the sheet down to expose her face, and stepped back.

Yeah, it was her. No change, except her eyes were closed. Same hair, same face, no make-up, just two additional holes, one on each side of her neck.

I'm sorry, I had lied. I cracked and blew up. I slammed my hands down on the metal slide.

"WHY, BITCH? WHY? What the fuck is wrong with you? YOU God Damned SLUT!!"

About this time, Bobby collected me and we turned to leave. My parting shot?

"Fuck you. Just FUCK YOU! I hope you rot in hell, and then go someplace worse!!" O.K., like I said, I was a basket case.

Not that it mattered. My life, as I knew it, was over. I was a basket case. If not for my children, I think I would spread Lea & Perrins on my service piece and have lunch.

The weeks unfolded. I was placed on administrative leave, cleared in the shooting, then moved to bereavement leave. Because I was grieving.

Yeah, I was grieving.

The 'affair' became common knowledge.

The funeral came and went. I showed up, in body only. My kids were clueless. I mean, three years old and one year old. My parents stepped up, stunned. Her parents were dumbfounded. The first time they asked what I had done to cause this, I cold-cocked my father-in-law and would have strangled my mother-in-law. But they made the mistake of doing it at the funeral, in front of witnesses, and the story was just unraveling. Detectives had found dinner reservations following the matinee show, and a hotel room booked for the evening. In addition, they found a very small nightie in my wife's handbag. AND condoms. Condoms? What are they? We haven't used anything like that since college.

Maybe I should have.

Not that it would have made any difference.

Then, since there didn't appear to be anything connecting everything, they stopped probing. That and the pressure from my in-laws to protect their 'daughter's good name'.

Me? Unshaven, unwashed, gaunt, beat-up, no answers, crushed, clueless, defeated, and still 'on the bench', as it were. My shrink was writing reams and reams of articles on my condition. Talking about awards and citations for 'ground-breaking' insights into cases like mine. My parents were agonizing over my state, and my siblings, my brother and sister, were thinking about how to get revenge on a corpse.

My In-Laws tried to get custody of my children. I think the judge used the filing papers for paper napkins when my attorney pointed out the circumstances surrounding the event-a date with someone other than her husband, a clandestine affair, abandoning her children while her husband, a decorated police officer, was WORKING, etc., etc... They say he almost puked, glaring at the In-Law's attorney and was rumored to have said, 'You've got to be kidding!'

So here I am, as stated at the beginning of the story, a basket case, and a single dad. Why? Fuck if I know. Oh yeah, my wife cheated on me, fucked around, cut me off, got her skanky ass murdered, and wasn't here anymore. Shit.

SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!!! The fucking whore, the God-damned slut, cunt, skanky bitch. AND I loved her. I still did. At the same time, I hated her with all my being, for what she had done to our children, our families, TO ME!! God damn her!!

(How do you really feel, Mike?)

I was a mess. That's clinical talk. Even my shrink agreed with the assessment. I moped around, hugged my kids, cried, and screamed when alone. The children, well my son, anyway, my daughter was only about fourteen months old, told my parents that he was scared that daddy was going to die.

While I was navigating this mess, my sister took it upon herself to have my children tested. DNA, you know, for paternity. I was not aware. Not exactly legal, but just for her satisfaction. Turns out they were mine, biologically speaking.

Thank God.

She was a lawyer and an ADA with the Manhattan D/A's office. She had arraigned for a shark defense attorney to represent me. Strictly to protect my interests.

(He was doing it pro-bono because, as he said, there weren't any legal problems evident, and besides, 'Kathy was cute!' That's Kathy, my sister.)

JEESUS!

So I was trying to cope. I admit, I was not doing a great job. Even a mediocre job. HARDLY any job at all. I was lucky to get to my weekly therapy sessions on time, by myself. Hell, I was lucky to get out of bed in the morning. If not for my parents, I don't know if I would have. So when Dr. Amelia Jones, my therapist, suggested that it was time to confront my problem, I had an epiphany.

SHE WAS RIGHT!

I had to confront my problem. But her idea of my problem and my idea are two different thoughts. However, as she was outlining her ideas, I was tuning her out. MY idea of my problem had just been discharged from the hospital. I had yet to see, talk, or otherwise interact with Mr. John Hanstedt. That would soon change.

I changed. I took a shower (Yeah, I know, about time, right?) shaved, got myself straightened out, and quit drinking. (I hadn't been drinking, much; still my Dad and brother threw all the booze and beer out and took my debit card away. But to my credit, Anheuser-Busch's stock rose three points after the fiasco.) I took my kids to Gram and Gramps and then made my way downtown to the brokerage firm where Joe Prick worked. The same place where John Hanstedt worked.

Coincidence? I think not.

I was dressed in jeans, steel-toed hunting boots, and a t-shirt. No uniform, no weapons. I was not going to set myself up. But if the Prick even so much as took a breath in the same room, he was toast.

Now, I had turned over in my mind several scenarios concerning Mr. Hanstedt. Nothing clicked, badly enough away. Until he contacted my lawyer saying he wanted the bracelet back. It had been a gift, and it was 'technically' his. My lawyer said, when he stopped laughing, that he told John's lawyer that the chances were slim to none. He would talk to HIS client and see what he wanted to do.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but legally I'm obligated to. Your call. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. So?"

So.

I walked into Mc Allister and Sons, Brokerage. A medium-sized commodities firm, dealing mostly with large multi-national companies. It turns out the affair was common knowledge in the office, but 'she' had told everyone that we had an 'open marriage'. So very twenty-first century, you know.

Too bad she never told me.

I walked into a quietly humming workplace, which, as I approached his small work enclosure, got even quieter. All activity, noise, talking, and even normal respiration ceased. As far as I know, I have never met any of them. But they all appeared to know who I was. That's because as I approached his enclosure, I came upon hers. It was dark and draped in black crepe paper. There, on her bookcase (not her desk) was our wedding picture. That's it. Nothing else. Next to hers was his. Jonathan Hanstedt. Or Joe Prick, which was his real name.

(Well, to me, anyway.)

I moved to his doorway and pushed the glass partition open. I stood in the doorway.

"Yes, can I... GASP!!" He knew who I was. Probably guessed why I was there. Almost certainly wished I wasn't.

"Good morning, JOE. I understand you want your 'present' back."

"You must be mistaken. My name is Jonathan. Johnathan Hanstedt. Not Joe...."

I held up my hand.

"NO, your name is JOE PRICK. I have been calling you that every day since Saundra died. You know Saundra, right? At least you did, intimately, if I understand things. And I'm guessing you know who I am, don't you JOE? I'm the clueless sucker you fucked over, with the help of my wife, for close to four and a half years." As I spoke, I slowly crossed to his desk and my voice rose. I'm sure the entire office heard me. By now he was terrified. The smell of urine was heavy in the air. And I was freshly showered. Heh, Heh, Heh.

"Look, she came on to me. She said you guys had an open marriage, and she was open to a serious outside relationship. Honest to God, officer, I didn't want to. She forced me. It was all her."

I thought back to the night of the attack, and the way he had acted. Yeah, the scumbag was a craven coward.

But I had come here for closure, a confrontation, and I needed something. Anything. Then it hit me.

I could hear motion in the office area behind me. Time was running out. I reached into my pocket as I got to his desk. He screamed, "NO, please, don't kill me!!"

I smirked at him and pulled out the bracelet. I grabbed his right hand and ground it into his palm leaving deep wounds and drawing blood. An eight thousand dollar boo-boo. Worth it.

"I believe your attorney said you wanted your gift back. Here it is, with interest. Now, I want my life back, PRICK!! Can't help, can you? Didn't think so. Fucking useless college boy."

About this time a couple of security types and two suits showed up. I turned before they could get to me.

"I'm done here. Shithead, though, cut himself, on his whore's bracelet." They parted as I walked out, into the stunned bullpen area. I stopped in front of the two suits. I stared them down. Not hard. They stepped back and cowered a little. I looked around. I raised my voice.

"My name is Micheal Rangle. I'm Saundra's husband. I have two small children. You people facilitated the destruction of my marriage, my life, my career, and my children's futures. THANKS A FUCKING LOT!" As I spoke, the gasps and shock were evident. Tears followed in some quarters.

One of the suits started, "Now see here....;"

I whirled on him.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!! You're probably one of the owners. Don't worry, you'll be hearing from my attorney shortly, fucker!" I turned and left. I felt a little better, but it wasn't over-yet.

I got in touch with Mitch Randall, my lawyer, and asked if I could sue her company- for anything. He thought a moment and said, "We'll give it a try".

That's when the nightmares started. For two months, I had dreams of my wife coming into our bedroom dressed provocatively. She was moaning and licking her lips while removing her clothing and playing with herself. All the time telling me she had just fucked another man and now she wanted my seed. She demanded it. It was her right. She was walking towards the bed. As she got closer she got more insistent. But she always stopped right at the side of our bed. Her final statement?

"What's the matter, can't get it up?"

I awoke in a sweat, shaking and puking, for the first two weeks. Then I just woke up, sweating like a pig. After two months, with my therapist helping me understand what the fuck was happening, the dreams changed.

My wife appeared, clad in a dirty, torn nightgown, not particularly provocative, weeping and standing there. Almost like she was dying. She would moan and scream that she didn't understand what was happening, She didn't know what she was doing. Why was she doing this to herself? Why was she doing this to her children? Why was I letting her do this, MAKING her do this? 'What the fuck was wrong with me?', she wailed.

I was thunderstruck. These times when I woke up, I was scared. I would lay there, groggy, shaking, clammy with fear. For two weeks, it went on.

Then, one night- nothing.

I slept through the night, albeit not well, but with no nocturnal interruptions. I awoke, not refreshed, but groggy. Punchy. Like I probably would have been better off not going to sleep at all. All week, it was the same thing. My doctor prescribed a sleep aid, but it just made me nauseous. Finally, after ten days, on the verge of exhaustion, my folks took the kids for the night. They urged me to just let it come naturally, or as my Dad suggested, 'maybe with some Budweiser's' help. I laughed, or as close as I could come to it. I sat up for a while, after they left, watching some mindless B/S on the tube. It was all re-runs, no new shows.