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.