Getting Away With It

I looked up from my desk in my home to see my Uncle Henry hovering.

“Not now Uncle Henry. I’m chasing down a story,” I said picking up the phone.

“Put the phone down. This was Gerald Kahn’s last wish before they executed him. He wanted the case investigated and the real murder found.”

“Don’t they all say that and why are you’re just giving me it now?”

“I promised him,”Uncle Henry answered.

        I began reading the manuscript. It began with Kahn telling how he had met her, Tamsin Vaughan. He was nine years old and she was the new girl. It seemed mildly innocuous, mere puppy love; but he went on to entail how he over the years how he did everything to be close to her, nearer her and it became even creepier. He was her constant companion and friend for years. He detailed how he watched from a distance and became jealous as she dated boy after boy, but never him. According to Kahn she was a siren that attracted every male. It wasn’t her fault just something you accepted as her consort. He wrote about how much he loved her and wanted her. Poor Tamsin people had misjudged her; I was starting to feel sorry for her.

          I had read the trial transcripts and the defence had brought this up too. They had painted her as a sweet girl with no idea of how males reacted to her.

          I went back to the manuscript. Reading of how he comforted after the death of her boyfriend in a tragic car accident and then convinced her to marry him. He wrote as he had spoken at the trial of how surprised he was to find out Tamsin had wanted to leave him. He denied he had killed her and I knew that was true for I was the one to kill her and set him up. He deserved it after all he took my girl from me with all his lies. She loved me and he'd infered that she'd chosen him. I'd made a huge mistake I couldn't rectify except with his demise.

“Finished Stephen? Anything to say?”

“I don’t understand, Uncle Henry.”

“I investigated Stephen and I know you did it. For family sake I’m allowing you to turn yourself in.”

“You know it was an accident?”

“It was?”

“Of course.”

“You’ll turn yourself in?”

         I agreed to turn myself in the next day. The next day Uncle Henry died from a heart attack (brought on by an undetectable drug.) I was worried about his notes on the murder I found them all and I was safe and rich because Uncle Henry had left all to me.  Who says you can’t get away with murder?

©Sheilagh Lee April 4, 2018