Carlotta Dupree
When I received the phone call from the police that I was needed back at the apartment, I froze. I had a feeling something awful had finally happened to Chase. I had mixed feelings about the possibility of finding out my suspicion was true. Deep down, I’d thought it was only a matter of time before his lifestyle caught up with him. I told them I’d be right there, but I wasn’t in a rush. The traffic from Manhattan to Greenwich was busier than I’d expected, too, and afforded me an extra thirty minutes to make sure I was together by the time I arrived.
I stood at the edge of the yellow plastic tape separating me from a covered lump on the floor I knew deep down in my gut was my husband. Chase had a list of enemies as long as his arm. Longer. I might have been at the top of the list, or at least in the top five. I had resented getting involved with him for months, once the reality set in that he had been using me from the onset. I couldn’t believe I fell for his manipulation game and agreed to marry the scheming dimwit.
“Ma’am,” one of the detectives said. I craned my neck in his direction. “Ma’am, are you Carlotta Dupree? And was Professor Effridge your husband?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m her, and yes, he was. He’s my estranged husband.” It felt surreal standing in my own apartment doorway, looking at the covered body, and having a swarm of detectives milling about. My pulse raced.
“I’m Sergeant Clancy, ma’am.” He slowly approached me. “I’m sorry to have you come here under these circumstances.”
I lowered my head. I had no words. I wasn’t sad, I was stunned that the day I’d been expecting had finally come. I raised my eyes to meet with the Sergeant’s.
“I hate to ask you this, but can you confirm this is your husband?”
I nodded my head.
The older gentleman made his way to the edge of the sheet. He lifted it just enough to reveal the face. Chase’s face. I knew it. I closed my eyes and nodded my head.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” the detective said.
“It was only a matter of time,” I let the words slip off my tongue before I even realized my mouth had opened. I swiped my shaking fingers across my forehead, brushing my flyaway hairs aside, then retrieved a cigarette from the pack I was holding in my hand and lit it. I took a long, deep drag, and then exhaled as I watched the commotion in my apartment. My eyes never roamed far from their fixation on Chase. My heart felt like it had stopped beating at the sight of him. As much as I hated what he’d done to me, I didn’t like seeing him like that. Or maybe I did feel revenge had been exacted. At one time, I loved him more than life itself. But when the truth came out, I hated him. Now, I was in disbelief. I didn’t know how to feel.
I definitely didn’t have a desire to run to him, throw myself on the floor next to him, or to clutch him tight to my bosom like most wives might. I just couldn’t bring myself to cry in agony at the loss of my not-so-darling husband, either. I couldn’t allow myself to feel sad that someone had ended his miserable life. The same existence I’d come to despise.
I dropped my hand down to my side as I exhaled slowly, letting the smoke ease out between my pursed lips. “Someone finally killed him. I knew it would happen one day.”
He had made the last year of our marriage a nightmare. I suppose it could have been worse if I’d realized sooner what he’d been up to, but I worked so much. I hadn’t paid that much attention to him and his antics until about a year and a half ago. When it was already too late.
I inhaled, then exhaled deeply when I realized where he was lying. Chase’s blood had soaked into my beautiful beaded silk and deer-hide rug. He’d complained about it incessantly, the most expensive and unique rug I’d purchased. He’d sworn it was too light of a color and would certainly stain and be ruined if something spilled on it. Now, of all places for him to lie as his bodily fluids drained from his selfish head, there he was – staining it himself. Even in death he was finding a final way to tear me down. He was a fuck-up, and I hated that I hadn’t realized it much sooner. I shook my head in disgust.
As I leaned back against the door jamb, I pressed my lips tightly around the cigarette butt again, inhaling deeply, holding the smoke and nicotine in my lungs until it burned. A million thoughts were racing in my mind. I’d wanted him dead. I’d wished him dead. What sane woman who lived in my shoes wouldn’t? He was an arrogant, two-timing, no-good excuse for a man. Good-looking as all get out, but unfaithful, untrustworthy, and simply no damn good.
Hell, yes, I wanted him dead. On top of everything he’d put me through he’d refused to sign the divorce papers, chiding that the vows we took were ‘till death do us part.’ As I took another glance at his lifeless form, I couldn’t help but think, good fucking riddance, Chase, you bastard!