This short is built from the Fiction is Life #2 prompt: Newly elected mayor found dead in locked room.
Sorry I Killed You
“Wake up, Jonathan” she said sweetly. You need to be awake now, sweetie.”
“Hrmfrg?” I managed, or something closely aproximating that.
“Get up, lover. I have to tell you a few things before I head out.”
I fumbled my way to a sitting position, but it was damned hard. Did I drink last night? This felt like the mother of all hangovers. Like the election morning hangover.
“Sure, Gailbaby. Just let Daddy get some aspirin first.”
She handed me a tumbler, one of the ones from the bathroom sink that had a paper disk on top to assure you of its sanity.
Sanctity?
Sanitized. Yeah. Why was it so hard to think?
When I had a firm grip on the glass (firm might be a bit sketchy of a description) she handed me two green pills.
“I’ve got aspirins in my bag. I’m not really feeling up to an alternative cure at the moment, Baby.”
It was hard to be polite about it with a raging headache. This was not the time for crystal herb magic. She just looked down at me from where she sat on the edge of the bed and smiled that beautiful smile. The one that had years ago stolen my heart, then later my honor.
“It’s real medicine, love. Prescription for migranes. You know I look out for you.” She motioned for me to take the pills. I did so, swallowing the glass of water in gulps. My mouth felt incredibly dry.
“Are you feeling fluish? You look feverish” she said. She took a thermometer from the night stand, one of those instant-read ones, and brushed it across my forehead.
“You are feverish” she said with an oddly satisfied look. “Okay. I’ve just got a few minutes to talk to you, then I’ll be leaving.”
“Baby, what are you talking about? You sound deadly serious. Could we wait until my head is straight?” When you can barely track enough to drink a glass of water you shouldn’t be getting into relationship discussions. With my tongue swelling up I had barely managed to get that out. No way could I have a meaningful discussion now.
“I’m sorry, no” she answered. “It’s now or never. I’m never going to see you again after this.”
She stood up and walked across the room. I loved the way her legs looked when she walked, the juxtaposition of beautiful motion as one ankle passed the other and the slim flexibility of her dancer’s step. Her feet made even this horrible carpet look good, and this was one of those horrid designs meant to disguise stains instead of appealing to the eye. A version of it was in every hotel I’d ever stayed in. We’d ever stayed in.
I tried to stand up to follow her but instead lost my balance and fell back into the bed. I felt so weak!
“Don’t try to get up. You won’t be able to now, or ever again. You probably can’t talk anymore, if the major muscle failures have already started. Can you talk, Baby?”
“Wuh” I replied. “Wuh. Wuh.” Or something that closely approximated that. What I was trying to communicate was more along the lines of /Holy hell! What is going on here?/
“What was in those pills? Oh, that was scopolomine.”
“Wuh” /What? Scopolomine is for migranes?/
“Why did I drug you? To hide the poison I gave you. When they pump your tummy and find partially digested scopolomine tablets in there, well they’re going to come to the very logical though incorrect conclusion that you died of a scopolomine overdose.”
“Wuh” /Wuh?/
“I told you if I ever found you were with a woman besides me or your wife that I would kill you dead. Well, your ‘campaign financer’ is not as discreet as she probably should be, especially considering that you won the election.”
“Wuh” /No! There is nothing between Stacey and I! That’s completely political, Baby! There’s nobody for me but you. Well, you and Rebecca, but that’s just political too. I love you!/
“It will look like you got pills from a mail-order pharmacy and overdosed on them because the prescription was wrong. I was going to get really vindictive and set you up for a big scandal but I lost heart. Once I realized it wasn’t just an angry game, when I realized I really was going to kill you, I just got really businesslike.”
She went around the room and collected the glass she had used last night and her panties from where I’d thrown them across the room. She hated when I did that, which was why I did it. It was one of those annoying little games we use to show our affection.
“Anyway, scandal would mean investigation and I certainly didn’t want one of those. So you get a tragic but not eyebrow raising mistake instead.”
She didn’t need to do much cleaning up. She seldom brought more than a toothbrush to our assignations.
“Wuh” /This is all a misunderstanding! Can you antidote me? Oh, you’re going to be so sad when you find out the truth. I hope./
She put the panties and the glass in her purse, along with a washcloth she had used last night. She walked back to me with that angry strut she used to drive me wild and win arguments. She bent down and kissed me gently on the lips, then positioned me so I could see the hotel room’s door. She grabbed the thermometer from the bedstand and strutted to the door.
Damn, she was fun to watch move.
“Goodbye, Jonathan. I love you. Sorry I killed you.”
She walked out the door. On her way though she draped a string around the little security bar you could throw closed for imagined security. With the door almost closed she wiggled the door and bar until it engaged, just as if I had thrown it before heading to bed and an overdose of scopolomine.
Gail always thought of the little things.
“Wuh” /I love you too, Gailbaby./
The door closed.
Ages of the Seed 