The Murderer by Ellie Fiander

Mary died on August 12th at 04:13am.

I was there when her husband, John, found her later that morning after he returned home from a nightshift.

John was devastated. He promised himself that he would catch the murderer, and when he did, he would make sure they paid for what they did to his wife.

 

She hadn’t just left behind a husband, but she had left behind two sons. One age four and another only six months old. They were too innocent, too young to know what really happened to their mother. It hurt John to have to tell them that she wasn’t coming back. Every night he would hear his oldest son crying, begging for his mother to come home and tuck him into bed like she always did. This broke John’s heart, as he would give anything to bring his wife back, but he knew that he couldn’t.

 

The funeral was the worst. It took a lot to convince John to go to it. He didn’t want to deal with the pain of seeing his wife getting buried, and his children crying for their mother, but it was only right that he would attend. John tried his hardest to remain strong, letting only a few tears escape his eyes as his wife’s Mother gave a eulogy, as he couldn’t cry. He couldn’t break in front of his children, so he remained strong. That was until the end of the wake when he and I were alone.

 

John was my best friend, my neighbour. It was hard to see him like this. He had been there for me when I lost my job – of course that was nothing compared to what he was going through. His wife was his world. They did everything together. I still recall the day he asked her to marry him. She was over the moon and so was he. Their wedding was like something out of a romance movie. They truly were the modern-day Romeo and Juliet.

 

She was a kind woman, one of the kindest women you would ever meet, so kind in fact that there would be no reason why anyone would want to hurt her. But someone did. And even to this day the police haven’t found the culprit.

 

However, people have their suspicions.

The three main suspects were:

Alice Johnson, 39. She worked as a maid whilst John and his wife were at work. She also babysat their children whenever they would go out for the night. She appeared nice, but I could tell she was jealous of the life John’s wife had. Alice’s husband left her five years ago and she couldn’t have children herself, so raising a family was proven to be difficult for her. This led to her obvious jealously towards Mary. Not a day went by where I wouldn’t notice her glaring at John’s wife, but despite this, I don’t think she was capable of murder.

Then there was George, who had bullied John’s wife since they were at high school, but despite his strong build and eagerness to start fights, I don’t believe he was capable of murder either. He may have been a bully, but deep down, I could tell he was a coward.

That only left Henry, John’s butler from his childhood. He had always resented John and had set out to make his life miserable when he was a child. Henry was even arrested and fired from his job, because he stole jewels from John’s mother, and was the reason behind John’s father’s black eye.  You could say ‘the butler did it’, but that would be lying.

In fact, the killer had been under John’s nose all this time, more specifically, living just down the street from him.

It was someone John enjoyed to play cards with, someone who had been a bridesmaid at his wedding and like a mother to his children. Someone who wished that they had a life with John. A life where she could come home to a loving husband and two children, not an empty house. It was someone who wanted him for herself, someone who had always been there for him, yet he was too blinded by the love for his wife to truly notice her.

It would destroy John to know, but I must tell someone. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this to myself. I’m going to go crazy.

It wasn’t the maid, it wasn’t the bully, or the butler.

It was me.

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Find more of Ellie’s work on her blog https://elliesam21.wixsite.com/elliesfiander