Over the Edge

By J.R. Hunter

When Julian Thomas arrived home that night, as usual, his wife Chris, was depressed
and in a drunken fog. To avoid her rage and rejection, he stayed away, reclining on
the couch watching the Johnny Carson Show. He was contemplating the life between
him and his wife…if only for my own sanity, I have to tell her, if not tonight, tomorrow
morning for sure.
Minutes later, he heard her say something from the bedroom. It sounded like…
maybe…goodbye. Then came the sound of a single gunshot, it broke the silence like a
clap of thunder.
OVER THE EDGE is the suspenseful account of the true story of a Susan Haywardlookalike
living during the tumult of California in the 1960s-1970s- a beautiful,
intelligent, but troubled woman who shot herself - and her husband who tried in vain
to help her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493147588

J.R. Hunter

The author is a licensed California real estate broker with over 40 years’ experience, specializing in commercial real estate. He has owned his own brokerage offi ces, conducted appraisals, worked as a mortgage loan broker, and served as an expert witness in superior court. He has written a real estate column for the newspaper for over 20 years. As a teenager, he joined the Air National Guard before working as a mechanical engineer for 20 years. He has been married fi ve times and has four grown children. He has lived in California since 1969. This is his fi rst book based on his own life experience.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by J.R. Hunter.

art by: jay brackett

Library of Congress Control Number:     2013921683

ISBN:     Hardcover     978-1-4931-4757-1

Softcover     978-1-4931-4756-4

eBook     978-1-4931-4758-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 11/27/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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CONTENTS

Many thanks to Elizabeth Kearney PhD for writing the foreword for my book. I hope it will inspire many to want to read it and enjoy this thought-and emotion-provoking story. It is a true story with names and places changed, but the story is about a real person who lived and died and left little of herself behind.

This book is dedicated to all those people who lived and died and no one remembered they were even here. Lives should leave a mark on the world, good or bad, but all too many leave nothing behind except a birth and death certificate. So sad.

FOREWORD

It is always difficult for authors to capture emotions and convey them realistically to their readers, but that is exactly what the author has done in this interest-riveting autobiographical story based upon the tragic life of this beautiful but tormented woman, whom he loved and married.

In this fast-moving book, the author has conveyed to his readers the pain and torment he observed firsthand and the frustration he experienced as he tried to help his wife overcome the dark memories that had locked her in her own version of hell.

The reader is made to feel the author’s frustration as he tried unsuccessfully to help his wife rise from what had to be for her, the lowest rung of Dante’s Hell. His own torment is graphically revealed in the tragic ending, and his memories of the days that followed her suicide are no doubt permanently engraved in his memory as well as the memories of those fortunate enough to read this book.

PROLOGUE

The headline in the Herald at bus stops all over town blared out the news:

Local Woman in Coma after Gunshot to the Head, Husband Is Person of Interest by Police

Chris Eller, 47, of Monterey is fighting for her life in Monterey Community Hospital after police found her suffering from a single gunshot wound to the head. At the time of the shooting, Ms. Eller and her husband were alone in the house. According to her husband, she had been drinking heavily and was upset about recent happenings in her life. Her husband told police that he was relaxing on the couch; she approached him, made a few accusations, and retreated into her bedroom. A moment later he heard a single gunshot coming from the bedroom. He told police he raced to the bedroom to find her stretched out on the bed, gun in hand, a bullet hole between her eyes. The police are now investigating the shooting of this woman while she lies in a coma, unable to speak.

Julian Thomas, Chris’s husband, a local real estate broker in his late forties, nervously picked up a copy of the newspaper, read the headlines, and headed for his car parked at the curb. He looked around, hoping that no one he knew saw him since, whether they approached him or not, they would have questions.

How did this beautiful forty-seven-year-old woman, who still looked thirty and had the 1950s movie star appearance of Susan Hayward, get shot? Did she shot herself in an attempted suicide, or did her husband fight with her and shoot her? And what did the police suspect really happened?

As Julian got in his car, he worried that no one would believe what he said happened and that he would be charged with attempted murder or, worse, murder if she died. And even if the police believed him, he kept asking himself: Why? Why? Why would she do what she did?

Back home, in the single-story Spanish stucco in the Monterey Hills, where he and Chris had lived for eight years, he headed straight for the fridge to pop a beer and try to relax. His three black labs, Mark, Puffy, and Duke, loped over, their tongues and tails waging, they wanted his attention. He petted them and put their dishes of food and water on the floor. They enthusiastically started devouring the food as he retreated to the living room with his beer.

He pulled the newspaper from his briefcase and looked at it again, like the words might provide him some answers. Then his eyes glazed over and the words on the page blurred as he remembered back to that terrible night two days earlier before the horrible sound of the .32 caliber Smith and Wesson handgun shattered his own life, not just the beautiful face of his wife, who now stared at him in his mind like a ghost.

CHAPTER 1

The Night

January 15, 1981

As Julian remembered back, nothing seemed any different from the usual the night of the shooting. At 11:15 pm, the house was quiet, only the porch light was on, as he stopped down the street a half block with his date for the evening, Ronni Horton, who had parked her car down the street and around the corner. But instead of getting out right away, they sat in the car talking, as if neither wanted the evening to end.

Well, tonight was fun, Ronni commented. You picked a great place for dancing and drinking, better than when we were married. She smiled and squeezed his hand.

Julian laughed. Yeah, I think it’s being free that does it for me. And we don’t have to look over our shoulders to watch for Mike. Mike was her criminal son who seemingly wanted to kill both of them.

Yeah, me too. I was never very good at being the sweet, one-man all the time kind of wife. And now, no strings attached, it feels good. I don’t need to get jealous and possessive anymore, and we can each be who we are.

How is Mike behaving now? he asked. Is he leaving you alone, or are you still in danger?

Well, he is doing okay as long as I give him money and don’t ask him anything about what he’s doing. He is riding with a biker gang, and I think they are into criminal stuff, but I just have to turn my head and not say anything. You know his temper and I am still afraid of him.

Yeah, well, he is one of the biggest reasons why we are divorced, remember?

Sure, I remember, how could I forget? she whispered. Oh, let’s not go back over all that, let’s just enjoy our time together and not look back.

I don’t know where this relationship is headed, probably no place good. We really should never have started it in the first place… but here we are, and you drive me crazy, he said.

Julian reached over and hugged her and kissed her gently on the mouth.

Yeah, you are probably right, she said.

His hands fingered her firm breasts through the ridges of her sweater. He began tugging at her blouse under the sweater to open it, so he could feel the tingling of her flesh responding to his touch and his lips on her nipples.

He took a break from the fondling of her breasts and said, You know, I have been thinking of asking Chris for a divorce. She is still sexy and beautiful, but she invoked this no-sex thing on me and it is really more than I can stand. She also drinks out of her mind and that is a real turnoff for me. You know, the bloodshot eyes, the slurred speech, the weaving, and stumbling—the whole alcohol package. And then she is totally into celibacy, and I can’t take it. Julian shook his head as he looked out through the windshield.

Well, here I am. And you know I am not celibate, she said with a smile in her voice.

Ronni grabbed his hand and rubbed it gently, as she brought it down under her blouse, so he could feel her warm, throbbing nipples.

He hugged her hard and pulled her to him.

You are right. And that’s what I love about you. You love sex as much as I do. And anywhere, any time, it is all good with you, right?

They call it friends with benefits, Ronni said, laughing, as she began unbuttoning Julian’s shirt.

Well, it’s great to still have those benefits with you, Julian said. And none of the downside like when we were married.

Yeah, jealously, suspicion, cheating, and all that, Ronni agreed. Now we both just want to keep it free and easy. As they say in the country song, ‘Free and easy.’ Here we go.

Ronni squeezed against Julian tightly. His belt was open now, and he reached over and laid the passenger seat down, feeling Ronni yielding to him. It was like being teenagers again, feeling the thrill of having sex in a car with the windows all steamed up against the cold outside wind. And there was something even more thrilling, the tension of maybe being seen by passing cars or maybe not. Doing the forbidden, while being outwardly a quiet, brass tacks real estate broker, that always intrigued him. He loved the interplay between living in a conventional work-a-day world and then having a space in his life for letting go of his wild side. And now with Ronni he could let it go. At one time, Chris had had that kind of earth-shaking passion, that excitement. And then it all changed, she just couldn’t go with the sex any longer. So now, there was just Ronni to let him let go with that part of himself.

Oh God, that was great, he said to Ronni after it was all over, as she pulled herself up and pulled her blouse and sweater down over her breasts. Quickly he pulled up his pants, buckled his belt, and straightened his jacket.

Yeah, it was, Ronnie agreed, as he squeezed her breasts one last time and kissed her passionately.

So let’s do it again next week. Actually, this is too good to be true, he said.

Of course, I feel the same way, you’re on. She laughed. You are always on.

Then Ronni got out of his car and headed toward her own car, as Julian sat in his car watching her go and thinking: Yeah, I gotta end this relationship with Chris. Things are only going to get worse. I think I need to tell her tonight. It’s like we are in a no-win situation, going nowhere. So let us each be free now. Let us be free.

He pulled the key out of the ignition, got out of the car, and closed the door behind him.

As he walked to his quiet house, he wondered if Chris would appreciate his appeals of logic. Or would she be bothered by his cheating? Would she feel let down? Could she accept that her behavior had driven him away? Or would it drive her over the edge? No, better to be honest and open, he finally concluded. If only for my own sanity, I have to tell her, if not tonight then tomorrow morning. He had to get out of the trap, and he had to show her that this would free her too.

Now he was at the door. He pushed it open quietly, seeing only darkness. She is probably asleep, maybe drunk and out like a light, he concluded. So far so good. He could put off the confrontation until later when he intended to tell her the truth.

Julian went to the fridge in the darkness. There was just enough light coming in through the windows from the streetlight for him to find his way. He grabbed a beer, popped it open, and went to the back door which led to the garden and opened it to let the dogs in. They came leaping in, all wiggles. The three sleek black labs with their shiny coats were so happy to see him. They jumped and licked and pawed at his hands and feet.

Yeah, I know you guys are hungry, Julian said to them, and then he poured some kibble into their large bowls and set them on the floor. They jumped in and began to scarf it down. He picked up their water bowls, filled them with water, and sat them down on the floor. They looked like happy dogs as the munched and slurped away.

They looked so happy, he thought, totally unaware of the growing distance between me and Chris. This is like a festering sore that I need to excise. But they saw none of that.

He bent down and petted each dog; they returned the love by licking his face. Their warm tongues seemed so warm and soothing, they reminded him of Ronni’s tongue licking him and darting in and out of his mouth and her hands massaging and caressing him earlier that night. It all felt so good, and he felt so loved and at peace.

Then as the dogs went back to eating and slurping their food, he picked up his beer from the counter and headed into the living room. There he sprawled back on the couch and clicked the remote to turn on The Johnny Carson Show, where’s Johnnie, who was in the middle of a monologue.

You know, I saw this great dame today. And you know what she said…

Yeah, I’d like to know. Julian thought, but then he was distracted by his wonderful black-and-white short-hair cat with a sleek silky coat. Tommie jumped up onto his chest and began to purr his love and to rub his head and chin on Julian’s arms and chest.

What a good boy you are, Tommie. I can always depend on you to give love when I most need it. What a good boy. Then Tommie settled down on his chest like a big fluff ball, kneading his claws into Julian’s shirt. Julian didn’t mind, he and Tommie were great friends. He quietly stroked Tommie, then turned his attention back to the screen, just as the first musical group of the evening was coming on. Three black women sang and swayed to the music as a trio.

His attention strayed from the TV. His mind raced back to the great sex he had just had with Ronni.

Oh God she is good, she has always been good. It makes me hot just thinking about the time she decided to give me a blowjob while I was driving down I-5 to L.A. Oh my God, that was unbelievable. I can remember the blowjob, but I can hardly remember the driving while she was giving it to me.

It is hard to remember why we are divorced . . . Oh yeah, she was a jealous bitch with an uncontrollable temper, and her criminal son wanted to kill us. How could I forget that?

After he had fantasized about her for a couple minutes, Oh well, she is gone for now, but there will be another time in just a few days, if all goes well.

His mind then got back to his relationship with Chris. Chris was wonderful in bed too when we first met, but son-of-a-bitch, marry a hot sexy babe and then to have it all change and then nothing. It really sucks.

He was beginning to feel angry. I am not going to live the rest of my life like this. I don’t want Chris, and I don’t want to be married to Ronni again either. I guess I’ll just do what I have to do for now and live one day at a time.

He turned up the volume just a little with the remote to better hear the music. And then like a ghost out of nowhere, there stood Chris at the edge of the couch. It startled him.

She was in her bathrobe, hair a mess, and strong alcohol on her breath. She looked like she had just woken from a nap. Then he noticed the drink in her hand, it looked like her usual scotch and soda, which seemed to sizzle in the flickering light from the TV as she swished it back and forth in the glass. Drunk as usual and pissed off, almost like she already knew what he had been doing.

So where… er… in the hell… have you been? She snarled at him as she stumbled over her words. Her voice sounded like a demon out of a horror movie. I was waiting up for you but I… er… fell asleep, the TV woke me up.

Julian glared at her in the flickering light from the TV.

Look, you are drunk, and I don’t want to talk to you right now, not until you sober up.

Hey, don’t talk to me like a child, Chris snarled back. I want to know where the fuck you have been.

I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Julian retorted. Any thought of trying to tell her anything about a divorce was now gone. So go back to bed and sleep it off.

Chris stood there trembling, silent, as if not sure what to say, her anger was evident. For a moment, Julian softened as he saw her shadowy form flicker in the light from the screen of the TV, and he imagined the way it had been when they first met before they got married. She was so lithe and sexy, with the looks of a movie star with long auburn hair cascading down and around her neck and her full voluptuous breasts jutting out of her tight sweaters, inviting him to grab them and pull her to him. And then for an instant, he saw her riding away like Lady Godiva, wearing nothing but her long hair waving in the wind, as she gripped the sides of the horse with her long slim legs because she loved horses and had, in an earlier life, sometimes spent hours riding and communing with them.

But then a moment later, when she spoke, the magical image vanished.

What do you mean, sleep it off? Why… don’t you… er… want to talk to me now?

And then the tears began streaming down her face, as she staggered slightly, reached out to grab the arm of the couch to steady herself and to regain her footing.

Okay, I… er… know, I have not always been the best person I… er… could be… that I want to be. And I… er… know you are a much… (hick) . . . better person then I am. You always… seem to have it together.

She paused a moment, as if trying to control her emotions. Julian just stared at her, not sure what to say as she went on.

So please, please, just tell me what you have been doing tonight. I really… er… want to know. I feel that we… er… have been growing so distant… apart. And maybe if we could just talk… you know… maybe we could start… er… uhum… well, you know… the way things used to be.

She staggered a little, reached around wildly to grab the arm of the couch, and regained her footing so as not to fall. She spilled part of her drink on the floor.

Maybe I could… you know… maybe try not to drink so much. It’s just… you know… I’ve been so sad.

She stood there for a long moment, like she wanted to say more or do something. The heavy smell of booze on her breath turned him cold, and he just laid there on the couch stroking Tommie who was oblivious to the trauma going on all around him.

So sad, she ended weakly, sobbing even harder.

Look, I told you, we will talk tomorrow, Julian spoke softly. Now go back to bed. Please.

Not only was he loathing the confrontation that would be coming all too soon, he was also afraid that if he got too close to her now, she would smell Ronni’s perfume and the smell of sex that had to be present, it was all over him. It had been a wild ride in the car and he had not had time to shower.

Chris glared at him for a long moment, and their eyes locked in a stare. Julian felt almost scared as he looked into her red bloodshot eyes, like he was peering into her very soul. And he felt frightened at what he saw—for an instant, he saw what looked like glowing embers about to burst into flames, and then the image faded into black.

At last, Chris lifted her drink to her lips, took a long sip, then spoke.

Okay, okay. I am going. If it is what you want.

Yes, it is what I want. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Chris turned, still holding her drink in one hand. As she walked unsteadily, Mark nudged her hand and looked up at her with wide playful eyes, his tail wagging furiously.

Chris reached down and petted him on the head.

Oh, Mark, you want to play. I don’t feel like… er… playing right now. Go back to your couch and go back to bed.

And then as quietly and ghostlike as when she appeared, she was gone back into her bedroom.

Oh, thank God, Julian thought as he turned back toward the TV. So I don’t have to tell her yet. I don’t have to confront her with the truth. God, how I hate confrontations. I am so glad it is going to be tomorrow, I don’t want to ruin such a wonderful night with a fight.

Then as he was lying there looking at the screen, an image started to appear. it was Ronni reaching out to him, embracing him, and he imagined her naked body climbing on top of him on the couch as he was sinking into her embrace, wrapping his lips around her firm nipples.

And then the image was gone. He felt something… he thought it was Chris behind him at the end of the couch, just behind his head. He could see in his imagination that she was standing there with a gun in her hand, pointing it at the top of his head. Was it real or just a dream? Was she really there or not?

Oh my God, Chris, no, he cried out. Don’t do it, don’t shoot. We can talk. Yes, we will talk.

He laid there for what seemed like an eternity. A few seconds later, he heard Chris say something from the bedroom, it sounded like… maybe… good-bye. Then the sound of a single gunshot broke the silence and hung in the air like the foul smell of a rotting carcass on a hot summer’s night.

Then came the distant moaning and groans from the bedroom. Oh my God, what was that? He was on his feet, heart pounding loudly like a drum beat and running to the bedroom within seconds of hearing the shot.

Oh my God, what has she done?

As he approached the bedroom door, he had a fleeting thought, what if this was a ruse to get me into the room so she could shoot me in the heart? He pictured her standing there with the gun in her hand and firing as soon as he stepped into the room.

But then it made no sense to him, if she wanted to shoot him, she could have done it in the living room. When he got to the bedroom, he threw caution aside and flung open the door and rushed in.

That is when he saw her, lit by a small lamp on the table by the bed and all the horror was there before him. There she was, sprawled out across the bed. He flicked on the overhead ceiling light to see it all. He trembled at the sight. Blood was oozing from the middle of her forehead and streamed down her face and onto the bedsheet; and she was flailing around, moaning in pain, like a wounded animal that had just been shot.

Oh no, no, Chris, Julian cried out, rushing toward the bed. How could you do this to yourself?

He began sobbing and started to lean down to hug her and kiss away the pain, but then he