How to Murder Your Trophy Wife

By Malachi Stone

A down-on-his-luck lawyer wants to be a judge. Solution? An audience with a shadowy organized crime figure known as The Junkman. But when the lawyer comes home drunk and finds his estranged wife decapitated, it looks like somebody wants to frame him for murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malachi Stone
• Release date: Jan 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215649107

Malachi Stone

Marlon Brando on Larry King Live quoted an unknown Louisiana woman who said, "Anybody who shows his face in public is an ass." (1) Mindful of those wise words, I created the pseudonym Malachi Stone to author my novels and short stories because, as a practicing attorney in a conservative community, my natural inclination was and still is to avoid notoriety and controversy wherever and whenever possible. That being said, my secret identity affords me a perverse Zorro-like gratification. I've been writing for more than twenty years. For a three-year period I was represented by a fine literary agent (2) in Manhattan, who tried valiantly but without success to place my novels in traditional publishing. Allegedly, objections were raised to negative protagonists and explicit sex. While I am convinced those objections are groundless, I am weary of arguing the point. I'll simply let you, the readers, decide for yourselves. I have garnered many good reviews over the years. See, for example, Elizabeth White (3). Interviews of me may be found on the web, for instance, Steve Weddle, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson, Paul D. Brazill and Ian Ayres (4-7). Please feel free to post reviews of my work, good, bad, or indifferent. Only be sure to remember that most of my books, especially the later ones, are self-published without the dubious benefit of copyediting, content editing or censorship of any kind. So if you post reviews carping about bad language or finding flaws in punctuation, paragraphing or font, I frankly don't care. I'm putting these books out there for the sole reason I wrote them in the first place - to be enjoyed by readers. As my law practice has become more active recently, I have taken a sabbatical from writing but hope to resume soon. My personal and private email is: [e-mail]. I'd be delighted to hear from you!1. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/02/lklw.00.html2. http://variety.com/exec/stacia-decker/3. http://www.elizabethawhite.com/tag/malachi-stone/4. http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/04/20/conversations-with-the-bookless-malachi-stone/5. http://imeanttoreadthat.blogspot.com/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html#!/2012/01/american-banshee-by-malachi-stone.html6. https://pauldbrazill.com/2012/01/19/short-sharp-interview-malachi-stone/7. http://nigelpbird.blogspot.com/2010/09/dancing-with-myself-malachi-stone.html

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HOW TO MURDER YOUR TROPHY WIFE

© 2023 by Malachi Stone

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 as amended, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at: [e-mail] you for your support of the author’s rights.

All the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental. All the characters in this book are over eighteen years of age.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CONNECT WITH ME ONLINE

Cover image:

The Knight Errant by Sir John Everett Millais, Bt

For Maria

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? –Jeremiah 17:9, KJV

CHAPTER ONE

There are too many lawyers. Like it says on my business cards, I'm one of them. Monday through Friday nine to five and Saturdays until around noon I can be had, for a price. If you want to dump your wife or run off on your husband, I'm here to help. If you've been in a fender bender and want to make some easy money faking an injury, pick up the phone and call me, I'll help you out for a piece of the action. Google me; I’m all over the Internet. You can't miss me. Have you committed a crime and want to get away with it? Ask around at the jail, I'm your man. That's what I do Monday through Friday and half of Saturday. Saturday afternoon is none of your business. Sunday I try to make it to church as long as it's Easter.

Everybody always says there are too many lawyers and not enough doctors. If I were a doctor I wouldn't be the life-saving kind. I'd be the kind that does abortions, blows up women's boobs or changes men into women and women into men. That's the kind of lawyer I am: Frankenstein with a briefcase. Did I mention my wife left me?

Every county seat has one, the preferred watering hole for lawyers, a block or so from the courthouse. Sometimes it's called the Office, sometimes the Jury Room, and sometimes the Library, as in, I'll be home soon, Honey, right after I look something up in The Library. All too often the something he's talking about turns out to be a trim piece of trouble fresh from the traffic clerk's office.

In my town the bar in question does not have one of those cutesy names with a legal flair. It's called Ye Olde Round Table. Once inside, the only thing you'll see that's round is the main bar, which is completely circular and comfortably seats thirty or forty regular patrons.

It was mid-afternoon on the Friday before Christmas. Garlands of tinsel and strings of blinking colored lights festooned the premium liquor shelves, the overhead drying racks and the decorative Guinness keg, warming the familiar dark ambience of the Round Table. The proprietor, Art King, had wanted to call the joint King Arthur's Castle until somebody'd talked him out of it. The Round Table came close.

Vern Knight and I sat due south at the bar, crystal-gazing into a stereopticon of Cap and Coke doubles—two apiece. Art knew us well enough to set them up that way without asking, even throwing in a lime wedge garnish as an extra added flourish of customer appreciation. We sat and stared into our highball glasses, trying to catch a glimpse of the future through the murky rum mists.

Only lawyers, judges and professional burglars got off work this early. Vern and I were the only two guys at the bar but, as Art always said, he'd rather be serving two serious well-behaved drinkers like us than a bar full of draft beer punk assholes looking for trouble. Vern and I both took it as a compliment.

Like any other Friday afternoon, after a couple drinks I started mouthing off about my troubles, and my number one biggest trouble at the time was my wife. By four in the afternoon I didn't care who heard me.

What I want to know, I said, addressing the premium rack as though arguing to a jury, is why we marry 'em in the first place. Matter of fact, once I figure that out, I'll write a book about it. I even have the title all picked out: Why Do Men Marry Assholes? The Voice of Experience. How do you like that for a title, Vern? You make your living doing divorces. Think it'll sell?

You'd put me out of business if it did, Vern said into his rocks glass.

No way. You want to know why not? Because guys are gonna keep right on marrying assholes, book or no book. You know I'm right.

I hear you.

You know I'm right.

You said that already. Don't start repeating yourself; it's a sure sign of age.

We did sound like a couple of old guys, the way we were talking that afternoon. We sounded a lot like members of our parents' generation, but I couldn't accept being relegated to the boneyard of irrelevance just yet. I'm forty-three, Vern. At my age I should be at the peak of my earning power. And look at me: still hustling tickets for a quick fifty here and a hundred there, screwing around with orders of protection and small claims. I had to let my only secretary go last week, did I tell you that? She'd been with me ten years, hardest thing I ever had to do, but I couldn't afford paying her by the hour to park her ass at the front desk, polish her nails and wait to answer a phone that never rings. Looks like I'll be doing my own typing from here on out while I pay taxes, pay utilities, pay suite rental, pay office supplies, pay malp insurance, pay yellow page ads, pay Internet ads, pay pay pay!

Bitch, bitch bitch, Vern countered. You ever consider a second career as a non-motivational speaker? People'd pay to sit and listen to you for an hour or so, go out, kill their whole families and then hang themselves. I'm trying to get drunk here. I don't need all the constant negativity.

Sorry, Vern, I said, but couldn't resist adding, It's just that for as long as I care to remember it's been me paying money out the ass and nothing to show for it. Gwen always liked nice things, so as her husband I figured it was my job to go out and get them for her. I did that for years. All it got me is a house payment from hell, negative equity, and credit card debt I have to hustle every month to cover. Half the time I wake up screaming. End of every month my hair's on fire.

Then I let the bomb drop. Gwen's divorcing me, Vern, did you know that?

Vern turned to look at me, reached over and gave me a quick pat on the back for consolation. He signaled Art and did that swizzle stick tornado motion over our glasses.

That's how it is. When the money goes, the wife goes. I married an asshole! I shouted that last. In the mirror I could see heads turning in my direction. Art looked up from where he'd been rinsing beer glasses two at a time in the bar sink and shot me a reproving glower. A good Catholic, he forbade cursing in his bar unless he was the one doing the cursing. He'd been known to throw customers out for committing even a single infraction of his strict anti-profanity policy.

Gwen's divorcing me and you know what? I can't say as I blame her. I could kill the bitch with my bare hands, chop her into little pieces and feed her to the dog, if we had one, but I don't blame her.

Vern lowered his palm, signaling me to turn down the volume. I asked him, Where'd it all go, Vern? Where'd all the money cases go, the cases we used to rely on?

Vern took a thoughtful pull on his right-hand Cap and Coke. What you gonna do? It's the economy. We're all of us in the same boat and the boat's sinking. Unless you're one of those lawyers can afford ads on television. Or become a goddamn judge. Now there's financial security. He shifted his weight from one ass cheek to the other and added, Course, you gotta have the right connections. Political connections.

I have the fucking political connections. I probably bellowed a little.

The fuck you say, Vern said.

Hey, hey, hey! Art protested. What did I tell you guys? I run a nice clean establishment here. Can't you see there are ladies present? He gestured toward a nearby booth where four women I knew from the Circuit Clerk's office were sharing a pitcher of sours. There were scattered patrons—some familiar to me, some not— seated at other booths and tables. When had the bar filled up?

Vern jerked his head in the general direction of the courthouse. Half those guys on the bench over there? he said, talking under his breath now. They oughta be investigated by the Judicial Conduct Board. But we both know that's never gonna happen. It's all county politics. Dirty politics, but nobody does anything about it, and you know what? Nobody's ever gonna do anything about it. So I say, you got connections? Use them.

I have to do something to win her back, Vern. I always depended on Gwen to cure everything that's gone wrong with my life. Everything. And now she's gone. I felt like crying.

Vern drained his left hand Cap and Coke, said, Taste of the tropics, and sucked on the lime. He did that Godfather thing with the peel, like Brando, trying to get a laugh out of me. It didn't work. He kept trying. It still didn't work.

You hear what I'm saying, Vern? I have to win her back. It's like a powerful physical need with me. If I can't win her back somehow, I'm afraid I might do something crazy.

You know what's wrong with you? You got yourself a bad case of pre-divorce dementia. Vern spit the lime peel back into his glass and asked, "You wanna know how to impress Gwen? Put in for