Surprise!

by Curt Jeffreys

Jon Gardner gave his thinning hair one last pat as he looked himself over in the hallway mirror. Perfect! He stood back, sucking in his belly, squaring his rounded shoulders, admiring the man he used to be, the man he still saw, though now fully twenty years past his prime. He wanted to look his best; he was meeting Maggie's plane at seven-thirty.

Maggie -- his worse-half for the dark side of twenty-seven years now -- was flying back tonight after two weeks on the coast. Two weeks of those snot-nosed brats and Martha's worthless husband, Todd. Better Maggie than me, Jon had thought. That's why he'd sprung for the tickets so readily when Maggie first started making noises about her sister and her brood coming to Denver for a couple of weeks. It was worth a whole lot more than what he had to pay to fly his wife out to California just to make sure his summer wasn't ruined by a house full of strangers eating his food, watching his TV.

So he was eight hundred bucks lighter in the wallet, big deal! That was money well spent, as far as he was concerned, and his time alone had been heavenly. He had some quality Jon time, time to think, time to reevaluate his priorities, time to look back over where he'd gone wrong, time to plan his future. Time to plan his wife's murder.

He'd better get going if he was going to make it to DIA by seven-thirty. He didn't want to be late, not tonight -- he had special plans for the evening. Tonight was special in a couple of ways: Not only was it Maggie's homecoming, it was also her fortieth birthday, and Jon wanted to show her one last good time because tonight, after a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant Jon was going to break his wife's scrawny little neck, therefore ridding himself of the boat anchor that had held him down most of his adult life.

Life with Maggie had not always been so bad. No, to be honest Jon would have to say out of a total of twenty-seven years of marriage only the last twenty-six and a half had been completely miserable. The first six months had been okay, but after the newness of having sex whenever he wanted wore off he'd found there was really very little in it for him. If Maggie hadn't gotten herself pregnant so fast he probably would have left her before their first anniversary. But Jon Gardner wasn't that kind of guy when kids were involved. His dad had skipped out on him and his mom when Jon was still a baby, the drunken old fart. What kind of man does that? Not Jon Gardner. So he stuck it out long enough to raise a total of three kids, three wonderful kids who loved their Dear Old Dad very, very much.

But now they were gone, the last one bailing out of the nest nearly a year ago, and all that was left was Mag the Nag with her constant bitching and moaning.

"Why don't we ever go anywhere?" she'd had the nerve to ask. "All you ever do is work, work, work. Carol and her husband are going to Nova Scotia next month."

Carol Nesbitt was Maggie's best friend and co-conspirator. She had her husband Tom wrapped around her finger so tight it was a wonder he could breathe at all. Poor Tom; he lacked Jon's strength of character.

"And Al is taking Marcia on an Alaskan cruise. So what's wrong with you?" Maggie demanded.

He wanted to tell her what was wrong with him. Oh, so many times he'd wanted to tell her -- "It's you, you old bat! You're what's wrong with me! You're what's always been wrong with me!"

But he could never say it, so he just took it and took it and kept on taking it, keeping his rage bottled up inside like any decent man would. It's the only thing a 'good' husband could do, right? Well, not any more. Not this husband, anyway.

One last look in the mirror and he was out the door. As he backed out the drive he started going over the plan one last time. Jon was nothing if not a stickler for detail.

First, pick up the Nag at the airport, then a quiet dinner at Amici's, then a slow, leisurely drive home. Once home and safely inside, he'd kill her and stuff her body into the old freezer in the garage. After that he could have a nice, restful evening alone in front of a fire with a good book. In the morning he'd load the freezer in the back of the truck and take it to the landfill. He'd wait a few days, then call the police. I went to work as usual, officer, but when I came home she was gone. No, no note. No reason to suspect foul play but, come to think of it, she has seemed a little depressed lately, ever since she got back from her sister's.

Now, Jon Gardner was not a stupid man; he knew he'd be the primary suspect -- the husband always is, even the innocent ones. That's why he'd been complaining to his neighbors for weeks about the musty old freezer taking up so much space in his garage. Yep, one of these days he was just gonna have to haul that piece of junk out to the dump himself.

Maggie's plane was late, wouldn't you know it, and he just missed the grace period and had to pay for a full hour of parking. He hated having to pay for a full hour when he was only ten minutes over, and to top it off, Maggie had nothing positive to say all the way to the restaurant. The flight was terrible, the stewardess was rude, the turbulence was enough to make you sick but if that didn't do it the in-flight meal would. As far as Jon could tell the whole thing had been a vicious plot to make his ever-patient wife miserable.

But it didn't stop there, oh no! Jon had to listen to her gripe about the California weather, the smog and her sister's worthless husband. By the time they reached Amici's Jon was tempted to do her right there in the parking lot, in front of God and everybody. But he managed to control himself, even working up a smile as he opened the car door for her. Oh yes, Jon Gardner was the very picture of an adoring husband.

Dinner was hell. He made the mistake of ordering wine, thinking a touch of vino might calm her, quiet her down a bit. No such luck. If anything, the alcohol only served to loosen her tongue and her inhibitions. She managed to be hateful and insulting to the wait-staff and most of the other guests. Instead of his hoped-for impression of a loving couple out for a romantic dinner most people were wondering who's the loud-mouthed broad and when's she gonna leave?

The birthday cake he arranged for was a disaster. He told them when he made the reservations nothing but chocolate, she only likes chocolate, so what did they bring? Not chocolate cake, of course. Not even chocolate ice cream. It was spumoni with a candle stuck in it! Spumoni? How do you get 'spumoni' out of 'nothing but chocolate'? Right then, speaking loud enough to be heard over the warbling waitresses mangling 'Happy Birthday' in Italian she started in on him, ending up screeching "YOU KNOW I ONLY LIKE CHOCOLOATE!" just as the song ended.

Jon never said a word all the way home, while she kept up a constant barrage against the restaurant, the staff, their mothers, and especially against her worthless excuse for a husband. All this only served to remove even the merest microscopic tinge of regret he might have had about his plan. All doubt and remorse was effectively banished from his thoughts by the time they pulled in the drive.

She continued her verbal assault as they got out the car, insulting his intelligence, his heritage and calling into question the marital status of his parents at time of his conception. Jon had enough. How much was a man supposed to take?

It was quite dark. The house lights were off, which was odd, he was certain he'd left the living room lamp on. Never mind that -- the dark was perfect and he couldn't wait anymore. He motioned Maggie ahead of him as he positioned himself behind her and slightly to the right. As she stood there waiting for him to get the door he slipped his left arm around her neck, giving her head a sharp push and a twist with his right.

A satisfactory SNAP and it was all over but the singing! She slumped into his arms and he hoisted her bony frame over a shoulder, her head flopping in a quite amusing way. Ah! Blessed silence. If silence is golden, then Jon Gardner suddenly found himself a very rich man indeed.

He fumbled in the dark with his keys and then he was inside, the door safely shut behind him. Not a sound! No screams from the neighbors, no patrol cars, no sirens. He'd done it, clean and smooth, like clockwork!

Then as he flipped on the light -- "SURPRISE!!!!" Smiling, laughing people jumped out from behind the couch, from inside closets, from behind bedroom doors. A brightly colored banner exclaimed "Happy Birthday Maggie!"

And there stood Jon Gardner, holding his wife's lifeless body over his shoulder, staring numbly at Carol and Tom Nesbitt and twenty of Maggie's dearest friends.