For the better

domenick Cancilla

"I didn't call the police," Martha said, "I called the coroner." She'd had time to change her dress and put the old one out in the bin, but there was still blood all over the bedroom, the living room was a mess, and she hadn't had a chance to do the breakfast dishes. "This isn't a good time."

    "You reported a murder, ma'am?" the officer at her door said.

    "I did no such thing," Martha said, hands on her hips. Who was this woman to talk to her that way? "I called 911 and said I needed a coroner because my husband had been stabbed to death."

    The officer's eyes swept around the room behind Martha as she pushed in through the door, her partner behind her. 

    "Now just a darned minute here," Martha said, backpedaling, arms flailing. This was not what she wanted at all.

    The first officer passed her and the second said, "We need to make sure you're safe, ma'am. Tell us where your husband is. I'm going to take you outside while Officer Miller makes sure the house is safe."

    "Oh, for the love of --" Martha threw her hands in the air. "Why wouldn't it be safe? I told you he's dead. He's not going to do anything."

    The second officer took her gently by the arm, saying

"Until we find out who stabbed him, we need to get you--"

    "What's to find out?" Martha demanded, a touch annoyed. Did nobody listen anymore? "I stabbed him. The knife's right here on the entry table. Let me --"

    Then, there was a rush of motion. The room spun, Martha flew through the air, and before she knew it, there were handcuffs around her wrists and her face was pressed into the carpet, which she really wished she'd had time to vacuum.

    She'd known they were going to make a big deal out of it. Dumb police. She always knew what people were going to do. That's why she told 911 she just needed the coroner. Useless.

    Martha was hauled to her feet, dragged out of the house without her purse and in the wrong shoes. She was searched and made to sit on the curb with her hands still locked behind her back. More police arrived, sirens waking up the whole neighborhood (which Martha was sure her neighbors were going to blame her for). That first officer read some little speech, which Martha said she understood even though she'd been thinking about what to make for lunch while the officer blathered.

    There was a lot of activity. Police running around. People going in and out of the house behind her without permission, probably not taking off their shoes.

    The second officer came back and talked to the first one. She spoke in low tones and Martha caught a few words -- fresh, gruesome, horrible, batshit fucking crazy. She didn't like that last one. What a disrespectful way to speak of the dead.

    A van from a television station parked down the street and began unloading people and things.

    "That's our cue," the first officer said, taking Martha's arm and helping her to her feet. "Let's get in the car."

    Martha was put in the back seat like a bag of groceries. They might as well have put her in the trunk.

    The two officers got in the front seat, ran the siren for a moment as the car pulled away from the curb. Rude.

    They drove in silence until they were almost to the highway. Then the first officer, the one driving, glanced at Martha in the rear-view mirror and said, "Did you really kill your husband?"

    The second one immediately stepped in with, "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to."

    "It's all right," Martha said. "Are your friends going to lock the house when they're done tromping around in there?"

    "They will," the second officer said. "They'll put up police tape, too."

    As if that would do any good. There were criminals in the neighborhood. Everyone knew it.

    "All right, then," Martha said. "Yes, I stabbed Bradley."

    The city rolled by. Were they going to the police station? Probably.

    "You stabbed him a few times, didn't you?" the second officer said.

    "A few?" asked the first officer.

    "Seventeen," Martha clarified. "Well, maybe fifteen. I don't know if the first two count because he was fussing about and I mainly just cut his hands. Do those count?"

    The second officer took a measured breath, maybe trying to forget what she'd seen in the house. Ridiculous. A woman should be able to deal with a little blood. "Yeah, those count," she said.

    More driving in silence.

    "You still don't have to answer," the first officer said, "but why'd you do it?"

    "To spare him," Martha said.

     "Spare him what?" the second officer said.

    "The agony," Martha said. "The suffering. He was going to suffer horribly."

    "Was he sick?" the first officer asked.

     "He was bleeding a lot," Martha said.

     "Cancer?" the second officer asked.

     "No, just from the stabbing," Martha said.

     "God, no," said the first officer. "I mean, was he sick before you stabbed him. Was he suffering because he was sick?"

     Martha shook her head, then remembered that the driver couldn't see her. "No," she said. "If you knew Bradley, you'd understand. He is -- he was -- very sensitive. Bradley was a grown man who would cry at anything. He cried at the Angry Birds movie. Who cries at the Angry Birds movie? What adult even watches the Angry Birds movie?"

    "My cousin has a --" the second officer started to say, but was interrupted by a little cough from the first officer.

    Martha continued. "Bradley would become inconsolable, absolutely inconsolable, if anything happened to me. I once got reprimanded at work -- a ridiculous thing about filing an expense report before I had receipts -- and he sobbed so hard on my behalf I thought he was going to have a stroke."

    "Very sensitive man," the second officer said.

"Very sensitive," Martha agreed. "I stopped talking about bad things at work after that. I only have ten years left to retirement, so it's a short-term problem."

    "Congratulations?" the second officer said, sounding unsure if it was what she was supposed to be saying.

    "Yes, well," Martha said. "You understand then, don't you? I couldn't let him suffer. I could send him on his way quickly or let him die slowly by anxiety and worry over -- well, probably months. Wouldn't you agree that quick and painless is the more humane choice?"

    "Painless?" the first officer asked, glancing in the mirror again. Martha wished she would keep her eyes on the road.

    "It's a relative thing," Martha said. She didn't expect a couple of civil servants to understand.

    "Hang on," the second officer said. "I'm still not getting it. What was he going to suffer about?"

    "The trial," Martha said.

     "What trial?" the first officer asked.

     "My trial," Martha said.

     "Your trial?" the second officer asked.

     Martha made an exaggerated sigh of impatience at their collective density. "Yes, my trial."

     "What were you going to go on trial for?" the first officer asked. She glanced briefly at her partner.

    There must have been some unspoken question there because the second officer said, "I didn't see anything when I ran her. Not even traffic."

    "My murder trial," Martha interjected, clarifying.

    "Your murder trial," both officers said at once. Clearly, the stupidity in this car was contagious. Martha hoped it didn't make its way into the back seat.

    "Yes," Martha said, drawing words out as if scolding children, "my murder trial."

    "You were going to be on trial for murder," the second officer said, forgetting to make it sound like a question.

    "I only speak English so this must be English," Martha said, immediately regretting allowing herself to become snippy. "Yes, I'm going to be going on trial for murder."

    "Who did you murder?" asked the first officer.

    "Oh, for the deep love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," Martha said. "I'm going to go on trial for murdering my husband." Were they playing with her?

    "Bradley?" the second officer asked.

    "Yes, Bradley," said Martha, nearly yelling now and becoming increasingly exasperated. "How many husbands do you think I have? Weren't you here for the first part of the conversation?"

    "Hold the phone," the first officer said. "Are you saying you murdered your husband because --"

"No," Martha interrupted. "No, no, no. I didn't murder my husband. I'm going to go on trial for murdering my husband, but I didn't murder my husband."

    "But you stabbed him," the second officer said.

    "Yes, I stabbed him," Martha said. "I killed him, but I didn't murder him. He wanted me to do it."

    "He asked you to murder him?" the first officer asked.

"No!" Martha said, just giving in and yelling. She took a deep breath, let it out, allowed the healing calm of air to wash out some of her frustration. A therapist on television had taught her that. "Listen carefully," she said. "I didn't murder Bradley, I killed him. I killed him because I wanted to stop him from having to suffer through my trial. It's not murder because he wanted me to kill him, and killing someone who wants you to kill them isn't murder. I know he wanted me to kill him because I have one of those hospital will things that says I can make decisions for him in a medical emergency."

    "An advance directive," the second officer said.

    "An advance directive," Martha said, hoping that agreeing would help them understand, even though she really didn't remember what the thing they had signed was called. "It was a medical emergency because suffering through my trial for murder -- a murder I didn't commit because it wasn't murder, just killing -- would have killed him. This was quicker and more humane."

    Another minute of silent driving, then the first officer said, "You're saying you killed your husband to stop him from suffering through the trial for you killing him."

    "Yes," Martha said.

    "But there wouldn't be a trial if you hadn't killed him," the second officer said.

    Martha had to cut this off or it was going to go on all day. "Is there going to be a trial?" she asked.

    "I would think so," the second officer said.

    "Sure will," said the first.

    "Then I was right, wasn't I?" Martha asked. 

    Both officers had to admit she was. Nothing more was said all the way to the station.