Eddie glowered back and said, “Slow down or you’ll choke and I don’t want to have to get up to save you again.”

Candy took a seat and stared at the television casting a disapproving eye at the tramps tossing their lives open for a few minutes of celebrity.  She said, “Don’t bother saving me.  It might get in the way of you watching someone sleeping with her brother.”

Eddie grabbed the remote and turned the TV up just enough to annoy Candy and her clumpy shoes. He couldn’t help but push all her buttons.  Candy squirmed moodily on the couch and gobbled chips and pop.

Eddie’s face betrayed that his reserve of bitch control was seeping.  He said, “Is it time to go?”

Candy coughed and said, “We’re doing audits tonight.  Have you found any temp nursing jobs?”  

Eddie considered his options and aimed for just enough hostile to send her out the door.  It had taken years for Eddie to face the fear of losing his gravy train of a wife.  Tonight he was pissed enough at the clomping that he might just be ready to say fuck it and live in his car for a few days.  He defiantly tossed his feet up on the sofa, and said, “It isn’t so easy when you’re just an LPN.  I don’t want to do crap work.  I want an easier life.”

He smoldered as Candy crunched chips harder before she said, “I hear radio commercials looking for nursing help all the time.”

He wondered how many times she would go over this, “Not for LPNs, we’re the scut boys.”

Eddie could feel Candy’s eyes boring into the back of his head, then he saw her head drop and she pleaded, “Babe, I really need you to bring some money in.  How hard can it be to get a job?  You aren’t going to win the lottery.”

Eddie’s anger flared inside but he tried to keep it in check.  He slouched even lower to protect his place to sleep.  He mumbled into the chip bag, “I talked to those people at Comtech Computer Training Schools.  I can get a degree in under two years.”  It had been an impulse statement, but maybe he could buy himself a few more rent-free years.

It didn’t look like it worked.  Candy stood resolutely and snatched the chips again, “We can’t afford the classes.  I can’t wait another two or three years to have kids.  Why don’t you just finish your damned RN degree?”

She cussed?  Oh, hell Eddie thought, this was a losing battle.  He sullenly watched Candy take yet another damned handful of chips and crunch them.  She grabbed her bottle and took another slug to wash them down.  Eddie wished very bad things for just an instant and then said, “Don’t eat like that.  I’m too comfortable to have to get up.”

Candy spun on her heel to storm out and was stopped short by a chest deep jolt.  The liter bottle spun to the floor and Coke sprayed the carpet.  Candy’s body hitched like a broken mime, as she started to choke.  Her voice lost volume, “Eddie?”

Her eyes turned expectantly to her husband.  He reluctantly stood and moved behind her.  As slowly as he dared, Eddie put his arms around her girth and got ready to save her once again.

“I told you I didn’t want to get up”, he said.

Candy lifted her arms be helped.  Eddie stopped.  Candy’s color darkened, and her eyes flickered in panic.  Eddie breathed, free and easy, against her ear, and yet, did nothing.  Her face turned blue as she struggled for breath, gasping, “Eddie…help.”

Eddie watched Candy fall to her knees.  The full length mirror that covered the wall, perpendicular to the television, dispassionately played Candy’s approaching fate as Eddie’s head did the RCA dog tilt.  He watched her with detachment and curiosity.  He could almost see the lights fade in her eyes.  He thought, that’s kind of, well, cool.

Finally, he moved so she could have a last look at him with her bulging eyes.  He leaned close to her and said, “So, if I was at work now, what would happen?  I guess me being a nursing aid isn’t good enough for you.  Maybe there’s a RN around.”

Eddie knelt down and surveyed her face.  His gaze returned to his reflection in the wall mirror.  Candy’s eyes lost light and for a last instant they were startled; as if seeing how little his face showed worry.  Candy tilted and crashed to the floor, face first in the bubbling soda.  As the bubbles fizzed out, so did she.

Time ticked by in forever seconds.  Having no one else to listen to him, Eddie finally talked to the two lesbian sisters on the television, “Hmmm…that stops that bitching.”  He stared at her lifeless body.  He checked her wrist just to be sure she didn’t do some Freddie Kruger thing and pop back up.  After he felt more certain, he even ventured to check her throat for a pulse.  He moved to the rocker and sat.  He got back up and tentatively tire kicked her side like a used car.

The girls on the television had left for a commercial, so Eddie spoke to himself, “What now?”  He sat back in the chair and tried to think.  Nothing much came to mind, but that wasn’t unusual.  So, he waited and wondered at how little effect this had on him.
 
Eddie had seen dead bodies before, but had never had a hand in helping them get that way.  He had even seen some that had been murdered by that nurse he had worked under.  She had become known as the “Angel of Death”.  Eddie remembered that it had pissed her off to be called the Angel of Death, because she believed some other killer had been known under that name too.  Apparently, she had wanted to be special, but the police and press just didn’t care to give her a fitting alias.  The name had stuck and become one of the punishments she had gotten from the case.  Imagine he thought, spending life in prison for killing people and being “just another serial killer”.  Eddie understood her anger, if he did all that work, he would want to be special too.

He remembered the time when the nurse had started killing, Eddie knew he could have given the police the evidence to stop her earlier in their investigation, but he didn’t think it was any of his business, so he did his crap work and forgot to care that the old and weak were being sent to their god, with the help of one of the white shoed RN wonders.

As he stood over Candy’s dead body, it dawned on Eddie he might not be bothered by killing.  He tried to think about the issue from a moral view, but got bored.  Didn’t he have bigger problems now?   Like how to deal with the body of his dead wife.  He felt like he didn’t have the training or experience for this sort of thing.  He could hear the music to CSI in his head.  The who are you tune bounced around his brain.  Damn, that television show suddenly scared the hell out him.  He had to do something to cover his ass.  In flash, he had it.  Do what criminals do.  So, he copied the angel of death, and acted innocent.  He did what he thought he should do when finding a dead wife in his living room.  He picked up the phone and started to dial 911.  Something tugged at his head.  It was like the weather changing across the plains, he needed to think.  Self-preservation told him to stop, so he did.  Storms might be coming and he wanted to be ready.

He focused, what had the nurse done?  Really done.  Slowly a plan came to him.  Be smart, just like Daddy always said, “Smart will get you out of trouble after you been stupid.”  Maury droned in the background and Eddie worked smart in his head until he had his plan.  He surveyed the room with no emotion.  Just like the CSI guys.  He felt himself getting hard and paused, oh, he thought, just that actress being hot in his head.  He could take care of that later.  He shook off sex for a minute and refocused.   Eddie looked for clues that would trip him up.  It wasn’t like he had done anything, he had really just not done; almost like he wasn’t there.  That was it.  He grabbed his car keys and headed for the door.

Thunderclouds rolled through his head, that didn’t feel right.  He stopped.  Questions about his normal behavior would come up.  What would he normally be doing?  Watching TV?  Hitting the head for some reading and relief?  Avoiding Candy in the garage?  There, he had it.  He smirked, he was getting good at this.  He retraced his steps and headed for the garage.  Once there, he opened a can of beer and drank.  It would have calmed his nerves, if he had any.  He was feeling smarter by the minute.  He could get out of this.  He finished the beer and threw it in the trash.  A man wouldn’t be stupid enough to drink if he wanted to murder his wife.  Only a man who had nothing to worry about would have a beer or two early in the afternoon.  He opened another; now, to find a reason to discover his wife.

While he thought he kept himself busy arranging the rest of his alibi.  He opened some woodworking plans.  He pulled his circular power saw down, measured once and cut once.  You can’t be over careful.  Just, be a guy.  That was it, a good reason, and he knocked over his beer on purpose.  He patted some sawdust on his pants and whistled a tune, as he headed toward the living room.

Just play it like it’s really happening he thought, then said aloud, “Honey, I spilled my last beer.”  He paused for dramatic effect and said, “Honey, are you here?”  Eddie stepped to her dead body and stopped with mock surprise.

His frantic call to 911 couldn’t have gone better.  He panicked perfectly.  He did artificial respirations; two breaths and seven chest pumps.  The operator kept her voice calm while she walked him through the process.  On the forth compression to her chest, the operator heard Candy’s rib snap with a crunch.  Eddie’s wail of anguish was so convincing that the operator vomited all over her headset.  

The ambulance sirens careened up the drive just as Eddie stood and whispered down to Candy’s corpse.  “Maybe I could be an actor.”