Dead By Now : A Murder Mystery [COMPLETED]

Chapter Six: Bother

I

Neil came prepared to finally ask Madelyn, "What have I ever done to you? Why are you always so cold to me?."

"Do you mean besides outing me to my parents?" was Madelyn's answer when he asked her that.

This was the conversation that led to the end of the decade-old misunderstanding between them.

It was not Neil, it couldn't have been, but his older brother Joel who saw Kori and Madelyn in the woods that night, but he let everyone think it was Neil.

And anyway Joel was the one Kori and Madelyn were both friends with. It was only natural for them to assume he wouldn't betray them.

"And now she's married to him," said Madelyn, with terror in her eyes.

After having addressed the elephant in the room, it wasn't hard for Madelyn to get Neil to agree to arrange the meds for her, "I'd pay you whatever they cost, obviously. And I can tell you who I need them for if you want to know," she had already prepared a fake story but the need to use it did not arise. "It's just some antibiotics not drugs. You don't have to tell me." Neil said, laughingly.

II

As the days progressed, the discussion regarding Elwood's murder slowly started fading away. They talked about him less and less every day.

"I had promised my mother once that, till the day I am alive I will not let anything bad happen to her and, that I will always protect her. Seeing her in that condition, however, I had lost all hope. You have helped me keep my promise. I owe my life to you." Ophelia had told Madelyn.

Ophelia had practically no one else in the world except her mother. She loved her father dearly too and it took her a long time to recover from his death.

Even though she did not marry Elwood for love, after spending some time with him she had started to believe that he really did love her. He was very affectionate to her, at least for the first few months of their marriage. His announcement to marry her had shocked everyone because she belonged to a house with no money. He had madly fallen in love with her the moment he had laid his eyes on her, he used to say. Ophelia did not really have a choice in the matter, however. For a family like that of Ophelia's to get a marriage proposal from someone like Elwood was pretty much unheard of, and also an offer that they did not stand to have an option to refuse. So, naturally, Ophelia acquiesced without much protest.

It did not take Elwood long, however, to fall out of his mad love for Ophelia.

Their first child died in Ophelia's womb. There was not much she could have done to prevent it, but it gave Elwood a reason to openly express the hatred that had grown inside his heart for his wife. He blamed her for the miscarriage. But that was not the real reason why he had begun to loathe her.

Before their marriage, Ophelia was perhaps so desirable to him because she was a thing out of his reach. After their marriage, however, she had lost all that appeal now that he had her. He felt trapped in a hell of his own making. But he soon found a way out of it as well, and had plenty of love affairs throughout his life. The longest one was the one he had with Layla Rhodes.

There were many reasons why Ophelia did not have a very strong reaction to the discovery of her husband's love affair with Layla. The first being the fact that it was not the first time she had caught her husband having an affair. And it was not like, by the time she had found out about Layla, she hadn't had affairs herself.

And lastly, in the moment she had caught Layla sneaking out of her house, she had realized something. Realized that she could use the affair to her benefit. In exchange for keeping her mouth shut, something she previously used to do for free anyway, she had tasked Layla with taking care of her ill mother. Layla was to visit her mother with everything she needed, every other week and then report back to Ophelia about her condition.

III

It started as a regular day. Everything was as per the schedule. For Ophelia, things had seemingly started to get better. Her mother was positively responsive to the meds Madelyn had given them. She had started showing signs of improvement. Ophelia was truly happy for the first time in a very long time. But little did she know a very unfortunate day was afoot.

A letter arrived in the afternoon and with it the bad news, although at first, it was not clear to Ophelia what the news really meant.

"The police have discovered a new evidence and I am being called in for questioning," Ophelia informed Madelyn before leaving for the police station.

"You wouldn't happen to know an L.R., would you?" The Police Officer asked Ophelia.

"Why?" Ophelia asked him back.

"No reason. Ah well, you'll find out eventually I guess so there's no point in hiding, is there? You wouldn't believe what happened today. A letter fell out of one of Mr. Adams's books that we had taken from his office. Can you imagine? After such a tediously long and rigorous search and investigation, we discover a pivotal piece of evidence 'accidentally'. Anyway, it was signed with the initials L.R." replied the officer.

"No, I don't think I do," said Ophelia, answering his question, "May I know what's in the letter?" she added.

"It is a love letter. Did you know, madam, of your husband's extramarital affair?"

"I absolutely did not."

"Then help me understand this little thing that's been bothering me all day. Why do you think it is that this L.R. person wrote this in one of their love letters to your husband, 'Your wife knows, she caught me trying to sneak out of the house the other day. I can not keep doing this. It is wrong.'"

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