Dead By Now : A Murder Mystery [COMPLETED]

Chapter Seven: A Death Before The Death

I

"They caught me in a lie, I had no other option I had to tell them the truth," said a despondent Ophelia to Madelyn.

"What truth? You didn't know your husband was having an affair."

Ophelia didn't reply. She just stood there in silence.

"You didn't, right?" Madelyn asked her once again.

Ophelia's silence was an answer enough for Madelyn.

"What did you tell them," Madelyn asked.

"That I couldn't go on announcing it to the world, surely. A lot of people's reputation was at stake. And that I had immediately told Layla to bring an end to it," Ophelia replied.

"Why didn't you ever tell me," said Madelyn.

"There's a lot I haven't told you," replied Ophelia.

"Why?"

"Some things are just not easy to talk about."

"You knew your husband was having an affair. Do you realize that's a good enough motive for them? The police, now, officially have a motive to pin the murder on you. I think it's time you told me everything, that is if I am to help you."

II

Ophelia began with how Madelyn never asked what so many of Elwood's friends were doing in the house that evening. It was ever so surprising considering the fact that they were not even really friends anymore. They hadn't been for a very long time.

Even though the love between the Adams had completely faded away only within a few years of their marriage, seeing his wife smiling with a man incited something inside Elwood. Even though Nicholas Hill was just a help, a boy not older than 25, and even though there was nothing definite to suggest there was anything going on between him and Ophelia at all, Elwood began to seethe in anger every time he saw Nicholas around his wife.

Elwood's friends had already been egging him on to do something about Nicholas. They had all noticed Nicholas and Ophelia's closeness. "It was not wise to keep such a handsome young man around your wife," they used to say. It was not the jealousy, however, that pestered Elwood but rather the embarrassment.

What finally moved Elwood to action, however, was what he one day witnessed from a window in his office.

He saw a man kissing his wife in his garden. The man had his back to Elwood so Elwood couldn't really tell who the man was but he convinced himself that it was his servant Nicholas.

One day Elwood told his friends that he needed their help to teach someone a lesson. He didn't specify who, at the moment, because he had two men on his mind. The first was the obvious Nicholas, but Kendall's over-friendliness with Ophelia had also been irritating Elwood a lot lately, especially after what Julian had told him. Whatever he had planned for Nicholas was also to be a warning for Ken to not mess around with his friend's wife.

The plan was that Elwood would send Ophelia to his aunt's for a few days on the pretext that the aunt needed help with her daughter's wedding preparations. He would send Evelyn there with her too, to keep her company. And when there would be no one but Nicholas, the only servant, left in the house, the five friends - Julian Martindale, Bobby Blackwell, Aaron Ashwood, Ken Walters & Robert Krinsky along with Elwood Adams himself would show him what happens when you sleep with your boss's wife, even though none of them was even sure if Nicholas really was involved with Ophelia in any way.

They would teach him a lesson, they thought. A lesson he will never forget. Little did they know, however, that they themselves would not ever be able to forget that night either.

Almost everything went according to the plan, everything except the part where all the friends lost control beating Nicholas and did not stop until he was almost dead.

Although they beat him like they were going to kill him, they did not actually want to murder him, most of them at least.

Julian stopped them after he realized they had gone way too far.

They threw a lot of water on his face and waited for quite a while for Nicholas to wake up but he wasn't moving. Julian said it'd be best if he took him to his clinic. At first, the others were reluctant but agreed eventually.

They tied his wounds with whatever they could find but it was not enough and by the time they reached the clinic, Nicholas had lost a lot of blood. His death was almost certain, nevertheless, Julian tried for several hours and in fact did not stop trying to save him until Nicholas was finally dead.

They returned to Elwood's house, late at night, with Nicholas's dead body, and buried it in his backyard.

With Nicholas, their friendship died too.

With time and one by one, all of Elwood's friends left town. Except for Julian, the doctor. But with him too, Elwood only met once after that night, when he had broken his hip once falling off a horse.

- Thanks for reading. Please consider giving the chapter a vote if you liked it -