I don’t regret what happened. As they say, everyone does it — I just got caught. It was about a month ago. I was watching an old Fred MacMurray film on Turner Classic Movies called Double Indemnity. It’s about an insurance man who falls for a dame in a big way. They murder her husband to collect on his policy, but an insurance investigator smells a rotten egg that leads him straight to their little love nest. Do you like yours fried or scrambled? The basic idea was good, I thought; the trouble was, there were two of them. I decided I would try something similar, but without the dame. I immediately began to draw up plans. Nothing would be left to chance.

When my wife walked through the front door that night I acted as if everything were normal, as if our life together could go on for an eternity, never faltering, never changing, never drifting from its destined dreary course; and then, quite suddenly I chopped off her head with an ax. I had meant to wait until she sat down. Until she was reading comfortably in her favorite chair. She often complained that I was in her reading light, and I thought it would be fun (or at least appropriate) to hear her say one last time as I stood behind her, ax raised overhead, “Honey, you’re in my light again.” But somehow (and you’d know how if you knew her), when she came through that door I had what the amateur psychologist might call an insane compulsion to kill her. Not a bad guess. The professional, however, would’ve recognized it as merely the dog in me which instinctively desires to see an old thing buried. Preferably six feet underground with a marker to remind what and where it is.

After I was quite sure she was dead (which was doubtful at first since her head rolled around on the living room floor for several minutes, biting at table legs and pausing now and then to throw a hideous glance my way), I quickly removed all the eye shadow and hair clips from her purse to create the impression she’d been robbed. Then I called the police. I told them my wife had been horribly murdered. The Captain asked if I might be “exaggerating just a wee bit.” I admitted it was possible but insisted she had been badly murdered at the very least, and furthermore, whether it had been good, bad or indifferent the result was fatal, and they should skip over here immediately. The Captain threatened to hang up on me at the first sign of another ill-tempered outburst. After a mild debate he agreed he would come out the next day a little after lunch to check the body, but he warned me there would have to be someone home to answer the door. I promised to stick around.

It was only after I had hung up and settled myself in a comfortable chair to gloat over my accomplishments that I realized neither my wife nor I had insurance of any kind. My dreams of incredible wealth were fading before my eyes. My ship had at last come in, but it had hit the dock and was sinking fast. How could so much go wrong when I had been so careful?

I had to think fast. I called the police again. “Hello,” I said. “I’m the man who just murdered his wife. I mean, the man whose wife was just murdered. What I really mean is, she’s not actually dead at all. She’s simply suffering from extremely poor posture.” I finally convinced them everything was all right by agreeing to buy two tickets to the policeman’s ball.

It was late now and nothing more could be done tonight. Tomorrow I would go down to the insurance office and fill out their best policy in person, and then take it home and forge my wife’s signature. But the next day was Christmas and everything was closed. So I watched the parade, then went home to open my presents. Damn! More neckties, and after all the trouble I had gone through to buy her perfume and a new frying pan. If I hadn’t killed her last night, I would’ve used one of those ties on her today. I was happy I had killed her. For once in my life I was doing something for me.

The next day I picked up the policy. After experimenting a while, I realized it would take an expert’s hand to forge my wife’s name. I decided on the little neighbor boy. He had once forged my name on an ugly letter that had somehow ended up in the hands of the President of the United States and put me in bad with most of Washington.

I took the policy next door but the kid was busy watching TV. He finally signed it during a commercial break. The little bugger was good, real good. I slapped a five-dollar bill in his hand and closed it tight. “Listen,” I said, “you ain’t never seen me here, see?” He grinned and closed his eyes. “No, I don’t see,” he said. I gave him a slap in the face that sent him sprawling. I don’t like smart aleck kids.

Returning home I discovered there was quite a collection of policemen around my house. Most of them were playing on the swing set in the back yard, but a couple were removing my wife’s body on a stretcher. I was about to run but it was too late, I’d been spotted. One of the officers was calling me over to the swing set to balance off the seesaw, which had four on one side and only three on the other. Another cop who had been sniffing around for clues approached me and announced that I was under arrest for the murder of my wife. “How can you prove it was me?” I demanded. “As the saying goes,” he replied, “a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.” “But I live here,” I said. “I’m sorry, sir, but the saying makes no provisions or exclusions for those living at the scene of a crime.” “That will never hold up,” I said, “not even in a court of law.”

But I was wrong. At the trial it seemed things were hopelessly against me, but then came a new piece of evidence. It was a letter the police had received in the mail, signed by me and claiming responsibility for the murder of my wife, as well as confessing it was I who had stolen the athletic equipment from Lincoln Elementary School last spring. All the experts agreed it was definitely my signature. I looked at it and it was, but I had never written any such letter. Then they brought out the insurance policy. The experts all agreed it was positively nothing but a cheap forgery of my wife’s name. In fact, one of them pointed out, it was so bad a child could do better. In the audience of the courtroom I spotted the little neighbor boy eyeing me with an impish grin as if he were watching an insect squirming near a hot match.

The jury deliberated for 14 hours. There was one sweet old man who insisted that someone of my apparent intelligence were going to kill his wife, he would have done it years ago. In the end, however, the jury found me guilty and the judge sentenced me to death.

I guess it’s what I deserve for watching a movie that stars Fred MacMurray. Now it’s just one hour before the State of Illinois is to execute me by means of lethal injection.

I only hope it’s good stuff.

Recently, two of my readers recognized me at the train station. The first one approached me and was reaching into his vest pocket when a shot rang out. Pulling a pen and paper from his pocket he gave a look that seemed to say, “Will you please autograph this?” And then, as if the look were not enough, he said those exact words and dropped dead at my feet. I’m highly suspicious of anyone who reads my work, you see, and am inclined to shoot first and sign autographs second.

The next man who approached me was nothing but a sobbing, slobbering, jellied mass of tears. The man’s name is a secret between him and myself which I will sell for a quarter to anyone who can prove they have a healthy interest in sports, foam rubber or blackmail. He cried on my shoulder for a long, long time, and I considered having him surgically removed because he was costing me a fortune in train fare and making for unfavorable sleeping conditions at home, until my wife suggested I ask him what was wrong. It worked!

The man said he had nearly been driven insane by a ghost. The ghost had entered his house via the television set and tortured him by making double images on the screen and changing channels when he went to the washroom. Later the ghost learned to frighten him by casting shadows that looked like Alfred Hitchcock. In the end, before the man fled the house, the ghost would access his email and delete just enough words to make the exact intent of a message unclear. In trying to respond to his friends, the man only succeeded in alienating them to the point where they stopped writing back.

It was then that he came to me for help, although I can’t see why; I’m certainly no expert on the subject. It’s my opinion that there is no ghost in his house, but plenty of bats in his belfry. Or it could be that his story, like so many others, is true, but so ridiculous that one can’t care. In any case I will state here what I do know of ghosts if it will be any help.

I first heard of ghosts as a child happily growing up in the little town of Stunt Growth, Michigan. For years our next-door neighbors believed they were being tortured by a ghost that would shout in a deep, bellowing voice, “For God’s sake, get out!” Instead, they discovered, it was only the efforts of a patient fireman trying to rescue them from their house, which had been steadily burning for years. After being rescued, the mother wept tears of joy, until she remembered the house was not insured. Then the tears became real. Running back into the house, she threw herself into the flames, but as the flames were very small she only succeeded in putting out the fire and blistering a finger or two.

My firsthand experience with ghosts has been very limited, but pleasant. I have only seen a few in my entire life. Usually they are strolling down the sidewalk, passing in the opposite direction, in which case we exchange nods, a cheerful smile or a jovial wink, as did one ghost who was ecstatic over a new pair of platform shoes he was sporting. Ghosts, as you may know, are absolutely crazy for new shoes, and especially shoes with high heels. They are quite vain about their height, probably because they are so hard to see in the first place. In fact, after seeing one I always have to ask myself, “Did I truly see a ghost?” Although I can never get a straight answer from me, I find it much safer than asking someone else. Once I merely wished for someone to confirm what I’d just seen, and inquired of the fellow walking alongside of me. “Surely, my good man,” I said, “surely that was a ghost wearing platform shoes that just passed by and winked at me, was it not?” The man acted very much as if he had no other choice than to strike me in the face repeatedly, knocking me down into the street and oncoming traffic. The experience was extremely humiliating, and for years I was convinced it had devastated my sex life, until my wife explained to me what sex was. What a relief!

This kind of ghost story is not uncommon, for apparently no everyone can see ghosts, or if they can they have the good sense to ignore them. My grandfather could do neither. He complained that although he never caught sight of his ghostly assailants, every night as he was dozing off, several of them would sneak up and tickle his feet until he was almost conscious, then run and lock themselves in the bathroom along with the best magazines in the house. Grandpa would kick and scream and pound on the bathroom door, his face turning orange, then green, then a lovely shade of purple (I never actually saw him at those exact moments, but I know those were the colors Grandpa turned when he kicked and screamed and pounded on things). But it was no use.

“They were all cowards,” he said. “Four to one, and they were still afraid.” He knew there were four because once they were taunting him by asking, “Guess how many of us there are, you old goat. Go on, guess.” “One?” asked Grandpa defiantly. “No!” they all cried with delight. “Two?” They simply laughed. “Three?” “You’re dumber than a jackass!” they screamed. “Four?” “None of your damn business,” they growled. He had obviously touched a sore spot, but it didn’t help him to know whether there were two, four, or a dozen. The only way he could ever get any sleep was to keep a vacuum cleaner running by his bed all night. He claimed the ghosts were loathe to come near it for fear of being sucked up and forced to spend eternity among old carpet dust and bits of shredded Kleenex.

Unfortunately, my grandmother shared the same fear and finally left him. I was the only one in the family who believed him, and he was committed to a home, where I believe he did very well until his death several months ago. In fact, I recently received a letter from him that stated, “I believe I did very well until my death several months ago.”

This being all the information I have on ghosts, I ask my readers to go now in peace, and may God be with you. Run! You must run and never stop running. Don’t look back over your shoulder unless you wish to know where you’ve been. Go on, scat. Boo!