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Fatal Friendship by Guy Belleranti
Larry Stoddard paced back and forth across the concrete floor of his jail cell, throwing sentences over his shoulder in a shaky whisper. "You can't be here any longer, Jerry. You gotta get out...gotta leave."
"Not till I'm ready. Not till we're finished."
"We are finished."
"Wrong. We'll be finished when I say, not before."
"But––"
"Quit sniveling!"
"Shh. Someone will hear you."
"So. Think I care."
"Jerry––"
"Bet you've told them all about me, eh? Bet you put the killing all on me."
"No. I didn't. Wouldn't ever."
"You're a damn liar."
"No. I didn't say anything. I––"
"I should've known I could never trust you."
"Please, Jerry––"
"Please, Jerry," Jerry mimicked. He spat. "You're gutless. A loser. Larry is a loser. Larry is a loser."
Larry buried his head in his arms, pressed his hands over his ears, but Jerry's words kept pummeling him. "Loser. Loser. Loser."
"Stop. Please––"
"Couldn't hold down a job so you slunk back to the nest. Back to Mommy."
"You...you didn't have to kill her."
"You heard her. She thought you were crazy."
"She didn't. She only said she thought I should see a doctor...wanted me to get help."
"Help? You fool. She wanted to have you locked away. That's what she wanted."
"No! That's not true."
"Is so. She wanted you locked up forever. Like an animal in a cage."
"There had to be some other way, Jerry. There had to be."
"You weakling. I should have done you right after the old bag. Before you could start blabbing my name about."
"I haven't. I won't."
"That's right. You won't. Not anymore."
"What do you mean? What are you doing? What––" Larry let out a strangled scream, then Jerry had him by the throat.
* * *
Sheriff Walters tore his glance away from the twisted figure on the cell's floor, and ran a hand through his graying hair. "Kelly and I heard the commotion, but by the time we got in here...."
"It's not your fault, Sheriff," Doc Garcia said. "No one could have seen this coming."
Walters scowled and shook his head. "We had Stoddard dead to rights as his mother's killer. Scratch marks on his face, his skin under her nails. Yet, he kept insisting somebody named Jerry had done it. We checked around town, but, of course, no one ever heard of the guy."
Deputy Kelly stuck his head in from the front room. "Sheriff, Kathy Fernandez from the Gazette is here. And Paulson from the radio station. What do I tell them?"
"Give each of them a cup of coffee. I'll be right out." Walters swung back on the doctor. "So Doc, what do we tell them? Murder or suicide?"
Doc Garcia stared down once more at the bizarre scene, at Larry Stoddard's lifeless form on the jail cell floor, at the man's hands fastened on his own neck in a death grip. "I guess murder––by his own hands."
THE END Guy Belleranti © 2007 |
Guy Belleranti writes
fiction, nonfiction, poetry, puzzles and humor for both adults and children from
his home in southern Arizona. A few of the places his work has appeared include
Woman’s World, The Eternal Night, Futures Mysterious Anthology and the LA Times
Kids’ Reading Room. A number of his short stories are also available at
Fictionwise.com. His homepage on the web is: