They've found Yani, under the floorboards

Those words caught me freeze frame. The game was up.

In her grief, my ex-girlfriend Brit had loved that dog too much. Typical girl.

I had inhaled Brit's last words from her mouth. It was sweet. I'll say that for her, my ex-love. She was always fresh and fragrant. In the way that some people are.

Scandinavian. Norwegian, to be exact. Alpine.

It was planned. I can't even remember why, just that it had been a typical exercise in Ruby Barnes attention to detail. The kicked-to-death dog, buried. The objecting, strangulated ex-girlfriend, buried with the dog. A few keepsakes, everything free of trace DNA. But, when I heard that they'd found Yani, something transpired that I hadn't exactly planned for.

Guilt.

No DNA or other modern TV methodology could entrap me. I'd made very sure of that. Encased in the concrete floor of a new apartment. A beautiful Danish woman, mid-thirties. Her toy poodle, aged whatever. Personal accoutrements in a time capsule. What I didn't account for was the guilt.

'They've found Yani,' my wife said.

The urge to confess was like a regurgitated breakfast.

How could I withstand the inevitable police interrogation?

My wife needed only to ask the questions:

Did you murder Brit and her dog? I knew you were having an affair but why did you kill her? And why the hell did you kill her pet dog? You bastard.

She had no idea how annoying a spoilt pet dog could be. Or a mistress who had, as friend and confidante, a spoilt pet dog.

And then the police. A perfectly planned murder with no trace evidence, except human guilt. I don't need to imagine Gene Hackman, Robert De Niro and pals, twisting the evidence. I am the piggy, waiting to squeal.

The moral of the story is that the planning of murder is not the weakest link. When you kill, carefully cleanse, formally lay to rest and move on, your psyche must follow suit.

I knew that the finding of Yani meant that they would find Brit in the next forty-eight hours. I knew that my wife's mention of Yani would lead to an inquisition that I could not withstand. Then a police investigation to follow. I was untrained in facial and body language denial.

It took me three hours to extricate myself from this dream sequence, after waking.

While I struggled with reality, my family faced a real life challenge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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