It seems she too had reached that hiatus, but rather than ride out this quiet time she decided to fill in the gap. It was after the unexpected and unexplained deaths of my father’s two younger sisters that the family decided Aunt Sadie must be quickly and quietly put away, both for her own good and their own safety.
The memory was painful for my father, and it was with the greatest reluctance he’d admitted that Aunt Sadie was still alive and gave me the address of the institution that was now her home.
I thought it my duty to pay her a family visit. That visit was an important event in my life and many more followed. Aunt Sadie herself was the sprightly little woman I had remembered, and I soon fell in love with Sunnyvale, her new home.
It was warm and homey, the inmates living in small cottages rather than the sterile institutional buildings I had expected. The grounds were extensive and well cared for. The staff was admirable in their attention to and attitude toward the inhabitants. Because this was a home for the hopelessly insane, no annoying interrupting attempts were made at therapy or cure.
The cost of all this comfort was so modest that my small income would cover it nicely. I decided it was the ideal place for me in my retirement. The only problem was that in order to be committed to a home for the hopelessly insane one needs to be hopelessly insane, but I knew I could take care of that detail when the time came.
Now, it seemed, was that time.
To carry out my plan I needed a confederate. I had chosen my youngest brother, George, for this role. George had always seemed more intelligent than the others, and he most closely resembled my father in delicacy of family feeling. A few hints, once I had put my plan into action, a subtle mention of Sunnyvale, and he would see to my quiet and dignified commitment.
I chose my brother Harold for my first victim. (Jack’s wife still needed him, having never completely recovered from the death of their son.) Harold was a weekly visitor, more for the attraction of my liquor cabinet than for any interest in my conversation. His wife kept all spirits under lock and key at home. Also, Harold had a heart condition, and a maiden aunt picks up a certain amount of medical knowledge through the years. Once he’d passed out in my living room it was no problem at all giving him the injection that sped him out of this life. Our family doctor wrote out the death certificate without a blink.
My sister Julie was the next most expendable. I waited only two weeks before I lured her to the house on the pretext of trying out a new dessert. She spent most of her waking hours eating chocolates and watching soap operas and game shows. I wasn’t even sure her husband would notice she was gone. I chose a quick push down the stairs for her and the death was recorded as accidental — indeed, in view of her massive girth, almost inevitable.
At Julie’s funeral I drew George aside and dropped a hint.
“I feel so guilty about this. I feel I’m responsible for poor Julie and Harold.”
“Nonsense,” George snorted. “Why should you feel responsible?”
“Well, after all, they were both at my house when they died.”
I went home and waited in vain for George to become suspicious. I had just decided that he was not as intelligent as I had thought and had selected Jack as my next victim — his wife would just have to learn to get along without him — when George called, pleading an urgent need to talk to me.
When I opened the door I noticed at once that George looked years older, very grey, and drawn at the mouth.
“I had to talk to you, Belle,” he said. “No one knows I’m here; I haven’t even told Beatrice yet. I don’t want to upset her.”
I had to stifle a laugh. George’s wife, Beatrice, was about as flappable as a sheet of solid steel, but maybe the knowledge that her sister-in-law was a mass murderer would disturb even her equanimity.
I showed George in and poured him a glass of wine, the Concord grape that I kept as fitting to the image of a maiden aunt. He drained it at one gulp.
“I want to talk to you about Harold and Julie,” he said when I had refilled his glass and we were settled comfortably before the fireplace. “Their deaths have started me thinking.”
“I know what you’re thinking, George, and I’ll spare you the distaste of saying it. You’re right. I did it.”
He looked startled and leaned forward in his chair.
“Did what, Belle?”
“I killed them.” The look on his face made me pause. “Isn’t that what you thought? Why you wanted to talk to me?”
“Not at all,” he sputtered, searching for words. “Now, Belle, I know what you’re feeling. We were all shocked by their deaths. It brings it home to all of us that we aren’t getting any younger. We all feel a little guilty too, but that’s only natural, not because we think we’re responsible but because we can’t help feeling a little twinge of relief that it was them and not us. But you mustn’t start blaming yourself.”
God save me from amateur psychologists. George was smarter than the rest, but as the poet said, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” I saw I was going to have to spell it out for him. I told him in brutal detail how I had pushed Julie down the stairs and how I had helped Harold to his end.
“Jack was to be the next one,” I said. “Just a little arsenic — the kind you can find lying around any house — in his wine.” I gave a significant nod at the empty wine glass in George’s hand.
George dropped the wine glass and staggered to his feet, his face even greyer, his lips turning blue. He clutched wildly at his chest.
“Take it easy, George — there was nothing in your wine,” I said. “I wouldn’t do anything to you. I need your help!”
Gurgling, George staggered across the room, tripped over the coffee table, and hit his head a nasty crack on the fireplace as he fell.
I rushed over to him just in time to hear him say, “Not poison. Heart.” I felt around for a pulse, listened for a heartbeat, but George was gone forever.
So it was not suspicion that had caused the change in him but worry about his heart. That was what he had wanted to tell me, and I had got him excited enough to bring on the attack he feared.
I was devastated by this abrupt end to my well laid plans, but I managed to pull myself together. I couldn’t leave him lying there. And someone would have to tell Beatrice.
I had actually reached for the phone before my good sense returned and I realized George might still be put to some use.
The room was already in a mess, thanks to George’s dying struggle. I just added a few more touches and it was ready. I took the poker from the fireplace and used it to enlarge the wound on his head, getting plenty of blood on one end and my fingerprints on the other. Then I called the police and turned myself in.
In the normal course of things, if three sudden and suspicious, not to mention violent, deaths occur in a short time in the same place, with only one other person present each time, and that person confesses to all three murders, the police arrest that person for murder. Then a smart lawyer pleads his client innocent for reasons of insanity, the judge and jury agree, and the guilty person is committed to, if not Sunnyvale itself, someplace quite like it. At least, so I thought.
Unfortunately, the County Coroner also happened to be our family doctor. He had already signed the first two death certificates, was fully aware of George’s heart condition, and quickly ruled out the head injury as the cause of death. The Chief of Detectives was a college graduate who had at sometime in his life wandered into a psychology class and thought he had learned something. My confession was brushed aside as the illogic of overwhelming grief; I was sedated and handed over to the care of my family.