The Confession
by Leon Altman

She waited by the elevator, gazed at the red-headed man that stared at her, patted her white pocketbook, turned away quickly. She ran her hand through her long blond hair, watched as the elevator door opened, then stepped inside. That man likes the way I look in my leather skirt, she thought. 
She rode the elevator to the garage, watched as the doors opened. She walked out, gazed at her white camaro, smiled. In a few more months, Byron is going to ask me to marry him, she reflected. Sure, he’s twice my age but so was Frank. And Bryon has more money that Frank.
She took her car keys out of her pocketbook, drew closer to her car, heard a sound a few feet away from her, but decided to ignore it. She walked faster, felt a hand wrap around her waist. She tried to scream, but stopped, saw the gun out of the corner of her eye, shuddered
"Well, if it isn't the little actress."
She recognized the voice, trembled. The voice was low, gravelly. He reeked of cigarette smoke. "Hello Carter," she whispered.
"Hello Donna. Now we’re going to continue to walk towards that Firebird that you bought with my brother’s money. I know it's your car. I saw you go into your office this morning. No screaming. Not even a cry for help. Or I’ll blow your head off."
"What do you want?" Her voice quavered.
"Just get in the car."
She ground her teeth, then put the key in the lock, opened the door. "Get in," he
whispered. "And remember; I've got my gun on you the whole time." She looked out rear window, watched as Carter came over to the other side. His hair was iron gray, his eyes were dark. He ran his thumbnail through his mustache, grinned. She reached over, pulled the button up, watched as Carter opened the door. He stepped inside and shut the door. "Now, start the car and let's get going."
She put the key in the ignition, heard the roar of the engine, then pulled onto Main Street. The clock by the bank flashed 7:08, then 88 degrees. She stopped at a red light, glared at Carter. "Where are we going?"
"Just drive. I'll tell you where to turn."
"What do you want?"
Carter took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, stuck one in his mouth. He lit it with a match, blew twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. Then he looked at her legs, smiled. "Well, you're still as beautiful as ever."
She looked straight ahead as the light turned green, started to drive again. She wiped a tear from her eye, passed several cars coming opposite her on the other side of the street.
"Nice car. Nice clothes. And I heard that you're going out with Byron Miller. He's supposed to be CEO of Brandford Industries. Tell me, how much does he know about you?"
She bit her lower lip, shivered. The last thing Bryon needed to know about was her marriage to Frank, Carter’s brother, she thought. She remembered signing the
marriage license as Donna Stewart, her maiden name. Not Donna Akerman. She never expected Carter to come out here to Detroit. It was miles away from Texas.
"Maybe I'll have a talk with him," he said.
She knew that Bryon would never leave her. He always called her his sex kitten. He was devoted to her. Like all the other men. They all loved her for looks. She’d had more dates than anyone in her high school. And women hated her because she was beautiful.
"Must be nice living off my brother’s money while being a real estate agent."
"Your brother left the money to me after he died." Her voice was clipped.
"Oh yeah. That's right. But why don't you say murdered? That's what really happened."
She drove under a tunnel, passed a police car.
"Come on. Say it. Say he was murdered."
"Okay. He was murdered."
"And you did it."
She heard the words, raised her eyebrows. "Carter, I told you, the police..."
"Ah come on, little actress, you know they didn't have enough evidence against you. But let's see. I was out with Carter and he was drunk. And boy, he was upset about his divorce. Kept telling me that he wanted you back. He really loved you. Wanted another chance. That’s why he never changed his will."
He turned on the radio, twisted the dial until a piano came on. "Frank always
loved jazz. And I know that you hated it."
-3-
She drove passed a baseball field, saw the pitcher throw the ball to the next batter. She tightened her fingers on the steering wheel and moistened her lips.
"Turn right at the next corner. And get on to the highway."
"Where are we going?"
"Just drive. Now let's continue. I call my brother the next morning and no one answers the phone. So I go over there and sure enough, there he is in the den, shot six times, blood all over the floor. Pouring out from his head." He nodded his head, stuck his cigarette in the ashtray.
"What do you want Carter?"
"I want a confession. I want you to admit that you went over to the house. Because he would have let you in. Because the cops said that no one forced their way in. That he was found near the door. And that he had to trust the person on the other end."
She gazed at Carter, noticed that his eyes moved towards her legs again. She shook her head and clenched her lips together. "Carter, this is getting ridiculous."
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" He rubbed his mustache with his forefinger, chewed the inside of his cheek. "Well, I know you did it. I know you had an affair with Doctor Norton. I mean, the man was married and you weren't even married six months." He chuckled, lit another cigarette. "Doesn't matter. You divorced Frank before the year was up anyway."
She turned on to the highway, then looked at her watch, saw that it was nearly 9:30.Then she gazed at the five cars ahead of her, threaded her way through them, put her foot to the pedal. "I'm not confessing to anything. I didn't kill Frank. You just couldn't handle the fact that he loved me. And that I loved him more than you."
He smiled at that statement, drew deeply on his cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke towards her."Don't flatter yourself."
"Why. You were always looking at me. And I told Frank you were always looking at me."
He shook his head somberly and pressed his lips together. "I know. That's your way of trying to turn him against his family so he would be on his own. And it worked well, didn't it? You had the wedding all by yourself. Just like the one in Kansas."
She arched her eyebrows, gripped the steering wheel even tighter. She wondered how much he knew about her.
"You thought you covered your tracks good, but I found a picture of you in Frank's trunk. It was taken with your mother and father in front of a house. I had it blown up and I saw that it was on Little Street in Kansas."
He blew a circle of smoke, nodded his head. "Yep. I went out there. Took a week off from work. Didn't take me long to find out that your real name was Dawn Gill, not Donna Hampton. How you were married for about five months to a bartender. But you dumped him. Or you thought you did."
"I don't understand what you mean."
"Well, you went out to Puerto Rico to get a quickie divorce. But you didn't get it on time. Instead, you were still married to that bartender while you were married to my
brother."
"It was Mexico you idiot..." She clicked her teeth together, stared straight ahead.
"Thank you. Now I know where you got it. I can go up there and get proof that your marriage was illegal. And when I appeal this, maybe I’ll get Carter's money back."
"You'll never win."
"We'll see. I’ll talk to Bryon Miller and bust up your relationship. Then you'll be in the poorhouse. Then you'll have to get a real job. Because you're one heartless bitch and you deserve that."
She spotted another police car by the side of the road, drove faster. She looked at her gauge and saw the needle was over 60 miles per hour.
"Go as fast as you want sweetheart. But know one thing. That when this is over, you'll be finished. And my brother won't be turning over in his grave anymore."
She rolled her tongue around her teeth, pressed the accelerator to the floor. She heard the sirens in the background, smiled.
"All right, now slow down." He pointed the gun at her, narrowed his eyes. .
"You want me to slow down. Okay. Here goes." She turned to the right, ran the car up the curb. She saw Carter’s head hit the top of the car, watched as his gun fell to the floor. Then she slammed on the brakes, put the gearshift in park, opened her pocketbook. She put her hand inside, brought out the gun, pointed it at Carter. "My lawyers will call it self defense. You're fingerprints are all over the other gun."
"Go to hell."
She fired six times, watched as each bullet hit him in the chest and the stomach.
"Well, at least I used a different gun when I killed your brother."
She looked at her rear view mirror, saw two policemen step out of their car. She put the gun on her seat, opened the door, and stepped out. Then she put her hands over her eyes, cried hysterically. "He came after me with a gun. Held it on me. Said that he was going to drive me down to the beach and rape me."
The policeman patted her on the shoulder, smiled. "It's okay now. He won’t be bothering you again. "You wanna look inside Johnny?" the officer said over his shoulder. She took her hands away from her eyes, gazed at the officer with blond hair, hugged him.
The second officer walked over to the passenger side of the car and looked inside. "This man is dead. Looks like you shot at least six times." He looked at Donna, raised an eyebrow. "You have a license for your gun?"
"Of course I do. My fiancé bought it for me," Donna answered.
"Why did you have to shoot him six times?" the officer with the blond hair wanted to know.
She put her hands on her hips, formed the letter "o" with her lips. "Because he was going to shoot me. I was scared. He had a gun."
"And where was your gun?" the second officer asked.
"In my pocketbook. I took it out once we were on the curb."
The second officer stuck his head in the car, saw Carter’s gun on the floor. "And he dropped his gun after you shot him?"
"Yes."
"Take it easy Johnny," the blond haired officer said. "The woman’s been through a lot already."
Johnny wiped the perspiration from his forehead, glanced at the bulge in Carter’s breast pocket. "Hold up a second." He ran back to the car, opened the door, came back with a pair of latex gloves and a zip-loc plastic bag.
"What is he doing?" Donna asked the blond haired officer.
"Just relax ma’am." 
"No. I want to know what he’s doing."
Johnny put the latex gloves on, stuck his hand in the man’s pocket, came out with a tape recorder. "Look what I found. And it’s still running."
Donna looked at the tape recorder, felt her body go limp.
Johnny dropped the tape recorder in the plastic bag, then sealed it. "I think we better take a drive downtown. Maybe we can all listen to the recording."
"I’m not saying another word until I call my lawyer," Donna replied nervously.

Leon Altman tells us, "I live in Forest Hills, NY, and I'm an account executive at a news retrieval service. This is my first story and I'm very proud to be in your publication."