Murder. Anatomy of a murder part III

Oh the price we have paid for our actions. What we did, we did because we thought we were right and would save the family from torture. Perhaps the damage was already done and all we succeeded in doing was trading one pain for another. Our victory saved no one. We all paid dearly. Right or wrong? We did what we had to do. We roared up the street to the end of the cul du sac ready to rush the house. We had decided on a blitz into the house. No words. No negotiations. We were stunned to see his car gone. Shit he was home an hour ago. My mind pondered if this was a sign from God. I had been waiting for some sign to warn us of the folly of our ways. Ern and I were both deep in thought when our sign came up to our window. Berta’s neighbor came up to my window and looked at us sitting there with weapons in our laps. She was a county sheriff who was in uniform about to go to work when we came to our screeching halt. She told us Tony had left about 20 minutes ago. She looked at us for a little long time and shook her head and told us next time don’t make so much noise. She also told us she wouldn’t be back for 14 hours and the other house on the cul du sac was empty. "just be quiet and get rid of the body. I didn’t see anything today." She drove off leaving us with mouths agape. We knew he wasn’t coming back anytime soon so we decided to go in the house and see what we could find. And thus our lives changed. The abuse? We found blood on the kitchen floor, in the sink. No food in the refrigerator for the youngest daughter to eat. In the bedroom we found a movie camera and a tape that I still can’t get out of my head. Please let this monster come home now, PLEASE. I would have relished torturing the son of a bitch at this point. We tossed the place expecting to find drugs. We didn’t but what we found was good enough. We found a hidden drawer full of stolen passports, social security cards, birth certificates and credit cards. We found immigration applications with false names to go with the pictures of strangers. "Hey look My girlfriend D. is from Ethiopia and wants to come to America. Boy won’t she be surprised." We found my stolen shotgun in the ceiling along with more stolen documents. Bingo. Between the sex tapes and identification fraud evidence we realized we didn’t have to murder this stupid ass after all. He was going to jail. We boxed up two crates of documents and the foul tapes to turn over to the police who in turn gave them to the F.B.I. who shared them with Immigration. We were ready to leave and felt confident Tony was done but we felt frustrated by not personally reaping vengeance. It was then Ern stepped up. Bless you Ern where ever you may be in the Diaspora we created that day. Ern wanted to scare Tony as bad as he terrorized us. Ern had a plan. In his theatrical studies he had learned how to make fantastically real looking blood and set about to make a gallon of the ghastly stuff which he then used as paint in a Mansonesque display of wall painting of Ibo evil signs which he had learned in his African/ metaphysics studies. You really can’t underestimate the benefits of a good education. Tony called late that night incoherent with fear. He fled the house as soon as he saw the bloody symbols on the walls and never realized we had seized his stolen goods. He was arrested soon afterwards and sent to a federal prison for four years before being deported back to Nigeria. Berta never forgave us. She holds me in contempt to this day. It took years for her to reconcile with her daughters and the whole affair seemed to poison us all. D. broke up with me. Prin divorced Ern. Everyone paid for my decision to destroy the man. I have no regrets other than having to make such a harsh choice. Sometimes our options bring us no peace but are necessary none the less.