[Editor's Note: This should have been published last week, but the editor forgot!]

Another Short Story by Elaine Carlson

"I just don't think this is a good idea," Sheila said.

I just wish she would stop talking. For days now she has been telling me something could go wrong. Or that it's not a good idea. Her negativity has been driving me crazy. It isn't as if I don't know there are risks. You just have to do everything in the most prudent fashion you can.

Last week I read the obituary for the mother so now there is no excuse to wait any longer. But first there is something I need to check out. Almost everything points to Robert for having done the bad deed but the name Darrel keeps popping up. It could be his nickname. Or his middle name. I wish I could look at his birth certificate. But maybe, just maybe, he didn't kill her.

But it certainly wouldn't be a good idea to go to the Court House. Going there and signing out Robert Robinson's birth certificate would in all likelihood be a red flag. And I don't want to be raising any red flags. Instead I head to the library. A lot of people will see me but so what. I go there so often I really doubt there will be anyone able to put two and two together.

Some time ago I learned that our local newspaper ran an article with a picture of the Robinson family when they bought the creamery. It doesn't take me long to get to the Magazine and Newspaper Annex but it took me several hours to find the article.

Finally I saw it --- and the picture of the Mr. and Mrs. with their six children. Maybe they didn't feel like having a family of the Seven Dwarfs so they didn't go on to have another kid. The captioning identifies the kid on the end as Darrel. I guess he was eight or nine. Now I know Robert, who when he was young was called Darrel, was the person who killed Sheila's little sister. Now I just got to get him.

I was glad Sheila wasn't there when I get back. She went to spend the night with her boyfriend. For me it was a quiet evening. I had dinner and finished the novel I had been reading. This morning I woke up early.

All kinds of thoughts were going through my head when I pulled out the gun from under my bed. I took it out of its box and put it into a tote bag with a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels. I know he takes the morning commuter bus to the city. For about the ten-thousandth time this week I take out and look at the bus schedule --- those buses start at ten minutes before six. He gets the first one.

Robert, I sure don't want to refer to him as Mr. Robinson, is quite the exercise freak. He doesn't take a local bus to the terminal but gets there by walking. He first makes his way to the lake and then follows the walkway on the lakefront.

So now I am here. Last night I had ambitious plans. I was going to leave this morning at four o'clock so I would get here in plenty of time to set things up. I have followed Robert before and know he gets to the half way point on the other side of the lake between ten and fifteen minutes after five o'clock. But now it is a quarter to five.

Now is not the time to fret. I take the binoculars out of the glove compartment. I get out of the car and do a complete scan of the lake. The first thing I notice is a squad car stopped in front of the start of the walking path. Just one cop is standing beside the car.

In the other direction way past the half way point I see two joggers standing at the side of the road. At least they look like joggers but something is just a bit off about the scene. As if they are good friends who just happened to meet and want to stop and have a nice chat. So they are cops. Or maybe private security --- I know there are some pretty wealthy people living in the high rise back of them.

I need to stop worrying. I put the binoculars back. I look all around the car. I realize I want a combination of the impossible --- I don't want to be the only person in the area which would make the cops want to focus on me. But the more people out means a bigger chance I could be seen. It would be devastating this afternoon to find out someone was watching me the whole time I was here.

I put the tote bag on the top of the car and pull out the gun. Robert is just before that half way point. But what is really nice is that he is all by himself. I aim the gun. I count down from ten and when I get to three I fire. I follow up with three more shots. He falls down.

I shove the binoculars into the tote bag. I pick up the gun and spray the Windex all around it almost to the point of saturation. I tear off several sections of the paper towels and completely wipe the gun. I carefully pick it up with another piece of towel and put it into the bag.

I put the bag under the passenger seat and I am sure to push it way back out of sight. I turn on the radio and start the car. I know I have to get away from here and everything in my body wants to speed as fast as the car car can go. But I know I have to proceed slowly. I drive out to the street as slow as I have ever driven. On the road I accelerate to five miles below the speed limit. It doesn't take me long to get to the parking lot in front of the large grocery store outside of town. I enter and go up to the front.

"A sniper fired four shots at a pedestrian on Lake Bennett this morning," someone on the radio said, "Authorities are not going to release any information until the next of kin have been notified."

So far everything is going okay. But I don't know how long it will be until I know if I am in the clear. I remember watching "Dial M For Murder" and a lot of crime TV shows. I am all too aware that many crimes get solved just because the perpetrators (I like the word perps better) make one simple mistake. I hope that I didn't do, or forget to do, one simple thing so that everything will go kapfoo on me.

Sheila is the only one who knows I killed Robert. I am doing this for her so I don't expect her to rat me out. The gun is her brother's and just in case when I get back home I am going to put it in the bottom of her closet. How will she explain that if the police execute a search warrant on our place? But I don't know. If she does turn me in (and I don't think that is likely) the one detail that could possibly cause my down fall would be if she can prove she wasn't in town an hour ago.