The Perfect Murder

The Perfect Murder

         Lifting his face, the judge peered over his glasses and said, “Twenty-five years fixed, ten years indeterminate. You are remanded over to the state correctional department forthwith. Next case.”
         Julie sat chained within the prison bus thinking as it rocked its way across the empty dessert. Murder; they’d set it up so perfectly. She hadn’t seen it until Don kissed her now ex-friend and lawyer Joan, at the sentencing.
         Don took her shooting that morning; her prints were on the shell casings at the scene. She fell asleep. Right after Joan left her house that afternoon. Then the text messages that were on her phone, which she never understood and couldn’t explain till now. All the evidence pointed to her. His alleged affair with his partner and the windfall that they would gain with her out of the way was all pointed out during the trial.
         His alibi was air tight; he was with Joan at her office at the time of the murder. They testified they were discussing how to help Julie out of her deepening paranoia and depression. Julie was a desperate wife clinging irrationally to her husband, the prosecution stated in closing arguments. The jury had believed it, though all evidence was circumstantial and hearsay.
         Julie closed her glistening eyes, her head leaning against the window as the bus rocked its way further into the hot, lonely desert.  She pictured Joan kissing Don, and then turn smile and wink at her as the bailiff led her away. "I am so naïve, I should have never trusted you”, she mumbled between silent sobs.
         Suddenly, she sat upright, clenched her teeth and said, “This is not over, Sister! Not by a long shot!”  Now Julie had plenty of time to plan how to reveal the truth of things.


Prompt: I should have never trusted you
Word Count: 299