Katharine watched the new neighbor unpack her car and carry boxes into the apartment adjoining hers and Ken's. That her husband, Ken, had offered to help the attractive blonde neighbor did not bother Katharine at all. Because Katharine knew that by this time next week Ken would be dead.

    Of course Katharine also knew that the "new" neighbor had been Ken's lover for more than six months, and that their scheme to move her into the apartment complex was just a way to allow them to be together without arousing Katharine's suspicions.

    How stupid did Ken think she was, she wondered? Pretty stupid, obviously. And pretty obliging, if she would let them get away with that.

    Of course, she thought with a gleam in her eye, it wasn't as if she hadn't gotten her revenge against Ken's infidelity. After all, hadn't she taken up with Max, the maintenance man, soon after she had discovered Ken's affair? Max was young, strong, good-looking, and wanted to marry her.

    That was why she had to kill Ken. He would never divorce her, because he would not want to give up half of the $100,000 lottery winnings they received every year. It was the same reason she would not divorce him. The divorce laws of the state divided property equally and she would kill him before she'd let him walk away from her with half of that money.

    Max did not know about her lottery winnings, so she knew Max must love her when he begged her to leave her husband and marry him.

    So she had devised a way to ensure that she got both Max and all of the money. It was simple, really. Ken would drown in a tragic swimming pool accident. He would be found after an evening swim in the apartment complex pool. Dozens of people could testify that he took a late-night swim every night. Someone would find him the next morning, and no one would be the wiser.

    If anyone saw her out, they would report that, as usual, she took a late-night walk on the apartment complex jogging track, weights attached to her legs and arms to increase the aerobic benefit of the walk.

    For several months she had been increasing the weights so that she could now bring her total body weight including the weights to more than Ken's slight 140 pounds. She would slip into the water, cozy up to him under pretense of wanting to initiate sex, and hold him under the water. He had smoked for the entire 20 years of their marriage, so she knew his lung power must be weak.

    It was perfect. She had picked the next Sunday night as the night. Most people went to bed early Sundays and it was unlikely anyone else would walk by the pool. She had made a point of stopping to talk to Ken during his swim and had observed that passersby were extremely rare.

    That night he barely noticed her presence as she appeared silently by the pool. No surprise, as they spoke infrequently these days. He gave her a puzzled glance as she slipped into the water, stepping down the steps to stand in waist-high water as he swam back and forth past her. Finally he finished his last lap, puffing from the exertion, and walked over to where she stood.

    She made small talk as she pretended that she was friendly with him, standing closer and closer until she could reach around him with her leg and suddenly pull his legs out from under him by catching him just at the back of the knees and forcing him off balance. He fell backward and she was able to get her body weight on top of his to provide the leverage she needed to hold him to the bottom of the pool.

    He struggled, pulling at the leg she planted as firmly as possible on his neck, reaching in vain for the other leg planted just as firmly on his lower hips. She wobbled and almost lost her balance several times as he fought. But his fighting was, in the end, what did him in. Had he been calmer, holding his breath, using his brain to figure a way to get her off of him, he might have been able to do it. She wasn't able to plant herself that steadily on him because she was, after all, in water. And she wasn't that much heavier than he, even with the weights. But as usual, she realized, he thought not with his brain but with his body and it betrayed him. The fighting caused him to run out of breath much sooner than he might have, and the exertion caused him to gasp for breath -- a deadly mistake in even three feet of water. She watched as he realized he could not get air in his lungs, could never again get air in his lungs, and, finally, at long last, passed out from the lack of oxygen. She waited an extra minute to make sure, then looked carefully around to ensure there was no one in the vicinity.

    She walked out of the pool slowly so as not to attract any attention. Then, just in case, she turned to the pool and said quietly to the open-eyed figure staring at nothing, "I'll see you at home later, dear."

    It all worked perfectly. No one had seen her there and although she later told the police she had taken a walk and had passed the pool, they did not seem to think anything about it. After all, didn't she do that every night?

    The funeral was just as sad as it should have been and she was relieved that the next-door neighbor had the sense not to show up. No need to give anyone the idea their marriage was less than ideal. She hadn't seen much of the neighbor recently, but then she really hadn't looked.

    What she really wanted was to see Max, and as soon as it was safe -- several weeks after the funeral -- she walked over to his studio apartment on the rear side of the complex. She had not been here since before she had killed Ken, and Max had wisely kept away from her. If he knew she had killed Ken, he had not said anything. She approached his apartment and saw that his car was in the parking lot. There was only one room with a studio couch on the back wall and she assumed he would be asleep on it. She crept past the draped front window and around to the smaller window by his bed that he liked to keep open to allow a view of the night sky as he made love.

    A soft light flickered from inside and it took her a minute to adjust her eyes so that she could see the moving figures in the candlelight. The woman's blonde hair covered Max's face but there was no doubt in Katharine's mind who the couple was. Max and her next door neighbor. The blonde brought here by her husband Ken. Pain cut through her body as she backed away from the window and returned to her own apartment.

    It hurt, but somehow the thought of all that money for her very own now kept it from hurting too much. After all, $100,000 a year could buy a lot of Maxes.

    The next day she called her attorney.

    "Mrs. Riley, I've been meaning to call you. Even though Ken's will was fairly simple and he left everything to you, there is one matter we have to discuss."

    "I thought so, too, Mr. Trippe. I just wondered what I need to do to have the lottery check cut in my own name instead of Ken's."

    "Well, that's the thing, Mrs. Riley. I checked with the state lottery commission to verify this, just to be sure and, well, there will be no more checks."

    "What do you mean?"

    "Mrs. Riley. I know this is not good news. The thing is, your husband claimed that lottery money alone. Even though the two of you shared the money. If you had claimed it together, as joint owners of the ticket, you would still get your half. But you see, this state does not continue lottery payments after the death of the winner. They do not become part of the estate. Once the winner dies, their share is no longer paid. So if you had claimed the ticket alone, you would now be getting all of the money. But since your husband claimed it, you will not receive his check. Do you understand?"

    Katharine placed the phone gently in the cradle, her mind thinking back to the day she had bought that lottery ticket and the day she had discovered she was a winner.

    "Make yourself useful, Ken, " she had said. "Do something for once in your lazy life. Go down and claim this ticket and come back and let me know how soon we start getting that lovely money."

    "Yes, dear," he had replied. "Anything you say."

Contact the Author -CaroCain@aol.com