Bingo's Boys - The shocking conclusion

The next morning Buster and I met in his office. It turned out Ramona’s three mil had grown to about eight, mostly stocks and money market but with one small Reno apartment building, paid for and worth a couple of mil. Her will left everything equally to the two kids, Annette and Chopper. They had both been notified of their mother’s death. Both said they had keys to her place. Annette claimed she had not seen her mother in two years, that there had been a falling out over some personal effects from Annette’s grandmother.

Chopper, on the other hand, was in pretty close touch with Ramona. He saw her twice a week or so and, because of his proximity, knew about the will. Chopper was of course the main suspect in the case and, as it turned out, the only one.

I went back to the murder scene on Monday afternoon with a crime-scene guy we borrowed from the Vegas PD. With all the CSI stuff on TV now, there is more of this kind of thing going on. We found absolutely nothing. No sign of forced entry, and no sign of any struggle. The place was so neat you could make the bed and put it up for rent. No sign of a crime except for a dead lady, since removed.

Chopper had a fairly tight alibi; he had been playing poker with five friends at a small off-strip club from midnight until about five A.M. on the night in question. The friends were about as reputable as Chopper himself, but we had no evidence at all in the other direction.

We kept the case open for six months or so, then just closed it unsolved. This happens more than you might think, especially in Nevada. Ramona’s estate cleared; Chopper got the Condo and other real estate since he had the connections to handle it, and a couple million in cash. Annette got her four mil in stocks and cash, and also came into a five-year-old Buick Special with three thousand miles on the ODO.

As far as I know, only two people ever knew who did the crime. One is Annette, who planned the deed and is now my wife. The other is me. I did the actual shooting. We live modestly in Seattle.

Annette is kind of nervous about Chopper’s four million, and she is working on a plan to take him down. As for me, I must admit that my wife seems a little cold-hearted at times.

She just laughs and explains it like this: “Hey, you want to make an omelet, you got to break some eggs.”

Did I hear that in a movie somewhere?