Shortfall Of Green

David Crowley, a well-regarded capitalist, had been residing in the suburbs of Bell town, Seattle with his wife Leslie Crowley for over 5 years. Garnering a load of money over the years hadn't changed David's gratitude even by a bit, he makes everyone feel their worth and shows humility. Even though his speech faltered at times when he spoke, he was a respected fellow. People thought of him as someone who would never brawl with someone else, but it was only in David's own heart that he truly knew that if anyone would either hurt his family or steal from him, he would hunt them down and kill them with their flesh peeled off their skin in the most gruesome way, regardless of their identity. David loved his wife with all his heart, more than any luxury of the world, and in return expected the same treatment from the other side as well.

A year was about to pass by since the new neighbours of David — Eric and Laurie Forman had moved into their newly built home adjacent to David's house. David was as usual his sweet self in front of the Forman couple and soon enough, David and Leslie had developed a cordial relationship with the couple. On a random particular day, David was enclosing $10 million in a password locker and after having to secure the amount, he headed straight towards his bedside and suddenly noticed someone stalking on him with binoculars from the opposite side — the Forman residence. The moment when David was about to identify the person across the street with binoculars, the person imposed curtains as barriers to vein himself from David. It seemed to him like Eric was the one spying on him. Though Eric and his wife were trusted friends of David by now, he was beginning to have a sceptical feeling of his relations with the couple next door. About ten minutes later, David went for a short walk outside his home. On his way down the street, he came in contact with Eric, who was prepping with his ten-year-old nephew for a two-day wildlife viewing trip to Katmai National park, Alaska. While he was having a conversation with Eric, he noticed that Eric wasn't hesitant at all, like he hadn't been just nearly caught red-handed. After the conversation had ended, David started to believe that the couple had been spying on him for some reason.

Five days later on 29th January, the Forman couple hosted their one-year anniversary for the whole neighbourhood. Almost every member of the society was present at the party, excluding five people; one of which was Leslie. David, unlike himself, was late by 15 minutes to the party and upon being asked about Leslie, he told everyone that she had a high fever and was at home, having some rest. David had seen Laurie at the party early on when he had just arrived and afterwards, he couldn't find Laurie attending her own party. As he confronted Eric and tossed the question, he was told that an emergency had come at the Hospital, and she had to rush in abruptly. David wasn't satisfied with the answer, he still seemed to have his own doubts. 

Later that evening, David's maid came by at her fixed time, as usual, and got started to get her household chores done. As she entered David's bedroom, she was left taken aback by shock and fear that she started to scream for help. About fifteen minutes later, David's brother — Matthew, called him and told him to reach his place as soon as he can. As he stepped out of the front door of the Forman residence, he witnessed two cop cars and a paramedics van standing outside his residence. With a load of questions stumbling in his brain, David rushed himself to his bedroom and his pulse nearly dropped completely as he saw his wife hung over the bedroom fan. The paramedic's team got hold of Leslie's corpse and covered it up. Meanwhile, police had their own interrogation prepared for David at this moment. He was questioned regarding Leslie's mental state in the past few days and about his relations with her as well. While he was being questioned by one police officer, the other one interrupted to notify David about the opened password locker. As soon as heard about his money being stolen, a pile of incidents popped in his head, from being spied upon to no sign of Laurie at the party. He refused to believe that his wife had committed suicide, he asked the investigators about the use of any other weapon that could have killed Leslie. In return, he was told that the corpse had no marks of any physical abuse, unless if the thief might've had broken her neck and then hung her. The officer further added that the post-mortem report could only reveal if she was given poison or any other such substance. 

David was busy answering all the questions of the interrogator upstairs, in his bedroom. Whereas, Matthew and the other town neighbours were waiting downstairs for him and to provide him strength with their condolences and support. In about five minutes, David was free to meet the crowd downstairs. As he headed downstairs, he saw Laurie arrive and stand next to Eric, who was already present within the crowd. Until the next twenty minutes, every fellow in their neighbourhood came by to cheer him. By 11:50 pm, David was still awake, sobbing over his loss with a cigar, alone in the dark. David was seated downstairs in the lobby when he heard the front door of the house crackle. On hearing the sound, David stood up and headed straight towards the front door. As he approached the front door, he saw Laurie headed on her way upstairs without noticing his presence. He didn't interrupt her and began to follow her, trying not to alarm her. David noticed that she was headed to his bedroom. He spied on her as she entered his room and wandered around. Eventually, when Laurie was about to leave the room, he showed himself and acted as if he wasn't aware of her presence. She told him that she thought that he probably would not have eaten anything by now, so she had brought him some fried chicken. Though it was a sweet gesture from Laurie's end, it was enough for him to get a sense of her real motives. It was nearly five minutes that David talked to her and as she left, he drew a notepad from his jacket's pocket and wrote off something on it.

Around eight days had passed since the incident occurred, and it seemed that David was trying to move on from the incident and start afresh, since then. Post- mortem reports which came in said that Leslie had committed suicide and police was still on run to find the stolen money. The next day, David invited over the Forman couple to dinner at his residence. He told them that he wanted to express his gratitude towards them in his time of distress. The next day, by 9:00 pm, Eric and Laurie were standing at David's doorstep. David soon reached the door and showered his hospitality over them, starting with red wine and followed by venison and salmon, over the dinner table. Until fifteen minutes later, the couple abruptly dropped their heads asleep on the table. 

When the couple came to their senses, they found themselves to be strapped to a wooden chair with a cloth in their mouth, their hands and legs tied tight with a rope and their eyes cornered by a blindfold. As he saw them both wake up, David removed their blindfolds and started to talk. He told them about all the incidents which made him lose his confidence in the couple and led him to believe that they both had plotted to steal from him and killed his wife when she found out about their plan. David didn't believe the post-mortem reports as he himself had seen various evidence. He removed the cloth from Eric's mouth and asked him about the binoculars incident, to which he responded that his nephew was playing with those binoculars. Likewise, he tried to assure David that they had no intention whatsoever to steal from him and had no relation to Leslie's death. David rolled-up cloth in Eric's mouth again, without reacting to him revolting about it. He told them that he had a magic trick for both of them. He brought a medium-sized aquarium with a black cloth covering it, in front of them and tucked back Eric's blindfold. Not only that, but he removed the black cloth over the aquarium and removed Laurie's blindfold. Laurie tried to scream as much as she could with cloth in her mouth to alert Eric. David glanced at Laurie and asked her to stay quiet and pay attention to the trick. He got behind Eric's chair and flipped it, with Eric's head, into the water covered with Red-Bellied Piranhas. In a feeding frenzy, they fed themselves on Eric's face in under five minutes. David drew his face from the water and showed it to Laurie, exclaiming exact words, "full face before the dip in the water, now under five minutes whole face is gone." 

He proposed to Laurie a question about the night when she went to his bedroom to find any remaining evidence and brought food along with her as an excuse. Laurie was unaware of the whole incident, she denied bringing him any food and until after another five minutes, Laurie was also a victim of the same trick. About 11:00 pm of the same night, David buried their corpses in his backyard and told all the neighbours by the end of the next day that the couple had gone on a holiday to Paris. While on a random day, David was lighting his cigar, he felt difficulty breathing at all and had to call himself an ambulance. He was diagnosed with a severe case of Chronic Bronchitis. Doctors told Matthew, that David only had a maximum of one month to live for. Besides his bedside, Matthew found a notepad that belonged to David. In the notepad, he had written details about his day-to-day life. As Matthew flipped through the pages, he found one page about the stolen money incident, which read “Money in danger. Buried in the backyard.” 

As he read the line, the nurse patted on his back from behind and asked him if David used to have to falter speech, delusions, and memory losses from time to time. Matthew told her that he had to falter speech and memory issues from the start, he was unaware of the case of delusions. The nurse told him that David's blood reports suggest that he might have active schizophrenia. After his conversation with the nurse, Matthew started to read all the pages of the notepad, and he came across the one written about Leslie, which read “Leslie is unfaithful.” 

By the time, David was conscious again, Matthew had read the notepad thoroughly. He showed the page regarding Leslie to David and asked him why he killed Leslie. David got reminded of the incident of 29th January, he told Matthew that he was told by someone that Leslie was having an affair behind his back and when he confronted her, she admitted to it. Matthew asked him if he knew whom she was having an affair with. David had no knowledge of the person. Matthew told him that he was the one having affair with David's wife. He was hiding in the bathroom that evening when David strangled her to death. David was shattered by this revelation, that all this time he wanted to have revenge on himself. Matthew further told David that he knew he would eventually forget about all this unless he writes it down. Not only that, but he wasn't sure that David wouldn't chase him to death or anyone else, as per the delusions. He at first apologized to him for his action and then with no one around, he lowered David's oxygen levels. David stared at him with rage as he tried to inhale as much oxygen as possible, and Matthew kept the level low until David's pulse completely dropped, and he died. Matthew turned the saturation level of the gas as it was earlier and then ran to alert the nurse; of the patient's condition.