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Gifts and gore

Evie's hubby was cooking up an evil surprise for her birthday...


Published by: Jai Breitnaur and Brad Hunter
Published on: 11th October 2010

Stood at the window, watching the three little lads next door running around the garden, my heart nearly broke.
In our yard, we had all the latest garden toys for our two girls – a little house, paddling pool, bikes… All those boys had were some twigs they were pretending were swords.
And their mummy Evie of course…
I guess if I’d had a mum like Evie Watson, I probably wouldn’t have worried about not having toys either.
Tall, beautiful, and devoted to her children, she made up for everything their dad John denied them. She could conjure up home-baked cakes from out of thin air, always found a film for them on TV, and her laugh – a high-pitched giggle that carried for miles – was infectious. Not that she had much to laugh about…
‘Evie! Come over,’ I called, ushering the boys through the gap in the fence. ‘My girls are out, and they’re a bit old for these toys anyway. Help yourselves.’
Their faces lit up like Christmas as they ran straight for the bikes and scooters.
‘Thanks, Gloria,’ Evie smiled. ‘Things are pretty tight at the moment, I wish we could afford this stuff.’
‘I’d have thought a maths teacher would earn a good salary,’ I sighed. It wasn’t a dig at her – not at all, it was aimed straight at her stingy husband.
Ever since I’d met John Watson when they moved next-door way back in 1978, I’d had nothing good to say about him.
‘He’s so miserable,’ I’d huffed to my own husband Hugh, after a difficult day spent helping them unpack their belongings.
‘He didn’t make me a cuppa, or even say thank you. I don’t know what his wife sees in him – he looks like an unmade bed!’
‘Love is blind!’ Hugh had chuckled. It must have been deaf and dumb too. As far as I could make out, John didn’t have any plus points.
Over the years, I’d seen first-hand how lovely, bubbly, sociable Evie was never taken anywhere by him, not even to the cinema.
And he certainly didn’t splash the cash on his three kids either. Now, anyone seeing them would think they were in a sweet shop as they ran about.
One thing was for sure, there wasn’t much happiness over at the Watson’s house. Every spare penny they ever had John paid into his pension.
But it never seemed to put a dampener on Evie’s spirits, and I was always inviting her over to mine, like now, for coffee.
‘Tell me another story about where you grew up,’ I begged.
She laughed, took a sip of tea while thinking, then nodded. ‘I remember once in…’ she began, and soon had me in stitches.
Years passed, and our friendship remained solid.
The boys got older, and my girls left home. With more time on her hands, Evie got a job as a dinner lady at John’s school – some extra money for those summer camping trips – and Hugh and me were enjoying our retirement.
Then, one night, I was woken by lights flashing in the street outside.
‘Hugh! The police are next door…’ I hissed, poking my head around the curtain. ‘I hope everything’s okay…’
Maybe one of the boys had been caught trying to buy booze, or had got into a fight.
Next day, Evie had a different story though.
‘We had a fight,’ she sighed. ‘John called the police.’
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘Things have been difficult for a while,’ she confided. ‘You know he told me I had to wear the same clothes for a week to save cash?’
‘That sounds like John,’ I snorted.
‘Well, I don’t think… lets just say I’m not sure we’ll be spending that retirement fund together.’
‘You’re leaving him?!’ I gasped. I never would have thought she had the guts!
‘Not yet,’ Evie sighed. ‘I’m going to give him one last chance. I’m 50 in a couple of weeks, lets see if he remembers…’
Not likely. I remembered back
to when I’d offered to babysit so they could go out for their last wedding anniversary.
‘We won’t go out, John doesn’t like to waste money,’ she’d told me.
‘Is treating your wife wasting money now?!’ I’d gasped, glaring at John.
‘I bought her flowers!’ he’d shrugged in reply.
‘Those half-dead carnations? They look like you nicked them from a cemetery last week…’ I’d muttered.
Now, though, it seemed that John had learned his lesson. A fortnight later, on Evie’s 50th birthday, I watched from the window as her lads pinned up birthday banners and balloons at the house.
Then John pulled up in his Jeep – and he was carrying a big cake!
‘Is that for Evie?’ I called from my front door.
‘Of course!’ he said, and then he actually smiled!
‘The first one I’ve seen in nearly three decades of them living next-door,’ I laughed to Hugh later. ‘Anyway, they’re having a party this evening. I might stick my head in.’
That night, the Watson’s whole house seemed alive. Latin music pumped from the stereo, the voices of people chatting carried across the street. And then I heard it – Evie’s laugh.
‘Been a while since I’ve seen you this happy!’ I grinned as I walked in.
‘I’m so excited,’ she smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘John’s taking me to Las Vegas for a week!’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘That’s fantastic!’
‘I know,’ she grinned. ‘We’re going to stay in the best hotel, and I’m going to try the slot machines while John plays blackjack. And then…’ she winked, lowering her voice. ‘Perhaps it’ll be a new beginning for us after all…’
What good news! After a lifetime of hard graft, it seemed Evie was finally reaping some rewards. She’d even bought a whole new wardrobe for the trip.
Maybe John had finally realised she was worth more than money.
I didn’t see Evie and John leave the next day, but I spent the whole week waiting for them to return.
I couldn’t wait to find out how things had gone in Vegas! So I was surprised when I saw John pull up in their Jeep the following Saturday, alone.
‘Cooee!’ I called, sticking my head out the door. But he didn’t even turn around.
Back inside, I complained to Hugh. ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is over and John’s back to normal,’ I huffed. ‘I knew it wouldn’t last long!’
Next day I waited until John went out, then I popped over to see Evie. Her youngest son Andrew answered the door.
‘She’s not here,’ he said.
‘Oh, well, when she’s back…’ I started, but he cut me off.
‘You don’t understand,’ he hissed, wide-eyed. ‘She didn’t come back from Vegas. Dad said they had a row, and she left him.’
‘Good on you Evie,’ I thought, impressed that she’d finally had the guts to do it.
But, as the day went on, something just didn’t seem right. By bedtime, I was worried.
‘She’d never have left the boys,’ I told Hugh. ‘She’d have thrown him out, not walked away. She hasn’t even phoned them. And where did she go? She’s got no money, and doesn’t know anyone in Vegas…’
‘Normally, I’d tell you to mind your own business,’ he replied. ‘This time, I think you’re right though. Something’s up.’
Next day, when I saw another of her sons Juan pull up outside Evie’s place, I rushed out.
‘I’m worried about your mother,’ I admitted to him.
‘So are we,’ he sighed. ‘The police say they’re doing everything they can to…’
Police?! All sorts of scenarios went through my head. Did John leave her stranded at the hotel?
Did he dump her on the side of the road and drive off? He was certainly nasty enough…
Later that night, there was a knock on the door. It was Andrew, and he was in tears.
‘Dad’s been arrested,’ he croaked. ‘He… he used a fake ID to rent two rooms at the Tuscany Hotel in Vegas.’
‘I thought they stayed at Circus Circus?’ I frowned.
‘They did,’ Andrew shrugged. Poor lad, he was as confused as we were.
Next day we heard John had been released, but hadn’t come home. No one knew where he was.
Then I picked up the morning paper and gasped – John and Evie’s faces were plastered all over it!
‘Husband on the run…’ I read to my hubby. ‘Disappearance now murder! Evie’s… dead!’
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Andrew was standing there, tears streaming, his whole body shaking with every sob.
‘D-dad did it…’ he croaked. ‘He told me. He chopped Mum up…’
Jesus!
Pulling Andrew into my arms I remembered Evie’s face at her party, how excited she was about Vegas. What had happened to her in the desert?!
It took police three weeks to catch up with John – he was found wearing a wig and moustache, and carrying yet another fake ID.
He told them she’d killed herself, even gave them a suicide note written in Spanish. He said he’d panicked when he’d found her body, buried her in the desert, and pretended she’d run away.
Police weren’t buying any of it, though.
‘They’ve got CCTV footage of Dad buying bleach, heavy-duty rubbish bags and an electric saw,’ Quentin, her eldest, told us, ashen-faced.
‘They found traces of Mum’s blood in the Jeep, and in the hotel room at the Tuscany. I don’t think she ever even saw Circus Circus…’ he croaked, before breaking down.
All those fancy dresses she’d packed, those rolls of film she’d taken for her camera…
‘This will be a trip of my life!’ she’d said to me. She hadn’t known it would be the end of hers.
With no body, police had to rely on circumstantial evidence, so the case took three years to get to court. But by the time he took the stand, it seemed 70-year-old John was ready to confess.
‘I got wind she was planning to leave me,’ I heard him tell the jury. ‘If we’d divorced I would have had to share my retirement fund, and I’d worked hard for that.’
Worked hard? Denied your children luxuries more like, I wanted to shout out. And now you’ve taken away their mother as well as their toys.
As the hearing went on, John revealed details of his crime.
After confronting Evie, he’d shot her, then used a cheap saw bought in a DIY store to carve up her body.
It must’ve taken him hours, but he wasn’t worried about being disturbed – he’d hired the room next door to the murder room as well, so no one would hear.
Once he’d butchered Evie like some piece of meat, he did something even more evil.
He cooked some parts of her body on a small stove, and ate them.
My neighbour was a cannibal!
The rest of his wife’s body he shoved into bin bags which he dumped in the desert outside Las Vegas. Then he used bleach to thoroughly clean both hotel rooms of evidence.
‘I want the death penalty,’ he told the judge when the jury found him guilty.
Was he desperate to be punished? No, I reckon he wanted to take the easy way out.
‘The state will decide, not the defendant!’ the judge snapped back. But ultimately, the state agreed with John Watson, and in June a court in Nevada decided to impose the death penalty.
It won’t bring Evie back, but I’m pleased that evil monster will get what he deserves. Now, after years of pinching the pennies, the only thing John Watson has to count are the days he has left to live.
Gloria Donohoe, 61, Ontario, California