Sunstroke at Midnight

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It took three hours and forty-seven minutes for Uncle Phineas Slack to die. I ought to know; I was there.

I killed him.

It’s funny, the way murder grows in a man’s mind. So many little things added together, gaining momentum, until, without quite knowing what you’re doing, you’re killing a man.

It was no different with me, except perhaps that I’d always hated the old codger’s soul, his flippant manner, his penchant for young blondes. I think the desire to do away with him had been in my mind a long time.

Yet I wasn’t thinking of it the night I got out of the taxi in front of his angular, modernistic stucco house. He had sent for me without explanation.

It seemed a pleasant night, with a soft Florida breeze gently stroking my checks. The moon and stars were softly visible in a lovely sky.

I paid the cab driver, went up the flagstone walk, and when I approached the door, I saw that it was open slightly. I could hear voices in my uncle’s living room, his own voice, and a strange one. The new voice was old, dull, its intonations slightly cracked.

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