“Now that is a sneaky looking man,” I told Charlie. “He looks around and looks over his shoulder like he’s running from the law. In the twenty-six years we’ve been living here, how many bail jumpers and fugitives have we seen taken out of here in handcuffs?”
“Plenty. I guarantee he’s one of them.”
When the man came up onto the deck at the Holiday Hotel he took a table next to us.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said. “I wonder if you could settle a bet for us. My friend Charlie here and I both think that you are a fugitive from the law. If you are, you can tell us. We live here on the island and we won’t tell a soul.”
The man came over to our table, sat down and said, “Gentlemen, I am Dave. It is a relief to talk to someone about it. Yes, I’ve been on the run from the U.S. Marshals for almost a year.”
“Why?” Charlie asked.
“Technology, sir,” Dave said. “It was my downfall.”
“I’ve been a computer guy since back in the early 90’s,” Dave said. “We didn’t have a cable connection where I live so I had to use one of those slow dial up phone connections for years. Then the phone company started offering a wifi connection and I jumped at it.”
“Is that why you are on the run?” I asked. “I know that if you don’t pay your bill those companies will hound you to death. They hire collection agencies that are on you day and night.”
“No,’ Dave said. “I had a neighbor who lived across the street from me. We had been good friends for six or seven years. One day I got a phone text message from him. It said, ‘Dave, I have a confession to make. I have been using your wife. This has been going on day and night, usually when you’re not home but sometimes when you are there. In fact, I am probably using your wife more than you are. It will never happen again. Please accept my sincere apologies.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I walked into my bedroom and got my pistol out of the drawer and shot my wife dead. About five minutes later my phone rang with a text message. It was from my neighbor and said, “Dave, damn this autocorrect on my phone. It typed in wife where I was trying to type wifi.”
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