SPOILERS!!!
2. LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER
First Published: 1953
Mary Maloney is a traditional housewife who is expecting a baby. Her husband is a police officer, and every day after he returns, she has everything ready for him. One evening as they sit before dinner, Patrick tells her that there is something they need to talk about. We do not get to hear what exactly he tells her, only that it is a bad time. What I imagine is that he tells her that he is leaving her for someone else. Mary is so confused and befuddled that all she says is that she needs to prepare dinner. So she goes to the basement, opens the freezer and takes a frozen leg of lamb. Then she hits Patrick on the head and kills her. Shocked about what she has done, she takes her time to think and rehearse. So she goes to the grocery store, apparently calm and worryless, and talks to Sam, the shop keeper, telling him that she needs some things for tonight's dinner.
When she returns home, she calls the police and tells them that she has found Patrick dead. Patrick's colleagues come and keep asking her questions, and she says that she left Patrick all right, went to the shop and when she returned, he was like this. The police checked the place, and they think that Patrick was hit with some stout object, but Mary says that she doesn't miss anything from her home. The police think that if they found the crime weapon, they would find the killer. Then Mary says that the lamb is ready, and it would be a pity for the lamb to go to waste, so the police officers eat the lamb, unaware that they are eating the crime weapon.
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