My Wife's Killer Gave Me $1 Million - Here's How I Spent It!

A short story about how a personal tragedy can lead to fun in the sun!

The man who murdered and dismembered my wife had just sent me $1 million and I didn’t know what to do with the money.

I stared at the balance amount on my computer screen, motionless, until the Bank of America website asked me if I was still there, warning it would log me out soon for inactivity. I clicked on the box so I could stare at the balance some more: $1,000,733.02. 

The part I stared at was the $733.02. That was all I had left to my name, with no other source of money, before the million-dollar influx. Over the past two years, from  constantly traveling from New York to Tokyo for the investigation and the trial and media appearances, I spent all my savings, lost my job, and became a shell of the person I used to be.

Emma went to Tokyo on a business trip. Police said the killer, Arata Soto, drugged her in a bar, took her to his apartment, and chopped her up like she was a piece of meat instead of the woman I planned to spend the rest of my life. He then put her body parts in tubs of sulfuric acid to get rid of the evidence that she physically existed.

Soto almost succeeded. There was nothing left of Emma except for the strands of hair they found in his apartment, which were now in a plastic bag inside a drawer of a filing cabinet somewhere in the Tokyo Police Department headquarters. And if it wasn’t for the video they found there, which showed her murder from start to finish, I’d probably have hope that she was still alive - that she went on that business trip and simply got lost and the dead body in Soto’s apartment was definitely not her.

But it was her and she was as gone as could be.

Now, every cent I had, except for the $733.02, came from the man who killed my wife and upended my life.

They call it a jidan in Japan. It’s similar to a civil settlement in the United States except the offender isn’t forced by the court to give it. But it is supposed to help improve the image of the offender, showing the court that the family of the victim forgives the offender on some level, which means the court and society should, too. This can help get a more lenient sentence, and was no doubt Soto’s intention when he offered the million dollars. Soto was a wealthy man from a wealthier family - highly connected in Japan.

A substantial jidan, combined with a little backdoor influence, would undoubtedly fetch Soto a lighter sentence. I wanted him to stay in a tiny cell the size of a coffin for the rest of his life. Taking his money, however, would prevent that from happening. But if I didn’t take the jidan, I’d be in a coffin myself soon enough. I was still numb all over. I could barely hold a conversation, much less a job. Everything still felt like the moment in sleep just before you wake up - you know it’s not real, you’re in between and not sure if you’re about to wake up or go back into sleep. 

I took the jidan and became an instant millionaire. And as soon as the wire transfer cleared, Soto was released from prison and put on probation.

I made a huge mistake. I had the money and Soto was free because of it. I had to get rid of the money as soon as possible.

Luxury Yacht and Skipper for 30 Days: $565,000 (balance: $435,733.02)

I couldn’t stay in our Manhattan apartment anymore. Memories of Emma were in every room, every drawer, every damn corner. I could hear her footsteps, her laugh, feel her skin and hair. And every time I felt her, the hole in my heart got bigger. If I stayed there any longer, I have absolutely no doubt I would have jumped out the window. It was a miracle I hadn’t done so already. 

I needed to live somewhere new, but I didn’t want to be inside anywhere. I had lived with Emma for 10 years, and the very idea of living in. I tried hotel rooms, but even hotels made me think of her, and the unfamiliarity of the rooms made me miss her even more. 

But I had to sleep somewhere. I had to be somewhere. That’s when I got the idea of living on a boat. 

Emma and I are both from the city and beaches, other than once or twice in the summer, were just not a part of how we grew up, much less the boating life. Thus, living on a boat was about as far from what me and her had together as I could imagine. But it had to be something I could actually live on, and maybe do a little traveling, too. After all, what’s the point of living on a boat if you don’t see the world?

So I went to Los Angeles, rented a luxury yacht, and hired a skipper to take me on a 30-day cruise in my new boat.

7 Instagram Models: $210,000 at $7,000 per day for 30 days (balance: $225,733.02)

I was at a vulnerable time in my life, and as much as I didn’t want to be around people, I knew I had to be. But I didn’t have any friends who wanted to go on an extended sea voyage with me. So I decided to ask some people who are well-known for their love of boating: Instagram models.

At the hefty cost of approximately $7,000 per day, I hired 7 Instagram models to accompany me on my voyage. Their physical attributes were of no concern to me. I was in no shape, mentally or physically, to even think about anything other than maintaining a conversation and emitting an occasional laugh. I had been in the darkest of clouds for the past year, and all I wanted was to practice being normal again. The models with the brightest personalities were hired.

Food, Water, Champagne, Cocaine and Other Party Favors: $100,000 (remaining balance $125,733.02)

Thirty days at sea for nine people requires a significant amount of food and water, and I wanted my guests to enjoy themselves, so I didn’t pinch pennies here. And of course, party favors were in order. After all, we were on a yacht, so champagne, marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy were necessary, according to the Instagram models, whom I assumed knew what they were talking about due to their hefty amounts of experience in yacht partying. I let them get everything they wanted.

And once we were supplied, we set sail.

As soon as we got into the open waters, I felt better. I still had the memory of Emma heavy in my heart. She would always be there, I knew that. But I also felt very alive, which is something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I let myself go. I drank champagne. I snorted cocaine. I laughed. I cracked jokes and made other people laugh. I took ecstasy and smoked joints. I danced. I felt other bodies with my hands and then my chest and then, at some point, it might have been the fourth or fifth night, one of the models took me to my bed and took off my clothes. I hadn’t been naked with another person since my last night with Emma. 

But this wasn’t Emma. Her name was Agata. She was from Poland, and was 5’10,” slim with curves and blonde hair down to the small of her back. She had blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, and her energy was strong, forceful, she pushed me down on the bed and got on top of me, taking full control. I was thankful to her for doing so because I would not have been able to do it. But I was able to go along, and I had to stop myself from saying ‘thank you, thank you’ out loud. 

She came first, and then I did, too. Everything was right, even harmonious. I could feel a musical rhythm in the back of my brain - a gentle, enlivening hum. And for a moment, I felt just fine. I felt close to Agata, but not just her - the whole world, like I was back in it. I knew the drugs were part of it. I knew sex with a beautiful woman was part of it. But these were all life things and I was back in it. 

But I made the mistake of saying her name out loud incorrectly.

Her name was Agata, but I said, “Arata” - the name of the man who killed my wife. 

I said his name. 

Arata.

Arata.

I said his name the moment I felt good again. And I know I said it because I wasn’t really feeling good. I was only tricking myself. The drugs and the women, they were distractions, gimmicks, nothing real. 

Arata. Agata. Arata. Agata. Emma. Emma. 

Emma.

Emma.

Arata.

Fuck.

I ran out of my room and onto the deck of the boat. The models and the skipper were all partying and laughing and the music was a joyous and groovy techno, but I ran through all of that like it was radioactive poison and jumped into the water. I heard the models’ screams just as I hit the water. Their screams mixed with the splash made an echo in my brain as I sunk into the dark, cold water. 

If it wasn’t for those sounds, I think I would have swam to the bottom of the ocean, or at least as far as I could before my lungs collapsed. I really do think I could have done it. You don’t know how far you can go into the depths of hell until you’ve been at the gates for as long as I have. I know I could have kept going. But hearing their emotion and fear made me realize that I was still alive and life still existed, even if I didn’t feel like it did. And so I swam back up to the surface. 

My skipper was there. His hand was out to lift me up. 

“It’s time,” he said. 

“I know,” I said. 

Professional Hitman to Kidnap My Wife’s Killer: $125,000 (balance $733.02)

That “skipper” I hired when I rented the yacht? He had two jobs. One was to run the boat. The other was to take us to Tokyo and orchestrate a kidnapping of the man who killed my wife.

The skipper’s name was Abraham Stern, a former assassin in the Israel Defense Force who had a strong reputation of kidnapping people who were difficult to kidnap.

“This is an easy job,” he told me when I met him in New York. “But we will need to get into the country undetected and have something to bait Arata with.”

That’s when he told me about getting a boat, which would allow us to get into Japan before customs could word of my entry, which would most certainly alert the government, and therefore Arata, too.

“You want to get in without anybody knowing about it,” Abraham told me. “We sail right into the bay of Tokyo, set the trap, and get that motherfucker before anybody knows what happened. And you know what makes people not notice things? Beautiful women. I can help you with this.”

That’s why I went along with the Instagram models. But I really did think they would help me. I really did want to talk and have fun and get high with beautiful women.

But it didn’t help. Emma was still everywhere I looked. And the man who killed her still clung on every thought in my head. 

“You need closure, my friend,” Abraham said. “This is how you do it.”

I knew what I was embarking on would ensure my life would never be the same again. But I had to do it. 

“Listen up!” Abraham stod on the deck of the boat and called everyone’s attention.

“You are all now part of a revenge mission. You are allowed to record anything you want, except for me. I guarantee you that this will be one of the biggest media sensations of all time, and you will benefit from it as long as you listen to me.”

Abraham kept the Instagram models excited and interested all the way to Tokyo, which took several days. But the booze and drugs made it possible. It actually sounded like a lot of fun. But I couldn’t take part. I stayed in my room beneath the deck and listened. I felt like Emma’s tortured body and Arata himself blocked my way out. Like he was standing over her body, physically preventing me from exiting. I accepted that as what was actually happening, and didn’t venture out.

Instead, I listened to the partying outside, and pretended to soak up some of that energy to do what I would have to do soon.

Chainsaw and Cleaning Supplies: $300 (remaining balance: $433.02)

We docked into Tokyo Bay in the morning. I looked at the sunlight glittering across the glass of hundreds of skyscrapers and thought about how my wife’s killer was somewhere out there, in one of those buildings, probably asleep in a cozy bed, or just waking up and enjoying a nice cup of tea. A certain rage draped over my heart -a quiet but intense rage that let me know it wasn’t going anywhere. I needed that because what I was going to do would require it. 

Abraham went out to do some shopping and came back with several items, including a chainsaw.

“Get comfortable with this,” Abraham said. “The key to torturing somebody is making sure your hands listen to your brain.”

Abraham had me practice turning it on and moving it at a certain angle so it cuts quicker and more accurately. 

“You make the relationship between just your hands and the chainsaw,” he said. “Keep your head out of it. Remember: your head has nothing to do with it. Everything you do with this thing is strictly your hands.”

I stood on the deck with the chainsaw in my hands for the next several hours. As I tried to take my mind out of anything to do with the chainsaw. Abraham and the girls went out. Their plan was to find Arata, party with him, and bring him back to the boat. 

Spending all day with the chainsaw in my hand, I thought a great deal about what I was about to do. I was going to kill a man who killed the woman I loved. I was going to kill him slowly. I was getting revenge. Everything about this was not my nature. I did not grow up in a world of violence and revenge. I was conditioned to find that concept barbaric and not useful. And yet, here I was, not just about to commit barbaric revenge, but needing it. I needed to do this. If I didn’t, I would never be able to get the memories and the pain out of my head. Emma would always be a ghost haunting my mind and Arata would always be a demon poking my heart. 

My phone rang. I answered. Abraham was Facetiming me from a bar somewhere in Tokyo. A big, fancy place. He and the girls were sitting at a corner table that had several bottles of champagne and glasses. A good time was being had. 

And then Abraham put his phone camera on Arata Soto. He was shitfaced. Abraham must have drugged him because he was barely awake. But he managed to sit upright and had enough mobility to take a sip from a martini glass, with most of what he attempted to put into his mouth landing on his shirt. 

“We got him!” Abraham said. “Get ready!”

Abraham ended the call. I sat there in silence, looking up at the stars. Emma wouldn’t approve of this at all. Violence was an absurd concept for her. She was an enlightened human being - the kind the rest of us need to evolve into. 

I used to think I was like her, too. I used to think I wasn’t a violent person. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Whiskey and Methamphetamines: $200 (remaining balance: $233.02)

Maybe it’s the reputation of meth making you crazy and whiskey making you tough, but I figured combining whiskey with meth would help me drum up the courage I needed to kill a man. And as soon as I got off the call with Abraham, I started in on the combo. By the time Abraham and the girls came back, with Abraham dragging Soto’s passed out body onto the boat, my head was so methed-up that it felt like a million rats were running around inside my brain. And it felt fucking great. 

“Are you really gonna do it?” Agata said to me. She had a big, mischievous smile on her face. “You’re going to kill him?”

Kristy, another one of the models, joined in. 

“I think it’s so romantic you’re going to kill the man who killed your wife,” she said. “It’s hella hot, too.”

Abraham revved up the yacht and took us out into the open ocean. 

“We get into international waters and it will be very hard to prosecute you,” he said. According to him, since the yacht was registered in Honduras, only Honduras would be able to prosecute me if we did the killing in international waters. 

“And believe me,” Abraham said. “Honduras won’t give the tiniest shit, okay?”

I didn’t bother verifying the truth of this because I didn’t care about being prosecuted. Besides, I didn’t want to wait any longer. I had to do this now while I had the nerve.

Soto was passed out on the deck. I stood above him, looking at him close up for the first time. I saw him in court from a distance, but I never got the chance to see the lines in his forehead, the hairs on his face, or watch him breathe, something he took away from my wife. 

It’s a strange sensation to be this close to someone who caused you the most agonizing mental pain, and the most agonizing physical pain my wife experienced in her last moments. Investigators said Soto chopped off her limbs when she was still alive. Her official cause of death was a combination of exsanguination - loss of blood - and a heart attack. Her death was brutal, terrifying, and long. And this man, passed out on a yacht, did it. 

He didn’t look insane. He didn’t look evil. He looked normal. But how could he be? How could he have done what he did without having a wretchedly insane mind? How could anybody do what he did without being incomprehensibly deranged?

I was about to find out.

20 Doses of Flumenazil: $233 (remaining balance $.02)

“Time to wake our friend up!” Abraham said. He prepared a shot of Flumenazil, a drug that reverses the effects of the sleeping pills he dosed Soto’s drinks with. 

I thought Soto would wake up like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but it looked more like somebody getting yanked out of a deep sleep by an annoying alarm clock. He grimaced and groaned and muttered words in Japanese I didn’t understand. This was the first time I heard his voice. He had an ugly voice - high-pitched and nasally. I always thought it would be deep and commanding. But it was weak and pathetic. Or was I simply trying to dehumanize him? How could I be sure?

Soto woke up enough to remember Abraham and the Instagram models, so he spoke in English.

“What happened? Where am I?” he said. His English was good and had a British sound. 

I revved up the chainsaw. The grinding machination sound hit me with the reality of what was happening and my initial feeling was one of excitement - and  I didn’t trust it. How could I be excited by this? But I was. I was excited. And I realized that this might be what Soto felt when he killed Emma. Excitement. And the idea of me feeling the same sensation he felt when he killed my Emma just turned brought up every feeling of anger, resentment, frustration, bewilderment, and rage I had ever felt in my entire life - every time I ever felt any of these things came back, out of whatever corner of my brain they had subsided to, and flooded my current consciousness like a powerful drug that I was more than happy to relinquish control to.

And that’s what happened. I relinquished control to the rage and dug the chainsaw blades into Soto’s left leg, his right leg, his left arm, and his right arm.

I heard him scream, but his voice sounded far away. It didn’t affect me. I paid more attention to the conversations of the models. 

They were all recording Soto’s death, but were concerned about how much of it would be allowed on Instagram, and how it would impact their brand. 

“If you don’t show the actual chainsaw cutting into him, Instagram won’t strike it,” Kristy told the group.

“Do I look scared enough? I want to look scared but cute,” Agata said. “When the news picks this up, we need to act like we were scared on the torture yacht.”

“How much do you think we could sell interviews for?” Kristy said.

Abraham was being diligent about making sure none of the models had him in their shots - he didn’t want to jeopardize his brand, either. 

“If any of you get me in your pictures, I swear to God you will regret it,” he said.

Meanwhile, I was chopping up the man who killed my wife and ruined my life. But it didn’t feel good. It felt empty. He was dying. He was dying a horrible death. But I felt no schadenfreude. I was glad I was doing this, but I just wanted to be with Emma, sitting in our apartment, watching a movie or laughing about the latest viral news controversy. 

But that was gone. All I had now was this. I picked up Soto’s left leg and threw it overboard. I picked up his right leg and did the same. The legs floated on the water. I grabbed Soto by his hair and pulled him up to look at his legs floating away.

“Why did you do it?” I said.

He screamed in Japanese. I didn’t understand him. I asked him again, harsher, the universally understood demand to speak English.

“Because I like it,” he said. “I like it so much. I don’t know why! There’s maybe something wrong with me. I’m sorry!”

I had to laugh when I heard that last word. “Sorry.” Like he accidentally stepped on my shoe.  

Nothing about this seemed real anymore. I was looking at a dying man, a man I despised and who had occupied my mind for the past two years in the worst way, but he was suddenly a non-entity. I was more concerned with the other people on the boat. Would Agata be okay? Would Abraham be okay?

I pushed Soto overboard. His limbless body splayed blood into the ocean and he sank. 

I killed a man and didn’t feel anything. I killed a man in a horrible way, and my heart rate felt normal, like I had been watching a boring television show. I killed the man who killed my wife and instead of feeling the conquering thrill of revenge I felt blank. There was no other word to describe how I felt. I was blank.

I looked behind me and saw Abraham and Agata and the rest of the crew I’d been around for the past several weeks - all of us in a crazy situation we’d spend the rest of our lives talking about. 

I looked in front of me and I saw Emma and me. I saw us from another time, when we were together and happy and gruesome violence only happened in movies we didn’t care to watch. This wasn’t an illusion. I saw me and Emma. We were there and laughing and hugging and joking and kissing. The  last two years didn’t happen to us and we walked across the ocean and into the moonlight, happy and in love forever.

But I was still here on the yacht with a chainsaw, covered in blood.

Agata took a picture of me with her cell phone and showed it to me. I didn’t recognize the person in the photo and I was glad I didn’t. The person I used to be was gone and wouldn’t want to be the person I am now.