MY WIFE WRITES cozy mysteries.

I don’t know how cozy they really are.

Her first one was titled The Mah Jongg Murders.

Her heroine was a retired former English teacher, Lillian, who was a busy body that meddled in everybody’s business with dogged determination until she solved the crime.

She sounded a lot like Linda.

The heroine’s sidekick was her husband, Bill, a former investigative reporter for a newspaper.

He was nice.

He was kind.

He was gentle.

He sounded a lot like me.

I broke a few stories for newspapers back in another lifetime.

It seemed to me that Linda’s primary characters were autobiographical.

No research required.

She knew a lot about teaching English.

She knew I knew a lot about reporting.

Got a question?

I got an answer.

Linda was writing merrily along on her second novel.

Again, it’s a cozy mystery.

Again, it’s based on a game.

She’s calling it Deadly Dominoes.

Or maybe Death by Dominoes.

She hasn’t decided yet.

Linda shut down her computer recently, sat back, and looked at me for a long time.

“I’ve made a decision,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to kill off Bill,” she said.

“Why?”

“He keeps getting in the way.”

I frowned.

I have a vested interest in Bill.

I think he’s me.

“Why don’t you just send him on a vacation,” I said.

“No.”

She had that look on her face when a decision is final.

“I’d rather kill him off,” she said.

“How are you going to do that?” I asked.

She smiled.

She wasn’t smiling at me.

“I think I’ll poison him,” She said.

I’m taking no chances.

I’ve been eating out a lot more than I used to.