Author: Duskbound Books
Date: 0101-01-01 00:00:00+00:00
Description: Crime doesn't pay...but reading about crime is fun! Duskbound Books presents NEFARIOUS, our take on crime fiction, featuring stories that range from traditional murder mysteries to light satire and even the supernatural. A porcine detective aims to solve the murder of a prince and princess, a spy searches for the truth behind his latest mission, and a gumshoe investigates mysterious deaths while battling his feelings for the reporter who follows him from crime to crime. Aliens, ghosts, and clones inhabit this criminal underworld too, and we also feature traditional cozy stories about chocolate
Publisher: Carolyn Dubiel

NEFARIOUS

A DUSKBOUND BOOKS ANTHOLOGY

Copyright © 2025 Duskbound Books

Edited by Cari Dubiel

Cover design by Kaytalin Platt

Formatting by Cari Dubiel and G.A. Finocchiaro

ISBN: 978-1-968625-03-0

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Formatted with Vellum

CONTENTS

Foreword

Insider Trading

Peter L. Harmon

Dark Days in Del Rio

Alec Cizak

Steal Away

Christopher Duda

Twilight Mist Under the Lucent Moon

Manuel Jimenez

Nurturing Nature

Mike X Welch

Chocolate Karma

L.L. Kaplan

Gangsta Godmother

Susan K. Hamilton

Someone Else’s Story

Cari Dubiel

Death of a Critic

Kerry Hammond

About the Authors

FOREWORD

There’s a reason people are obsessed with crime fiction and murder mysteries. By nature, humans want to solve puzzles. We stay glued to the story, unable to put it down until we can figure out who the killer is and why they carried out their evil plan. How could someone become so angry or so unfeeling that they would kill to get what they want? We want to know the motives of the antagonist as much as we want to root for the protagonist. Add the breathless pace of many crime novels, and you’ve got a recipe for a compelling read.

In Nefarious, we asked authors to provide their interpretations of crime fiction, whether it be through fantasy, realism, or cozy mystery. There are villains, of course, but there are morally gray protagonists as well. There are betrayals and lies, twists and turns. No one is who they claim to be, and our burning questions are not always answered. Yet some of our criminals are brought to justice, and every story brings about a sense of closure, even if our characters end up in compromising positions.

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished here. No two stories are alike, and each one represents the unique talents of the author. You can read a story in one sitting or choose one or two for an evening in. Heck, you could even read the whole thing in one day. Don’t like the genre or style of a story? Try the next one. Of course, I believe each of our authors’ stories are worth reading, but we at Duskbound know that not every reader has the same tastes. We hope you find something to love, follow a new author, or pick up some of our other anthologies.

Cari Dubiel

Lead Editor, Duskbound Books

Types of Crime Fiction

If you are not familiar with crime fiction, get ready! There are multiple subgenres of this genre, and we even have genre-bending stories in this anthology. Here are a few definitions that might help as you seek out new reads.

Traditional Mystery: These are modeled after those of the inimitable Agatha Christie. I highly recommend picking up one of Christie’s books because much of our modern mystery tradition comes from her. I recommend The Death of Roger Ackroyd, Death on the Nile, or Murder on the Orient Express, but there are many others to choose from. Traditional mysteries usually have a formula–a murder happens, there are suspects, and a detective comes to look for clues. While there is no murder or gore on the page, these books may be more serious than cozy mysteries (see below).

Cozy Mystery: These books draw from Agatha’s legacy but with some twists. The cozy protagonist is usually an amateur, often a young woman returning to a small town after being away for some time. The protagonist will often be opening a store of some kind–a tea shop, candy shop, ice cream shop, and so on. There is often a love interest, although this is a side plot and never the main focus, as there would be in a romance. Like a traditional mystery, there is no murder on the page, and the formula is similar. By the end, all the threads are wrapped up nicely, and the protagonist can go back to running her shop…at least until the next book in the series.

Thriller/Intrigue: Thrillers are fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat reads. They are not always about a particular body and a murder to solve; there may be multiple plot problems going on, such as government conspiracy, undercover spies, murderous antagonists chasing the protagonist, and so on. One subgenre is the psychological thriller, which may not be as fast-paced but gets closer into the characters’ heads before building to an exciting ending.

Police Procedural: Focuses on a police department’s quest to solve a crime. These are usually impeccably researched and include a lot of detail about the methods used to track the killer. Think of the TV show Castle. Author Richard Castle is an amateur detective, but the rest of the people involved are all police officers with insider information.

Legal Thriller: The legal system is involved heavily in these cases. The lawyers involved may not be directly responsible for solving crimes, but they may be. Court cases may take up much of the drama as the reader tries to suss out what really happened.

Private Investigator: Similar to a police procedural but using the skills of a PI rather than official law enforcement.

Genre-Bending: May include elements of one or more of these crime fiction styles as well as characteristics of romance, science fiction, horror, historical fiction, and others.

INSIDER TRADING

PETER L. HARMON

For Jake

Roman Jakes had a mission.

He had been deep undercover before, but he wasn’t sure he had ever been in this deep. And he wasn’t sure he would call what he was doing now “undercover” per se. Quite the opposite, in fact…

He adjusted the white robe he was wearing. It was soft cotton, knotted across the front with a wispy belt. The belt was a bonus, seeing as he had nothing else on his person except for the practiced smile plastered on his face. The smile that was usually used to bed women, charm various weapons dealers, or sell the bluff in a high- stakes poker game. Roman had a face that was vaguely recognizable to strangers. He had the countenance of someone you knew from somewhere. People often asked if he was an actor, a model, an actor/model, someone from their high school, just someone that they used to know.

They didn’t know him. He was anonymous. Generic, but in a handsome way. You wanted to know him. Are you sure we haven’t met before? Like waking up from a dream. You knew something happened, but you didn’t remember the details. Just a feeling. Déjà vu.

His bare feet touched the white sands of Karon Beach. A light breeze caressed the palm trees. The sky was blue and stretched on forever. He squinted in the sun. He wasn’t allowed shades at the moment. They weren’t a part of this. He was supposed to be on holiday in Phuket, Thailand, but once the threat had presented itself, his agency had other thoughts. Pleasure had become business. Not that his business wasn’t pleasurable, but he had expected some downtime between missions.

The sea was at his back. There were about a dozen or so tourists from the nearby resort with easels set up, watching him intently. They had paints or charcoal pencils. Art supplies. They were wearing berets or glasses. Smocks abounded. They were all staring at him. Waiting. He was to be the nude model for their en plein air painting session.

Roman Jakes was more comfortable driving fast down London streets, chasing a perp through markets in Marrakech, yachting off the Amalfi coast…but different jobs called for different skills. He supposed he was the man for this particular excursion as well.

He dropped the robe, and his body, which looked carved from marble, garnered gasps from several of the amateur artists. He posed, and once several women in the front row, and even a few fellas in the back, composed themselves, they began painting his form. Though he couldn’t move his body, his eyes scanned the crowd, looking for the contact his agency had said would be present.

* * *

Roughly ninety minutes later, Roman was back in the white robe. He had found some discarded thong flip-flops and slapped them on his feet. He had asked the concierge if they had found his sunglasses, an old trick of the trade to get free shades at a moment’s notice, and they brought out a tray. He lifted a pair. He lied easily, saying he had left his Ray-Bans by the pool earlier. He felt more comfortable now. More in his element. Time to rock and roll.

Thankfully, the beach had a bar, as he needed some liquid refreshment after the eyeball bath he had just endured from the plein air participants. He had the bartender shaking up a Bikini Martini—they didn’t have the Kina Lillet for his usual order, so he improvised and went with a trashy tourist libation—when a ravishing woman in paint-spattered overalls and a ratty t-shirt sidled up to him. Her feet were bare. She had glasses on, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail like a character in She’s All That. Roman could tell she was a knockout even through her civilian camouflage. She was more suited to black dresses and sky-high heels at galas than her current drab garb.

The bartender handed Roman his drink and he turned and sipped it, grimacing at the sweetness, staring out at the ocean as it glittered. The woman gestured to the bartender, and he began mixing up her drink. She had the ease of a regular at the establishment, but maybe beautiful women came with that setting as a factory standard.

She turned and matched Roman’s gaze. The sun was beginning to set, casting purples and pinks across the landscape.

“Enjoying the view?” Roman asked.

“I was,” the woman replied. “But pity, now you’re wearing a robe.”

Their eyes met.

Roman smiled. “Do you fancy yourself an artist?”

“When I’m inspired.” She let her eyes run the length of his figure. The bartender handed her the drink, something fruity with an umbrella perched in it.

“What may I call you?” Roman asked.

“Don’t call. I prefer text.”

“What’s your number?”

“Guess…”

“How could I get in touch with you, if I so desired?”

“If you desire, you can touch me all you want.”

The woman let out a cackle loud enough to turn the heads of some fellow beachgoers who were packing up, getting ready to leave for the day. Twinkling lights began to sparkle on. A DJ was setting up for the night’s festivities.

Roman was intrigued. “May I ask what you do?”

“I do many things.”

“For a living,” Roman clarified.

“Breathe. Eat. My heart pumps blood through my body. The usual.”

Roman made it crystal. “Your line of work?”

“I’m a…” She considered. “Multi-hyphenate.”

“I’d get that checked out if I were you.” Roman’s smile was not the smile of someone who was happy, but that smile of someone who was picking up what was being put down. He sipped his drink. He wasn’t here for romance anyway. He was a player, but this might not be his game. He had work to do. He had a contact to establish before the evening began.

Maybe she realized she was losing him. She relented. “I’m DuJour. DuJour A La Mode.” She extended her hand to Roman.

He took it. “Nice to meet you Miss La Mode. I’m Jakes, Roman Jakes.”

“I know,” she breathed. “I’m here to help you.”

He was caught off guard. This was his ally?

“I usually work alone. How can I be sure you’re on the level?”

His agency hadn’t given him a code word this time, no description to look out for; he was just supposed to feel it, he supposed.

“You can’t.” DuJour smiled. “That’s what makes this so fun. Meet me back here in an hour for the beach party. Use the name Feyereisen at the door; you’ll be on the list. And wear something festive. It’s not black tie, but it’s not exactly white robe either.”

Roman smirked. “And what will you be wearing?”

DuJour ran a finger down the side of Roman’s face, then onto his neck, opening the collar of his robe a bit to reveal his pecs below. “You’ll see, but you’ll have to use your imagination until then.”

“My imagination,” Roman said, drawing close, “is very active.”

DuJour brought her face nearly close enough to kiss Roman, then said, “I’d guess it would have to be if you usually work alone.”

She put her hand in the center of Roman’s chest and lightly pushed.

“Ciao,” she said casually as she walked away from the beach bar, leaving Roman adjusting his robe to make sure he was still fully covered.

* * *

Roman looked at himself in the hotel room’s full-length mirror. Linen suit in a muted color, garish button-down shirt with a plunging collar, expensive yet functional shoes, and a watch that made the cost of his shoes seem paltry. No gun, in case he was frisked. He’d have to improvise on that one. Maybe DuJour would have a solution—if she wasn’t already going to stab him in the back. His job came with certain risks, which he was fine with. He didn’t pledge allegiance to his country and his agency without knowing the score.

He opted to take the stairs from his room to the ground floor, eschewing the elevator. As he approached the beach, he saw the velvet roped-off area meant for that night’s party. People were already drinking and dancing. There was a buffet of tropical fruits and freshly caught seafood. There was security. He was frisked. His cover worked. He was in.

Roman looked for a weapon of some sort in case things got out of hand. He saw a large knife on a nearby cabana for cutting lime wedges, a first aid kit on the wall, and a flare gun that he slipped into his pocket. Probably left out for any type of nautical emergency that might arise, which was OK. He was nautical by nature.

The sun was setting brilliantly. DuJour stood by a palm. She seemed to be lit by her own key light. She was almost unrecognizable from earlier, now in a dress and heels, as Roman had predicted in his mind’s eye. Her makeup was immaculate. Her skin was glistening and glowing. She greeted him warmly, as if they were lovers. As she hugged him, she pressed her soft lips to his ear.

“Wasn’t sure you’d come.” She let the words float from her mouth.

“Never had trouble in that arena.”

She took his hand, and they started walking quickly.

“You’re a screenwriter. Last name Feyereisen. You’re here location scouting for a movie.” She fake-smiled quickly at a fellow guest, but her stride didn’t slow.

“What’s my genre?” Roman tried to keep up.

“Comedy.”

Ugh, he thought.

She continued at a rapid pace. “I’m your wife, been with you since before the money…”

“There’s money in screenwriting?”

“There can be.”

“Who knew?” Roman said, more to himself than to her.

“We’re going to meet crypto billionaire Jerd McKinley…”

“Pardon?”

“Jerd McKinley.”

“Jerd?”

“Jerd McKinley. Made a meme coin that blew up for reasons that have yet to be ascertained. Maybe his buddy Elon tweeted about it.”

“I’m going to try to forget you said those words in that order. Is he our mark?”

“Yes. Seems he’s been doing some insider trading.”

Roman was used to a higher caliber of crime than simple Wall Street shenanigans. “Isn’t that a little below our pay grade?”

DuJour brought her voice’s volume down again. “Not when you hear what he’s been trading…”

“Bonds?” Roman asked.

“Insides… Kidneys, livers, hearts. Big business here in Thailand. They call it the Organ Trail.”

Roman, despite being on both sides of some nasty violence in his day, was a little squeamish when it came to bodily fluids and functions. He could snipe a drug lord or get information out of a terrorist with his fists, but when it came to blood, he was not a fan. “That’s not enough to bring him down?”

“We haven’t been able to pin anything on him. That’s where you come in.”

“What do you want me to do? Order a new gallbladder and see if he rings me up?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Here he comes. Look, but don’t make it obvious.”

They paused. There was a hub of commotion near the velvet rope at the entrance of the designated party space on the beach. A man was surrounded by private security, which consisted of large goons in dark cargo shorts and long-sleeved turtlenecks. Roman only caught glimpses of the person of interest through the henchmen’s close guard. Then, in a moment, Jerd McKinley stepped out onto the sand and Roman was able to take him in, in all his… whatever was the opposite of “glory.”

Jerd McKinley was clad in only board shorts and was obviously very vain, using his nouveau riche assets to enhance his exterior looks. He had Ozempic face and a CryoSculpted torso. Hair plugs had grown out of his skull like spider webs and had been swept back faux-casually. His face was frozen in a parody of itself, with lips bulging like two swollen, opposing Pringles. His forehead was smooth like a doll’s, but his abs had been etched via lipo. He was juiced up with steroids or HGH or whatever the latest pseudoscience was pushing to turn normal men into specimens with superhero measurements.

But there was still the tell of the anxious nerd Jerd must have been before the money. His hands were withered and chapped, the sign of obsessive hand washing. Or scrubbing in, Roman thought, to all the surgeries he may perform. Jerd’s eyes darted around nervously even though his mouth smiled with shiny white veneers. Sure, he could rebuild his face and body from scratch, but inside he would always be Just Jerd.

He was carrying a portable speaker, blasting an anonymous trance beat. The DJ sighed and lowered the volume on his own system, begrudgingly letting Jerd play his tunes. Jerd was laughing it up with his staff; they looked not too enthused to be at the party but had put on a happy face as part of the gig. You could pay for friends, but the camaraderie surely waned when the checks stopped coming.

“We don’t know how he’s moving the organs,” DuJour said quietly to Roman. “He’s never been caught with so much as a transplant cooler. We think he must have someone on the inside helping him smuggle the goods.”

“Inside where?” Roman asked.

“Do your job,” DuJour said quickly, then smiled as she walked Roman right up to Jerd’s entourage. Jerd’s nervous eyes flicked up and down her body. His smile widened to an absurd degree, a parody of self-confidence.

“Is Mr. McKinley expecting you?” A beefy guard’s hand wrapped around DuJour’s wrist. Roman reached to stop the contact, but Jerd’s voice, nasal yet commanding, piped in.

“I expect the unexpected. And this beauty is certainly unexpected.”

Jerd parted his posse like the Red Sea and walked up to DuJour, visibly annoyed that Roman was there.

Roman stuck out his hand to intercept Jerd. “Feyereisen. Call me Roman. This is my wife, DuJour.”

Jerd barely looked at Roman but instead took DuJour’s hand in his and kissed it. Only the degree to which his lips were plumped made it hard for him to actually pucker his mouth, so it was more like he pressed his face into her hand. He raised his head with what he must have thought was a suave expression, but in actuality he had no way of contorting his features to show any emotion. DuJour offered her own forced smile.

“Charmed,” she mustered.

Jerd finally turned his attention to Roman. “Do you cook?”

“Pardon?”

“Cook. Grill. BB the Q, baby. We have some sea bass I caught off the coast this morning… well, I didn’t catch it per se, but it was caught by my crew on my luxury fishing boat, and we need it grilled up. Chef hasn’t shown yet. He might still be recovering from a procedure. Anyway, you look like a guy who has worked in a kitchen before.”

Roman, having lived many lives before entering the academy, had worked in the back of the house at a kitchen before, but he didn’t feel like it was a compliment coming from Jerd, who had probably never had a legit job in his life. From coding straight to crime, no doubt. Roman knew this was a smokescreen to get him away from DuJour so that Jerd could attempt to woo his fake wife. He didn’t want to cause any friction, yet, so he let one of Jerd’s guys show him to the industrial-sized propane grill. The crony walked with a hitch in his step, like his lower back was in pain. Roman ordered another drink, slapped some fish on the hot metal, and let his eyes wander about the party.

There were civilians there, of course, seemingly rich couples and singles in Thailand for pleasure and businessmen who were letting their hair down between board meetings with their global conglomerates. But there seemed to be a seedy element as well. The party was rife with buff guards with machine guns over their shoulders.

Also, there were a few sick-looking stragglers hanging around, sipping drinks, or pretending to. A stick-thin woman bwho was obviously wearing a wig. A guy whose skin was tinged yellow, which reminded Roman of another agent’s kid, who had been born jaundiced and needed light therapy for the first several days after birth. An older fella with an oxygen tank sat near the water watching the waves. Were these potential clients? It was an odd crowd.

And then night had fallen. The light was being provided by the full moon and the strings of bulbs that hung everywhere. DuJour was cackling with Jerd, playing her role well. They seemed to be looking over at Roman periodically. Odd, but DuJour must have her game. Roman got a couple plates of grilled fish ready and served them to the long, ornate table that was set up right in the sand under a canopy.

He whispered to DuJour, “Get Jerd and the bodyguards swimming…” as he passed by her. She looked at him questioningly, but he was already dishing out the filets to hungry guards.

DuJour took the cue and proposed a toast. “To new friends and old wine” or something to that effect, and if the party wasn’t lit before, it got more so. Wine was brought out, but also champagne and Jerd’s drink of choice: Mountain Dew with blueberry Stoli.

Jerd’s portable speaker battery died, and the DJ was elated. He started spinning and cranked his system’s volume to 11½. DuJour coaxed Jerd to the dance floor. He was incredibly uncoordinated with his ill-gotten muscles and counterfeit features. Jerd’s security started to loosen up, a couple of them dancing, mostly all of them drinking.

DuJour was in the center of the dance floor when she kicked off her shoes and stripped off her dress, revealing the lingerie she was wearing underneath. She hopped up into one of Jerd’s guys’ arms and motioned for Jerd and whoever else was savvy to make way to the waves to get wet. Jerd was still only wearing board shorts, so he was ready to rock. He probably hadn’t hit all his macros that day, so he was empty-stomach drunk and stumbling over the sand. His henchmen followed the chaos, looking unsure of the protocol.

They reached the water’s edge where waves lapped at the sandy shore. There was less light there. Looky-loos from the resort and the beach party kept watch at a distance. DuJour rolled in the sand like it was a photo-shoot, flashing smiles at Jerd and his team. Jerd salivated. DuJour splashed the guards when the waves rolled in, getting their shorts and long-sleeved shirts wet. They looked around nervously.

Jerd, intoxicated with vodka and the caffeinated mutagen-colored beverage he loved, forgot himself and went down to his knees in the sand, crawling like a lizard towards DuJour. She made frightened eyes to Roman, questioning if he had a plan. He needed her to continue the ruse, so he nodded towards Jerd’s staff, and he motioned to her like he was taking off his shirt. She let out another of her patented good-natured guffaws, letting Jerd know that everything that was happening was A-OK with her. The billionaire took her in his arms.

“Don’t you ever let your boys have any fun?” DuJour cooed to Jerd.

His eyes were wild. He swung his head around, looking at the men with the big guns who were staring at him, making sure he was in no danger.

“What are you idiots doing? Get in the water! Let’s party!”

The guards exchanged glances; they weren’t sure what to do. Jerd ran to the closest one and untucked his shirt for him. The guy pulled his shirt over his head and dropped the gun. He ran into the water and began splashing about.

More of the guards followed suit, doffing their duds and frolicking into the frothy surf. Roman guessed these guys didn’t get a lot of leisure time and were jumping at the chance.

A few of the guards gathered the discarded guns and kept a perimeter so no outside element could disturb the revelry. One large man in particular had his piece trained on Roman.

DuJour was keeping her act up until she noticed the bodies of the henchmen that were now jumping in the sand and diving in the waves. She met Roman’s gaze, and he nodded knowingly. She put her hand to her mouth as she realized…

Each of the men was covered in ghastly scars. One had long, puckered, barely healed slashes along his lower back. Another looked almost like he had been bisected down the front and then sewn back up. Each guy looked like they had sustained very intense injuries or undergone life-altering procedures. Roman had been entertaining a hunch, but now everything came bleakly into focus.

Swiftly, he dropped behind the closest guard and pressed the flare gun up to his temple. Even if the fella thought it was a real gun, it didn’t matter. At this range, a flare to the face would still do critical damage.

“Jerd, have your boys line up. It’s time to tell the truth.”

Jerd’s party was officially pooped. He grunted in dismay as he slightly sobered. The henchman aimed at Roman. Red dots lit up Roman’s head and torso like lazily strewn Christmas lights.

“I’ve been watching your staff, and I have deduced…”

Jerd pulled a small gun out from his shorts. It was wrapped in plastic. Jerd unwrapped it and shot at his own henchman, who dropped to the sand, moaning. Roman was instantly exposed. He felt more nude than earlier when he had been literally naked in front of dozens of strangers. He put his hands in the air, and the flare gun dangled on his index finger.

“If you really cracked the code, then you’d know that none of these fools really matter to me. Maybe I just lost a couple grand, but that’s OK. There are more willing participants. They mule for me, I make it worth it for their families.”

DuJour also had a trick up her… well, she wasn’t wearing sleeves, but she produced a knife from her bra and put it to Jerd’s neck with surprising speed.

Now she had Jerd’s attention. She was pressing the knife hard enough to Jerd’s throat that his voice came out in a croak.

“Do what the man said, boys… let’s all be calm and hear him out.”

Roman nodded thankfully to DuJour.

He grabbed the knife that was being used to chop limes and a bottle of high proof liquor from a nearby cabana. He poured the liquor on the knife to do a makeshift sterilization job. He flipped over the moaning guard on the ground, lifted up his shirt, and exposed two healed scars by his massive hips.

“They say Jerd made the initial money in cryptocurrency. Sure, but there are lots of newly rich douchebags because of Bitcoin. What set Jerd apart is that he put his investments to work. Insider trading, perhaps. Organ harvesting…”

Jerd protested. “Now wait a minute, there’s no proof…”

By now there was a stir with the party guests. The resort’s security was scurrying around.

Roman held up a finger to silence Jerd and continued. “We were looking to see if he had someone on the inside, perhaps airport security, someone in customs, who knows?”

He ran the knife down the preexisting scars and opened the flesh. The henchman was on his way out anyway and barely registered the new pain. Blood dribbled from his lips into the sand. Roman cringed. He hated what he had to do, but a lot of his job was doing things that no other man would dare. He reached his hand in the fresh wound and dug around.

DuJour closed her eyes but kept the knife firmly at Jerd’s artery. She could make him bleed out with just a scratch. The thugs Jerd had hired were dumbstruck, fingering their own long, twisted scars.

Roman brought his hand out of the man’s interior, and it was dripping with gore. He held up whatever he had found triumphantly.

“It turns out, Jerd doesn’t have someone on the inside smuggling the goods… he’s smuggling the goods inside someone!” He opened his hand and let the kidneys drop to the sand: one, two… three. He pointed a bloody finger at various guards. “I’d guess if I opened up the chest of the gentleman over there that he’d have three lungs. That thug would have an extra liver, which is helpful I supposed when you drink as much as I’ve seen him drink in the last hour.”

Guests gasped. The rest of Jerd’s cronies began to drop their guns and put their shirts back on self-consciously.

“Some of them know. You say you made deals with them in exchange for money for their families. But I bet half of these guys don’t know they’re walking inventory.”

The resort security and the Royal Thai Police were swarming. Henchmen were running or swimming away with their extra internal organs intact. Jerd watched as his meat market made their exits. The authorities would do the rest. Roman’s job was done, and he could clock out.

Roman looked to DuJour. “I think it’s time we got a proper drink.”

Back in Roman’s hotel room, he had the ingredients for a real martini on the bar. He was lying in bed. DuJour shook the concoction and poured it into two glasses. Now she was the one wearing only his white robe.

She handed Roman the drink and he took a sip, savoring the flavor. She stepped away towards the veranda.

But something was off.

“Did you use the Kina Lillet I had sent up?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Roman felt strange. Already the fast-acting toxin was making it hard for him to think.

He struggled to turn his head. DuJour was putting her paint-spattered overalls on. She was putting on surgical gloves. She was brandishing a long hypodermic needle.

Everything went fuzzy for Roman.

Then black.

* * *

He woke up and he was cold.

His cell phone was ringing.

He was in a bathtub full of ice.

He fell out of the tub onto the floor.

Staggered to his phone and hit speaker.

It played loudly through the room.

Roman was having a hard time understanding the words. It was the head of his agency. She was checking to see if Roman had received the dossier about the other agent he would be working with. She said the other agent would be at the hotel today. That he would be wearing a fedora and the code word was “Elevation.”

Roman looked back at the tub. There was blood in the water. He was in intense pain. He had a reverse-L shaped scar on his abdomen. There was blood seeping from the hastily stitched wound.

Roman pawed at his phone and it nearly fell off the bathroom counter. He had a new text. DuJour preferred texting… was that something she had said?

Everything was still blurry.

An unknown number.

A long message.

You can potentially live for a couple days without a liver… It’s not a death sentence per se… I’d lay off the martinis until you find a replacement… thank you for getting my competition out of my way… we’ll have to do it again sometime… xoxo DuJour… (by the way, that’s not my real name you idiot)

He took a belt straight from the vodka bottle. He placed a length of duct tape over his wound. He found his black suit.

He wasn’t sure he had ever been in this deep.

Roman had a new mission.

DARK DAYS IN DEL RIO

ALEC CIZAK

The DeSoto sputtered on Texas 277. As Jack Laramie stepped on the gas, the engine coughed. He’d had the transmission fixed in Clyde not long ago. He figured it was a fuel line issue. A dust-coated sign on the side of the road announced ten miles to Del Rio. He urged on the coupe, his horse trailer rattling behind it. Got off the state route and navigated streets in the small town until he found Haskell’s, a service shop on North Avenue Q.

He pulled up to the fuel pumps and got out. A teenager in a navy coverall emerged from the silver-trimmed office next to the garage. Pale face dotted with freckles. The name Pete in cursive on the tag stitched to his breast pocket. Wiry, thin, like he ran track at the local high school. “Afternoon, sir.”

Jack said, “Five gallons, you don’t mind.”

“Sure thing.” The kid unscrewed the gas cap and prepared the pump.

Jack opened the hood. Every piece of the engine had come from other vehicles. Like someone had found a colony of different cars and decided to build a new one made entirely of spare parts. He lifted the prime suspect, wiped off gunk and grime. “Yup,” he said to himself. “She’s torn, all right.” He closed the lid. “Old son,” he said to the kid, “whereabouts might I find a shop can sell me a new fuel hose?”

The kid shrugged. “Mr. Haskell would be obliged to order whatever you need. Truck comes from San ‘Tone every Thursday.”

Looking at the clock hanging between the garage stalls, Jack said, “What’s today?”

A pair of F-9 jets screamed overhead, shot into the vast, sapphire horizon. Once the sonic rumble tapered, the kid said, “Monday, reckon.”

“Well, shit.”

“Bet I could convince Mr. Haskell to install the line for half of what he usually charges,” said the kid. “Seeing as how you’re in a hurry.”

“Not necessary.” Jack waved off the suggestion like a cloud of bees had settled in front of him and he couldn’t get around it. “Let’s just order the hose.”

* * *

The Café Del Rio resembled a miniature hacienda converted to a diner. Stucco, tangerine walls hosted ornate, ivory arches along the second story. Must have been the hottest spot in town. No room in the parking lot for the DeSoto and the horse trailer. Jack settled the coupe along the road, occupied three spaces. He hoped the law wouldn’t take offense. He sat at the counter inside the diner, impressed by the bebop piped in through speakers mounted in the corners closest to the door. He rested his Stetson on the stool to his left. A waitress in a one-piece skirt the same color as the building’s exterior took his order. A strip of plastic pinned to a strap on her manila apron identified her as Maribel. She’d tied her black hair into a bun and wrapped it in a net. Painted her lips a deep, enticing burgundy. She flashed a seasoned service smile. “Start you with something wet?”

“Don’t suppose you got Lone Star on tap?”

“You know better than that, hon.” She nodded at several tables with children.

“Suppose I do,” said Jack. “I can smell the fried eggs from here. How about you slap one between two nice, warm pieces of bread, maybe a little lettuce and pepper?”

“Sounds like you know how to prepare an egg.”

“Among other things.”

The woman grinned. She aimed her pen at her pad and said, “How about some juice with that sandwich?”

“Good idea.”

“What you got in mind?”

“Surprise me.”

“My pleasure.” She made another scratch on her pad and headed for the window to the kitchen.

An elbow nudged Jack. A squat man in a fedora and matching gray suit and tie had taken the seat next to him. “How’d you like to scoop her pie?” His bugged-out eyes rolled one time.

Jack said, “Subtle, my friend.”

The man’s face flushed. “You some sort of boy scout?”

“Suppose you’re right.” Jack felt stupid for policing the man. “My apologies.”

“Not a bit of it.” The man slapped him on his shoulder and offered his hand. “Bob Brecht. Air Force. Retired. Ain’t ever seen you around here.”

“Jack Laramie.” He shook his hand. “Only here for a moment.”

“Likewise.” The man pulled a stained, laminated menu from behind a napkin holder.

Two fellows down a ways raised their voices. The first, a heavy-set middle-aged man who constantly looked as though he’d wobble off his stool, said, “You think our boys created those saucers? Makes no sense.”

The other man, taller, slimmer, wearing a bowler and a mismatched polka dot tie across the collar of an unwashed white shirt, said, “Seen them in the war. Krauts was working on them just before the mustache ate his pistol.”

“My friend,” said the shorter man, “we already got word from that fellow in Washington. They’re from outer space.”

The taller man put his hand on the counter and spoke like a father informing his boy Santa Claus didn’t exist. “Listen, Victor…the precise conditions for lifeforms developed here on Earth would not happen anywhere else in the universe.” Victor tried to interrupt, but the tall man stopped him. “Not saying life can’t exist in other parts of the cosmos. What I am saying is, they wouldn’t look a lick like us, and they certainly wouldn’t develop technology like we have.”

“But these things, they do not use fuel, not like the jets flying out of Laughlin.”

“Whatever technology those saucers run on, we made it. Trust me.”

Jack had heard stories of disc-shaped aircraft harassing allied planes in the war. He’d flown in a B-17 himself. Never saw anything unusual beyond the Luftwaffe bearing down, just before he bailed and wound up in a POW camp.

Bob Brecht spoke in a voice Jack assumed meant for him only. “These goofballs. Next thing they’ll be trying to convince us they had dinner with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster.”

The door to the diner opened and a man in a beige coverall entered. He held up a photo of a teenaged boy, an enlarged shot probably meant for a high school yearbook. The diner went quiet. As he addressed the patrons, he choked a few times, like he might break down and cry. “Take a good look,” he said. “My son, Gerald Nash. You all know him. You been rooting for him Friday nights for two years now. He brought us to regionals last year and you damn well know he’s going to take us to state this year. You all can act like him disappearing ain’t a big deal, but I ask you, were it your boy or girl, wouldn’t you be on the rest of us to figure out just where in the hell he run off to?”

Most folks exchanged glances, dismissed the grieving father. They whispered. They sighed. Apathy or outright laziness prevented them from tearing themselves away from their scrambled eggs and coffee. Jack slid off his stool and approached the man. “Excuse me.” He produced his private investigator’s license. “Reckon I might be of service.”

The man’s shoulders shook and he looked, for a moment, as though he’d buckle over and collapse. “Mister, I sure do appreciate your taking note…” He scanned the sea of customers and spoke louder. “Seeing as how nobody else in town’s got the guts.” His voice returned to a conversational volume. “Much as I’d love to have a professional take on this operation, I have to admit, I can’t right afford…”

Jack put his hand up to stop him. “We can work out a suitable rate, Mr…Nash, is it?” The man nodded. “I’m here a couple days,” said Jack. “Let’s find your son.” Scanning the dining area for a free table, he noticed his spiffy neighbor, Bob Brecht, had opted not to stay for breakfast. He pointed toward the empty stools. “My office, Mr. Nash.” He followed the man to the counter. Maribel had delivered his food. “Hope you don’t mind if I chow down while we talk.”

“No, sir.” The man formally introduced himself as Grant Nash. He folded the picture of his son and handed it to Jack. “Best I been able to forage, Gerald was with his girl, two nights ago. They took a walk to the hill just south of town. Kids like to sit up there and neck while the planes from the base streak about.”

“Must be romantic, all that noise.”

“Don’t ask me to understand these kids today,” said the man. “My senior year, courting Ellie, Gerald’s mom, my wife, I had to put up with her father accompanying us on every date.”

“Ouch.”

“Different days.”

Grant said his son left early the next morning and never returned. He told Jack where to reach him the moment he had any news.

The waitress set a glass of apple juice in front of Jack. He could smell it before wrapping his fingers around it. He toasted her. She leaned in and said, “Just remember…a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

* * *

Jack took his time separating the horse trailer from the DeSoto. He rested the hitch on the cinder blocks he normally used as a desk, inside the trailer, to support a chess board. Easing his foot on and off the gas pedal, he brought the wheezing, stubborn DeSoto to Haskell’s. The kid, Pete, met him at the gas pumps.

“You pass on my order?” said Jack.

The kid shrugged. “Guess I kind of forgot.”

Jack stopped himself from strangling him. His worries were not the worries of a teenager. “When will Mr. Haskell be in?”

“Later,” said the kid, as though that constituted a complete, satisfactory answer.

Jack waited for more information. The kid popped a stick of gum in his mouth and looked around. Maybe he expected Jack to drive off and leave him to his, obviously, profound thoughts. Jack put the coupe in gear. As he let up on the brake pedal, he stopped and called the kid over. “Hey. You familiar with Gerald Nash?”

“Who ain’t?”

“You know he’s missing?”

“Heard something to that.”

“He the kind of fellow might skedaddle?”

“Gerry? No way.” The kid ducked his head closer to the window. “Six schools looking to give him a scholarship to play ball. Two of them ain’t even in Texas, that tells you what kind of weapon he is. Way I figure, fellow’s got aces, why would he fold them?”

“Thank you.” Jack rolled into traffic. He handled the DeSoto like the thinnest piece of china in the cupboard. He followed Grant Nash’s directions to one of the last people known to have spent time with Gerald Nash. Virginia Polk, the boy’s girlfriend. She lived on Avenue K, a swath of identical one-story houses. A concrete, two-step stoop led to each screened-in front door. Aluminum awnings arced over the windows like painted eyelashes.

Virginia Polk answered the bell. Said her folks were at the factory, building jet engines. Pretty girl. Auburn hair flowing past her shoulders. Small, smart glasses covering her aqua blue eyes. She scratched her elbow every minute or so. Restless. Probably dreamt too big for a small town. When he said he wanted to ask her some questions, she directed him to back up. “Wouldn’t be right, bringing a stranger inside my parents’ house.” She stood on the winding concrete path cutting through a manicured, emerald lawn, the leavings still lining the edges.

Jack asked her about her last night with Gerald Nash.

“Gerry and I,” she said, “we just started going steady—does that offend you, sir? Teenagers going steady?”

Jack assured her he had no qualms with human nature.

“We like going to the south hills, south side of town, as you might guess. Lot of people go there, couples, you know. You can see all manner of things springing up from the base. And if things get boring in the sky, well, then, you know, you do a little necking. Nothing scandalous.”

“Of course,” said Jack.

“Gerry and I, we’re sitting there, me talking about which classes I’m fixing to take senior year, him not really listening, just trying to paw at me. Well, I’d told him to bring this box camera he got for Christmas. I wanted to take some pictures of me in this cute little dress I got with sunflowers all over it, taking it for a spin, you know, for when they snap our senior portraits.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, nudged her toward the point of her story.

“Yeah, so, anyway, that night, we seen, just before the sun set, seven discs, flying straight overhead so fast you’d think they were bugs or something. But they were saucers, flying saucers, like you hear about sometimes on the radio. Gerry aimed that little camera at them and snagged three or four pictures before they, well, they just…vanished.”

Jack stood straight. “Vanished?”

“Same way they came into view, like they just appeared from thin air and went right back to it soon as they shot by above us, you know? Weirdest thing I ever did see.”

In a quiet voice, Jack said, “You tell anybody else about this?”

She shook her head. She didn’t blush or look away. “I’m sure Gerry dropped off the film at Connor’s, over on North M. Only place in town for that sort of thing. He said he’d come by last night at five. We wanted to walk to town for a soda and watch the new monster picture at the Texas. The movie theater, downtown,” she clarified. “Never did show. His pa suggested I keep mum while he sorted out what might be what.”

“That’s good thinking,” said Jack. “Do me a favor, keep on keeping mum.” He held her attention until she nodded.

He cruised into town, only tapping the gas pedal when necessary. He found North M and parked in the lot outside a building with Connor’s Real Memories written on the side in leaning letters dotted with stars. Upon entering the establishment, an ugly blend of chemical scents compelled him to hold his nose. Framed pictures of people he didn’t recognize covered the walls along with shelves filled with boxes of unexposed film. A freckled man in a white coat, wearing rubber gloves, stood on the other side of a glass counter displaying expensive lenses and camera bodies. The man said, “Afternoon.” Jack showed him his PI license. The man held up his hands. “I’m innocent, I swear!”

“I don’t doubt you are, old son.” Jack returned the license to his charcoal blazer’s inside pocket and rested his palms on the counter. “You the proprietor here?”

The man offered his hand. “Bull Connor, one and only.”

Jack said, “Let me get right to it, then. You familiar with Gerald Nash?”

“Boy’s going to take us to state, let me tell you. Throws an atomic pass.” His shoulders relaxed. “Myself, I prefer a good ground game. Throwing the ball, well, it’s just too risky. You bulk up that line and run between the tackles, plow the defense till they got nowhere to go. That’s football, Mr. Investigator…” He poked a finger at him without touching him. “Let…me…tell…you.”

“Tell me this,” said Jack. “Gerald Nash bring you any film to develop, I mean, within the last day or so?”

“Dropped off a roll yesterday. Said he had something real special on it. I’d kind of hoped it was pictures of his latest gal, Virginia. Lord…she’s going to be a heartbreaker, let me tell you.”

“No pictures of a teenaged girl for you to gawk at?”

“Oh…” A sneer twisted Bull Connor’s mouth. “You one of those? Thinks we men folk can’t be honest when the finger-wagging sex ain’t around?”

“Why don’t you tell me what was on that roll of film, Mr. Connor.”

He appeared to let his indignation pass. “Pictures of flatlands, some jets from the base, and a few shots he must have took by mistake.”

“What was on those? The mistakes, I mean.”

“Bunch of white dots. I figure he aimed the camera somewhere in the sky, picked up some sunspots.”

“You printed a contact sheet, I assume.”

In a soft voice, Bull Connor said, “You going to tell Jimmy Polk I said his daughter was good looking?”

“Nope.”

The man waved him around the counter. “This way.” He held a black curtain aside and let Jack walk in front of him. Cardboard boxes adorned with the scarlet and canary Kodak symbol covered the walls from one end to the other. He directed him to a door with a buzzing warning lamp mounted above it. “Let me double-check, make sure I ain’t got any film laying about, might get exposed improperly.” He ducked into the room, a scant purple light emanating from it, and invited Jack to join him.

Laundry lines hung crosswise over metal tables. Photographs and contact sheets had been clipped to them with clothes pins. “Thought I’d put it here,” he said, examining several contact sheets. He rested his hands on his hips and scanned plastic bins filled with chemicals on the table. “Could have sworn…” He rummaged through small canisters and a few yellow envelopes. “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “Boy’s negatives are gone.”

“You got employees?” said Jack. “Might have put them someplace?”

Bull Connor scratched the back of his neck. “Well,” he said, “now, come to think on it…yesterday, late yesterday, a man come in from the city, said he needed to check the electricity.”

Jack produced a small notebook from his blazer’s inside pocket, opened it to a blank page. “He show identification?”

Bull Connor looked at the ground.

“What about a uniform? An electrician…surely he had a unif…”

“This fellow…shoot, dressed to the nines.” Bull Connor knocked himself in the forehead with the bottom of his fist. “Sometimes the old noodle don’t fire quite right.”

“You think you could identify this man, you saw him again?”

“Reckon so.”

* * *

Jack ducked into the Café Del Rio for dinner. Maribel’s shift must have ended. Young woman named Rita, curly blonde hair peeking from under a paper hat, dressed more like a soda jerk than a waitress, served him a bacon and lettuce sandwich. Generous heaping of mayonnaise on the burnt toast holding it together. In between visits to make sure he didn’t need anything else, she loitered near the through-window and talked flying saucers with a cook, a heavy guy who looked like he’d taken a knife down the side of his face at some point:

“Newspaper’s saying they was birds, flying against the light of the moon or something.”

“I’ll eat my left foot, them was birds.”

Next time Jack looked up from his plate, he noticed he’d gained a neighbor. Bob Brecht, again, took the stool next to his.

“Hey there, buddy,” he said.

Jack nodded.

“I see you’ve figured out the best food in town.”

“Close to my lodging.” Jack nodded over his shoulder at his horse trailer, still parked in the street.

“You sleep in that?”

“Slept worse places.” Jack stopped himself before memories of Stalag Luft Three, of hounds snarling and growling in the dead of night, overtook his thoughts, brought on a smothering darkness he’d fled since the war.

“Brother,” said Bob Brecht, “I like your way of looking at things.” He overturned an empty glass in front of him and raised it for a toast.

Jack thanked him.

“Sure is refreshing.” Bob studied the menu for a moment. He snapped his fingers at the waitress. “Listen, honey,” he said to her, “let’s give the sirloin burger a day in court.” To Jack, Bob said, “You hear these two going on about flying saucers? I do reckon that’s what becomes of a world when it turns its back on God. Folks want to believe they have some say in the universe. They know, deep down, we all answer to somebody. If God ain’t there, then…who? Little green men. Manipulators from Mars. Right out of a Jules Verne story.” The waitress filled Bob’s empty glass with water. He took a sip and held up his pointing finger. “Correction,” he said to Jack. “H.G. Wells. It’s H.G. Wells I’m thinking of.” He smacked his lips together. “The gist being, it’s fiction. Fiction of the scientific variety. Or should I say, unscientific?”

Jack shrugged. “I believe in letting people paint their own pictures of the universe. Long as their perception don’t interfere with someone else’s, what’s the harm?”

“You a communist?”

“Not in this life.” Jack lifted his sandwich, hoped it would end the conversation.

Bob Brecht said, “Well, on that note, we can remain cordial.”

Jack ate without saying another word. He left cash for the meal and coins for the service on the counter. He tipped his Stetson and wished Bob Brecht well.

“I’ll be good,” said the man. “I’ll be just fine.”

“Well, all right then.” Jack made his way through the diner, the parking lot, and into his horse trailer. The sun bled over the western horizon. Red skies to the east blended into a cobalt shade only seen in Texas. He brought out his chess board, placed it on the floor. He worked over responses to a Slav defense. Once the sun disappeared, he lit an iron farmhouse gas lantern he’d received in exchange for services provided to a widow in Katy. An amber glow filled the trailer. Underneath the hum of the lantern, a low-pitched noise, like a growl delivered from the center of the Earth, rose and dominated other sounds of the night. A car engine eased near the trailer and idled. The temperature dropped to near freezing. As Jack reached for a blanket to cover his shoulders, someone rapped on the side of the trailer. Before he could respond, the rear gate opened on its own.

A sulfuric stench washed the air. Surrounded by an inexplicable haze, three men in black suits, black ties, and black fedoras stood in a pyramid formation, obscured by the lamps on a running sedan behind them. Also black. They could have been triplets—each of their gaunt faces covered in sunglasses despite the fading sun. Thin, arched eyebrows angled above their shades. The pigment of their skin loitered between gray and beige. They could not have been more than five feet tall. When the stranger representing the tip of the pyramid spoke, his voice traveled a rough path across vocal cords obviously not intended for human speech.

“You’re asking questions.” It closed its thin mouth, as though it expected Jack to be eager to respond. Jack did not oblige. “You’re not asking questions…” It swallowed. Concentration animated its odd face, as though searching for the strength to say what it finally said: “…anymore.”

Instinct demanded Jack grab the unusual man by the collar of his shirt and slam him against the hood of the sedan. The little man had trouble speaking now? Just wait until Jack scraped his face against the pavement. An alien voice, however, trumped his natural desire to demonstrate actual power. The alien voice said, “Do what you’re told. You know what’s good for you? Do…what…you’re…told.” Jack wanted to argue, to say, “I didn’t survive the goddamn war to be pushed around by pissants in nice suits.”

“Mr. L-l-l-l-laram-m-m-m-mie,” said the man to the right of the center. Same voice, same struggle to construct simple words. “To you…great harm…continue…if you…yes?”

Every muscle in Jack’s body begged him to leap from the trailer and knock their little skulls together until they bled from their ears. “Gentlemen, I’m merely waiting on a replacement for my fuel line.”

The man who had just spoken peered around the side of the trailer. “C-c-c-car…that?” He pointed to the DeSoto, parked across the street. He did not wait for Jack’s answer. He took awkward, uneven steps as he moved to the coupe. The act of walking, much like speaking, seemed foreign to these men. The DeSoto’s hood popped without a normal prompt. The other two followed the first with equal measures of difficulty.

They stared at the engine like surgeons scrutinizing a patient’s fresh incision. Jack eased himself onto the concrete and watched from a distance. The first one over rubbed his tiny hands together until a pale glow emanated from his palms. He reached into the engine. The men stepped backward, and the coupe’s lid lowered by itself. Jack wondered whether his food at the diner had been drugged. He’d experience such unpleasantries at Stalag Luft Three. Unusual Nazis, not too different from the little men in black, poisoned the wurst and kraut every so often and conducted tests on the prisoners.

The odd men waved for Jack to join them. Again, he complied, offending every ounce of his pride and honor. As he approached, the man who’d made his hands glow said, “Fixed…try c-c-c-car…try, now…”

Jack ducked into the coupe. He brought out his keys and cranked the ignition. Never had the vehicle fired up smoother. He stepped on the gas, revved the beast in neutral. Smooth as butter. He killed the engine. The little men traveled in their jerky, comic manner back to their sedan. The one who got in last said to Jack, “Now you c-c-c-c-an leave, now…” The sedan rolled past Jack and sped into the horizon. The taillights on the vehicle suddenly vanished, as though the car had slipped into another realm of existence.

As Jack climbed into the trailer, he found his memory of the little men hazy. Trying to fall asleep, he questioned whether the encounter had even occurred.

* * *

In the morning, Jack battled a headache as he entered the diner and sat at the counter. A gorgeous brunette emerged from the kitchen. “Well, stranger,” she said.

“We need to change that.” He noted the rose shade her cheeks turned as he ordered a fried egg sandwich.

A bug-eyed man in a navy suit and cardinal tie surprised him, slapped him on the shoulders. “Hey there,” he said.

The waitress winked at Jack and took his order to the cook.

“Morning,” Jack said to the man.

“Just thought I’d wish you well before I scoot on back to Laughlin.” The man finished a cup of coffee he’d cradled in his other hand. He smacked his lips together and set the cup on the counter. “My work here is finished.” He patted Jack’s shoulder again, this time not as rough. “Enjoy your breakfast, neighbor.”

Jack returned his attention to the waitress. She stood near a steel sink washing glasses and setting them in a second sink to dry. Before he could speak to her, another hand tapped him on his shoulder. “Good grief,” he said as he turned to face his latest distraction.

A freckled man in a white lab coat nodded toward the well-dressed man, who’d just stepped out the front door. “That’s the fellow,” he said. He reeked of chemicals unkind to the senses.

“Excuse me?” Jack watched the well-dressed man stroll to a sky-blue Dodge Coronet.

“Fellow checked the electricity at my store,” said the man in the lab coat. “That’s him.”

“The hell you talking about, old son?”

The man told him his name, Bull Connor, reminded him of their previous conversation.

Clarity chased competing voices from Jack’s brain. He stood and thanked Bull Connor, then placed three dollars on the counter. Recognizing Maribel, he said, “One of these days, you and me, we’re going to have ourselves an uninterrupted dialogue.”

“Looking forward to it.” She winked and sidled down the counter to a new customer.

* * *

Jack started up the DeSoto. He cruised a hundred yards behind the Coronet, into the desert. Sonic claps interrupted the still Texas air. As Bob Brecht pulled the Coronet to the side of the road, Jack mimicked the movement, hiding the DeSoto behind a cluster of rocks and brush. He retrieved a seven-power telescopic sight from the glovebox, got out, and crouched behind a boulder.

Bob Brecht leaned against his car, arms folded. His right hand clutched a rolled-up, white paper bag. Jack assumed the Nash boy’s film and negatives occupied it. In the distance, a black sedan appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. It slowed at Bob Brecht’s car, swung a U-turn, and parked in front of the Dodge. Three short men in black suits struggled to get out of the sedan. They moved in cartoonish, jerky steps toward Bob Brecht. Scrutinizing them through the sight, Jack could not discern whether they were the same men who’d tampered with his mind the previous night. Bob Brecht gave them the white bag. He held out his hand, as though he expected a payoff from the men.

One of the men in black extended his pointing finger and placed it on Bob Brecht’s palm. Bob Brecht’s face shifted from confused grin to terror as a scarlet glow emanated from the man in black’s finger. Bob Brecht’s bug eyes popped like champagne corks. He singed and fragmented into a pile of navy, white, and cardinal clothes and ash. Jack contained himself, resisted the urge to get in the DeSoto, fly down the highway, and confront the men in black. They possessed power he did not understand. Would he produce his Colt .45 in time to defend himself, should they try the same trick on him? As he debated, the men in black returned to their sedan, fussed once more with their own bodies as they folded themselves into the sleek automobile, and drove off. In the time it took Jack to place the scope against his eye again, the sedan disappeared into a crack in the atmosphere.

His gut told him the little men in black had been responsible for the disappearance of Gerald Nash. But he could provide no solid proof beyond the abandoned car and ashes just up the road.

* * *

Jack parked the DeSoto outside a bland, concrete warehouse. He showed his PI license to a slim receptionist in the lobby, and she pointed to a door leading to the floor. Ear-piercing crashes and booms greeted him as he stepped through. He traveled the aisle between shelves stocked with shiny rolls of prepared metal, through an arch to a vast shop where men and women performed real work. Cotton poked from the sides of their heads, no doubt doing little to protect them from the racket of the machines. After screaming questions to several employees, Jack found Grant Nash pulling levers on an assembly line, punching holes in the edges of large sheets of metal. He approached him and said, “I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.”

Grant Nash offered the polite smile of a man not interested in offending a stranger.

“You hired me to find your boy, remember?”

The man laughed and shook his head. “Smitty, over there in accounting, he put you up to this?”

“I’m sorry?”

Leaning close, Grant Nash cupped his hand near Jack’s ear. “I don’t get easily irked, mister,” he said, “but funning about my inability to make critters of my own, well, it’s a might bit cruel, wouldn’t you say?”

“Mr. Nash,” said Jack, “you hired me to find your son. Two days ago, at Café Del Rio.”

He shook his head. “Ain’t stopped in that greasy hole any time recent.”

Craning to get a look at the man’s face in the light provided by lone bulbs hanging high overhead, Jack noted his glossed-over eyes, as though he’d had too much to drink. He pulled the senior portrait of Gerald Nash from his pocket and unfolded it. “This ring a bell?”

Grant Nash chewed on his lower lip as he examined it. “Mister,” he said, “I don’t know who told you to clown on me like this, but I tell you, I don’t much appreciate pranks and jokes, not even on April Fool’s Day, which, if I’m not mistaken, ain’t today.” He handed the photo back to Jack.

Both sides of the contact paper were blank.

* * *

Jack hitched the trailer and pulled into traffic. The concrete and aluminum structures composing Del Rio thinned in the rearview’s horizon. The car’s radio refused to secure a clear signal. He whistled “I Can’t Get Started,” a jazz standard, in the manner he imagined Ben Webster playing it on a saxophone. Hypnotized by the blazing asphalt scrolling before him, he noticed the shadow of an aircraft swooping across the road. A mile afterward, he realized the shape of the vehicle had been a perfect circle.

He entertained the thought that a flying saucer had buzzed him on the highway. He struggled to remember why he found that significant. In another moment, the memory of Del Rio and the little men in black disappeared. Jack Laramie couldn’t even recall why he’d set out on the road, and where he intended to go. He accepted it, as though someone unseen twisted his arm, convinced him anything that occurred over the last few days need not concern him, nor anyone else.

STEAL AWAY

CHRISTOPHER DUDA

1.

It was a large estate. Classical deco. The late night hours were winding down and the guards had just begun their rotations. Boss Mantaglia went to the kitchen for a piece of fruit. Their housemaid was busy tidying up the room before she left for the night. The Godfather spoke.

“Are you finished with your duties, Francesca?” he kindly asked his maid.

“Si, Signore.”

“Then you may go home, wherever that is.”

“Molte grazie.” She bowed out.

The Mafia master climbed the steps to reach his room and sleep beside the best part of his day, his wife, Trisola. Then a bit of late business delayed him from reaching her. When he did, she was already in bed. He liked to watch her slumber. Sometimes it was the only peaceful part of his day, those early twilight hours.

He cuddled close to her, but she was limp. Probably already asleep. Then he noticed the woman in his bed was Francesca and not his wife, Trisola. Francesca had been knocked out by a candlestick lying on the floor. Fortunately, she wasn’t yet dead. He shoved her off the bed to wake her and whistled with his hand.

They might catch her. Trisola couldn’t have gotten far. They might catch her. One of his guards shouted to him about the barn. The door was open. She had stolen his Fiat. He didn’t know who her lover was. All he knew was that he would not be the butt of a lame joke. He’d find her by hook or by crook. His succession depended on it.

2.

Years later, on the golden and grafted streets of America, a club had formed with the same intent: to take as much as was denied them. Feasty preferred swindling rich gentlemen with his mother, Ginie. Digit was a pickpocket. Nicolette stuck to house jobs. The ordinary rich man’s house could be cased in two, three minutes tops. There were a few jobs Nico wasn’t sure she’d pull out. Where she was now, the wife was at a gala and the husband was stuck in a council meeting. Their new socialist responsibility gave Nico plenty of opportunities. She was perusing the second floor when she heard the lock at the door click. Damn.

She ran to the library and hid behind a cabinet desk inside. By the sounds of it, it was a “lady” and a “gent.” Strictly meant in the freest terms. There were heavy steps beating to the library. She pulled out the letter opener and waited. He stepped in, glanced around, then beat feet out as quickly as he had come in. She heard a laugh. Wait a minute. She knew that voice. Although the intrusion had disrupted her frame of thought, getting out would be easy. Yes, that was would be the perfect word for it.

She hurried downstairs, busted in a door along the street, taking shortcuts and alleys in safe sections and staying out in the public crowd in areas not so safe. Her haven was the site of a demolished building. The yard was ideal with many places to hide and many a blunt object at hand. The site had beenw meant to make way for a new building, but a different site was chosen. What many considered an eyesore, Nico and her club saw to be a gem. And thirty percent of the take went to a community chest for living expenses. This was the progressive age, after all.

When she returned to the safety of her home territory, she found Digit, but not Feasty.

“I knew it.”

Just as she was on the verge of beginning to complain, Feasty appeared ahead of his mother.

“I knew it was you two,” Nicolette replied.

“What?”

“Were you the patsy or the relay?”

“Relay.”

“Hasn’t your mother retired by now?”

“When you beautify with age it’s hard to quit. Good heritage, you know.”

Ginie was fifty years old and looked middle-aged at best. She had a point. If you could cheat the system, why retreat? Why give them an inch? No quarter, unless it’s a profitable quarter.

Nicolette’s father was a painter. He was unappreciated in his time and scraped by the majority of the time. Her mother was a singer and she could have had a promising career. But there was one hang-up. She wasn’t willing to pander to local politicians or sleep with talented musical directors. She felt fortunate to know her parents. Many of the vagabonds she frequented didn’t have that luxury. Some had come from orphanages. Others were abandoned or put out.

Then she saw them. Cory, and with him, Vandem. Cory was building a fire for their select group. Cory had never known his father. His mother died of leukemia. He learnt that the best way to be appreciated was to perform. Acts of kindness, good cheer. As he had no experience robbing the rich, he protected their home turf. She had always appreciated Cory as a pure soul. One that could not be corrupted.

But Vandem: he craved attention. He had been taken to a monastery as a child. Pretty soon he was in private school. He flunked out and adopted the streets as his own. He never did approve of anyone making him do anything he didn’t want to. He also did house calls.

3.

There had been one time when the motley crew acted as a group to take down a big score. Someone related to the Rockefellers were coming to town, staying at another rich man’s house that Nico had cased before. The couple took their butler with them. Digit’s job that day was to steal meat from a local butcher or factory. It was known that there were guard dogs on the first floor.

Nico was tired because she had been studying plans all night, trying to find situations they could thrive in. She had stolen some clothes from a dry cleaning establishment nearby. The next day she woke up on a warm soft lap, Feasty’s lap. She was the closest thing that Nico had to a mother anymore. Her mother had died of pneumonia five years prior and her father had moved to an industrial city for work.

Digit showed up with the meat. They were prime cuts, but the problem was that they had maggots on them.

“Didn’t you check before you lifted them?”

“I thought all meat came that way.”

Feasty sighed. “You never read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle?”

“I avoid reading if I can.”

“This is still your job. You find meat that isn’t wasting away. Get it from wherever you can.”

“This is bullocks.”

Nico sneezed.

“You’re not getting sick, are you?” Vandem asked.

“It’s just allergies.”

“Can we catch it?”

Nico glared at Cory. “No.” She then glanced at Feasty. “Isn’t it about time for your date?”

“Yes, what do you think of my outfit?”

“Kind of thick, isn’t it?”

“It’s reversible.”

“You look smashing,” Cory said.

“Then wish me luck.”

Everyone knew their role in the coming operation. The problem was that Nicolette was getting sick again. She had a bug that gave her a runny nose. But she couldn’t miss this gig. She was their safe cracker. The only person anywhere near close as she was Vandem. She gave him the best advice she could, then expected to sit it out.

“Let’s get on with it, then.”

Vandem waited until the early hours of the morning before he crossed the avenue to their target. Then he heard swift feet running behind him. He turned around, almost slicing into Nicolette.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were sick?”

“Digit just got the sausages for the dogs. Besides, I wasn’t about to sit out the biggest score I’d tried to lift.”

Like clockwork, before the dogs had been placed on watch, Feasty had left the door open for them. With one swift move, they splayed the doors open and then threw down the meat. The dogs were contented.

Feasty had left a key below the front mat, too. Not the key to the front door, but to the safe room.

They had taken off their shoes and tiptoed to the safe room. Nico left Vandem there. There Nico left Vandem. He had offered to let her try the safe, but in her condition, she would have to leave it to Vandem. Her next role, as she saw it, was to create a diversion. She took the back servant stairway up to the second floor, stripped to her delicates, and then ran around the building, holding her clothes to her chest and screaming.

The guards ran out. She was guided to a back room where she dressed and tried to explain that she had been drugged and nabbed by one of the guards. She just wanted to go home. Then, the alarm sounded. There must have been a built in safe guard. A house woman with a gun held her there and went to investigate. The safe room was empty with the room key on the floor of its entrance, the safe open and empty, and a sheet of glass broken on the floor before the safe. The guards went into full in full went to search mode. A shrill noise distracted the house woman for a moment. Nico grabbed a candlestick that was close by and knocked the woman out. She then climbed out the second-story window.

The guards were frantic looking for the butler. One rushed into the only bathroom in the residence. Sitting on the commode with the door closed were the purple pants and socks of the butler, plus with a couple inches of hairy legs. He said, “Do you kindly mind?”

The guard bowed out. “Oh, sorry sir. I’ll be right back.”

The guard returned to the detail’s manager. Matters would have been fine from thereon if the butler hadn’t showed up outside the bathroom descending the second-floor stairs.

The guards rushed in just in time to see Nico pulling Vandem out of the bathroom window. She had commandeered a delivery truck and was in the process of making their getaway with Vandem and the money. They were almost out of the alley when the detail showed up to block their way to the street. She disheartened started to slow down when Vandem stepped on her foot, which was on the gas. They broke through a wall of men, sending most of them flying. Even, Vandem. Her truck was worse for wear, but still drivable. She escaped as people on the street tried to help. Fortunately, Vandem had been wearing a trench coat that covered his shoes and pants.

That was the longest night that Nico could remember. If they had Vandem, they would break him after two or three hours for fun, then really start working on him. She waited for the lockup, which she was sure was coming. She heard footsteps and prepared herself. When she looked up, she found Vandem limping towards their area. Nico still had the woman’s gun, which was effectively empty.

“Who is with you?”

“No one. It’s just me.”

“Prove it.”

“Okay, come out,” he shouted. No one appeared. “See?”

After a minute or two, she lowered her gun and helped him to the fire.

“What happened to you?”

“They must have thought I was either a part of the detail or an innocent bystander. I was transported to a hospital, which I quickly slipped out of before anyone could notice my shoes. You got the money?”

“Yes. We’ll divvy it up when I’m sure everything has mellowed out.”

“Where is it?”

She whispered into Vandem’s ear. “Expert. No one will find it there.”

Vandem followed.

When they had divvied it up, each had more money than they’d ever seen. To most this would seem the perfect time to bow out and live respectively. But working the street was all the motley crew had ever done. After a taste of the big time, they weren’t about to give up their meal ticket. Each splurged in their own way. Nico went to the fanciest hotel she knew of and slept in for three days.

4.

The crew had been slumbering peacefully for about three or four hours when Digit came running in, waking people up.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!”

“Who?”

“The English. Who do you think? The coppers!”

There was a general panic as they took their hiding and front line places. This wasn’t the first time the police had raided their HQ.

At first the cops were timid. Calling out, inching forward. One inched so close to Digit he thought he’d wet himself, but he knew his role. Hidden by the rubble, he tied the policeman’s shoes together and then ran off. The cop tried to follow, but fell flat on his face. That’s when the rocks started coming in. One of the cops was knocked unconscious.

“Screw this.”

They departed quickly. One of the coppers pulled his unconscious buddy behind him along the street, bringing up the rear.

They waited ten, twenty minutes before they returned to their awkward beds.

5.

Nico had two prospective households to watch. One would have to wait till next week, but the other was maturing nicely. She was just about to head off for a nightly reconnaissance. She happened upon Feasty crying by a lamppost on the street corner.

“Feasty, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“We’re disgraced.”

It turns out the Police Commissioner had disguised himself in plainclothes and was in the act of being spellbound by Ginie. They retreated to his estate, his parlor. That was when the police emerged, barring her escape. The commissioner denounced her. To punish her for her adulterous behavior, she was stripped naked and put out into the street. She was chased until she happened upon a merchant merciful enough to give her some clothes.

“We have to find a new neighborhood. Maybe even a new town. You should do the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our turf isn’t safe anymore. I’m sorry.”

So the day she dreaded had come. She’d never really feared the police. They were just as corrupt as the Gilded Age they were passing through. But they had finally become a thorn in her side she could not ignore. The timetable would have to be pushed up. Her job was as “mature” as it was ever going to get.

6.

Nico walked the grounds. Everything looked neat. No one waiting on her, except a rowdy bunch of renters celebrating in a restaurant across the street. She entered. The big daddy of this robbery would not be jewels or antiques, though those could sell at a profit. The payoff was the safe stuck in the center of the house, the billiard room. Not many had realized it was even there. She pulled her tools out of her utility belt and began. First she had to find the front panel. Then she had to free it open by touch.

Commissioner Baker, the prior figurehead of the theft division and the man guilty for outing Ginie, drove up. He stopped and signaled for his guys to filter out of the restaurant and around the house. They closed in.

She could feel the net tightening. But she had just found the front panel. Maybe she could salvage this if she took to the roofs. She felt it…one rotation, click…two rotation, click…three rotation…click. She wrote the numbers down and quickly used the combination. Like Ali Baba’s cave, it opened. And there was nothing but a flashing device inside. She didn’t like anything that flashed.

Soon an explosion rocked the manor. The men in blue hurried in immediately.

She had been stunned by the blast, but was alert and agile enough to make it to the second floor. She hurried towards the main bedroom, jumped out on the balcony, and was about to leap down when she was cracked over the head midflight. She was unconscious by the time she hit the ground.

The men with billy clubs and badges hurried her out of the building towards one of the big cars waiting. She almost came to when the sirens blared through the streets.

7.

When she awoke, she found herself on a bed inside a lavish bedroom. Was she dreaming? She went to the door to open it, but it was locked. A gruff voice answered.

“What do you want?”

It seemed to have an accent.

“Nothing.”

She went to the window, trying to find her bearings. For some reason, her location it seemed familiar. There was a sign slightly out of view, but she caught the last few letters. ELVA. She was on Third and Selva. Someone notable, important, lived there. She knocked on the door again.

“What do you want?”

“Who is in charge here?”

“Commissioner Baker.”

“Enough of the cock and bull. Who is in charge here? I want to see him.”

“He’ll be here soon enough.”

Boy, had she robbed the wrong house. Whoever it was, he had lofty connections. She sat down. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a children’s book. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland. It had been her favorite when she was young. Her father loved the artwork, and her mother the story. When she lost her parents she felt she had fallen into the rabbit hole. It was a strange new world, but not in a good way. She always admired the fact that Alice faced it all by herself, and bravely, never compromising her morals. Why it was here, she had no idea. Some sick joke. Well, she wasn’t laughing and wasn’t about to let them take their advantage.

She went to open the window, but it too was locked. She went to the closet. Nothing there that could help her.

“Is she here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring her to me.”

She quickly resituated herself.

8.

There was a faint glow towards the back of the room. When the bag was lifted off her head, she saw it was a deathbed. On what seemed to be Ebenezer Scrooge’s bed stand laid a man much advanced in years, his hair fleecy white. He was happy as he looked at her. She had no clue as to why.

“What is this? Why did you nab me?”

“Listen…”

He cleared his throat. Air was becoming more precious by the breath.

“…my child. I don’t have much time.”

“Ain’t that the truth? Your skin has a waxy sheen to it.”

“Cocky, bullheaded, irreverent, you must be my child.”

“Whoa, your child. I don’t know what kind of twisted game you’re playing, but my father was a painter, my mother was…”

“…a singer and you lost them in a carriage accident. I know. He’s not your real father. He’s your mother’s lover.”

“So you’re saying my mother was a whore?”

“Your mother was passionate, but that didn’t make her a whore. If she were, her career would have taken off instantaneously.”

“And who are you? Why should you enlighten me?”

She was getting frustrated, and he seemed to be gleaning a fair amount of enjoyment from it.

“So many questions, and yet you fail to ask the most important one.”

“Are you my father?”

“Yes.”

There was silence. What does one say to such a thing? Her whole world had been turned upside down. Yes, she was Alice, wasn’t she?

“Who…what are you? Such a nice house. Now you’re determined to share your fortune with me?”

“I’m willing to give you the whole shebang. I could never savor another woman after your mother left. My heart was not in it. With so many conflicts in the old country, it was all I could do to transfer my operations to a new continent.”

“And just what is the nature of these operations?”

“To you, I’m your father. To my people, my family…I’m the Godfather.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mantaglia.”

“Nico Mantaglia… has a nice ring to it.”

“Your name is Concetta.”

“Hey…I’ll decide…why’s he doing that…what?”

The old man faded away as the priest gave him his final rites.

9.

In effect, she was leaving one crime family for another. She hoped she’d feel more at home in her new one. At first, she didn’t mind the job much. The tedium came from constant meetings and security details. The second in line, Mantaglia’s right-hand man, had taken the job and tried to keep her happy. Still, there was something about Antonio Bartegucci she didn’t like. Something slightly duplicitous or smarmy. It must have been odd for the higher-ups to have a woman in their midst, in the main office. They had no choice. It had been her father’s dying wish, if you could call him that.

The perks of the job were the opera, the close-knit family feeling, and most of all, the food. She must have gained ten pounds since she’d been there.

She’d been slowly chipping away at the hard exterior of her private guard, Vincent. She ought to have him cracked by next spring. She enjoyed most the confidence from Angelica. She was well versed in the goings-on of the family, but retained a kind eye and heart. Nico thought maybe if one looked the other way so much one might have fresh, innocent, but delusional eyes. It was her inability to connect with reality that soothed Nico’s anxiety caused by too much reality.

That night there was to be a gala. It was Nico’s job to host the gathering and make sure her guests were sated and well entertained. Mayors, senators, and the governor would be there along with a few foreign dignitaries. Just before it began, Nico was in the bathroom with what felt like appeared to be stage fright. Vincent came to the door.

“Are you okay?”

“I’ve never entertained this many people at one time. If there was a crowd I’d get lost in it. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Just…be gracious. Be yourself. Treat them like…”

“Family?”

They both began to laugh.

“And where are you off to?”

“We’re making a key move tonight. Very lucrative.”

“Don’t tell me. The less I know, the better.”

“Will you be all right?”

“I’ll be fine. Family and friends…Concetta. I got it.”

10.

The next morning, she woke up, her head reeling. She had spent much of the night gliding across the dance floor, talking up officials, and sipping champagne. Maybe she’d sipped a little too much.

A maid stoking the fire woke her up. When her feet hit the ground, they stepped upon a newspaper that had found its way to her room. The headline read, “Local Lawyer Found Dead.”

“Elsa, how recent is this paper?”

“Came in this morning, ma’am.”

All Nico saw was red. She stepped outside the door, grabbed Vincent, and pulled him into her suite.

“What the hell is this?”

“Unfortunate.”

“I knew his family.”

“Lawyers come and go. It’s a way of life.”

“Not my life. You said the job was lucrative. What did you mean?”

“He was stealing trade secrets from the stock market and selling to prospective clients.”

“It’s pennies on the dollar!”

“And it will mean millions.”

All of a sudden there was a knock at the door. Vincent stood in front of her. The key turned. Bartegucci waltzed in.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Vincent spoke up. “We were testing security…ah, moves.”

“I see. We found another rat in the rafters.”

Antonio motioned for them to follow. Sitting in one of the solitary rooms awaiting his fate was Vandem. He couldn’t see them. And she was not sure she wanted to see this.

“Why is he here?”

“Disinformation. He knows the streets. He knows you. Maybe he can be our eyes and ears. Spread lies and confide truths to us. “

She watched outside as Vincent and Bernardo drilled him. She couldn’t hear what was being said. However, she could tell just by body language that he was being threatened. He was near hysterics when one of the men insulted him. He took a brick from his back pocket and knocked Bernardo down. He lunged for the door and came face to face with Nico. No sooner had he said her name that Vincent was on top of him.

“What is this about?”

“Yes, really. What is the meaning of this?”

“We’ve been looking for this young hothead for a while now.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s your twin brother.”

Vandem’s face changed immediately. Was this some kind of sick joke before the pain was really put on him? Vincent stood him up, brushed his clothes off, and patted him on the back. Nico hugged him. It was all she could think to do, though they had never been that close. Maybe their animosity towards each other was normal.

11.

Once Vandem was brought up, he seemed a little dazed, but that could be just because he hadn’t eaten in a while. Antonio didn’t look happy, but he’d fulfilled his part of the bargain. The will was complete. Vandem questioned her extensively. Apparently his real name was Emilio. Emilio and Concetta. She’d always envied those with family. Now hers had grown tenfold, and she had a brother.

The fateful day came that Vandem met Angelica. He was smitten from the start. He made time for her, which grew once he was mentored in the undertakings of the business. For some reason that escaped Nico, he was still the head of the family. There began to be those who thought this unfair. His competition wasn’t Mantaglia blood, but he professed that he had known the old man best. Nico saw a confrontation ahead, but had no timeline as to when it would be. Then came the day. Vandem was to go on his first mission with the boys. They handed out weapons, then the order got underway. Vandem stopped by to kiss Nico goodbye on the cheek. He handed his weapon to Vincent. Vincent took a look at it, then went into the room.

“Pray for me. Hopefully all goes well.”

“Don’t like it too much. You’re still a good soul.”

“They’re family. I’ll be fine.”

He hugged her, grabbed his gun from Vincent, and left. It was at that moment that Vincent alerted her to a potential altercation.

“His gun. It had blanks in it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Can we stop him?”

“It would look out of sorts.”

“I just gained a brother, and I’m about to lose him.”

He disagreed with her assessment.

“Your father loved guns. Gave me an ivory-handled silver gun. I grabbed it and switched it out.”

“Won’t they notice?”

“As long as it’s silver, it shouldn’t attract attention.”

That meant nothing. He could still be gunned down. He was outnumbered and new without many meaningful connections. All she could do was wait and see who came back. It was a business deal. Those always got a little hairy, but demanded less violence. She got on her knees and said a prayer for Vandem.

12.

Apparently the mission had gone well, though most of the family was transitioning from the recent loss. The new brand of loyalty was hard to swallow. Still, it seemed hat in hand, old business for the freshly christened Emilio. Allegiances were strong, but they could be swayed or bought for a price.

The family underwent a reform. Anyone who seemed like their adherence was either not in the right vein or foundering were fired or snuffed out. Nico feared for Vincent’s safety, but he seemed to pass muster.

She increasingly became convinced she was incomplete. It was a nice life, but there remained a hole inside she couldn’t fill. Nico tried dating within the mafia, but their loyalties were too thickly rooted. They could never think for themselves or stand for something on principle.  She didn’t want a mindless drone or a patsy. It was times like these that she thought of Cory amid the old gang. What was he doing now? How was he devoting his time? She even dreamed about him. But she was in here, and he was out there. It seemed finite. They would never be together.

She had confided her frustrations to Angelica, trusting her discretion. But bedfellows still tell secrets, and pretty soon her brother had her dating those he deemed worthy of his brotherhood. The complaints were minor, but sizable enough. Peach fuzz, beady eyes, odd-shaped heads, men without a sense of humor. It seemed no matter the man, there was something objectionable about each one. But it really boiled down to one complaint. They weren’t Cory. Sometimes Vandem even came along with Angelica, a double date. However, that didn’t seem to neutralize the tedium involved in Nico’s courtships.

By that night, she had timed the guard’s rounds outside and purposefully opened the window lock during the day. She slipped out in her bare feet and ran as fast as they would take her. Then she realized she didn’t know where Cory was hiding. Yet she found her confidence again when she realized she knew every street rat that could be of use. By hook or by crook, she’d find him.

It was early morning. Her window was shrinking. There had been no search or outcry for her whereabouts yet. She had put the clues together. There were a few accounts. Some said he was with the Terry Street Tigers. She knew Cory would never join a faction. Others said that he was at a charity house, out of work. Cory would never throw it in at the first sign of defeat. The account she was more likely to follow was that he was staying in the basement of the library for warmth and reading matter. That had Cory’s name written all over it.  She headed that way.

13.

The next morning when Vincent checked her bed, he found Nico fast asleep in it. He let her be for a few more hours. Nothing was pressing, and it was a weekend.

That day, Vandem approached her.

“I hear you’ve a young beau.”

“Indiscretion makes the strongest bedfellows.”

“Come off it. What Angelica and I do is our business. Is he loyal to the family?”

“Yes. The most loyal person I know.”

“Good.”

He kissed her, patted Vincent on the shoulder, and brought him into his office. Nico noticed that Angelica’s door had been closed for two hours. She knocked.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late. Talk to me.”

“No, I’m too late….understand?”

Finally, it clicked. Who was the father? Did he know?

“Angel, let me in. I don’t want to talk through the door.”

She let her in. No need to guilt her. The father was Emilio. He didn’t yet know. Nico urged Angelica to tell Vandem.

Through much encouragement and practice, she did so. He was delighted and proposed on the spot. It seemed like now Angel had a purpose. The idea of a family and living for those she loved shook her from the survivalist grooves her rose-colored glasses had led her to. She came alive and was even more pleasurable to be around.

The next three months were pure magic. They made plans and promises. Some she didn’t know how they would keep. But for once it felt good to be excited about the future.

Then came the crash, Black Tuesday. Many families had gone under and the Mantaglia family was in crisis mode. The next day, Angel was bedridden. Her health was questionable. Vandem, true to form of a man in love, visited her every two or three hours. It was to no avail. The next day, she lost her baby. Just as that spark of light expired, so did that spark of light in her eyes. She seemed even more drone-like, going through the motions. Nico made it her purpose to bring happiness and smiles to Angel’s life. It wasn’t easy.

14.

The day came that Angel flew the nest. Vandem was perplexed, beside himself. He even went as far as to blame Nico for corrupting Angelica’s mind. Eventually she was found. She handed Nico a note from Cory. Vandem saw this, and his suspicions rose even more.

As winter set in and the true repercussions of the Wall Street drop were realized, Nico was settling into her own gloominess. She was becoming less and less of a part in the operations of the family. The hotheaded and radical ideas “Emilio” was proposing were causing some to be skeptic. But they dare not say anything about it lest they end up like Sal or Giacomo. Cement shoes or a well-placed shot were enough to deter anyone. Still, there were rumblings. Nico saw it with Vincent.

Nico had an eerie feeling all day, like something significant was going to happen. She opened the door to Angelica’s room, but did not find her there. She knocked at Vandem’s door. No one there either. They were still shoring up their losses, and she figured he was in the command center.

Then, she heard it. Running water. She looked towards the adjoining bathroom. Red water began to seep past the door. She grabbed Angel’s wrists to keep pressure on them. Beside herself, Nico began to shout for help. Finally, help came running.

At the hospital, they wouldn’t leave Angelica unaccompanied. Nico asked if she could talk with Angel. She was permitted access.

“Hi, Concetta,” Angel said.

“Angel, why?”

“So many reasons.”

“List them for me.”

Apparently Vandem had called off the marriage. He accused her of lying about the pregnancy to trap him. Sounded like Vandem.

“Angel, Emilio loves you. This is just a rough patch.”

“No, he loves the job. He loves the power, the freedom. He can get all the pussy he wants. Why bother with me?”

“Regardless, he’s not worth it. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Now, you rest up. You’re going to smile again.”

“Nico, you confided in me, even when I’ve betrayed your trust. Now I’ll confide in you. Emilio is planning a move.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but he said it’s on what you hold dearest.”

“Is this good or bad?”

The nurse ended their conference right when Nico needed Angel most. Nico kissed her on the head and left. She bumped into Vandem.

“Vandem.”

“That’s not my name. What have you been telling her?”

“What?”

He began to shake her roughly. When he stopped, she was a bit dazed.

“What lies? You’ve been polluting her mind, turning her against me. I know it. You convinced her the street was better, so she fled. Now you’ve stolen all hope.”

“The person you should accuse stands before me in your own shoes.”

She didn’t intend to rhyme. He slapped her. In a rise of anger, she slapped him back. All of a sudden, he was laughing.

“You really are my sister.”

He strolled past to talk to the doctors. Nico had been living with dynamite, and the fuse had already been lit. She could only guess when it would explode.

15.

Emilio usually walked the grounds with the guards early in the morning, to get a sense of what the day was going to be like. At least that’s what Nico believed. Vandem had taken more to his new name, Emilio. Nico believed it was because the name had more clout in it. For some reason, he waited up the next morning for Nico so they could walk together. They talked about a number of topics, from policy and human resources to Angelica and the impending wedding he’d just promised her. It seemed to Nico that he’d say anything to keep her alive.

They walked into the conference room. It was empty, save his personal attaché. He handed her a flyer. It had Cory’s name and face upon it with a hefty prize for whomever found him, dead or alive. Nico could only reason that as Emilio’s future happiness was being threatened, he wanted to make the rest of the world as miserable as he was. He didn’t know it, but he’d just crossed a line he should have left alone.

“We have reason to believe he betrayed our family to the Ceolis. He’s been running messages, scouting other families in the area.”

“There’s always a reason with you, isn’t there?”

“Reason isn’t as important as result.”

Suddenly the doors opened, and a long coffin-shaped box was brought in by a small gang wearing masks.

“Why the masks?”

“They didn’t want you to recognize them, should vengeance cross your mind.”

She couldn’t seem to breathe very well.

“I got a message this morning he’d been spotted. Bakery 5th and Pheasant. These men are here to collect their reward. But let us look at the goods first.”

He opened the box and there was Cory. He seemed to be sleeping and would have seemed alive to all parties if it weren’t for the pale hue to his skin. She touched his hand, but pulled it back as soon as she made contact. She began to weep. Her own brother.

“I warned you not to stand in my way, turn those I love against me.”

Cory abruptly sat up, pulled a gun from beneath him, and stuck it in Emilio’s face. At that same instant the masked gang turned on the guard detail, disarming or shooting those who wouldn’t submit.

“What’s your motive? What can you possibly accomplish?”

“Reason isn’t always as important as result. Your house is out of order, and if you take too many a misstep, you will be too. Leave us out of your business. Lead the family, but leave us alone. Right now you don’t know whom to trust. You play the cards right, maybe that will change.”

“I don’t like the cards and I don’t like the dealer.”

“You don’t have that luxury.”

The masked men, Cory, and Nico left the room. The masks were thrown away before anyone could ID them.

Nico and Cory went to their room. Nico kissed him and then pushed him out towards the window. He ran as hard as he could and slipped past the gates before they could close.

16.

Nico now realized how much she missed her small-time crime family. They had been purer. More like a family.

For a while, Emilio was tentative. The show of power and dissention in the ranks had really shaken his resolve. It seemed that there were two camps in the organization.

Then one of Vincent’s friends was sent to contact another family. Thirty minutes passed…then an hour. They must have met by then. The police file reported twenty-six slugs in his body. The Palermo family stated he had charged the gates with his car. The front end of the car and the Palermo front gate were bent. Nico knew better. It wasn’t that hard to fake a crime scene.

Emilio yelled bloody murder, but everyone knew what had really transpired. It was all she could do to keep Vince from attempting to kill Emilio himself. Then Nico had an idea. A way to make Emilio miserable and to free Nico from his clutches. If it worked, he wouldn’t search for her again. But it took clandestine planning. Time was of the essence. Especially since Emilio and his goons were eating away at the cancer that had infected any chance of his absolute rule. It was the inquisition, the Emilio Inquisition.

The target date, once it arrived, was beautiful. A clear sky and a brisk chill. Angelica and Nico had a lunch date, and Luigi was driving them to their favorite restaurant. and were being driven to their favorite restaurant. Luigi was driving. They entered the car, but then. Then Nico remembered she had forgotten something inside.

Emilio was outside for some reason, talking with his personal entourage. She pounded the side of the car with her hand and began to walk away, turning her coat inside out, a reversible trench coat. The driver started the car and then for some reason unknown to the witnesses accelerated at a high speed into a pole down the street. It caught fire and then oddly exploded. It had worked, or so Nico so she assumed.

She hurried, changing outfits two or three times. At the rendezvous she met the man from her dreams, Cory. From thenceforth Nico lived the gypsy life her mother and lover had implemented years before. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was shadowing her. Following her trail.

17.

Three months on, she knew they were being chased. They bummed rides, slept in the country, and ate when they could. In a way it was liberating to not have to lug around everything one might need. Just their unborn baby. The simplest means were the name of their game. But the chase got too hot, and Nico felt they should leave the continent, at least for a little bit. They stowed away and waited for docking.

Though hounded, they felt that they were seeing more of the world than would have been possible had they set down roots. They went to England, France, Spain, Greece, and finally Italy. She had always wanted to visit the home of her ancestors. She just didn’t know it was Italy. She had her father to thank for that.

She couldn’t fathom why Emilio would keep after her. It had been clean. Angelica’s maid was Nico’s height and size. There was no sign of conspiracy. Maybe he was smarter than she gave him credit. Maybe he couldn’t believe that Angel would leave him. Maybe he was looking to settle the score. Every time she thought about this, it upset her even more.

They were sitting in the ruins of a building in a distant town. Cory had gone out foraging. He had to work extra hard now that Nico was eight or nine months into her pregnancy. It was hard to tell since they’d been running so long and infrequent. She felt like a planet, but the concept of a new life brought her hope. She could see why it had affected Angel so.

She heard footsteps nearing and she pulled out a dagger she kept for protection. It was Cory. She relaxed. Then, everything seemed to go in slow-mo. Four blood spurts blew out from his chest, and he fell on their feast.

Then she heard a familiar laugh.

“I knew I’d catch up with you eventually.”

“Vandem.”

“Why is the name change so hard for you? Emilio, who I was always meant to be…What was it, Concetta? Did you pay the driver to kill himself? Someone on foot take him out?”

“A sniper.”

“From where?”

“Your own rooftop.”

“I still can’t believe it. You murdered Angelica to save your hide.”

“What I did for her was merciful. She was miserable, incomplete.”

“And that’s my fault?”

He moved towards Nico like he was going to hit her. Cory struggled to impede his progress, but another bullet put an end to that.

“You never did appreciate your freedom.”

“You seem more the slave than I. Tied down by payrolls, violence, opulence, and shady deals. You should try the road.”

All of a sudden, Nico’s water broke. She did not want to give birth here.

“And now it begins. Another generation of Mantaglias.”

The more she struggled to keep away from Vandem, the more she advanced. He backed her into a corner as the pain racked her. She bled and cried. Hours passed, and a local woman took pity on Nico through her sobs. Nico used the last of her strength to push the baby out. She knew her time had come. It was a boy.

Vandem glared at her as she sat in her own filth. “What shall we name him?”

She held the slimy, screaming infant to her chest. Inhaled his scent for the shortest of moments. “Cory.”

“NO! That won’t do. How about Emilio, or Bartolomeo.”

“Niccolo.”

“Niccolo it is.”

Nico was exhausted. She handed the baby off to a nearby woman and slumped against the wall.

“Any last words?”

“Reason or cause is just as important if not more so than result. People die for causes, and for peace. A word foreign to you, but connected to the true ideals of love. They die for family…for each other.”

With that, as offhanded as picking a dandelion, he put a bullet in her brain. And so he took Niccolo as his own. The lad grew up in a big estate with everything that money could buy, except for a mother. He’d never stop searching.

TWILIGHT MIST UNDER THE LUCENT MOON

MANUEL JIMENEZ

“Hello, Paddy.  What’s news?” asked Bobbette Spencer as she entered the homicide division front office of the San Francisco Police Department. A Chronicle reporter covering the police beat, Bobbie Spencer was a fixture at the department and sometimes dropped in on Captain Mahan—occasionally for professional reasons.  She wore a pinstriped hobble dress and T-strap pumps, topped off with a black Capulet hat underneath from which her hair spilled down into a gathered Gibson Roll.

“Don’t you read the papers?” replied Sergeant Patrick O’Malley, a grizzled twenty-five-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department.

“Just the one I work for.  Is Mahan in?”

“It’s a tad late in the day for you, isn’t it? You don’t want to go in there. Captain Mahan just got off the phone with the police commissioner and he’s spitting fire.”

“Pressure building? What about that Presidio Heights shooting last night?”

“It’s the second shooting in two weeks and just a few days before Christmas.”

“I’ve come to talk to Mahan about it.”

“He’s not in a talking mood.  Why don’t you come back later and make all of our lives a wee bit easier?”

“You wanna announce me, or should I give him something to shout about?”

Spencer strode over to Captain Mahan’s office and listened at the door.  She glanced over to Sergeant Paddy.

“It’s your funeral,” he said.

She pushed the door open.

“Hello, Dick. How’s tricks?”

Captain Richard Mahan was closing in on forty. He was big and tall and intimidating. His weathered suit hung on him a size too large.

“How many times have I told you not to bust in here?” Mahan roared.

“Look here, Dick, I need some news,” Spencer shouted back.  “Tell me something no one else knows about the Presidio shooting.”

“What’s there to tell? A cabbie got his brains blown out in Presidio Heights.”

Looking down at Mahan’s desk, Spencer saw photographs of a crime scene. She reached for one before Mahan grabbed her arm.

“Oh, no you don’t.”

“Oh, come on, Dick. You know I need this story.”

It was too late in the day, and he was too tired to overcome her anticipated persistence. He dropped her arm, allowing her to pick up the photograph.

“You’re a pill,” he stated. “Ya know that?”

The photograph was taken from a position looking through the open passenger side door, toward the driver’s side, and showed the victim slumped over in his taxicab.

“What a mess. Looks like he was shot on the side of the head, above the right ear,” said Spencer.

“A coupla kids in the house across the street called it in.  They saw a man wiping down the taxi. Described him as average height, glasses, light brown flat top. Just strolled down Cherry toward the Presidio before he disappeared. They didn’t see the shooting though. Here, put this in your paper.”

He picked up a composite sketch of the suspect and tossed it at her.

“The shooter was sitting in the back on the right side of the car,” started Bobbie, “assuming he was right-handed. He’d probably just paid the driver, who’d be looking down to his salad to add the lettuce. You think there’s any connection to the Chinatown shooting?”

“Listen, dizzy, don’t go printing any gossip. Say, why are you all dolled up?”

Spencer smiled. “That victim was shot in the head sitting in his car, too. This picture looks awful similar.”

“In Chinatown, the perp shot through the passenger side window. And the victim wasn’t a cabbie.”

“Were they shot with the same gun?”

“Look, if I read any tales in tomorrow’s paper trying to link these cases...”

“Okay, Dick. Okay. How ‘bout you bribe me with dinner tonight?”

“It’s almost Christmas. Don’t you have anybody that likes you?”

“Don’t you?”

“Oh, why not? Why should this day get any better?”

Mahan liked Spencer. He thought she was too young and too smart for him. When she made herself a nuisance, he enjoyed her company.  He enjoyed her wit, self-confidence and ambition. He liked that she stood up to him and could handle his accusatory conversational style.

“Alioto’s?”

“What? Again?”

“I want to try their cioppino.”

“A bit fancy for a cop.”

“It overlooks a harbor. I like looking at the boats.  The Golden Gate Bridge glows in the background.”

“I don’t trust any Italian place that doesn’t serve spaghetti with a Bolognese gravy.”

“It’s a seafood restaurant.”

“Alright, alright. Let’s get on with it.”

Mahan got his snap-brim felt hat that was practically formless because of use, abuse, and longevity, then put on his overcoat. Leaving his office, he turned to Sergeant Paddy. “I’ll be at Alioto’s if you need me.”

“Aye aye, captain. I’ll let ’em know that Beauty and the Beast are goin’ to see a man about a fish. Don’t let this wee bonnie lass liquor you up, captain. She’s sure to have her notebook with her.”

“I thought you were an Irishman, not a Scott,” said Mahan.

“No true Scotsman I, ’tis true—myself being from the emerald isle.”

The night was pleasant as they approached Mahan’s car.  He opened the passenger door and slid across the bench seat of the unmarked 1937 Plymouth Slant Back police cruiser. Bobbie followed him in. It wasn’t a far drive from the Beaux-Arts styled Hall of Justice—with its rows of arched windows fanning above Kearny and Washington Streets—to Alioto’s at the north end of the Embarcadero.

Bobbie sat comfortably next to Mahan.  They had never acknowledged it, but each understood that they had a unique, if undefined partnership. Their partnership had lasted so long that they’d slipped into a sort of relationship without either of them realizing it. Mahan gave Bobbie a lot of leeway around the office and at crime scenes. He trusted her judgment—and her discretion when he needed it.

As they drove, the sky raced above them. A thin layer of lucent mist slid under the moon, forming a veil of radiant vapor that gave the night a delicate patina of cold light.

“The fog’s coming in,” said Bobbie. “I suppose it’ll rain.  San Francisco is a funny place. It’s never too cold. But it’s always cold.”

“It’d be funnier without people getting shot,” Mahan said.

* * *

Mahan and Spencer were greeted by the maître d’ Luca Martelli. He led them to a table against the back window, overlooking the harbor and Golden Gate Bridge.

“You should take me out more often,” Bobbie said.

“I can’t afford you.”

“You don’t have to buy me. I’m easy.” She blushed. “Oops. That didn’t come out right.”

“What brings a nice midwestern girl like you out this way, anyway?”

“I got sick of the cold winters.  I traded them for cold summers.  Milwaukee is a great town if you’re into Minnesota nice and Minnesota ice. I figured a change of scenery would do me good.”

Martelli brought over a carafe of Clairet and wet their wine glasses.  The maître  d’ was a small, slight man with a wide grin.

“Why so much a stranger?” Martelli said to Mahan.

Bobbie picked up her glass by the stem and rocked it, swirling the contents before placing the stem between her fingers and cradling the bowl with her hand. She glanced at Mahan as she took a sip. She’d been able to piece together some of his story. Born in the City, he was the son of a man he’d never met and brought up by a man who drank and was violent. His mother had been an unaffectionate woman who made sacrifices for her family—sacrifices that ground her down until she prematurely faded away. She also knew that Mahan had snuck his way into the Marine Corps at sixteen and saw combat in the last months of the Great War, where he took a round to the leg that shattered his femur. She’d seen him with a subtle limp that he mostly managed to conceal.

They dined, mostly in silence. Bobbie occasionally cast a glance out the window at the black water, boats, and red glow of the bridge.

“It’s starting to drizzle,” Spencer said.

“What? Yes. I suppose it is.”

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Sorry I’m not better company, Bobbie. I’ve got work on my mind.”

“Don’t be silly. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

The meal was almost over when the bartender approached their table. “Captain Mahan? You’ve got a call waiting for you at the bar.”

“Sorry about this, Bobbie.” Mahan rose and accompanied the man. Spencer quickly got up and followed him, arriving just as he picked up the receiver. She positioned herself inconspicuously behind him and leaned in, trying to hear the conversation.

“Captain,” said Paddy, “there’s been a shooting.”

“Don’t tell me. Another corpse in a car?”

“They found a woman in a car, yeah. At Central Emergency Hospital. Murdered.”

“Central Emergency?”

“I got more bad news. Ballistics came back. The Presidio and Chinatown shootings were done with the same gun. Colt forty-five.”

Mahan hung up the phone, turned around, and bumped into Spencer, almost knocking her down.

“Sorry, Bobbie. We’ll have to finish this another time.”

“Another murder?”

“Never you mind. Finish dinner. I’ll settle up with Martelli.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

“But this is a story.”

Mahan got his hat and coat, paid the check, and headed to the valet to retrieve his car. Spencer followed him out and hailed a cab.

* * *

The weather had turned wet, and Mahan’s tires glided over the glistening streets, which reflected the passing streetlamps and stop lights as he drove toward the hospital at Polk and Grove Streets.  He wasn’t in a hurry as he cruised to his destination. The woman would still be dead when he got there. He pulled up to the Grove Street entrance of Central Emergency Hospital.

Mahan exited his car and saw Bobbette Spencer standing some distance away.  She stood with her notepad near a gunmetal light metallic 1935 Ford three-window coupe. A young woman, outfitted in a white nurse’s uniform, sat on the passenger side with her head and torso slumped down on the bench seat toward the driver’s seat.

Sergeant Weston Barringer intercepted Mahan and walked with him to the car.

“Captain,” began Barringer, “we’ve got another one.”

“Who is it?”

“Don’t know. She must work here at the hospital.”

“Worked, past tense. What do we know?”

“It was called in anonymously at about seven forty-five p.m. The crime scene photographer finished up, and the pathologist is working his magic. The victim has a handbag, and there’s some sort of medical bag behind the driver’s side. Detective Kennedy took charge of the scene.”

“Was she shot in the head?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

Mahan approached Spencer. He saw her shivering and realized she was underdressed for the crisp, wet evening air, and looked out of place wearing stilettos.

“What took you so long?” Spencer asked Mahan without looking up at him.

“How’d you get here so fast?”

“You should have taken me with you, then you wouldn’t have to ask.”

Mahan addressed Kennedy. “What do we got?”

“One Brooksley Bordeaux. We have Miss Bordeaux’s car.  What we don’t have is the physician she was waiting for. They were on their way to make a night call.”

“This her car?”

“That’s right.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Not yet.”

“I wonder why she was in the passenger seat,” said Spencer.

Kennedy continued. “Apparently it wasn’t unusual for Bordeaux to accompany a doctor named Meredith Tyler out on late medical calls.  Meredith is a man, by the way. The hospital staff I’ve spoken with don’t know where he is.”

Dr. Morgan, the crime scene pathologist, approached Mahan and Kennedy. “She’s dead, alright. Given her body temperature, I’d say she’s been dead about an hour, give or take. Shot through the heart—point-blank. Judging from the powder burns on her mother-may-I, the gun must have been pushed up against her ribs when the shot was fired.”

“Was she shot where she’s sitting, or was she pushed out of the driver’s seat?” asked Mahan.

“I can’t be positive, but it looks like she was shot while sitting on the passenger side, right where her bottom is now.”

“The seat is pushed forward,” said Spencer.

“Who knows this Bordeaux?” Mahan asked Kennedy.

“I spoke with the head shift nurse over there,” he said, pointing at a severe-looking woman standing near the hospital’s receiving doors.  Kennedy reviewed his notepad. “Miss Finch. Beatrix Finch.”

“Now that’s a solid name,” said Mahan.

Mahan made his way to Finch, with Spencer in tow. Finch presented as a formidable woman with a commanding presence. She stood with a command presence. As Mahan approached her, there was no hint of weakness in her countenance.

“Miss Finch, I presume,” said Mahan.

“Missus.”

“All right, Missus. Do you know the young lady in the car?”

“Oh, yes. Brooksley is—was—a lovely young lady. Not particularly disciplined but well-liked by the doctors. She was competent, if not punctual. She’d been with us for about two years.”

“Do you know what she was doing in her car about an hour ago?”

“She was waiting, I assume, for Dr. Tyler. They were scheduled to leave at seven-thirty to make a medical call. I can get the address if you require it.”

“Was that unusual, or a regular thing?”

“Perfectly routine. They worked together. They did spend a bit more time together than I think respectable, given that he’s a married man. But it’s not my business how people spend their time.”

“Do you know if she was dating anyone?”

“Like I said, Dr. Tyler and Brooksley spent more time together than I think respectable.”

“Do you have any idea why they’d take her car instead of, say, him driving her in his?”

“You’d have to ask him. But he seems to have disappeared. Doctor Tyler drives a convertible—a small foreign sports car. Given the weather, I assume they decided to arrive at the appointment dry.”

“You say the good doctor isn’t in. Do you see his car here?”

“I do not. He parks it right there, in the designated doctor area,” she said, pointing to a group of marked parking spaces.

“Did you see him today?”

“He started a tad late, which was unusual. But he was here this evening. He got here before Miss Bordeaux went down in anticipation of their house call. Before he left, I asked him to tend to a patient—what we call a ‘celestial discharge’—a terminal patient. That delayed him.”

“You said he’s married. Do you know where he lives?”

“Intimately,” she replied.

“You know Dr. Tyler pretty well, then.”

“I know the Tylers. I’ve been to their home on social occasions.”

“You don’t seem very fond of Dr. Tyler,” Spencer blurted out.

Mrs. Finch faced Spencer.

“I’m not. I dislike him. It’s all I can do to remain professional around him. I’m friends with his wife, Helen.”

After his interview, Mahan made his way back to the crime scene car with Spencer.

“Obviously, Dr. Tyler is the primary suspect,” he stated. “But, say, what if it’s not the doctor? If this is the same guy as the Chinatown and Presidio shootings, then his attacks are becoming brazen—more intimate.”

“Maybe it wasn’t either of them,” replied Spencer.

“Aw, you’re crazy.”

“Whoever shot Bordeaux was sitting in the driver’s seat. The seat is pulled up too close to the steering wheel for a man. They opened the driver’s side door and had Bordeaux move into the passenger seat. Why didn’t Bordeaux just jump out and run? She either knew the person or they had a gun.”

“Obviously they had a gun. She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Tyler would have to be as small as Martelli to fit in that car with the seat the way it was. If Tyler was going to drive to the outcall, Bordeaux would have pushed the seat back to allow room for him to get in. If she was driving, Tyler would enter through the passenger door, and Bordeaux wouldn’t be sitting there.”

“Maybe Martelli did it.”

“Be serious. My only question is how did the murderer shoot Bordeaux from that angle? Bordeaux would have to be turned to face the gunman. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I think it’s time to have a talk with Dr. Tyler.”

“I’m coming with you,” she insisted. “You can give me a ride home afterwards.”

Mahan and Spencer drove to 2853 Vallejo Street in the affluent Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, the home of Dr. Meredith Tyler and his wife Helen. An affluent neighborhood, Pacific Heights overlooked the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and the city’s skyline. Mahan rang the bell of the Italian Renaissance-styled home and was greeted by a woman through an intercom, into which Mahan introduced himself. After an exchange of intense pleasantries, he and Bobbie gained admission.

Inside, Mahan and Spencer were confronted by Mrs. Helen Arabella Tyler. She presented as an elegant woman who appeared to be flying into middle age, if she hadn’t already landed. She was too thin to appear natural. Her movements were graceful, as if calculated and rehearsed. She wore a provocatively red Chinese pencil housedress with a high collar, and her black hair was bobbed in a style that had been popular a decade prior.

“Pray tell,” said Mrs. Tyler, “what could possibly justify imposing yourselves at such an uncommon hour?”

“I guess tea is out of the question then?” said Spencer.

Mahan gave Spencer a hard look. “I wouldn’t disturb you, ma’am, if it weren’t important,” he said. “I’d like to speak with Dr. Tyler.”

“You’re welcome to speak with my husband, wherever he is, which isn’t here. What is this about?”

“Do you know where I might find him?”

“He’s probably doing the horizontal foxtrot with the whore he works with.”

“What time does he usually come home?”

“I couldn’t care less. One can only put up with so many humiliations before you stop caring.”

“It must be hard,” said Spencer, “loving a man who betrays your trust.”

“His indiscretions are unfortunate,” replied Mrs. Tyler, “but I don’t love Meredith, nor do I trust him. Our marriage is not one based on love. It never was. I don’t resent the affair so much as I resent that his indiscretions are not discreet. Half the men on this street are sleeping with their secretaries. I couldn’t tell you which half because they’re not as stupid and reckless as the idiot I’m married to.”

“You’re none too thrilled with your husband,” started Spencer, “and Beatrix Finch dislikes him. It’s a wonder that any girl would like him.”

“He has his charms. They just don’t do anything for me anymore, nor Trixie—that is, Beatrix. She and I are two of a kind.”

“Men. Can’t live with ‘em,” quipped Mahan.

“But you can live without them, Inspector,” replied Mrs. Tyler. “There are attractive alternatives.”

“Mrs. Finch has socialized with you, I understand,” said Mahan. “Are your husband and her husband friends?”

“She’s widowed.”

“This lady friend of your husband’s, do you know her?”

“I’ve met her on a couple of occasions at hospital-related social engagements. I know Trixie is fond of her. But Beatrix is a lady with a moral streak. She objects to her improprieties and their potential implications for the reputation of the hospital.”

“Have you been home all evening?”

“Oh, please.”

“It’s just part of the routine. Did you go out this evening?”

“I dined out.”

“Where?”

“Fior d’Italia in the San Remo Hotel.”

“What time?”

“I arrived at six-fifteen. I don’t know exactly when I left.  If you must know, I had the Gamberoni Fior and a glass of Cabernet.”

“When did you get home?”

“I don’t rightly recall. Sometime before eight o’clock, I should imagine.”

“Did you dine alone?”

“Oh, no.”

“Would you like to enlighten us with the name of the person with whom you dined?” Spencer asked.

“I’d rather not. I was dining with a gentleman friend. I’m not getting him involved in this sorted affair.”

“You may need him to corroborate your statement,” said Mahan.

“And then again, I may not.”

“Well, I suppose we’ve wasted enough of your time,” said Mahan. “I appreciate your help in this matter.”

“What matter? You haven’t told me what this is about.”

“I’m sorry. Unfortunately, your husband’s lady friend is dead. Oh, by the way, does your husband own any firearms?”

“I doubt it. If this girl has been shot, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Meredith doesn’t have the fortitude to have done it.”

“Do you know what kind of sports car your husband drives?”

“It’s an MG Type-C. My husband loves that thing.  If I were him, I’d be embarrassed to be seen in it—a man of his age driving around in that vulgar little vehicle.”

“How tall is your husband?” asked Spencer.

“Just under six feet,” replied Mrs. Tyler.

“Could you have Dr. Tyler get in touch when he returns?”

Having left Mrs. Tyler, Mahan gave Spencer a ride home to her Victorian flat on Hyde Street, between Geary and Post Streets. He double parked in front of the building, and they looked into each other’s eyes for an awkward moment.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” said Mahan.

“Do you want to come up?” asked Spencer.

Mahan smiled. “I’d better not.”

“Why?”

“Just because.”

“Thank you for dinner.”

“Thank you for your company.”

“So, was this a date, or just something else?”

Mahan smiled awkwardly.  “What’s the difference?”

“Let me ask you this.” Spencer searched his eyes. “Are you going to kiss me goodnight?”

“Do you want me to?”

Spencer smiled. “You can’t take a hint, can you?”

She leaned over, placed her hand on the side of Mahan’s face, and kissed him on the lips.

“I had a wonderful time,” she whispered.

Mahan sighed. “You know, Bobbie, I’m not very good at this.”

* * *

“Nurse Murdered! Doctor Missing.” Such was the headline on the Sunday, December 24th edition of the Chronicle. “Police Commission Demand ‘Twilight Executioner’ Be Stopped,” read the subtitle.

“Twilight Executioner,” said Mahan. “That’s just what I need on Christmas Eve.”

Detective Kennedy entered Mahan’s office. “Merry Christmas, boss. I brought you a present.” Kennedy placed a logbook from Central Emergency Hospital on Mahan’s desk. “This is the log of the outcalls made by the doctors of Central Emergency from October of last year until yesterday. Dr. Tyler was to make a house call with Brooksley Bordeaux to the Sunset Plaza, 1289 22nd Street, to see one Selena Ann Newton, aged 68, to follow up on a broken hip. It shows that the good doctor signed out at seven forty-four p.m. There’s a space for him to sign back in after the visit and note the results, but he didn’t log back in.”

“Did we check to see if he ever made it out to see Newton?” asked Mahan.

“He never made it.”

“Did we follow up with the restaurant that Mrs. Tyler was supposed to be at on that night?”

“We did. It’s possible she was there. One of the waitresses vaguely remembered someone fitting her description, accompanied by a man. If she was there, no one remembers when she came or left with any certainty.”

“Ballistics?”

“Not yet. What do you want? It’s Christmas Eve,” said Kennedy. “But the round recovered from Bordeaux was a .32 ACP.”

“Not a forty-five?”

“Nope.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Go home, Kennedy. How’s the family?”

“It’s chaos at the Kennedy home. With the kids and Bridget expecting another—house is too small. She’s pretty grumpy these days.”

“Get out of here.”

“You don’t have to tell me a third time. Go home yourself, Captain, and have a nice Christmas.”

After Kennedy left, Mahan yelled out to O’Malley, “Go home, Sergeant. I’m holding down the fort. Give my love to Sheila.”

“Come over and give it to her yourself. She makes a tip-top hot toddy.”

“Not tonight.”

Mahan sat down and pushed the paperwork on his desk aside. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He was sick of his job. The sight of the young Bordeaux dead bothered him more than it should have. He’d seen scores of dead people, but it was women he disliked seeing die violently—usually by people they loved and trusted. They often seemed to him so defenseless—and betrayed.

Mahan’s thoughts turned to Bobbie. He didn’t understand her, but he liked her. She had become more than a fixture around the office. In some way, she’d become one of the boys. He wondered what her kiss had meant the night before. Maybe the wine got to her and made her sentimental. Death has a way of making one appreciate life.

He wondered what it’d be like the next time he saw her. Awkward? He felt like calling her to say, “How’s tricks?”

Just then, the phone rang. Mahan answered. “Homicide.”

“Dick? It’s Bobbie.”

“Bobbie who?”

“What do you mean, ‘Bobbie who?’ What are you doing?”

“Working.”

“Are you alone?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you picked up the phone. Can you go out for a drink tonight?”

“It’ll have to be later. Say, after six o’clock, but only if I’m buying.”

“Deal.”

“I can swing by,” said Mahan, “if that would make life easier.”

“There’s a place close to my flat. We can walk over. You know Lady Jane’s?”

“Yes. It used to be Marco’s.”

“Seven-thirty?”

* * *

Spencer hung up the phone. Her hand was shaking. Her heart was racing.

She wasn’t sure why she had called, but it had gone off better than she’d expected. Part of it was that she didn’t want to be alone on Christmas Eve. Her adventure with Mahan the day before had excited her. The thought of another holiday alone depressed her.

Seven o’clock arrived, and Spencer sat quietly in the dark, waiting for the buzzer to sound. She had spent the last hour trying to make herself look effortlessly beautiful. She wore a cocktail dress she thought too short, but she planned to make herself presentable by pairing it with a three-quarter length swing coat.

Earlier in the day, she had been to the salon and had the hairdresser go wild, resulting in a bleached, pinned curl updo with a flower clip accent. After initially being delighted with the new look, she now had buyer’s remorse and felt she had acted recklessly. She started to feel slightly ridiculous.

As she sat in the dark, more self-doubt crept into her mind. By the time the buzzer sounded, Spencer was afraid to let Mahan in. “Come up to the third floor, flat three.”

Spencer was terrified that Mahan would laugh at her. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door. The unveiling shook off any insecurity.

“You’re blond,” said Mahan. “You should have told me you were going to jazz it up. I would have made myself more presentable.”

“It’s good to see you too. Like what you see?”

“I’d ask you to marry me if I thought you’d say ‘yes.’”

“Yes,” she said with a smirk. “Come sit down. Can I get you a drink?”

“Bourbon, neat. Just a sip. Are you sure Lady Jane’s is the right place? I should show you off at the Persian Room.”

“Lady Jane’s is a good place to talk.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Spencer poured a shot of bourbon into a snifter and walked it over to Mahan, who had made himself uncomfortable on her sofa.

“Dick, I want to be straight with you,” she said as she poured herself a drink. “I asked you out tonight as my date.”

“I’ve never been asked out on a date before.”

Spencer sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. “Before I get tipsy, I want you to know that I’m going to ask some questions. I want you to be honest, even if you think it’ll hurt my feelings.”

“Okay.  Then I get to ask you questions.”

“I hope you will.”

“I have one that’s been gnawing on me since I met you. How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight, just.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“You’re about to be thirty-eight. I want to be honest with you. I’m divorced. I was married at sixteen for three years.”

“I’ve been married, too.”

“Are you divorced?”

“No. I’m not divorced. We married in the Church.” Mahan hesitated. “My wife Eliza died about ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She was a good woman. She didn’t deserve what she got. I miss her. She was training to be a nurse, ironically, when we met. I met her at Letterman General. I was there for over a year after the war. We dated, got married. In the end, it was like I was her nurse. She kept smiling, right up until she died. Then the smile disappeared.”

“You don’t catch many breaks, do you? Dick…Richard, do you like me?”

Mahan smiled and looked right into her eyes. “Bobbie, I’ve always liked you. I didn’t let it show because you’re so young.” He stood up. “Shall we head out?”

“Do we have to? I’m enjoying myself. We can talk here.”

“Bobbie, I’m a man you know.”

“I’m a woman. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“Bobbie, I like you. I want you to like me—today and tomorrow, and the day after that. I’m afraid with a couple of drinks in me, I’d say something—do something to make you not like me, especially if we’re alone. You’re lovely. More than that, you’re attractive in other ways.”

“I’d feel better if you could tell me you’re not dating anybody else.”

“Listen, Bobbie, I haven’t looked at another woman since Eliza died.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Spencer stood up. She reached up and placed her arms around Mahan’s neck, gave him a broad smile, and looked into his eyes. He placed his arms around her waist and kissed her.

* * *

The space occupied by Lady Jane’s was born in the nineteenth century. It featured a twenty-foot mahogany bar with a buffed copper top, dating to the 1880s. Bordering the east wall were partitioned wooden booths, wherein which patrons could segregate themselves for a bit of privacy. It was in one of these booths that Spencer and Mahan found themselves.

Presented before Spencer was a black pepper-infused Pink Lady cocktail, garnished with a maraschino cherry entwined in a ribbon of lime peel held in place by a toothpick. Spencer asked Mahan if she could choose his libation, given that if she didn’t, he’d fall into a rocks glass of neat bourbon.

Spencer had placed before Mahan a contraption he didn’t recognize. She explained that it was an absinthe fountain that dripped ice water onto a sugar cube held by a decorative, porous spoon, atop a cocktail glass. The glass had a bulb at the bottom which contained a green liquid. The sugar cube was soaked in absinthe and set ablaze as the fountain dripped water onto the cube, diluting it into the absinthe below. The ceremony of it all kept Mahan dry for some minutes, until he was able to lift the sugar-polluted, chartreuse-colored liquid and taste the licorice flavor of star anise.

Spencer smiled at him and motioned for him to come sit next to her, and he obliged. Mahan came around the table and sat down. Spencer comfortably leaned into him, letting her hip touch his, which she hoped was not too provocative.

“Did I tell you that I’ve asked to transfer off the police beat?”

Mahan raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“True. I want to stop people slandering me behind my back. People already whisper that I’m sleeping with my source—which is ridiculous since I can’t even get you to keep me company in my flat. I don’t have much of a reputation, but I’d prefer that it not be fouled with innuendo. I don’t want to turn out like Helen Tyler.”

“Helen Tyler didn’t end up like that. That’s how she started. You don’t marry someone you don’t like and don’t trust unless you’re already pretty cynical.”

“I think she’d rather sleep with Finch than her husband. Quite frankly, so would I. What a pathetic little creep.”

“I’d like to talk to Finch again,” Mahan said.

“Why?”

“Are you going to quote me?”

“Off the record.”

“The medical bag found behind the driver’s seat. Whose is it, and how did it come to be in the car? Assuming it’s Tyler’s, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to come down for his appointment, throw his medical bag in the back, shoot Bordeaux, get out, and drive away.”

“Maybe Bordeaux was waiting for Tyler, someone opened the driver’s side door, sat down, shot Bordeaux, and left, only to be followed by Tyler, who opened the door, threw his medical bag into the back, and was about to get in until he realized Bordeaux was dead.”

* * *

It was Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of December, when Mahan and Detective Kennedy met again with Beatrix Finch. Mahan asked her about whether Dr. Tyler took a medical bag with him on outcalls, which she confirmed that he did. Kennedy presented Finch with the bag retrieved from Bordeaux’s car, which she identified as belonging to Dr. Tyler.

“Do you recall, Missus Finch,” asked Mahan, “if last Saturday, Dr. Tyler had this bag with him in the hospital, and if so, how it might have ended up in Ms. Bordeaux’s car?”

“I don’t have a specific recollection of whether he took the bag. But it was his custom and practice to take it with him when he went on call. I’ve always known him to carry it out with him. Now that I think about it, he did have it with him before he left.”

“Do you know when the doctor left on that outcall?”

“Your man there should know,” she said, looking at Kennedy. “He took our logbook. If I recall, he was to check out at seven-thirty.”

“Did he leave at seven-thirty?”

“As much as I am ambivalent about Dr. Tyler, the one thing he is, is punctual. He’s a lousy human being, but a superb doctor. Which is why it stands out in my mind that he did not leave timely that day. As I recall, he looked in on a terminal patient before he left. He had his medical bag with him. He was delayed by the patient and left late that evening—maybe ten minutes, give or take.”

“Was Bordeaux here when he left?”

“She was here when he arrived and had gone down prior to seven-thirty. She went down about fifteen minutes before they were to scheduled to leave.”

“Riddle me this, Missus Finch. Prior to his late departure, is it possible that the good doctor went down to the parking lot, say, just before seven-thirty?”

“That’s not my recollection. He rushed in just before seven that evening. After that, he was on the floor briefly with patients. It was unusual for him to come in late. That’s why I noticed.”

“Given your familiarity with the Tylers, do you happen to know if Dr. Tyler owned any firearms?”

“I know for a fact that Dr. Tyler had a pistol at one time,” Finch said.

“How do you know that? Have you seen it? Was it in his medical bag?”

“I haven’t seen it. I have no idea if he kept it in his medical bag. Helen told me about it. She objects to firearms and was incensed that he brought one into the house. She said it was a small, sleek gun. It looked like a toy to her. He purchased it when there was the escape from Alcatraz a couple of years ago.”

“Does he still have it?”

Finch paused. “I have no idea.”

* * *

The next day, Spencer and Mahan met for lunch. It was the first time they’d been together since Christmas Eve. After lunch, they walked back together to the office.

“If it isn’t the bonnie, sassy lassie of the Chronicle,” said O’Malley. “Stick around. You may learn something. Captain, I need a word with you. It’s about the Bordeaux matter.”

The two men walked into Mahan’s office. The door was about to shut when Spencer stopped it from closing.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said.“The Bordeaux murder? I need that intel. I have a job to do.”

Captain Mahan pushed the door closed. Spencer waited a moment, pushed the door open, and moved into the office.

“Listen,” said Mahan to Spencer, “O’Malley and I desire privacy.”

“I don’t get the hint.”

“Don’t get the hint? The more things change. What is it, Sergeant?”

“They found Dr. Tyler. Suicided. Found in a motel in Pacifica. They recovered a Walther PPK handgun—same caliber as that found in Bordeaux. He’s been dead a few days. He left a note. The note says: ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Tell my wife I love her. I’ve now repaid all debts to her. I hope she has a wonderful life.’ What does it mean, Captain?”

“I don’t know. But it’s time to talk to the former Mrs. Tyler again.  Let’s go, doll face. You’ve taken this ride before.”

Mahan and Spencer made their way to the home of the newly widowed Helen Tyler. When they arrived, they were greeted by Mrs. Tyler and Beatrix Finch. Mahan took off his hat.

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Mahan., “I have bad news. You may want to sit down for this.”

Mrs. Tyler turned to Spencer. “Weren’t you a brunette the last time we met? The two of you are acquainted with Mrs. Finch.”

“Mrs. Tyler,” Mahan continued, “your husband is dead.”

“Well, then. That’s unexpected. Are you staying for tea?” Mrs. Tyler glanced at Spencer. “Chinese or Indian?”

“Helen,” stated Finch definitively, “have some decency. The man’s dead.”

“Captain Mahan, don’t expect me to break down in hysterics,” said Mrs. Tyler. Her voice broke and her eyes moistened, though she didn’t shed any tears. She tentatively lowered herself onto the sofa.

“Fancy meeting you here, Trixie,” said Spencer coldly.

“Knock it off, Bobbie,” said Mahan.

“Beatrix is staying with me,” Mrs. Tyler said. “We get along so very well. She’s been awfully kind to me.”

“Mrs. Tyler,” said Mahan, “the last time I was here, I asked you if Dr. Tyler had any guns. You told me you doubted that he had, but Mrs. Finch said otherwise..”

“I lied. How did he die?”

“He appears to have committed suicide.”

“Of course he did.”

“He left a note. I have a transcription. Would you read it?”

Mrs. Tyler held out her hand for the handwritten transcript of Dr. Tyler’s suicide note. She skimmed it and handed it back to Mahan. A tear fell from her eye.

“Do you have any idea what it means?” asked Mahan.

“None.”

“Mrs. Tyler,” interjected Spencer, “who were you with Saturday evening?”

“Get out,” said Mrs. Tyler.

“We’ll see ourselves out,” said Mahan.

“I’d like an answer to my question,” said Spencer.

“You’re not getting one. Let’s go.”

“It’s important.”

“Maybe it is. But we’re leaving.”

Mahan and Spencer started their drive back to the Hall of Justice, lost in their own thoughts, away from the betrayals and tragedies of 2853 Vallejo Street and out of Pacific Heights. Spencer let her head rest against the passenger side window as she looked out at the world passing by.

“Mrs. Tyler murdered Bordeaux,” said Spencer in a soft, monotone voice.

There was a long pause before Mahan responded. “How could she have?”

“And Finch helped her.”

“You’re batty.”

Spencer continued, without looking at Mahan. “Dr. Tyler was supposed to leave at seven-thirty on Saturday. He arrived at work at about seven. Bordeaux left after he arrived and was down in the parking lot. The call reporting the body came in just as Tyler signed out. It couldn’t have been the doctor. More importantly, why was he late to work? I think that it was he who had dinner with Helen.”

“Why would you think that?”

“His car wasn’t there that night because Mrs. Tyler drove him to work, which is also consistent with him and Bordeaux going to the outcall in her car. Finch intercepted Tyler just as he was supposed to leave, giving Mrs. Tyler time to execute Bordeaux. He didn’t sign out until seven forty-four p.m.”

“How did Dr. Tyler get the gun?”

“It was a brilliant move by Helen Tyler. Wicked, but brilliant. She left the gun in the car after she shot Bordeaux. She knew her husband would be down soon.”

“How is that brilliant?”

“Dr. Tyler opened the car door, threw in his medical bag, bent down to get in and saw Bordeaux dead and his own gun on the seat. He knew at that moment his wife killed Bordeaux. That’s what the suicide note meant. He repaid her for his betrayals by sacrificing himself.”

“Even if any of that were true, we’d never prove it.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“It’s over, doll face. She beat us.”

“I won’t accept it.”

“Listen, Bobbie, at least the killing stopped with Bordeaux and Dr. Tyler. The bad news is that there’s still a murderer out there, hiding in the fog.”

Mahan and Spencer drove on together in silence. Something had changed. The quiet desperation that had cast a shadow over their lives had faded. Mahan glanced over at Spencer, with her head against the glass. She looked defeated.

Spencer’s thoughts turned to their night at Lady Jane’s, her new blond hair, the absinthe.  She thought of the kiss in her flat—and smiled.

NURTURING NATURE

MIKE X WELCH

Det. Swanson: —to start recording our session now, Doctor Markham. Would you like anything to drink before we begin, sir? Water, or some coffee?

Dr. Markham: Coffee, black, three sugars. And something to clean my fingers with, please.

Det. Swanson (to admin assistant behind him): Would you? And a wet paper towel please? (He leans closer to recording device on table) Today’s date is Thursday, August 25th, 2050. Deposition of Doctor Nathan William Markham. Suspect has been administered his rights and has waived counsel for this interview. Suspect is being held without charge, pending forensics investigation. Pursuant to the Bail Reform Act of 2032, we can hold persons of interest or suspects for up to 72 hours before release or arraignment. Suspect has submitted a DNA sample and has been fingerprinted. Detective R. Swanson questioning, badge #4596845. Attending this interview are two agents from the FBI’s Syracuse field office, Agents Browning and Jackson. Interview room #2.

Suspect shifts in his seat. He is scowling and looking at the floor and the window of interview room 3, but cannot see through the reflective glass to the other side. Admin returns with coffee and paper towel.

Det. Swanson: (to admin) Thank you. (to suspect) Yeah, that fingerprint ink they use nowadays isn’t black, but you can feel it on your hands. Sticky.

Dr. Markham: (inaudible)

Det. Swanson: To recap the events of earlier last evening and today, and for the record: Doctor Nathan William Markham, date of birth March fifth of 1985, was found walking southbound on the shoulder of NY Route 79, also known as Slaterville Road, close to the intersection of Burns Road. Doctor Markham appeared disoriented and his hands were covered in blood up to his mid-forearms. Doctor Markham was transported by Unit 47 of the East Ithaca Police Department to Cayuga Medical Center, where samples of the blood on his hands and arms were taken along with an intravenous blood sample from Doctor Markham himself. Doctor Markham refused a breathalyzer test, but showed no alcohol or other drugs in his system via blood test. Ithaca Police relieved the East Ithaca officers due to Dr. Markham’s residence being at Cornell University, and then escorted him home.

Upon arriving at the Doctor’s apartment and accompanying him inside, IPD officers observed signs of a struggle, and most of the furniture in the residence was askew. Ithaca PD remained with Doctor Markham in his residence while search warrants for both the residence and his place of work (Cornell University, Nye Hall, Fauci Section, Rooms 29-37) were obtained. No more evidence was found at the residence, but a search of Doctor Markham’s laboratory revealed ten bodies and a scene of carnage. Five male and five female bodies. None have been positively identified yet.

Dr. Markham: (inaudible)

Det. Swanson: Doctor Markham, I’d like to begin by having you describe your position at the University, please.

Dr. Markham: (pause, exasperated sigh) I’m the Lead Molecular Biologist and Bioengineer at Cornell University. And I’m the overall Science Department Head.

Det. Swanson: And how long have you held this position, Doctor?

Dr. Markham: Which one?

Det. Swanson: The first, please.

Dr. Markham: Since my appointment in ’37.

Det. Swanson: Since 2037, so that makes it 13 years.

Dr. Markham: 14. But yes.

Det. Swanson: 14. Okay. And you have how many people under you?

Dr. Markham: (makes general sound of disgust) Many. But the staff I’m allocated are my research assistant, Judy, two graduate students—currently Mark Benson and Eric Chen— various undergraduates.

Det. Swanson: Judy—ah, that’s, ah—

Dr. Markham: (abruptly) Letellier.

Det. Swanson: Lay-Tell-Ee-Ay?

Dr. Markham: Yes. Letellier.

Det. Swanson: (looks briefly to the FBI agents) She French?

Agent Browning: French-Canadian.

Dr. Markham: She’s from Montreal, yes.

Det. Swanson: Okay, so…let’s get right into it, I suppose. Can you explain to me what was found at the University today?

Dr. Markham: My research?

Det. Swanson: The bodies. I’m mostly concerned with the ten bodies we found.

Dr. Markham: (looks distracted) Ah, yes. The bodies.

Det. Swanson: Dr. Markham—can you explain to me who these people are, or were? How they died? Any information would help us with contacting their next of kin, or—

Dr. Markham: Me. I’m the next of kin.

Det. Swanson: (confused) I’m sorry, Doctor. Can you explain?

Dr. Markham: (quiet and distracted) Those are my parents.

Det. Swanson: Doctor Markham, we found ten bodies there in various stages of decomposition—

Dr. Markham: (focused, annoyed) Yes. Those are my parents. My mother and my father.

Agents Browning and Jackson stand, their faces show concern. They motion for Swanson to exit the interview room.

Det. Swanson: I’ll, uh. I’ll be…we’ll be right back in a few minutes, Doctor Markham. Just sit tight and relax for us, please. (Swanson stands, holds the door for the FBI agents, then follows them out to the hallway.)

* * *

Nathan William Markham was a single child, born to parents in their forties who had neither planned to nor dreamt of having a child. Certainly not at this advanced stage, at least. Nate, as he was nicknamed, came along in 1985. Nate’s mother, Judith, was a homemaker who had, by the time of his arrival, branched out into local government. As such, she was often out and about in the evenings. Nate’s father, Frank, was a hardworking, blue-collar sort of man who enjoyed drinking at home. Neither of Nate’s grandparents had survived to see their unlikely grandchild, and Judy and Frank had no siblings. Judy and Frank were all Nate ever knew of family.

For her part, Judy seemed to take the birth of her child in stride. Despite she and Frank having very infrequent couplings (his decision, not hers), Judy managed the arrival of Nate as well as she managed the mayor’s address book, the twice-annual town charity bake sale, the Memorial Day parade, fair and historical society raffle, and her town steering committee chairperson duties. Frank rarely questioned why her various affairs required her to be absent most weeknights until well after dark. At a certain point in their relationship, his emotional peripheral vision had atrophied, much like the frequency of their lovemaking.

Frank worked at the local auto plant, slowly losing his hearing over decades of work around—and inside of—massive furnaces that were instrumental in the fabrication of diesel engines. Always a fan of beer, Frank had mastered the ability to polish off an entire twelve-pack of a popular local brew every evening without missing a day of work. Nate’s arrival, and the inherent responsibilities that entailed, would sometimes reduce his consumption to ten beers a night. Fortunately, the child was bright and seemingly low-maintenance; it also helped that Nate did not complain about sitting on his father’s lap for four hours watching sitcoms and the eleven o’clock news. Judy would typically walk into the house, find the two bathed in the blue light of the massive, twenty-eight-inch console television, and gently remove Nate from his father’s limp grip.

If Nate stirred while she relocated him to his bedroom—a small space that had originally been her sewing room back when she still pretended at domestication—she would gently sing him back to sleep with lullaby versions of current top-40 hits. Judy could turn The Cars’ “You Might Think” into a somber yet relaxing tune as easily as Frank turned hops, water, and barley into sweat and piss.

* * *

Det. Swanson: Today is Friday, August 26th, 2050. This is the continuation of the deposition for one Doctor Nathan William Markham. I see you have a bottle of water, Doctor. Anything else you need at the moment?

Dr. Markham: (angrily) My freedom?

Det. Swanson: Right. Again, sitting in are FBI agents Browning and Jackson, and we are in interview three today. Doctor Markham, we have collected and processed the bodies from your lab. I have some photos to show you. You stated in yesterday’s interview that these bodies were those of your parents.

Dr. Markham: At which point you quit the room and I haven’t seen you until now.

Det. Swanson: Correct. Given what you revealed to us, we re-checked the scene. Our initial attempts at identification via DNA sample were fruitless. However, once we compared their DNA to yours, we did see a match…

Dr. Markham: (interrupts) I’m sure you’ve found a match for the mitochondrial DNA, which as you might know is passed down matrilineally. I’m reasonably sure that the man who raised me was not my biological father, so I don’t think you’ll get any of his DNA to match mine. I know I couldn’t.

Det. Swanson: (flipping through the pages in front of him) Right. That’s what we’ve found. Positive match from the female victims, no match for the male victims.

Dr. Markham: (haughtily) I’m not sure why you keep referring to them as victims. They were test subjects that I raised from embryos. I accelerated their growth. They were, essentially, genetically engineered blackboards, like anything else in my lab that assists with my research. Staplers. Paper clips.

Det. Swanson: With respect, Doctor Markham, these were human beings.

Dr. Markham: (ignoring the detective, continuing) Ballpoint pens. Filing cabinets.

Det. Swanson: (in disbelief) You referred to them just yesterday as your parents!

Dr. Markham: Yes, yesterday I was simply clearing up the matter of the ‘next of kin.’ Your department seems to need all the help it can receive.

Det. Swanson: (annoyed) I will remind you, Doctor Markham, that you’ve been read your Miranda rights, and that you have refused counsel. Everything you say here can and most definitely will be used against you when it’s time for prosecution.

Dr. Markham: (waves a hand dismissively) Eh.

Det. Swanson: Let’s move on. Here are some photographs we took at the coroner’s office once the bodies had been, uh, processed. I’ve numbered them according to the gender of the victim and the stage of decomposition from what we believe to have been the first to die to the most recent. Here, 1M and 1F (pointing to first two photographs), for example, were those the first, ah, clones…you produced?

Dr. Markham: (peers over his reading glasses) Certainly the first two who survived to ‘adulthood,’ such as it was.

Det. Swanson: (audibly sighs)

* * *

During elementary school, Nate Markham showed a remarkable affinity for the sciences. His 6th grade Science Fair project demonstrated 125 generational examples of “cloning” a rose plant via photographs and video evidence. His teacher referred to it as an “exhaustive project” without even a hint of a smile on her tired face as the entire science fair ran two hours over its allotted time. Nevertheless, Nate received first place and an A-plus.

Middle and high school proceeded much the same. Nate Markham was an exemplary—if often combatively stubborn—student. He pushed his teachers to their limits in the classroom, and was more often than not the subject of those same teachers’ conversations at the local pub. Their impression was of a brilliant boy who had been coddled by his mother and ignored by his father. While he didn’t exhibit any homosexual tendencies, Nate also was rarely found in the company of the girls at school. Ultimately, his teachers and peers figured he was simply “married to his grades” and didn’t have much time for a social life. He showed no interest in sports or extracurricular activities—even those that might interest someone of his intellect, such as Chess Club. He simply disappeared from school at the end of each day and reappeared there again the next day. What Nate Markham did in his spare time was anyone’s guess. Most assumed it was studying.

Nate graduated as the class valedictorian, gave a speech consisting of one word: “Thanks,” and promptly went to school at the Georgia Institute of Technology, having been unable to afford either Johns Hopkins or MIT.

* * *

Det. Swanson: Doctor Markham, if you would be so kind as to describe how each of these victims met their demise, we can move these proceedings along. I’m sure you’d much rather be back in your cell than in here.

Dr. Markham: Why on earth would you assume that?

Det. Swanson: (ignoring the remark) Victims 1F and 1M, if you please.

Dr. Markham: The first set of clones produced who survived the growth acceleration process. I provided them with a rigorous education, mostly by subliminal recording while they slept, which was often. After a year, they were the equivalent of 18-year-olds.

Det. Swanson: Okay. (gestures for Dr. Markham to continue)

Dr. Markham: (sighs) I then exposed them to social interaction, such as it was. They interacted with Judy and then eventually with other students in the lab. Most thought they were fellow students. Back then, Judy was the only one aware of their true origins.

Det. Swanson: (opening a note passed from FBI Agent Browning) I apologize for the interruption, Doctor Markham. Before we go any further, can you elaborate on how you obtained the, uh, the cloning material that you, uh, utilized?

Dr. Markham: (annoyed) I obtained the material from my parents’ bodies.

Det. Swanson: Yes, I, uh, I surmised that. Can you explain how you obtained the material, please? Desecration of a corpse is a serious crime in New York State.

Dr. Markham: I would challenge you to find the statute that I specifically violated, Detective. My mother generously provided me with hair, fingernail, and saliva samples during her final days.

Det. Swanson: Okay. And the material from your father?

Dr. Markham: (lowers his gaze, shifts in his seat briefly) For my so-called father, I had to be a bit more creative. As you might know, he pre-deceased my mother by a good eight years. I was away in Georgia at the time, at school. He died in a car crash, more than likely because he was drunk, as usual. As I was the one tasked with identifying his remains, I obtained genetic material from his body in the coroner’s office.

Det. Swanson: (eyes widening) If the coroner assisted you with obtaining this material, there could be serious consequences for—

Dr. Markham: (condescendingly) Relax, Detective Swanson. First of all, that old coroner is dead and gone himself, at least ten years ago. Secondly, I don’t require anyone’s assistance to obtain material. I simply asked the coroner for some privacy. When he left, I removed a portion of my father’s body, secured it in a plastic bag I’d brought with me, and left.

Det. Swanson: Surely there was more to it than that?

Dr. Markham: (exasperated) If you must know…of course I wanted to avoid detection or suspicion, and removing a finger would have been easily detected. Even from a doddering old blind man like that coroner. I removed my father’s penis and sealed the cut with wax to avoid any stains appearing on the winding sheet. I correctly surmised that no one would peek under the sheet prior to his body being zipped back up in the body bag and sent to the crematorium. As the body was not concealed by me to cover up a crime, Penal Law 195.02 does not apply. And since cemetery desecration was similarly not employed, which is Penal Law 145 point…something, I can’t recall, I think you’ll find this information remarkably difficult to prosecute.

Det. Swanson: (opens his mouth to speak, nothing comes out)

Dr. Markham: May I continue to address your original question now, Detective?

* * *

Upon the death of his father, Nate decided he would move closer to home as soon as possible to assist his mother. Cornell University had a position come open shortly after his graduation from Georgia Tech summa cum laude. He seized on it immediately. Nate moved his mother from their home near Buffalo to Ithaca, and they lived together in a large Victorian house within walking distance of the campus. Judy loved having her son available once again, and they enjoyed several years together.

In 2040, Judy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Eschewing both radiation treatment and chemotherapy, she passed within three months of her diagnosis. Nate took a short leave of absence from Cornell—one month—and then returned to work with renewed purpose.

* * *

Dr. Markham: The first two ‘mature’ subjects—‘1M and 1F,’ as you refer to them—proved problematic at best. Neither were interested in continuing their education beyond what I had spoon-fed them. All she wanted to do was garner the attention of any male student she could. When I maneuvered my ‘father’ closer to her in hopes of sparking something between them, they both reacted with revulsion. I theorized that, having been ‘brought up’ side-by-side, perhaps they had developed a sibling bond. I soon found that was not the case. Given free reign, my ‘father’ only wanted to garner the attention of the male student population as well.

Det. Swanson: (smirking) That must have been pretty upsetting, Doctor.

Dr. Markham: (dismissively) Yes, well, I am a scientist. I wasn’t about to throw in the towel after a single experiment. I euthanized them and—being careful to retain the bodies in case DNA comparison was needed—worked on the next set of clones.

Det. Swanson: (indicating the photos spread out on the table) Can you tell me which ones those are?

Dr. Markham: (peering at the photos, his eyes darting between those showing the 2M and 2F corpses and the 3M and 3F corpses). These, actually. What you call ‘3M and 3F.’

Det. Swanson: Not these, 2M and 2F? (pointing to the respective photographs)

Dr. Markham: (indignant) That is correct, Detective. I am positive. ‘3M and 3F’ were the second pair of clones produced, although you are correct in your assessment of them having been the third pair euthanized.

Det. Swanson: (incredulous) ‘Euthanized?’ They’ve both been partially decapitated!

Dr. Markham: (twirling his hand in a bored manner) Yes, well. When you’re making an omelet…so on and so forth.

Det. Swanson: (through gritted teeth) Please continue.

Dr. Markham: My pleasure. I took special care with the second set of clones. I isolated them from each other as much as possible, given my working conditions, and also isolated them from the opposite gender. Well, that is to say, I only allowed them to interact with female students. During this time, I began development and acceleration of the third set of clones.

Det. Swanson: Which are actually, according to our photos, 2M and 2F?

Dr. Markham: Yes, Detective.

Det. Swanson: Okay. (hesitates) What, uh…what happened next?

Dr. Markham: Well, it was an unmitigated disaster. The second set, um, 3M and 3F, they were despondent. When 3F started to show signs of attraction to Judy, I isolated the clones again, only allowing them access to each other.

Det. Swanson: And?

Dr. Markham: Also a disaster. They showed such distaste for each other that I abandoned my ‘sibling’ theory. By now, the third set of clones was mature enough to expose to the second set. 3M and 3F were effectively in their mid-twenties and 2M and 2F were around sixteen.

Det. Swanson: (gestures at Doctor Markham to continue)

Dr. Markham: 3M embarked on a sexual relationship with 2M. 3F manipulated 2F info doing all of her bidding—small tasks at first—but eventually 3F demanded nearly all of 2F’s food, water, and possessions, to the point where 2F was severely malnourished and depressed.

Det. Swanson: (exhales heavily in disgust) Jesus…

Dr. Markham: Yes. Before I could initiate any sort of corrective behavior modifications, 3M convinced 2M to murder 3F. 2M did so with the largest weapon available to them, which happened to be a bone saw that we used for the dissection module. Hence the near-decapitation. 3M then strangled 2M to cover his tracks, and because 2F had witnessed this, 3M strangled her as well.

Det. Swanson: That doesn’t explain what happened to 3M, however.

Dr. Markham: I was getting to that. I gave 3M a taste of his own medicine and used the bone saw to euthanize him.

(Detective Swanson scribbles ‘investigate 3M as victim of hate crime’ on a sheet of paper.)

Dr. Markham: Moving forward, I destroyed the original samples of DNA that I had utilized and worked from different samples—those which I had designated as ‘backups.’

Det. Swanson: Did anything improve?

Dr. Markham: Sadly, no. I did everything different this time. I raised 4M and 4F in complete isolation from both each other and anyone else. I utilized virtual reality to offset their sense of loneliness and to ward off muscle entropy. I raised 5M and 5F concurrently, with most of the same protocols, but in their case allowed them free reign of my apartment once they had ‘aged up’ to their mid-thirties. I installed remote cameras at my apartment and slept on a cot in my office where I could watch all four subjects at once.

Det. Swanson: Okay—I almost hesitate to ask this, but…how did we find you in the state you were in—covered in their blood, walking along the road?

Dr. Markham: Despite my best efforts to keep my apartment locked from the outside, 5M and 5F escaped. They located a spare key fob for my car. I’d left my car at the apartment since I wasn’t commuting to the lab regularly. I’d taken a car hire to the office days earlier. They had apparently accessed the internet, although by what means I’ve yet to ascertain, and figured out where I was. Whichever one of them drove—and I’m assuming it was my mother, er, 5F—they made their way here in the night and gained access to my offices early yesterday morning. Not having ever driven a car before, I can only imagine what it was like for them to make the journey here. You might want to consider ensuring that there aren’t any missing persons lying in ditches along Route 79. That’s what I was doing when the officers picked me up.

Det. Swanson: What happened when 5M and 5F got to your office?

Dr. Markham: In a word, bedlam. 5F and 5M were enraged, accosting me and yelling incoherently. The noise roused 4M and 4F, who themselves started yelling. 5F and 5M disengaged from me and headed toward where I kept 4M and 4F, easily bypassing the security I had installed. It was only meant to keep them in, you see, not to stop anyone from getting to them.

Det. Swanson: And?

Dr. Markham: They started brawling. All four of them. And they managed to get into the area in which the remains of the first three sets of clones were being kept, and upon seeing those and somehow realizing that these were...well, clones of them or vice versa, they all came at me. I was in the process of attempting to subdue them as gently as possible, but then Judy arrived early for the day.

(Detective Swanson raises his eyebrows at Doctor Markham, encouraging him to continue)

Dr. Markham: Well, they all turned as one and headed for Judy. For her part, she yelped something in French, then turned and closed the laboratory door. The clones continued toward the door, obviously set on pursuit, so I grabbed the closest available weapon, which happened to be a set of scalpels in our—again—our dissection area. And I stopped them. All four of them.

Det. Swanson: (leans back and exhales heavily, then mutters) Our hero.

Dr. Markham: (eyes focused on the middle distance) You can’t go home again, Detective. (gaze drops to his lap) You can never go home again.

CHOCOLATE KARMA

L.L. KAPLAN

“Wh…what’s that in the sink?”

I set the box of cleaning supplies down on a back table with my hat, mittens, and scarf and looked up. Gabby was pointing toward the teaching kitchen at the front of the library’s new auditorium. My eyes followed her finger down to the utility sink running along the back wall. The kitchen lights were off, so all we could see was a dim outline.

“One of the demo chocolate sculptures from yesterday?” I squinted in the dark. It was possible. The library’s annual “Death by Chocolate” fundraiser had included professional chocolate mold demonstrations as well as the usual amateur chocolate competition. “Maybe it’s an overturned vat someone forgot to stow?”

“It wasn’t there last night after we cleaned up,” Gabby replied. She should know. As the head librarian, she’d also headed the clean-up.

Leaving my jacket and mittens on, I moved down the slight incline past the seating area and toward the kitchen. I flipped on the kitchen’s overhead lights.

“Now that’s taking a theme too far,” I mumbled, staring at the library’s “Death by Chocolate” banner hanging over the sink.

“What is it?” Gabby asked from the back.

“Stay there, Gabs,” I replied, approaching the sink.

The stout blob with the vat over its head fit snugly in the basin with its back against the wall and knees bent against the front. I clicked on my flash app and poked my head over the sink. Chocolate hugged the shoulders and arms, but I could still see the bottom of a red cable sweater, black stretch pants, and the tops of fuzzy pink socks.

I didn’t need to remove the vat to know who it was. Her. Crap.

I clicked several pictures, then checked for a pulse the best I could.

“W…well?” Gabby asked, her voice anxious.

I sighed. I’d known Gabby since grade school. She wouldn’t take this well.

“It’s Bertie.”

“Bertie Bregman? Is she…?” Gabby gasped, collapsing in a chair.

“Dead? Yes.”

I continued my cursory examination. A yellow “Honorable Mention” ribbon from yesterday’s chocolate competition sat in her lap. I’d also received one, but mine didn’t have “thief” scrawled in black felt pen across it. Her right hand lay open next to the ribbon, but the left was clenched in a fist. I did a double take. Her fingernails, those legendary long daggers always covered in paint and rhinestones, were gone. The nailbeds of both hands were shredded, but not bloody, suggesting the ripping had been done post-mortem.

I moved the light down to the bottom, where she sat in a shallow mocha-brown puddle. I took a tentative sniff. Sweetened vanilla, toasted almonds, cayenne pepper, citrus, and rich chocolate wafted up to me. Ah. Bertie’s “award-winning” spicy hot chocolate from yesterday. As I drew back, another unexpected scent hit me. I shook my head.

“Geez, Bertie.”

I clicked off the flash app and walked back to a very pale Gabby. She looked on the edge of shock. I hated to push her, but time was short.

“Gabs, I know this is upsetting, but I need answers quickly. Here, warm your hands in my scarf. Just breathe. You okay for a bit?” At her nod, I continued. “What happened after Bertie handed out the ribbons? I left before she finished.”

“It was chaos. I told her she couldn’t be both judge and competitor. It wasn’t right. But Bertie’s the mayor, so it wasn’t like I could push back. She gave her BFF Carol first place and then declared herself the grand prize winner. The place went crazy.”

“Anyone get violent?”

“One woman grabbed Bertie’s arm and shouted ‘murderer’ in her face. I called the police.”

“Murderer? Huh. Anyone call Bertie a thief?” I asked, thinking of the ribbon in her lap.

“Lots of people. Bertie did steal the grand prize. She wanted “‘The Bertie Bregman Culinary Wing’ on the auditorium wall in big gold letters. Naming this new wing was the grand prize.”

Typical Bertie. I dialed 911.

“Police, what’s your emergency?”

“Gordie? It’s me, Lizzy. Yeah, yeah, retirement’s great, no more night-time callouts to drunken brawls gone bad. Listen.” I explained the situation and held on as Gordie radioed the chief. “Huh? No, I found her, I didn’t kill her. ETA? Right, blizzard. Route 2 pile-up. Chief said what? Don’t mess with the crime scene?” I scoffed. “Just tell him you passed along the warning, Gordie.”

I signed off and went back to Gabby. She was now mumbling to herself.

“So, after the cops arrived, what happened?”

Gabby stopped mumbling and shrugged. “People went home. The police checked for stragglers, then left too.”

“And the extra chocolate?”

“We put the smaller demo sculptures in the storeroom cooler and the big vats of used chocolate around the utility sink to clean up today,” Gabby explained, her hand shaking as she gestured to the utility room off the kitchen. “Most competition participants took their chocolate leftovers home, though.”

“Including Bertie?”

“No. Since Bertie and Carol were going to the Rusty Nail to celebrate, they put their leftovers in the storeroom refrigerator. When everyone left, I went upstairs to bed.”

As head librarian, Gabby had an apartment on the third floor of the old converted mansion.

“You locked up and set the alarm?”

“Yes.”

“Did the alarm ever go off?”

“No.”

“Did you let Bertie back in?”

“No.”

How had Bertie gotten back inside?

“Who has after-hours access to the library?” I asked.

“Senior staff,” Gabby replied, swallowing hard before continuing. “And Bertie.”

“Bertie? Why?!”

“She had an office on the second floor.”

“Again, why? She’s never worked here. She was a paralegal in her late husband’s criminal defense firm before being elected mayor.”

“Bertie said City Hall was too noisy to work in. She needed a quiet after-hours space. I…I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

A second office? I hadn’t known about this one. That was a surprise.

“So she could’ve let herself back in without you knowing?” I asked.

Gabby nodded, shoving her left hand in her pocket. She looked puzzled, and then her eyes grew wide. She pulled her hand out quickly.

I wondered what had surprised her, but let it go and checked my watch. 12:15, and Bertie was still fairly rigid. Generally, rigor mortis starts about two hours after death, then peaks about twelve hours before the body relaxes. However, many factors, including temperature, could affect the process. She was still alive at 8:30 p.m.

I flexed my right hand. Definitely alive.

Thudding footfalls on the ramp connecting the new wing to the old library interrupted my thoughts. The full cleaning clique had arrived. I looked up as several females burst through the doors. Carol, the city’s finance director, CPA to the local elite and Bertie’s BFF, led the group.

Carol pulled off her scarf and patted her perfect hair before frowning at us. “Why aren’t you two cleaning up? Still pouting that my Loco-Mocha Potion beat your boring LavaPops, Lizzy? Grow up and get to work! I don’t want to be trapped by the storm. It was bad enough getting here.”

I ignored Carol. “Ladies, there’s been an incident. You need to go wait in the library’s lounge.”

“Incident? We just got here. We aren’t leaving. Bertie hasn’t even…” Carol snapped, then paused, peering down toward the kitchen. “Is that a chocolate mold still in the sink? What idiot didn’t put it…”

“Carol, just take the group and…” I started to say.

Gabby burst in. “It’s a crime scene!”

I groaned.

“Wh…what kind of crime scene?” asked Jane, a Bertie-Carol groupie. Wet bangs hung over her wind-blown face.

“Murder! Bertie’s dead!” Gabby blurted. I groaned again.

“Bertie?” Carol screamed and raced forward.

I blocked her. “I know it’s a shock, but please go to the lounge. I’ll stay until the police arrive.”

“No…No...I’m not leaving you here…” Carol spat. “You probably killed her!”

Enough. I grabbed her arm and started pushing a very resistant Carol back toward the door. Thankfully Ann, a retired high school principal and head of the local Chamber of Commerce, took her other arm. Ann wasn’t part of the regular Bertie posse.

“Lizzy’s right, Carol. We need to leave. Now!” Ann used her sternest principal-takes-no-sass voice. She nodded at me and headed out. The others followed.

I watched them trudge up the ramp, leaving wet footprints before they turned into the library. As I spun back to the auditorium, I caught the storm through the windows. Wind whipped the sleeting snow against the glass. I shivered, grateful I’d arrived before the storm hit or I’d be just as wet as them. A thought tickled my brain, just out of reach, and I glanced back up the ramp. Had I missed something?

Shaking my head, I pushed the auditorium doors open to see Gabby, arm outstretched, walking toward Bertie’s body. I rushed forward.

“Gabs, what are you doing?”

She stared at me, then answered in a flat voice. “Bertie’s lucky charm. I had it in my pocket. I have to give it back.” In her outstretched palm was a small golden-eyed frog pendant and two keys on a broken neck chain.

I eased the frog and broken necklace from her and put it in my pocket, then guided her out of the auditorium. As the doors closed, she snapped out of her daze with a long exhale.

“Oh my. I needed to get out of there. I’m okay now,” she said, taking a deep breath. Her color was already better.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then where’s the chain and padlock for these doors?”

“Inside. On the back credenza.”

“Can you re-arm the exterior doors on your way to the lounge?”

“Sure.”

“And get some of your, uh, special tea with lots of sugar too, all right?”

Gabby nodded with a smile, then headed up the ramp.

I watched her go. The right thing to do now was to immediately padlock the auditorium doors and follow her. I was retired. I was also too personally involved to be “messing” with the crime scene. But that was also the very reason I needed to be involved. My reputation, my life, was on the line here too. I headed back inside.

After taking several more pictures as well as a video, I touched Bertie’s exposed skin again. Very cold. Hmm. I grabbed a few pairs of rubber cleaning gloves and headed to the utility/storeroom off the kitchen.

The sensor light clicked on as I entered. Two large metal pots sat on the floor in front of the mop-sink. Another one sat in the basin. On the left of the sink was a huge state-of-the-art refrigerator and sub-zero freezer. On the right, commercial shelves stood, filled with appliances and essentials. Drawing closer, I saw one of the pots on the floor was still full, while the other on the floor and the one in the sink were nearly empty.”

Putting on a pair of gloves, I reached for the emptier pot on the floor, swirling the liquid remnants at the bottom. A rich scent of apricots, chocolate, espresso, walnuts, and caramel rose up. Carol’s “Loco-Mocha Potion.” I noted what I didn’t smell. When I set the vat back, something tingled. I reached in and pulled out a small crucifix on a broken chain. Wrapping it in two paper towels, I shoved it in the pocket with Bertie’s broken neck chain.

The sub-zero freezer was next. With fresh gloves, I opened the door and stepped inside, propping the door open with a broom. The muted interior light cast hazy shadows over the filled shelves. I panned the freezer in a slow circle with my video app but saw nothing forensic-worthy until I came back around to the door panel. Brownish fingerprint-sized smudges covered the doorjamb. Smears ran down the panel. I laid flat on the ground and looked under the nearest shelf, turning the video off and the flash app back on. The floor sloped here to a drain near the back wall. More murky trails crawled under the shelves, ending in a frozen puddle near the drain. Definitely not chocolate. Next to the puddle was a long object. I clicked more photos before drawing it out. A marble rolling pin, one end caked with dark gloppy goo. Not chocolate either. Maybe I should remove the vat and check Bertie’s head for…

My musing was cut short as thudding steps erupted from the utility room. The broom vanished, and the freezer door slammed shut with a sucking whoosh. Dropping everything, I sprang up, groping for the emergency release in a claustrophobic panic. Was this how Bertie really died? Fumbling around the door for the release before hypothermia finally took her? It would explain why she was so cold. And a head wound might have left her too confused to find the door release. I fought back my own panic and picked up my phone. Using the screen light, I found the release and ran out in belated pursuit. The auditorium was empty.

I headed back to the storeroom. The pounding footsteps proved the door hadn’t shut on its own. But why?

My eyes swept the room. Nothing looked disturbed, but this time I noticed a trolley cart between the shelves. It appeared strong enough to haul foodstuffs and appliances. Maybe even a body? I stared back at the freezer and shivered. Bertie wouldn’t have lasted long in there, especially injured. Luckily, I had rubber gloves and a dry winter jacket on and…I stopped, remembering the women traipsing up the ramp. The storm raging outside. The wet footprints and jackets. Not everyone.

My phone buzzed with a text. Chief Dorsey.

“Heading your way, storm bad. Don’t touch!”

I responded with a simple “Hurry.”

After ensuring the freezer was closed, the broom stowed, and the rolling pin safely wrapped in my backpack, I headed back into the kitchen. My eye caught Bertie. The vat on her head had slid sideways, threatening to fall. She seemed to be sagging too. Had the “phantom” disturbed her?

I peered closer. No. Rigor was wearing off. Even her fist had relaxed. Something was peeping out. Using a paper towel, I pried her hand open further. A rhinestone-encrusted acrylic fingernail, bloodied skin still attached, winked at me. Yuck. It looked just like one of the talons she was waving around yesterday. Was I wrong? Maybe Bertie had been alive when these were torn off? I wrapped the fingernail and tucked it next to the rolling pin. The chief wouldn’t be pleased, but with a freezer-door-slamming ghost about, I couldn’t risk possible evidence disappearing. As it was, I couldn’t guarantee that potential evidence hadn’t already disappeared. I did resist the urge to take the vat off her head to confirm a blunt force wound. She wasn’t going anywhere.

After locking the auditorium doors, I headed to the lounge, noting the restrooms at the top of the ramp. My phantom could’ve easily excused herself and “gone” to the restroom, then ran down here and back without being seen. As I entered the lounge, I counted heads. All were present.

“What’s that?” one woman asked, pointing to the rolling pin sticking out of my backpack. Her name escaped me.

“Let Lizzy be, Heather,” said Ann.

Heather. Heather Collington. I’d met her briefly yesterday, but why was she back today? Like Ann, she wasn’t part of the Bertie-Carol clique.

“The police are on their way, so everyone please stay here,” I announced, heading toward Gabby sitting near the fireplace.

“Who do you think you are, Lizzy Belden?” Carol barked, jumping into my path. She’d taken off her gloves and waved her daggers in my face. Oh, right. I forgot. BFFs down to the same gawdy manicure.

I glanced at the always perfect talons, then raised an eyebrow.

Carol continued. “You have no authority, Lizzy. You’re not even a detective anymore.” She leaned forward to hiss in my ear. “Officious Harassment and Malevolent Investigation. It was either retirement or prison, right, honey?”

I narrowed my eyes. Bertie had used that same ridiculous phrasing last night to describe her allegations against me. Allegations that were supposed to remain confidential if I retired. I should have figured Bertie would tell Carol, of course, confidential or not.

“Staying here so the police can interview us as soon as possible is just common sense, Carol. It might even help find Bertie’s killer. You do want to find Bertie’s killer, don’t you?” I asked.

Carol glared but stayed silent. I continued toward Gabby, pointing to her office at the back of the lounge. She followed. When we were both inside, I closed the door.

“This needs to go in the safe,” I said, pulling out the rolling pin.

“Is that…that…the murder weapon?” She paled, staring at it.

“Maybe. I couldn’t risk it disappearing, though.” I told her about the phantom.

“Someone locked you in the freezer!?”

“Yes, but more to delay than kill me, I think. Do you have the surveillance footage from last night and this morning?”

“I do, but don’t expect much. The upgrade hasn’t been a budget priority.”

“Anything is better than nothing.”

Gabby booted up the computer while I positioned myself to see both the monitor and the lounge. She squinted at the screen and flexed her fingers.

“How’s the glaucoma and arthritis?” I asked.

“I manage,” she said with a slight smile, taking a sip of tea.

Three exterior surveillance views appeared on the monitor. A fourth one, marked “employee lot/back entrance,” was blank. Two views showed the east and west sides of the library, but the camera entitled “main entrance” showed sky.

“Oh no, not another broken one!” Gabby exclaimed, pointing to the main entrance camera.

“Maybe the storm just moved it?”

“It’s under the overhang. The east and west cameras have less protection, and they’re fine.”

“What about the blank camera covering the back lot?” I asked.

“Broken months ago.” Gabby sighed. “Kids, I think.”

“Is everyone assigned their own entry code?”

“No, just one code, but you need an active badge too.”

“Are there digital logs for each active card entry/exit?”

“Not yet. But only a few people have active badges.”

“Including Bertie?”

“Yes. In fact, I had to get her a replacement because she lost her first one.”

“She lost…oh never mind. If the alarm goes off, do you hear it?”

“No, it’s silent, but I get a text from the security company. The alarm also goes straight to the police.”

I nodded. “Okay. Let’s start watching after the police arrived yesterday.”

Gabby started the feed, then pointed. “Look! The main camera! It was fine at 6 p.m.”

At 6:03 p.m., a woman, escorted by police, got into a Prius.

“That’s her!” Gabby said, pausing the action.

“Who?”

“The woman who shouted ‘murderer’ and grabbed Bertie. She’s in the lounge. Heather.”

Heather Collington thought Bertie was a murderer? Why?

Gabby re-started the footage.  Several minutes after Heather left, Bertie got into a large black SUV alone while Lotte, Brenda, and Jane got into another car. Ann drove away alone in a Subaru. The front parking lot was empty.

“Where’s Carol?” I asked.

“There!” Gabby pointed to another large black SUV crossing the parking lot from the side, then exiting. “Carol parks in the back. Bertie too sometimes.”

“There’s a car entrance back there too?”

Gabby nodded. “But it has those things that rip up tires if you go the wrong way, so everyone has to leave through the front.”

“Their SUVs look very similar.”

“They’re matching. Bertie’s license plate is BFF1 and Carol’s is BFF2.”

“Spare me. Okay, fast forward until we see something,” I suggested. A couple hours sped by. “Slow it down now, Gabs.”

At 6:32 p.m., a large black SUV pulled into the front door loading zone, so close that the camera only captured the driver’s side door.

At 6:34 p.m., a Mini-Cooper arrived and parked. The driver’s side of the black SUV opened. Bertie jumped out and stalked up to the Mini-Cooper just as I got out of it. She wagged her still-attached daggers in my face, then grabbed my neck, and a tussle ensued. I broke her stranglehold and punched her nose twice. She buckled to the ground. I got into my Mini-Cooper and drove off at 6:40 p.m.

“She tried to strangle you!” Gabby breathed, pausing the footage and caressing her turtlenecked throat.

“And stab me with those talons,” I replied, pulling my own turtleneck down for her to see the marks and bruises. She cringed as I let go of the fabric.

After I drove away, Bertie rolled to her knees and got up, a bit wobbly, but very much alive. She strode back toward the library entrance, holding her nose, and soon went out of view. Her SUV remained at the front door.

Nothing else happened until 9:10 p.m. A Prius pulled into the parking lot. Heather got out and walked quickly toward the entrance. At 9:16 p.m., Heather ran back to her Prius and sped away. At 9:32 p.m., the main camera was suddenly jolted upward so the entrance and parking lot were no longer visible.

“How accessible is that main entrance camera, Gabs?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can I reach it?”

“Yes, but you’d need a stepladder or something.” Gabby’s brow wrinkled. “I’m confused. When did Bertie leave last night? Her car wasn’t in front this morning, and I know I saw…” Her voice trailed off.

“I don’t think she ever left. Here.” I pulled out the paper towel with the crucifix and the broken chain. “I believe this is yours.”

Gabby took it. “Where did…”

“In the utility room,” I said without further detail.

I next took out the broken neck chain with the frog pendant and two small keys. The frog’s huge gold eyes stared at me.

“Bertie’s?”

“Y…Yes. She always wore it around her neck. She called the little frog her lucky charm.”

“Lucky charm? Let’s see.”

I grabbed the frog’s head with one hand and the legs with another and pulled. The head separated to reveal a mini-USB. I inserted it into the computer, and the gold eyes lit up. I hoped it wasn’t password protected.

“A USB drive?” Gabby gasped. “So that’s…”

“Damn,” I exclaimed. A password prompt.

“Oh, I bet it’s ‘$hamroX!’,” Gabby said, watching the screen. “Use the money symbol instead of the “S” and a capitol “X” instead of ‘cks’ and an exclamation point at the end.”

“You sure? I may be locked out if I’m wrong.”

“I had to help her when she got malware on her laptop. I advised her to change her password, but she refused, saying ‘$hamroX!’ had been her lucky password for years. She used it for everything.”

I inputted ‘$hamroX!’ Bingo.

The USB drive contained two folders: “Retirement Plan” and “Sweet Side Gig.” I clicked on Retirement Plan. Dozens of named Word and Excel documents popped up.

Gabby glanced at the spreadsheet. “What’s all this?”

“Corruption and fraud at its finest, I’d wager,” I replied, amazed. The proof. Finally. “Wow! Pay-to-play, blackmail, extortion, fraud, tax evasion, and other illegal schemes. All proudly documented here.”

“Schemes?”

“Yep. Let’s open one,” I suggested, clicking on a sheet called “Harry’s Suckers.” The spreadsheet contained a table of names, notes, transactions, payments info, and shell companies. “This one seems to involve clients of Harry, her late husband. I recognize politicians, community leaders, big business folks. I’m guessing that during their representation the clients had to divulge private information for the sake of their defense. Information they didn’t want anyone else to know about. Looks like after he died, Bertie used that information to extort those clients for money and influence. As his paralegal, she’d have access to all the files. But the money movement is quite financially complex. Didn’t think Bertie capable, to be honest.”

I closed the Retirement Plan folder and opened “Sweet Side Gig.” It contained two spreadsheets. I clicked one and scanned the columns of names, locations, and descriptions. One name jumped out: Collington, Vernon, 67, Morrow and Draper Road, 150 acres. Under the description/payment column was the notation “Harry/false name-1984warrant/Indy/robdeath.”

“Looks like Bertie had client dirt on Vernon Collington. Maybe a 1984 warrant from Indiana for robbery. Huh, false name? Vernon Collington might not be Vernon Collington.”

“Wait, 1984? Isn’t that too old?”

“Not if a death occurred during the robbery. No statute of limitations on felony murder. Bertie probably threatened Collington. Told him she’d turn him in unless he gave her his land or something like that.”

I next opened the document called “Sweet-Side-Gig-Biz-Plan.doc.” Wow. Bertie might’ve been a paralegal, but her ego often got in the way of rationality. Like here. Quite a contrast from the financial complexity under “Retirement Plan.”

Chief Dorsey’s text interrupted my review:

“25 mins. Stay out of it, Lizzy.”

My lips twitched as I responded.

I closed the digital folders, ejected the USB, and checked the lounge before turning to Gabby. She was holding her mug of tea and rocking slightly on the small couch. She looked anxious. I sighed. I didn’t have time to be gentle.

“Gabby, Bertie’s two keys on the chain with the frog USB. I assume one is to her office. What is the other one for?”

She looked up with wet eyes.

“Once the police get here, it’s out of my hands. Talk to me. I gather you’ve been growing some form of marijuana for your glaucoma and arthritis, right? Your special tea? Did Bertie find out and blackmail you?”

“The bitch!” Gabby finally exploded, her voice shaking. I’d never heard Gabby swear before. “She followed me to the roof one night after a trustee meeting. I…I have a greenhouse up there where I grow it. I turned around and there she was, waving those awful fingernails at me and grinning. She threatened to tell the police about the marijuana. Even though it’s now legal to grow for private use, she said it’s still illegal to grow on public land like the library. And I grew too much. The police would consider me a dealer!”

I shook my head. The evil witch. “So, she demanded after-hours access and an office for her silence.”

Gabby nodded. “And several of my plants. What could I do? Only the tea helps. If she told the police, I’d go to jail. No more tea. Or job. Or home.” Her voice cracked. “I’ve been so afraid she’d still tell. It’s going to all come out now anyway, right?”

“Not necessarily. She wanted your plants, too?”

“Yes. Yes. My plants are the highest medicinal quality. Hard to get and very expensive.  That’s why I propagate  now so I don’t have to buy them anymore.”

“I’m sympathetic, Gabs, but we’re short on time. Tell me about last night. You confronted Bertie?”

Gabby sighed. “I overheard a patron laughing about the ‘spicy’ hot chocolate. How it was laced with weed, so they voted for it. Knowing how much Bertie wanted to win, I didn’t doubt she used some of my plants for the hot chocolate. But what if a patron had gotten sick or went to the police? Bertie would somehow blame me. I was so worried.”

“I did get a slight whiff of it from the leftovers in the vat. Yet I can’t smell anything from your tea.”

“If you take the time to prepare it, there’s hardly any familiar odor with this variety. Another reason why it’s so expensive. I doubt Bertie took the time.”

“So, what happened?” I prompted.

“After Bertie and Carol left, I decided to destroy the evidence. Pour out Bertie’s leftovers and Carol’s too, just in case. I wasn’t expecting them to come back to the library, so I took my time, and even napped before I went back to the storeroom. I’d just emptied Carol’s vat in the mop-sink when I heard a scream behind me and my necklace went tight, choking me. I struggled, and the chain finally broke. I turned around to see Bertie snarling about me pouring her money down the drain. I said we’d get in trouble if someone reported the laced hot chocolate. She just laughed. Bertie thought she’d make millions with her local farm and internet pot bakery because my plants were so good.”

“But federal law still prohibits selling across state or country lines. And serving it in a drink to an unwitting public? That’s still a crime under any state law. As a former paralegal, she should know that.”

“Oh, I told her, but she argued that people didn’t care. Just look at how popular her new hot chocolate recipe had been at the festival. She’d also been storing her frozen weed in the library’s subzero and warned me not to touch it or else.”

“Evil witch. What happened then?”

“She grabbed my throat!” Gabby pulled down her turtleneck. Purple bruises and half-moon marks encircled her neck, just like mine. “I tried to get free. My fingers finally caught that chain around her neck. The one with the frog. I pulled hard. It broke and she let go for moment, so I backed away, but she rushed me again. I stuffed the keychain in my pants and grabbed a rolling pin from the shelves. I swung it and heard a thunk. She fell, moaning, so I dropped the rolling pin and ran to my apartment and locked the door. I was so cold and shaking.”

“Shock.”

Gabby nodded. “I took a warm shower and made some regular mint tea, then went to the living room. The window looks out on the front parking lot. While I was sitting, I heard a noise and peered out to see a dark SUV leave. I thought it was Bertie and was so relieved I hadn’t hurt her. I went to bed.”

“When you two fought, was it near the freezer?”

Gabby shook her head. “It started by the mop-sink, then moved to the storage shelves and then ended in the middle of the room. That’s why when I saw her in the kitchen sink this morning, I was so confused. I didn’t do that! I left her alive in the storeroom.”

“I believe you. Dramatic staging isn’t your thing, Gabs. Well, neither is murder. Besides, I think Bertie died from hypothermia, not blunt force trauma. Now, before we confront the group, I need your help with a little dramatic staging of my own.”

As I stood up, I got another text. “15 minutes ETA.” Great.

We rummaged in the office supply cabinet, and I made a quick stop to the auditorium storeroom while Gabby disarmed the doors for the police. I headed back to the lounge. Everyone was present.

“Ladies, the chief wants me to get some information before he gets here,” I said, keeping a straight face with the white lie. “First, who came back here last night after the library closed?”

I looked at each of them individually. All shook their heads and mumbled denials.

“Well, I, Lizzy Belden, did come back to talk to Bertie.”

I heard several gasps.

Carol jumped up, pointing those talons at me again. “I knew it. You did kill her!”

“She tried to choke me, Carol,” I replied, pulling down my turtleneck to reveal the purple bruises and deep half-moon indentations. More gasps. “I punched her in the nose twice, and she finally let go. She walked away quite alive, as shown on the library’s surveillance camera. Why did Bertie attack me? Because I’d been investigating her for corruption and fraud. I was getting so close that she made false allegations to force my retirement. Now,” I said, holding up my hand. Small green frog legs stuck out of my fingers as a neck chain with two keys dangled. “I have all the proof I need. Too bad she’s dead.” I put the chain in a small paper bag and set it on the table next to the fireplace.

“What was that?” Lotte asked.

“Bertie’s necklace!” Carol spat. “You scavenged her dead body? Disgusting!” Carol nodded to the paper bag. “Bertie was a fine woman and a good dear friend. How dare you accuse…”

“The frog pendant hid a USB drive,” I continued, addressing the group. “All her illegal activities are on that drive. It’s too late to prosecute Bertie, but the victims will be relieved.”

“Victims?” Jane asked.

“Yes. For example, one scheme involved her husband’s clients. Bertie worked as her late husband’s paralegal. After he died, she used confidential information from the files to blackmail his clients. Very profitable. Probably helped her get elected too. Those victims are now free of her. Of course, one of them might’ve killed her too. Or perhaps a victim’s loved one seeking revenge,” I said, moving away from the fireplace to Heather sitting on the far side of the lounge. “Heather, you weren’t involved in the chocolate contest yesterday, and you’re not part of this clique. Why are you here?”

Heather squirmed, but didn’t answer.

“Your grandfather, Vernon Collington, owned property outside of town?” I asked.

“He’s dead now. Heart attack,” Heather murmured, her teeth clenched.

“I’m sorry about that, but yesterday you accused Bertie of murder,” I glanced up as I said it. Gabby had returned but stayed partially hidden outside the door. Perfect. I returned to Heather. “You discovered Bertie had been blackmailing your grandfather about an old criminal case. One that would certainly land him in jail for a long time. Perhaps the stress of possible discovery caused his heart attack, so in your mind, Bertie killed him.”

Heather squirmed but still stayed silent.

“You’re on camera returning to the library last night, Heather. Was it to confront Bertie? Seek vengeance? I bet Bertie just laughed and belittled your demands for justice. Probably claimed it was all your grandfather’s fault. You must’ve wanted to shut her up, so you grabbed this from the shelves,” I stated, pulling a larger brown bag from my backpack and partly retracting the paper to reveal a rolling pin. “You hit Bertie hard enough to render her unconscious. But that wasn’t good enough. She needed to suffer more. You dragged her into the freezer, slammed the door, and ran off, not caring if she got out or not. Later, you remembered. The rolling pin had your fingerprints. You snuck back down to the auditorium this morning to look for it and shut the freezer door so I wouldn’t see you. Ironically, the rolling pin was in the freezer with me. Too bad I got there first. Motive, opportunity, forensic proof!” I tapped the bag with the rolling pin. “Slam dunk.”

“No!” Heather jumped up as she shouted and looked ready to run, but Chief Phil Dorsey trudged in with two deputies. Seeing that I was holding court, Dorsey raised a bushy eyebrow.

I glimpsed behind me and noticed the small paper bag with the neck chain I’d placed on the table by the fire was gone. The fire sparked a bit, as if something had been thrown into it recently. I glanced at Gabby. She gave a discreet thumbs-up.

“Just in time, chief,” I said.

“I take it you’ve already messed up the crime scene?” Dorsey sighed.

“It was pretty messy already.”

Dorsey grunted. “So, if I heard correctly, we have a suspect?” He signaled a deputy, who moved toward Heather.

“One moment,” I said, reaching into my pockets. I held up both hands. In one was the head of a golden-eyed frog with a shiny USB drive in place of its legs. In the other was the torn nail from Bertie’s dead fist. The nail that had made a usually perfect manicure imperfect. I flicked it on the table and heard a single gasp. “Heather isn’t the murderer, Chief. Carol is.”

EPILOGUE

“What are you calling this case? Scheming Housewives of Burntwood? Besties Gone Bad?” Chief Dorsey asked as he sank wearily in the chair by my desk.

It was the first time I’d seen the chief in two weeks. Bertie’s murder had opened up such a huge can of worms, or should that be such a huge “cannabis” of worms, that he’d been busy full-time.

“Don’t know yet, but I doubt either of those,” I responded with a grin.

“Here. I never quite got around to submitting it up the chain. Just put you on leave for a few weeks,” he said, pushing an open envelope toward me. My resignation letter. “You can be a pain in the ass, but I’m glad you’re back. Officially.”

I smiled, taking the envelope. “Has Carol started talking yet?”

Dorsey grunted. “Finally. How did you figure out it was her anyway? When I first arrived, you’d made a pretty good case against Heather.”

“Yeah, poor Heather. I was 95% sure it was Carol, but I needed to make sure. I drew all attention to Heather and away from the fireplace. If Carol was guilty, she’d try to destroy what she thought was Bertie’s incriminating USB. It worked.”

“Well, if the murder charge doesn’t stick, I can get her for attempted destruction of evidence,” Dorsey quipped. “But you haven’t answered the question. What made you suspect Carol?  She and Bertie were well-known BFFs.”

“She counted on that, I’m sure. Well, first, it took me a bit to realize her perfect hair and dry jacket meant she’d gotten to the library before the storm and before the other women, not with them as she claimed. But how she’d gotten inside and why were unknowns at the time. Second, the extortion schemes on Bertie’s USB drive seemed too financially complex for Bertie.”

“But not for Carol, a CPA,” Dorsey said, nodding. “Anything else?”

“The broken, bloodied nail in Bertie’s fist, of course. The blood threw me. Had Bertie been alive when they were ripped off and just grabbed one to hold? That didn’t make sense. Then I finally saw Carol’s ungloved fingers and the same decorated nails as Bertie. BFFs through and through, those two. Same car. Same perfectly manicured nails. But Carol’s perfect nails weren’t perfect anymore. She was missing one. That was the nail in her coffin,” I said, grinning as Dorsey rolled his eyes. “The only way Bertie would have Carol’s bloodied nail in her dead clenched fist was if Carol had been with Bertie despite her denial and attempts to cover her tracks. Okay, so what did Carol say happened that Saturday night?”

“According to Carol, they drove back to the library to get their leftovers. Carol stayed back to settle the tab, so by the time she parked in the back and got to the storeroom, Bertie was arguing with Gabby about her new marijuana business. Carol was shocked at terrified. She hadn’t known about Bertie’s solo venture and feared Bertie’s careless behavior would expose their other enterprises. After Gabby fled upstairs, Bertie got up, opened the freezer, and came back laughing with a bag full of, Carol assumed, frozen weed. Carol confronted Bertie just inside the freezer door.”

“The catfight,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yep. Bertie was leaving Carol behind and moving on to bigger things. If Carol tried to stop her, Bertie threatened to tip off the police about the financial schemes, as only Carol’s name was connected to the shell companies and money transfers. She taunted Carol that she had all the proof on her ‘lucky charm,’ so Carol best behave. Carol lost it. They tussled, and Bertie ripped off Carol’s nail in the fight. Carol picked up the rolling pin Gabby had dropped and hit Bertie multiple times. Bertie fell back unconscious into the still- open freezer. Before Carol could search for the ‘lucky charm,’ she heard a noise and hid, dropping the rolling pin.”

“That was Heather?” I asked.

“Yeah. Heather saw lights on at the library and Bertie’s car out front. She meant to confront Bertie if she could get inside. She followed noises to the storeroom, only to see a rolling pin on the floor and Bertie lying halfway in the freezer, not moving. She picked up the rolling pin, who knows why, walked over, and nudged Bertie with her foot. When Bertie didn’t respond, Heather dropped the rolling pin and ran out.”

“She didn’t call 911 because she’d be suspect #1, right?”

“Yep.”

“And Heather was my freezer-door-shutting phantom?”

Dorsey nodded. “She went down to look for the rolling pin just like you said and shut you in so she could get away. All right, back to Saturday night. After Heather left, Carol searched Bertie for the ‘lucky charm’ but couldn’t find it.”

“Because Gabby had already pulled it off during their earlier fight. What did Carol do?”

“Reverted to logical CPA mode. Carol realized she needed a plan. She’d go home, re-group, and come back before the cleaning crew could arrive. She pushed Bertie into the freezer, inadvertently pushing the rolling pin in there too, and closed the door. Carol assumed Bertie was dead.”

“And her broken fingernail?”

“Carol figured it was somewhere in the storeroom, so she’d get it the next day. She stood on top of Bertie’s SUV to knock the main camera askew so there’d be no record of her leaving or driving out of the back lot. Bertie broke that back entrance camera months ago so they could meet unseen in Bertie’s office and work on their nefarious projects. Bertie also gave Carol her ‘lost’ entry card and then got a replacement so they both could come and go.”

I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Carol drove home believing no one saw her leave the library. Gabby did, but she thought it was Bertie. Meanwhile, Bertie was dying of hypothermia in the freezer.”

“Gruesome, to be sure. Carol came back early in the morning with a plan. Not a great one, but a plan. Mess up the crime scene, find the USB, act the bereaved BFF, and secure her money for a quick international exit if necessary. She really believed there was nothing tying her to the murder. No one saw her back at the library that night, and she made sure there was no surveillance evidence. As to the rolling pin, Heather and Gabby’s fingerprints were on there too. Carol could say she handled it while cleaning up. She believed she’d thought of everything important. She didn’t think her broken fingernail was an issue. She could easily say she lost it somewhere during the chocolate festival.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t realize it was in the one place that she couldn’t easily explain away: Bertie’s fist. So, the outlandish staging was to confuse and distract?”

Dorsey shrugged. “Spite, humiliation, diversion, messing the evidence, all of the above. Take your pick.”

“And ripping off Bertie’s nails?” I asked.

“Ah, well, those nail ‘rhinestones’ are real. Carol felt she was owed.”

“Ouch. Okay, change of subject. What about Gabby? Any charges? She hit Bertie, but in self-defense like I did. And what about her marijuana?”

Dorsey smiled. “No assault charges for either of you. As for growing marijuana, the library may be public, but it’s also Gabby’s home. I think the trustees will allow a reasonable exception with conditions. And no, we’re not prosecuting Gabby for past violations.”

I smiled. “Good. I hear they’re naming the new library building the ‘Harry Bregman Culinary Arts Wing’” after Bertie’s late husband. He was the anonymous donor! I doubt Bertie knew. Now that’s karma! Huh. Karma. Chocolate Karma! That’s it! The case name.”

“Really? I rather liked Besties to Beasties or Acrylic Revenge.”

“No. This is about reaping what you sow. And as Bertie and Carol found out, even laced with high-quality hash and sweetened cocoa, karma can still be a real bitch.”

GANGSTA GODMOTHER

SUSAN K. HAMILTON

Name’s Pig. Quigley J. Pig, III, to be exact. I’m a detective from a long line of detectives. There are, or there were, three generations of Pigs on the force, at least until Quigley Pig and Quigley Pig, II—my father—got suckered by that damn Wolf. But that’s a story for another day. Today’s tale is one of revenge… served cold and filthy…

I’m sitting at my desk, thumbing through a cold case file. The clues on the Dumpty case had run dry. I knew someone had pushed him off that wall, but the King’s Men had all clammed up. And the horses weren’t talking either. But one way or another, I was going to crack the case. The phone on my desk shrilled, yanking me off Memory Lane. I took one last swig of coffee and picked up the receiver.

“Police station. Detective Pig speaking.”

“Quig, this is Puss. I’m down at the Shady Dell Sewage Treatment Plant. Got a double for you. You need to get down here pronto.”

“A double? Are you sure?” My shoulders tightened. There hadn’t been a double homicide in these parts since, well, since the whole debacle with my relatives and the Wolf.

“No question, just get your ass down here. Side delivery area.”

I hung up the phone and glanced at the empty desk across from me. My partner, Jack, was out on a medical leave. One night, after three ill-advised shots of tequila, he decided to prove that middle-aged Jack was still just as nimble. Jumping over one candlestick might have been okay, but no, he had to prove something and tried jumping over eight. It didn’t work out so well for him. Torn ACL, busted ankle, and second-degree burns on his legs. He’s my partner and my friend, but he’s a dumbass when he drinks.

Grabbing my coat, I headed for the door but stood aside as it busted open and three mice, all wearing sunglasses, were hustled in.

“We’ll have your badges for this! Treating blind mice like common criminals,” cried one mouse.

“If you’re blind, how come we found you in the bushes with binoculars trying to get a look into Miss Muffet’s bedroom window?” the officer asked.

I almost stopped to hear what the mice had to say in response to that, but I had bigger fish to fry. It took 30 minutes to reach the plant, a hulking monster of a building that hid behind a hill covered with trees and flowers. That’s one thing I’ve learned about life here in Shady Dell. It all looks picture-perfect pretty on the surface, but dig deep enough? You might not like what you find.

I pulled into the parking lot and eased my car into a spot near one of the trees that dotted the expanse of pavement. As soon as I got out, my lunch crawled up my throat. The stench was unbearable—a definite violation of the Geneva Convention.

Across the parking lot, blue lights flashed, and I headed in their direction, trying to ignore the odor. Then I felt a squish beneath my shoes. My good shoes. The pile of vomit clearly had corn in it. And bits of carrot. Goddamnit. I should have parked closer. That’d teach me to try to get my steps in for the day.

But honestly, the fumes from the sewage treatment plant that were wafting so deeply into my lungs were so rank, I would have preferred to smell the puke on my shoes. Yanking my foot out of the vomit, I shuffled towards the area ahead that was cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. As I passed by one of the other scraggly parking lot trees, something landed next to me with a clunk and a clatter. I glanced down. It was a grayish-white shell. A… clam?

“CAWWW!”

My head snapped up. Above me, clinging to one of the branches was a crow. It fixed me with a shiny eye and flapped its ebony wings.

“Don’t worry, it’s all yours,” I answered. I don’t know where it got the clam, but the idea of eating seafood in a sewage plant was revolting even to me—and trust me, I’ve eaten a lot of questionable things in my day. I’m a pig.

The bird flapped down and screamed at me again. “CAWWW!” Then it started pecking the clam like it owed the bird money. The crow let out one more shrill screech and flapped its wings. Odd, I thought, but I didn’t have time to puzzle out the behavior of a loony crow.

Officer Puss met me at the yellow tape, holding it up so I could duck under.

“What’s the situation, Puss?”

He flattened his ears back, clearly showing his displeasure with the entire affair.

“That bad?” I asked.

“Worse.”

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Like me, Puss had a lot of experience, and if whatever had happened here had him rattled—well, that wasn’t good. Wasn’t good at all.

Officer Puss had ordered some of the police cars to form a bit of a barrier, and when I got past the wall of flashing blue, I was confronted with a gross tableau of soiled innocence. Bound hand and foot to heavy chairs were Prince Charming and his Princess. Their normally pristine white silk clothes were soiled with oil, dirt, blood, and other things I didn’t want to think about. Both had garish makeup smeared across their faces. Charming’s blond hair had streaks of puce in it, and the Princess’ long tresses had been hacked into jagged layers.

“That’s a lot of anger right there.” I said it more to myself than anyone else.

“Spot on as always,” the coroner said as he got up from examining something on Charming’s shoe. “Whoever did this had a lot of rage in them.”

I walked around the bodies, taking care to stay well outside of where the coroner was working. There was debris around the chairs. It looked like sand, grit, a few things I couldn’t identify, but there were some white flecks that caught my eye.

“Anyone take a sample of the debris around the chair?” I asked.

“My assistant did. It looks like general debris, but we’ll check and find out.”

“Puss,” I said. “What do you make of those white chips?”

Puss leaned in and sniffed. “Not much, but there’s a slightly fishy odor.”

I was impressed he could pick something like that out given how much this place stank. “Maybe like clams?”

“Yes, absolutely.” I could tell by Puss’s face that he was wondering how I knew.

“Doc, did you see a crow in here earlier?” I asked.

“No, why?”

“One was manhandling a clam shell out in the parking lot. Seems odd that there’s some shell fragments here,” I said.

“Hmm.” The doctor didn’t seem impressed. “Let’s not jump to conclusions on what those white chips are. We aren’t that far from the dumpster, so I can’t tell you how long those shells have been here.”

He had a point, but I tucked the fragments into my old memory bank for later. It was too much of a coincidence, and I don’t believe in coincidence.

“Cause of death?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Really, Detective Pig. You know I won’t have that answer until my autopsy is done, but based on the ligature marks on the prince’s neck…” He gestured towards the harsh discolored line around Charming’s throat. “I’d say asphyxiation is a good candidate, but that could have been part of the torture.”

“Same for the Princess?” Puss asked.

“Somewhat, yes.” The coroner frowned and peered over the top of his glasses. “There’s more blood on the Princess, and more bruising. My guess is that whoever did this tortured her and made Charming watch.”

A sparkle caught my eye. “What’s that on their faces. Is that glitter?”

The coroner pulled out a swab and rubbed it on Charming’s cheek. “Wouldn’t surprise me, but I’ll have it tested. And based on liver temperature, I’d say they both died between midnight and two o’clock in the morning. And I’d estimate that the Princess died first, and Charming not too long after.”

Puss rubbed his chin. “Charming was uptight. But who would be this angry with him and the Princess?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” I said.

“We?” Puss perked up. I knew he was interested in getting on the detective track, and I was down a partner.

“With Jack laid up, you’re working with me on this.”

“Yes, sir!” Puss snapped a salute.

“We need to talk to whoever’s in charge of this facility.”

“The plant manager is waiting in his office.”

“Come with me.” I gestured as I started to walk away from the crime scene. Puss followed me, mincing around the puddles of blood and crap. God forbid anything get on those precious boots. Once we were in the building, the receptionist escorted us to the plant manager’s office. The brass plate on the door read “MacDonald.”

The man behind the desk had a square jaw and stocky build. He pushed his glasses up on top of his head, tangling them in his straw-colored hair. “Please, come in.” He gestured for us to sit, and Puss hopped up onto one of the chairs.

“Terrible shame,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“MacDonald,” I said. “Related to Old Man MacDonald? The one with the farm?”

“My granddad,” he said. “Love the farm, but it’s hard to make a living in agriculture.”

I nodded. “Appreciate you talking with us. Is there any reason Charming or his wife would have been here?”

“No. I can’t think of a single reason.” MacDonald shook his head.

“Did you know either of the Charmings?”

“Not personally, no.”

Puss and I talked with MacDonald for about 20 minutes, and by the end of the conversation, I was convinced he wasn’t our man. Plus, he had an airtight alibi—he was bailing his uncle out of jail for being drunk and disorderly. MacDonald was literally in the police station when the murders happened.

“I’m thinking these happened at your plant for a reason,” I said. “Any of your employees ever mention Charming or his wife?”

“Now that you mention it, there are a couple. But I can’t imagine either one of them would do something like this.” MacDonald loosened his tie and then fiddled with the end of it.

“And who might that be?” I asked.

“Len, the Muffin Man, is one. Then there’s Dwayne Black Sheep.” He thought for a moment. “Both have talked some serious smack about Charming.”

“They on duty today?”

“No, sir. They’re on the regular shift. Unless there’s overtime and didn’t need any recently. In fact, we’ve been running a skeleton crew the past few weekends.”

“I’m going to need their addresses.”

As MacDonald looked through the personnel files, I turned to Puss. “And we’re going to need you to invite them down to the station for a conversation.”

“On it,” Puss said.

* * *

The next day, I walked into the precinct nursing a cup of joe—black, of course. I put the cup down on my desk and tossed my coat onto a hook. Puss had made himself at home at Jack’s desk. I put the cup down on my desk and tossed my coat onto a hook. At the next desk, an empty saucer of cream sat next to him. He ran a paw over his ear.

“Got both interviews ready for you, Quig,” he said.

“Great, let’s get to it.” I drained the last of my coffee, and we walked down the hall towards Interrogation Room 1. When we reached it, I looked through the two-way glass to assess what I was walking into. Inside, Len the Muffin Man was folded into the chair, his lanky frame looking awkward and uncomfortable. His finger drummed on the table.

I opened the door fast and he yelped, nearly falling off the chair.

“Thanks for coming down,” I said. I slid into the seat opposite Len and put my folder on the table. Near the door, Puss hopped up on a stool.

“Why am I here?”

“Just need you to answer a few questions,” Puss said.

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“At the moment, no,” I answered.

“Then what’s this about?” Len’s nasal voice grated like nails on a chalkboard.

“Where were you between midnight and two o’clock in the morning on Sunday?”

Muffin Man jerked upright in his chair, looking distinctly like a marionette. “Are you kidding? You think I…?”

“What do I think?” I gave him my best tell-me-the-truth stare.

“You think I had something to do with whacking Charming.” Len’s eyes bugged out of his head. He tugged at one of his apron ties.

“Did you?”

“Seriously? I mean, c’mon.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Everyone knows the Muffin Man. I can’t sneeze without someone recognizing me. Do you really think I’d do something as stupid as kill Charming?”

“You weren’t a fan, though. I’ve been asking around. The two of you mixed it up from time to time. What happened this time?”

“A fan? No, I wasn’t. Charming was an uptight prig with that perfect hair and perfect smile—complete with a little cleft in his chin. He wasn’t so charming when we were in school together. A day didn’t go by when there wasn’t some sort of snide comment.”

“So Charming bullied you?”

“He did, but that was a long time ago.”

Based on how red Muffin Man’s face and neck were, it didn’t seem like it was that long ago at all.

“And when it came to women? I mean, look at me. Knobby knees, big nose, frizzy hair. I didn’t stand a chance next to him when it came to the ladies. And he always seemed to show up when there was someone I was interested in.”

“You were interested in the Princess?”

When Len stayed silent, Puss said, “Answer the question.”

“No.” Muffin Man scoffed. “She was a looker and all, but not my type. I was glad when she caught Charming’s eye. He stopped showing up at the clubs. Made my life a lot easier.”

“You said you didn’t do it,” Puss said. “Do you have an alibi?”

“Duh…I was making muffins.” The incredulous look on Muffin Man’s face told me he either thought we were crazy or stupid.

“So, no alibi?” Puss pushed the issue.

“Not one you can verify. Am I under arrest?”

“No,” I said.

“Have any physical evidence that links me to this fiasco?”

“No.” I ground my teeth.

“Then I’m going home. And if you find any evidence—and you won’t—you come find me. I’ll be in the goddamned kitchen making some goddamned muffins. ‘Cause that’s what I do.” He got up and stomped out of the conference room. Puss and I sat there for a bit, picking through the notes Puss had taken. The more we talked, the more convinced I was that Muffin Man didn’t do it.

“Time to talk to Dwayne,” I told Puss. I pushed back from the desk and walked down the hall to Interrogation Room 2. Puss was hot on my heels. It was virtually identical to the other interrogation room. Gray walls, square metal desk with a few dents in the top, and uncomfortable metal chairs.

Dwayne, the Black Sheep across from me, was either eating his Wheaties or he was on ‘roids. Either way, he looked pissed. Officer Puss slid into the chair next to mine. I kept my face neutral as my stomach gave a little heave, but there was a definite subtle sewage smell in the room. It was subtle, but it was there.

“‘Bout time you got here.”

“Thanks for coming down, Dwayne,” I said.

He grumbled something and leaned forward with an implied aggressiveness. “Like I told them, I paid those parking tickets. Can I go? I get paid by the hour, you know.”

“Not quite yet. Where were you on Saturday night?”

“Out with my cousin, Shaun. We were having a few drinks and trying to hook up with some baaaabes.”

“Then why did my murder victim have this?” I pushed an evidence bag with a ball of black wool they’d found in Charming’s pocket.

“What the fu—Murder? No way! No!” The tendons in Dwayne’s neck bulged as he slammed the table. “Did Mary put you up to this? Little bitch. She’ll do anything to get in my way. Who’d she say I killed? She’s a liar!”

“Mary’s out of town,” Puss said, casually leaning back. “Guest speaker at the International Wool Convention in India.”

Dwayne narrowed his eyes. I glanced at Puss. We hadn’t talked with Mary yet at this point. My new partner was bluffing.

“Did you know India has the second largest population of sheep in the world? I’m surprised you’re not there. I mean, it is a who’s who of the wool world.” Officer Puss looked Dwayne up and down and gave a dismissive cough.

I knew what my feline companion was trying to do: get under Dwayne’s skin, get him to make a mistake. Sadly, it didn’t go as planned.

Dwayne locked eyes with Puss, and his lip pulled up into a sneering snide smile. “What are you staring at… pussy?”

The words “oh, shit” had barely formed in my brain when Puss—with hissing spit and a yowl—launched himself across the table. I was lucky to catch him by the scruff and I hauled him, twisting and scratching, out into the hall. Dwayne’s laughter followed us.

“What the hell?” I shouted. “Get a hold of yourself, Officer.”

Puss snapped out of Tasmanian-Devil mode, but his tail was still full bottle brush. “I’m sorry.” He raised his paws in apology. “I hate that word. I just…it just…Pisses me off every time I hear it.”

“I get it, but you can’t go off like that on a suspect. If Dwayne is our killer, you could have blown the whole case! Now go cool off. Have a cup of cream or something. I’ll finish with this lunk.”

Puss slinked off down the hall, and I went back into the interrogation room.

“Sensitive pu—”

“—Shut up,” I said, interrupting Dwayne before he could continue. He smirked but kept his mouth shut.

“Let’s get back to our conversation,” I continued.

“Let’s, and why don’t you answer a question for me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Go for it.”

“Where’d you get that?” Dwayne gestured towards the bag with the ball of black wool in it. In response, I tossed a picture of Charming onto the table.

Dwayne’s jaw dropped as he recoiled. “Oh no. Nononono. This can’t be happening. Tell me this is some kind of sick joke!” Tears welled in his eyes.

Not the reaction I was expecting.

“Who did this? WHO DID THIS?” Dwayne shouted. He buried his head in his hooves and started to mumble and shake his head. I gave him a minute.

“You were friends with Charming?” I finally said.

“Friends? I wouldn’t say that.” Dwayne wiped his nose on his arm. “Charming was my ticket out. I was finally going to have my big break.”

“Explain.”

“I’ve been trying to get a break on my fashion line—things made of black wool. Tried for years to get Mary to give me a shot, but she ignored me. Only fleece that was white as snow was good enough for her. Racist bi—”

“Hey. Stick with the Charming angle.”

“Well, when I told Mary I was sick of being cut out of everything, and I was going my own way, she blackballed me. Blocked every deal I tried to make for my wool.” Dwayne patted his black curls, then rubbed his shoulder. “This is quality shit, man.”

“And?” I rested my elbows on the table, waiting patiently for the rest.

“And? Thanks to Mary, no one would take my calls. No one would hire me. Only place I could get work was the Shady Dell sewer plant. Now my wool reeks—and don’t tell me it doesn’t, I can see it in your face. No one’s going to buy something made from my wool now. I need at least six months in a meadow, and one shearing, to get the stank off me.”

I waited. Silent. It took a few minutes, but Dwayne got restless and continued his story. “I knew Charming was looking to bust into textiles, so I pitched him an idea for a line of black wool items. Really high end. I gave him a sample so he could see the quality. That’s why he had my wool.” Dwayne patted his black curls.

“And I did it…”

At that I perked up. A confession?

“Settle down, sparky,” Dwayne snorted. “What I did was, I convinced him. Charming was going to invest. Give me the support I needed while I cleansed.”

He slumped in the chair, all the bluster gone, and when he looked up, his eyes were full again. “Charming was going to be my golden goose. My ticket out. Why would I kill him? I might look like a dumbass, but I’m not.”

I pressed my lips together. Like Muffin Man, I believed Dwayne. “Hmmm. You sit tight while I give Shaun a call to confirm your alibi.”

“Here’s his number.” Dwayne scribbled the digits on my notebook.

Thirty minutes later, I was thanking Dwayne for his cooperation and watching him saunter out the door. Dwayne’s cousin, Shaun, confirmed they’d hooked up with a couple of ewe hotties and “romped” until the wee hours of the morning. Well after when the coroner suspected the Charmings had died.

Now I was back to square one. Our two prime suspects were dead ends. But I wasn’t going to have this turn into a cold case—it was too high-profile. There had to be something, or someone, at the plant that I’d missed.

“What now?” Officer Puss asked.

“We go back to where it all happened,” I said. “We look through all the file notes again, and then we return to the scene of the crime. The answer must be there, somewhere.”

Three hours later, we’d combed through every note, every evidence bag, and every report that we had. I didn’t want to go back to the sewage treatment plant, but sometimes reexamining the crime scene, no matter how revolting, comes with the territory. I had Puss come with me. Never hurts to have a second set of eyes—especially ones as sharp as his.

When we got out of the car, the plant’s odor smacked us both in the face. A rustle made me glance into the nearby tree. A crow cocked its head, almost like it was studying us. I turned away but didn’t get three steps in before a crack and a clatter made me and Puss jump.

“CAWWW!”

Puss looked down and wrinkled his nose. “A clam? Where did that come from?” He shook his head. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

I stopped and stared. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Like I said before, I don’t believe in ‘em. But what did clams have to do with all of this? The crow landed next to it and pecked at the shell so hard it jumped around on the pavement. The corvid ruffled his feathers and hopped around, and with one final glare, launched himself into the air. I watched him fly and settle on a tree branch, where he turned around. I swear he was watching us.

Holding the glass door to the building lobby, I let Puss go in ahead of me. When we got inside, the receptionist wasn’t at the desk. I was starting to get impatient when she finally returned.

“I’m sorry, we don’t get too many visitors.”

“I’d like to see MacDonald. The plant manager.” I pulled my coat to the side, flashing my badge in the process.

“Let me see if he’s free.”

Five minutes later, we were being escorted back to MacDonald’s office.

“Please, sit. Has there been a break in the case?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said. “Still running down a few leads. I wanted to check back in with you and see if you had thought of anyone else who might have had beef with Charming?”

“Not that I can think of. Most people—even in this place—loved him and the Princess. Such a shame.” MacDonald shook his head.

I glanced at the wall, where there was a big, framed blueprint of the facility. There were a few rooms on the map adjacent to the area where we’d found Charming.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing.

“Those rooms? Storage mostly. Paper goods for the cafeteria. Cleaning supplies, stuff like that,” MacDonald answered.

“Who would have unlimited access to the plant?”

MacDonald scratched his chin. “A few of the managers. Me. Custodial staff… you know, if anyone around here knows the scuttlebutt, knows who might have had it in for Charming, it would be Mimi.”

“Who’s Mimi?”

“Janitor. She works during the week, so she wasn’t here when…” He hesitated. “When the incident happened.”

“Is she here today?”

“Yes.” MacDonald looked at the clock. “She’s probably in the cafeteria on her break right now.”

Following the signs in the plant, we wove down several corridors before finally reaching the cafeteria. It didn’t smell any better in there. Mimi the janitor was sitting alone, hunched over one of the lunch tables. Even sitting, you could tell she was petite, five feet tall if she was lucky. A mop of unruly gray frizz covered her head, topped by what used to be some sort of conical hat. It still had a tattered scrap of lace clinging to the top.

She glanced up and caught me staring.

“What are you lookin’ at?” She skewered me with an angry glare.

“Quite the tragedy that happened here the other night.”

“You say tragedy, I say best happy ending ever.” A dented cigarette butt clung to the corner of her mouth and bobbed as she talked. A few stray ashes fell in slow motion, settling onto the plate of mostly eaten clams in front of her.

I stared at the plate, thinking of the crow out in the parking lot. The smell of shellfish mixed with the odor of refuse made my stomach turn over again.

She caught me looking, and a wicked smile oozed over her face. “You look like you’ve lost weight. How are your father and…oh, that’s right. Only one little piggy left. Wolfie eventually got the other two.”

I tried to suppress the angry squeal that erupted out of me, but I couldn’t. I let the moment pass, gathered my composure, and sat across the table from her.

“What’s your name?” I asked as I pulled out my notebook and pen.

“Mimi.”

“Well, Mimi, you know anything about what happened out there?”

“To Prince Chump and Princess Prissy?” Her gravel voice overflowed with contempt.

I frowned. “Yes, to Charming and his Princess.”

She leaned back in her chair and looked me up and down. Her face was flat, expressionless but her eyes. They looked shrewd and calculating. She reached up and scratched her ear, and a few stray sparkles danced in the air. They almost looked like…

Glitter.

Black glitter.

And clam shells.

I sat up straighter while Mimi chortled.

“It was you. You killed the Charmings!”

“Took you long enough to figure that out, Sherlock.”

“But why?” I asked.

Mimi leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Why? They got what was coming to them. You don’t ever piss off a Fairy Godmother, that’s why.”

“Wait. You’re a Fairy Godmother?” She didn’t look like any Fairy Godmother I’d ever seen.

“A Fairy Godmother? I ain’t no ordinary Fairy Godmother. I’m the goddamn OG Fairy Godmother. You don’t think Evie got to where she was without some help, do you?”

Behind me, I heard Puss mew in surprise just as my mouth dropped open.

“Evie? As in Evil Queen Evie? You’re telling me that Evil Queen had a Fairy Godmother. That you were her Fairy Godmother?”

“Of course, she did. And damn straight I was.” The tone of Mimi’s voice told me she thought I was a moron. She picked up one last clam and slurped it down. The sound almost made me lose my lunch.

“Every princess has a Fairy Godmother, and it can be a real drag,” she said with a glance at her cracked fingernails. The remnants of red polish dotted a few of them. “All you get is whining. Oh, I have to do all this terrible manual labor! Oh, no one sees how special I am! Oh goodness, how will I ever get to the fancy ball? Oh dear, I’m just not complete without my Prince coming to save me! Save me, my ass. But not Evie. Evie didn’t need anyone to save her, she saw what she wanted and went after it. And for being ambitious she’s dubbed the ‘Evil’ Queen.”

More dark fairy glitter flew as Mimi made exaggerated air quotes with her fingers.

“And what do Charming and his wife have to do with this?” I asked as I scribbled notes in my book.

“They ruined everything. No other Fairy Godmother has ever raised the ultimate Evil Queen, and it was right there in front of me. So, close I could taste it. I was about to go down in history as the most gangsta Fairy Godmother EVER.” She slammed her palms on the table, shaking everything. An itsy-bitsy spider shot out from under the lip of a plate and disappeared over the side of the table. Mimi watched it with an almost affectionate smile, and then she turned her attention back to her story.

“And then they ruined it. Do you know how hard I worked, how much I sacrificed, to make Evie the evil genius that she was?” Mimi continued. “Charming and his bride swooped in and dumped all their goody-two-shoes, sunshine and light schmutz all over her. Told her they forgave her—forgave her!—for all the chaos she caused in their lives. They appealed to her conscience. Her conscience! Can you believe that shit? Christ on a raft, she tried to KILL them before they got married. Who forgives someone who tried to murder them?”

“Kindness is kinda their jam,” I said.

“Not any more it ain’t,” she cackled.

“So… the Charmings messed up your ambitions, and you just had to get your revenge.”

“Yeah, maybe I did. They dissed me, and an OG like me ain’t going to let that shit slide. Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it? I let them get a good look at what life in the gutter was like, because after Evie went on her please-forgive-me world tour and started making her amends, no one wanted to work with me anymore. Ruined my career. Ended up here in this dump.”

“And you’ve got no remorse?” I asked. This had to be the strangest interrogation I’d ever done.

“Damn straight!” She gave me a googly eye and jutted out her chin in defiance.

“Okay, get up. Hands behind your back.” I pulled out my cuffs. As they clinked around her wrists, I continued, “Mimi the Fairy Godmother, you’re under arrest for the murders of Prince and Princess Charming. You have the right to remain silent…”

After I finished reading the OG FG her rights, Puss and I marched her towards the lobby. Puss had thought ahead and called for the paddy wagon, rather than our sedan. We got to the lobby and I stopped. Outside, there was a riot of lights. The flashing blue from the police van, but also the lights from the news trucks as the reporters were getting ready and setting up their lights and cameras.

How the hell did the news get a hold of this so fast?

Then it clicked: the spider, that itsy-bitsy spider that no one thought about. He’d called the press for her.

“Itsy did a good job.” Mimi’s voice brimmed with satisfaction.

“You wanted us to find you,” I said. “And you wanted the press here when we walked you out.”

Mimi looked smug. “Of course I did. Can’t get credit for your work if no one knows you did it. All those little girls who are sick and tired of being good girls will be lining up to have me as their Fairy Godmother.”

“You’ll be in prison.”

She shrugged. “Minor inconvenience.”

We reached the door, and as Puss started to open it, Mimi stood up straighter. She pulled her shoulders back and raised her chin.

“Be sure those bitches get my good side.”

SOMEONE ELSE’S STORY

CARI DUBIEL

It was the first warm day of the year, a welcome anomaly in March. I stood at the mailbox and let the wind waft through my hair, let my skin absorb the vitamin D I so desperately needed. Akron’s winter had been particularly harsh, and it was beyond time for a thaw.

When the moment passed, I opened the box and flipped through the envelopes. Junk mail, ads, coupons. Wastes of paper. Envelopes from credit card companies, more solicitations.

I threw the ads and such into the recycle bin, then started tearing open the credit card envelopes. Usually these were offers for balance transfers or loans, but I opened them anyway in case they contained personal information. I’ve always been careful about that stuff.

The first one was a statement, though. I frowned. We never used credit cards unless absolutely necessary.

I gasped, and the letter nearly fell from my hand. The wind stirred around me, the envelopes in danger of flying away.

I tore down our long driveway and banged into the front door, not bothering to go through the garage. “Jeremy!” I yelled.

No answer from my husband. He was probably in the cave, where he worked remotely. Sure enough, the dark was only lit by his three monitors, and metal blasted from his surround-sound speakers.

“Babe,” I said, struggling to catch my breath. “Someone opened a bunch of credit cards in my name.”

Jeremy turned abruptly, then ordered, “Alexa, turn off the music. Turn on the lights.” I squinted as the overhead lamps came on, and he quickly closed a browser.

I waved the sheets in front of him. Three thousand on one card. Two on another. Seven hundred on another. Little bits here and there.

His handsome face was drawn, pale.

“Our accounts have been hacked, too.” He pointed to the largest screen, where a long list of bank transactions unfurled. “They cleaned out our entire checking and savings.”

A chill like ice water spread down my back. “What?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing left, Bella.” Jeremy scrubbed a hand over his face. A tear shone in his left eye. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

* * *

The bank was closed, so Jeremy called customer service. He paced across the living room while I sat on the couch. I didn’t know what to do with myself. It wasn’t like I could pour a glass of wine and lounge around while all this was happening. I could only exist, a ball of anxiety knitting in my belly.

“Yes, I’m telling you, that was not me.” His voice was growling, gritty. “Why would I transfer all my accounts? Isn’t there a rule against that anyway? How can someone be allowed to transmit all that money in a single day?”

My husband was normally mild-mannered, hesitant to complain when a restaurant got his order wrong or he was charged for the wrong item at the grocery store. This was not him.

I didn’t hear anything from the other end of the call.

“Whatever that person presented, that was not my ID. Someone’s stealing from us.”

Silence again.

“Let me talk to your manager,” Jeremy pressed. But there was no result from that either. When the call ended, he threw his phone onto the couch, defeated.

* * *

I took all my insomnia medicines. GABA, Xanax, melatonin for some extra oomph. But this only resulted in a daze, and my thoughts pulsed behind the sedation.

I was alone. Jeremy had never come to bed. It didn’t make sense to keep staring at a swirling ceiling. I got up.

I passed through the long upstairs hallway, padded down the stairs, and walked into a ghost.

Melody stood in front of the window, arms crossed, that near-permanent smirk on her face.

Sparks of fear lit up inside me. “It’s not a good time,” I said softly.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

I blinked, but only my reflection from the front window stared back.

I tiptoed down the hall and peered into Jeremy’s office, my heart thumping. His screens were lit up, a mouse pointer flying between monitors. I stepped a little closer and saw he’d opened the Tor browser. The portal to the dark web. My rule-following, lawful husband? Why?

He looked up. “Babe? Who’s there?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” I padded into the room behind him. “Melody was in the hallway.”

Jeremy turned and reached for my hands. His skin was cool under mine. “You’re seeing her again?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Oh, honey.” He slid his fingers between mine. “You need to take your medicine.”

“I did. I swear.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m just so scared.”

Jeremy stood and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned into his embrace, and the screen caught my eye. He’d pulled up a messaging forum, and the title at the top read Hot Crimes.

I closed my eyes. I was seeing things. Like I was seeing Melody. This had to be a squeaky-clean misunderstanding. A run-of-the-mill case of identity theft.

* * *

We had to skip our usual Saturday brunch. Our house was rural, about half an hour from the nearest suburb, and the bank was only open until one. Jeremy’s teeth were clenched, his hands tight on the wheel, as we backed out of the driveway.

We were rounding a steep downhill curve when the blue and red lights flashed behind us. Nausea curled in my stomach. On top of all this, we were getting a ticket.

Jeremy found a turnoff, and the officer pulled up behind us. I waited for him to saunter up and ask how fast we were going.

Instead, he leveled a gun at Jeremy. “Out of the car.”

I couldn’t see the officer’s eyes behind those aviators—only my face reflected back.

More cars flew in behind us, crowding the turnoff. Officers swarmed the scene. We scrambled out of the car and were pressed flat against its side. They read us our rights. Hot metal cuffs wrapped my wrists, scraping my skin.

They left our car there on the ridge, looking out over the national forest, and we were herded into a back seat. Someone had seized my purse, Jeremy’s wallet, and our phones. I sat, shaking. Jeremy looked stoically out the window.

We arrived at a station and were herded away separately. They took my picture and my prints. A female officer pushed me gently into a cold room with bars in place of one wall.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

The female officer did not reply. She took a seat at a desk across from my cell and began typing on a laptop. The smack of the keys grated on my ears.

“Please, don’t I have the right to know?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Sit.” I detected a note of sympathy in her voice, but it was fleeting.

My hands were still in cuffs, so I bounced my leg for an hour until they came for me. I was placed in what I assumed was an interrogation room, with one of those two-way mirrors stretching out behind a hulking, muscular man. “Vikram Shah,” he said to me. “Detective.”

“Why are we here?”

“You don’t have to play dumb.” The detective rummaged in an accordion file that popped up magically beside him. He slapped a folder in front of me and opened it.

The photo was almost certainly from surveillance camera footage. A gas station or maybe a convenience store. Grainy, but the person who held the gun at the clerk behind the counter looked a lot like me. Blonde, petite, small-boned, sharp cheekbones. A man behind her, his face covered, ducked behind the register.

“That isn’t me,” I said.

“So the getaway car isn’t yours either?” Shah flipped to the next picture, which showed Jeremy’s license plate.

How…

Melody was dead.

“Why would I keep my face uncovered?” I asked carefully.

“I’d ask you the same thing. It’s almost like you wanted to be caught.”

“That isn’t me.” I gritted my teeth. “You have my prints. Don’t you have some sort of DNA from there? I don’t even know who she is. Where she is. And how she got Jeremy’s car.”

“You don’t remember you were wearing gloves?” He stabbed a finger at the photo. “I have your plate. I have your image. That’s all I need.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. The man’s face is covered, but hers isn’t. She left the car outside in plain sight of the cameras. It’s almost like…”

“Almost like what?”

“Like she was setting me up.”

* * *

My best friend bailed us out.

That evening, Christie swung her car up to the police station. A cold bite had settled into the air, reminding us that the day’s warmth was only masquerading as springtime. I hurried into the back seat, leaving the front for Jeremy and his long legs.

“What happened?” Christie said in between the orders from her car’s GPS. “Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes and her rich husband?”

“We’re not rich,” Jeremy mumbled.

“I have no idea.” The tears I’d been holding back spilled down my face. “They think we robbed a place. I don’t even know where or what it is. Convenience store or something.”

“My God. You must be starving.” Christie poked her car’s touchscreen to silence our navigator. “Do you want to sit down?”

I sagged against the back seat. “I’m not hungry.”

Jeremy was oddly quiet as I told her the entire story. We would need a lawyer ASAP, which would be hard to get with zero cash. Jeremy was estranged from his dad, and we took care of his mom’s apartment and expenses. My family was long gone. We hadn’t even made it to the bank, and now we had a hearing on Monday.

Christie whistled. “Goddamn. This is crazy.”

“Sure is.” I rubbed my wrist, where red marks stretched across my skin.

She pulled into our driveway. I made her get out of the car, squeezed her tight. Christie was my ride-or-die since we’d met just after college, and I wouldn’t have survived that part of my life without her.

Jeremy swept past us, and she held me at arm’s length, my hands loose in hers. Her pale face lit up like a moon under the streetlights. “Do you think you’re being triggered?”

I couldn’t help tensing up.

Christie frowned. “Are you taking your pills?”

“I’m on it. I promise.” I nodded, even though my shoulders were still tight.

Our house felt empty, like a spark of life had burned out. Normally I would have been burning candles as we sat in front of a movie and cuddled on the couch. Or I might have been reading while Jeremy played video games. Weekends were our time to decompress, to get ready for the week ahead. Now it felt like nothing was ahead.

* * *

I took all the medication again. Even the halperidol, the prescription that was supposed to keep my visions away. That night, nothing could stop her.

She appeared in my bedroom as I failed to lose consciousness. I sighed. “What do you want?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe to rub it in.” Melody moved closer to me. I could smell her—lavender and lemons as always.

“I feel bad enough already.” I squinted, trying to wish her away. “This is a mess.”

“As it should be.” She crossed her spectral arms. “Don’t you want to know what he did? Our sweet boy?”

“Stop it.” But my stomach bottomed out. “What do you know?”

“As much as you do. We’re the same, aren’t we, Bella?”

I couldn’t argue with her on that one.

* * *

We were assigned a public defender. The woman was lovely, her skin ruddy, blonde curls pulled into a chignon. But her black suit didn’t fit, and she was sweating. We were in a courthouse meeting room, and I was so cold that my hands were clammy. I had on a black suit too, but it was tailored to fit my body. I’d chosen a cream silk shell and my diamond earrings to show I had no reason to rob a convenience store.

Jeremy had on a gray suit with a purple tie, but it hung askew on his neck, and his brown hair was disheveled.

“Look at us. We could be twins,” the lawyer said to me, giggling as we sat down. There was an awkward silence.

She put down her bag and legal pad, then shook our hands. “Brittany Baylor. Nice to meet you both.”

Jeremy stared off into the middle distance. My eye began to twitch.

“I’ve reviewed your case. They have the evidence to charge you—that much is clear. Almost too clear.” She frowned. “I don’t ask my clients whether or not they’re guilty. That’s up to your consciences to decide. But I have an odd feeling about this one.”

“The footage,” I said.

“Right.” Brittany snapped her fingers. She leaned in on her elbows. “You must have noticed the inconsistencies.”

“Of course I did.” I couldn’t keep the snap from my voice. “I said that to the detective. That’s not me.”

“And no one would let themselves be caught on camera that easily. Especially when the man is masked.” I turned to Jeremy, who was still off someplace in his mind. “There’s no way it could be him.”

“They have the license plate,” Brittany said evenly. “That’s where they’re implicating him, along with his connection to you.”

“Why don’t we get on with this,” Jeremy said.

We both turned to him. “It isn’t time for the hearing yet,” Brittany said, smoothing a blonde wisp back into her updo. “Do you have anything to say, Mr. Collins?”

Jeremy shook his head.

“Okay, then.” The lawyer jostled a briefcase out from beneath her and balanced it on the table. She retrieved two pieces of paper and slid them in front of us. “You’ll need to decide how to plead. I am assuming not guilty?”

“Absolutely.” I reached forward and grabbed the sheet with gusto. Brittany handed me a pen, and I scrawled my name on the signature line.

But Jeremy wasn’t moving. He stared at the blank space.

“Mr. Collins?” Brittany prompted.

Jeremy raised his head. “I’d like to plead guilty.”

* * *

Jeremy’s confession exonerated me.

I sank into hysteria. Found a spot on a bench and cried until Christie could come to get me. We left the Mercedes in the parking lot; Jeremy had passed me the key before they took him away. But I hadn’t been able to talk with him, and Brittany shot me a pitying look before she followed him out.

She pulled up for the second time in so many hours. I got into the front seat. My face and neck were on fire. I blurted out the entire story once again.

“Maybe I should come home with you.” Christie swept a lock of dark hair behind her head. “I left work anyway.”

I blinked. “That’d be nice.”

Today, the house felt like a mausoleum. I wondered what was happening to Jeremy. Was he being strip-searched? Decked out in orange? Would he stay in jail until his sentencing? I missed him so much. I needed him.

Christie installed me at the kitchen bar and helped herself to a bottle of wine from our cooler. She uncorked it and tilted it toward me, asking silently if I wanted any. At first I didn’t think so, but then I thought, what the hell. She filled two glasses and set one in front of me.

“I can’t afford this house on a bookstore employee’s salary.” I watched the red wine swirl in the glass before I took a sip. “Especially since I have no money and all that credit card debt.”

Christie sighed. “What about when you sell the house? What happens then?”

“I have no idea. Jeremy took care of all this stuff.”

“I have a friend who’s a realtor. And we’ll call the bank. Don’t worry.” She took another sip. “I know it feels like you’re alone, but…”

“That was her in the video. Melody.” Anger crashed over me, and I lurched out of my chair. “She’s coming back for me. She took Jeremy. She wants me to go down!”

I hurled my glass. It splintered, red liquid sloshing all over the wall and onto the floor. Christie gasped and rushed around the corner to grab my arm. “Bella! Get ahold of yourself!”

“I can’t!” I clawed the air, my arms windmilling as she held me away from her body. “What was he doing? How could they do this to me?”

Christie kept me back as I pushed out all my energy. “She’s dead, Bella. Whatever Jeremy did, Melody wasn’t involved. That was a different woman in the video. Screaming about it isn’t going to fix this mess.”

Eventually, I went limp and crashed to the carpet. I took some deep breaths and held my hands against my face. Where was the woman who had taken everything she wanted and more? I wasn’t strong enough.

And Bella—not Melody—was coming back to get me.

* * *

I met Bella Dwyer in college. The first required English class, where we learned how to take notes and write essays, blah blah blah. We bonded right away. She became the only family I had—my parents were long dead, gone up in smoke when our house burned down. I was a scholarship kid, although my funding was more out of pity than academics.

Bella, though—Bella was so smart. And so beautiful, although that thought made me seem incredibly vain. We were nearly identical, down to our shoe and dress sizes. We borrowed from each other’s closets and fought over finds at the thrift store. Sophomore year, we decided to room together. People thought we were twins all the time. Soon I’d started claiming that we were, and Bella followed suit. Soon I couldn’t remember which one of us was which.

Junior year was when things got bad. Bella got sick. She’d gotten so comfortable with her life that she thought she didn’t need her meds anymore. It was too bad she didn’t understand that the meds were keeping her happy.

At first I was terrified when she died; I couldn’t handle being alone. But then I got angry. Furious that she couldn’t keep it together for me. That she put herself and her misery first. I wouldn’t stay on campus without her. But I couldn’t leave without her either.

Only Jeremy knew who I really was. Bella was his girlfriend up through the end of her life. Both of us wanted her to stay so much that we let me become her.

Her parents took her body, but I took Bella’s things. I took them all. Her clothes, her makeup, her social security number. If I couldn’t be with her, I would become her. I had no family anyway, nothing to return to. It was easy for Melody Carr to disappear.

* * *

Christie stayed at the house that night. I could tell my neediness was weighing her down. I couldn’t rely on her one hundred percent of the time. I texted a few of my coworkers to let them know what was going on, and they both signed up to help. I’d been telling myself I had no one, but in fact, I had so many people. Bella Dwyer—now Bella Collins—was beloved.

Christie had fed me a Xanax, but as I lay in my bed staring at the ceiling fan, I still couldn’t fall asleep. I needed to be rational. Bella was dead. There was no way she could have come back and taken my husband, participated in some kind of crime to set me up. And to think my husband was that weak? That he’d confess so readily?

Who was my double?

I sat up straight. Got up and headed for Jeremy’s office. If I could break into his computer, I’d find what I needed. The words Hot Crimes paraded through my mind. Jeremy, being in IT, would know how to access the dark web, but I never thought he’d use it.

I snuck in as if he was there watching me. But all I found was Bella. She waited there, sitting in Jeremy’s chair, one leg crossed over the other, a small smile on her translucent face.

“What is happening?” I yell-whispered, not wanting to wake Christie.

“The question is, what have you done?” Bella tipped her head at me, and I almost tipped mine back like a marionette.

“I never meant to hurt you. You know that.” I clasped my hands, planted my feet into the carpet. “We’ve been discussing this for years.”

“You did, though.” Bella folded her arms. She was still clad in the fashion of the early aughts: white and black checkered shoes, long white socks, black overall dress with a red polo underneath. “You kept me alive, Melody.”

I stared at her. I had no comeback for that.

“And I didn’t want to be alive.” She stepped toward me, an otherworldly gleam in her blue eyes. “You wouldn’t let me go.”

“You don’t understand.” I shook my head, hoping she would see the pleading in my eyes.

“I understand completely.” She narrowed her gaze. “I’ll ask you again. Do you want to know what he did?”

“You said you didn’t know.”

“I don’t. But you can find out.” Bella waved toward the screens behind her. “You know his password.”

I blinked. “He’s in IT. I doubt his password is easy to guess.”

“It’s a passphrase.” Bella snapped her fingers, and they made no sound. “Remember, you know everything I know.”

She left then, leaving the chair open for me. I stopped just shy of sitting and ran my fingers along the keyboard. They were ridged and hard under my touch. The clicky kind that my husband favored.

We had a passphrase on our router. Glimmer-Skylar-22. But there was no way he’d use the same one for his computer, especially since he was so concerned about security. I couldn’t think of a single thing he wouldn’t encrypt. For once, I wanted Bella to come back. I wanted her to show me what I needed so badly.

The nighttime quiet buzzed in my ears. So silent. No sounds but the hum of the computer. Jeremy had become a different man. But he’d loved us both. Even if we’d been pretending this whole time.

I tried Bella-Melody-10. Ten for the year we graduated. It didn’t work, so I tried Melody-Bella-10, and the screen bloomed to life.

I sank into the chair, my stomach churning, even though I knew what I was about to find. Getting into the Tor browser was a little harder, but Jeremy kept a password vault on his desktop. I plowed through the three levels of encryption until I found it. Hot Crimes.

Like Bella, she could have been my twin. She was dressed all in black and aimed a pistol at the camera. As I read through their conversation, I began shaking. Apparently Jeremy’s fantasy was to commit a crime alongside a hot girl, and he was stupid enough to leave his car at the scene. And she’d walked away with everything we had.

* * *

Jeremy and Brittany crafted a plea bargain. He would serve time. Christie helped me sell the house, and I made my confession to her. She was shocked, but she stood by me. And I stood by Jeremy, despite his betrayal. We were bound tighter than most. I didn’t know what would happen to his wife, Bella Collins, though.

Melody Carr had no credit history. No history at all, really. She needed a new driver’s license, a passport, bank accounts. A job. She dusted off her social security number and rented the cheapest apartment she could find, then picked up the first retail position she was qualified for: an indie coffee shop across the street from her place. I wore a badge with her name on it.

One day, an old neighbor walked into the shop. I had only a dim memory of her. Our life in the beautiful, big house seemed like a distant dream. I’d left Bella there—she wasn’t visiting me anymore. She must have decided to let go.

The neighbor ordered, then recognized me. “Bella! How are you? I saw you sold the house—what happened?”

I smiled. “I’m so sorry, but I don’t know anyone by that name.”

DEATH OF A CRITIC

KERRY HAMMOND

You'd be hard pressed to find a more deplorable person than Ratko Talenti, which might have been why he was lying dead on the restaurant floor.

Sigrid Stanhope stood over the body of her former boyfriend and brushed ash blond bangs from her face. “Hm” was the only reaction she could muster.

She felt an odd sort of detachment that surprised her. It was like she was seeing it but not believing it. She had spent the last eight months avoiding Ratko and his new wife, Lizzy, a younger, blonder, sexier version of Sigrid herself. But she kept running into them when she least expected it. Small town life could be hard; she really needed to consider a move. Her mind started to wander, as it usually did—she just couldn’t help it. Should she stay in the United States, or maybe move overseas?

Maybe it was how things had ended with Ratko that was causing her odd reaction, or maybe it was her upbringing. The daughter of a German mother and British father, she was taught to hold her feelings in and, as the saying goes, Keep Calm and Carry On. Sadly, her upbringing was also her downfall as far as Ratko was concerned. She could never be what he wanted her to be: Italian.

Ratko spoke proudly of his Italian heritage and insisted that he could never settle down with anyone ”in whose veins Italian blood did not flow.” She didn’t know what was more irritating, the fact that he ramped up his accent to say it, or the obvious effort he put into making the sentence grammatically correct: ”in whose.” Seriously, who talks like that?

Sigrid believed she would be able to change him, and she had tried throughout their year-long relationship, but he wouldn’t budge. He ended things in March and was engaged to be married to Elizabeth “Lizzy” Binetti by May. Sigrid did a quick calculation in her head—Lizzy and Ratko had only been married for six months. She wondered if Lizzy had figured out his deep, dark secret. She also wondered why in the world Ratko had ordered scallops and not the ravioli.

* * *

Lizzy Talenti clutched a tissue and knelt next to the body of her dead husband, her red miniskirt riding up her tanned and toned thighs. Her first thought wasn’t horror at the sight of him; it was how unlucky she was. They’d only been married a short time and she was already a widow. Or was it widower? She always got those two confused. Now she’d have to start all over again, looking for a husband who could afford to keep her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. She stood and smoothed her Prada skirt, remembering the three-thousand-dollar price tag it came with, one she had hid from Ratko. Just when she thought she had it made, here she was, needing to start all over at the ripe old age of twenty-six. Life just wasn’t fair.

Lizzy had recognized the potential in Ratko as soon as she’d met him. The famous food critic who had become a household name just happened to live in their small town. There was even talk of him getting his own show on The Culinary Network, and Lizzy had always dreamed of moving to California. Or was it filmed in New York?

She had forced her brother, restaurant owner Deano Binetti, to introduce them. Deano had refused at first, telling her how much he hated the critic and warning her against him. “He’s poison, Lizzy, stay away from him.” That had only made her want him more. In the end, Deano gave in. It might have had something to do with the threat of exposure; a spot of blackmail was not beneath Lizzy, even if Deano was her brother.

* * *

Deano Binetti stood in the doorway separating the kitchen from the small dining room of his restaurant, a look of horror on his face. It wasn’t immediately apparent if the horror was related to the dead body of his enemy, the upturned plate of pasta all over the restaurant floor, or the fact that now that the food critic was dead, Chez Oui Oui would not get the favorable review he was counting on. Knowing Deano, it was everything but the dead body.

He’d been almost positive that this review was going to be favorable. Deano was relying on his sister’s influence to force Talenti to write it that way; it was the only reason he had agreed to introduce them. Well, one of the only reasons.

The reviews Talenti had published for Deano’s restaurant in the past were horrible. Talenti had torn apart every single aspect of Deano’s business. He called his food tasteless, his restaurant poorly decorated, and the service the slowest he’d ever experienced. But his favorite dig was that Deano had chosen a French name for an Italian restaurant. Deano thought this was creative, but Talenti declared it stupid, and with the critic’s Instagram following in excess of 700,000 people, Deano’s reservations at Chez Oui Oui had declined.

Deano’s menu proclaimed ”authentic Italian cuisine,” and he had the pedigree to back it up. He and Lizzy were born in Milano and came to the United States when Deano was five and Lizzy two. His parents were in search of a better life and believed that New York City could provide it. They had mostly struggled, his parents working in one factory after another, but eventually managed to move the family to a small, quaint town in Connecticut. Armed with a business degree at the age of twenty-two, and a love of the kitchen, Deano opened his dream restaurant and put his heart and soul into it.

Ratko Talenti also claimed to be of Italian descent, but his roots were a bit more mysterious. He told everyone he was brought up in Italy, but when, in a recent interview, he was asked to pinpoint the region, he danced around the question and talked about how often his family had moved around. Instead of hurting his reputation, the interview had made him sound like some kind of exotic Italian nomad, which only raised his ratings and gave him more social media followers.

Deano’s sister wasn’t interested in their Italian heritage, but she’d used it to woo Talenti. She played up what they had in common and told him it was important for her to marry an Italian man so that her kids would grow up like she did, with two Italian parents. Those ethnic roots would not have been secure if she had stayed with her last boyfriend, the banker she’d been dating since community college, David Witherspoon III.

* * *

David Witherspoon sat at his table for one and glanced at his Rolex watch impatiently. So much for an early night. He had hoped to eat his dish of pasta in peace and then head home to sit by the fire and finish the novel he’d started last night. When he saw Ratko and Lizzy walk in the door, he should have known things wouldn’t go as planned. Lizzy hadn’t told him they would be there, and he was annoyed.

He always avoided being around Ratko and Lizzy. People assumed it was because he was jealous, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. The real reason was that Lizzy was a horrible actress. The former couple had rekindled their relationship a mere two months into the Talenti marriage when Lizzy had become bored with her husband; David had been only too willing to allow her back into his bed. He’d never wanted to get married anyway, which was probably why Lizzy started looking elsewhere. He was content to have someone around a few nights a week, and now that she was sneaking around behind her husband’s back, David had gotten his wish. The bonus was that now she left after their passionate encounters and David had the whole bed to himself. Unfortunately, Lizzy had lately been showing signs of ending their arrangement.

It wasn’t the guilt that had Lizzy rethinking the arrangement; she was way too shallow for that. Part of David wondered what was behind her change of heart, and the other part wondered if it would be rude to ask for his leftovers to be put in a to-go box. He saw the chef, Jeff Sinclair, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Maybe he could flag him down.

* * *

Jeff Sinclair was a tall man whose presence commanded attention no matter what room he occupied. He ruled the kitchen of Chez Oui Oui with a drill sergeant’s precision and demanded that his employees do things his way or get out. He liked working for Deano but had his eye on opening his own restaurant. He’d been secretly working with Ratko to buy some land in town for the venture. With Ratko’s fame—and financing—and Jeff’s skill in the kitchen, they couldn’t fail.

Deano had been good to him, but business was business, and you had to be ruthless. Jeff had been told more than once that he lacked a conscience, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why that was a bad thing.

Lately Ratko had been acting cagey and was avoiding Jeff’s calls; this had him worried, and it was why he was at Chez Oui Oui tonight. He had come in on his day off, claiming that he didn’t trust that the relief chef who cooked in his absence could meet the standards that were necessary to serve a famous critic. He knew how much the review meant to Deano.

Jeff stood behind Deano in his hat and chef’s jacket and peered over his shoulder at the body of his secret business partner, disbelief written all over his face. It was clear that his dream of owning his own restaurant was over.

* * *

Sigrid was the first person to speak. “If we all did it, it would be like Murder on the Orient Express.”

Deano glared at her, willing her to be quiet. He had known Sigrid since high school and knew she had a habit of comparing real life to the mystery novels she read. Last year, they had taken the train into the city together, and out of the blue she said to the woman across the aisle, “If I murdered someone for you and you murdered someone for me, it would be like Strangers on a Train. Criss cross.”

On another occasion, while waiting for a table at Deano’s restaurant, Sigrid happened to be standing next to the man who ran the butcher counter at the local grocery store. She looked at him with her head cocked to one side and said, “Ed, does your wife ever have trouble sleeping after you’ve quarreled, knowing how deft you are with a meat cleaver? Or maybe she could fake her death, disappear, and leave a trail of blood to frame you like Gone Girl.”

Deano had told her over and over to stop talking to people about murder. One of these days she was going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person and get herself into big trouble.

David Witherspoon slammed his fork down, looking annoyed. Lizzy gasped at the sudden noise and looked at him, a horrified expression on her face. Deano was glued to the floor, standing by the body, not sure what to do. Jeff looked from one person to the other as if trying to determine who had ended his dream. Sigrid had a bored look on her face. Ratko, well—he lay on the floor, still dead.

It was David who finally had the wherewithal to call the police. He figured that if he sped things up, he could get home to his book. Crime wasn’t very common in their little part of the world, so it was surprising that the sheriff wasn’t available. Apparently, she had left that morning for a very expensive spa retreat in Mexico, courtesy of a large divorce settlement. The deputy sheriff who was in charge in her absence was wet behind the ears. He would have struggled to take charge of a bike theft, let alone a murder. But he was all they had at the moment.

Everyone in the room guessed that Ratko had been poisoned; his swollen face and the way he had thrashed about before falling to the floor told the story. To be clear, no one had actually rushed to his side, but they did kind of saunter over after he stopped moving. Either way, by the time anyone got to him, he was dead.

It was common knowledge that the food critic had a peanut allergy, and he often made light of the fact, even though anyone close to him knew it really bothered him. A food critic with a food allergy? It was unheard of. He refused to carry an EpiPen and proclaimed that there wasn’t a restaurant in the country, nay, in the world, that didn’t know about his allergy. He called peanuts his kryptonite but was sure that once he dropped his name—which he always did, even when he wasn’t there to review a restaurant—he had nothing to worry about. The fact that he was comparing himself to Superman didn’t escape anyone’s notice.

If it was peanuts that killed him, how they made their way into his food was anyone’s guess, but it really did look suspicious. Lizzy was too attached to her golden goose to feel as cocky as Ratko about the allergy, and if she hadn’t been in the bathroom fixing her makeup, maybe she could have dug into her purse for the EpiPen she kept there and given him the shot he needed to survive. As it was, Ratko was alone at the table. Deano was in the kitchen with Jeff, and Sigrid and David were alone at their respective tables, engrossed in their meals.

When the body had been taken away, the deputy asked everyone to sit in the dining room so that he could ask them some questions. They grudgingly complied.

“Any one of us could have slipped something into his food,” Deano said, with brutal honesty, before anyone else could speak. “I mean, Ratko never sits at the table for long. He’s always walking around, patting people on the back, wandering into the kitchen. He knows he’s a celebrity and he’s always hamming it up for the crowd, if you know what I mean.”

Lizzy nodded. “It’s true. I always felt like I was dining alone when we were together. Ratko was more interested in what was going on around the table than at it.”

Sigrid gave Lizzy a knowing look. She’d experienced the same thing when she had dated the man. It was the first time she actually felt a kinship with ditzy Lizzy, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Let me just have you back up a bit there,” the deputy drawled. He hadn’t grown up in the south but liked to put on a fake accent to throw suspects off their game. “This is a small town, and I know a bit about what goes on here, so I’ve got a starting point for my inquiries. For instance, I know that Ratko broke it off with you, Miss Stanhope, in order to marry Miss Binetti.”

“Mrs. Talenti,” Lizzy corrected.

“Excuse me, ma’am, Mrs. Talenti. And Miss Stanhope, maybe you were mad enough to kill the man who threw you aside like yesterday’s trash.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Sigrid said. “I was angry, but I got over it. Everyone knows that.”

The deputy looked over at Deano. “And I know that Ratko never gave you a favorable review.” Deano bowed his head in silent acknowledgment. “Maybe you killed him because you hated how much power he had, or because he intended to ruin your business.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Deano raised his head and crossed his arms as if to challenge the deputy to prove it.

“I also know that you, Mr. Sinclair, have been checking out a parcel of land over on Broad Street and that there’s talk of a new restaurant being built. Ratko Talenti wouldn’t happen to be your silent partner, now would he?”

Deano’s eyes widened to the size of saucers and then narrowed as he turned to look at Jeff, waiting for him to speak.

“He wasn’t my silent partner,” Jeff said. “He was just my partner.” He avoided making eye contact with Deano and had the decency to look ashamed.

“But the owner of that parcel told me recently that one of the buyers was backing out of the deal. Something that may have made you mad enough to kill,” the deputy said.

Jeff looked incredulous. “That’s just not true. No one was backing out of the deal. We were renegotiating.” He looked around at everyone in the room, looking for someone to corroborate his story. He had no takers.

“And back to you, Mr. Binetti,” the deputy continued. “You claim that all of your recipes have been passed down, generation to generation, from your Italian family. Word on the street is that you stole them all from a recipe book you found at a flea market.”

Deano started to sputter, “I didn’t....it’s not....that’s a lie.” Everyone stared at him, but he seemed to realize he was sunk and said no more. Lizzy looked away, not wanting any part of her brother’s guilty secret.

The deputy trained his eyes on David next. “You used to date Miss, I mean Mrs. Talenti, didn’t you, Mr. Witherspoon?” David, who was the most composed of all of them, smiled and nodded. “But there’s a rumor going around that referring to that relationship in the past tense might not be entirely accurate.”

At this, David’s otherwise attractive features took on an ugly scowl. “That’s none of your business,” he said.

“Oh, but it is my business. Everything is my business when I come across a suspicious death.”

It occurred to everyone that the deputy was smarter than they had given him credit for. This might have been his first murder investigation, but he was sure making them all squirm.

“And a little birdie told me that Mrs. Talenti was going to end her affair with you, Mr. Witherspoon. That may have made you mad enough to get rid of your rival.”

“Maybe they were in on it together,” Sigrid said. “Like Witness For the Prosecution.”

All eyes were on Sigrid, and she turned a deep shade of red. “Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself. Please go on.”

David took a moment to interject. “Why would I kill Ratko? I enjoyed the setup much better this way. Sorry, darling, but I did.” He looked over at Lizzy with a sheepish smile.

“Maybe you wouldn’t kill someone, Mr. Witherspoon,” the deputy said. “But Mrs. Talenti, maybe you would.” Lizzy looked at him with her doe eyes, blinking a little more than was necessary.

“Why in the world would I want to kill my husband?” Lizzy said.

“Well, you see, I know a guy in the movie business. He knows a bit about the deal that Mr. Talenti was about to strike with The Culinary Network. They thought that a handsome food critic who was single, not married, would make for a better show. And I heard that Mr. Talenti told the producers that that could be arranged.”

Lizzy stood up so fast she knocked her chair over, and it fell to the ground with a clatter. “I don’t know who told you that, but it’s a lie.” She fumbled to pick the chair up off the ground, failed, and leaned against the table and crossed her arms instead. She looked like she was striking a pose for a magazine cover.

The interrogation seemed to last forever, and it was midnight before the group was allowed to leave. They were all exhausted and filed out of the restaurant one by one. Deano was told he would not be able to clean up or reopen for business until the crime scene technician had gone through everything.

In the end, the death was ruled accidental. A small bowl of peanut butter was found next to the pan that was used to fry Ratko’s scallops. It was on hand to make Chez Oui Oui’s new dessert, peanut butter and chocolate tiramisu. It was assumed that someone had made a fatal mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

The police picked through everyone’s stories and their backgrounds with a fine-toothed comb. They examined each motive and came up empty. Everyone had a reason to hate Ratko, but taking it to the next level and murdering him seemed far-fetched. And more important, there was no proof that any of them had done it.

* * *

As Sigrid looked up from her notebook, she realized how much she had enjoyed writing down the events as they had occurred, guessing at everyone’s thoughts and internal dialogue. She had read enough detective novels in her lifetime to have a grasp of how to tell a good story. In this case, though, she didn’t need to rely on any fictional circumstances. Ratko’s death, the police investigation, it all happened just as she had written. She had referred to herself in the third person to become one of the characters in the story. It was thrilling, really.

She sat in her favorite armchair in her cozy living room, enjoying the quiet. The detective had put them through the wringer that night. All the information he had about them was true, thanks to a few anonymous tips Sigrid managed to throw his way prior to the fatal night. Ratko had dumped her for Lizzy. Lizzy was having an affair with David and considering calling it off. Jeff had been in a business deal with Ratko, but Ratko was trying to back out. Ratko was planning to leave Lizzy when he went to Hollywood. Deano’s restaurant had suffered from all of Ratko’s horrible reviews, and his recipes were purchased from a flea market.

The only piece of information that the deputy didn’t have was about Ratko and his Italian roots. You see, Ratko wasn’t born in Italy, and neither were his parents. He was born Raymond Goldbaum in Brooklyn, New York. He legally changed his name before moving to their small town and had kept up the ruse for so long he may have even started to believe it was true.

Ratko didn’t know Sigrid knew the truth. And to be fair, she didn’t, not for quite some time. Not until after Ratko married Lizzy. A chance comment about a deli in Brooklyn and Ratko’s familiarity with the owner had started Sigrid wondering. She also remembered that his accent used to slip when he got tired. So she decided to do a little digging. It really wasn’t that hard to figure out; she wondered why no one had ever discovered it. Maybe no one cared. They enjoyed the man, the myth, the legend.

But Sigrid felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. All those nights when he’d gone on and on about his childhood in Italy, about how it was his parents’ wish that he marry a nice Italian girl. It was all fake, just another way to keep up the story he had told himself.

She shook herself out of her reverie, set the journal on the end table, and stifled a yawn. She would burn the notebook in the morning; writing it had only been an exercise in catharsis. A way to get over his death. She had loved him once, after all. She didn’t want the deputy to ever figure out that she was the little birdie that had been feeding him the gossip he used to accuse them all of Ratko’s death. Since the death was, in the end, ruled accidental, it was all over and done with anyway. It had been so easy to crush a few peanuts into a powder and sneak into the kitchen to sprinkle it over Ratko’s scallops before they were served. The staff knew her and she often went into the kitchen to say hello.

Sigrid reached over and picked up the journal, opening it to the last page of her story. It needed one more line. She had saved the best for last. Like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, she wrote. The narrator did it.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Cari Dubiel is an author and librarian based in Northeast Ohio. When she’s not editing the books in Duskbound’s catalog, she works full-time, wrangles her husband and two boys, and plays the bassoon. Cari also speaks and teaches webinars on both writing and library stuff.

Christopher Duda grew up in a small tourist town bordering Lake Erie. His writing caught fire in middle school and has blazed on ever since. He’s earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Liberal Studies with a focus on English and Communications. Next, Chris achieved a Master of Humanities Degree in Creative Writing from Tiffin University. In grad school, he also belonged to an English Honors Society, Sigma Tao Delta, and a History Honors Society, Phi Alpha Theta. Chris is also a film aficionado and loves the theater. He leads a local writing group that shares and critiques each other’s work. Family and faith are both very important to him. Chris also happens to be an identical twin.

Kerry Hammond decided to give up the practice of law to commit crimes—on the page. She is an Agatha Award-nominated author whose short stories have appeared in several anthologies, including Malice Domestic, Bouchercon, and Sisters in Crime.

Her love of travel means that her stories often take place in foreign locales she has (or wants to) visit, or while her characters are en route to their next adventure. She’s a huge fan of the subtle surprise and is happiest when her readers don’t see the ending coming.

Kerry also writes downloadable Murder Mystery Party games at BlameTheButler.com

Peter L. Harmon's primary role day-to-day is taking care of a rambunctious pug. When he's not doing that he produces TV shows, writes screenplays, co-hosts a podcast, and avoids working on his latest novel by submitting short stories to cool anthologies.

He is trying to quit social media, but you can usually find out what he's up to by following @HighDivePublishing and @ThePortableProducer on Instagram or listening to the aforementioned podcast The VamPetey Diaries, which is a The Vampire Diaries rewatch podcast.

Susan K. Hamilton is an award-winning, multi-genre author whose books include Shadow King, The Devil Inside, Stone Heart, and Darkstar Rising. She's also had the good fortune to her work included in multiple anthologies, including Escape, Deception, Family, Sacrifice, Passageways, and now, Nefarious.

Horse-crazy since she was a little girl, she pretty much adores every furry creature on the planet (except spiders). She also loves comfy jeans, pizza, and great stand-up comedy.

Susan lives near Boston with her husband and is currently working on a first draft of a new dark fantasy novel. When she's not writing, you can find her at the barn, spending time with her horse, June.

Lisa (L.L.) Kaplan is a former prosecutor who spent twenty years as an FBI Special Agent investigating everything from bank fraud to espionage. After never finding one X-File, she retired. Now she pens soft-boiled mysteries, where justice prevails but doesn’t always end in handcuffs. In addition to diabolical short stories, Lisa is also working on multiple full-length mystery series featuring Northern Ohio. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and past president of the Northeast Ohio Chapter (NEOSinC). When not plotting mischief or jogging with friends, Lisa can be found at her downtown pet store for cats and dogs, where the employees volunteer and all profits fund animal causes.

Mike X Welch is the author of two short story collections, Enantiodromia and Turning of the Bones and Other Stories. He hails from and resides once again in western New York with the novelist Aly Welch and their twin teenage sons. When not working or caring for their dog, cats, rats, tarantulas, fish, or vampire crabs, Mike enjoys films, music, riding his motorcycle, and coming up with reasons why he’s not going to write tonight. His works in progress include a short story collection tentatively titled Doomscroll and his debut novel, A History of Blood. Welch is proud to be one of the five principals of Duskbound Books.

Table of Contents

- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Foreword
- Insider Trading – Peter L. Harmon
- Dark Days in Del Rio – Alec Cizak
- Steal Away – Christopher Duda

- Twilight Mist Under the Lucent Moon – Manuel Jimenez

- Nurturing Nature – Mike X Welch
- Chocolate Karma – L.L. Kaplan
- Gangsta Godmother – Susan K. Hamilton
- Someone Else’s Story – Cari Dubiel
- Death of a Critic – Kerry Hammond
- About the Authors