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Sandra Niemi, author of Glamour Ghoul

THE INTERVIEW

I’m a longtime fan of Maila Nurmi’s, the woman who created and played the legendary Vampira on TV and in movies. Although I don’t remember, my mom once told me that she took me to see Vampira in person when I was a little kid. I guess Maila did public appearances—in costume? Maila Nurmi was the host of The Vampira Show on ABC-TV back in 1954 in Los Angeles. Countless imitators followed her, borrowing and stealing from her unique look and style.

After reading the excellent book, Glamour Ghoul: The Passions and Pain of the Real Vampira, Maila Nurmi, that examines the extraordinary life of Maila Nurmi (1922-2008), the legendary TV host, actress and artist, I was curious to know more about the author. Sandra Niemi is Maila’s niece. When Maila Nurmi passed away in 2008, Sandra took control of Maila Nurmi’s writings and possessions. Ten years later, she penned a loving tribute to her famous fabulous Finnish aunt.

I was able to contact Sandra recently and she agreed to be interviewed for The Writing Disorder.

Tell us about yourself. Where are you living now?

Where the weather is mostly gray and cloudy. November is my least favorite month of the year. It’s dark and rainy and cold and the days are short. I live in Salem, Oregon, which is the capital. It’s a fairly good-sized town. I don’t know the population, but it’s a lot bigger than my hometown of Astoria that I lived in for sixty years. I sure do miss it, but the rain keeps me away.

How far is it from Salem?

Astoria is about two and a half hours north. I was up there recently for a Vampira celebration. It was a big success. They screened Plan 9 from Outer Space and they’re celebrating Maila because she graduated from Astoria high school in 1940. So the town is claiming her as an Astorian.

You grew up in Astoria, as well as your father, who was Maila’s brother?

Yes, my dad was Maila’s brother. He was 17 months older.

Did you know Maila growing up?

Not really. I met her when I was too young to remember. But I remember this, I must have been five or six at the time. My family went down to Los Angeles, and I saw her for the first time—and I was sure she was my own private Cinderella, because she was so beautiful. I had never seen such a beautiful human being in my life. It was in the daytime, I can still see her, she had blonde hair and she had blue eye shadow from her lashes to her brows, and bright red lipstick, a gold lame dress, and transparent shoes—which reminded me of Cinderella’s glass slippers. Then I didn’t see her again until her mother, my grandma, died when I was ten. And we went down to L.A. where they lived. Maila lived with her mother on Carlton Way. We were there for the funeral and Maila scared me. She reenacted how she found her mother dead in the chair that I was sitting in. But I didn’t know that, and she gave out this blood curdling scream that she was known for as Vampira and scared me to death. I ran out of the house. So, I thought that this was kind of a weird place to be, you know, it wasn’t like my little house in Astoria. And the strange thing is how Maila wore a black shift dress and dirty white slacks for two days. And then on the day of the funeral, or the day before the funeral, she asked my mother what she was going to wear to the funeral and my mother told her. And she thought, oh good, Maila’s going to change her clothes. But she didn’t, she just wore the same clothes again, and an old raggedy men’s navy-blue cardigan sweater inside out. Very odd.

She was a very independent and unique person—in her taste, her style, and with everything she did.

She was never afraid to display her different outlook on life, or to talk about it. She was very brave. And she just went about her life as she chose.

I read your book and it’s a really great story. It’s very well written. I kept asking myself, who wrote this book? I wanted to know more about you because I assumed you had written many other books, because it’s so good.

When I was younger in my 20s, I went to and graduated from Oregon State University, in 1969 when I was 22, and I majored in English. I always kind of fantasized about writing because I really enjoyed it. I received a lot of compliments from my professors, and good grades. And then life got in the way, and I worked my entire life as a minimum wage waitress, cannery worker, bartender, or house cleaner. I started out at 99 cents an hour and I think I ended at 8 or 10 dollars an hour. Oh, I worked 18 years at this job, the best job I ever had at the end. I worked 18 years as a medical lab courier. I went to clinics and hospitals and picked up specimens and delivered them to the laboratory. I never did anything with my love of writing until I got Maila’s writings. She didn’t have a typewriter, and this was before computers. She was a prolific writer, and it was all done in long hand. She wrote and wrote, and I gathered all of her papers together. And I thought, well, here is Maila’s story. I’m the only one who can write it. Maila and I had talked about it, when we were writing back and forth for three or four years, before we lost contact again. She said that she and I should do a coffee table book. Since she had been a house cleaner and I had been a house cleaner, she said, we’ll talk about the famous toilets that I cleaned, and you can talk about the rich timber barons and fishermen that you worked for. We never got around to it, but wherever she is, she is not mad at me.

It’s a great book. I would read it again because I enjoyed it so much.

It always shocks me, because we always put our own work down, you know, and have great doubts. Thank you.

Did she ever plan to write an autobiography?

Three times that I know of. I picked up in her apartment, after she passed, an old reel to reel tape and my friend got a player so we could hear what she said. She had spoken the words as a biography, and she had a friend there who was taping it. That was in 1966, so she was planning it then. And then she was planning it with another author, his name is Warren Beath, and he wrote a book about James Dean. He thought he was in contact with Maila, and then as Maila would sometimes do, she would erase the person from her life forever. She would not trust them, and she thought he was trying to steal her story and write her story himself. And then at the end I met this man, Stuart Timmons, he was the man who was with Maila day in and day out during the Elvira trial. He did everything for her, Maila never drove, of course, so Stuart drove her around wherever she needed to be, and he did a lot of the legal work that she needed done, because anything, like the clerical stuff, she had to do and he was also an author. She was telling him stories about what had happened in her life and he was taking notes and typing them up. And then she got to where she didn’t trust him, so she erased him from her life.

Now Stuart and I got together right after Maila passed away. We had lunch together, and we also were together every day. He helped me clean out Maila’s apartment. And, in fact, I found a box that Maila had written: To Stuart Timmons. And I said, Stewart, here is a box just for you. And he said, oh my gosh, and he got teary eyed. Inside was some jewelry that she had made for him. He was so thrilled to get it. And then we went to Maila’s storage unit with Dana Gould, another friend of Maila’s. Dana is the one who paid for her storage unit. And it was a big storage unit — it was packed to the rafters. You couldn’t put a hair pin in there it was perfectly packed to the door, to the ceiling, to the wall. And Dana said, oh my God, this is going to be a chore to go through, and I said, yes. He had a key and I had a key, and because I had to go back to Astoria to work, I gave my key to Stuart, because I totally trusted him. He was a wonderful man. In fact, I called him Uncle Stuart, because he told me he was my aunt Maila’s last gay husband. So, I called him Uncle Stuart.

Dana gave his key to a woman named Gabrielle Geiselman, who at the time had a boyfriend who was a bass player for Rob Zombie’s rock band. And he is still famous, he’s Matt Montgomery or Piggy D, is his professional name. Anyway, they broke up and Gabrielle moved to New Orleans. Stewart called me one day, and I have documentation of this. Stuart called me on the 26th of January 2008. I was in Astoria. And he told me, I think I found THE dress, Maila’s, and I found some hip pads and a waist cincher, and he says I’ll put them aside for you. I thought, oh, that’s wonderful because I’m coming back to L.A. for Maila’s memorial in February. So as luck would have it, five days later, Stewart suffered a massive stroke. He couldn’t speak. They didn’t expect him to live. He was hospitalized for over two years before he was able to come out. He has since passed away, but his brain was fine, but he could no longer walk. He had to be in a wheelchair, and you couldn’t understand what he said. But he was still writing books when he passed away. But when I went back to the storage unit in February, it had been ransacked and everything was gone all the way to one stack of boxes at the very back. So, I called Dana right away and said what happened to the storage unit? He said, Gabriel was there but you know she saved everything for you. There’s a box there for you and I rented another storage unit there that you put all the garbage in that you didn’t want. I said, Stuart, there’s one box here with a hat in it and that’s all. I was furious. And I couldn’t make Dana understand. I blame Dana for ransacking it, and there was a rift with Dana and me. And we didn’t speak for 10-12 years. We’ve made-up now. We’re friendly now, but now he realizes that Gabrielle was a thief. She took all Maila’s stuff, oh gosh—her bat sunglasses, her waist cincher, the dress, black wigs, her makeup, and all kinds of writings. Her marriage proposal from Marlon Brando — all the pictures, and she sold them to Jonny coffin. Jonny Coffin now owns them and the trademark. I get no money; the family gets no money from anything that Maila sells. Not a penny.

You know anything with Maila Nurmi on it that sells, Jonny Coffin gets it all because he owns the trademark. But he went and got it behind my back while I was still grieving my aunt and so yeah, he’s the owner of the trademark. Maila’s family gets nothing. In fact, he tried to stop the publishing of my book. He sent his lawyer to me. His lawyer threatened me and so I turned it into my publisher’s lawyer, and they got rid of him. But then Johnny turns around and says that he helped me write the book. Oh no, which is obviously a big lie. He contributed nothing except a letter from his lawyer saying that they were going to stop the publishing of Glamour Ghoul and that you owe him $30,000. For what, I don’t know.

His real name is John Edwards, and he’s married to a woman named Linda Kay who is an actress and singer. Jonny is a big goth fan, and he hosts parties where he wears a Cape and a weird top hat. He has hair down to his waist and he has some kind of shop where he sells coffin-shaped guitar cases. He has girls dressed in bikinis and things advertising his guitar cases. And he sells a bunch of other stuff — plus all the Vampira stuff, of course, he sells now, and he makes pretty good money.

I think I saw him on YouTube. He was talking at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

That’s where Maila is buried. Maila had her 100th birthday celebration last December in L.A. And I was there, and Jonny coffin, of course, wasn’t. He was terrified of me, so he didn’t even make an appearance.

I’m so sorry that all this happened to you.

We were very close for a while, Jonny, and me. He would call me a couple times a week, always professing to be my friend and asking me advice—what color should I put in this advertisement, and what do you think about this? I guess he was just trying to get information from me. I don’t know. And then when I told him one day, after many years we had talked, in fact. I’ve met Jonny several times. I’ve had lunch with him and his wife in L.A. And we were friendly, but one night he called me in Salem, and I said to him, you know Jonny I have in my possession from when Maila was alive, a cease and desist letter from her attorney to you, because you were proposing to introduce a new Vampira doll and Maila wasn’t going to have anything to do with that. And she told him in the letter, she said she never wanted Jonny coffin to have anything to do with Vampira, and he hung up on me. He never talked to me again because he knew the jig was up. Maila hated him in life.

I think that book The Vampire Diaries was put out by him.

Yes. It’s mostly newspaper clippings, I think. When I went back to his shop in 2009, he showed me a three-ring binder with all these newspaper clippings of Maila’s career that he had bought from a man named Chad, and he had paid $300 for it. A lot of those articles were in that book. I haven’t bought the book, but a friend of mine in California did buy the book, and I leafed through it. I wasn’t going to read it. I don’t know how many of Maila’s writings were in there, but they were all stolen property that Gabrielle stole. If Maila knew this was going she’d be so mad. I know she’d be on my side. So, I don’t know where it’s all going to end but that’s where it is now. And Jonny has no family. He has his wife, but his mother, father and sister have all passed away. And he and his wife have no children, whereas I have a daughter and two grandchildren that I have to live for. And then I have also met Maila’s son, David Putter.

Yes! Are you still you still in touch with him?

Oh, yes! I just called him. He left me a text message last week. He’s learning how to message. He’s going to be 80 in March, and I’m 76. I’m going to be 77 in May, and he’ll be 80 in March. So, we’re all Oldtimers. Yes, I’ve met him, and he’s got his mother’s eyes, exactly the same color and everything—that brilliant blue. We got along really well. He was an esteemed attorney for 50 years. It was celebrated with a lifetime achievement at the ACLU. He was at one time the assistant attorney general of Vermont. He has some things that he changed in the courtroom that are still law today in Vermont. He’s a very esteemed attorney. Maila would be very, very proud to know that.

Has he ever tried to reach out to the other side of the family?

Well, he’s looking to see who his dad is. He asked Orson Welles’ daughter for DNA, but he hasn’t heard back yet. But he’s trying to find out for sure. We don’t know for sure. We just know what Maila said. We weren’t there so we don’t know for sure. But I put it in the book because that’s what Maila said. Everything she said was put in italics in the book. You know she was a brilliant writer herself.

I remember her writings in your book. I liked the way she always used an ampersand.

Yes. I was really impressed by how she expressed herself, and I thought this is too good to paraphrase, I need to put her words down word for word so she can tell her story right. So that’s how it all happened.

You spent a lot of time researching this book.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that in 1989 I spent a week with her in Los Angeles and that’s the last time I saw her. We had a great time, we got along together. We dined out every single day and we got drunk together.

Those were the good old days — 1989 in Los Angeles.

It was August, the last week of August of 1989.

She was living in East Hollywood.

She was living at a place on Hudson Ave. and it’s no longer there. They raised the house and the garage that she lived in. There’s an apartment house there now. She was evicted but she got $5,000 to move, so that helped her.

And she had a store on Melrose Ave.?

Yes, she had a store. She went to garage sales and bought things and brought them back to her store and resold them. And also when she was on Melrose—she was a great seamstress—she made clothes for rock stars, during the hippie age, when they liked pantaloons and feathers and sequins and things like that. She would make costumes and people bought them. And she made jewelry. I still have many pieces of her jewelry, many pins that are signed Vampira on the back.

She also did some painting and artwork?

Yes, she did, and they were stolen—every single one. I know for a fact that when I looked at the storage unit before it had been ransacked, there were many paintings and they were covered with paper and they were propped on either side of the door. And when I came back, they were all gone. A year later I picked up a copy of Spin magazine. I don’t think it’s in print anymore, and there was a two-page color layout of Rob Zombie displaying his favorite things, and two of them were Maila’s, two of her paintings. He said he bought them from Maila’s estate. And I thought, no, you bought them from Gabrielle Geiselman, who’s the girlfriend of your guitarist Matt Montgomery aka Piggy D. So, she sold at least two paintings that I know of to Rob, and he has money, so she probably sold them for $1,000 each. They’re probably worth more now.

I’m assuming they’re worth a lot more.

I own one of her paintings that’s small. I got it is from a friend of Maila’s. They were very good friend towards the end of her life. His named is Greg and he connected with me, and I connected with him, and we talked. He sent me one of his paintings of Maila’s for free. It’s on my wall. It’s very nice. I love it. I had it professionally framed.

Beyond her personal diaries and her own writings, what other research did you do?

I interviewed Hilda, she was the woman who found Maila when she passed away. And I, of course, interviewed Dana, and the man who wrote Vampira and Me, R.H. Greene. And also, her second husband. His name was Farbrizio Mioni, he lived in Calabasas. When I was in Los Angeles, I just dropped in on him on a Sunday morning. He came to the door in a bathrobe, and he graciously invited me in the house. So, I got to visit with him. His last name was Mioni, and he and Maila were married in 1961 and divorced in 1964. He was 79 years old at the time and he has since passed away. I got the impression that it was just a marriage of convenience. He was gay. Maila wanted so much money a month to stay married to him and he could afford it and so it worked out. They stayed married for three years. And there were other people that knew her. I can’t think of anyone now right off the top of my head, but people that knew her. I would contact them about Maila and take notes. That’s after I had decided to write the book. I didn’t think that at the beginning, you know, and then I thought I have to, I have to. I can’t let Maila be a sad footnote in horror history, right? She deserved so much more.

How long did it take you to write the book?

12 years. I was plagued by self-doubt. Who am I? You know I’m 70 years old and trying to write a book, my first one, and then I would write a couple more chapters and put it away for six months and think, well I’ve come this far. And I’d write a little more, and it just went like that. In fact, I didn’t write the entire book, I was on the last chapter, when I came home from the grocery store and my daughter said to me, who lives with me. She said, I know who Maila’s son is. I know his name. I know where he lives. and I know his phone number. And I said, you do not—come on, that’s not even funny. She said, it’s true, here it is here. His name is David Putter, he lives in Vermont. What happened was, a couple years before for a Christmas present, I had sent my daughter, you know that ancestry.com? I sent her that and she had sent it in, and so had David. And they matched them as first cousins once removed. Oh my God, give me his phone number right this minute, I said. And I called right then and there. I didn’t even have my coat off and David answered the phone. I never dared to dream I could find my cousin; Let alone talk to him. Because I have a very, very small family, and every family member is extremely precious to me. David has no children, and he was adopted, so he has a very, very small family too. So, the first question he asked me is, do you do I know who my mother is? And I said, do I know who your mother is? I’m writing her biography right now, and I’m on the last chapter. You couldn’t be talking to anybody else on earth who knows her better than I do. It’s Maila Nurmi, aka Vampira. And he goes, Oh my God! I waited 75 years to find out who my mother is, and she’s a vampire? He didn’t know who she was, so he immediately went on the internet and looked her up. I said, you can see your mother, you can go on YouTube, and you hear her talk. You can find out everything you want to know just by going on Google. And he was excited about that. He said, I never dreamed of this. And you know those Vampira statues that Maila had commissioned back in the 1980s? They are very, very rare now. I had one for me and I had an extra one. And I said to myself, all these years that I have been packing it around original in the box, never opened, I always said to myself, someday I’m going to find the perfect person to give this to. And I’ll be darned if I didn’t. I sent it to David, and he has it proudly displayed in his living room. Whoever comes over to visit him, he always says that’s my mom out there, and they go, no? and he goes oh yes, that’s my mother! I saw her statue when I was at his house. I went there a year ago in August and I saw Aunt Maila there in David’s living room. He says he feels her around him all the time. And I say well if Maila could be anywhere, it would be with David. And then I said, I thought I was almost done with this book, and I had one more chapter because I had just met David. So that was the final chapter of the book.

Yes. He is the last chapter in the book.

I mean, I was there, I had just gotten to the end. Well now it’s over, just a few more paragraphs. And then I met David. And so, it was just my Maila. I keep saying, you know 12 years it took me to write this book, and I’m saying well Maila said you’re not going to finish this book until you meet my friend. And the minute, the minute I met him, the book was finished. It’s just bizarre, isn’t it, how things work out?

How did you find a publisher? Did you have one from the beginning or did you find one at the end?

When I first started writing the book, I learned that Feral House published the book on Ed Wood, A Nightmare of Ecstasy, that the movie was based on. So, I thought, well Maila was in Plan 9 from Outer Space, and Ed Wood—she knew him. I wondered if they’d be interested. So, in 2009 I called up Feral House and I talked to a man Adam Parfrey, he was the owner. And I simply asked him, I told him I was Maila’s niece, she had passed away, and I was going to write a book. Would he be interested in a biography of Vampira? And he said, oh absolutely. I said, okay, thank you. And so fast forward 10-11 years. I called him up again and Adam had passed away, but his sister Jessica was running the business, so I talked to her. And she said, yes, send me the manuscript. So that’s where it went, that’s how that worked out. They took it right away.

Were you involved with the cover design and or any other aspect of the book?

No. I’m not thrilled with the cover, it was not my choice. That was all the publishers. The Passion and Pain of Vampira or whatever the cover says, that was the publisher too. I just wanted to say Glamour Ghoul. So, I didn’t have much input on any of that. No input, I should say. And now these Finnish filmmakers, ICS Nordic, that are in Finland, they’re just in love with the whole concept. They’ve had a contract for going on two years now. They’ve been working on a six-part documentary of the book, and they’re looking for money. They’ve been looking for money for a while, and apparently, they don’t have the money yet, but that’s where that is.

Did they get the rights to your book?

They have a contract. The first time it was for 18 months and that expired. Now they have another six-month contract and Jessica Parfrey has been through this situation with her books many times. She said this is normal for the course, when people try to find money. She’s giving them a lot of leeway.

They’re a company from Finland?

Yes. They’re from there, and because Maila’s from Finland—we’re 100% Finnish all of us. Her parents spoke Finnish at home, and my mother’s parents spoke Finnish at home, so we’re Finnish. I think there are a lot of blondes in Finland, but there are brunettes too. You can usually tell by their faces. They have small eyes and round faces and blonde hair. But Maila and I are similar, we don’t have a round face. We have the cheekbones. I can usually tell Finnish people by looking at their faces. Yeah, they’re Finnish.

Do you have any family in Finland?

I have lots of family in Finland, but I’ve never met them on my mother’s side. My mother was in contact with them briefly. And they sent pictures of our cousins and lots and lots of cemetery pictures. Fins are big on cemeteries. They visit the graves 12 months out of the year—they’re decorated. I laughed when I got the photos, I said, oh there’s the cemetery, grandma said, yes, we’re big on cemeteries. My grandmother on my mother’s side was the oldest of nine children. She came to America on one ship after the Titanic. She missed the boat. She had a ticket for the Titanic, but she was late, and missed the boat. So she had to take the next boat over in 1912. My grandfather was already here from Finland. They got married and my grandmother never got to go back home. On the other side, on Maila’s side, her father was born here but she had one sibling who was 20 years older, and he was born in Finland. When he was a child his parents moved to America. And Sofie was born here in Boston. She was born in Boston. She was a Fin with a Boston accent. She talked like the Kennedys. My grandfather came over here when he was 21. Maila’s dad.

Who were some of your favorite writers?

To tell the truth, in college I had to read so many books as an English major. I even took French. I had to read books written in French, which I couldn’t do now to save my soul. But when I got out of college, I said I never wanted to see another book as long as I live. Never. And I did not read a book for many years. I was sick of reading, and now I can’t live without having a book to read. I like biographies. So, I read a lot of biographies, but I also like true crime like John Grisham, John Sandford, and Lee Child. I’m reading Grisham now. I’m reading something about an island in Florida.

When you were a kid or a teenager, who were some of your favorite writers?

When I was a kid, I read all the Nancy Drew books. Carolyn Keene, I think she’s the one who wrote those books. I can remember sitting in the car when my mom and dad were working during the summer, and just avidly reading those books one after another. I had a collection of Nancy Drew books. All of them were a dollar a piece in those days. And I went to the library quite often and just randomly picked out books to read. I was always a good reader, you know, right from the get-go. I could read very well. I didn’t read much in high school because I had schoolwork to do, and I had to read schoolbooks. The only thing that comes to mind now is Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys (Franklin Dixon) books. I might have read some of The Bobbsey Twins. I read a lot when I was a kid.

What about television — what did you watch when you were growing up?

We lived way out in the sticks, so we had to get an antenna. We didn’t get a television until 1958. But I can remember watching a Miss America pageant, and Bourbon Street Beat. I remember watching Bourbon Street Beat and the writer was Dean Riesner. And I said, oh mom look—we called him Dink—Dink wrote this episode of Bourbon Street Beep. (He was Maila’s husband at the time.) And my mom just said, Oh well, good. But I remember Chet Huntley and David Brinkley news, and I remember the original Mickey Mouse Club.

Dan Riesner was her husband?

Yes, we all called him Dink. I met him when I was a little kid. I remember sitting on his lap. I remember men in those days would flick the ashes from their cigarettes into the cuff of their pants. At the time that I met Dink he had on tan pants and a pink shirt. I remember he took us to a movie set where they were filming. We sat in the back, and they were filming a western. I think it was Amanda Blake or someone like that. There was a girl in a saloon. Then a production guy came around, I was standing by my mother, and the guy said, come on you’re on next, to me, and he grabbed my hand and took off. And my mother said, no, no, wrong kid, wrong kid. I told my mother years later that she had ruined my chance to be a star. We all went and played miniature golf after that, and I got to wear my Aunt Maila’s Cinderella shoes.

Dean was a successful TV writer?

A very, very successful writer. He wrote Play Misty for Me for Clint Eastwood. He wrote the movie for him and he was very involved with Clint Eastwood’s, The Enforcer. Remember all those movies he made in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. He even wrote the words, “Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you? Why don’t you make my day?” That’s Dean Riesner. He was very well known, and he was a script doctor. If somebody didn’t like a script, they called him to come in and fix it. Rich Man, Poor Man, the mini-series, he wrote that. He was very famous. He had no children, and he married a woman named Marie, and she passed away before he did. He didn’t have a family either.

How long was he married to Maila?

It was a common law marriage. They were together from 1949 until the first part of 1955. Dean was a hopeless alcoholic when Maila met him. And his career was down the drain, but Maila got him to quit—and his career took off again.

How many times was Maila married?

Twice. I never put the third husband in because I was never sure that they were actually married. She was married sort of married to Dean, I mean common law. And then she was married to Mioni. That’s the name that she went by legally. That’s how she got her Social Security checks, Maila Mioni. Supposedly she was married to John somebody. And I’ve heard there was a marriage license somewhere. But I never saw it, so I didn’t include it in the book. I think Maila and this John guy were just very good friends. So I didn’t include him. I think she was only married twice. And I’ve never been married, so I always say Maila was never really married, and neither was I. And we both have one child. I see a lot of parallels with my life and Maila’s.

Does your daughter or grandchildren have any resemblance to Maila?

No. My daughter is half Hispanic. As she found out with her genealogy. She always says, I’m 61% Finnish. I’m more Finnish than Hispanic. And it came back that her father was 10% Finnish. We never would have guessed. So, she’s 55% Finnish today, and her half-brother is 5% Finnish from his dad, from their mutual father. She’s 47 years old now. And I have two grandchildrenboth living in the Hawaii on differentislands. My granddaughter, she kind of resembles Maila. She would make a perfect new Vampira. She’s five feet, six inches, long dark hair, light colored eyes—very pretty girl. She would make a beautiful Vampira. She’s a bartender in Maui. She’s 27, my grandson is 24, and he works on the Big Island, Hawaii. I don’t ever get to see them because I can’t afford a ticket to get to Hawaii. That makes me sad. If I had the trademark for Vampira, I could afford to go see them. But I don’t.

So, you can’t use the name Vampira for anything because he got the trademark?

I guess I’m not supposed to. It’s okay to write a story about her because you know biographies happen all the time without trademarks. But I can’t sell any anything. I can’t go and have coffee mugs made with Vampira’s name or picture on it, something like that. I can’t do any manufacturing. I can sell things that I found in her house, because that’s like a gift you know. I can sell those, but I can’t manufacture anything and sell it like T-shirts. I can’t even do that.

That’s not right.

No, it isn’t. There’s nothing I can do about it, it would cost lots of money for an attorney, which I do not have the money for. Jonny was counting on that, I’m sure.

Maybe the publisher or someone like that could help.

We’ve had talks. Maybe in the future. I told them, well, you better hurry, because I’m 76, and you know I’d like to see it in my lifetime. But there isn’t anything yet. They have an attorney. The one who wrote the letter in the first place, when they threatened to not get the book published. I’ve met him, he’s very nice. I met him in Astoria this last weekend. He’s a very nice man. So, you don’t know. He kept telling me how important it was for me to attend the Maila celebration in Astoria. He said it was important and I don’t know why. I signed books. There was a Q&A. I have participated in that. I also participated in the signing of books and a Q&A in Los Angeles for Maila’s 100th birthday. So, I’ve done this twice.

When was that?

It was December 11th last year in Los Angeles (2022). I can’t remember the name of theater. It was at a perfect theater. It was supposed to rain like crazy that day, but it was beautiful sunshine on her day. It was in Hollywood. The American Cinematheque—that’s where it was, in Hollywood. It’s the old Egyptian Theater. That’s where we were.

I wish I would’ve known. I would have attended.

They declared it Vampira Day. It was officially named Vampira Day in Los Angeles. And now my biggest wish, my biggest wish, is for Maila to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

I can’t believe she doesn’t have one.

I know. I want to start a crowdfunding effort to raise the money. It’s around $55,000 to have a star. And then they have to vote on who gets to have a star that year, because not everyone does. But I think, for Maila, because it was officially called Vampira Day, that it really boosts her chances.

That would be great!

I keep saying that Maila walked the streets of Hollywood for 60 years, because she never drove a car. And for 38 years of those she walked with a cane because she had pernicious anemia. She had walked with a cane. And she walked a lot.

Later in her career, Maila was still appearing in movies.

Yes, she was doing movies, but was still being billed as Vampira. She was never billed as Maila Nurmi. Even though she wasn’t in a Vampira costume, she was still Vampira. As she got older, Maila liked being remembered as Vampira. For a while she tried to get rid of that image, you know like, I’m Maila Nurmi. And then she sort of became like a hermit, a recluse, and moved to the very, very east part of Melrose Ave. She moved from the west part, clear over to the east part. And she never told anyone that she was Vampira. In fact, in the book it says that Hilda knew her as Helen Heaven. And even when I was having lunch with Hilda, she always referred to Maila as Helen. And she knows that her name was Maila, but she always referred to her as Helen. That’s who Maila introduced herself as, Helen.

She lived on Melrose when it was like becoming trendy and popular with punks and new wave music in the 1970s?

She was there when the hippies came out. That’s when she lived there. I’ve gone past the house that she lived in. It’s still there. It looks like a two-story duplex. It might be four apartment units. That’s where she had her shop, in her living room. She didn’t rent a separate place. It had a big window in front. And it was her living room, so she just had that part as her shop. I just saw it in December again. I had some friends from Sacramento that drove down, so they were my wheels while I was there. And they’re interested in Maila too. They have a goth rock band called Ashes Fallen, and they have a song called Vampira that has over 10,000 hits. They’re big Vampira fans. They wanted to go to all the places where Maila lived, and we took pictures. It’s still there, and the little crappy apartment she lived in on east Melrose is also there. When we were there, it was a beauty shop. And, of course, the one where my grandma died, where Maila and grandma lived, It’s still there. It looks almost the exactly the same one. There’s a little fence built around it. A short little fence, and the apartment house next door has been torn down and a new apartment house has been built. And the fence that separated the properties is gone. That’s the same. I recognize that street so well. And then she lived on Gateway. I went up there and looked at that place. And then she died on Serrano and of course, they’ve completely torn down that and rebuilt it so it’s nice and new now. I remember Gabrielle had the key to Maila’s last house, and she did not want me to go back in there. And I couldn’t find her. I called her on the phone she wouldn’t answer. So, I called the managers, and they knew who I was by then. And I said I don’t have a key to Maila’s apartment, and I want to go in, and they said go ahead and break in. And I said really? They said how they were going to tear the place down anyway, so it’s okay—just break in the door. And I said, okay. Kind of funny. So, I was at the front door, and I was shouldering the door, and shouldering the door, and the guy next door opened his window and said, hey, do you need a hammer? Yes. I said, what kind of neighborhood is this where I’m breaking in and they’re offering me help? But Gabrielle had been there, and she had set aside a bunch of stuff on the floor that she wanted to take from Maila’s apartment. And I know she was there because she had left a satchel, an umbrella, and a hat of hers there, which I took. And the couch that Mila had died on, she had ripped open the back of it looking for money. That’s how she thought of Maila. It’s just sickening. And I have pictures of that.

Since you’ve written the book, have you learned anything more about Maila that wasn’t in the book? Are there any stories about her that didn’t get in the book?

There’s probably a couple. When I finished the book, the publisher wanted me to remove about 5,000 words. They wanted it to be shorter. So, I had to take some material out. And somebody said, now you have enough to write a second book. I don’t think I have enough for a second book. I have enough for a fiction book, but it wouldn’t be Maila. It would be some other name. I’ve messed around with the thought of me and Maila being in a book, but fictionalized. It would have Jonny and Elvira. I’ve pictured it. They would be the enemies of the book. Jonny would be running around Los Angeles, but instead of that costume that he wears now, he would be wearing one of those bird heads that doctors wore back in the day, when it looked like a crows head, when they had the plague, and they had to take care of people with the plague. They were those things that looked like a bird heads. That’s what Jonny would wear around Los Angeles, you know, and we get them in the end. I don’t know if it would sell. That’s the whole thing it’s just kind of a comedy, and not really, but I could put my personality in it.

It sounds like it would be make a good graphic novel. You’re not into the Goth scene, are you?

No, I’m not Goth. But I have friends who are Goth. They never wear anything but black. And my friend is the best Gothic baker you ever saw. She can bake anything. She can make a cake look like anything. I like the Goth scene. A lot of the people who came out for the Astoria Maila Nurmi show and the Los Angeles Vampira show were Goths. Very, very interesting outfits that they wear. And I like it. Maila is the original Goth creator—the mother of Goth. When she got older, she would say I’m the grandmama of Goth. She was the pioneer. And I had no idea when Maila passed away that she had so many fans. They’re all over the place. And I had no clue because to me whenever I saw Vampira, I would just say, oh there’s Aunt Maila in a black dress with a wig on. It was just my Aunt Maila in costume. I couldn’t separate them. It was all just one person. When I was with her in 1989, I didn’t ask her one question about Vampira. I just wanted to know her as a person. What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite food? What do you like to do? What do you do with your days? How do you take care of your dog? What are you interested? Do you like to read? What’s your favorite TV show—things like that. Who is this person, my aunt? I didn’t ask about James Dean. I was here to find out who Aunt Maila was.

What was her favorite food?

Her favorite food was banana cream pie. Her favorite color was jewel tones. I assume she liked Ruby, sapphire, emerald—that kind of thing.

Who are her favorite performers?

I know that she hated Madonna and loved Cher. And I said, there we agree. I can’t stand Madonna, and I love Cher. And she hated in those days, at the newsstands, The Inquirer and The Star. She said all the photographs were terrible. They all had shiny faces. I remember that. She liked the TV shows, Three’s Company and Remington Steele. And if she could get an old movie on her TV, she’d like to watch that. She had a tiny little TV up on top of an armoire. That was her entertainment. I had sent her a little boom box that was my daughter’s. It was light blue, and I sent her some tapes. My father had been dead for 12 years, and I had a tape recording of his voice taken at a Christmas celebration. I sent her that and she really enjoyed that she got to hear her brother’s voice again. He sang the Finnish national anthem. He whistled and he talked, so I know Maila enjoyed that. And I still had a couple of letters that her dad had sent to my dad. They were written in Finnish and Maila could understand it. She could read it. So, I sent her copies of those letters. And I sent her a case of salmon, tuna and sturgeon, and a can opener. And a bottle of wine and a bottle opener one year for Christmas. So, I hope she liked that. I know she couldn’t cook. I think she had a heating plate to make coffee on. So, I sent her something that didn’t have to be cooked, and I know she liked fish. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience visiting with her. If I could live my life over again, I wouldn’t have come back in a week. I would’ve stayed and asked a lot more questions. Anyway, that was my time with Maila.

The photographs in the book, those were your photographs — or the did the publisher have to secure the rights to them?

I don’t know much about that. Some of them were my pictures, but I didn’t have much input on that aspect of the book either. I have a friend in Tennessee, who is a young man. He’s a huge Vampira fan that I befriended. In 2009, when I was in Los Angeles and met Jonny coffin at his place, Clint, and his mother, from Tennessee, flew out. So, I got to spend some time with them too. And Clint is a huge collector of Vampira memorabilia. He has lots of pictures. So he gave the pictures he had to the publisher. That worked out really well. I’m not that organized, and I have some pictures, but I don’t know where they are. The one that makes me the maddest of all, the one that I can’t find, is an 8×10 photo of Marlon Brando and Maila. It’s just the two of them. Maila is all decked out like she’s going to a party, in black dress, and Marlon is dressed like the movie, Desiree. He was a sea captain, or a military guy, and he’s dressed in costume and they’re together. I had looked for that picture for years, but I can’t find it. I think it still might be in the garage, and I’m hoping so. But I’m afraid to look anymore for fear I won’t find it. And so, there’s a lot of pictures in there—my most important pictures, and the letter from my grandmother is in there, too. The last letter she ever wrote before she died that I wrote about in the book. It’s in a three-ring black binder with a lot of Maila’s writings. I have not been able to find it. In fact, all the letters that she wrote to me, I had them when I wrote the book because I quoted from them, right, but I can’t find them now. Like I said, I’m not organized, I see something, and I just put it aside. And I’m not going to change at this age.

Who were the photographers who photographed Maila Nurmi?

Well, we know some of the photographers who took pictures of Maila in the 1950s. But we have no way of knowing who all the photographers were. I have no clue. There are family pictures of Maila, and her mom and dad, that I don’t have—and Jonny’s hanging on to it. That makes me mad. That’s my grandma and grandpa and my aunt. He has nothing to do with them.

Perhaps you could use some help organizing.

That’s why I have that friend in Sacramento. She is the most organized person I’ve ever met. She is really my archivist. I gave her all the stuff I had. She came up to Salem and I gave her everything I had. And she has cataloged and filed and put everything together and filed everything on the computer. She said this is all important Hollywood history, we have to preserve this. And she has. I’m really happy about that. Now everything is organized. Before everything was just in boxes. Everything works out. Maila found me, the archivist, and Maila made sure that I met her son. Maila is still working her Vampira magic. We don’t know for sure, but it seems that way.

She still has a presence in your life.

Yes. I still feel her around me. Once in a great while, not a lot, but once in a while, it feels like Maila is here with me. I think she spends a lot of time in Vermont now with her son. But she’s still working weird things. I mean, when my friend was here in Salem, and we were going through part of the garage looking for Maila’s stuff. It was September, I think. The garage door was open, and we were talking about Maila, and all sudden there was a huge cacophony of crows across the way. You couldn’t hear yourself talk. There had to be fifty of them in one tree. I’ve lived here for eight years, and it’s never happened before. And we both stopped talking, like what?! And we looked out and there’s all these crows. And my friend said, that’s a murder of crows. And I said yes. And then her husband showed up and we told him about the murder of crows. About a week later, I told you they have a Goth band. So a week later they were called up and asked to perform in New York City at a festival called Murder of Crows. See stuff like that is happening all the time. They went and performed this year in September, and now they have lots of new fans. They were number two on the Goth music list for their new album. They’re called Ashes Fallen. Michelle, my friend, plays keyboards, and her husband, James, is lead singer. The other guy in the band is named Jason. James and Jason have been friends for 30 years. They’ve played in the same band.

Thank you very much for your time. It’s been a pleasure talking with you. I wish you good health and happiness—and the rights to Vampira someday. I hope you get the rights back.

Thank you. It was nice meeting you too.

GLAMOUR GHOUL BOOK IS AVAILABLE HERE:








The Death of Rhetta Brown

by Norman Belanger

i

Workshopped to Death

It was not her week to read. She knew full well it was not her week. Rhetta rose up from her seat at the front of the room, the sheafs of her manuscript fluttering as she wrapped a floral scarf around her neck. A current shivered the air, almost audible over the wheezing AC as Rhetta Brown stood defiant, oblivious to the ripple of ill will percolating around her. A clear breach of established protocol was happening, a coup. The people in their seats took turns giving Rhetta the fisheye and making faces at Peter Kaye to do something. It was Caroline’s week. They were all aware of that. It was the one rule of workshop at the Center: everyone gets a turn. And this was Caroline’s. Five pairs of eyes implored Peter to say something, anything, just stop Rhetta.

He did say something. That is, he tried. He would never understand why he let himself be intimidated by her, but he did speak up. “As a courtesy to the community, we try to ensure that everyone has equal time,” he said something to the effect of the rules and the respect extended to fellow writers, how everyone earned their chance, but he felt himself losing steam and by the end he was moving his lips but no sound came out because the woman had fixed him with such a look of impatience to be done with his little speech.

When he finished, Rhetta waved the air as if to erase what he had said. To her, it was noise. Static. She smoothed the pages of her opus, opened her mouth, and began to read.

“It’s really most humiliating,” Peter confided to Shaw later over their usual nightcap at the Eliot. “I never know what to do with her. The class is rightly irritated because I have lost control of the room. I’m supposed to be the instructor. Everyone expects to read. She runs roughshod over everybody, me included.” Rhetta had insisted on reading for the past three weeks in a row. And it was Peter’s fault for not stopping her. He sipped his drink, but his heart wasn’t in it.

“It’s not like you at all. You love telling people what to do.” Shaw hoped to tease Peter out of this rare funk, he’d never seen him so undone over a student.

“That’s the ridiculous part. I agree. I love telling people what to do. More than that, I love telling people to stop doing things I find annoying. But this person. She steps all over me.”

“Is she any good?”

Peter looked around, as if the lady in question was looming over his shoulder. “She thinks she’s a genius.”

“That bad?”

“The worst.” Peter wished he’d never met Rhetta Brown. There was a version of her in almost every workshop, but she had taken the role to master class level. Pushy. Rude. Dismissive of feedback other students gave earnestly, as if they could have no way of judging the magic of her words. And such words. There was not an overblown adjective she didn’t love, no adverb left unturned. And so many words. She consistently churned out 30-40 pages a week, an amazing feat for any student writer. But no problem for Rhetta, who once informed the class in all seriousness that she had been seized by an invisible power when she sat down to write, that her fingers were guided by an unnamed power as she banged out words like an amanuensis of the gods. So many words. Peter wondered if she used a laptop or a Ouija board.

Shaw, well into his cocktail, was practically busting with questions. Who must this Rhetta Brown be that she could subdue Peter Kaye, the formidable. Peter Kaye, cowed by a mere genius?  “What does she look like? I want to picture her.”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you? You love seeing me stymied.”

“Oh yeah.” Shaw motioned to Thomas for another rye.

“Fine.” Peter put his glass down on its damp napkin. “She’s odd. Dresses in bizarre combinations of scarves and expensive shawls. Gaudy jewelry. Cambridge Artsy.”

“Sounds like a colorful character.”

“Not so much in real life.”

“What else?”

“She walks with a stick.”

“Like a cane?”

“Think more forest witch. Burled wood. Ornate. It’s all part of the act.” He finished his drink, disappointed. He’d hoped that venting to Shaw, having a nightcap in the usually soothing environs of their bar might help him shake off this feeling of weakness in spirit, this heavy shame that he’d let his students down by allowing one dilettante in cashmere to usurp his leadership of the class.

* * *

He’d been instructing Writing Murder is Murder at the Adult Ed for something like 12 years. Standing at the front of that room every Thursday afternoon was his happiness, the little rectangle of space where he strutted before a half dozen people who hung on his every word his stage. Here, he was beloved. The writers did not think him too short too fat too queeny too much; his students saw him as someone who loved talking with other writers about how they wrote, why they wrote, what they wanted to say. A handful of ladies, and one gay man, returned often, signing up for the class term after term, making the class a kind of family, a circle of friends. He kept the class size small to create that intimate environment, more like a salon, and this made signing up for the course something of a competition to break into. Cutthroat. There was a wait list.

On the first day of the term, he had read the class roster, noting that one familiar name, Martha Andrews, had a grim black line through it, and another handwritten in its place. Rhetta Brown. Had this been a movie, an ominous ripple of cello strings would have signaled a warning, but instead he read the name with no awareness of the cascade of trouble to come.

She came in full sail, swathed in yards of fabric and jangling beads, that witch stick ticking down eternity, the sound of impending doom. But he might as well have been deaf to it. Blind as well—he had seen how the regulars responded as the lady made her entrance into the room, tapping out her steps. Tap. Tap. Tap. Glacially. Slowly. Erect. You had to watch her, an unstoppable tug trudging into harbor.

Caroline, who had a fatal tell whenever she didn’t like something, crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair.

Joseph, the lone male in a sea of doctor-prescribed estrogen, clicked and unclicked his pen.

The class elder June zipped up her fleece as if she felt an unwelcomed chill.

Peter Kaye saw all this. He’d even felt his scrotum retract deep within him at the sight of her, his reptilian brain sensed the predator when his ego did not. He had been an idiot. As soon as she finally dropped anchor and groaned into her seat, she opened a capacious bag out of which she produced what he would in time come to understand was her manifesto. So many pages.  She was here to annihilate them all, one word at a time. One week at a time.

* * *

Shaw, saddened by the dejected look on poor Peter’s face, decided to relent his prodding. The situation had somehow humbled his friend in a way he’d never seen happen before. “I’m sorry, old man,” he said. “The term won’t last forever. It’ll end. Hopefully you’ll never be troubled by Mrs. Brown ever again.”

Peter shrugged. Maybe he’d met his Waterloo. Maybe it was time for him to hang it up, give up teaching. If one person could cause this much trouble, he’d lost his ability to run the class the way it always had. He could not bear to think about the looks on the faces of the others while he sat and did nothing. This occupied his thoughts as he said goodbye to Shaw on the corner, mechanically kissing his friend’s cheek, and it followed him on his short walk all the way home.

* * *

He was not surprised the next day when he was invited to meet up with Caroline and Joseph in the park for “an important discussion.” They were standing under a spreading elm next to a bench he assumed was intended for himself. He sat, like a witness in the box, and waited to be grilled. He did not need to wait long.

Without preamble or the usual niceties of greetings, Caroline went right into it. “You’ve got to do something about Rhetta Brown.” Caroline’s speech was like her prose: clean, efficient, nothing extra, nothing that did not advance the plot. “If you don’t take care of her, we will.” That did sound ominous.

Joseph, the diplomat, whose natural gracious manners won him the affection of most people he met, spoke in his usual soft voice: “Mr. Kaye, with all respect, please, we beg you. We are a community, and more than that, friends. She is not interested in being either.”

“It was my turn this week,” Caroline fumed, “I worked hard on my revisions, psyched myself up all week to read. I could’ve whacked her over the head with that stupid cane of hers.”

Joseph attempted to smooth the situation with a smile, “Back home, the old aunties would call this kind of person a ‘pig stuffer’. It loses in translation, but you understand.”

Peter didn’t know if he should laugh or submit to the sob that harbored deep in his chest. He was certain they were speaking on behalf of the rest of the writers, that the group of them all had huddled together to discuss what to do about Rhetta Brown, perhaps they even said amongst themselves that Peter Kaye had lost his ability to facilitate a class.

Joseph put a consoling hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Mr. Kaye. Please understand. We say this out of love.”

This was the cruelest blow of all. Peter bowed his head. He could accept their enmity, even their scorn he might understand, but that they should pity him, this he could not, would not allow. He stood up with such uncharacteristic rapidity of movement that Caroline and Joseph both took a step back in surprise

Peter said at last: “I am sorry. Sorry that I’ve let you down by my inaction. No, don’t say anything, Joseph, I know you want to make things more comfortable, but I deserve to feel the weight of what you have said to me. Believe me, I have been berating myself as well. I will find a way to make this right.”

He walked away, leaving the two of them wondering what he might do.

* * *

He got her number from the registrar. If Shaw were not sitting next to him, he would not have made the call. Even still, he sat with his hand on the phone for some time, unable to make himself go through with it.

“Maybe wait, until you feel up to it,” Shaw said.

Even his best friend acted like he was some feeble coot who had dulled his edge. This would not be borne.

He punched her number into his phone, listened to the line ring and then a horrifying click as Rhetta Brown picked up the landline. “Who is it?” she said, not by way of a greeting but more like a warning. When he could not respond immediately, despite Shaw’s nudging his arm, she demanded: “WHO IS THIS?”

In a hesitant croaking voice he did not recognize as his own, he began, “Rhetta? This is Peter. Peter Kaye from the Center?”

“Is that a question, or a statement of fact?” she said.

He tried again. “Mrs. Brown. This is Peter Kaye. I’m calling to talk to you about your recent conduct in the classroom.”

“What of it?”

He swallowed. Shaw nodded, encouraging him to keep going, a thumbs up for the promising start. “A number of students have brought it to my attention that they feel—”

“Oh I know where this is going. It happens. They’re jealous, naturally. Intimidated by the caliber of my output,” and here she allowed herself a chuckle, “it happens in every class I attend. I pay no attention to it, I advise you to ignore it as well.”

“But—”

“I know, it’s that Caroline person. She’s always looking at me. And that French fellow. Him too.”

“Joseph is from Martinique,” he interjected, pointlessly, as if she might care.

“They’re  jealous. It’s so transparent.”

“Mrs. Brown. I need to speak to you about how we can bring a spirit of fairness to the class. Each writer wants the chance to read their work.”

“If you call the pap they produce ‘work,’ I think we’ll have a difference of opinion, Mr. Gay.”

“It’s Kaye.”

“Beg pardon?”

“My name. Peter Kaye.”

“Fine. Mr. Kaye,” she said as though his name was a negotiable point she was willing to concede. “I really can’t continue talking on the telephone much longer, I’m right in the middle of an important denoument scene to which I must return. When the muse strikes, you know—”

“How about we meet in person? Talk this out? I’d be happy to meet you at the Eliot, for a drink, it’s quiet there and we can have a conversation.”

“I’m not accustomed to meeting men in barrooms, Mr. Kaye. Even if I were, I can see no reason to discuss the matter any further.”

Peter felt his face get hot. Everything she said just made him angrier. She was condescending, a snob, a bully, and worse—a hack writer who thought she was the next Agatha Christie. “I’m afraid we are not finished, Mrs. Brown. We need to come to some kind of understanding before the next class meets. I insist it is of great importance that we do.”

Silence. She was not used to being challenged, and he could practically hear her thinking her next move. With an impatient sigh she relented, “My husband will be at a board meeting this evening. Why don’t you come to my home sometime after dinner. Say 7 0’clock?”

She was smart. Having him come to her place gave her the home advantage, but he didn’t care. At this point, he just wanted to get this over with. “I’d be delighted,” he lied. He wrote down her address on a scrap of paper, and before he had a chance to thank her, she had hung up.

Shaw glanced at the address, gave a low whistle. “Swanky,” he said.

* * *

Rhetta Brown sat down to her work much later than was her routine that Friday, which ordinarily would exasperate her, but today as she dropped down into her rattan chair on her patio before her old lap top a definite smirk played around the corners of her mouth.

It’s not like she hadn’t reasons to be irritated.

For starters, Jefferey. It was so like him to let her down when she needed him. She had asked him to march right over to the Lindens’ place next door and get to the bottom of why they had been pointedly not invited to their annual garden party, the crown jewel in the neighborhood calendar.

Last year, she had successfully lobbied for an invite from the skinflint Eunice Linden through a series of persistent notes and the occasional banana bread she sent next door through her emissary husband. It worked. Savoring her victory, on the day she eschewed protocol of being paraded from the front door and through the tedious receiving line like all the others, instead she swept through the gate separating their properties, the privilege of being so near neighbors, and let it drop here and there that she lived just over the fence, she was of the inner circle, here to consume canapes with certain local notables. With Jefferey in tow. After that success, it was imperative that they should go again this year. But the invitation was not renewed.

The Browns lived in the ugliest house on the prettiest street in the tony historic end of town. Theirs was a squat Cape type house, considered a usurper and an eyesore among the sedate Colonials when it was built in the heady post war boom; now Number 217 had the patina of age that gave an aura of respectability suitable to its zip code, but still Rhetta felt the sting of being seen as an outsider. The neighbors never let her forget she’d only been there a few years, whereas they were generations in the same family houses stretching back to before the Revolution.  Such snobbery goaded her, spurred her. She’d show them.

Last year at the august garden party, she had the ear of none other than Ellery Wendall, the Editor in Chief of Rex Press, for 15 minutes she had him cornered between the  prize winning rose garden and the ice sculpture of some sort of bird in flight, she regaled him about her murders, and her wily detective Sir Archibald Leech, she was on the brink of asking him to read the manuscript she happened to have handy in her bag—well then she could have clobbered Jefferey who chose that exact moment to lope along and see if she needed anything, and of course he should have seen her empty champagne flute and brought over a fresh one, but as she was making this point to him, she somehow lost Mr. Wendall, whom she watched wistfully as he sped away, he must have needed to use the water closet because he moved so fast. No matter.  She had marked her prey. She would bag him. In time.

She gave herself an indulgent smile, a blush of hubris that sometimes befalls a genius. An alchemist might understand what’s it’s like to create magic out of nothing. Her manuscript was gaining heft, she’d made substantial revisions since last year—Sir Archibald lived in Monk Stone Priory now, which sounded so much better, and his sidekick with the limp had clearly been damaged in the first war—she knew that her work now at last deserved, no, was destined to be published, read, seen, and most importantly, admired. Wouldn’t that turn a few smug heads. All she needed was just a few minutes more with the editor to make it happen. Those damned Lindens.

Now, as she sat on the patio, her fingers practically ached with the need to produce, the energy inside her was restless, crackling. But still the pesky thought buzzed around: why hadn’t they been invited back? She supposed, in full light of day, that it was probably Jefferey and his blandness that failed to spark. Who wore those skinny ties anymore? Really. She had laid out for him perfectly suitable linen shirt and nice trousers in a soft palette that would complement her outfit which she had chosen with equal care: the dress with the cabbage roses and the silk fringed shawl, stacks of bracelets. She now came to realize that his refusal to wear the approved wardrobe for the Lindens had been the start of disobedient episodes of acting out. Only last month he had declined to speak to the gardener for starting at his work too early, when she needed her rest, and so she had to do it herself, and the man up and quit, so they had no gardener and Jefferey was of course useless in that department. And, just this morning, he told her he was not going to knock on the Lindens’ door and ask them why there was no invitation to this year’s party when everyone had been boasting for weeks about getting theirs. Then, in a kind of showdown, a rare display of assertion which just made him look silly, Jefferey told her he wouldn’t be home for dinner, he had a board meeting, the burden of such a feckless lie made him hang his head like a dog as he hauled his pathetic carcass out the door. She saw right through his nonsense. He’d be singing another tune soon enough, when he learned anew who was in charge.

Then she got that phone call from that odious little man. Peter Kaye. Galling. It was not her fault the other students in class were not at her level. She’d straighten him out too.  She thought with a quick glance at her watch she had hours to get something on the page before he showed up. It was the burden of every great artist to forge ahead, to not allow the unseeing critics to get in the way.

Despite all that she had to manage, all the insufferable distractions that kept her from her work, she was pleased with herself. A pitcher of iced tea sat where she’d left it when she went in to answer that call on the house phone from Mr. Kaye, and she felt like she had earned a respite. She poured herself a tall glass, smiling to herself as she thought about her secret. She’d never tell anybody about what she’d done this morning. after Jeffery had left. There might be evidence, if anyone ever thought to look for it. And what would they find, really? A bucket in the tool shed. A few empty bleach bottles. Just the thing to kill prize winning rose bushes. The thought came to her as if heaven sent. Slip in and out the back gate, quick and quiet like a cat. It had been little labor, but oh the rewards.  If she was not going to be invited to the garden party, there would be no garden.

The yard only got sun briefly in the late afternoons, the surrounding trees and houses yielded a narrow patch of blue sky that just now blazed bright and hot. She turned her face toward the warmth and sipped her cold tea.

* * *

At the appointed hour, Peter Kaye and Shaw arrived at number 217.

“Jeez,” Shaw said. “Kind of a letdown.” They regarded the unimpressive little white house on a bit of shaggy grass, dwarfed by its grander neighbors. Even though another half hour of sunlight was left of the momentous day the place cowered in permanent shade.

“It’s perfect,” insisted Peter, recalibrating his expectations of Madame Brown. Perhaps she was not as grand as she seemed.

“You sure you’ll be ok?” Shaw said.

Peter resented the patronizing tone. He assured his friend he’d be just fine.

Shaw watched him walk down the gravel drive. He would wait here for moral support, what he wouldn’t give to be there when the skirmish began. Shaw leaned against a fencepost badly in need of paint and tried to make himself comfortable, but he was antsy. Silver leaves overhead tittered, tickled by the unfolding scene.

* * *

A dog started barking. He turned to see an elderly woman and an equally elderly collie making their way towards him.

“Who are you?” the lady demanded. “Why are you lurking about?”

The dog gave another wary bark.

Shaw didn’t think he was lurking exactly. He explained that he was waiting for his friend, who was visiting Mrs. Brown.

The lady’s dry lips scowled. She clearly had no love for the mistress of 217. Was it possible the dog scowled too?

“I understand she’s not very popular.”

The lady gave a dry laugh that brought on a cough. “My sister Martha was the only one in the neighborhood who could stomach Rhetta Brown, but she was always too nice, too unsuspecting.”

“Unsuspecting?” it seemed an odd word to use.

“I don’t trust the woman, it’s as plain as that. Conniving.  Makes a fool of herself wherever she goes.” Shaw could sense she was enjoying the chance to trash her neighbor.

“I’ve never even met her. My friend Peter Kaye, he teaches at the Center. Mrs. Brown is one of his students.”

A flash of recognition lit up the woman’s face. “Him I know. My sister Martha. She was a writer. She was forever going on about wonderful Mr. Kaye.” He felt himself rising in her estimation. She even smiled at him. “Rhetta fancies herself a writer too. I see her from my room when she’s out here banging on her keyboard, what a show. Egads. She’d foist her stuff onto poor Martha to read.”

“What does Mrs. Brown write?”

“Drivel. Utter nonsense about English lords killing vicars, or the other way around. Rhetta would drop off one of her famous inedible banana loafs and a pound of paper every so often. Neither was digestible. But Martha, being Martha, she ate the loaf and read the pages, too nice a person to tell Rhetta to shove off.” The woman, suddenly aware that she had been running on with someone she didn’t even know, a stranger, she remembered her manners.

“I’m Patti Andrews,” she said, “I’ll talk anyone’s ear off. My apologies. I forget sometimes how lonely I am these days.”

“Your sister, Martha? She has passed? I’m sorry for your loss.”

“She had a good run,” Patti was not the sentimental type, apparently. “She was 80. Had a bout of a nasty virus that finally did her in. Just a few weeks ago. Such a shame. She was so excited to be in Mr. Kaye’s workshop again, didn’t make it. I do miss her, Rags does too,” she gave the dog a gentle pat on the head.

When Shaw would try to replay the events that happened next, he had trouble making sense of the kaleidoscope of images that refused to form a recognizable pattern. What he remembered as they were talking: the light fading, flowers dropping petals in the sleepy garden, a bird calling to its mate, but the quiet evening ended with a scream ripping the air like a crack of thunder sending the birds scurrying from the trees. Peter screaming Shaw’s name, over and over, echoing in Arthur’s ears, he could see himself moving in slow motion though he must have been running, the crunch of gravel beneath his feet, the dog barking, Patti several paces behind him, the door left ajar as if waiting, the darkness of the house, vague shapes of furniture as he moved toward Peter through a creaking back door to the patio, he flicked on the outdoor light, flooding the scene with a merciless white glare—Rhetta Brown, sprawled out on the gray flagstones in a pool of inky blood. Peter Kaye, trembling, holding in a his hand a heavy stick. A wind shaking the trees a shadow running over tall grass that grew darker and darkeruntil everything went black for Arthur Shaw.

ii

A Murder in Tory Row

The news of the murder rippled through the community as if carried on electric current. By morning, everyone had heard: Rhetta Brown had been brutally clubbed to death, killed by an instructor at the Center. Peter Kaye was in custody.

* * *

Caroline paced Joseph’s studio apartment. He watched her, noting she had barely run a comb through her hair. Her hands were restless, tugging at her long sleeves, fidgety.

“Please. Sit down. Have some coffee. There’s some toast if you would like.”

“How can you think about eating? My stomach is a bag of broken glass.”

“You’ll feel better. Sit.”

She kept walking, up and down the length of the room. The smell of fresh coffee made her insides turn. She swallowed down the sour taste at the back of her throat. “Did it occur to you that we goaded him into it? Did you see his face when he left us in the park? We pushed him.”

Joseph smiled. “I am sure that there has been some misunderstanding. I cannot believe for a minute that Mr. Kaye, our Mr. Kaye, could do such a thing. Have some toast.”

“How can you be so sure? His friend caught him in the act. A neighbor lady too. What further proof do you want?”

“I am sure there is more to the story. We can rationally discuss likely scenarios.”

“Such as?”

“Such as. There may be other people who wished Mrs. Brown dead.”

For a moment she stopped. He had a point. Rhetta was detestable. But there were witnesses. He could not easily explain that away.

“You yourself said you wanted to hit her over the head with her stick,” he sipped his coffee.

She laughed. “So I went over there and clobbered her before Mr. Kaye showed up? She was already dead?” Maybe Caroline fantasized about it, maybe the thought of smacking that woman senseless had crossed her mind once, or a hundred times. She still felt hot when she remembered how unpleasant the dead lady could be, how dismissive she’d  been with her critiques in workshop; Caroline was working on a thriller about a heroin dealer who was frantically trying to find whoever was putting fentanyl in his product, killing off some of his best customers, and it was really coming along— Rhetta had been so condescending, calling her antihero “unlikeable.” Duh. That was the entire point. The guy’s a peddler in class A substances. He wasn’t meant to be likeable. But you couldn’t have a conversation with Mrs. Brown. She called the whole thing “unsavory,” and something “no decent person would ever want to read.” Pretty brutal. It would be completely different if Rhetta herself was this amazing writer, but she wasn’t. Who the hell wants to read about English folks politely killing each other, bloodless murders with no visceral juice, no passion. No life. She had thought about it. Clocking the insufferable she beast with that stupid stick. “Do you think I could have done something like that?” she asked her friend.

“I am saying that someone could have. As you say, she may have been dead before Mr. Kaye even got there. No one actually saw Mr. Kaye strike the woman. You told me yourself that he was standing over the body with the stick in his hand, but does that necessarily mean he killed her? There may be other details we are not yet privy to.”

She hugged herself.

“The coffee is still hot. Sit.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“We are writers. Mystery writers. Maybe we find out who really did it?”

“Like Nancy Drew? Skulking around for clues in old clocks?”

“We can be more methodical, perhaps.”

Caroline was intrigued. “You think we can?”

He lifted his shoulders. “It cannot hurt to try. It may even be fun.”

“I’m calling June,” she said, pulling her phone from her back pocket, “she’ll want to be in on this.”

* * *

Arthur Shaw had not slept. His head still ached. In the bathroom mirror he touched the  still tender line of stitches on his forehead, replaying the ambulance ride to the Emergency Room, the kind paramedic who told him he was lucky. He had passed out, fell to the ground, taking with him a small table and sending a glass pitcher shattering on the flagstones. One of the shards just missed his left eye. He was lucky.

As he was being taken away to go to the hospital, flat on his back on a stretcher, he saw the moonless night, the black sky. Blue lights flashing. Red lights flashing. Neighbors gawking on their lawns.

But it always came back to the same image, burnt into his brain.

Peter standing over the dead woman’s body.

Arthur heaved over the sink, nothing but green bile from his empty stomach hurled into the white basin, the clockwise swirl of the taps and vomit spiraling around the drain made him hold on to the edge of the vanity for dear life.

* * *

Jeffery Brown instinctively put the key in his own front door with the stealth of a thief, quietly, holding the knob steady in his hand while the lock opened, then nudging the door with his shoulder, listening, his ears attuned, attentive. The furniture regarded him with stoic silence. Early American couches. Shaker chairs, ladder backed, spindly legs that would give way if anyone dared sit on one, but no one ever had. The entire house felt inert. Hollow. Dead. And then he remembered. There was no need to sneak into his home for fear of making noise, afraid of ruining a nap or a writing spree. There was no exasperated sigh when he did make himself known by tossing his keys into the painted bowl on the hall table, just the bright clinking of metal on porcelain. He could yell at the top of his lungs if he felt like it. But he didn’t. Funny. Twenty plus years of tiptoeing so as not to disturb the Chippendale dining chairs that stood as mute guardians around the oval table with its centerpiece of wax fruit. The wallpaper, sly sheperdesses leading willing shepherds away from their flocks in an endless repetition always made him dizzy, and he automatically went straight for the kitchen.

Rhetta had shown an indifferent talent for cooking. She made a big show of burning cookies and loaves heavy as bricks, she could do a roast drier than death or incinerate a chicken with equal poise, but she excelled at leaving behind a mess. The counter still had a shriveled half lemon sliced on the cutting board. Granules of sugar all over the place inviting a parade of ants he brushed into the sink full of plates and glasses smeared with orange lipstick.

The back gate unlatched.

Then the familiar sound of heels clicking on the flagstones.

When the footsteps stopped abruptly, breaking the characteristic confident stride, for a beat there was just stillness, not even a hint of a breeze came through the open window where he stood watching her. She shouldn’t have come. Not now.

Eunice Linden stood still, her peep toed shoes inches away from the black sticky stain of dried blood, broken glass, the table on its side where Rhetta had been lying just twelve hours ago. He saw the effort it took her, to suppress a scream, compose her face, but underneath he was sure she was now afraid. Afraid of him.

She gingerly stepped around the stain, the glass, the table. “I saw your car. Are you Ok? Jeff, I couldn’t sleep thinking. What did the police say?”

“Come in,” he said. “Might as well make me a cup of coffee while you’re here,” he held open the screen door, the creak of the old wood frame reminded her of Thursday afternoons. Despite herself, she smiled, remembering, but the moment she heard the door bang shut behind her she knew it was wrong to come, today, but she had to see how he was. She had to know.  He supposed she had a right to know.

Eunice busied herself in the kitchen. Measured out coffee, filled the carafe from the tap, remembering to let it run until it was cold. The whole time his eyes were on her.

“I told them I had an alibi.”

She pulled two mugs off their little hooks. “What did you say?”

“Same as I told her. Board meeting.”

“But they’ll figure it out soon enough. Jeff—” she turned to face him, “why did you lie? Can’t you get in trouble?”

“I thought I was being chivalrous,” he touched her forearm, noted the split second when she wanted to flinch but didn’t. Her eyes looked everywhere but at him. “It’ll get out. There’s no avoiding it now. I bought us a little time” he said.

“I guess so,” she was tearing up, scared, a little girl with a manicure and hair that smelled like money. “What a mess.”

“Wipe your nose.”

“Jeff. You know I’m only going to ask you this once. I swear I’ll never mention it again. Whatever you say.” She tapped two big spoons of sugar into his mug. A Splenda in hers.  “Did you have anything to do with it? You didn’t do anything because of–”

“Did you?”

She winced as if he had slapped her. “How could you even ask me such a thing?”

“How could you ask me?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been a wreck. Crazy things are going through my mind.”

“We’re going to have to decide. If this thing is going to be between us, or if—”

“Or if—”

“Or if, regardless of what comes out,” he held her by the wrist, “we’re in it together.”

“How? Can we trust each other?” There was a deeper question she did not dare ask.

“The coffee. It’ll go a lot faster if you tap that little button. There.”

* * *

June had to knock a few times before Shaw got up to answer. He had finally drifted off to a kind of sleep, peppered with terrible dreams.

“You look awful,” June said.

“Thank you,” Shaw’s glasses were nowhere to be found. He squinted at his unexpected visitor. “I’m sorry. You are—”

“June. You know me. I’ve met you lots of times,” she seemed to know what she was talking about as she stood there with her hands clasped in front of her, reminding him of a reading teacher he had at Park Glen Elementary. She did look familiar. Fireplug build. Sturdy. Eyes that looked right at you. “I met you at Mr. Kaye’s parties for the Center. You have to remember.”

“Of course,” he lied. “I’m so bad with names though—”

“June. June Jablonski.”

“Hello June.”

“I know this is a bad day. We’re all worried sick about Mr. Kaye. We know of course he didn’t have anything to do with it. Imagine. Impossible!” she looked at his stitches, “Oh dear you got your share of it too, I’m so sorry. You must be devastated. About Mr. Kaye I mean.”

“I don’t know what to think yet. I don’t. I can’t—”

“I understand. We all feel the same way.”

“We all?”

“Mr. Kaye’s workshop. At the Center. That’s us.”

Things started clicking into place. Yes. June Jablonski. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming by—”

“Mr. Shaw,” said June, “you misunderstand me. I didn’t look you up just to offer our support, which you have, obviously. We’ve been talking and we think we can dig around and maybe find out somethings about the whole business with Rhetta. If Mr. Kaye didn’t do it, and he didn’t, then we need to find out who did.”

He and Peter had enough murders. He was tired. This wasn’t a game or some episode of Midsomer. There were real consequences. “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said.

“I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Arthur Shaw.” Now she really did look like Mrs. Pennell from Park Glen. She was frequently disappointed too.

* * *

Caroline and Joseph had a fruitless morning. She was frustrated, but he was as steady as ever.

Of course, they tried the police station first thing, but some desk guy told them no way were they getting in to talk to, much less see, Mr. Kaye, and he’d give no information on an ongoing investigation.

“May we leave a note?” asked Joseph, and honestly it seemed perfectly reasonable, but the guy was not having it.

“Maybe tell him we said hi, even?” She had asked, knowing it was a doomed effort, but she had to try.

They were out on the pavement beating it back to the car within 8 minutes.

“Now what?” she said as she buckled into the driver’s seat. She hoped her voice didn’t have the irritation she felt. So far, he seemed undaunted by her cynicism, a carryover from an embarrassingly long Emo phase, when she was one of a million standard issue bar rats with a burgeoning eating disorder centered around vodka and clove cigarettes, a fuck everyone attitude, and a knack for finding the worst, the absolute worst guy in any given situation. She was getting incrementally better now, trying, but that pessimism lingered, a smudge of black eyeliner on a hangover morning with your shoes still on from the night before. Caroline admired Joseph, his sense of inner quiet that she could only wish she felt for maybe fifteen consecutive minutes in a month. He remained placid and smiling all the time. And it wasn’t an act. You can tell. He was also her best friend in workshop. She gave him a smile, hoping to soften her tone.

Of course, he smiled back. “We made a valid first attempt,” he said.

Which is a nice way of saying they struck out.

* * *

Patti Andrews didn’t answer the door bell when June and Shaw rang.

“Why exactly are we here?” asked Shaw. He had been led around by this tank of a lady, succumbing to her natural role to lead, and his to follow. In the absence of Peter, he was feeling the loss of someone telling him what to do, maybe that’s why he allowed June Jablonski to push him through this sleepwalking day. None of it felt real. Only the stinging itch over his eye told him different. He had no idea why they should be standing under the portico of the Andrews’ house.

“I explained on the way over” June’s voice again had that irritated edge of someone who doesn’t like having to repeat themselves more than once. “You and Patti were there last night. You saw what you saw. If we get the two of to talking, maybe some interesting details will emerge.”

“I told you all I remember,” he said, exasperated with himself.

“Listen, this might jostle the old memory, kick it into gear. Patti might have seen something, heard something that you didn’t. Visa versa. Something we can piece together. Can’t hurt. Give it the old Harvard try.”

“Did you go to Harvard?”

“Radcliffe, dear. That’s where I met Martha. And hence Patti. We’re all friends going way back.”

“Martha? The sister who died?’

“She was a wonderful gal. I was so pleased she said she was going to be in this year’s workshop, with Mr. Kaye. Terrific writer. She died just a week before the first class met. Poor Patti. All alone in this big old house. So you see, I owe her a visit anyway, check in on her, see how she’s doing. Martha was the lovingest, kindest person you’d ever want for a friend—”

Shaw remembered how Patti had described her sister: “Unsuspecting.” It seemed to be an unusual word at the time, and it still stuck out.

Just then Patti Andrews turned the corner, a shovel in her hand, ratty jeans caked with dirt. “Heard you ringing,” she said, “persistent, aren’t you?”

June laughed. “Patti. Forgive the intrusion. I felt I was long overdue in paying you a condolence call.”

“I got your card, that was very thoughtful.” Patti attempted a smile, “We didn’t do anything. Why give that kind of money to the funeral parlor? She didn’t believe in all that. Just wanted to be cremated and that’s it.” And then she recognized Shaw. “You I remember,” she said. “Nasty gash you got there. Hope you’re OK.”

OK was as much as Shaw could be. He nodded. Mumbled thanks.

“Patti, dear, we were hoping that you might be willing to talk a little bit. About last night.”

“All talked out. Those cops are something. I thought you were them when I heard you out here,” she held the shovel as if it might have been brandished, in the event she needed to shoo off a detective or two from her doorstep. “Besides. It was that fat fella. He was standing right there, holding the damned stick in his hand like a club. Doesn’t take a Miss Marple to put that together.”

Shaw winced. He too had been asked, over and over, even in the Emergency Room while they were stitching him up. He was exhausted. There was no way to unsee what he had seen. He didn’t want to talk about it, either.

June tried a different tach. “Martha was quite fond of Mr. Kaye.”

Patti nodded. That she was. Loved him. She was looking forward to being at the Center again.

“You might as well know that we don’t believe that Mr. Kaye could have had anything to do with something like this. There’s got to be another way to look at this. We need your help. Please, just let’s walk through it. Once more?”

Patti knew full well that June was not going to give up, she was a squirrel with a nut. “Fine.” To Shaw she said, “I didn’t intend any offense. Of your friend I mean.”

She led them to the garage that had once been a stable, its barn like doors open, she invited them to sit on a couple beat up plastic lawn chairs while she finished doing the things she needed to do. “Got to keep my hands busy. Since Martha. I’m just talking to myself and trying to stay occupied. You won’t mind?”

They didn’t.

She put the shovel up on the wal. Everything in its place.

An ancient car took up the middle of the interior, a hunk of curvy metal, wide white wall tires, a steering wheel you could crack a tooth on, solid. It was bathed in a light worthy of an operating room that made the hood ornament, a winged woman in flight, gleam in blinding glory. Patti picked up a chamois rag to rub the chrome bumper and grille with all the attention of a loving parent.

“That’s a 1955 Nash Rambler Cross Country wagon,” June said to Shaw, knowingly. “Six-cylinder.”

“Ugly. Isn’t she?” Patti continued buffing. The metal shone mirror bright. “She really did go cross country. Twice. Might be able to do it again. I wouldn’t be surprised.” She patted the car like it was a horse, or a dog, an old friend that has served well. “Of course, for every day, I putter around in the Civic,” she gave the other car a look that said it was no comparison.

The shelves were organized. Shaw read the names of the metal cans and jugs, names that remined him of his dad: Motorola. Valvoline. Carnauba Wax. Penzoil. He half listened as Patti went through the events of last night, answering June’s questions, the same things he’d gone over and over so often he could recite them like a litany, ending with the two of them there on the patio, but something, something he had almost forgotten. “Ms. Andrews, do you remember? Last night? Did you hear anything like footsteps? Like someone running across the lawn? There was a shadow or something?”

She paused and considered, rag still in hand. “Hmmm. Now that you bring it to mind. I think that’s right. I think so.”

June clapped her hands. “There. Now we’re getting somewhere. Someone could have been there. Someone else! It’s at least a possibility.”

“It was confusing,” Shaw said. “I thought I imagined it, there was so much to take in, and the dog barking—”

“Dog barking? Where is old Rags, anyway?” asked June, wary, she did not like dogs as a rule, they were always sniffing where they shouldn’t.

No answer.

“She’s usually glued to your hip.”

“That she was.”

“Patti, dear? Are you OK?”

Patti leaned against the hood of the wagon and for a moment it looked like she was about to cry, something so strange on that stoic granite face. Shaw and June exchanged a concerned glance, and then at the shovel hanging on the wall still coated with dirt.

“Stupid thing,” she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, “must’ve gotten into something last night in the middle of everything else. You know how dogs are.”

Shaw had never been so happy to see the Rose Hill Apartment Building, every cell in his body felt fried, in need of sleep. He waved as June zipped off in her sturdy Subaru, but he didn’t know if he had the energy to walk the dozen or so steps from the curb. Only the promise of bed prodded his body forward.  He couldn’t think, didn’t want to think. The whole thing with Patti was—he couldn’t come up with the word—it didn’t matter, except that maybe she’d heard it too, that someone else was there in Rhetta’s backyard last night, maybe it wasn’t Peter. He desperately needed to believe that.

At the door his nose wrinkled with the distinct yellow tang of cigarette smoke. Unmistakable. Now he was having sensory hallucinations, Shaw worried, his years in nursing told him this was the first sign of cognitive slippage, it was happening, dementia was creeping over him, this was the beginning of the long gray twilight. Dotage. Old Timer’s, his mom had called it, before she wandered away further and further, and suddenly forever gone. His odds of it were just that much higher, this much was simple science and genetics, and it scared him to death to think about. The more rational part of his brain interjected that he was just as likely suffering from sleep deprivation, and the incredible stress of current events. Sleep. That’s what he needed.

Something else though.

The apartment wasn’t empty.

Someone was inside.

Someone was here.

This was no blip in mentation, he was positive. He didn’t think a burglar would take a smoke break in the middle of a heist, but what did he know about burglars? Next to nothing. He grabbed an umbrella from its stand, he needed something, anything, he might use to defend himself. From the narrow hall he barreled into the living room, brandishing his weapon in front of him.

“Is it raining indoors?” Peter Kaye said from the usual armchair he assumed whenever he visited. Peter Kaye sat there with that infuriating smirk, smoke curling around his round face. Peter Kaye was sitting and smoking and smirking. 

“You know I hate it when you smoke,” was the first thing Shaw said. And then he collapsed on his couch. “Am I dreaming? Did I finally snap? What—”

“I used my key. I hope you don’t mind. I wanted to call you, but then I thought a surprise might be more fun.”

* * *

Caroline and Joseph came up craps, again.

Back to the car.

Caroline needed a fucking drink.

Her passenger didn’t say a word when she pulled in front of the Abbey. “Let me buy you an Aperol Spritz.” She said. He liked the sweet stuff. Her drink these days was something hard and brown that burned and did the job quick. “I’m beat. Chasing a murderer is thirsty work. What do you say?”

“We are not quitting,” he said.

“No. Just a teeny tiny little break.

“Just one?” he asked.

“Sure. Yeah. Let’s go.

He gave her the stern eye.

“I promise,” she said. “One.”

They were deep into their second round. Joseph was starting to droop, but Caroline was bright as a field of daisies. The frustration of the day evaporated, and in its place a warmth flowed through her, made her giggle.

“What is so funny?” Joseph looked up from his notebook, he was starting a list of suspects. He felt their investigation up until now had lacked vision. He wanted to recap.

“You. You and your lists. You and your spreadsheets.”

There are two kinds of writers, it is said: “plotters” who outline and work out the mechanics of their stories; and “pansters,” so called because they fly by the seat of their pants, guided by inspiration and intuitive processes only understood by themselves. Joseph, no surprise, was the former. His notebooks were full of meticulous, detailed narrative elements. Character biographies, backstories, motivations, plot points all written out in his neat block writing. She knew him to be a Virgo, so there you go. Fastidious. Always kempt. Tidy. Shirts ironed and buttoned up. Caroline had her own kind of system involving random post it notes, crumpled napkins with scribbles she’d find in her pockets, her phone rife with cryptic notations. As to dress, she drew from a pile of cleanish laundry that lived and died on her bedroom floor.

“Having a method is not a bad thing,” he said, his breath thick with Aperol. “Especially now, if we are hoping to solve this. Will you help me, or not?”

She drained her bourbon and signaled the bartender for another round, ignoring Joseph’s well-groomed raised eyebrow. “Fine.”

“Mr. Kaye is the first suspect, but we agree he could not have done it.”

“Check.”

“Sylvia, Debra, also have very strong alibis which eliminates them.”

They had hiked down to Sylvia’s who predictably had nothing to say. Sylvia Berry was the one person in workshop who never offered a word of useful critique other than she liked something, or she didn’t like it. The worst. Pretty meek as a writer, wouldn’t venture out of safe tropes and cozy mysteries neatly pieced together. She didn’t kill Rhetta. She was in Providence overnight seeing her sister recovering after hip surgery, just got back on the Acela which might make an interesting place for a killing, she told them. Murder on the Boston Express. Very original.

It wasn’t Sylvia.

Ditto Debra. They went to see her, or they tried to, but she was down after testing positive yesterday and it was clear she hadn’t moved from her bed in the last 24 hours.

“Check and check,” Caroline confirmed.

“Then there is ourselves.”

“It just got interesting,” she laughed.

“Be serious, for one time” but he was laughing too. “Let us do this properly.”

“So, where were you last night?” she poked him in the chest. She sometimes got a little handsy when she drank. She watched as he added his own name to the list, each letter exactly of the same proportion, so neat and orderly, which might be a red flag. Who knows what sociopathy this signaled?

JOSEPH

He put down his pen, parallel to the pad, and smiled. “I was entertaining a guest,” he said, the closest he’d ever gotten to saying anything regarding what he always termed his “personal life.” He would sit through any of her stories about the parade of sad sacks who lumbered in and out of her “personal life,” but was as a rule absolutely mum about himself.

She had begun to think he was a prude, or some kind of monk, and now she looked at him with renewed appreciation. “You dirty bird,” she said. “Tell me every detail.”

He shook his head. “Suffice it to say I can produce receipts, if necessary.”

“No fair. I tell you everything.”

“Yes. You do.”

“Well!” she gasped like a daytime TV diva, making them both hoot.

“Now, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Where were you last night?” He wrote her name on the list.

CAROLINE

She took a healthy swig of her fresh drink, felt it warming her gullet. There was no answer to his question.

“No. Again?” he asked.

Her hand gripped the heavy glass.

“Again?”

“The sun went out,” she said, “I don’t remember after that. But I’m sure I didn’t have the wherewithal to kill anybody.

“Besides perhaps yourself.”

She sucked down her drink.

“Merde.”

“You can cross me off your little roster. I was blissfully comatose.”

“Why, though? You were doing better–“

“Not having this conversation,” she said, “stick to your list.”

He gave her that look she was dreading. He really did have beautiful eyes, but they could be uncomfortably steady when they looked at you in that way. She knew he wouldn’t think any less of her than she felt herself. If only he wouldn’t look at her with such intensity. It was too much.

She said: “I’m sorry.” The two words were puny, insignificant. Meaningless. But not to him. To him, to Joseph, she meant it. Every time.

Eventually, he nodded, and ran his hand over the page, smoothing it down, laying it flat. He picked up his pen, added a name to the list.

MR. BROWN

“The husband,” he said.

“Why him?” she breathed again, relief crawled its way back into her belly to have his attention move on from herself.

“It may be cliché,” he said, “but it is often the husband who does the killing.”

“Imagine being married to Rhetta Brown,” she said, and they both laughed again, but it was just a little less bright. A little less happy. And they did not look each other in the eye.

Eunice Linden regarded her hands which still held onto the steering wheel even though she had been parked in the lot of the police station for ten minutes. She had rather good hands. She took care of them, of course. Lots of creams. And those well-tipped girls at the nail salon. No age spots. No spreading of the joints other women her age had, those athletic Smith gals who were always playing tennis and golf. She’d never had to have her rings re-sized, like Helen Forest had to do.

Her rings.

The five carat marquise cut engagement rock, its matching platinum band of diamonds.

A significant sapphire sparkled on her right ring finger, an anniversary gift from Chip. That one she slipped on just before she left the house. She needed a talisman, something to remind her if she should again waver from her express purpose:

There was just no way she was going to leave her life and all it bought, to be with someone who couldn’t afford her.

If she were to appraise the worth of herself, right this minute, the bracelets, the earrings, the bespoke bag and shoes and soft knit jersey silk wrap dress, the hours spent on hair and makeup and training sessions, if she added up all that it cost to be her, she’d have to admit that she was an expensive lady, and that sum would be something quite northward of what Jeff Brown could ever hope to have. She did not feel the least bit mercenary. One has to look at things rationally, with cold logic and reason.

Maybe her joie de vivre had gotten in the way briefly, but it was foolhardy to be guided by a passing flame. Jeffery remained the front runner among suspects in Rhetta’s death by virtue of being a husband in love with someone else. Poor Jeff. He had been so susceptible, letting his ardor reach the inconvenient sticky stage. She had cared for him, in her way, but the itch was scratched. This current situation might be an expedient full stop to their dalliance, as fun as it was.

There was plenty of evidence she could give. He had told her how much he hated Rhetta, how much he wanted to be free of her, how she kept him like a pet dog; Eunice Linden could say any number of things. With one last look at herself in the rearview she checked her lipstick and ran one of those lovely hands through her hair. She practiced looking sincere. Eyes clear. Gaze steady. Time to tell her story.

* * *

“Did you escape?” Shaw could not imagine his friend overpowering a precinct of police, but he had never imagined that he might be capable of killing anyone either.

Peter laughed with his whole body, from his belly. “Oh I do love you, Arthur Shaw. I needed that,” he was still laughing, “it been quite an unusual day.”

Shaw nodded. It certainly had been. “You didn’t—-?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Peter stubbed out his cigarette on a tea saucer he was using as a makeshift ashtray. “Frankly, I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. A point we can re-visit another time over a cocktail. You’ve known me longer than anyone. Did you really wonder?” Peter was clearly enjoying the situation, his friend’s confusion, the very idea that he might have—

“Then what did happen? How are you here?”

“It became apparent to the police that I wasn’t their man. At least they don’t jump to conclusions without evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“Well, the good lady did not die from being bludgeoned. There was no indication of that kind of blunt force trauma at all. She was dead hours before we even got there. The medical examiner on the scene said something about her esophagus being burned. They don’t know yet what poison it was, but it did the trick effectively.”

“But all that blood, the stick—”

“Think about it: she ingests poison, at some point when she feels the effects she jumps up,” and here Peter clutched at his throat in dramatic replay of the way he saw it happen, “She teeters, she falls or trips. Hits her head bang on the hard stones. You know how head injuries bleed like hell.”

Shaw nodded. That was true.

“I have to say, I feel sorry for her. Such a terrible way to die. Brutal. Someone had to have really hated her. It’s sad to contemplate.”

“I had this image of you in my head. It was. I—”

“From the very beginning that stupid stick was just a prop. Picking it up, well that was sheer stupidity on my part. I don’t know what I was thinking. I must have looked like a villain when you came on the scene,” he laughed again but when he saw the look of anguish on his friend’s face, he got more serious. “I’m sorry Arthur. That you had to go through that. Look at you. I’ve never seen you so hangdog before. I will admit that scar you’ll have will be very butch, but that too is another conversation for another day.  You’re exhausted. It’s OK now, I’m here. It’s going to be fine.”

All Shaw could do was nod. Verbal ability was flown away as the irresistible desire to close his eyes came over him.

“I’m happy to see you, Arthur. But it’s time you went to bed. We’ve all had a long day. There’s plenty of time to compare notes.”

Shaw’s outstretched body had already gone slack, his mouth open wide.

Peter, all tenderness and care, covered Arthur with a throw.

“You’re not going away again?” Shaw mumbled, emerging for a moment from the soft fog.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Peter soothed, “I’ll be sitting right here with a book while you rest.”

Shaw smiled. “I want–” but he forgot what he wanted as he slipped mercifully, finally, into the depths of sleep.

iii

A Death in the Afternoon

“Poison?!” June Jablonski said. “Poison? This changes everything!” She was sitting with Peter Kaye and a refreshed looking Arthur Shaw on a bench in the Commons. A nearby playground full of children gave the scene a more sinister feel, as though a conversation about a deed so dark amid such innocent noisy happiness was subversive, and she had made a conscious note to lower her voice, but still, she couldn’t hold back her utter surprise at the turn of events. The most important thing, obviously, was that Peter Kaye was free, safe from harm. She knew all along he wasn’t guilty of murder. She kept touching his arm to make sure he was real, and this was all really happening. He was, and it was. The new facts of the case were that Rhetta had been killed by poisoning, and the state of the body indicated she had been dead at least two hours before she was discovered on the patio. “This opens up a whole new set of possibilities,” she said.

Peter Kaye nodded. He felt the sun warm on his skin, the breeze, he heard the kids laughing at play, and allowed himself a smile of simple gratitude to be back in the little park again. “It certainly clarifies the timeline of the crime,” he said.

“You were on the phone with Rhetta at one o’clock, and we showed up there at 7 sharp,” said Shaw, “it happened sometime between one and five pm, if the coroner’s time of death is accurate.”

“So, what was the poison? How did it get into her?” June’s mind spun scenarios, but nothing clicked yet.

“It’ll be some weeks before the medical examiner will confirm, but from the preliminary observation it was caustic enough to burn her esophagus, that may narrow the field,” said Peter.

“Maybe ethylene glycol,” guessed Shaw, who had seen his share of poisonings in his years when he worked the emergency room. Gruesome. Inventive solutions for offing friends and loved ones. Mundane things used for murder.

“Ethylene glycol?” June asked, again trying to keep her voice down.

“It’s the chief ingredient in antifreeze,” Shaw said.

“Antifreeze. Anybody can get a hold of that. But how could they get her to drink it?” June felt that Rhetta was too smart to fall for a cheap trick.

“It reportedly has a very sweet taste,” said Shaw, “you might not notice it, It would depend on the dose, how much was ingested, before you felt its effects”

Peter shuddered. “How awful. The poor woman.”

They all sat quietly with the image of Rhetta’s last painful moments. No one deserved that.

Shaw broke the silence with a sudden memory of the shattered glass, reflexively he touched the area above his eye, “There was a pitcher,” he said, “the table. I knocked them over. The pitcher had something in it, something she was probably drinking. Someone could have put antifreeze in that.”

“That makes sense,” acknowledged Peter, “but I’m curious as to when. Assuming she was sitting on the patio, drinking something—”

“It was a warm day,” June interrupted, “maybe it was lemonade. Or iced tea.”

Peter gave her the briefest look that suggested the beverage itself was immaterial save as a conveyance for whatever agent that killed Rhetta. “I was going to interject the question: when might someone have slipped in poison without her knowing?”

“Perhaps she had to use the bathroom, or got up to make a snack?” June said, undaunted by askant looks from such an old dear as Mr. Kaye.

“Or she was called away,” said Shaw.

“I called her,” Peter said. “I called her at one o’clock, like you said Arthur, she went inside to answer the phone—”

“And someone with a jug of antifreeze came along?” June laughed, it seemed a little far-fetched someone would have been practically lying in wait, watching, waiting for a window of opportunity. Why? And more importantly, who?

* * *

Jeffery Brown nursed his coffee while he did the dishes in the sink, set the kitchen back to rights. He stepped out onto the patio where he swept up glass, returned the wicker table to its corner. The police had collected all they needed, and now there was nothing left to do but what he had always done, clean up a mess. 

For 10 minutes he blasted the hose on the flat stones, sending a black cloud of flies swarming off to hover nearby in wait only to swoop back in for another taste, constantly dodging the spray of water. It was no use. The blood had seeped into the porous surface. He shut off the spigot, took his time coiling the hose into a neat arrangement, took his time while he waited for the police to show up. Any minute, he expected to hear a knock at the door. His head ached. His stomach burned with acid and bitter coffee on an empty stomach.

He had watched Eunice walking away this morning through the back gate like she couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He didn’t call her back. Probably because he knew it was no use. When he saw her backing her E-350 out of her driveway and speeding off, he knew she was running to the cops to tell all about their affair, his lies, his motives for killing Rhetta.

Ironically, it was Rhetta’s doing that started the whole thing. She kept sending him next door to the Lindens with little notes and block-like banana breads begging for invitations to this and that, and after a while Eunice began to think Jeffery was a man who needed a little bringing out. Like one of her prize roses, he might do with a bit of pruning and coaxing into full flower. He just wanted a little attention. Eunice Linden was a very good gardener. Under Eunice’s husbandry he did bloom. For one brief Spring he had reached toward sunlight, felt something as close to love as he’d ever expected to find. He blossomed.

Rhetta couldn’t keep a cactus alive.

He had lived as her husband for two decades, slept in bed next to her for 7,300 nights, give or take. And now, in her absence, now that she was gone, just gone, like that, he honestly didn’t know how to feel besides an unexpected sense of relief. He was of that generation of men whose emotional interior had been stripped bare since boyhood, who found themselves at some points in their lives troubled by an emptiness that had no shape and no description. What saddened him now was that he didn’t feel sad, hadn’t cried, hadn’t wanted to think too deeply about any of it and so kept himself busy, yet there was this pesky vague idea that he should feel something, and he puzzled this out as he walked back into the darkened house.

As a young man, he considered going into the seminary, not because he had any deep faith in anything, but because he was searching for an answer to that well of hollowness he felt. When he met Rhetta, her overbrimming confidence and unquestioning sense of forward directed movement intrigued him. If he lacked a sense of purpose, Rhetta blazed ahead, and he found himself swept up in her orbit like a mote of dust in the tail of a comet. He came crashing back to earth soon enough. And now she was gone.

Eunice too. He allowed himself to think that maybe what they had would be for keeps, but it ended with the snick of the back gate latch when she left an hour ago. He saw his own folly. Too late.

In one day, he had lost two women.

It seemed unfair.

A leaden exhaustion came over him. He needed to wake up. Needed some clarity. Needed this pounding headache to go away. Jeffery noticed the little red light on the coffee maker still on. Despite nausea bubbling his insides, he poured the last of it into his mug, sweetened it up, sat back down at the kitchen table to think.

The house was quiet.

And cold.

The minutes ticked away on the wall clock. He swallowed down coffee, watched the minute hand sweeping around and around which made him dizzy and sick.

Coldness gripped his insides, colder and colder as he stumbled upstairs with heavy feet, a hand on the banister. His head throbbed with the racket the birds were making in the trees just outside the window. Sheer curtains muted the sunlight but still he flinched at the blazing whiteness of the bedsheets looming a few steps ahead. He didn’t take off his shoes. Rhetta would be furious with him he thought, as he crashed flat on his face.

Birds kept roaring, screaming in the treetops. But he didn’t hear a thing.  

* * *

Caroline watched Joseph make his way to his building’s entrance after she dropped him off, it’s the thing you do, you wait to make sure a person is safely delivered. He, as usual, turned and waved with his keys in his hands, he smiled, and went in. He acted no differently than he had on a hundred other afternoons, was just as serene and kind and thoughtful as always, and this for some reason felt even worse. If he yelled. Screamed. If he could, just once, show he was really angry. She understood anger. But this, this unyielding kindness made her feel more like a shit heel than any throw down combat ever could. She could defend herself against anger. She learned how. The difference here was that Joseph cared, really cared, about her, about what happened to her, whether she lived or died, and she could not just toss her life away like it didn’t matter anymore, couldn’t piss it away with drinking and pill popping and a lineup of loser guys without feeling like she was somehow hurting him.

When her phone rang it startled her, she wiped at her eyes with the long sleeve of her shirt and took a deep breath.

June.

“Caroline. I’m sitting here with Mr. Kaye. He didn’t do it. You were right. He’s free. He’s sitting right here, can you believe it?”

Now she let the tears come. “What happened? Is he OK?”

“He’s fine, he’ll tell you all about it himself tonight, we’re all invited to his place for dinner tonight, and he’ll tell us everything. I just wanted you and Joseph to know, so you can keep looking for the real killer,” June laughed, as if it was some game like a scavenger hunt. “But get this—Rhetta was poisoned. We think someone slipped antifreeze into her iced tea. Isn’t that horrible?”

“Antifreeze? In her tea? Who?”

“That’s just it, dear. Who, indeed?”

“Can I talk to him?”

“Certainly, dear—” and then June Jablonski disconnected the call, probably by hitting the wrong stupid button.

God damn.

Caroline went to hit redial when something Joseph had said occurred to her. The husband. Cliché or not, he did have the easiest access to Rhetta of anyone to poison her.

 Caroline had devoured true crime podcasts, watched Netflix plenty enough to support the theory of murderous marriages. An idea buzzed in her brain, persistent through the fog until it started to be clear that she could break this thing, she could go right over there and knock on the door and get Mr. Brown to confess. She could go right now and talk to the guy.

She rummaged in the glove box, pulled out nips of Fire Ball she kept for just such an occasion when she needed a jolt of confidence, had already downed one in the time it took to punch an address into a GPS and was working on its sibling when she did a U-turn on Mass Ave to head back in the opposite direction. 

* * *

Shaw and June were filling in Peter Kaye about the events of their morning.

“Patti Andrews confirmed she also heard someone out there in the backyard. I knew it had to be someone else, obviously, but when she said that it was the first full breath I took all day.”

Shaw nodded, but then thought about it,” That doesn’t really make sense though. I mean, now that we know Rhetta was likely dead by 5 p.m. or so, why would the killer have just hung around the back yard for two hours?”

“I don’t pretend to understand the mind of a psychopath, Mr. Shaw,” for clearly whoever had done the act had to have been crazy. That seemed obvious.

Peter Kaye wondered, too: “I don’t know if I agree our killer is someone deranged at all. It would have taken someone of great patience to wait out the right moment of opportunity, assuming that her drink had been poisoned, that speaks to a certain amount of pre-thought, premeditation, someone who had thought about it and seized the moment when it presented itself.”

“Don’t you have to be a little off the nut to kill someone? Doesn’t that stand to simple reason?” June didn’t like the idea a cold-blooded killer. She wanted there to be a certain amount of passion. When they’d all thought Rhetta had been clubbed to death, that made sense, it was an act of the moment, rage, fury, that appealed to her in a killer, someone pushed to the brink of insanity to do such a terrible thing. 

“What if they felt they were justified in the murder of Rhetta Brown? What if they felt she somehow deserved it?” Shaw asked.

“That would still be crazy,” insisted June, “what on earth could justify murder? Even of someone as universally unlikeable as that woman?” She had to wonder what Rhetta could possibly have done to get herself killed. There had to be a why.

Peter was willing to concede that under the ordinary definition of “crazy” someone had acted in an abhorrent manner, that was clear, but whatever motive they’d had, whatever rationale they had formed to do the thing itself, it seemed logical and reasonable to them, and he went down this esoteric path, pedantically explaining the underpinnings of subjective morality, to which June replied:

“Nuts.”

* * *

Patti Andrews heard the mail truck pull away. Probably just the bills, she figured as she wiped her hands on a clean cloth and looked in the mailbox. Writers’ magazines still came for Martha, and she just let them pile up, couldn’t haul them out with the recycling, not out of any sentimentality but from the habit of many years living with someone. Every few weeks another one came, and Patti added it to the pile by Martha’s reading chair, same as always. No bills today. No magazines. A store flyer with this week’s specials and coupons. A postcard advertising a local window cleaner and sons. And a large white envelope stamped by the office of the City Coroner and Medical Examiner.

After all these weeks of waiting.

She needed to steady her hand so she could open it, she wasn’t going to wait until she got inside or sat down, she tore it open right there at the end of her driveway and read it:

TOXICOLOGY REPORT OF MARTHA ANDREWS

Her eyes ran over the two-page report.

And then she read it through again.

Martha had the constitution of an ox. When she had started complaining about stomach pains and cramps, they thought nothing of it. Then she lost her appetite. Martha was one of those women who could tuck away food like no one’s business, ate like a Marine. Martha got sicker. Nauseous all the time. Terrible headaches. The doctors were less than useless. Patti watched her slip away a little more each day.

A suspicion tiptoed into Patti’s thoughts, becoming increasingly intrusive. It started when she read through Martha’s papers, her sister had been re-visioning fairy tales in modern times, and the story she left unfinished was about a witch who was killing her neighbors with sweets and treats she brought by. It was not a big leap to cast Rhetta Brown as the witch. She had visited, all concerned, all neighborly, every couple of days at the back door. A glowing hatred took hold of Patti, illuminating everything: Rhetta cozying up to Martha once they discovered they were both writers, mystery writers, and how they got to sharing their scribblings with each other, how Martha encouraged her, told her about workshops and classes, but Patti knew full well that the pest next door’s work was pure tripe, and that Martha had a genuine gift, always had. It stood to reason that Rhetta nursed a resentment toward the better writer. Maybe it wasn’t much to be a motive for murder, but not completely out of the question, either. She knew writers to be a touchy bunch. That Brown character was unbalanced, anyone could see that.

As the weeks passed, Patti had been able to convince herself she was right, over and over she ruminated on it until it seemed clear as anything—Rheta Brown had killed Martha.

When the coroner had asked about an autopsy and a toxicology report, of course she said yes because from the very beginning she smelled something off. This would dispute any doubt. This would be incontrovertible fact. In the meantime, Patti would watch. And wait.

And now she held in her hands the coroner’s report. There was nothing. Nothing in Martha’s system. No poison.

Nothing.

The cause of death remained “Natural Causes.”

She was wrong.

Had been wrong. The whole time. She had leapt to conclusions, believed in a complete fabrication of her own mind. Patti felt all the air escape her lungs. A bell clanged in her head as the full reality of the truth rang through her. She had convicted Rhetta Brown of the crime in her heart and hated the woman with every cell of her body.

The two pages, the torn envelop, the store circular and the postcard, fell from her hands and fluttered down to the ground silently. She headed toward the stable, her old boots shuffled on the dusty driveway as she dragged shut the heavy doors behind her. Alone in the darkness, she went up to the wagon, touched it with the tips of her fingers lovingly, a caress that remembered long days on endless stretches of road, windows open, radio blaring. Happy times. Inside, she pulled the door, heard the solid thunk as it closed. She sat behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition. With a satisfied sigh she leaned into the leather upholstery, the engine tuned over with a soft rumble and a roar. The chrome exhaust pipe rattled as smoke plumed out, thick smoke that hung like a haze in the air.

* * *

Caroline flew through the red light, cutting off two bicyclists and a kid on an electric scooter who told her to get bent. She told him to get bent right back. But it wasn’t fun and games; if she got stopped by the cops she’d be screwed. Three strikes, you’re done. So she gunned out of there. The Square was poorly designed to accommodate traffic now that they added the bike lane to the already narrow network of roads, but she was emboldened.

She had just made the turn into the residential neighborhood, gave a little outlaw whoop, when she heard sirens behind her.

Fuck.

She scrambled through the detritus around her for gum, a mint, something, willing herself to be sober enough to charm her way out of trouble and knowing it was probably a lost cause. Blue lights flashed in her rearview. The sirens got louder. She dutifully pulled over in the shade of an ancient tree, rolled down her window the rest of the way. She breathed into her hand to gauge just how bad her breath was. Fuck.

Caroline was not a praying woman, but in moments of dire consequences of her ill-fated choices, which were many, she did have a mantra which she repeated now, her eyes closed tight and her voice barely a whisper: Holy shit Please Please PLEASE holy shit holy shit I’m fucked please please I promise oh please

The speeding cruiser with its lights flashing passed her. And kept going. Then another whooshed by. When she opened her eyes, she saw an ambulance fast approaching, and further away, the shriek of a fire truck could be heard over the pounding of her heart in her chest.

For the second time in less than 24 hours, neighbors came to their doors and windows to watch something unfolding in their midst as the house at 217 was buzzing with activity. Caroline peered through the pollen coated windshield. A team of paramedics carried a stretcher. A body hastily covered in a white sheet. A man’s shoe, careworn and scuffed, poked out as the crew jostled into the back of the idling ambulance.

* * *

Jeffery Brown was dead.

iv

Who Killed Rhetta Brown?

The car hugs the curving road as it snakes its way down from the beach. A snow fell during the long night, but the morning is silent, everything blazes white and still. Even the gulls seem frozen in flight overhead. The road dips for a stretch, a thin ribbon to skate along under arching tree limbs heavy with snow.

“Be careful,” Martha says, laughing.

Martha. Has she been here this whole time?

“Of course,” her sister says, “Don’t ask silly questions. Just watch the road.”

Patti feels like she just woke up from a dream, or maybe this is the dream, but no. She feels the steering wheel, the cold seeping through her old gloves, she can feel the tires gripping for purchase on the slick downslope. Along the sides of the road, she can see clearly ice forming on the tips of beach grasses glistening with the brightness of tears.

Where are we going? she wonders.

“There’s one road. Just stay put” Martha reaches over and flicks on the radio, she rolls down her window to let in a blast that blows her hair around, air that smells of the ocean.

She sings the words of the song, screams them into the wind. “Don’t you remember? It used to be your favorite.”

Oh my god. Yes. This song. Patti sings with her, the two of them laughing and singing, she remembers every word. The cold stings her face, pierces her lungs when she takes a deep breath to belt out the refrain, so loud a blue heron standing in the black reeds in the brackish moors flaps off and away over the horizon, but still their voices rise up and up.

When the song is over, a stillness comes over them. On the right, the low dunes stretch away, on and on to the sea, sand dunes shaped by the constant sighing wind. They hurtle forward, the hood of the car vibrates, the chrome lady flies through the crystalline morning.

“Slow down,” Martha says, “you don’t want to miss the best part.”

Ahead, out on Land’s End, the old lighthouse comes into view like a mirage floating on the sand, and Patti realizes she needs to tell her sister now, before they go any further, before they get to the end. She must explain everything to Martha.

Martha puts a finger in front of her lips. “No need,” she says. “I know.”

Caroline collapsed with exhaustion onto the driveway as the paramedics took over getting Patti Andrews to put on an oxygen mask. The old woman batted them away.

“Leave me be!” Patti pulled the apparatus off her face. “Let me alone!”

For someone who was practically blue with death a few minutes ago, the woman had come back from the maw of oblivion with a vengeance. She was pissed.

Caroline had seen smoke coming from under the garage doors. The house she immediately recognized, she had driven Martha home from workshop many nights over the years, she jumped out of her car before she even had the chance to think about it. “Hey!” she yelled to the crew next door, who had just put Jefferey Brown’s lifeless body into the back of a waiting ambulance. “Hey! Somebody help!” She was miserably out of shape, she realized it the moment she tried running the few feet from the car and was panting when she dragged the heavy door open to have heavy smoke pouring out that burned the back of her throat, making her cough and her eyes tear up. She was able to make out the shape of the car, see the body slumped in the driver’s seat. She half carried, half dragged the unconscious woman out of the garage just as two uniforms rushed up the driveway.

She rolled over onto her side, still coughing, her heart banging against her rib cage. She heard one of the cops who had come with the medics squawk into his radio that another house on the street needed assist, in addition to the body found at number 217, there was another next door, a victim of possible suicide attempt, an elderly female who was being revived on the scene and may need a psych eval.

Patti had tried to kill herself. Jefferey Brown was dead. What was going on?

The cop muttered to his partner when he signed off his radio call that the neighbors were really getting an eyeful, it’s not every day there’s this much activity on a street like this. Caroline saw folks gawking from their lawns, sitting at windows with curtains discreetly held open, everyone abuzz over the turn of events in the neighborhood that was so Conservative, some of the older houses still had British flags displayed. Nothing was supposed to disturb the peace here, and it is almost certain that in some of these dark parlors behind damask draperies more than a few suggested in quiet voices that this is what happens when you let people like the Browns, people like Rhetta, elbow their way in. There was one old bag pretending to be watering  rhododendrons, who couldn’t keep eyes off the scene at the Andrews’ place, and it gave Caroline an inordinate amount of satisfaction to see the prune face crumple when she gave the lady the classic double bird. “Viva la Revolution!” Caroline laughed which hurt her lungs a little, but part of her knew she was no better than all the other voyeurs who get a giddy high around murder, who find an odd sense of comfort in the terrible things that happen to other people. She lived on True Crime and murder. it was too much to think about right now though.

Meanwhile, Patti Andrews was still kicking up a fuss. They had to hold her hands down to keep her from swatting the guys trying to help her breathe, until one of them finally said, “If she can yell at us, she can breathe. Let the cops and the doctors figure it out. We’ll be on standby if they need us,” and they hung back and let the old gal do her thing, which was cussing them all out, including Caroline, who had no business interfering, Patti was an American citizen, she paid her taxes and then some, she voted regularly and was on time with her bills, who had a better right to decide whether or not their life had played out its usefulness? She was alone in the world and she had every right to assert control over her own body as she was hurting no one, a point of philosophy not currently embraced in the law and so the cops were having none of it, the one who seemed to be the lead officer said to her bluntly: “Listen, this young lady saved your life,” he pointed over at Caroline’s slack body, “not everybody takes the time, not everybody cares about other people to do what she did for you. You should be kissing her ass. She’s a hero.”

Caroline didn’t know about that, but something in her chest rose up she had never felt before, and she tried to figure it out as she lied there still laughing like an idiot.

* * *

When Peter Kaye heard about this all, he confided to Shaw what he had secretly kept in his heart: if he were allowed to have a favorite, which of course he wasn’t saying anything like that, but if he were, he’d have to confess that Caroline was it. “She has real substance.” Of course, he kept his voice low enough that June in the next room wouldn’t overhear. June had aways assumed that she was his favorite, and sometimes it’s best to let things go.

June had been on the phone ever since she got the first call from Debra, who had a police scanner she was addicted to, and since she’d been laid up with COVID all weekend she had no other entertainment but to listen to the comings and goings of law enforcement, and she was the first to break the story about Rhetta’s husband being found dead, and Patti Andrews found nearly dead, and who should have been on the scene but their own Caroline. June allowed herself a pang of envy that it was not herself who had the fortuitous luck to be where the action was, when she had just been there only hours before. She even chastised herself for not sensing Patti’s apparent distress, but how can you know what someone is thinking? How can you know when someone is at that brink? It was a sobering thought to have as she jotted down the main points she gleaned from her various phone calls. She talked loudly on the phone, the other two could easily hear her through the wall.

It was Shaw who finally asked, “So am I the only one who feels worse confused now than ever?”

There were more questions than answers:

How did Jeffery die? And why? Did he kill himself out of guilt because he had killed Rhetta? Did someone else kill him? And if so, were they also the one who killed Rhetta?

Why had Patti tried to kill herself? Did she have something to do with Rhetta’s death?

Peter waved away the interrogative, he had no solid idea and this upset him.

The two men were in Peter’s snug dining room setting the table for the evening’s dinner party which was intended to bring the workshop writers together, to synthesize their theories about the murder of Rhetta Brown. When it was planned earlier this afternoon there was a hint of hubris which by now with evening fast approaching had completely evaporated as the new information didn’t make any sense. The fact of murder had taken on weight. It was no longer a parlor game to be played over wine and nibbles. What are you supposed to serve after two and a half deaths? But still they set the table.

Peter sighed.

Shaw could tell his friend was distracted because he did not re-set every article of cutlery Shaw had laid down, he didn’t straighten the knives or smooth down the napkins, or make those clucking sounds every couple of seconds. He was listening to June in the next room, his brow creased with thought.

Shaw was glad at least he wasn’t the only one at sea. 

When June stood in the doorway with her mouth still open both men stopped what they were doing and looked up.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” she said, pocketing her phone for the moment. “I just got finished with Joseph.”

“Joseph? Is he OK?” Peter was starting to fear everyone he knew was somehow vulnerable.

“He’s fine,” June waved her hand as if to dispel anything more unpleasant on this day of unpleasantness, “I had to let him know about Caroline, and of course he called her a hero too, like everybody, but then he told me the most interesting thing.”

“Now would be an excellent time to tell us,” Peter sniffed.

She ignored his snark, she always did. “For starters, we were completely wrong about the poison, and how it got in the mix.” June was enjoying her moment. “It wasn’t antifreeze,” she said. “It was something else, another common everyday thing, right there in plain sight.”

“And how does Joseph come by this information?” Peter asked.

“Joseph’s got himself a new fellow, it’s about time if you ask me.”

Peter nodded, they agreed Joseph was a lovely man who deserved the best.

“Mazel tov,” he said.

“Guess what?  The beau is an officer right here in our precinct, and he’s has been on the scene all day pretty much. He even got a statement which blew up the whole thing.”

“Something that was in plain sight?” Shaw was intrigued about the poison. He had been teasing the how in his mind, wondering how poison got into Rhetta.

“I’m getting to that,” June nodded, still savoring having a starring role in the drama, “like is said Joseph’s young man got a statement himself, someone walked into the department. It wasn’t antifreeze at all.”

“No?” Peter asked.

“It was weed killer.”

“Weed killer?” Shaw hadn’t heard of that one before.

“Yup,” June could barely contain herself. “It was in the sugar bowl.”

* * *

Eunice Linden did not like being kept waiting. She had been sitting here for quite some time, the chair was uncomfortable and the cramped interview room was kept far too cold. She’d had a lovely chat with a handsome young officer, a green sapling of a lad, who was not the least receptive to her charms. She’d smiled at him, gave him the head tilt, she talked in that hesitant voice she had cultivated in her long career dealing with men. This one was all business. Professional. But still. He just took down her statement, asked a few perfunctory questions, and excused himself to leave to go talk to his chief.  She reached in her purse for a the little compact and checked herself in the mirror. Perfect. For a moment she felt that unwelcome chilling worry that she wasn’t getting any younger, maybe she was losing her edge. But clearly that wasn’t the case. She shut the compact with a definitive snap and tossed it back into the Birkin. A glance at her wrist told her Handsome had been gone now for 23 minutes. Unacceptable. She was sure she’d be speaking to someone about this, the chief or whoever runs things in this roach trap.

 What could the guy be doing, anyway? She could recall everything she had told him, she’d rehearsed it enough times in the car:

Jefferey had been acting very strange lately, he was worried about money, he was always worried about money, and Rhetta was worse than a thorn in his side. She told the officer all about their affair, mindful of looking up through her wispy bangs to give him an understanding of her vulnerability. Eunice was sure to emphasize how it was largely her pity for poor Jeffery that lead her to offer him comfort and solace, she was one of those people who was such an empath others were naturally drawn to her seeking compassion.

The officer took a lot of notes at that part.

Then she let her voice waver, just a little, she did this by constricting her throat ever so slightly when she told all about how Jefferey had killed Rhetta, how he’d been plotting it for weeks, months, how she wished she could have talked him out of it, she had tried, she really had tried, and then for a little while he seemed to drop it so she thought the whole crazy mania had passed, but last night when she heard that Rhetta had been killed, well she knew he must have done it, and of course it was her duty to tell the police.

She smiled at the young man.

She told the officer about the sugar bowl full of poison, and how it was just sitting there waiting for Rhetta to come along, it was something Jeff talked about doing. Why not put weed killer in with the sugar, and let nature take its course, Jefferey had said it just like that, she made sure the officer took the quote down.

How awful. Poor Rhetta. Eunice didn’t have a tissue handy which wasn’t a problem since no actual tears came, still she accepted with a gentle thank you the one Handsome handed her and she did the delicate dabbing of her dry eyes.

She regained herself enough to go on, after a tiny sip of water from the bottle he’d kindly given her earlier. Had she thanked him for it? She had, the young man assured her. She confided that she was worried that Jefferey might do something, something out of desperation, he might harm himself out of guilt or shame.  Hadn’t she gone over to check on him, like any caring, compassionate neighbor might do? He was a prickly, on edge. Everything he did just confirmed her suspicions, but she was cool, she was very cool she could attest, and she acted as though nothing had changed. She even made him coffee. Served it to him with her own hands.

And here the officer asked her one of his pointless questions: how did Mr Brown take his coffee? She told him that Jeffery had a terrible sweet tooth, but she was always on a diet, she said, shrugging off the vigorous sacrifices she was willing to make.

And then another question: what do you do, Mrs. Linden?

That made her laugh. Where was he coming up with these unnecessary digressions?  Whatever. She didn’t mind a chance to talk about herself so, what the hell. She reminded him that she was so very empathic, evidenced by her numerous charities and support of the arts, her board memberships, the money she’s raised for this and that, and she belonged to a dozen clubs, perhaps he knew her work with the Cambridge Gardner’s Club, and how her Juliet roses had won prizes? He hadn’t, but he did seem interested in gardening, and asked her about how she took care of roses, and she made a point to let him know that even though she could, she never trusted a gardener with her beauties, did everything herself. She was proud, she wasn’t ashamed to acknowledge. Her life had always been devoted to bringing more beauty into the world, and wasn’t that really the most worthy calling?

And that’s when he left. Took his notepad and his stubby pencil and his gorgeous self out of the interview room.

27 minutes ago.

When she finally heard someone at the door, she set her shoulders to best convey her displeasure about being kept here like this for no reason. Her face was arranged to say she was annoyed. But willing to be placated.

It didn’t matter, for as soon as the door opened all expression drained from underneath her flawlessly applied make up. Handsome stood there, but he wasn’t alone. There were three uniformed police officers behind him. One held a pair of handcuffs.

Eunice bolted up out of her chair. “What’s this?” she demanded.

“I’m very sorry Mrs. Linden, but I’m placing you in custody,” he said.

“This must be some mistake,” she was genuinely confused—hadn’t she laid out the case against Jeffery? Hadn’t she spent the last hour assuring the young man how her ex-lover had felt about his wife, hadn’t she let him know she was almost certain Jefferey could even now be harming himself out of a terrible sense of guilt? She ran through in her mind her statement, she had been letter perfect, exactly as planned, not a misspoken word, not a wasted gesture.

He was unmoved by her distress. “I am placing you in custody under the suspicion of the deaths of Rhetta Brown, and Jefferey Brown.”

Jeffery was dead then.

It was done.

Instead of the relief she expected, a deep pit of horror opened up. Jeff was really gone. It was hard to breathe. She had done it. She had been on the verge of getting away with it. But something didn’t feel right. It came to her. She had made a mistake. A fatal misstep. She slipped when she told Handsome about the sugar bowl full of poison, how she had put it in Jeff’s coffee. She had basically confessed, and he heard it. She knew about the weed killer because she had put it there.

I killed him.

I wanted him dead, and now he is.

She could almost feel herself falling into that pit, giving in to the gravity, the tenacious pull downward into the maw of her fears.

No. She willed herself to visualize side stepping the mess, she knew there had to be a way not to fall.

There were mitigating facts, as she saw it.

Jefferey would have blown up her life. She could have lost it all because of him, if he went to Chip to tell him everything like he promised he’d do, if everyone were to find out about her and Jeff Brown. She was, in effect, protecting herself, protecting her family, protecting the community and the greater public from heartache and scandal. If Jefferey were suddenly to just be gone, the thorny problem was solved.

Stupid Rhetta.  So apt that she should barge her way into poison intended for weeds. Her death was a silly accident, collateral damage, and morally Eunice did not feel responsible for that one. She had never intended to kill the wife. Only Jeff.  They couldn’t pin Rhetta on her, she was almost sure. If Rhetta was unlucky enough to stumble into the sugar bowl, that was fate, and this glimmer of rationalization gave Eunice just enough air to breath again.

She was Eunice Linden.

That still meant something.

“You have the right to an attorney…” Handsome was saying.

The best attorney, Eunice thought. She could pay for the best attorney on the planet. She could walk away from all of this. Her life could go on.

As the man recited her rights, she heard in his voice a deference, and she smiled up at him. He was beautiful. She watched him with eyes softly glowing, she watched his lips like he was a lover reading a Marlowe sonnet, and they stood not in a gray windowless cold box, but in a garden full of flowers in pink bloom.

* * *

The dinner went off as planned. Peter ordered from the Armenian market, so there were fragrant plates and bowls covering the round table where his guests were assembled. There sat Shaw, of course, who even put on a new sweater, and combed his hair.  Next, June Jablonski, who was fielding phone calls the whole time. Then Joseph with his beaming smile and crisp white shirt. And Caroline.

“So, Peter said, pushing himself away from the table and resting his hands on his Buddha belly, “now that we’ve eaten a little and settled in, I was wondering if you all would indulge me. As writers, we know all about narrative, and character, but as mystery writers, a particular and perverse subspecies, we also know the mantra: motive, opportunity, and means.”

June interjected, “Obviously.”

To which Peter gave a raised eyebrow that said now really would be a good time to put down the phone, which she did, after one last longing look at a message that had just popped up.

“I was on the verge of saying,” Peter went on, “I would be very interested to hear from you all who you had thought killed Rhetta?”

An expectant titter went around the table. Everyone sat a little more upright in their seats.

“I’ll start,” the host said, which surprised no one. “Who else thought that the husband did it?”

Joseph raised his hand.

“Why?” asked Peter. “Think: motive, opportunity, means. Also, consider. Motive itself can be parsed into convenient categories: Lust, Revenge, Greed. That’s the holy trinity in our religion.”

“Well,” Joseph began, “as to motive, I suppose in a marriage there may be jealousy, or money problems, maybe another lover.  I confess I did not know very much about Rhetta’s married life. I think I have a bias that the spouse is so often the one to do the harm. Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer is often the correct one.”

Peter nodded. “I share that bias, which is sadly borne out in fact. I thank you for your honesty. Now, what about opportunity? Means?”

“Who has more opportunity than the person living in the same house?” asked Joseph. “As to means. Once we learned it was poison, and not a clubbing, that does simplify the whole story. Any home has poison under the kitchen sink, in the medicine cabinet, any cupboard—”

“That’s right!” Shaw said, “That’s the thing that’s been on my mind. It scares the shit out of me. I mean, who do you trust?”

Everyone took a darting look at each other, followed by a nervous giggle.

June said, “Well, I would trust my life with any of you,” she said, nodding her head, “I mean it. You people are top notch in my book. I didn’t think it was the husband, though. To be truthful, which we are, obviously, I had an uneasy feeling about Patti. I don’t know why. Just a feeling. It was terrible, she is a friend I’ve known for a very long time. But I could have convinced myself Patti poisoned poor Rhetta.”

Shaw agreed. “Me too. I mean, I saw all kinds of hazardous materials in her garage. Maybe that’s what got me thinking about antifreeze. And that whole weirdness with her dog. I thought maybe the dog got into the poison she gave Rhetta. It made a kind of sense. She lived right next door. It wouldn’t be difficult to create an opportunity.”

“And she did try to kill herself,” added June, “we don’t know what motivated that. When I first heard it, I suspected she couldn’t bear the guilt of murdering Rhetta. But the Patti I knew, it just didn’t sit right. It makes me sad, obviously. It’s sad to think of anyone feeling that lonely, that alone. It must be terrible to be so bereft.”

Caroline nodded. She hadn’t said much all evening.

“Ah yes,” Peter said. “This brings me to my next thought.” He got up on his feet, always a laborious process with accompanying groans, holding his glass up, he looked directly at Caroline across the table.

 She tugged at her sleeves. Her face said she’d rather dive under the table than have everyone looking at her.

“Today, my dear girl, you showed such incredible sense of character, such strength.”

“I didn’t do anything that anyone else here wouldn’t have.”

 “You underestimate yourself. It’s not at all a given that everyone would have behaved as quickly or as selflessly. Do not diminish the fact. You saved someone’s life.”

Caroline shrugged. “I think you should ask Patti if that was a good thing, or not. She was kicking and screaming the whole time.”

“In any event, I am so very proud of you, I want to make the last toast of the evening in your honor.”

“Caroline, dear,” said June, “you haven’t had any wine tonight, would you like me to fill your glass for the toast?”

Caroline covered her clean glass with a napkin. “I’m actually good,” she smiled, and raised her water tumbler.

Joseph smiled, reached over to touch her arm. “I am so very proud of you, too,” he said.

“To Caroline!” said Peter, and they all clinked glasses and hugged each other.

Caroline, close to tears, said a quiet thank you.

Peter sat down again, with other noises and groans before he got comfortable again in his chair. “I have been thinking lately,” he said. “I’m getting older,” he waited for a burst of denials from the others, which never came. “I’m getting older,” he repeated, and I’ve been an instructor at the Center for a very long time.”

“And we love you,” said June, “don’t we?”

Everyone did.

“Lately, I’ve been considering that it’s too much for me on my own, I’ve been maybe phoning it in these last few years. What I mean to say is that I think the Center could use a fresh perspective and a new voice. I think the course could use a shot in the arm.”

June worried he might be talking about retiring for good. Thursday afternoons would not be the same, not without him at the front of the class where he belonged.

Joseph agreed.

Peter nodded his thanks, but went on. “Caroline,” he said, “I would very much encourage you to consider a simple proposition. For some time, I’ve thought how effective you would be, if you might agree to my plan. I mean to say, I would love if you would co-teach with me next term.”

“Caroline?!” June couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealously. Wasn’t she after all the most senior member of the group?

Caroline herself looked dubious.

Peter Kaye opened his hands, held out his palms, “If it’s something you’d like to do, if you like it, it’s yours. If you want it, it’s yours. I could pass the torch gladly if you were to take the class over. But be sure, this is my baby I’m handing you, my creation and my one true love, I would entrust it to no one else.”

The table erupted with applause. Except maybe June, who clapped but her heart wasn’t feeling it.

Caroline was wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “You fuckers. I hate you all.”

* * *

During dessert, a contented silence fell over the room, the circle of friends sat savoring the simple pleasures of being alive, full stomachs, being together, candlelight softening their faces with a warm glow.

Shaw had been thinking. “Do you think maybe we should be done with murders? Maybe just go back to normal life?”

“What do you mean?” said June, ready to argue.

“I propose that we never delve into the crimes of humanity again. No more murders!” and he held up his wine.

To which everyone playfully agreed, tinkling glasses together.

But not a single person sitting around the table meant it.



BIO

Norman Belanger is of that generation who survived Reagan, AIDS, and enough Cher comebacks to have earned the badges of a queer curmudgeon. His latest series of long short stories features two old queens who are dear friends that find themselves at the age of sixty wondering what the next chapter of life holds for them. Fate steps in and throws a few murders in their path. Norman has previously published short works from a series entitled Clean, about coming out and coming of age in the era of a plague. These works can be found in Hunger Mountain, Bull Magazine, Barren, Sibling Rivalry Press, and POZ.







MY LIFE BY DISNEY

by Dana Roeser

At twilight
when I was gathering 
         newly sprouted arugula
in the backyard garden, a cardinal
sang to me

from the high limb of 
         an ancient elm. It was a sweet
song
that I tried
         to answer. I apologized again
for Alice killing the robin

because the more I think of it
         the more I think she did
do in Laura. 
         A day after the murder
         I pulled up in my dirt-streaked Toyota

sobbing so hard 
         I soaked a box of Kleenex.
         I could hardly get up the steps.

Alice was inconvenienced, always
having to use the back door. Was she inconvenienced
         by my caring about the robin?

*   *  *

I will not, I cannot, 
         look in the nest 
             high up under the eave
         of my house.
The babes in the woods 
                clinging to each other
in the cushiony bed—frozen with their mouths open—
         their rubbery beaks—
         Or were they still perfect eggs—unhatched—
also frozen—
         b/c the mother left
against her will? 

I’ll never look at Alice the same. And truly I 
         don’t know she was the perpetrator.
The one time that I left her out
         when I pulled away. 
            I knew I’d be back in a couple hours.
I knew the weather was sunny 
            and hospitable.
Alice stared at me
from the end of the driveway

because she likes to go in when I’m out.
   But I was embarrassed
            being already seven minutes
late for Sarah, and I didn’t want
to open my car door,
                              disrupt the bird.

Immaturity is my humility—but that’s for another poem—or no poem.
         (Ask the cardinal.)

The bird calls are a relay, a transference. 
         They know each other
and they all have witnessed it. 
         The father, somewhere, witnessed.
That is the only explanation for the disappearance of
the dogged mother. 
         She sat on that nest, breast puffed, eyes bulging
         and inscrutable,
         her tail jutting out like a stick

through cold rain—she was under the eave, I watched her from
            little arched windows at
the top of the front door. It was ridiculous,
         the weather. 
            We had more than one night
at freezing. (I was busy then covering the
                   baby greens with bed clothes.)
The neighbor cats
            were not clued in, had no
territorial vendetta, though they, especially lithe Horace, may
         have been called in as accomplices.

Tonight. I had come from a twelve-step meeting
                   where people were kind.

I went to one at noon too—I said just who did I think I was?
         Mother-goose? A bird-whisperer? Yet,
         Beach, at Clay Knob Stable today, was also kind, 
            soft, grabbing for apple pieces with
                     his velvety, oversized lips—and disappointed,
I’m sure, that we didn’t get to do our after-
ride ritual (Christy turned him out
            for me) because I had to run

to the car before 4 p.m. to do a financial thing 
         on the phone, the stock market
         had supposedly rallied. 
         My ex-husband told me 
         today was a good day.
I have no income to speak of, as I am old.
         I am spending down the funds that came to me
                   in the divorce. I am almost five years 
         older than my former husband.
                   He still has a job. 
         Income from the part-time job I did have this semester,
according to my accountant,
         actually cost
                  me money. 
         Do the math.
         Weep.

How in the hell 
         did I mislay this man 
                   and my family?
Why can’t I visualize
         my Canadian boyfriend
when he is not here?
My dear Canadian boyfriend who actually said on
            Messenger this week: 
            If we break up (or words
         to that effect), if I have to get a girlfriend 
(online/yoga class/
         coffee shop, etc.) 
         because I can’t wait any longer
for us to be together,
         “I will always interact with you.”

Jesus Christ on a bright purple crutch!!!!

And then on my way home from my circuitous
         “self-care” travels today,
I realized our relationship

         was another victim 
         of my “magical thinking.” As durable 
as Sleeping Beauty 
         or Snow White—their chirping, carefully-colored birds
         and chipmunks—
bursting into song . . .

while Laura is 
         carefully extracting worms
from my little as-yet-untilled strip garden 
         between house 
                   and driveway 
under the nest—

the cat’s 
         going to get her
with lightning speed,

with sharp claws.



O HOLY WEEK, O HOLY SATURDAY


Black Saturday Jesus is in the tomb
            germinating and the people
across the street are rocking out
            to some kind of grinding repetitive
hip hop, interspersed with Bollywood.
            We are college students
We are going to be having a loud
            party this afternoon
and we deserve to enjoy college. So Jesus
            hung in his cocoon while
I burned a fire, opened all the windows,
            felt suicidal and went through
mountains of random bills catalogs manuscripts
            and papers and ultimately
raked through cat litter, took it out with garbage,
            recycling, and compost
all to the grinding neighborhood beat. Kept trying
            to figure out what they could
do to it. Not sex. Not work. Maybe shouting
            at each other at a party, clambering over
each other, dominating
            on their huge wooden oversized chair
in the back yard or in the ever-repeating
            hacky sack or foosball game.

                                    What is really the use of trying
            to win at divorce counseling
when you flunked marriage counseling
            and your ex-husband has a personality
disorder? Patti my beautiful, stoic
            Buddhist AA
sponsor tried to say.
            When you already lost
spectacularly.
            What is your expectation, I believe
she said. Also, maybe implicitly, well
            NVM implicitly. Let’s just say
Patti knows me, has known me. I’m surprised
            she speaks to me.

Jesus was still hatching while this evening I rolled
            my cart through Fresh Thyme. Some appearing-
families, endless sturdy children rolling
            in and out of carts;
the stringy-haired
            tender-looking Goth woman in
the soup aisle, the very thin wan blond
            woman with whom I conferred over the
sushi case. Only California Roll
            remained. She put hers back,
and, later,
            I did mine. Bland tonight
even worse tomorrow and what was I doing
            eating all that white rice. Couple other
random people. Somebody by the Medjool organic
            dates, I think. Maybe a couple near the
remains of the broccoli or bok choy. Produce
            waning. We were all convivial.
We were all flunking Easter.
            At every turn, the handle of my cart
was shocking me.

            After the checker saw the absurdly
expensive “natural,” with-the-shiny-foil
            packaging, Sierra-something,
couture cat food I bought
            and I told her how much better
my cats’ coats were, she and I
            went over her mini-labradoodle
stud’s diet and coat
            supplement. Apparently
his coat is bedraggled. He’s still picked
            up by the breeder twice a month
to do his thing, but it appears that
            it’s wearing him out—all
those different women—or that was
            my guess. I told her I wanted
a dog, which made us both
            happy, me b/c it would
get me out of the man thing.
            The loneliness thing.
All this while a line of people
            formed behind me and random
groceries were plowing
            forward on the belt.

                                                     Driving home
I thought about how sad Beach had seemed
            at the barn yesterday, grounded
in his stall with his hurt foot and the dear
            young person, who must be
home-schooled, far too innocent at age
            seventeen to be attending
any public high school even
            in rural Indiana.
Her fresh face in my face
            asking me all sorts of questions about
Beach, about patient, shark-faced Indy whom
            I’d ridden that day instead of Beach,
about posting the trot,
            and so on. And today
at Fresh Thyme
            the other young person maybe
the same age or a bit older
            going on about the mini-labradoodle
set up. They sort of lease the dog, foster
            him, whatever.

            In all seriousness, I think these
dear earnest young people are what
            Jesus is thinking about there
in the dark. They’re inheriting rampant
            porn, a frying earth, a parent-
and grandparent-killing pandemic. Oh,
            and a brutal war and genocide
on television. & that other thing.

            My raspberries at some point must’ve
gotten loose, were rolling all over the grocery
            bag apparently, because several
dropped into my yard when I got home
            and I just popped them all
in my mouth. All that abundance. All that
            freshness on the young
people’s faces.

            Jesus, think hard. Meditate hard.
As previously stated, I don’t know how
            Patti can stand me, and come to
think of it, I’m not sure she can. We talked
            about meditation. A woman she reads
who writes about Zen and the twelve steps.
            Irish formerly-Catholic Patti said “I hate Easter”
and I must say it was something of a relief.
            I’d neglected to say I’d wanted
to write to my hot convert friend
            up in Toledo
 and say Happy Easter,
            that I missed the big bonfire at my former church
in which we threw
            our palms from the week before;
our little candles lit, blown out,
            and re-lit in the dark sanctuary. The Litany of
the Saints, so beautiful, to which I’d sobbed every year—
            including three years ago—not two hours
before, in our living room, exhausted—
            I’d been to a student event
with my husband before the service—
            and the Vigil had lasted three and a half
hours—when my husband told me he was
            leaving me.

                                    The week after that I went back
            to Mass, not knowing where else
to take my outsized pain—it was packed
            and a woman next to me gave me
her handkerchief
            as my sobbing was getting messy—
and I was convinced it was a message
            from my dead father who always gave
me a hankie and whose clean, folded handkerchiefs
            looked just like hers.

I could hardly get out of the church after
            Mass or through the ensuing
days in which my husband vaguely confessed
            about two other women and precisely
set about organizing his move which happened
            ten days later.

                                    How many times had I stood
in that parking lot before that fire
            with my husband and sometimes one
or the other, or both, of our daughters?
            And then gone
in to stand in the dark sanctuary waiting
            for our little white candles
in the paper cones to be lit hand to
            hand from the priest’s
Pascal candle. Staying standing
            for the long, long reading
of Genesis where
            God divided the light
from the darkness and Exodus, the
            Lord in the pillar of fire
and cloud. Oh how I wish I were there now.

            I heard we are having
yet another hard frost tonight
            —though it is April—
and again I congratulate myself
            for not planting anything yet.
I’m sure it is beautiful there at the garden
            under the dark, pink full moon.
                        Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us.
Saint Michael, pray for us.
            Holy Angels of God . . . .
            The frost drops tonight

like stars.
            Perfect hairy red raspberries tumbling
out of the back door of my car
            and into the yard.



HAPPY DAYS


                        Belle hiding in the narrow brush jump
covered with red faux-brick paper. (Note to both horse and rider:
            the thing will not give.)
                        Her fluffy head
and fat tail coming out of the open top. Frustrated Cohen the
            black pit bull cross
            hanging around her licking her face.

Christy says Let me get a rope for the dog
            so I can rescue the cat
and Roxy can jump the brush jump.

I’m trotting around on Beach. I had to do energy work—
                        my guestimate of Reiki—
            on the horse before I went out there. Seriously.
I didn’t know that that was what I was doing.
            But he lowered his head and let his eyelashes drop
            when I stroked
            the bone behind his right ear.
Also looked at me dreamily
            when I kissed him square on the face.                         

                        Riders don’t always realize that horses
            need reassurance. The day before’s lesson, C. admitted,
“went south.” We were scraping mud
                        off Beach from either side.
 She thought 13-year-old Suzette could handle him,
            but instead he veered right
and broke into a canter down
            the rail—
            maybe she poked him with her heel—

            Suzettte ended up coming off INTO the wall of the indoor
breaking off a tooth—and fracturing her jaw.

                        Still she had the presence of mind,
Christy said, to ask for someone to look for
            her tooth. (Which I did not know
            until today was even
            a “thing.” Those who watch
                        hockey know about it?)
I’m sure the mom was not pleased, but
                        the liability waiver
—which refers to the “inherent risks of equine activities”
            and “death”—is in huge block letters on
            the tack room door.

And everybody signs a copy.

            My job today was to calm Beach down
enough to get him to go over the small jumps
                        without running out. (Or, God forbid,
into one of the hayfields stretching in
            every direction.)
Lily, another beginner, had helped him to realize
            that running out might be an attractive option.

                        The cat hiding in the brush jump, with the dog sniffing her face
            reminded me of how John, about age 12, used to hold
Douglas, age 10, down on the floor and I would slap him.

Then when Mother appeared, John and I would lie.

I am getting ready to confront my ex-husband
            in divorce counseling, to let him know
how much he hurt me. Is that not the most laughable
                        thing you ever heard? Like a person who
                                    pursued two
people while holding my hand
                        in “marriage therapy,” as he called it,
                        would suddenly
be capable of compassion?

Ha ha ha.

The cat’s head rotating around above the box reminded
            me of the woman’s head in Happy Days
the Beckett play my boyfriend lent me.
            Honestly, the grief over our uncertain future
                        is tormenting each of us
            in different ways. He can’t get across the Canadian/U.S. border
and I am a basket case about going up there.

My love bleeds and I go very blank. If I’m going to
            have excision surgery I need to prepare for it.

I need energy work. On myself. Courage to                
            get dipped in acid
            again.
I DO NOT visualize myself as Winnie in                                           
            Happy Days, the tiny circuit of toothbrush,
toothpaste, and comb—
buried to her waist in an earthen mound
            beneath a “trompe-l’oeil backcloth” of
                        “unbroken plain and sky.” A black bag and
parasol beside her. When will “Willie,”
lying asleep
somewhere behind her, speak?
                        Brush and comb
            the hair if it has not
been done or trim the nails

if they are in need of trimming. . . .
            This is going to be another happy day!



REVOLVING DOOR OF SPRING: CHECK ON ME


Trina T. has gone back out.
           It was all over WLFI.

Two OWIs in twenty-four hours.
           First she got hung up on 

a snow drift, drunk, then motored off
           from the officer

who tried to help her. Then she
           had an accident. “You should

have seen her mug shot,” Emily said,
           “and people were

saying things like ‘Lafayette’s finest’
           in the comment

section. Brandi and I had to
           defend her.”
                                 March 11th, apparently,

is the day my father will be released from
           the hospital. On his 93rd

birthday, his blood pressure was 69
           over 40.
                      “I always think

March 11th is the day we start
           to ride outside,” Christy says.

“We could probably ride in the outdoor
           today but we wouldn’t

be able to get there. All the snow is
           melting—the ground

is soaked.” March 11th is three days from
           today. No one knows if Trina has

been bailed out.
           Her husband had just gotten

out of prison which “could
           have been a factor.”
                                               That train accident

was by my rather obvious
           deduction a suicide. The train

was coming from the west
           and Rachel just rolled

her truck slowly onto the track.
           Three-column obituary. An engineer

who traveled the world, rode
           and showed a horse

named Orion, loved guinea pigs, pottery
           (which she made), sunflowers.

In other words, who lived eighty
           lives to my one. Christy

and Josie knew her. I heard about it
           at the barn when I was

having my lesson. Walking and trotting,
           always getting yelled at,

always waiting for the chance
           to jump (when I was young, it was “hunt”).

A hanger-on at the barn—with ten-year-old
           cohorts, college girl

stable helpers. “She, the witness, observed
           and heard the train

coming from the west
           and saw the pickup truck

slowly edge up onto the tracks,” said the
           Chief Deputy.
                                    When Doug heard

about Dad, via my voice mail, yesterday,
           it took eight hours for

him to get back to me. He was
           talking really slow. I wondered

how much he’d been
           drinking. I could tell

he didn’t feel up to calling Thea and sorting
           out the visiting rotation.
                                                  When they

told me Tammy died, I had
           to look up her obituary picture

to remember who she was.  Emily,
           recently relapsed and on the run

from CPS (having been caught driving drunk
           with her child), was the one

who found her. When you endanger
           children as much as she has, Child

Protection Services becomes CPS. Emily had tried
           to call Tammy to check on her

but she didn’t pick up. When
           Emily went over to check on her, she

found her naked on the
           bed, fresh—or not—from the

shower. Emily flashed back to her mother’s
           suicide by alcohol overdose,

replete with note, on her ninth birthday,
           and then tried to kill herself two and

a half weeks later. It was Tammy’s sister
           who called to check

and upon hearing Emily’s garbled voice
           called 911. She had been very, very

thorough in her overdose, though I can’t
           remember right now what

combination of drugs and alcohol she told
           me she used.
                                Arlene at the nursing home

was perfectly cheerful about
           my father last night, said she

only wished they’d caught it sooner
           so he could have avoided going

to the hospital.
                              He sounds
           like he is trying

to speak from a deep
           well. Thea said on the phone

that when she arrived she found
           him “unresponsive,” deploying

a medical default/buzz word. I knew
           it would be okay, though, because

the night nurse “Jackie” last night
           on the phone said she was right

outside his door, had just checked on him, and
           that he was “adorable.”                           
                                                             A man in the my

home meeting about
           whom I’ve been nursing

some kind of an obsession asked me
            for my phone number and I nearly

died. I kept thinking, Is this a date? I gave
           him my number and my last

name and he gave me his. I know what it was
           really for. I know we had

more important things to do
            in that room than

have a Valentine’s dance. I think about him,
           how raw and in pain he seemed a

month or two ago, how I was worried
           he’d go back out

(but he didn’t and that was all
           that mattered).
                                       When Andy refused

to watch Lola, and Mia was paranoid,
           I told her to ask

the reason. She ended up
           sobbing to him on the phone. Then

someone she knew from Lola’s school
           saw Mia in Target in the hour

before the meeting and offered to take her so Mia
           could have some peace.

Andy said it was just work that
           was bothering him. Mia’s friend

texted a photo of Lola at Tractor Supply—
           or was it Rural King?

I didn’t ask the man why he wanted
           my number. I did not want

to end up sobbing.
                             Doug,
           it’s Daylight Savings

Time, drag yourself up out of that
           hole you’re in. Dad is not dead.

Let’s work on his obituary while there’s
           still time. I’ll tell you

when it’s otherwise. Slim, in your
           gold shoes, carry on,

keep deploying your charm. Mia,
           tell the truth to Andy. Emily, one day

at a time, keep coming back. I’ll call you,
           Doug, and tell you when to

enter the hole for good. Meanwhile, pick up
           your phone once every

thousand years. Let me check on you.



BIO

Dana Roeser’s fourth book, All Transparent Things Need Thundershirts, won the Wilder Prize at Two Sylvias Press and was published in September 2019. Her previous books won the Juniper Prize and the Samuel French Morse Prize (twice). She was a recipient of the GLCA New Writers Award, an NEA Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, and several other awards and residencies. Recent work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Poem-a-Day, The Glacier, North American Review, DIAGRAM, Pleiades, Guesthouse, Barrow Street, Laurel Review, and others. For more information, please see www.danaroeser.com.

Sometimes it Takes Fifty Years to Repair a Friendship

by Kelsey Berryman


            I spent a lot of time with my grandmother, Babcia, growing up. We would swim in her pool, she’d make delicious food, and I’d dress up in her old clothing- she even let me wear her high heels. But what I loved most was when she told me stories.

            Sometimes she would tell me about being a little girl in Poland. Usually, she would gloss over her teenaged years. Sometimes she would talk about her time in Chicago as a single woman in the fifties. But then other times she would talk about the time that she was happiest; as a married woman and later young mother in Erie, Pennsylvania, where she lived in a little apartment building with a bunch of other parents with young kids.

            My grandparents had only dated for a few months before they got married and left Chicago for Cincinnati and then Erie. Babcia hated Ohio. It was too dirty for her. But she loved Pennsylvania.

            She told me about the one neighbor with the bum husband and told me about the one with too many kids, but her favorite neighbor was her best friend Cathy and her husband Fred. They had two kids: Cathie Lu and Mary. Cathie Lu had arthritis. Everyday Mary would knock of her door saying that it was Halloween and ask for some candy.

            When Babcia went into labor with my mother, Cathy and Fred took her to the  hospital. It was a different hospital than my grandparents had planned on going to and my grandfather, Grandpere, didn’t know where to find Babcia until he talked to Fred. It turned out that Cathy and Fred had taken Babcia to the Catholic hospital.

            When my mother was born Cathy told my grandparents to name her Deirdre. My grandparents liked that it was a name that you could yell. But they wanted to change it slightly and named her Daedre.

            Cathy wanted to be godmother to my mother and sent over to my grandparents a Catholic priest to facilitate matters. Though both my grandparents were raised Catholic, they had become disillusioned with the church. Grandpere was called the son of the devil and expelled from Catholic school because he kept asking “how do we know” when ever religion was brought up. Babcia lost her faith during childhood her family was poor and the priest kept telling them to give more to the Church. They didn’t even marry in the Catholic church because the priest demanded that they promise to have as many children as they could. Anyway, a new Catholic priest came over to the apartment to discuss a baptism and when he found out that my grandparents were married in the Episcopal church, he screamed that they were living in sin and had to get remarried. My grandmother sent him packing.

            Babcia said Cathy was a large woman with dark, Italian skin. Once when my infant mother wouldn’t stop crying and Cathy put her on her breasts and rocked her. She knew how to help with a baby because she had so many kids. She would buy her kids clothes rather than wash the dirty ones. But as soon as her husband came home she made him watch the kids and she’d go out to see the same movie twice just to be away from them.

            Eventually, my grandparents moved to California because my grandmother wanted to grow oranges. Since Babcia was a girl in Poland she had hated the cold climate and dreamed of living somewhere warm. Florida had too much mildew so they chose California.

            Cathy and her husband moved to Texas. But both couples all still kept in touch. My grandparents even drove to see them in Houston when my mother was in elementary school. My grandparents saw that Cathy and Fred had a big house with a swimming pool and had had three more kids: Deirdre, Ralph, and Florence.

            Cathy decided to come to California and visit my grandparents. They took her all around Los Angeles, especially Beverly Hills. Cathy wanted to be discovered. She was mad about Rock Hudson and thought that if he would just see her he’d fall in love with her. My grandmother bought her some diet cookies. As soon as Cathy heard that they were diet she ate the whole box.

            My mom said that she had been waiting to meet “Auntie” Cathy. She had heard so many good things about her but didn’t end up liking her. Everything that Cathy said was a patronizing, “Honey” this or “Sweetie” that.

            Cathy talked about to my grandparent about moving out to California. Babcia told her that it was so expensive. Cathy could have a much nicer house in Texas.

            Finally, one night Cathy told my grandparents the real reason she came. She was going to divorce Fred and needed their help. She wanted to punish her husband and wanted my grandparents to hide their children from him. My grandfather immediately said no. Fred loved those kids. It was also illegal to take them over state line.s Cathy was insulted and kept saying that if they were divorcing she would hide my mother for one of them.

            Babcia and Grandpere didn’t hear from her again.  I always wondered what it would have been like if my grandparents had taken her five kids.

            To me Cathy was just a character from my childhood. She was as safe and real as Peter Rabbit. Part of me never thought of her as a real person but a figure of stories that I was told.

            During spring break of my junior year of college, I went to visit Babcia. She was sitting in her maroon recliner and sipping coffee. Babcia had already grilled me about school (“Are you getting A’s?”, “I hope that you will go to grad school” and “Kelsey, education is something that no one can ever take away from you.”) I had given my pat answers. Then we got to an interesting part of the conversation. I lying about my friendships (“Oh, I have really great friends, we hang out all the time.”)

            When Babcia said, “It’s so important to have friends. You know like I had Cathy Xxxyz….” She took a sip of her coffee before adding, “I wonder what she is doing now.”

            Back in college and lonely, I decided to find out what happened to Cathy. I knew that she had lived in Texas and googled her daughter’s name and found a workplace that advocated for the disabled. Given that Cathie Lu had had arthritis that seemed to make sense that she would in a capacity for the disabled.

From: Kelsey Berryman
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 9:08 PM
To: Cathie Lu
Subject: old friendship

Hello,

I know that this might seem kind of random but I might as well ask. My grandmother is named Anna Cottrell and she used to live in Erie, Pennsylvania, and was great friends with Cathy Xxxyz and her husband, Fred. She was wondering what ever happened to them and I told her that I that would look on the internet for them. I assume that you are their daughter Cathie Lu. I hope that this is not too much of an intrusion but if you are so inclined please email me back. My grandmother would be really happy to know what happened to her old friends.

Thanks so much,
Kelsey Berryman

Ten days later I got

From: Cathie Lu
Subject: RE: old friendship
Date: March 26, 2012 12:34:40 PM EDT
To: Kelsey Berryman

Hello Kelsey,

Yes, I am the oldest daughter of Fred and Cathie Lu and we did live for a short time in Erie, PA when I was a child. My mother lives in a Dallas suburb and my dad and his second wife live in Houston. If your grandmother is interested, we can exchange phone numbers so she can call and speak with my mom and dad.

Cathy  A. XXXYZ

            We exchanged a few more emails and on my normal Sunday call I said, “Babcia, I’ve found Cathy XXXYZ for you.”

            “What?”

            “In Texas, I’ve got her phone number for you.”

            “Why on earth would you do that? What if she is still angry at me for not taking her kids.”

            I rolled my eyes because that was so typical Babcia.

            A few weeks later, when I called Babcia she said, “Cathy called me.” She found out that Christine had two kids and Florence worked in design and that Deirdre had a dog that was like her kid and that Cathie Lu had never gotten married. She had forgotten to ask about Ralph. She also talked about Mom. Cathy wasn’t still angry.

From: Cathie Lu
Subject: Sad News
Date: June 20, 2012 8:40:04 PM EDT
To: Kelsey Berryman

Good Evening Kelsey,

I wanted to let you and your grandmother know that my mom died unexpectedly on May 26. My brother will be spreading her ashes in New York City (her hometown) next month.

Cathie Lu XXXXYZ 

Your Mom, my grandmother and my Mom in front of their house in Pacific Palisades before Mom’s ballet recital.






BIO

Kelsey Berryman grew up in California and has been writing since she was twelve years old. She attended the University of Iowa to study writing. She currently works as a teacher and is working on her latest book.




“dates”

by Uzomah Ugwu


1.

Dark shots
Passed out moons
Arise for the night

2.

Moonshine Sundays
Bulls on charge
Meet with red, bullseye

3.

Met with gloom
Decided against the wall
Dreams arranging dates with nightmares

4.

Ice cream cones licked
By adults that
Can’t relive their childhood



“saying goodbye”


Was this a different love song
The kind you only heard in your head

Unmade beds, removed pillows spread across the room
Far to the left I find you in spirits I thought
you were tired of being accustomed to

You locked on tight like a crab on the shore
to an idea that did not include a saga
Where I was a character foreshadowing
great things that in the end you wanted

But was something you couldn’t go after
A new chapter for you to outline a new mattress
For us to spring off of

Which did not matter
what part we couldn’t get pass in our past
couldn’t be hidden
Our love did not spring after winter in
season long after to hear the birds sing outside

Our disturbed windows with the type of crust
similar to ones found in the pockets of your eyes
That I looked into a hundred times wanting

to believe you, believe this believe us
We were just blind and needed to see pass
what it was really worth and giving something more than

Another try because this was a different love song
the one where you forget to cry because you can’t
Accept saying hello or most importantly
knowing when to say goodbye



“trail of blood”


Outside her belly is the distant north
That outweigh risks. She clutches her tummy
Like a check-up to see if it’s there watching above


Life caught in the air
She breathes two breathes
Two come out. One inhale
They make it
Hard to stand
Can’t keep the pace
No one is alerted
They walk on too painful to make a plea to stop


A trail of blood lies behind her
Paired with the outline of her shoes
She can’t find a heartbeat
For her or her baby
She grabs her belly once more
She walks to freedom alone
With a problem with her god
Soiled in the loss of life
Now hollow, she sees the border
As not a place to live life but to lose one





BIO

Uzomah Ugwu is a poet/writer, curator, editor, and multi-disciplined artist. Her poetry, writing, and art have been featured internationally in various publications, galleries, art spaces, and museums. She is a political, social, and cultural activist. Her core focus is on human rights, mental health, animal rights, and the rights of LGBTQIA persons. She is also the managing editor and founder of Arte Realizzata.







CHARLOTTE, DAMNED BY WATERS

by Jacob Strunk


            She feels their eyes on her, and she hears the accusation in their silence as she drops down from the cab of her truck. She drops the tailgate, pulls out two black trash bags bulky with waste. She stickers them and walks them across the transfer station lot. The half dozen or so folks already there stop jawing, watch her with stony stoicism as she hoists the bags into the compactor.

            “Morning, Charlotte.” It’s Zeke, tipping his hat back with a folded knuckle and nodding at her. He’s leaning on the compactor, his arms crossed, heavy work gloves on his hands. She smells alcohol on his breath.

            “Zeke,” she says. It’s not much, but this weekly exchange is about the only pleasantry she’s granted these days on her rare trips into town. She goes back to her truck, pulls out a box of recyclables, walks it across the lot. She makes eye contact with each of them: Fran, the retired school teacher cum town secretary; Peter, who runs heating oil to most of the houses on the mountain; Juliet, who welcomed Charlotte and Alex to town with a basket of blackberry tarts. Juliet looks away as Charlotte passes. It stings. Still. Always.

            She makes a big show of climbing up into the cab of her truck, then theatrically waves out the window to the town dump social club, the lot of them. Only Zeke waves back, spitting brown tobacco juice onto the gravel as he does.

            It’s three miles up the mountain, but it might as well be another world. She turns off the blacktop onto Paradise Road, the truck’s tires crunching satisfactorily on the gravel. Then it’s over the new culvert and left onto Old Cut Road, barely more than two wheel ruts climbing up and away from the horse pastures and seasonal cottages surrounding the village. Up and up, as the trees crowd ever closer, scraping sometimes along the doors, whacking against the mirrors. The canopy chokes out the sun. The windows down, Charlotte feels the temperature drop five degrees. Then ten. She leans close to the open window, breathes it in.

            Then she rounds the final corner and the forest gives way to meadow, her meadow, and every time it feels like being born anew. There are two deer down by the pond. She waves at them, too, but this time she means it. They looks up briefly, then return to chewing the long grass that grows at the pond’s shore. Alex’s grandfather, she knew, had been meticulous about keeping the grass knocked down, pulling most of the weeds and lily pads; he left enough to nurture the frogs and the fish, and every morning he’d sit in the screened gazebo with his newspaper and his coffee. The screen is torn now, the gazebo host to spiders and mouldering lawn furniture. Mice have built burrows in the chairs. The small wooden table, purpose built by hand to hold a cup of coffee and the Sunday Times, sits crooked, its legs chewed by generations of varmints.

            Charlotte parks the truck outside the garage. She stands for a moment, looking out across the meadow, at the green forest stretching endlessly below her, at the peak of Mount Agnes fifteen miles away. The sky to the west looks ominously dark, and Charlotte heard on Vermont Public this morning that a storm system was heading their way. She goes around the house to the back door, kicks off her shoes in the mudroom. The house is silent. She thinks again of getting another dog. It’s so quiet up here. Then again, isn’t that the point?

            Alex was the one with family in Carversville, but it was her idea to move. By June of 2020, New York City felt like a prison. Their apartment was spacious and even had a view of the park if you craned your head enough. But as the realization settled that this pandemic was just getting started, Charlotte began to feel a claustrophobia that was alien to her. Suddenly the city where she’d lived her entire adult life felt like a nemesis, a danger, thick with contagion. She floated the idea to Alex over dinner one night, and by October their apartment was cleared out and on the market, and she was following the U-Haul up I-91 through New Haven and Hartford in their Audi, their mild-mannered rescue mutt Birdie riding shotgun, then onto state highways and through towns you’d miss if you so much looked down to change the radio station.

            Alex’s cousins were relieved to unload the property and wash their hands of the old house. The upkeep was getting to be too much, the repairs too expensive. The price was fair, below market; it was a project house, and they both dove headfirst into the opportunity. After twenty years in the city, Charlotte awoke each morning no less enchanted by the sweet, earthy smell reaching for her through the open bedroom window, beckoning her to step outside, to hold her arms wide and give herself over to the Green Mountains. They painted and sanded and stained. They weathered their first winter by the hearth, bought new L.L. Bean boots. They traded the Audi for the Ford, four wheel drive and a long bed. Alex restored the wood stove in the barn and used the drafty old building as his studio, uncovering the antique furniture and working on a new book with a vigor Charlotte hadn’t seen in him since they were young. They were happy days. Good days. And until Alex died, hanged from the barn rafters by a length of nylon rope, she let herself believe they could stay that way forever.

            The storm arrives in the early afternoon, the sky blackening like spilled ink, an eerie calm settling over the mountain. From here on top, Charlotte can see nearly to Ludlow, and she stands on the porch feeling the pressure drop and watching a wall of rain inch across the valley. Then the winds come. And the downpour. She lights a fire in the fireplace and settles in with a book. She has candles ready for the inevitable loss of power, plenty of fresh water from the artesian well, ice packs already placed in the refrigerator. Truth be told, she feels comfort in the storms. They remind her, in some small way, of life in the city, all chaos and fury.

            The power stays on, and Charlotte bakes a chicken breast and sautés some asparagus listening to weather reports on the radio. Montpelier has issued an alert for possible flooding, and a voluntary evacuation of downtown has already started. The river is already up three feet in Ludlow, which lies almost entirely on the floodplain. But Charlotte’s not on a floodplain. Charlotte is, in fact, on top of a mountain. She’s glad to hear no one’s been hurt; she knows she’d feel guilty for how much she’s enjoying the storm.

            She eats on the screened in porch. She has the lights on, though sunset isn’t for another two and a half hours; the dark sky stretches across to the horizon, high altitude clouds dumping waves of rain. Thunder rolls back and forth through the valleys, and more than one lightning strike lands close enough that she can smell the ozone, hear the crackle of the electrified air. Maybe she should stay inside, but she finds herself always thrilled with the passion of the storms. And hadn’t Alex told her of his grandmother’s warning to stay away from the faucets in a lightning storm? The spring house was hit at least once a summer? Of course, the artesian well went in 30 years ago and the spring house is no more than a brick foundation overgrown by wildflowers. But it sounds like a safer bet out here on the porch, where the air is thick with nitrogen, the cool copper smell of a summer storm.

            Another lightning strike. Charlotte runs a forkful of chicken through the last of her mashed potatoes. She’s heard lightning is attracted to granite, too, and thus drawn to the mountain. But that’s apocryphal, and she’s enjoying the rush of the wind and the tuning orchestra of rain and thunder too much to care.

            She stokes the fire and returns to her book. The power flickers for a beat around 10:30, the lights momentarily dimming. She hears the beep of the battery backup still in Alex’s study sounding its warning alarm. In the kitchen, the fridge clunks as its compressor kicks back on. The fire burns down to embers, and she can finish the book in the morning. She takes her pills, drinks a second tall glass of water, and trudges upstairs. She’s more tired than she realized.

            In the dream, Alex is hanging in the barn, still alive, his fingers frantically fighting the rope, even as it burns into his skin, bites deep into the flesh of his neck. Charlotte is there. On the stairs. Watching. She rubs her hands together. Alex’s eyes remain fixed on hers, even as they bulge out from his skull, as their blood vessels burst and begin to trace red rivers across the whites. Alex’s legs kick, knocking over an antique pitcher, breaking an oil lamp, tapping fecklessly on the back of the chaise. Squeezing her hands into fists, she sees Alex has wet himself, and his grey slacks go dark. Blood runs from his nose, down his chin, and he’s opening and closing his mouth as if trying to speak. He reaches out for her with one hand, his body swaying, his bare feet tapping on the load-bearing beam beside him. She’s at the bottom of the stairs now, looking up at him. His fingers shake as he stretches his arm toward her, then claw at her her shoulders as she steps close to him. She smells urine as she wraps her arms around his waist tightly.

            She wakes sucking in a lungful of cool air. She’s had the dream before, but for some reason this feels more real, Alex more present. She almost feels the heft of his body, the damp of his pants against her chest, a ghost she’s dragged with her into the waking world. But as all dreams do, it begins to fade away, sink back into the inky black of her subconscious, and she finds herself once again present, alone in her king size bed. She blinks in the gloom, looks to her right for the comforting green glow of her digital alarm clock. But it’s gone. At least it seems to be.

            She sits up and barely makes out the shapes of her bedroom windows, open to the night. She fell asleep to the rain, the windows open to carry its iron scent across her as she slipped off. But now it’s quiet, the rain has stopped, the night outside the windows is black as sackcloth, and the power is definitely out. She swings her legs out of bed and stands carefully, takes a few tentative steps. She bangs her knee on the nightstand just as she knew she would, curses, and then reaches for the doorway and turns into the hall, feeling her way to the top of the stairs and then down to the landing.

            She finds one of the candles she had ready on the kitchen counter. She completely spaced on setting one beside her bed, but here she finds a new tapered candle vertical in a holder, a book of matches beside it. Well, she didn’t completely bungle things, she thinks, striking a match. In the dim orange glow of the candle, the kitchen encased in amber, she retrieves a glass and pushes it against the refrigerator’s water dispenser. Nothing. Of course. Come on, Charlotte. Time to wake up. She sighs and fills the glass from the tap, drinking greedily.

            She pads into the living room on bare feet, holding the candle in front of her like a Dickens character. She chuckles to herself. A few dying embers in the hearth give off the barest weak glow, dark red like burned skin, refusing to give up the ghost. Charlotte squints out the window, leaning closer until her forehead is pressed against the cool glass. There’s no moon. No stars. No light. The cloud cover must be thick overhead, she thinks, like a mat pulled over the mountain.

            It smells great, she thinks, and then she turns and takes a few steps back toward the kitchen. But. She stops. Listens. She can swear she heard something. She listens, frozen, the candle’s flame splashing flickering nightmares across the wall, stretching shadows into grotesques. There. She hears it again. Something in the woods, maybe. Or down the hill? She goes back to the window, crouches beside it and leans in close to the screen, turning her ear toward the night.

            A cry wafts up at her from somewhere out in the dark. Her hand goes to her throat instinctively, her mouth slack and open. She leans in closer, pusher her ear against the screen. Again the plaintive wail comes to her from afar, pulled apart by distance, an echo of itself. It’s a sheep, she thinks. One of Mary Stein’s sheep got out in the storm, and it’s wandering around in the woods. It’s lost and scared and –

            Closer now. Almost human. But it can’t be. The sheep have gotten out before. She’s found them in her flowers, mowing the perennials down to the ground, chased them off with a broom. Yes, of course that’s what it is. She straightens. Sound does weird things up here. She knows that. It carries. It distorts. By the time it’s run its way through the trees and creek beds, across the meadows, it could be anything. She shakes her head and chuckles. The stillness outside gives way to the slow build of a north wind, and she hears the trees creak and pop, the water blown from their leaves like a fresh shower in itself.

            She pauses at the bottom of the stairs, hearing the sheep’s call again. With the wind picking up, she imagines a new overtone, something frantic. She hears it again and thinks, yes, there’s panic in that. Fear. Then the wind gusts up, and before the rush and roar of the trees drowns it out entirely, Charlotte thinks – just for a moment – it almost sounds like a shriek. It almost sounds like high laughter, shrill and mad. Then she reminds herself just how silly that thought is, stupid, and through the open windows now is only the rustle of leaves, the low howl of the wind through the forest and up the mountain. Charlotte grabs the matches from the kitchen counter, gently holds the matchbook between her teeth, and cups her hand around the candle’s flame as she heads back upstairs. When she wakes three hours later, shortly after dawn, it’s raining again.

            Alex found out about the affair the same way everyone else did. Melissa Eli – shortly before screaming out of town in her Subaru Legacy, leaving broken windows and myriad household debris piled in the yard where it landed – spray painted in black on the side of her  own house, shared until that very moment with her husband of 26 years: “CHARLOTTE FROST IS A HOMERECKOR!!!!!” (sic) in letters two feet tall and slanting slightly downward from left to right. Alex passed by the next morning around 8:00, just as a few neighbors stood at the property line with steaming mugs of coffee watching Roger Eli spill white paint all over his lawn, tripping and fumbling, trying with broad strokes to cover the slanderous graffiti. But as Alex passed, Roger looked over, and their eyes locked, and Alex knew it wasn’t slanderous at all. In that look, in the way Roger’s shoulders slumped and he cast his eyes down, Alex knew it was truth.

            He did not so much as feather the brake. Instead, he turned his head forward again and continued through town, then out past the horse pastures south of the Methodist church, eventually turning left on Highway 155. He returned home at 2:00 pm as planned, carrying the books and notebooks he’d used in his lecture.

            Charlotte waited, silent, in the bedroom as he went into his study, replaced the books on the shelves. She heard him open the top left drawer on his desk, shut it after placing his notebooks neatly inside. She listened as he went to the kitchen, filled a glass with cold water from the refrigerator, stood and drank it, probably gazing out the window to the east, as he often did, across the valley. Then she heard his footsteps slowly climb the stairs, traverse the hallway, approach the door. Her head hung – silent, swaddled in shame – she saw his shoes enter, pause in front of her, then cross again toward the closet. Saying nothing, she watched him pull down a suitcase.

            He set the suitcase on the bed next to where she sat and said, “I think I’ll stay in the barn for awhile.”

            Charlotte’s kicking herself. She pulls open drawer after drawer in the kitchen, but has so far only found two AAA batteries, both crusted with green acid. She dumps them in the trash and puts her hands on her hips. She spaced on this, too, batteries. When was the last time she even thought about buying batteries? The whole world is rechargeable.

            Sure, she has the big backup in Alex’s study, and she can use that to charge her laptop a few times, not that it does any good with the modem and router dark and silent, plugged into outlets with no juice. And she has the travel bricks she bought to charge their phones when they went to Rome in 2019. Even her emergency flashlight is rechargeable – and she topped it off before the storm.

            But now she’s standing in the middle of her kitchen holding a 35-year-old portable radio, its shiny aluminum antenna extended like a child’s hand to god, and she can’t even remember the last time she held a fucking AA, let alone two, let alone new. She goes to the living room, checks the remotes for the television (AAAs, and beginning to crust; she tells herself to make a note to replace them before they burst) and the Apple TV (rechargeable via the same lightning port as her phone, of course). Even her vibrator uses rechargeable lithium ion. Then something strikes her, and she crosses through the dining room.

            She pauses just for one second, then turns the knob, pushes open the door to Alex’s study. It’s on the desk right where she knew it would be, right where it always was and where he left it the last time pushed one of his yellow number twos into it. Charlotte picks up the Sharper Image pencil sharpener, turns it over, says a little prayer to whatever deity happens to be listening, and pops the battery compartment.

            “Gotcha, fuckers,” she says with relish, and plucks the shiny AAs from their nest.

            She tunes in 89.5. The governor has released a statement. Charlotte leans in close. The flooding is bad. Worse even than they expected. Some areas received up to nine inches. The Black River, swollen like a gangrenous limb, has flooded downtown Ludlow with two feet of water. Consumed it. Montpelier’s downtown is under five feet of toxic sludge. The state capitol. On the gas range, her kettle begins to whistle. It’s a scream by the time she kills the heat and pours water into her French press.

            The rain is still coming, maybe even another inch or two before the front moves east. A railroad trestle in Wallingford washed away, leaving the tracks dangling thirty feet up like telephone wires. The Weston Playhouse, mere feet from the river, was inundated. And at Proctorsville, a mudslide has made the highway impassable, possibly for days. Charlotte pours coffee, looks out the window. Still coming down and it’s almost 9:00am. She wonders what will even be left by tomorrow.

            On the radio, we’ve returned to our regularly schedule program, and someone from Pasadena is concerned about wildfires. Charlotte takes her coffee into the living room and pokes at last night’s embers. Cold. She probably should have built it up before bed, but she hadn’t expected the temperature to continue to drop through the night. It’s down to 50 this morning, from the mid-70s yesterday, and with most of the windows open all night, it’s not much warmer inside. She kneels, carefully arranging fresh kindling, pushing aside last night’s ash, while shaking her head at herself. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t expected a lot of things.

            By 11:00, the radio has gone softer and softer until finally, as the anchor’s last words distort into a terror of diminishing static, it goes silent. Charlotte’s checked and checked again, and those were the last AAs in the house. Her phone’s fully charged, of course, but there’s no signal. Not even the “SOS” in place of bars that usually comes with dropping off the national network and onto some ancient 2G capable only of emergency calls. Nada. The rain falls steadily; the sky a grey void, formless and infinite.

            At around 2:30 that afternoon, Charlotte wakes from an unintended nap on the couch to a bright fist of sunlight square in the face. She straightens, cracks her back, and then stands and moves to the window. The rain has stopped, and the clouds are beginning to break up, move apart, winnow themselves east like oil in water, leaving behind a brilliant azure sky to the north and directly overhead, so blue it’s almost black, so blue it almost hurts. Charlotte steps into her boots, not bothering to lace them, and pushes through the door into the yard.

            It’s colder still now, but Charlotte turns her face to the sun, squeezing her eyes shut, spreading her arms wide and pushing her chest out toward the mountains like a greeting. Her ears swell with birdsong, her nose fills with the swollen sex of the mountain, musty and ancient. From somewhere far away, she thinks she hears someone calling, shouting. Could be the Yosts down on Paradise Road, she thinks. They’re not 15 yards from the lake, and if it jumped the dam…

            Charlotte tosses two more logs onto the fire and closes the glass door. She slides her phone into her pocket; maybe there will be a signal down the road. She digs through the closet for a coat, and pulls a stocking hat down over her ears for good measure. She certainly hadn’t expected that the second weekend in July. She grabs keys to the truck, laces her boots this time, and heads out the back door. She doesn’t get halfway to the garage before she sees the futility.

            Below the garage, where the driveway begins to curve downhill and to the south, a washout has carved a deep channel. She pushes the truck keys into her back pocket, sighs, and walks down the driveway to survey the damage. It’s only four feet wide, but it’s deep. At least that again, maybe deeper. Four wheel drive isn’t getting anyone over that, not anytime soon. Charlotte looks back at the garage, back up at the house, and then figures since she’s already out here, what the hell.

            A few feet into the trees uphill, before the swollen ditch and the failed culvert she imagines she’ll find washed somewhere downstream in the woods when things dry out enough to look, she’s able to hop across the washout to the other side. Her knees chide her for attempting such a stunt, and she nearly slips in the mud and sends herself backwards into the abyss. Just what she needs right now, cracking her head open on a fieldstone and bleeding out within sight out of the house.

            The last of the clouds has moved on, and the sky is crystalline in its cobalt glory. As she walks down Old Cut road, mostly intact but with a few deep ravines carved by the storm, she realizes she can’t hear a single engine – not a plane or a truck or even one of the backhoes the county surely already has out to work on the major thoroughfares. Other than the crunch of her boots on the wet gravel, she hears no noise made by man. The sounds of nature are almost deafening. Birdcalls, wind-tickled leaves, and all around her the shoosh of running water, the entire mountain’s watershed pouring into larger and larger brooks, streams, creeks, tributaries. The water follows ancient paths; it moves without forethought, without doubt, without guilt. The water is unstoppable, she knows, despite the best laid plans of mice and men. It will find its way home.

            Then from somewhere far off, she thinks she hears voices again. She stops. Listens. Waits. Her ears are overwhelmed with birdsong, with the rush of waters and breath of wind. There it is again. A high call, powerful, cutting through the symphony of the forest. It’s no voice, she knows that. Not human, anyway. It comes again, mangled by the wind, and Charlotte thinks it’s gotten closer. So close she believes she should see something. But there is nothing in the trees, just dappled sunlight, mist rising from the forest litter like spirits. A rooster, she thinks. A storm like that puts everything on edge, shakes up reality. It’s a rooster who doesn’t have any reason to know it’s going on 3:00 in the afternoon. She shakes her head again and walks on.

            Charlotte’s sister came to stay with her in the week before the funeral. Emily drove Charlotte to the funeral home, held her hand and helped answer the awful questions. She cooked for them both, let Birdie out into the yard and fed her morning and evening meals. The phone never rang. No visitors came with casseroles or pies. No meatloaf was delivered, nor condolence cards. Emily knew better than to mention it, to ask, to pry for details. She knew her sister, and just like she always had, she stepped in to take care of her.

            Charlotte spoke little that week, a polite thank you when Emily set a plate before her, another when it was taken away untouched. Grief is an animal, and it hungers. It can be observed, understood, even – in time – tamed. But it has a mind of its own, and it follows an instinct alien to us; it follows ancient paths we’ve never had opportunity to trace. The grief fell over Charlotte like a cloak, heavy, its insidious musk overcoming all other senses. And with it came the guilt, gnawing at her, working at her like floodwaters eroding a riverbank. Poor Alex, a kind, quiet man who had helped a young woman pick up the pieces of her abusive childhood, her wild college years. Sweet Alex who had been patient with her, had sat with her as she cried, gagging on the past, retching up memory. Alex, who had only ever been fair. And kind. And made her feel safe. And she had, what, gotten bored?

            Twin snakes, grief and guilt, coiled around her, pulled themselves tight, cutting off her air, choking out the light. Only Alex’s cousins attended the funeral, a small graveside service at the cemetery south of the village. He was buried beside his parents and a brother who died as a boy. Emily, exhausted, forgot herself on the drive home and took them past Roger Eli’s newly painted house. He sat on the porch, drinking a beer. He lowered as his eyes as they passed.

            “Take Birdie back with you to Chicago,” Charlotte insisted. “She’ll be happier there with kids. A fenced yard.” Emily protested, but Charlotte was firm. “It’s not safe here.”

            She doesn’t even make it to the bottom of the hill. A hundred yards before the final turn that would carry her onto Paradise Road and, eventually, the tarmac that led to civilization, Old Cut simply disappears. Through the meadow on her right, a wall of water seems to have swiped the ground away. She steps to the edge of this new ravine and peers down. It’s at least an eight foot drop, and she can hear the trickle of water in the dark below her.

            How is this even possible, she wonders. It must have been some ancient creek bed plowed over a hundred years ago. But the water remembered. It came home. And now she’s stuck on a mountain for god knows how long. She pulls out her phone and thumbs the screen on. Still no signal. She tries opening Safari, pulling up the Times. Nothing. She scrolls to Emily’s contact card, taps “Call”. Silence, not even the judgmental beep of a failed attempt.

            She pushes the phone back into her pocket, puts her hands on her hips, stares across the yawning six feet between her and – what? Another road? Who even knew if Paradise Road was intact. Hell, the highways were impassable this morning, said the radio, and the backroads of Carversville must be pretty far down the county road crew’s list of priorities. And if they were, so what? Was she going to go knock on doors and make sure everyone was all right? She’d probably get rocks thrown at her from second floor bedrooms. Tomatoes. She almost chuckles. The live music on the village green is probably cancelled this week. Ain’t that a shame for the good folks of Carversville. Now she does chuckle, thinking of the Neil Young covers no one gets to hear. She turns back to the one mile uphill climb she has ahead of her to the house. At least, she thinks, it stopped raining.

            At 5:00 the sky goes yellow, then purple, then black. Then the rain returns.

            Charlotte hadn’t thought to download any music, so she’s on her knees listening for the third time to the one U2 record on her phone, using the fireplace tongs to turn the foil-wrapped potato she’s pushed into a womb of embers, when a window upstairs explodes. At least that’s what it sounds like. She’s startled so badly she drops the tongs, which rattle and clang on the brick of the outer hearth. She hears the fierce howl of wind and runs upstairs.

            It’s in the guest room, where the two twin beds are now covered in broken glass. Both panes of the swinging windows have burst inward. Shards of glass, splinters of wood cover the room, the furniture, the floor. The curtain flails wildly, and sheets of rain reach greedily through the fanged black mouth of the broken window. Flashes of lightning throw horrors of trees into momentarily relief against the night. Charlotte pulls the door closed; there’s not much she can do about that window now. It must have been a pressure wave, the wind must have –

            Behind her, another window blows in, this time in the bathroom. She goes to pull shut the door, seeing in a flash of lightning the bathtub filled with broken glass. But there’s something else. She walks carefully, feeling her way in the dark, her boots crunching glass on the floor, and puts her hands against the window frame. Rain spatters her face, icy needles, but she waits. And in another flash she sees – but it’s impossible – she thinks she sees water, out past the garage, not just coursing but – it can’t be – standing. Standing water. But that driveway, and then Old Cut Road, that’s all downhill for a mile, then another mile down and around the wide base of the mountain to the village and the lake.

            Should have kept the kayaks, she thinks and tries to laugh. It doesn’t work.

            She pulls the door to the bathroom closed, then the other doors upstairs to her bedroom and the sewing room. The storm front must have brought with it a low pressure system, and these old windows – but they’d blown in. Not out. The windows had blown in. She’s at the bottom of the stairs, reaching for the burning candle she left on the kitchen island when the glass over the sink splinters into shards and blows across the kitchen like a shotgun blast. A few shards whip past her hand, leave deep grooves in her flesh, embed in her palm. She pulls her hand back as the candle is blown out and away, and in another flash of lightning she sees canyons carved into her hand as if it, like the candle, is made of wax. She wraps the bottom of her coat around it and turns to drop the three stairs into the living room, but in another flash she sees a gallery of faces at the broken kitchen window, their mouths drawn long, gaping black, toothless and hungry. Their eyes sunken hollows, lifeless cavities rimmed with sickly, split flesh.

            She screams, she can’t help it, and trips on the last stair into the living room, sending herself sprawling in the dark onto the floor. She hits an end table and something smashes to the floor beside her. Their faces, god, their faces. But that’s impossible, too, isn’t it? Of course it is. She crawls to the fire, whipped into a vortex by the wind, twisting up past the flue, roaring like a caged animal. She unwraps her hand, holds it close to the light of the fire. The deep grooves darken and then fill with blood, and she hurriedly wraps it again. She feels her way back into the kitchen, hunched against the howling wind, and pulls a hand towel from its hook by the sink. She keeps her head down as she moves back toward the living room, toward the relative safety of the fire, but still she hears their voices.

            Whore, they hiss as Charlotte falls upon the couch, wrapping the towel around around her hand; in the flickering light of the fire, her blood blooms black through the towel. Slut, they seethe through the fire’s roar as Charlotte pulls blankets off the back of the couch down onto her, pulls her knees up to her chest, buries her face. Killer, they chant with the pulse of the rain, the rolling thunder, the crack and snap and sharp report of something breaking.

            Charlotte wakes she’s not sure when. It’s dark, humid. Her mind slowly floats back to her, surfacing, and she pushes the blankets down, squinting against the light. She sees her ceiling, and something about its perfect ordinariness strikes her as profoundly heartbreaking. Then a cloud floats overhead. But it’s not a cloud. She purses her lips and exhales from deep in her chest. Her breath puffs out, drifting up and away. She rubs her eyes, then pulls herself up with one arm on the back of the couch, swinging her feet over onto the floor –

            And into an inch of water. She looks down, incredulous. Is she still dreaming? The nightmare from last night, chapter two, the sequel’s on the water to up the stakes. But no, she’s awake. And a calm pool of still water lies serenely across the first floor of her house like a float of Grand Marnier. She sloshes to the window in her boots, blankets wrapped around her shoulders, and wipes away the condensation. Her mountain is underwater. She is on an island. The uncanny sea laps at the side of the house. She sees ripples, small waves, extending out to where a fog bank swallows the horizon. The tops of trees poke out from the placid surface, shrubs on some nightmare mirror. The mountains rise from the water like an archipelago, Mount Agnes its fulcrum. She looks around the room. The last few charred bits of log float near the coffee table, the fireplace flooded.

            Charlotte goes upstairs to the bedroom, pulls a suitcase down from the closet. She sets it on the bed and pulls open her drawers, throwing underwear, socks, thermals, sweaters into the suitcase. She has to put it on the floor and kneel on it to get it latched. Into a backpack she drops her toothbrush, toothpaste, a roll of toilet paper. She layers: t-shirt, long underwear, sweater, jacket. She pulls the stocking hat down over her ears again. It’s the second week of July. She pulls on wool socks, laces her boots tight against the water.

            She steps out the front door and looks across the flat plane of the new inland sea. It’s beautiful despite itself. Sunlight casts fireworks upon the surface. Charlotte stands for a moment, notes the sky darkening to the west, the wall of the next storm front gathering, planning, plotting, scheming. Then she’s dragging her suitcase through the water, trudging uphill once more to the barn, higher ground, her last safe place.



BIO

Jacob Strunk has been short-listed for both a Student Academy Award and the Pushcart Prize in fiction, as well as the Glimmer Train short story award and a New Rivers Press book prize. His films have screened in competition and by invitation across the world, and his genre-bending fiction has appeared in print for over twenty years, most recently in Coffin BellFive on the Fifth, and his collection Screaming in Tongues, published in early 2023. He earned his MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and teaches film and media in Los Angeles, where he lives with a few framed movie posters and the ghost of his cat, Stephen.