Murder Most Conventional

by Verena Rose (ed)

  The crowd roared as a handsome matron made her way to the podium. Sarah craned her neck until she finally found Mr. Hooper sitting in the center of the front row. To his credit, he was on his feet, cheering along with everyone else, although he must have been mystified as to how he had ended up in this place to see his wife lauded by five hundred Suffragettes.

  She began to speak, tentatively at first and barely audible in that crowded hall, but as she spoke of how she had become a champion for women’s rights, her voice grew stronger and more confident. The audience stopped her several times with raucous applause that seemed to fluster her at first and then to inspire her, until her face glowed in just the way her servants had described. She closed by looking fondly down at her husband, who sat right below the podium.

  “And I would like to thank my husband for coming this evening to support me.”

  As the audience cheered again, Sarah leaned over to Malloy. “Do you suppose he really does support her?”

  “He’ll have to now, won’t he?” he replied with a grin.

  Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the final speaker, and when she had stirred the crowd to a fever pitch, they ended the evening with one more suffrage hymn. As the crowd began to break up, Sarah and Malloy made their way to the front of the room in search of Mr. Hooper. They found him just as he reached the circle of well-wishers surrounding his wife.

  “Delwood!” she cried when she saw him and gave him her hand. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t come, but I’m glad my note convinced you. I hope it wasn’t too horrible of a shock.”

  “It was a shock,” he said diplomatically, since they were not alone, “but not an unpleasant one. Can you come home with me tonight? We have a lot to discuss.”

  “The convention doesn’t end until noon tomorrow. We ladies are staying here at the college, but I’m sure you can find a hotel if you’d like to stay over, too.”

  “No, I’ll just go on home and see you tomorrow,” he said.

  She wished him good night and told him again how happy she was that he’d come, and then he turned and found the Malloys waiting for him. He looked a bit dazed, so they each took one of his arms and escorted him out of the hall, stopping occasionally for someone to welcome him into the movement or compliment him on his wife’s speech.

  Luckily, their cab driver really had waited for them, although they had to wake him from a sound sleep. He was very happy with his exorbitant fare and dropped them at the station in time for them to catch the last train of the night back to the city. Only when they were on the train did they feel free to talk.

  “She didn’t run off with a lover,” Mr. Hooper marveled over and over.

  “And did you hear what she said? She didn’t run off without a word, either,” Sarah said. “She did leave you a note.”

  “But what could’ve happened to it?” Hooper asked. “Why didn’t I see it?”

  The two men speculated for almost an hour, blaming careless servants and even ghosts at one weary moment, but they reached no suitable conclusion. Sarah kept her theories to herself.

  Much later, in the wee hours of the night, they quietly entered Hooper’s darkened house.

  “It’s this way,” he told the Malloys, leading them down the hallway to the back parlor, where the family likely spent most of their time. He lit the gas jet on the wall, which bathed the room in a golden glow. The room was in perfect order.

  Hooper pointed to the mantle where an ornate clock sat, ticking loudly in the nighttime stillness. “That’s where she always leaves her notes, propped up in front of the clock.”

  Sarah walked over to the mantle, removing her glove as she went. Then she reached up with her bare hand and felt along the mantle, which was above her eye level. She almost missed it even then. It was almost entirely underneath the clock, in the shallow space created by the little feet it sat on. She pulled out a sealed envelope with Delwood Hooper’s initials written on it in a feminine hand.

  “I believe this is yours,” she said, handing it to him.

  “Dear Lord,” he breathed, sinking down into the nearest chair. “Do you suppose it was there all the time?”

  “Of course it was,” Sarah said. “Your wife obviously expected you to read it and hoped whatever she wrote in there would convince you to go to Poughkeepsie and attend her speech. The question is, what happened?”

  “It’s obvious,” Malloy said. “The note must’ve fallen over.”

  “But how could that happen?” Hooper asked.

  “Your maid Betty said she aired this room out yesterday,” Malloy said.

  Hooper immediately perked up. “That’s right, she did. All the windows were open when I arrived home. It was so breezy, the draperies were practically billowing. I had them closed at once.”

  “So the note must have blown over,” Sarah said. “But it was almost completely underneath the clock, too, which is probably why you didn’t see it.” Sarah didn’t add that the other reason he didn’t see it was most likely because he was a man, and men could never find anything, especially things they were looking for.

  “How could that have happened?” Hooper asked.

  “If someone dusted the mantle, it might’ve gotten pushed under accidentally. It is a high mantle. I can’t see over the edge.”

  “And your maid Betty wouldn’t have been able to see over the edge at all. She’s very small,” Malloy said.

  “She’s a dwarf,” Hooper added. “But a very hard worker. She carries a stool around with her so she can reach things.”

  “Then that explains it,” Sarah said. “Your wife did leave a note, as always. You just didn’t see it.”

  “I think you’d better read it before she comes home,” Malloy said.

  “I’m going to read it before I sleep tonight,” Hooper said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help, Malloy, and yours, too, Mrs. Malloy. If you hadn’t figured out where she was, I might’ve . . . Well, I might’ve missed this evening, and I might’ve been less than kind to Amelia when she came home tomorrow. I would definitely have made a fool of myself at the very least.”

  “The only mystery now,” Malloy said, “is whether you approve of having a wife who’s a suffragette.”

  Hooper smiled crookedly. “I did say I didn’t care what she’d done or who she’d done it with, didn’t I? I think I can accept this.”

  THE RIGHT TO BARE ARMS, by John Gregory Betancourt

  Behind the stage, Senator Bobby Bragg bounced lightly on the balls of his feet and surveyed the gathering crowd. County fairs always brought out the locals, and today’s weather—dazzling blue sky, mid-70s temperature, a pleasant breeze—practically guaranteed a record turnout. Never mind that they came for the monster truck pulls, carny games, and deep-fried Oreos and turkey legs. A state senator—a smart state senator—knew where to find his constituency.

  God, guns, and glory. That’s what the people wanted. And he’d give it to them . . . and ride them all the way to the White House.

  The mayor of Hicksville, or whatever this backwoods town was called, finished her official opening speech and turned to Bobby. She was pushing forty with a belly like a beach ball. Ready to drop a litter of babies any minute, from the looks of her.

  “Please give a big hand to our man at the capitol, State Senator Bragg!”

  As the yokels applauded, Bobby vaulted up the three wooden steps and onto the platform. His hair was perfect, his teeth gleamed unnaturally white, and with his high cheekbones and chiseled chin, he had the look of a Hollywood movie star. He knew; he’d paid enough for the plastic surgery.

  “Thanks, sweetie.” As he shook the mayor’s hand, she leaned close.

  “Make it quick, hon,” she said in a low voice. “You may have pushed your way onto my program, but we still have a lot to get through. I don’t want to be here till midnight.”

  Bobby forced
a grin. “You got it, darlin’,” he said. Mentally he added a screw you. She should be at home with her kids, not taking a man’s job. But, of course, he could never say that to her face. She was probably one of those bleeding-heart feminazi troublemakers.

  Taking a deep breath, he stepped to the microphone. This was the moment. The time he lived for. He’d have them eating out of his hand.

  “Howdy!” he called, making eye contact with first one, then another, then another. “I want your vote. God. Guns. And glory. I’m Bobby Bragg, and that’s what I’m all about!”

  Motion caught his eye—someone pushing through the crowd. A goddamn white-faced mime? Bobby glanced at the mayor, who was staring with interest at the carny performer.

  The mime carried a giant satchel. He plopped it down in front of the stage, began rummaging through it, and pulled out a plate and a stick. When he set the plate spinning on top of the stick, the crowd hooted and clapped. Several pulled out cell phones and began recording.

  “Hey, buddy,” Bobby called down. “Can you wait till after my speech to do that?”

  The mime cupped a hand to his ear, gave an exaggerated nod, and took the plate down. The crowd booed Bobby.

  “There’s a time and a plate for everything,” he told them, grinning. His pun got a mix of groans and a few more boos. A few people wandered off toward the snack booths. “Like I was saying . . . God, guns, and glory. I’m Bobby Bragg, and that’s what I’m about!”

  The mime stretched out white-gloved hands and began feeling an invisible wall. Bobby felt the audience’s attention slipping.

  The mayor leaned over. “You done, hon?” she whispered.

  “Back off, sweetheart,” he growled. “I’m just gettin’ warmed up.”

  Bobby gritted his teeth and stepped back to the microphone. He wasn’t a preacher’s son for nothing. He’d worked crowds since the age of three, everything from parks and storefronts to stadiums and conventions. He knew what to do.

  “Hallelujah!” he cried. “There’s a lesson from the Good Book here for all of us. We’re here on this guh-lorious day—”

  The mime went back to his satchel.

  “—under the eyes of God, to celebrate the freedoms of our great nation!” His heart pounded, the adrenaline rush that came when he worked himself to a fever pitch. “Your God-given right to bear arms is being taken away! I—”

  The crowd hooted with laughter.

  Bobby glanced down. The mime had rolled up his sleeves and was doing an exaggerated pantomime. Bare arms. Yeah, he got it.

  Find a common threat. That always got them back.

  “We all know there have been tragedies,” he went on in solemn tones. His amplified voice boomed down the fairway. “Too many men, women, and children have died because guns got into the hands of a few crazies. But taking your guns away isn’t the answer!”

  Bobby tried to make eye contact with the crowd, but they had all focused on that stupid mime, who was rummaging through his satchel once more.

  Beside him, the mayor said, “Wrap it up, hon. We have a busy program this morning.”

  Bobby cried, “There’s a law pending that will stop you from buying guns at gun shows—”

  The mime pulled a huge assault rifle from his satchel and swung it toward Bobby. That white face had the biggest, evilest grin Bobby had ever seen.

  Yelping, Bobby dove for cover.

  A loud pop sounded. The crowd screamed . . . with laughter?

  Bobby peeked out from behind the mayor’s skirt. That assault rifle . . . a prop? A wooden stick with a giant white flag stuck out from the barrel. “BANG!” it said. Then in smaller letters, “If this were a real rifle, you’d be dead, hon.”

  Bobby looked up at the mayor.

  “Did you know,” she asked, “that one of those crazies shot and killed my husband? That’s why I ran for mayor, hon.”

  Two minutes later, cell phone videos of Senator Bobby Bragg diving for cover behind a visibly pregnant woman went viral.

  MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, by Su Kopil

  Odie Dinkle found his first message in a bottle when he was ten years old. It never occurred to him back then that the bottle looked suspiciously similar to Grandpa Moonie’s favorite brand of whiskey, or that the handwriting had the same weird slant as Great-Uncle Lemon’s. All he cared about was that he held a real live pirate map in his hand. He combed the beach for hours searching for buried treasure, until Granny Lou finally confessed the map was a fake—a ruse to get him out from underfoot.

  That was the same day the large safe appeared in the attic of their two-and-a-half-story house on Hook Island, and the same day Great-Uncle Lemon disappeared for good. Odie figured Grandpa Moonie and Great-Uncle Lemon’s habitual fighting had finally come to a head with their last heist—robbing the Hook Bank & Trust. They’d considered themselves modern day pirates and were proud of it.

  But when Great-Uncle Lemon disappeared, Grandpa Moonie changed. He hugged the bottle more and his family less. In fact, he and Granny Lou barely talked. He just roamed the beaches across the Outer Banks searching for washed-up bottles, and so Odie searched with him, until the day a hurricane hit and blew Grandpa Moonie out to sea.

  Ten years later, Grandpa Moonie’s obsession had become Odie’s. The island’s natural hook shape was a magnet for ocean trash. Odie found his share of messages in bottles or MIBs, as he liked to call them: one from a soldier off to war, one from a homesick girl on a cruise, and a few others that were illegible. He started an online forum where hunters could share their discoveries. He even organized the first-ever MIB Hunters Convention.

  When he’d approached Granny Lou a few weeks earlier with the idea, he’d been shocked by her support.

  “Odie Dinkle,” she said, “that’s the smartest idea you ever had. You get your hunter buddies to bring their bottles with them, like show and tell. Didn’t one of them fellas just find a bottle clear down in Florida?”

  “Yeah, Digger Tubbs. Wasn’t a big find. Just numbers scribbled on the note.” Odie squinted at her. “But how’d you know, Granny Lou? I thought you hated my—um, hobby.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt you none to get a job. Too much like your grandpa, you are, but that’s another story.” She mashed the end of her cigarette in an empty flower pot. “I dip into your forum every little bit. Have to keep tabs on my only grandson, now don’t I?”

  “So you’ll lend me money for the convention?” His excitement overrode the fact that Granny Lou had been checking up on him.

  “Money?” She snorted. “You think I’d still be working as a maid—in them fancy hotels taking over the island, no less—if I had money?”

  “You’d have money if you sold this rotten old house to one of them hotels,” Odie said. “I seen them suits sniffing around here.”

  “Now you mind your business, Odie Dinkle. This old house is a piece of history. You know Blackbeard himself stayed here.”

  “That’s just one of Grandpa Moonie’s stories.”

  “Your grandpa had lots of stories. That’s a fact. But some of them, dear boy, some of them are true. Now you forget about the money. You can have your convention right here. We got the room. I’ll do the cooking.”

  Here? The house was falling down around them, and Granny Lou wasn’t much of a cook.

  “You tell them Blackbeard slept here, and they’ll be begging to come,” she said.

  * * * *

  So Odie made the arrangements. He wrangled a handwriting expert, and an antique bottle collector, as speakers. He planted MIBs around the island for a scavenger hunt using Grandpa Moonie’s old whiskey bottles. He sent out invitations to his forum members, playing up the Blackbeard angle. And most importantly, he got Digger Tubbs to agree to give the keynote address. That last was Granny Lou’s idea. She said if they couldn’t get Digger, they might as well scrap the whole thing.

 
Odie was starting to wonder if maybe Granny Lou had a crush on Digger. Maybe they’d hit it off on the forum. They were about the same age. Odie was proud that Granny Lou had held onto her looks. Except for the network of wrinkles around her mouth, she could pass for ten years younger than her sixty-odd years.

  Now, all he had to worry about was whether the house would hold up as well as Granny Lou. Built by shipbuilders in the 1700s, it had seen its fair share of neglect, especially in the last ten years. The double front porch sagged in places. An upstairs bedroom had a crater in the floor, making it and the room below unusable.

  But Granny Lou said by using the Blackbeard tales Grandpa Moonie used to tell, no one would pay attention to the warped heart-of-pine floors or the holes in the oyster-shell plaster. So Odie practiced the retellings in front of a mirror, adding a few embellishments here and there.

  On the first day of the convention, Odie strung up a hand-painted banner—First Annual MIB Hunters Convention. Eight people showed up, plus the two speakers, and their keynote, Digger Tubbs. Odie had only expected five. So he had to scramble to work out sleeping arrangements—four each in the two front rooms on the second floor, three in the back room on the right, and one, Digger Tubbs, would bunk with him.

  Once attendees were settled, he gathered everyone in the front room on the main floor and went over the schedule. After the initial meet and greet ended, Granny Lou would serve up fried cheese sandwiches. Then the handwriting expert would speak. Show and tell would follow with attendees showing off their collections. Then the scavenger hunt, back to the house for hot dogs and beans, Digger’s keynote address, and finally, the night would end with Odie’s Blackbeard tales.

  The next morning, Granny Lou promised a continental breakfast like the big hotels offered with pastries she’d borrowed from work. Odie still wasn’t clear on how pastries could be borrowed. Attendees could share their scavenger finds while they ate, and the convention would wind down with a lecture from the bottle expert.