The Best American Mystery Stories 2018

by Louise Penny

  That was his life. Mines every day, a wife, two kids—Deborah, of course, and her older brother, Russ, who’d made it to eleventh grade before going underground, only to be blown up ten years back. After the explosion, with his son dead, with his wife gone many years before, Joe moved from the little mining town of Grundy—the only home he’d ever known—to a singlewide in the Blue Ridge to be closer to his daughter, for whatever that was worth. No love lost between those two. Saw each other maybe three times a year. It was me who often checked on him, made sure he was getting by all right, especially after the diagnosis.

  It was also me who’d helped Joe get his tanks in order. At first those clear plastic tubes jammed up his nose drove him batshit. He’d hobble around, bitching, pulling his little cart behind him like a pissed-off caddy, the thin blue oxygen tank his golf clubs. Once a month I’d go over to Radford to the gas place for refills. As teenagers we used to hop their chain-link fence at night and steal tanks of nitrous oxide, then buy big punching balloons at the pharmacy, fill them, have insane parties, everybody so fucked up they’d stumble, fall, and sometimes convulse. The gas people eventually got wise—installed hurricane wire, locked the nitrous in a cage—but did we ever fry some brain cells for a while, our entire class whacked on dental-grade laughing gas most of senior year. Man, I’d changed a lot since then.

  Several weeks after I determined Deborah was knocking boots with Willie, I drove to Crosshairs, the local hunting outfitter, to make a purchase. Not for a gun, but instead for a couple of trail cameras—the ones with motion sensors so hunters can discover what monster bucks roam their forests. Simple setup, really. I put one above the floodlight spotting the driveway and another in a tree along that trail leading to Willie’s.

  That following Monday, after Deborah was asleep, I checked the computer to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, during lunch while I sat with the Mexicans, me fantasizing about their young, dark-skinned wives, guess who appeared on my trail cam software? That cocksucker Willie, that’s who, sneaking through the woods. Then the house camera picked him up, strutting along my driveway, cool as a goddamn cucumber.

  The same deal unfolded for the next several months. I stewed so bad I couldn’t stand it. Not so much because I gave a hell about Deborah anymore or felt betrayed by my coworker, who had the balls to stick it to my wife nearly every day, then return to work an hour later and tell me my tree trimming was a bit sloppy, but more because I was scared Deb might file for divorce. Which wasn’t an option. Not yet. That didn’t jibe with my financial plans. But a man can only take so much. So I decided if they liked games, I’d play a few of my own. Mess with their tiny brains a bit.

  Once, when I’d mentioned that Joe was a good man, Deborah had gone off. “Don’t you dare. You don’t know a goddamn thing about it.” I’d assumed this meant Joe used to be rough on her as a child, maybe knocked her around a bit, but I was wrong. “He was a drunk. A real bastard. I don’t think he remembered my name most days.”

  “Coal mining’s a tough job. He probably—”

  “Don’t you dare defend him, Steven. You want an example of what a good man he was?”

  I shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

  “He used to go to the shelter and get cats, pretend he was adopting them, okay? Once home, he’d break their legs with a hammer, leave ’em mewing in the barn. Those cries still keep me up some nights. Then in the evenings he’d sit in the loft drinking beer, waiting to shoot the curious coyotes who wandered in. For the bounty.”

  “Well, it was just cats. And son of a bitching coyotes. Not like it was dogs or cattle or something.”

  “That’s awful, Steven. Cats are God’s creatures, same as dogs.”

  “I’ll tell you right now, cats sure as shit aren’t the same as dogs. Not even fucking close.”

  “Doesn’t mean they should be abused.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Shit, they were gonna die at that shelter anyway.”

  “You’re disgusting. God loves all his miracles equally.”

  All I can say is, she never showed that sort of compassion toward Erick. Not once. And okay, fair enough, no animal should be abused—not even cats, I guess. But oh, Jesus, did it make me crazy when she preached her Bible bullshit. Full-on hypocrite. Prime example? When I’d gotten home from Joe’s first doctor’s visit and advised her of his prognosis, she’d said, “Hallelujah. About time.”

  What she meant, of course, was that the diagnosis equaled compensation. Money that would set us up good once Joe died. Her brother was dead from the mines, her mother a suicide—slit her wrists in a bathtub; Deborah found her when she’d gotten home from school, only a freshman—so Deborah was the sole heir. Wouldn’t get rich, but between that and the settlement from Russ’s death in the mine collapse, we’d be doing okay for a while.

  So I had no interest in divorce. Last thing I wanted was for Willie to somehow get his hands on even one dime of that money. I needed to break them up.

  Out in the fields, I put my sabotage plan in motion. Started dropping hints. “But it’s weird, Willie. I mean, me and Deborah, well, we haven’t exactly been frisky in months. So if she really is pregnant . . . shoot, I don’t know what’s going on.” The way Willie shifted, the way he nervously passed that trimming machete from one hand to the other, man, it was priceless.

  Toying with Deborah was even more fun, and one evening while eating dinner, I laid it on thick. Vanna was on the tube pushing letters as we sat in the living room, shoveling in peas and potatoes from our potpies. I had a lemonade, she one of those Redd’s Apple Ale things that’d been on the commercials lately.

  “So I was talking with Willie today,” I said, “and you know what he told me? He’s a real jackass, that guy.” I paused, all cool-like. Wanted to watch her squirm. But she was staring at that screen, only one blank left in the entire puzzle: THE P_INTED DESERT. She shouted at the TV, “The Pointed Desert, you dumb shit,” just as the contestant on Wheel said the same exact thing (I swear to God) minus the “dumb shit” part. Sajak said, “No, I’m sorry, but you still have time.” The guy sounded things out, repeated, “The Pointed Desert,” and Sajak, supercool as always, replied, “No matter how many times you say it, the puzzle’s not going to change.” Deborah said, “What the hell?” so I chimed in, “The Painted Desert,” which of course was the correct answer and what the next contestant said. The woman got twenty-five hundred bucks for her winning efforts. I got nada. “Did you hear me?” I said. “About Willie?”

  “What? No,” she snapped, staring down the television as if somehow betrayed. Like Sajak and company were running a conspiracy. “What happened?”

  “Willie said something today I couldn’t believe. Said he was stepping out on his wife.”

  She lifted her bottle, paused midraise, wouldn’t look at me. “Huh, well, I guess there’s trouble in paradise.”

  “Not according to him. Says he’s just got another girl he likes better. Wants to be with.”

  Did she half smile as she took a sip of Redd’s? Possibly.

  “Shit happens all the time, right?” she said, cutting some potpie crust with her fork and stuffing it in, grinning like a wolf.

  “I don’t know, just seems lowdown. Blindsiding his wife like that. Two kids and all. I mean, if it was you and me, I’d just tell you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’d do the same, right? No behind-the-back stuff?”

  “Yeah,” she repeated, her eyes locked on the television, staring at that new creepy Colonel Sanders as he peddled chicken, her seeming to only half pay attention to me. But I assure you, I had her ear.

  “He said he hooked up with that cute little thing down at the tavern. You know, that new blonde who waits tables?”

  Her head whipped in my direction. “With who?”

  “That woman—hell, girl really—at the tavern. Melody, I think her name is. Short skirts, legs to here,” I said, raising my hand well above my head. This was fun.

  Her lip
s pursed.

  “Said they’re going to take off on Saturday. His wife and kids are out of town, visiting her mother, and he’s running away to Myrtle Beach. Leaving a note, and poof, just like that, he’s gone. Crazy, huh?”

  That bit about his wife going out of town was the only true part, by the way, Willie having mentioned it at work. You sprinkle in a few truths with your lies and people eat it up.

  Deborah looked at Vanna, back from commercial. “Yeah, I reckon so.”

  “Good news for us is I’ll get the foreman job. A few more bucks. Mr. Majors ain’t gonna give it to no Mexican.”

  She grabbed her plate and walked toward the kitchen, her face blank. If I could’ve magically pried open the top of her head right then, I’d’ve seen those gears whirring at double-time, grinding like an unoiled machine, smoke pouring from the works.

  The day after I’d messed with Deborah, something curious happened: Willie failed to return to work after lunch. That son of a bitch was a lot of things, but unreliable wasn’t one of them. That evening I checked my trail cam software, and sure enough, he’d headed toward my house that afternoon, sneaking through the woods like a horny tomcat. But the footage never showed him leaving. What it did capture, however, precisely an hour and twenty-three minutes later, according to the timestamp, was Deborah passing by, pushing my wheelbarrow, which in all my days I’d never seen her do. Far as I knew, that woman didn’t know which end of a hammer to hold. But as usual, I’d underestimated her. She was full of surprises.

  Days and weeks later, small-town details funneled through the rumor mill. One in particular was that Willie had left a note stating he was leaving his family. Nobody seemed too surprised by this, least of all his wife. She never even bothered to call the cops when she got back from her weekend at her mother’s, just assumed the no-good scoundrel had left her high and dry. Which turned out to be particularly good fortune for me and Deborah.

  I didn’t let on to Deborah that I knew anything about what she’d done. I had my reasons for keeping quiet. But it was weird, living in that house with her afterward, realizing what she was capable of. I’d find myself looking at her from across the table every once in a while, thinking, Man, that’s one wicked-assed woman. But she was cool. You’d never guess, not in a million years, she’d sawed up her lover and buried him in the woods.

  “I’m leaving you,” said Deborah. This was three weeks after Erick had brought me the foot, several months since Willie had gone missing. I have no idea why it took her so long to make that decision, but I’m assuming she wanted to be sure the smoke had cleared.

  “No,” I said. “No, you’re not.”

  “Bite me, Steven. I’ll do whatever I damn well please.”

  “Mmm, no you won’t.” That’s when I got off the couch and approached the front door—all smooth and cavalier, like I had all the power, all the answers—and ran my hand along the casing. “Let me show you something, Deb. I’m figuring you plugged these with chewing gum?” I said when my fingers located the first of the three patched bullet holes, almost like I was reading Braille. “Then smeared them with shoe polish?” I rubbed both my pointer and middle finger against my thumb, as if demonstrating the universal money sign, while showing her the inky residue. “Pretty good match, really. I’m impressed.”

  “Listen, baby, you got things a little mixed up,” she said, playing it cool but unable to hide her panic. Plain as day I saw her envisioning where exactly my rifle was at that moment. Saw her calculating speed and time and distance to the closet, figuring whether she could race to it before I tackled her. Of course it didn’t matter, since I’d already moved the gun. And unloaded it.

  “I don’t have a thing mixed up, Deborah. In fact, it’s all clear as day.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do nothing.”

  That’s when I popped in the flash drive, played the video. She stood over my shoulder and watched her own self, right there on the computer screen, all bloody and goopy, pushing body parts down the trail. Three separate trips. It was almost funny, in a sick, demented sort of way, I admit, but it was humorous watching Erick follow at her heels as she struggled with that wheelbarrow, strong-arming it down the trail. Even when she halted and clearly yelled at him, presumably ordering him back to the house, his tail just slapped back and forth like a windshield wiper. He ignored her completely.

  One particular part of the video seemed to really unsettle her. Of Willie’s head bouncing up and out of the barrow when the wheel clipped a rock, then rolling along the trail for a few feet like a kid’s wayward ball. I glanced back to see her nose crinkle as she relived that scene: her scooting around the wheelbarrow, picking up his head, plopping it back in as if harvesting pumpkins. She could’ve closed her eyes as the video played, could’ve turned away or walked off, but she watched intently. Instead of being unsettled, as I’d first assumed, I realized she seemed almost fascinated. Suddenly it was me who felt uneasy.

  “It’s also saved to a second jump drive,” I explained, “and stored in a safe place with instructions. Thought you should know, just in case you’re considering cutting me up into bits like your boyfriend.”

  “Steven, you don’t understand. There’s—”

  “I figured out most of it, Deb. Though, I confess, I still don’t know how you forced him to write a note. You’re good, I’ll give you that. Damn smart.”

  And that, right there—along with the video—was the key to her spilling everything. Simple flattery. Who’d’ve thunk it? Offer her a little praise about a cold-blooded murder she’d committed, and boy, she ate it up. Actually chuckled. “He didn’t write a note.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “I did.”

  “You?”

  “He denied everything. Said there wasn’t no other woman. Got all emotional, started boo-hooing, though I reckon a gun pointed straight at your chest has a way of doing that. Him crying got me all fired up and flustered. Then bam bam bam, and he’s dead on the floor. I barely touched that trigger. Didn’t even mean to do it.

  “When I’m burying him, I find a receipt in his pocket. From the XPress Mart, right? Had his fingerprints on it, which got me to thinking. I walk to his house when I’m done, let myself in with his keys, scratch a note on the back of it. Simple block lettering. He wrote like a third grader, so it was easy.”

  I rubbed my whiskers, cupped my chin. “Pretty damn good, Deb. I gotta give credit where credit’s due.” Figured I’d keep buttering her up, see what other info I might squeeze.

  She grinned wide and lit a smoke. I’d never seen her so proud. “Stashed his truck at Daddy’s.”

  She was gushing now. Who was I to stop her? “So Joe knows?” I said.

  “Knows enough not to ask questions. So like I said, I’m leaving.”

  I shook my head. “And like I said, no, you’re not.”

  “What the hell, Steven? We’re done. You know it, I know it. No reason to stick around, so don’t play me.”

  “You and me, we’re gonna sit tight, happy and hunky-dory. And wait.”

  “What do you mean, wait?”

  “On Joe.”

  “On Daddy? Wait for goddamn what, goddamnit?” Her eyes darted, searching for her smokes even though one still smoldered between her fingers.

  “Wait on him to croak. Doc says he’s got a year left, max, probably only six months. Once I get my half, you’re free to roll. But until then you’re staying right by my side. For better or worse, remember?”

  “You ain’t getting half,” she said, but the statement lacked conviction. She knew she was beat.

  “I’m going out on the porch for the sunset,” I said. “Give you a little time to ponder, maybe rewatch that video if you want. Think about what the cops might say if they got their hands on it somehow.”

  Thirty minutes later she joined me, a fresh smoke pinched in her fingers. Erick sat between my knees, getting his ears rubbed.

  “I been thinking,” she said. />
  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t wanna wait.”

  “Well, Deb, in this particular instance, I’d say you don’t got much choice.”

  It appeared she hadn’t heard me. “You know, lately I’ve noticed Daddy’s been down in the dumps. Suicidal, even. Maybe I should call his doctor, tell him I’m worried about his mental status or whatever.”

  “Stability?”

  “Yeah, that.” She paused as if waiting for me to fully comprehend her meaning. Her intentions. Like she was giving me a second to let it all sink in.

  “Deb, it’s only six months. Year at the most. Not long in the whole scheme of things.”

  “Or better yet,” she continued, “what if them oxygen tubes accidentally got pinched under a table leg or something?”

  “Jesus, Deb.”

  “Oh, Jesus yourself, Steven. Fuck Jesus.”

  I once again found myself fearful, and slightly in awe, of my wife. But if truth be told, it was exactly what I’d been expecting. And hoping for.

  “You’re a dark, dark woman, Deb.”

  She remained quiet, deep in thought. The only sound on the porch was the shuffle of her bare feet as she paced, and the faint crackle of cigarette paper, that cherry burning hot as it raced down the shaft on her inhale. She shot me a nasty look, but her expression softened when she saw my own. Maybe it was the way my mouth had turned up at the corners, not quite a smile, exactly, but something close. Or maybe it was my eyes, the way I imagined they glimmered as the evening sun lit them up just before vanishing behind the distant hills. Like we were communicating without saying a word.