Life Is Short and Then You Die_First Encounters With Murder From Mystery Writers of America

by Kelley Armstrong

  “That’s not fair, Wyatt,” Mom said.

  “Fair? You named me Wyatt Virgil Morgan,” I blurted, pushing my glasses up my long nose. “Named me after the Old West Earp brothers. I was teased mercilessly, Mom. I mean, if we’re talking fair.”

  Dad grinned—he knew my act. I’d only been teased, and mildly, a few times, and nobody beat me up, so I had little to complain about.

  “I thought I’d call him Monty,” I said, scratching the dog’s ear.

  Wendell Montgomery had moved to Dubai with his parents and sister for his dad’s job as an interpreter, which paid beaucoup bucks over there. He’d been my only true friend, and I missed him a lot, which my folks knew. I had called him Monty.

  An hour later my folks were packed; Mom wanted us to stay with her sister up in Racine, Wisconsin—she told me to hurry, board our new dog, and pack my stuff.

  I sighed. “He needs to get checked out at the vet and then I’ll board him right there, drive up to Aunt Cassie’s later.”

  Mom looked suspicious. ’Course, she’d recently witnessed a murder and had almost become a victim, so that no doubt implants a distrustful view. Plus, I’m a devious teenager and she’s not stupid.

  “We’ll wait for you,” she said smugly.

  Queen to Rook 5.

  I looked imploringly at Dad. “I can’t just put him in a cage without making sure he’s okay—he’s so skinny, might need heart worm meds.”

  He sighed, not thrilled with being recruited into another of my machinations; but having once been a sly teenager himself, he said, “Maggie, the dog needs looking after, and besides, the gunman hasn’t seen him, either—Wyatt can drive up later.”

  Checkmate.

  And they headed north.

  I felt bad about gaming Mom, but I needed some time. I figured if Monty, a dog who didn’t know my folks, could protect them, then I could certainly make an effort. The police had followed up with residents near the park, but no one had heard or seen anything. So nothing more the cops could do. We Morgans were on our own.

  It was noon when I got back to Rohnert Park. An SUV was parked on the side street near the entrance, but the park was empty. Monty whimpered as he stared out the window. Geez, does he think I’ll abandon him here like his previous humans did? I opened the passenger door and said, “You’re family, dude, won’t ever leave you.”

  He jumped out, headed for a gnarled old cottonwood near the pond.

  I’d come to look around in daylight for something that could help the cops—spent cartridges, drops of blood, something. It was a beautiful day, and Monty and I had the park to ourselves.

  Or so I thought.

  Pain erupted at the side of my face and I was falling, someone riding me to the ground with a knee grinding into my chest!

  A Trump Halloween mask loomed above me, wild red hair flying around, incongruous against a blue summer sky: “Okay, punk, that’s the dog who tripped me—who’re the people who saw me? Where are they?”

  He had a spooky voice, kinda high-pitched. In the movies the killer always has a weird voice … remember that nasally voice in The Silence of the Lambs? “It puts the lotion on its skin.”

  My blood tasted yucky, so I spit it onto his Trump mask and said, “I don’t usually do this kind of thing on a first date.”

  Another smack to the face.

  I spit some more blood and grinned. “Wow, returned to the scene of the crime, huh, genius?”

  Okay, let’s take a breath and clear the air: I’m not brave. Or tough. Or a superhero in a teenager suit. I’m Wyatt Virgil Morgan, a kid who, when scared, tends to be a major smartass.

  The killer cocked his arm, which suddenly had a dog attached to it! And it’s Monty, teeth slashing, growling and biting, backing away, then in, away, in, away, again and again, like Old Yeller protecting his boy.

  “Hey, what’s going on over there?”

  I squinted toward the parking lot, but I couldn’t see because the killer had knocked off my glasses. I scrambled to my feet, scooped them up, and jammed them back on my face.

  The shouter came into focus: A big guy had linebacker written all over him—I mean, literally—LINEBACKER boldly printed on a facsimile football jersey. He’d just gotten out of a truck, a girl exiting from the passenger side.

  “He’s a murderer, be careful!” I yelled.

  The killer ran to the side street, jumped in the black SUV with no plates, and barreled down the narrow street along the park, tires smoking.

  I walked over and told Linebacker what had gone down, and that by yelling he’d saved my life.

  He put his arm around his girl and scoffed, as if saying: Well, yeah.

  I went home, rinsed blood out of my mouth, and reported the attack on me to the police.

  Half an hour later a very young cop, judging from his voice, called back—maybe the unseasoned twelve-year-old patrolman my dad mentioned. I gave him a description of the assailant. He asked for my folks and I told him they were out of town.

  “The guy smelled like cinnamon?” he asked.

  “Had long hair, too.”

  The cop sighed. “Somebody reported a body in the bulrushes at Rohnert Park, shot three times. Might be the guy your folks saw murdered.”

  “Ya think?”

  See? Smartass.

  “The body was weighted, came loose, and popped up due to gas,” he said.

  “Yuck.”

  * * *

  I called my folks. “The cops are on it, but try not to laugh derisively—you should stay there until the killer’s caught or elected president.”

  Mom said, “You get on the road right now, mister, I’ve had enough of this worrying.”

  A scraping noise!

  “I will, first thing in the—”

  Trump mask outside the window, pressed against the glass!

  I’m thinking: Hide! That guy out there’s not a video game killer, he’s the real thing.

  I’m ready to run, but my folks always protect me, always look out for me, so I stepped down hard on my fear and said to Mom, “I’ll come up tomorrow—gotta run, Monty’s howling about something.”

  So what I’d feared from the killer, him following my folks home, came to pass, only he’d followed me. I punched in 911 … within three minutes, sirens ripped down the streets of the neighborhood, red and blue lights flashed through our windows—car doors slammed, sound of running feet and shouting.

  And then came a cop with questions.

  Did you see who it was?

  “No.”

  But maybe it was the same guy, eh?

  “I don’t know, he had that same orange mask.”

  The walkie-talkie thing attached to his shirt screeched, and he turned away to listen and so did I. Whoever was on the other end said the body they found in the pond at Rohnert Park was a guy reported missing by his wife.

  “Vern Crider, manager of Sweet Buns and Goodies bakery in the University mall,” the voice on the talkie said. “We interviewed the wife, and she’s alibied. Crider was replaced at the bakery by the assistant manager, a Doug Falconer—ex-con—we’re gonna pick him up for questioning at four o’clock.”

  So, the cinnamon had been a clue. Wyatt Virgil Morgan is so smart.

  But, uh … stay tuned.

  * * *

  Monty was excited as we entered the University Mall at ten minutes before four—lights and colors, frenetic activity. I hoped he wouldn’t relieve himself, because they frown on dog shit where the shoppers walk.

  We camped out on a metal bench opposite Sweet Buns and Goodies, the refrigerated air redolent of cinnamon. Fake greenery hid us from view, but we could see through enough to keep an eye on the place. Monty lapped up Aquafina from my cupped hand and helped me watch the new manager behind the counter, Doug Falconer. Ex-con.

  Cops burst through the mall entrance and Falconer vaulted over the counter, ran down the shopper-crowded aisle, arms pumping, knocking strollers and old ladies to one side.

  They g
rabbed him in front of Victoria’s Secret, his face squished against storefront glass.

  Huh, that’s strange. He doesn’t have long hair.

  Anyway, they hauled ol’ cinnamon boy back to jail. Case solved, we’re all safe.

  Or so I thought.

  * * *

  My parents were home from Racine. A family-sized pizza was on the way, some wine opened and we were celebrating—me with my very own glass of the finest California boxed cabernet that eight bucks can buy. Tasted like grape juice with an attitude.

  The doorbell rang, and Dad jumped up, did a little jig, giddy with the relief people saved from the jaws of death must feel—strode to the front door, jerked it open with a flourish, and held up a fiver as a generous tip.

  Gunshot!

  Mom’s eyes grew impossibly wide as Dad stumbled backward into the living room and collapsed on the carpet, groaning, still clutching the five-dollar bill.

  I jumped to my feet, all sense of celebration gone. The killer stepped into the living room, a silenced weapon held out in front of him just as Dad had described, and the long red hair I’d seen as he pummeled me in the park, but now framing a face so disfigured it looked like one of Picasso’s lesser works.

  The brass floor lamp was nearly as heavy as I am, but I jerked the plug out of the socket by the cord and as the killer aimed down at Dad I swung the lamp, felt the jarring shock of impact through my skinny arms!

  Oh, jeez. Did I kill him?

  But my pesky conscience gave way to a sense of righteous justification. I called for an ambulance, knelt down beside Mom as she tended to Dad.

  He grinned up at us, eyes watering and unfocused, slurring his words: “Only a flesh wound, Shane.”

  Dad and I loved that old Alan Ladd western, we knew all the lines: “We want you, Shane. Mother wants you. I know she does!” And, “He was fast, fast on the draw.”

  I could go on, quoting forever, but I should finish this …

  The pizza delivery kid stepped inside and stood there holding the hot pack, looking down at the unconscious killer and my bleeding father. “Uh, twenty-three dollars, plus, uh, tax.”

  With a glance at my watch, still feeling kind of tough, I said, “Dude, you took, like, forty minutes.”

  * * *

  The detective met us at the hospital. “This,” he said importantly, “is a dossier.”

  A manila folder, held high to emphasize that he was an expert on dossiers. “The bakery manager’s wife hired this guy to kill her husband,” he said. “She’d taken out lots of insurance, had a taste for Cancun, piña coladas, and salsa bands.”

  “I thought you look to the spouse first when someone is murdered,” I said.

  He reminded us that she’d had an alibi, which had pretty much cleared her. “Prematurely, as it turns out,” I said, and the detective gave me the bad-cop look.

  The cinnamon? Coincidence. The killer preferred spicy chewing gum. And Doug Falconer? The Sweet Buns and Goodies assistant manager had run away when the cops burst in because he’d been stealing from the register, thought they were about to bust him. Those sobering facts dashed any aspirations I had of becoming a private detective.

  Dad was to stay a couple of days in the hospital. He motioned for me to bend down so I could hear his hoarse whisper: “Son, I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

  Which, oddly, made me feel like a little kid, but in a good way.

  Mom nodded approvingly. “I’ll stay overnight here with your dad. Eat something besides pizza tonight.”

  Dad gave me a guy-to-guy grin. “Yeah, Wyatt, the delivery boy might be packing heat.”

  At home I fed Monty, checked in the fridge, squinting against the LED brightness; just healthy food: hummus, Greek yogurt, and the like—a pale dill pickle floated in a jar like some forlorn specimen in biology class.

  Doorbell rang.

  Through the peeper, I saw a Hillary Clinton mask, so I opened the door.

  Chloe whisked off the mask, brandishing an extra-large pepperoni pizza with green chilis, mushrooms, and double cheese. She’d heard about the incident with the masked killer, how I’d knocked him out and saved my family. Her red halter and cut-off faded jeans, stringy and torn as required by cool kids everywhere, seemed planned for effect—plus, she was emitting some kind of heady, adult perfume … giving me adult thoughts.

  “Will you forgive me?” my intermittently faithful girlfriend asked.

  Is she kidding? The evening promised pizza and making out—what’s to forgive?

  But wait a second; she might think a self-assured boyfriend should be pissed by her infidelity. I wasn’t, because we all make mistakes, and I’m the forgiving type. But still, I said nothing. Stoic. A skinny pillar of resolve.

  Chloe bit her lower lip, hurt by my apparent rebuke. She blinked misty blue eyes and handed me the pizza, turning to leave.

  I took her arm and ushered her, still sniffing, into the foyer. I tried on a dark frown to assert an imagined alpha-male status, probably looked ridiculous. “Girl, there best not be any anchovies on this pie.”

  Isn’t that what some cool jock would say?

  She sighed, looked down at the floor, clearly disappointed.

  Okay, I get it, she’s sick and tired of hearing what “some cool jock” would say.

  Alrighty, then. I’d just be an ordinary boy, holding a pizza box up in the air and out of Monty’s reach, explaining, “He’s always hungry.” I didn’t even try to moderate what has been described as an astoundingly goofy grin.

  Chloe bent down and stroked Monty’s head, murmuring, “Who’s a good boy?” Looked up at me and nodded at the pizza box.

  Outstanding. We’re on the same page, Monty deserves the biggest slice!

  Chloe stood up, looked at me in a way that made me tingle, and then rewarded me with a promising smile and a lingering smooch on the mouth. She reached up, removed my glasses, and whispered in a smoky voice: “Who’s a good boy?”

  MURDER IRL

  By Jeff Soloway

  1.

  I was finishing up a simulation for the Worldwide Virtual Baseball League when one of my users direct-messaged me:

  SynderGirl: You live in NYC right? Want to hang sometime? I want to meet Commissioner SimDawg!

  SimDawg is my handle. Now, this was a weird request. I had never met SynderGirl, or any of my website’s users, in real life. From her comments on our group chat, I knew she was a sophomore in high school, just like me, and lived across town. She was definitely one of the league’s most creative general managers and also a Mets fan, two points in her favor. But meet her? Forget it.

  The thing is, I’m ugly. You know when you wake up to some fat klieg-light zit on your forehead and you feel like crap, but you tell yourself at least there’s someone in class who looks worse? Well, I’m the kid who always looks worse. Every exposed inch of my face—cheeks, forehead, nose, neck, even in the little crevices behind my ears—is a Jurassic-period hell-zone of volcanic activity. Every day something new and weird bursts up from the red-purple landscape. When I rub my cheeks, it’s like rubbing a huge sore.

  I know what you’re thinking. I’m just another pathetic, privileged American teen obsessed with his appearance. But it’s the rest of the world that’s obsessed, not me. Kids at school are mostly used to me, but even the decent ones, the give-every-dork-a-chance ones, get distracted. Their eyes are always sliding off to something weird on my face, then back to my eyes, then off for another wander. People in the outside world are worse. They stare. I know it could be worse. I’m not a burn victim. I’m not the kid from Mask or Wonder. I’m just, among normal, healthy teenagers, in the ninety-ninth percentile of ugly.

  My doctor is trying. The creams and pills have all failed so far. He says sometimes you just have to wait. And that’s why I’d rather stay in my room, doing my baseball simulations and chatting with people who will never get a glimpse of my face.

  But what if I happened to meet up with SynderGirl on a particula
rly good day, a day when I was no worse than a normally speckly high-school sophomore? Those days are like Christmas to me, and they come about as often. But you never know. Instead of perma-smiling to hide her inner freak-out, she’d look at me like I was just another kid.

  Maybe we’d start with chitchat about the league, then cruise on to intensive analysis of the Mets’ rotational and batting-order mistakes, and then to other subjects, prestige rap maybe, Kendrick vs. classic Kanye, because there really is more to me than baseball. And a few days later, I’d invite her over. My mom would insist on baking Toll House cookies, which I’d let her do, because for her, my having a girl over would be like the World Series and her birthday put together. SynderGirl and I would slip off to my room to watch YouTube videos of hilarious Yankees outfield bloopers, and after a few minutes, we’d touch hands. Is that what happens first? How do you go from friend to girlfriend? If you’re sitting next to each other, do you start by kissing her somewhere on the side first, like the cheek or shoulder, or do you have to somehow maneuver around front to get her head-on? What if you’ve totally misinterpreted all her signals because you’re an inexperienced idiot and she bashes you in the nose?

  Or what if I wasn’t looking okay? What if I caught her eyes creeping all over my face?

  I wanted to enjoy my life, not torture myself. I wrote back: Busy now, but maybe someday.

  2.

  Later that night, I was on the Instagram chat where my league users trash-talk and try to swing trades. A newbie user called PhillyFreak proposed a trade, and when RonanB swatted him down, PhillyFreak threatened to pound RonanB’s head with a baseball bat until, as he put it, “brains squirt out your skull like pus from a zit.”

  What a delightful turn of phrase. And the whole league could enjoy it.

  SynderGirl direct-messaged me: Did you see that? What are you gonna do?

  Meanwhile, PhillyFreak had posted again: Ima drive up from Philly tomorrow and end you, RonanB.