The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories

by Talley, Marcia

  Finally he came through the front door. “I’m home.”

  No kidding. “How was the trip?” Same question she always asked.

  “Business is really down. But gas prices have come down, too, so things are about even.”

  Next we’ll talk about the weather, she predicted.

  “Yard looks like we didn’t get a drop of rain,” he said as he hauled his garment bag into the laundry room. He would secure it on a hook behind the door and fish his toiletry kit and shoes out of the bag’s corners.

  Oh, really? she thought. My dead roses didn’t notice.

  Instead she replied, “Supper’s almost ready. By the way, they called to confirm that you’re on the schedule next Saturday to get your carport poured.”

  * * * *

  After fifteen years, Gina was used to Axel’s weekly travel, but it always took until Sunday afternoon to get used to having him underfoot again. That’s when she emptied the dirty laundry from his hanging suitcase. Underwear and socks went straight into the wash. Suit jackets and dress shirts ended up on the pile for the dry cleaners. His mealtime spills never made it past his big belly to his pants, so a couple pairs of slacks usually lasted another trip. She knew which pairs because he re-hung his quasi-clean pants. In his hotel room, Axel would open whatever magazine he had with him when he packed, slide it over a wire hanger, and drape his pants over the magazine. The rigid support prevented a crease at the fold.

  As she sorted the laundry, Gina partially registered the magazine titles: Bass Assassin and Extreme Boating. She was brought up short when she noticed the magazine cover under the lightweight wool slacks she had in her hand. Cosmopolitan? She squinted at the address label, and the laundry room seemed to sway.

  “Tricia Peller? Red-Mazda-sports-car-driving-husband-stealing Tricia Peller?”

  She slammed the dryer door, knocked hangers off the rod, and cussed.

  “I’m not putting up with this.” The nasty names she called Axel were drowned out by the squeal of the high-pressure nozzle outside the window as he hosed off the boat and trailer, a ritual he did every Sunday afternoon. But she did not cry. The last time he swore off that bimbo, three years before, she had vowed not to waste another tear if he ever went back to his cheating ways.

  Gina went to the window and glared at her husband. “How dare you do this to me again?”

  She yelled and bawled him out through the glass until he disappeared around back. How naïve she’d been. All this time, she had foolishly believed the rumors about Tricia and the pastor of the Brethren of the Desert church, thinking that the tramp had moved on to her next conquest. She took a deep breath and looked over his boat. His precious boat, which he treated better than their home. Better than her. The slob made one mess after another, and Gina dutifully cleaned them up, sneaking his old magazines, newspapers, and mail out to the trash one piece at a time, so he wouldn’t notice and make her life even more miserable. Well, not anymore.

  “You better watch your back, Mr. Boyette.”

  * * * *

  Gina waited patiently till Wednesday, when Axel left on his weekly business trip. She took a late afternoon nap, even though falling asleep had been difficult at first. When the only light outside was the soft luster at the horizon and a few stars, she went on a reconnaissance mission, starting in the storage shed leaning against the side of the house. She removed the lock that always hung from the hasp in a simulated locked position, since Axel could never remember the combination, slipped into the shed, and closed the door. Feeling for the flashlight hanging from a hook to her left, she lit the cramped space.

  “Come to me, my darlings,” she said to her worn and familiar gardening tools. She set down the upended flashlight and gathered a shovel, spade, and the bucket in which she carted plant detritus from her garden to the compost pile. She turned off the light and eased the door open. Quietly she laid the tools on the stony ground. Their lot was large, and heavy tree cover hid the house from nosy neighbors, but she wanted to be on the safe side. She reached in again and felt for the protective netting she used to keep the squirrels from getting at her bulbs around front, remembered the rake, and placed these items outside with the other implements. Quickly she slipped back into the house to wait for deeper darkness to fall.

  After an hour or so she returned to the boat in the faint moonlight and climbed up on one of the fenders of its trailer. She loosened the cover’s drawstring and pushed the canvas over to the other side of the boat. Inside she could just make out oars, a gas can, and two anchors made from gallon milk jugs filled with something, maybe sand. Otherwise the boat was clear of clutter (his fishing poles stood lined up in the corner of the den; the cooler, bleached clean, waited on the back porch). Axel was way more particular about his floating obsession than the other areas of his life.

  Gina carried the anchors one at a time, hoisting them by twisted nylon ropes over to a spot close to the shed. She lined the bottom of the boat’s hull with an old tarp. Soon the boat’s contents were tucked inside the shed. All the garden tools were hidden in the boat. She tidied up, pulled the cover closed, and went inside to wait some more.

  There was a certain time of the night when Gina thought she could best carry out her plan and not be detected. Once, when she was a girl, she had gone with her father and uncle into the woods to hunt, well after midnight. The world outside their truck on the way to the blind had been so still. No breezes blew. No cars passed. Every self-respecting dog lay dreaming, legs jerking, behind the dark windows of the houses they passed.

  She wasn’t sure what the actual time had been that night on the way to the hunt, but it felt late enough now. She was right—in the yard, she didn’t hear activity of any kind. At the center of what used to be her rose garden, she started digging a hole about two feet out in each direction: scooped a shovel full, stepped up on the fender, and tossed the load of dirt into the bottom of the boat. Then back to the hole again. After a time, she began to dig down and not just out, getting into a rhythm. Several times, overcome by exhaustion, she almost stopped, but memories of her lovely Peace Roses floating in a bowl of water on her table in spring, or of drinking in the fragrance of her Iceberg roses in late summer, kept her working. Eventually she had to lean a small metal ladder from the boat up against the side of the hole. She added another three beats to her rhythm.

  When she heard the rumble of a trash truck several blocks away accompanied by barking dogs, she put all the tools on top of the substantial pile of dirt in the boat and replaced the tarp. She quickly anchored the protective netting from the shed over the hole in the ground by pinning it with pieces of stem she had saved from her decimated rose bushes. Scattering stones in a random pattern along the edges, she completed the camouflage by covering the entire surface with pine straw from her yard.

  It was almost dawn by the time she finished, so after her shower, she stayed up and went through her usual routines. By two in the afternoon, she had to lie down, falling quickly into a deep sleep. When she awoke, she was able to run a few errands before meeting her aunt for dinner, as though it were just a normal day in the life of a woman whose husband traveled.

  Thursday night Gina only needed to dig for three hours to get the hole to the perfect depth. It was a good thing she was finished because the boat was full of dirt, stem to stern, and she had trouble crawling out of the hole, even with the ladder. She retrieved the gas can from the shed and set it inside the kitchen. She raked the pine straw back onto the net-covered hole, mixing in some of the small stones that plagued their yard. She sprinkled the entire area with pine cones in what she hoped looked like nature’s way. She showered and scrubbed under her fingernails with a brush.

  In spite of the shortened work night, by the next afternoon Gina had worn herself out pacing from the truck to the front porch and back again. She was waiting to distract her husband as soon as he was dropped off at the foot of the driveway, desperate to keep him from his usual Friday afternoon love-fest with his boat. />
  She could see the self-satisfied mien of his mouth turn into a frown as the car pulled up to the curb. He leaned over and said something to his co-worker, who then nodded and wiggled a quick wave in her direction as Axel climbed out of the passenger side.

  Gina started in about how the truck wouldn’t start as soon as the car pulled away, describing the pop, pop, pop sound it had made, trying not to make eye contact.

  Axel walked over and laid his garment bag on the front stoop like always, then reached for the keys swinging from her fist.

  “What the hell’d you do?” he asked and got into the driver’s seat. “Leave the lights on?” The engine caught immediately and roared loudly as he stomped down on the gas pedal.

  “Well it works now.” He rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t know what the problem was.”

  Her husband’s grousing was ramping up when the shrill racket of a smoke alarm inside the house stopped him mid-sentence.

  “What’s that?” Axel jumped out of the truck and ran down the sidewalk and up the stairs quick as a flash. Gina closed the truck door he had left open and retrieved his bag.

  The upper portion of the foyer and hall were clouded with smoke. A crackle and hiss issued from the kitchen. Gina knew the fuel was only the few rashers of bacon she’d left frying on the stove as a back-up plan to keep him away from the side yard.

  Axel grabbed the handle of the skillet with a pot holder and shoved the pan of flames off the burner. “What’s the idea of going outside when you’ve got food on the stove? What’s the matter with you?”

  He threw open the kitchen windows. “Why are you cooking bacon anyway?”

  “I’m making black-eyed peas,” she said.

  He left the kitchen mess for her to clean up. “Well, make sure you don’t walk away from the next batch.”

  Even though her ploy to redirect her husband had worked, Gina didn’t stop shaking until she heard the earsplitting sounds of a car chase on the television in the den. Axel would stay glued to his recliner unless there was another fire.

  * * * *

  A couple hours later, Gina was strung tight as a drum as she finished preparing Axel’s favorites for dinner, hoping to lure him to the table. She stopped to make sure the colorful array of sliced red tomatoes, rice, black-eyed peas, pink ham, and yellow cornbread would do the trick before setting down his plate.

  “Supper’s ready,” she called as she dipped up her own meal at the stove.

  “I thought I’d eat on a tray in here,” came the answer from the den.

  Gina knew there would be hell to pay if she insisted he join her. But if she just didn’t answer, or take him his plate, the smell of the special dinner might entice him into the kitchen. She wanted his full attention when she confronted him. And sure enough, after a few minutes, he dropped his bulky body into his chair at the table.

  Gina picked at her food while Axel downed most of his first helping. His vigorous chewing was the only conversation, but it still seemed as if he was taking forever to finish. She fidgeted as she held the magazine and its inflammatory address label in her lap.

  “Where were you Thursday night?” The words popped out before she could stop them.

  “Same place I always am.” His fork never broke stride.

  “I called the hotel in Eversville, and they said you already checked out.”

  “After I saw my last customer, I run up to see my brother,” he answered and brought another forkful of peas to his mouth.

  “Nobody in your family talks to you, Axel. You’re lucky they let you go to your own momma’s funeral.” Gina slammed the Cosmo down and slid it across the table. The peas on her husband’s fork bobbled off.

  He crisscrossed his knife and fork at the top edge of his plate and blotted his lips with his napkin. “What the hell do you want from me, woman?”

  “I want an explanation for this.” She shoved the magazine closer to him, jabbed the label with her fork, and leaned in to get a good look at his lying face.

  He shoved it back. “It’s a woman’s magazine.”

  “Would you mind telling me what the address label says?”

  Instead of answering, he laced his fingers and perched his elbows on the table. He didn’t say anything. Gina didn’t say anything. The Jeopardy contestant on the television in the next room said, “Viscous Liquids for a thousand, Alex.”

  A bundle of nerves, Gina got up and went to the fridge to put away the iced tea pitcher, waiting for the battle to commence.

  Axel stood. “I’m gonna finish my dinner in the other room and watch Jeopardy. Best Gol’ Durn Videos comes on next,” he said over his shoulder.

  Disappointed that he hadn’t defended himself so she could shoot down his lies one by one, she inwardly raged as she wiped the stove and counters and chased down peas under the table. “He doesn’t even have the gumption to challenge me, to deny it,” she muttered.

  For the rest of the evening, every annoying sound he made—the swooshing of water in the bathroom, the bang, bang, banging to dry his toothbrush on the side of the sink—strengthened her resolve.

  Later Axel stuck his head into the den where she sat stiffly on the couch. “If you think I’m going to get into another argument on this subject,” he said, “think again. You sleep in the guest room.”

  Gina got up and squeezed past him.

  He shrank back against the frame of the door, contorting into a question mark as though he couldn’t stand for her to even brush against him. “Now what?” he asked.

  She returned quickly with a crocheted coverlet. “Might get chilly in the guest room. There’s only a sheet on the bed.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  She watched him walk down the hall and clenched her fists. She knew he thought this was like all the times before when she had watched him drive away in the little red sports car with the Jezebel. Pitch a fit for a few days, pout a few more, and then forgive him everything. She whispered, “Just keep thinking that way.”

  * * * *

  Fully clothed, Gina sat in the den until that perfect-shield time of night. She had put the gas can full of water just outside the kitchen door. She carried the long, slender, fireplace Bic in her hand. Before she called out to her husband, she paused by his bed and listened to him snore. She had to yell his name four times before he sat up, sputtering. “Is there another fire?”

  “Will be. I’m going to burn your boat,” she said and turned on her heel.

  She grabbed the can and navigated cautiously so she didn’t disturb the target area, even though the moon spilled its light through the ragged cloud cover and she could see a little. After she got into position, it seemed like an eternity before he flew out the side door. She had taken the bulb out of the porch light, but she could still make out the angry contortion of her husband’s face.

  “Gina. You know I’m not letting you get away with this,” he said, but, agonizingly, took only two steps closer to the trap.

  “You got this comin’, Axel.” She turned and splashed water on the boat.

  He charged, moving faster than she had ever seen him go. And then he snapped from view.

  She listened to the night, suddenly worried someone might have heard them. At first all was quiet. Then she heard a moan and saw the top of Axel’s head pop out of the hole.

  Adrenalin surged as she jumped up on the trailer fender and grabbed the shovel, then flew down and bashed him on the head. The impact wasn’t really a loud sound, but the meaty thud made her stomach lurch. Worried about the loss of cover with the moon out, she moved quickly and mechanically. Up, get a shovel full of dirt, down, throw it over him. She was horrified that the gravelly dirt made so much noise as it hit his body. She intensified her efforts: step down to the edge of hole, let the dirt slide down the walls, back up on the fender, and scoop. Finally she gathered up the soiled tarp from the bottom of the boat and pushed it in on top of him. Thank goodness she had toiled in the garden season after season, building up her stamina, becau
se it took until dawn threatened to top off the hole. Only minutes though, to rake the area smooth in preparation for the cement job.

  “Guess you wish that I had canceled tomorrow’s pour now,” she said and inspected her work.

  * * * *

  As she wiped the garden tools across the grass to give them a preliminary cleaning, she thought about the rose bushes in their burlap coats that she had tucked away in the shadows behind the house. They stood ready to be planted around the edges of the new carport when it cured.

  Axel planted in his hole meant that all the dirt wouldn’t fit back in, so she had gone ahead and piled the extra soil in a mound (such handy planting material) beside the roses.

  Gina was sure it would be a long time before anyone noticed he was gone, what with his travel all week and his fishing on weekends. His boss sure wasn’t going to call her, or anyone else for that matter, to ask about his missing salesman. The guy had covered too many times in the past when Axel was off with that woman. If anyone ever did come looking, they’d find the boat parked right where he left it on the concrete deck that Axel himself had ordered.

  She went into the shed to retrieve the hidden Cosmo to plant in the boat’s storage compartment. The address label would make a nice piece of incriminating evidence to tie the witch to her husband. Tricia Peller: a person of interest.

  Gina had hidden the magazine on the top of the tool cabinet, and she stretched to fetch it down. Once in her hands, she couldn’t help encircling the address label within the flashlight’s beam for one more look.

  “Tricia Peller,” Gina sneered. And then some bold type at the edge of the illuminated halo caught her eye.

  Gina read, “Christmas Edition: December 2006.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  C. Ellett Logan spent her formative years in the Deep South, an experience that informs her settings and troubles her characters, Southern-Gothic-style. Currently, she has found the perfect home in Northern Virginia in the crime-fiction community, landing coveted spots—for her short stories in Chesapeake Crimes anthologies (Wildside Press)—and on the board of Sisters in Crime’s Chesapeake Chapter. Her completed manuscript, Miasma, is set in the swamps of Georgia’s low country.