The Best American Mystery Stories 2012

by Otto Penzler

  The Hogan family—all three of them—waved goodbye as De­laney’s taxi disappeared around the bend down the Wexford Road. They walked back to the house in silence, like a funeral procession, each in a private turmoil they dared not speak.

  Something had died during Fanny’s stay; intuitively, they all knew that the innocent laughter and family joy they’d known just a few weeks ago was gone forever. The only question for Myles was how he would get through the next few days without letting his relief, grief, and anger spill out all over the kitchen floor. What was he going to say to his da? To Mammie? To his pals in school? To the snooping neighbors?

  Predictably, Jack took the line of least resistance: as soon as the green taxi was out of sight, he promptly changed his clothes, pumped up the bike tires, and muttered something about going to Borris to talk to Jimmy Doran about a horse. From the look on Kitty’s face, Myles knew she didn’t believe a word of it. They had no reason to trust him or believe a word he said. Myles could see some combination of worry and alarm on his mother’s face. It was a new look, one that he had never seen before.

  No longer able to stand the furtive look on his father’s face, Myles hastily dodged out to the hay shed to pursue his chores. From there he could overhear his parents’ voices, raised in anger. Kitty spoke first: “How do I know you’re going to Doran’s? You always make up some cock-’n’-bull story when all you’re doing is goin’ to the Joyce’s pub. Or are you just going back with Fanny to Windgate? Why don’t you just be man enough to tell me this time, not sneaking off, as usual?” Jack, his soft tenor now hoarse with anger: “I’ll do whatever I feckin’ well please, and no woman is going to tell me where I can come or go. I was goin’ to Jimmy Doran’s, but now I think I’ll go straight to Joyce’s. Why the hell not? Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. It’s all the same to the high-and-mighty Kitty Cusack. You can go straight to hell, woman, for all I care.” Myles heard his mother mutter something unintelligible before they broke off with his da slamming the kitchen door behind him and storming into the farmyard with his hat and coat on.

  As Jack angrily wheeled the bike toward the road gate, the borders suddenly became excited and barked menacingly at his back, the way they did at departing strangers. Irritated at the ruckus, Jack wheeled on the closest border collie, Rover, and kicked him viciously in the rib cage. The young dog whined and ran toward Myles for comfort, as Jack slammed the gate behind him with a few muttered curses at the dogs.

  That night—the first without their odd guest—the ramblers arrived at dusk, as usual, their expectations high. The borders kicked up their usual racket but quickly settled down to enjoy the routine camaraderie. Mrs. Wilcox’s presence had not dampened the ramblers’ spirits or concentration one bit. It would take more than her awkward attempts at participation to do that. In fact, they’d been more than gracious to her, Myles noted with some resentment.

  He’d hoped for a show of support; instead he’d become the target of edgy lectures on the virtues of being polite and “not letting his family down.” That’s a good one, he thought bitterly. I’m the one who’s disgracing the family by not cozying up to this bowlegged creature from Birmingham.

  When Jack was not home as the ramblers ambled in, the disappointment and curiosity was palpable. From the forced humor and the knowing looks, it was clear what they were thinking: the worst, the obvious, why not? Had that not been borne out since Fanny’s arrival in August? Surely there was no reason to assume things were going to be suddenly hunky-dory. They could barely restrain the winks when Kitty told them that himself had only gone to Borris to see Jimmy Doran. They knew better. The more Kitty reassured them, the more pity Myles could detect in their ruddy faces.

  They knew all along the arrangement couldn’t last, and while they felt sorry for Kitty and Myles, they felt even sorrier for themselves. Myles could see it in their sad faces, looking at the door as people filed in, staring past each familiar face to see if Jack might be among them. Then the shattered look when it was “only” Packie Breen, Jim Gallagher, Danny Doyle—the regulars.

  By eleven o’clock the neighbors had disbanded and Jack had not come home. With mumbled words of comfort—“Sure, he probably just got held up at Dalton’s”—each little group wandered off into the inky night.

  About 2 a.m. the borders started up, waking Myles from a deep sleep. He peeked out the window and could see them in the moonlight, swarming around the road gate. It seemed as if someone was trying to come in the gate, someone they didn’t know. Who could be coming at this time of night? This went on for some time, about a half-hour, then they fell back, growling and seemingly cowed. Then all fell silent and Myles fell back to a fitful sleep.

  Around 3 a.m. Myles came suddenly awake with an urgent hand on his shoulder. His mother was shaking him, a strange tension in her voice: “Myles, wake up! Wake up! Will you please come into the other bedroom with me? Your father’s been drinking and I’m afraid.” Like he’d been stuck with a hot poker, Myles sprang out of bed. His fearless mother, afraid? He’d never known her to be afraid of anything or anybody in his whole life. What could she be afraid of? What was his da going to do to her?

  As he came in the inner bedroom, Myles could hear the borders, back in their high-pitched barking, some joining Parnell in his deep-chested growl. Why were they growling at Da? Would they remember that he’d kicked Rover? Were dogs capable of revenge for one of the pack?

  That’s when all hell broke loose. As Myles shuffled toward the damp outside bedroom, he heard his father crashing through the front gate. He could hear the distinctive voice over the din of the borders, shouting in a hoarse, drunken diatribe. Myles fought back his fear, thought he might be having a nightmare, an illusion soon erased by the menacing voice descending on the house. Abruptly the dogs went silent, a silence that was almost deafening in contrast to the howling chorus of a moment ago.

  Then came the hoarse, bullying voice: “Get up, Kitty! Get up and make me my tay! Goddamn you, woman. You bitch . . . you whore. Why don’t you have the door open for me when I come home? I’ll teach you to show some respect when I get my hands on you. How dare you humiliate me in front of Fanny Wilcox—a woman who never done you no harm. I’m gonna show the whole cockeyed world who’s gaffer around here for once and for all . . .”

  Kitty started to cry, first slowly, in a stifled sobbing, then in an anguished, high-pitched confession, in terror of what was about to unfold. The wailing, desolate sound was unnerving for Myles to hear, all by itself.

  “Oh, a Cushla, this is a side of your father I’d prayed to the Blessed Virgin you’d never see. He can be so cruel when he has drink taken. I’m not worried so much for myself, but if he does anything to hurt you, I don’t know what I’ll do . . . I just don’t trust myself to . . .”

  As the sentence trailed off in a wail, an ear-splitting thud from downstairs told Myles that Jack had just kicked down the kitchen door, which was never locked. The splintering timber could be heard for miles. Cowering under the blanket, shivering in fear, Kitty and Myles waited for their fate to unfold. Cursing at Kitty, yelling for her to “come down, bitch . . . I’ll teach you to . . .” Myles could hear his father staggering toward the dark stairwell.

  Fighting back panic, gasping for breath, Myles’s own cowardice struck him, like a sharp kick to the pit of his stomach. What kind of man would be hiding like this? What kind of man would be putting up with this abuse? Had his mammie not just asked him for help? Well, she was going to get it.

  A towering rage rose up through Myles’s body at his mother’s tormentor. No longer was this beastly intruder his charming, fun-loving da; this was just a nasty, foul-mouthed animal invading their home. All fear and compassion gone, Myles made a decision then and there: this brute was not going to make it up these creaky stairs even if he, Myles Hogan, had to die stopping him.

  In one smooth motion, Myles sprang out of bed, grabbed the old single-gauge shotgun from its rack on the wall, and yelled, “She’s not
comin’ down. If ya want the tay, make it yerself.” The words flew from his mouth, like he was channeling a grown man, someone older and braver. He cracked the shotgun, checked the live cartridge—just as he’d seen hunters do before sending out the bird dogs—and stepped toward the stairwell, ready for battle.

  Hearing his son’s trembling voice for the first time, Jack’s whiskey-fueled anger exploded anew. “Ah, the little bastard is going to challenge his da, is he? Well, I’m going to put some manners on you while I’m at it. You’ve been asking for a good whippin’, and now you’re goin’ to get it.”

  With that, he lunged for the stairs.

  Myles pulled the heavy shotgun up to his shoulder, hands shaking as he fumbled for the trigger. He aimed the long barrel at the empty stairwell, yelling at the top of his lungs, “Come on! Ya bastard ! I swear ta God, I’ll blow yer fecken’ head off if ya take one more step.”

  From behind him, Myles heard his mother’s voice, calm and steady now—a complete contrast to the wailing victim of a few moments ago. “Give me the shotgun, Myles, right now, and step back from the stairs.” Myles was used to obeying his mother when she adopted that tone; despite his resolve, he reflexively handed over the gun. She motioned him to back up behind her with a quick snap of her head.

  A wintry blast shook the rafters, chilling the dimly lit bedroom. Myles recognized that voice, conjuring frightful images: Miss Breen’s bloody nose; the cowering Hannigan twins; the dead Tanner. In a flash, Myles’s rage turned to fear—fear for his da and the danger he was in. His mind raced. What should he do—beg her to stop? Jump in front of the gun? Start screaming to distract her?

  In the end he just stood there, frozen at the terrible spectacle before him as Jack kept stumbling closer to the top step. Too drunk to navigate the steep steps, he kept falling down, then dragging himself back up to continue the ascent. He was only one step from the top when he saw Kitty and the shotgun’s shadow in the flickering candlelight. Up until that moment, he’d kept up the drunken rant. Seeing the gun, he hesitated briefly, then charged ahead with renewed ferocity.

  “Well, well, well . . . if it isn’t the fucken warrior queen herself. Kitty Commandant Cusack, the pride of Cumann na mBan. The vicious bitch who never quite got what she had coming . . . I’ve punched yer silly eyes shut before and will again, just for pointing that fucken gun at me. Who do you think yer dealin’ with here? The Tans? Do you take me for one of them eejits you can scare the shite out of with yer fierce fucken stare and general’s bearing? Fuck you! I’m gonna teach you who’s gaffer around here . . .”

  Kitty’s voice cut off the diatribe in that low, calm voice Myles had learned to dread: “No, Jack, that’s over. You’re never goin’ to lay a hand on me again. Not tonight; not tomorrow; not ever!” She said this without emotion, the shotgun steady as a rock, and without taking her eyes off her husband, who stood swaying in the stairwell, still wearing his faded overcoat and rain-soaked felt hat.

  For a moment Jack hesitated, cocking his head to one side, as if considering her words. Undaunted, he lurched over the final step, yelling, “Why, you miserable bitch, I’m gonna take that fucken shotgun ’n’ shove it—”

  That’s when Myles heard the thud of the hammer and saw his father’s white shirt explode in crimson across his chest, his body jerking backward into the dark stairwell. Everything went into slow motion. He had lots of time to observe the details of Jack’s surprised expression, the wordless calm of his mother’s profile, and the seemingly endless racket of the creaky staircase as it absorbed the crash of the tumbling body.

  The borders started up again. This time the sound had gone from the high-pitched bark to keening—all of them in unison, as if on some invisible signal. They were answered across the valley by other borders, keening back, their eerie chorus reverberating around the Sugarloaf range.

  Myles stared in horror as Kitty’s right hand slowly and steadily set the shotgun against the bedroom wall. She betrayed not the slightest tremor as she picked up the flickering candle and followed her husband’s tumbling corpse down into the kitchen. The turf fire was still smoldering in the grate and a moaning wind swept down from the Sugarloaf, rattling the ancient doors and windowpanes. The borders continued to keen as Myles absorbed the horror of the scene on the kitchen floor, the same concrete floor where it all began a thousand years ago, on that first magical evening in May.

  An hour later, a somber, rain-soaked dawn was breaking over Enniskerry as Myles pedaled his Raleigh across the Dargal bridge, just a mile from the parish priest’s house. Still in a daze, head down against the driving mist, he relived the scene in the kitchen: his father’s blood-soaked corpse stretched by the fireplace; his mother calmly blowing the bellows, as if nothing had changed.

  “Mammie, what are we going to do?”

  “Go straight to Enniskerry and fetch Father Cavanagh!”

  “Right now, in the dark?”

  “Right now. It’ll be light by the time you get there.”

  “What should I tell him?”

  Kitty slows the bellows, then stops, glancing around the kitchen. The borders have gone silent, creeping into the kitchen, subdued, licking Myles’s fingers and lying down in a circle around Kitty, by the bellows. The ticking of the grandfather clock amplifies the heavy silence; hazel eyes meet blue, holding them in a longed-for caress through the miasma of the smoking turf; then comes the calm, dispassionate response:

  “The truth. Tell him the hard truth, like the good man you are.”

  KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH

  Local Knowledge

  FROM Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  THE CALL CAME IN at 11:54 a.m., December 15, 1995. Body found at Tups Tavern, 35 East 35th Street. Webb thought the call routine until he arrived.

  Tups, frequented by sailors and longshoremen, was on the lakefront. Superior glistened, never freezing over, never covered with snow. But not pretty either, not in this part of town. In this part of town, the massive lake was dark and dirty, not sky blue like it was everywhere else.

  Drug deals went down nearby and the local hookers worked dockside. Knifings were common. But this victim hadn’t been knifed.

  He’d been shot.

  Patrols had followed procedure. Two squads, parked at an angle on the broken concrete parking lot, colored the tavern’s gray walls red, blue, red, blue. Barflies stood near the open gunmetal doors, drinks in hand, coats draped over their shoulders to protect them against the cold.

  They watched Webb as if he were one of them.

  Which, in a way, he was.

  He slipped between the dented bumpers, thankful he still fit into small places. Fifty crunches, one-armed pushups, a half-hour run around the football field, all required before he allowed himself to hug a barstool and drink until his tongue was numb. He always said the exercise let his body perform his job and the booze kept his mind from dwelling on it.

  But he wondered sometimes, especially when he saw himself reflected in those shabby tattered people whose drinks were more important to them than the life drained on the concrete.

  He didn’t acknowledge them. Instead he stopped beside the squads and memorized the scene.

  Body belonged to a tall middle-aged man, lamb’s wool coat—too rich for this part of town—exit wound a bloody mess in his back. Shoes shiny Italian leather, almost no scuff marks on the soles, dirt caking the right toe and the left heel. Right hand outstretched, slightly sun-wrinkled, white, with a gold ring, large ruby in the center. Salt-and-pepper hair, neatly trimmed, no strands out of place. Face pressed against the ice- and sand-covered concrete, features not visible from above.

  Daylight was thin under a thick layer of clouds. Coroner would have to work in artificial light. Webb slipped on a pair of surgical gloves, crouched, and touched the back of the outstretched wrist.

  Still warm. Webb glanced up, saw bloodstained holes in the pile of ice-covered snow plowed to the edge of the parking lot.

  “Anyone know him?” he a
sked, as he crouched lower and peered at the man’s face. Then he realized he didn’t need to ask.

  He knew the man. Tom Johanssen, returning home after thirty-three years.

  Tom Johanssen. The first time Webb had seen him, they’d been in high school. Webb was the gangly new kid from Louisiana—a whole country and half a culture away from northern Wisconsin. Tom was all black hair and smiles, broad shoulders, chiseled features, and smarter than anyone else. Only he didn’t flaunt it, just like he didn’t flaunt the girls. Boys liked him, too, wanted to be in his shadow, and that was the first time, maybe the only time, Webb had ever experienced—had ever fallen under the spell of—true charisma.

  Then Tom shattered it all, the entire brilliant future, the golden dreams, by getting Jenna Hastings pregnant. Two days after graduation, they married, and Webb saw Tom only occasionally: buying groceries at the Red Owl, or riding home from work in the big yellow electric-company truck. Webb went to college and Tom stayed behind, and it wasn’t until five years later that Tom surfaced again, playing lead in a local country band.

  Webb had gone to see the band just after he graduated from Mankato State and just before he entered the police academy. Tom stood center stage, black hair curling over his forehead, guitar slung across his shoulder. Girls crowded him as if he were Elvis, and Jenna was nowhere to be seen. Webb had watched mesmerized, and had wondered then if Tom was divorced.

  But the divorce came after the scandal, leaving Jenna with four boys and Tom with another mistake on his record. He joined the service and went to Germany. Married again, became successful, and sent his folks piles of money. Year after year he promised to come home, the prodigal son, now back in favor.

  He never did come home. Not for his grandmother’s funeral or his grandfather’s. His sister’s wedding or his son’s.