Kiss or Kill Under the Northern Lights

by Susan Johnson

  Tim flushed and looked at the floor. “I forgot.”

  Jack said, “And you also forgot to set the alarm? Why?”

  Chance laughed. “I’ll bet it was because Ike, here, is Tim’s uncle and knew what was going on, right? I looked them up while we waited for you and Tim to arrive, Jack.”

  “I see. And you both knew how to activate the alarm, but neither of you know how to deactivate it, right?”

  Ike nodded.

  Tim flushed and agreed, “Yeah.”

  “So, you were in this together?”

  Tim blushed and looked scared, but he nodded. “I just wanted to get out of town after I graduate. He was going to help me get started in Dallas.”

  Jack turned back to Ike. “So, how long have you been in town, ripping off the bar?”

  Ike scowled. “Hey, this was just a one-time thing. I haven’t even been in town before today. Just flew in for my cousin’s wedding last night.”

  Chance frowned. “But Jack has been missing money for weeks.”

  “Well, that wasn’t me,” Ike shouted. “You ain’t sticking me with that charge.”

  Tim looked down, and stammered, “That was me. I just took small amounts that I thought you wouldn’t miss. Sorry, Jack. I guess I’m fired, right?”

  “You’re sure right about that, kid.”

  Ike whined, “You got all your money back tonight, too!”

  “Only because of the alarm, and that Detective Chance was here watching,” Jack returned.

  Chance looked at Jack. “Time to get that alarm code changed, don’t you think?”

  “Sure is, Chance. Thanks for your help.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Edna Curry lives in Minnesota and often sets her novels there among the lakes, evergreens and river valleys. She especially enjoys the Dalles area of the St. Croix Valley, gateway to the Wild River, which draws many tourists who give her story ideas. Besides non-fiction articles, she writes mystery, romance and romantic suspense novels.

  Edna is married and is a member of the Romance Writers of America and its chapter, Northern Lights Writers. She also does editing and proofreading as Fern Valentine.

  www.ednacurry.com

  ednacurry.blogspot.com

  My Time with Pearl

  By Patricia M Jackson

  Is rebellion rejecting society’s view of who they want you to be or showing society who you actually are? Gladys has always known who she was and has never given a lick what others think of her. It's a hard choice to say if she is more rebellious or just determined. Now she’s an old, and sometimes bitter, woman clinging to memories of better times, her journey into adulthood in the Roaring Twenties and an improbable love she never thought she would find and will never forget.

  My Time with Pearl

  Times may change but memories linger forever. There ain’t nothing much you can do about it. You’re stuck with ’em. A glance at the calendar causes a twinge in my soul as I think that under different circumstances this would have been our anniversary, and yes, sir, it is the same kind of warm autumn day. I turn to look out my window where there are magnificent colors all around that same way as it was then with a touch of crisp air causing folks to button their jackets.

  I struggle to hoist my scarred knees out of my wheelchair, using all the careful moves the physical therapy folks have shown me in this bloody rehab home to maneuver myself to the edge of the bed the nursing aide just made. I figure I’m fixin’ to stay put for a bit. I rub my fingers over the coverlet I keep on my bed. It’s real silk from Japan, as soft as money can buy. It was a gift from Pearl long, long ago and I know what you’re thinking. Why keep something so fanciful in a place like this? Well, sometimes it’s good to have little reminders of better times.

  I’ve always had a taste for the finer things in life. If you have the means, there’s no excuse not to go with the best money can buy because it’s always better. The sheets are always softer, the liquor always smoother and the sex, well, yes, even that’s always better with a top-dollar man. It’s quite sad I didn’t catch onto that last one until much, much later in life. Ah, well, regrets. Everyone has them.

  Aside from that big one, I tend not to fret much over anything else I’ve said or done. I’m sure my offspring would tell you they’re not much surprised by that at all. And didn’t they all turn out to be a bunch, huh? Not one in the lot you could count on for a God-damned thing. The only company I ever get is therapists coming to torture me. I’ve always been looking out for number one and probably will be ‘til the day I drop into my breakfast bowl. Who the hell else is gonna give a damn?

  I was a much different girl back when I was sixteen, young and beautiful, without a care in the world and independent as a cuss. Never was a girl born to white-trash Bible thumpers with a more stubborn streak about raising a fuss and having a good ole time than I was. That was the golden age, 1927. I believe they call them the Roaring Twenties or some other such nonsense. There wasn’t any roarin’ going on. It was just a time when folks worked hard for what they got, churning their own butter and carrying water. Every little what-not we got now that’s automatic was all done by hand. An honest man put in an honest days’ work, if he could find it, and when those hard-working folks let loose, they let it all hang out.

  The cigarettes were free-flowing, and the booze wasn’t. If you wanted that good ole time, well, you had to seek it out because that Puritan crowd was having their heyday in the world and I was stuck smack-dab in the heart of it all. There ain’t nothing more uptight and strict than a farmhouse in Iowa with a Baptist momma and papa. They might as well have tried to fasten a chastity belt round my nether regions with all their fuming and fussing. The sky was falling, and I was gonna end up with my soul burning in eternal hellfire, sackcloth and ashes to boot, if I ever got so much as a stray impure thought running through my head. Hogwash! It was all bullshit, straight from the barnyard to the church nearest you.

  For the longest time, I let on that I believed in all their crap because to say otherwise meant a whooping the likes of which this modern era of children cannot imagine. My brother, Earl, one time, was unable to sit at the table for pretty near on a week. He had scars on his hind end for the rest of his life for nearly burning down the barn smoking on some whacky weed. Not that he didn’t deserve it. A barn was a damned important item at the time, our whole means of livelihood so, endangering it just for the sake of hiding his shame over smoking a pipe of pure bliss … Hell, he’s lucky the ole man didn’t skin him alive.

  My elder sister died the day I was born. My folks had gone off to a wedding when my mother was so pregnant with me she was about to burst. It was mighty hard keeping tabs on their two-year-old girl, Amy, when my momma wasn’t even able to see to her shoes. The little one crawled under a table where folks were sitting down to eat. Some man, still wearing his steel-toed shoes crossed his legs with vigor, not knowing there was a little one down under the tablecloth and hit the tyke in the head, killing her instantly. Of course, my mother frantic with worry about not being able to find my sister, then finding her in that condition, instantly went into labor. So that’s how I came into this world, fighting for life amidst the heartbreak and weeping of others. They set me aside as though I were some kind of punishment from God.

  After a few more children came along, I was expected to care for those young-uns and they were as spoiled as spoiled could get. Dewitt was the next born child after me, and boy was he a slow one. How my mother doted on that child, giving him his every heart’s desire, fawning over him like he were the precious lamb of God himself. It was disgusting and vile to favor one child over another that way, always seeing me as her penance she must pay. Religion can be used as a weapon, you see. Mind you, there ain’t nothing wrong with saying your prayers and such, having a faith to believe in, if that helps you sleep at night, but to use it as an excuse for piss-poor behavior is just wrong, in God’s eyes, as it should be in everyone else’s.


  When I grew a little older, I developed a strong rebellious streak I dare say hasn’t let up any to this day. It was in the middle of one of those hellcat stubborn streaks that I heard about a speakeasy settin’ up south of Charles City where the young bucks went after a hard day’s labor to get themselves a beer or two. The Jeffries boys were talking about it behind the haystack when I went out back to slop the hogs and I listened in on every word.

  Bob Jeffries was mighty sweet on me and I frisked around with him every chance I got. He always said, ‘Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes’ and by God if hearing that from that hard-working boy didn’t boost my ego a might. I teased Bob with my feminine wiles with shameless abandon and got it into my head I could be a flapper girl like the ones you saw in the movie-shows on a Saturday night.

  I’d spent every free minute I had scourin’ through those pamphlets they had at the five and dime where you could learn the Charleston in ten easy steps or less. If we’d have had a gramophone, I would’ve saved my money up to buy a record with some ragtime or, even better, one of those new jazz tunes that were so popular in those days. I had it in my mind to get myself up to that speakeasy, find myself a fellar and get myself out of the little old farm-town that was squeezin’ my life away.

  When my mother wasn’t looking, I took an old dressin’ gown that didn’t fit her and fashioned it in the latest style using the Singer she kept in the spare room. I made myself one of those fancy flapper-style dresses, found some lace and dyed it to make myself a headband and splurged on some of the fancy heels I saw in Baker’s front window over in Mason. I did all this without my folks knowing a darned thing because, after all, they only had eyes for those young-uns and didn’t give a good God-damned what I did with myself, as long as I was at their beck and call.

  I told Bob and Tommy Jeffries unless they wanted my pa to find out they were traipsin’ off to drink liquor and smoke when they were done workin’, they needed to wait for me at the end of the third corn-row before they took off for Charles City the next night. Bob Jeffries had been sweet on seein’ down my blouses ever since he started work for my pa as a farmhand, so I knew I had him wrapped around my little finger. All I had to do was crook my finger just so and I could play him like a fiddle. I’ve always found men particularly weak to a certain kind of charm, and I don’t mean in a vulgar kind of way. It’s just the way of the world and a woman can use that to her advantage, if she’s a mind to. If you don’t, then you’re just leaving a little behind men will be more than happy to pick up and keep for themselves.

  The next night, when I was supposed to be fast asleep, I opened the window of my upstairs bedroom, carefully carryin’ my knapsack with my new dress and heels and wiggled my way down the downspout to the roof of our porch and down to the ground. I weaved my way from bush to bush in the twilight of our yard, scooted into the barn and changed my clothes. I left my work shoes on as I walked through the cornrows then spotted the boys waitin’ in their pa’s pickup down the road.

  “It’s about time you showed up,” Tommy called out. I held onto the fender of their pickup as I changed into my new shoes and threw my knapsack in the bed of the truck.

  “Shh, not so loud. If Pa is out smokin’, we don’t want him to hear, now, do we,” I said, jumping into the front of the cab.

  Bob was already in the truck, sittin’ with his hands, nervously, holdin’ the steering wheel, when he looked over at me. “Well, I’ll be, Gladdie. If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes. I’m the luckiest fellar in Iowa to be escorting you out on the town tonight.”

  Tommy pried the door open and pushed and shoved at me. I ended up stuck between the two of them boys, one foot on either side of the hump with the gear shift between my legs, my silk skirt hiked up past my knees. “You’re not escortin’ me, Bob. You’re just giving me a ride, that’s all.”

  Bob’s hand had lingered over the fray of the bottom edge of my dress before he took hold to put the truck in gear. “You can call it whatever you like, Gladdie, but you’ve been busy getting all dolled up for something. If you don’t find it before we come home, I’ll be glad to give you a hand.”

  “I’ll do just fine on my own, thank you very much,” I said, pulling a cigarette out of my purse, then reaching over to pull the lighter out of Bob’s breast pocket, where I knew he always kept it. I lit the hand-rolled cigarette, took a drag and blew out the smoke. You see, I’d been watching that boy puttering ’round my yard for a long, long time. I knew where he kept his lighter, how he liked his coffee and where he’d hide himself to make himself a little happier. I knew just about everything a girl could ever want to know about that boy, and that’s just about all he was, a boy. I knew damned well I didn’t want to get stuck with the likes of him for the rest of my life, toiling as a farmer’s wife, wondering where the next meal was gonna come from or if the next hail storm would put me in the poor house. I had my eyes out for a different kind of man, and just that, a man. Not a boy.

  We kept to ourselves on the drive from Hampton to Charles City, where we pulled into a farmyard with a big old barn where lots of other trucks and cars were parked hither and yon. We strode up to the big barn door where two men stood with shotguns, smoking and cussing as we approached. The bigger of the two, who was plenty big, asked for a password and Bob told them, then they slid back the barn door to let us in. The interior of the barn had been completely redone, with a bar to the side where plenty of men were seated, a beer or drink on the bar and lots of women stood next to them, with either a fellar’s arm slung over one shoulder or a fellar caught in their rapt attention.

  The air hung with the blue haze of smoke, a faint hint of cherry tobacco, and a band played popular jazz tunes down at the other end of the barn. The space between, where the stock would normally be chowin’ down on silage, was filled, wall-to-wall with folks dancin’ to the upbeat song. The trumpet player and the singer were colored, and I was surprised to no end, seeing as how there weren’t that many Negroes in our parts, but they were excellent musicians, so it made me no never mind. As long as folks didn’t get all upset, I didn’t give a damn.

  Right away, Tommy and Bob sidled up to the bar and started chugging away on some beers. They’d worked a long day, so I suppose a cold draft went down real smooth. There was a table of good ole boys sitting in a far-off corner, laughing too loud and carrying on, all of them young bucks, not so different than Tommy and Bob. One of those fellars came over toward us, looking half in his cups already. He came up to me, his dirty pitchers in hand, as I gave him a wary stare. He was a nice-enough lookin’ fellar with big hands and a stoic face, but he smelled like he had been workin’ in a barn all day and his shirt was nearly soaked through with sweat.

  “Well, lookie what we got here! Ain’t you one fresh off the farm, honey?” he said, eyeing my body from my head down to my toes. “You even got all dressed up like a grown-up.”

  I glared at him, then brushed past him to see a handsome fellar standing off on the edge of the crowd by himself, one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding a skinny cigar the likes of which I’d never seen. I’m sure my face was still flushed from the embarrassment dished out to me by that shameless idiot, so I mustered up my courage to get on with my intentions for the night. The stranger had noticed me in all the hubbub and it wouldn’t be an understatement to say sparks nearly flew between him and myself when our eyes met.

  He wasn’t very tall by a farmer’s standard but stood like a confident man with broad shoulders so I was sure he’d known a hard day’s work in his time. His hair was brown and messy, with touches of blond where it had been kissed by the sun and piercing blue eyes that could melt a girl in her tracks. He also had a scar just below his left eye that looked as though it hadn’t completely healed over, so he was apparently a fightin’ kind of man as well. My mind reeled at the notions going ’round, wonderin’ what he found so important that he’d need to get all scuffed up, so I set out across the room with the intent of finding out for myself.

&n
bsp; I held out an unlit cigarette and looked up into those dazzling eyes.

  “Give a girl a light?” I asked, “And maybe a drink?”

  He looked down at me. I stood far too close to him, as he was a complete stranger. His face didn’t move one iota, not a muscle or a twitch. He glanced over, looked up and down my curvy, nubile body I’d decked out just so for the night, then looked away.

  “I might if I knew her name,” he said, his voice deep and quiet.

  I reached over and held out my hand to him, smiled just a tad and flashed him my most suggestive look. “Gladys Roberts, at your service.”

  That got a bit of a grin out of him. “At my service, huh?” He took his cigar from his mouth, reached over to take my cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it off the end of his cigar, handing it back to me, as cool and casual as the most dapper gentleman.

  “Well, I suppose that depends on exactly what you want.”

  I spent the rest of that evening with the quiet, handsome stranger. We found a table off to the side in a quiet, remote spot and I never saw hide nor hair of Tommy or Bob for the rest of the night. As it turned out, they’d seen who I ended up with and figured they didn’t need to worry none about getting me a ride home ’cause they knew plenty about my companion, Pearl Nelson Collins. It seemed everyone there knew who he was and steered clear.

  He liked to go by his last name only, saying far too many blokes thought his name meant it was an invitation for a cheap shot. He’d learned long ago how to manage that kind of thing for himself. At least, that was the explanation he gave me that evening for the cut beneath his eye.

  He was a man of few words and I didn’t mind at all because I didn’t have much use for a man who went on and on. He was a trucker by profession, who took short hauls pretty much within the State of Iowa, but sometimes as far as western Illinois, for a hog butchering operation not too far away. His folks lived over in Belmond, a far enough piece away and he had a place to himself in an old caretaker’s shack near Popejoy. He just happened to be passing the night in the area and had heard some fellars at the stockyards talking about a place in the boonies where a man could get a beer and maybe find a pretty girl.