AHMM, October 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Why is it you suspect me of something?"

  "It doesn't matter what I suspect. Poor Mrs. Amparo saw everything."

  A gust of northern wind thumped the house.

  Leon raised his chin like an orator. “The fool grabbed my arm."

  "When you put it out to block him?” Vecchio said, his voice catching Leon like a sucker punch.

  "Yes. I tried to stop him. He grabbed my arm with both hands so he could push me aside, but he lost his balance.” Creegan imagined the puerile struggle.

  "It was his own damn fault! He was hanging on to my arm so that I would go down if he went, but he was a lightweight compared to me. I pushed him off with my foot before he could drag me with him."

  "What was it he was going to say to her?” Vecchio asked in the tone used with someone who had grossly overreacted.

  "He wanted to scotch things with Patricia."

  Creegan said, “Someone told me you knew her back in the day."

  A nostalgic smile relieved the bleakness in Leon's expression.

  "I dated her when I mustered out. I was her main admirer.” His tone shifted. “Until jealousy got in the way."

  "Are you a jealous person, Leon?"

  "Certainly when I was younger."

  "How old were you when you got out of the army?"

  "Twenty."

  "Huh! There would have been quite an age gap back then. A twenty-year-old man involved with a girl of eleven or twelve?"

  The last trace of Leon's joy flickered out. “I tell you I went with a girl named Patricia Willeford from Newtown in the year 1919. The same maiden name as Patricia. How could it be a coincidence?"

  "Mr. Strozier figured it out at her party, didn't he? Two big sevens on the cake. Maybe she went along with your . . . mistaken identity because she was new in the place and unsure of herself, or maybe she thought it was harmless to indulge you, or maybe she wasn't even sure it wasn't true, but Strozier did the math and said he was going to straighten her out once and for all, didn't he? He told you that on the stairs—I'm telling.’ The thing is, her family had already done that, but she just hadn't gotten up the gumption to say anything to you."

  Leon's mouth sagged. “I couldn't see those numbers. The candles were just a blur. No one mentioned her age at the party."

  "And a gentleman never asks. It's a shame, though, because everybody would have figured it out sooner or later."

  Leon looked off-stage. “Perhaps. But it was the way that louse went about it. And then he almost killed both of us on top of it all."

  Vecchio was reaching for the recorder switch when Leon added, “I was just trying to undo an old wrong I'd done to . . . someone."

  * * * *

  While Vecchio radioed HQ, Creegan came around from behind the judicial lamp to sit beside Leon. The old man was speaking under his breath. Prayer? Or a dialogue replayed from decades past?

  "Is it true you have no people around here?” Creegan said, wondering how he might remedy this intensified isolation that he had created in the line of duty.

  "My daughter's husband took a job out in San Jose. Might as well be the moon."

  Leon's negativity discouraged Creegan, who had been hoping to induce contrition and resolve rather than guilty resentment.

  "I had a boy too."

  The irrepressible storyteller took over. “All the people we knew expected great things from him, but he was killed at Bastogne. The commanding officer wrote us to say the boy gave his life to save his friends. His mother and I went over to see the grave once. He and I fought on the very same ground twenty-five years apart. Isn't that something?"

  Creegan might have shared his own recent loss, but it was too raw to speak of safely. The vision of Michael's body being handed down from the ruins in Beirut still muscled its way into his sleep. The Marines were pulling out now—four months too late for his son. Too late, too, for Creegan's mother, whose final grasp on reality had seemed to slip away upon news of her favorite grandchild's death. Somehow, Creegan did not believe the experience could ever distill itself into a story for strangers.

  Leon hunched forward, clasped his hands again. “No matter what happens, they won't want me around here anymore."

  Vecchio returned, poker faced, which meant there was plenty going on in his head. “The D.A. wants Mr. Tesler to come in so they can go over his statement."

  Jeanine was behind him, looking ten years older than when Creegan had first seen her. “Come on, Leon,” she said. “I'll help you get ready. It's very cold out there."

  The two detectives stared at each other after she led the old man out.

  "He shouldn't have used his foot,” Vecchio said. “It'll probably show up in the autopsy."

  "Reflex, if he truly felt himself being dragged down a flight of stairs. Listen, I don't have an official car, and I really don't want Leon stuffed into a cruiser. Can you take him in and I'll follow?"

  In the hall, Jeanine was buttoning up Leon's tweed overcoat. He stood patiently, like a child being inserted into a snowsuit. Cordie was by the front door, within arm's length of the alarm lever. Creegan watched as she slowly lifted her hand toward it.

  "Cordelia Hardy, I am watching you,” he said in a slightly raised voice. It had been a favorite tactic of hers, the challenge emerging from behind a dark screen door on a summer's day.

  Cordie froze. Then she dropped her arm and walked the chair into the lounge without looking at him.

  Jeanine thrust gloves over Leon's spotted hands, tugged his scarf tight, and seated his earmuffs. She handed him a gray fedora.

  He put it on with both hands, smoothed the brim, and asked her how he looked.

  "Spiffy."

  Vecchio took his arm, and Leon stepped off with his long-swaying stride. From the parlor they could hear Patricia's voice. “I am not her! He should leave me alone and go find the real one."

  Mrs. Mallory came up behind Creegan. “Well, looks like we have three vacancies, for starters."

  He looked at her.

  She did not relent.

  Then he looked for Jeanine, wanting to say good-bye to her, but she was already busy trying to soothe Patricia.

  Outside, the rush of winter wind agitated the mottled trees. Creegan stopped and looked up at the night sky, letting the wind have its way. He thought Goldhaven might have been a nice place for his mother. He apologized silently to the person she had once been.

  The stars seemed to be rushing away into the darkness.

  Copyright © 2010 Chris Muessig

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  Fiction: PANDORA'S CONFESSION by Gilbert M. Stack

  "Callaghan!"

  Corey Callaghan stepped off the train as the black-frocked Irish priest hurried across the wooden platform toward him. The cold November wind swirled about them threatening to steal the priest's flat-brimmed hat. He mashed it more firmly upon his head even as he reached forward to shake Corey's hand.

  "Thank God you've made it!” Father Murphy exclaimed. “My but it's good to be seeing you again."

  Corey shook the priest's hand, matching his welcoming smile with a wide grin of his own. “It's good to see you, too, Father, although your invitation to visit surprised us."

  "Move along!” the conductor ordered.

  "Surprised you?” the priest repeated, ignoring the conductor's orders. “And here I thought we were fast friends after our adventures with the army this summer."

  The conductor stepped up beside Corey and the priest and attempted to intimidate them with his glower. He wasn't particularly successful. Corey was a tall man with broad shoulders, a bare-knuckle boxer by profession and not normally susceptible to crude intimidation. Father Mur- phy was a priest and as such accustomed to at least a modest measure of respect even among the heretical Protestants.

  A delicate female voice sounded from the entrance to the train behind them. “Of course, you're our friend, Father Murphy, and we are delighted at the chance to see you again."

  Corey spu
n about to offer a helping hand to Miss Pandora Parson as she stepped onto the platform beside him. Miss Parson was a petite redheaded lass with a sprinkling of freckles on the tip of her nose. She quietly thanked Corey as he took her carpetbag from her, then turned her smile fully upon Father Murphy.

  "How are you, Father? It seems like years since we saw you at Fort Bridger."

  Father Murphy gently clasped Miss Parson's hand between his own. “It's only been a few short months,” he assured her. “You look well."

  He stepped back away from the train, permitting Miss Parson to move forward so that the remaining passenger could dismount.

  Patrick O'Sullivan was a grizzled old man in his sixties, still wiry and strong after his own long ago years in the ring. He wore a fierce smile on his face as he hurried to greet the priest. “Sure and it does my heart good to be seeing you again, Father. Please tell me you've already arranged a friendly game for us tonight."

  Corey suppressed a groan. Not five steps off the train and Patrick was already thinking of poker.

  Father Murphy flashed his characteristic smile. “I may have mentioned to a handful of my parishioners that a few of my dear old friends were coming and might be interested in a quiet game of cards."

  Patrick rubbed his hands together with glee. “Now that's welcome news, indeed!"

  The conductor checked up and down the line to make certain it was clear and then stepped back onto the train. A whistle sounded and a cloud of black smoke belched forth into the clear Idaho air. The engine groaned as it built up steam, momentarily drowning out all conversation. Then the massive steel wheels began to turn, and the long line of cars rolled down the track toward the west, gradually picking up speed.

  Corey watched the train pull away until the noise settled to a level which permitted him to hear again. Neither Patrick nor Father Murphy had allowed the noise to interfere in their conversation and the priest turned toward Corey now as if the boxer had been following everything the other two men had said. “So what do you think of that, me lad?” the priest asked. “Are you ready to strike a blow for Irish independence?"

  Corey wanted to agree with the priest but he honestly had no idea what the two men were talking about. He looked about hopelessly for a few moments until Miss Parson came to his aid.

  "He wants you to fight a man called English Bill,” she explained.

  Corey relaxed. “Oh, well that would be fine then."

  Patrick laughed and slapped his leg. “He thought you were asking about guns and revolution,” he told the priest.

  Father Murphy sighed, not seeing any mirth at all in Patrick's statement. “That's not my line of work anymore,” he told Corey. “Sure but you know that I'm in the business of saving souls now, not taking them."

  * * * *

  "Oh, that brings back memories, Mrs. O'Leary,” Patrick announced as he forked a final chunk of boiled potato into his mouth and then pushed the barren plate away from him. “We don't see food like this very often now do we, Corey me lad?"

  Father Murphy's housekeeper smiled at the praise even as she protested Patrick's statement. “You'll be turning my head, Mr. O'Sullivan, with all of these compliments."

  She was a tiny widow from the old country who lived with her son and his wife and cooked and cleaned for the priest to make a little extra money. Not that Father Murphy had a lot of extra money. Being a member of the clergy was not a vocation that generated much wealth—at least not at the parish level. Fortunately, the priest had learned to supplement his meager income by gambling on fights and races and playing cards at the poker table.

  "And yet the food really was quite good,” Miss Parson insisted.

  "Best I've had in months,” Corey agreed.

  Mrs. O'Leary squirmed, caught between her natural humility and her desire to bask in the praise. “Well if you're all quite through risking the Lord's displeasure with these exaggerations, I have some dishes to do before Father Murphy's friends start arriving to play cards with you."

  Her eyes tried to catch Miss Parson's for a moment, but Corey's companion affected not to notice the silent invitation to accompany the housekeeper into the kitchen. Mrs. O'Leary gave up trying and walked out of the room.

  Patrick put down his fork and rubbed his hands together. “Is there time for a little business before the game starts? You mentioned a boxer..."

  Father Murphy supplied the name. “English Bill, he's a foreman for one of the local ranchers who seems to think we're still in the old country."

  "The foreman or the rancher believes this?” Miss Parson asked.

  Father Murphy blinked. “Why they both do, I guess. Neither one of them has any use for the Irish."

  Corey nodded. It was too often the case out here in the west. The Irish didn't have it as bad as the colored folk or the Indians, but neither were they well loved by all of these heathen Protestants.

  "So you have a fight for us?” Patrick asked again.

  "Aye,” the priest nodded, “that I do. In fact, I'd suggest you'd have a hard time leaving the parish without getting yourself into a tussle. It's the way of things in this part of the country."

  "What's troubling you, Father,” Miss Parson asked. “You've been the perfect host, of course, but you're mind isn't totally with us."

  Father Murphy frowned. “You always were perceptive, lass. It's why I asked you to come out here. But now that the opportunity is before me, I don't know how to take advantage of it."

  "Sometimes, Father, it's best to just come right out and ask,” Miss Parson suggested.

  Someone began banging on the front door of the priest's tiny rectory. It wasn't a simple knock, but a forceful, impatient clamor of fist on wood.

  Father Murphy sighed, then pushed himself up out of his chair and on to his feet. “If I were a gambling man,” he told them and the twinkle suddenly returned to his eye, “which I am—I'd wager that was one of the men I invited to play cards tonight."

  * * * *

  A gruff voice started complaining the instant the priest opened the door. “It's about time, Father, I thought I'd freeze to death waiting for you to let me inside."

  "Now, now, Tim,” Father Murphy tried to calm him. “It's only November. Surely you won't be in danger of freezing to death until January."

  Corey grinned at Patrick and Miss Parson. “You didn't tell me your brother lived in Father Murphy's parish,” he whispered.

  "What?” Patrick asked, craning his neck to try and see who the priest was talking to in the doorway. “My brother's still in Ireland. I don't see how it could be him.” As so often happened, Corey's joke walked right past Patrick, but it made Miss Parson smile.

  "Are you certain?” Corey asked. “He complains just like you."

  "No, I can't believe he'd—hey!” Patrick tried to be stern as he suddenly understood, but he couldn't fully suppress a burst of laughter.

  Out in the entrance hall, Patrick's “brother” continued grumbling. “I'm sure that's what you'd like to believe, but it's going to take an awful lot of your friend, Jack, to make these old bones warm again."

  Corey's grin broadened. “Are you really certain, Patrick? He seems to like his whiskey as much as you do."

  Patrick kicked good-naturedly at Corey's leg beneath the table.

  "Freezing isn't what's killing people in Golden Fields this week,” a soft, timorous voice interrupted the conversation in the hallway.

  "Oh, Kevin,” the first voice started. “I'm sorry, I didn't notice you there. I should have chosen my words more carefully."

  Kevin apparently accepted the first man's apology. “Oh, that's all right, Tim. I know you didn't mean anything by it. Still, it's weighing heavily on my mind. Father, I think it was a mistake for me to accept your invitation tonight. It seems almost blasphemous to try and enjoy myself under these circumstances."

  "No, no,” Father Murphy insisted in his best cajoling voice. “You can't go home yet. Why don't you come inside and share a glass of my friend Jack? I want yo
u to meet those friends I told you about."

  Kevin's resolved wavered. “I don't know, Father. Megan's over at my house right now crying with Cathy. I shouldn't have left at all but there comes a point when you just can't bear the sound of all that weeping any longer."

  "Sure but it's been a very hard month for you all,” Father Murphy agreed. “But it's not a bad thing for you to get out for a little while and fortify yourself for the days ahead. What would Brian want you to do?"

  Kevin evidently allowed the priest to convince him because he stepped through the doorway into the dining room. “Well, I guess that no one could hold it against me if I stayed to have a single drink,” he said.

  "That's the spirit,” Father Murphy told him. “Let me introduce you to my friends."

  Corey and Patrick immediately rose to their feet to shake hands with the newcomers while Father Murphy made the round of introductions. Tim Brady was a solid, square-shouldered scion of the old country with a shock of the sort of jet black hair that Corey's mother had always attributed to survivors of the Spanish Armada. His broken nose and battered cheeks testified to an active rugged life.

  Kevin Greene's appearance offered the opposite impression, smaller in stature and far less imposing. Tonight his eyes were moist and solemn. He shook Corey's hand without comment then sat down in the nearest chair and stared blankly at the table until Father Murphy put a drink in his hand.

  "You'll have to pardon our friend Kevin,” Tim Brady said by way of explanation. “His family is about to suffer a tragedy and he's really not himself of late."

  "I thought,” Father Murphy apologized, “that a night out with some good companionship would help him."

  Corey held his tongue because he didn't know what to say. The arrival of Mr. Greene had drained all the levity out of the room.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Brady,” Miss Parson ventured, “but a moment ago you said a tragedy is about to happen. Is someone ill? What's wrong?"

  Mr. Greene answered the question without moving his eyes from the surface of the table. “They're going to hang my boy,” he whispered, rasping the words out of a throat made suddenly too tight for easy speech. He lifted the drink Father Murphy had given him in visibly shaking hands and swallowed the whiskey.