The Best American Mystery Stories 2014

by Laura Lippman (ed) (epub)

  Anne looked at him, thinking about pulling out his teeth one by one.

  “Sorry,” said Holt’s deep voice from the doorway. “The principal and I have things to discuss this evening.”

  The Jerk covered his chagrin well—after all, he was a salesman—and Holt and Anne regarded each other. There was so much texture and complexity to that look she could have worn it like a sweater. When the Jerk was gone and the school was quiet and empty around them, Holt said, “Well, you had a busy morning. No wonder you were late.”

  And Anne heard herself saying, “Who are you?”

  This was a talk that had to be private, but Anne was not about to go to Holt’s house, and she didn’t want him in hers, not yet. They drove separately to a restaurant that was nearly empty at this time of day. They asked to be seated on the patio, which had just opened for the season. It was almost too cool to sit in the open air in the late afternoon, but Anne was willing to be a little chilly if it meant no one would be close to them.

  After they’d ordered drinks and a plate of nachos, he said, “Holt isn’t the name I was born with, but I expect to use it for some time. I know you’re Twyla Burnside. My little brother was in your tenth class.”

  Anne considered all this while their drinks came. “So you know all about the event.”

  “The one that got you fired? Yes.”

  “Why are you here, at Travis?”

  “I did the same training, but in a different location,” he said. “The guy in charge was as tough as you can imagine. He was coming up a couple of years before you got your job. David Angola.”

  She nodded. David Angola had saved her ass at the secret hearing. “I lost one person in almost every class,” she said. “Until the tenth class, they always considered it the price of doing business. It was my job to make sure the grads were the best my school could produce. They had to pass the tests I set. Of course the tests were rigorous. I would fail in my mandate if they weren’t as challenging as I could possibly devise . . . to ensure the grads were completely prepared for extreme duress and with extraordinary survival skills. Until my tenth year as an instructor, one loss a year was acceptable.” She shook her head. “And that year, the lost student was the one with connections.”

  Holt smiled, very slightly. “You have a huge reputation, even now. David himself said he was a pussy compared to you.”

  She smiled, a wry twist of the lips. “That’s a huge compliment, coming from David. That woman’s brain aneurysm could have gone at any time. You can’t tell me it gave because of ‘undue rigor’ or ‘borderline cruelty.’ Her bad luck, and mine. Her dad had a lot of pull.”

  Holt’s face held no judgment. “They give you the new identity when they fired you?”

  “Complete with references.”

  “Me too.”

  She raised an interrogative eyebrow.

  “Shot the wrong person,” he said. “But it was a righteous mistake.”

  She absorbed that. “Okay,” she said. “And you’re here because?”

  “David heard some people were coming after you. You got some enemies.”

  “No one’s tried for three years.”

  “Right before I got to Travis, huh?”

  “Yeah. This guy was waiting in my car after I chaperoned the senior prom.”

  “Garrote?”

  “No, knife. The man this morning, he had a garrote.”

  Their nachos came then, and they ate with some appetite.

  “David actually sent you here?” she asked, when she’d eaten all she could.

  “When they cut me loose with a coach persona, David gave me a call. He thought this might be a good place for me to land.”

  “I’ve never felt like you were watching me. Are you that good?”

  “I didn’t need to watch you too closely. You’re great with your cover. This morning, when you came in, I could tell you’d broken your routine because something had happened, and I got a little whiff of blood from your hair.”

  Anne was intensely angry at herself. She should have taken fifteen more minutes to rewash and restyle her hair.

  “So you figured out . . .”

  “If I assumed someone had gone for you, I knew where I would have dumped him. I figured I might as well check.”

  “You’re cool with this.”

  “Sure,” he said, surprised. “I had a look at him. Chuck Wallis. He was the brother of . . .”

  The name triggered a switch. “Jeremy Wallis. He died in the fifth class. So. Now what?”

  “Now we figure out what to do about that little shit Clay.”

  She smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. It was Twyla Burnside’s smile, not Anne DeWitt’s. She would have to rebury herself in her new character all over again, but it felt so good to let Twyla out. “I think we need to put the fear into him.”

  “The fear of God?”

  “The fear of us. Oh, by the way, let me tell you why the Meachams came to my office this morning. It’ll get you in the mood.”

  The next afternoon Coach Halsey kept Clay after practice. The kid was tired, because the practice had been extra tough, but he didn’t complain. Clay knew that Coach Halsey hated whiners. After he finished the extra exercises the coach had outlined for him, he trudged out to his car. It was dark by now, and he called his mom to let her know he’d be late. He was thoughtful like that, no matter what people said.

  At first Clay didn’t know what was suddenly poking him in his head. Something hard and small. He felt the presence of someone behind him. “Hey, jerk,” he said angrily, beginning to turn. “What the hell?”

  “What the hell indeed,” said a strange voice, a voice as metallic as the gun that tapped his cheek. “Keep a polite tongue in your mouth. If you want to keep your tongue.”

  Since nothing awful had ever happened to Clay Meacham, he didn’t realize the genuine seriousness of this moment. “Listen, asshole, you don’t know who you’re messing with,” he growled.

  He was instantly slapped by something that felt soft but weighty. It stung. He staggered. “You’re asking for it!” he yelled.

  And then he couldn’t yell anymore, because he was seized by two strong arms and gagged and blindfolded by two deft hands. As Clay’s fear began to swell and explode in his brain, he was bundled into his own car, his keys were extracted from his pocket, and the two hooded figures drove him down country roads and dirt tracks, deep into the woods.

  Once he was on his knees, the metallic voice said, “Clay. We need you to be the best you can be. If you’re going to represent all of us when you’re in college, you need to be bulletproof. If you’re going to be bulletproof, you have to stop molesting women who aren’t able to say yes or no. You have to stop being a taker. Because someday someone will call you on it. And then you’ll let us down. I can’t tell you how much we don’t want that to happen. So, Clay, you need to tell us now about what you’ve done before, things you’re not going to do in the future.”

  Though his first confession had to be coaxed out of him, Clay found himself telling the two invisible presences everything. Everything he’d ever done to people, people smaller and weaker and less handsome than himself. And he’d done a lot.

  After an hour, he was sorry for it all.

  By the time Clay got home that night, he flinched whenever his parents asked him a question. He told them repeatedly he’d had a bad day and he only wanted to go to bed. When they demanded to know why his face was so reddened, he said a ball had hit him at practice. He went to his bedroom as though he were dragging a chain behind him, and Elaine and Brandon were too worried to remember to ask Clay if the coach had mentioned working on the recruiting film for him.

  Clay only went to school because he was scared to be at home by himself after his parents had left for their jobs. At school he jumped when his friends slung their arms around him, punched him in the shoulder, and in general acted like kids on the cusp of becoming men. For the first time in his life, Clay knew what it was like to
be weak. To be lesser.

  When his best buddy strolled past Hazel Reid’s table in the lunchroom, his fist raised to pound on the table to make Hazel jump (a trick that never grew old with Clay’s friends), Clay caught that fist and said simply, “No. Not anymore.”

  “Awww, man,” the friend said, but he’d heard the pronouncement of the most popular boy in school. Not anymore.

  Clay turned to leave the lunchroom and saw Principal DeWitt standing, straight and lean as an arrow, about 2 yards away. He was seized by an almost uncontrollable impulse to rush to her and tell her what had happened to him. Everyone said DeWitt was a smart woman and a good principal. She would be able to figure out who’d kidnapped him.

  Or maybe not. There were so many candidates.

  There were a lot of sins Clay Meacham had never thought twice about committing, sins of which he was now painfully aware. His eyes had been opened last night, even though he’d been blindfolded.

  Clay was only seventeen, and he wasn’t clear on how he was supposed to attain perfection, but the guidelines he’d been given last night had been pretty clear.

  He saw the principal again that day, when she came to watch the team practice. That wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. While Clay was waiting to come up to bat, he saw Coach Halsey look at Mrs. DeWitt. It made Clay shiver. Clay’d been scared he’d pitch poorly that day, but now that he knew there’d be a price to pay if he failed, his focus was amazing.

  After practice, Principal DeWitt drifted over to talk to Coach Halsey. After a second Coach beckoned Clay over. He trotted over to the two adults.

  “I hear you need a recruitment film,” Coach Halsey said.

  “My parents say I need one to send out next year, yessir,” Clay said.

  “I’m willing to help you make it, but I won’t do all the work,” Coach said. “You’ll have to put in some hours helping me do other things, so I’ll have some free time.”

  The old Clay would have been sullen about giving up anything to get something that was his due. The new Clay said, “Yessir. Just say when.” He turned and went into the locker room.

  “I think he’s been turned around,” Anne said.

  “At least for now.” Coach Halsey looked down at her. “Want to get dinner Saturday night?”

  “I think so,” she said after a pause. “There are a few things we might want to talk about.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sarah Toth’s dad is hitting her.”

  “Well,” Holt said. “We can’t have that. She won’t get the high test scores if she’s being beaten at home.”

  “If she scores two points higher the next time she takes the SAT, it’ll be a state record.”

  He smiled. No one else would have enjoyed that smile but Anne. “Then we’d better get cracking.”

  They both laughed, just a little. “By the way,” Holt said. “What happened to the principal before you? You became assistant here the year before she killed herself, right?”

  Anne nodded, her expression faintly regretful. “Mrs. Snyder was having sex in her office with a married teacher, Ted Cole. Christy overheard a conversation between them and came to me with it.”

  “Then it would have been all over the school in short order.” He smiled. “Good job. Proactive.”

  Anne smiled back before she glanced down at her watch. “I have to be at my house to let the handyman in,” she murmured. But she lingered for a moment. “Snyder almost didn’t hire me. She was not a fan, from the first interview until the last. But the school board liked me. And the minute I saw Travis High, I knew it was a place where I could make a difference. Now . . .” She looked up at him and away, almost shyly. “Now there’s no limit.”

  “No limit,” he agreed, and they stood silent in the lowering sun, their long shadows streaking across the practice field.

  JOSEPH HELLER

  Almost Like Christmas

  FROM The Strand Magazine

  THE COFFEE WAS GONE AGAIN. Mercer swore softly, tiredly, and carried the coffeepot to the basin. He moved slowly. His eyes were red and he ground them mercilessly with the heels of both hands while the percolator was filling. He needed a shave now, and the total relaxation of his heavy face gave him the hopeless, stupid, waxen look of a drunkard. Carter sat limply at the large pine table and watched him, scarcely seeing him in his own fatigue. It had been a long night, he was thinking, a fantastically wicked, confused, and diabolical night, and it was only just beginning.

  He watched Mercer start back across the room and stop at the window to stare out glumly at the entrance to the hospital across the street. The chill fog outside had streaked the glass with drippings of mist that gleamed like cheap jewelry in the light from the naked yellow bulb in the room. The window was dirty, and each time that Carter’s eyes fell on the coarse patterns of grime he was reminded of photographs of diseased tissue that he had seen a long time before in Life magazine. They had been drinking coffee for hours, and the warm odor was thick and stale in the air and made him nauseous.

  “Is anybody out there?”

  “A few men,” Mercer replied, after a full minute had gone by. “Men from the railroad, probably.”

  He turned from the window and set the coffeepot on the electric burner. For several seconds there was a quiet fury of hissing and sputtering as the water on the outside of the can boiled off.

  Only Henney was in the room with them now. Beeman and Whitcombe had gone to the hospital to wait for news of the Wilson boy. There were no prisoners in the jail downstairs, and there was little for Henney to do. There never was any real need for a night porter, but Henney was Mercer’s cousin, a consumptive, simpleminded man with very weak eyes who could not hold down a job anyplace else, and Mercer maintained the sinecure for him. Henney was reading the newspaper. He had been reading the same eight pages all night. Suddenly he began humming aloud, unconscious of the annoyance he was creating.

  Mercer stood it as long as he could, and then said, “Henney, go down to the diner and get some chicken sandwiches. Don’t let him put any butter on.”

  Henney came to his feet with a start and hurriedly folded the newspaper. “Sure, Jay, sure.”

  “Cigarettes,” Carter said moodily.

  Mercer gave his approval, and Henney walked out. The coffee was bubbling already, sending rapid puffs into the air. Mercer brought the pot to the table. Carter shook his head, but he filled both cups anyway and poured condensed milk into them from a can. There was no sugar. Carter stirred the brew and took a quick gulp. The coffee scalded his throat but left his body cold. Mercer sat down facing him.

  “Why don’t you go home, Carter?” he said slowly. “Get some sleep. Get up early and go away for a few days. Stay out of town awhile. They may get after you also.”

  Carter shook his head, although he knew Mercer was right. His eyes were stinging with rawness, and there was a stabbing ache in his temples, his jaws, and in the back of his neck. He had caught cold during the chilly vigil. His eyes were tearing, and he wiped them with his hand every few minutes. He needed sleep badly. He rested his head in his upright hands, massaging his face torpidly against his fingers. The contact brought a fleeting relief, but soon the points of his elbows were sore against the rough, unvarnished wood.

  He had a busy schedule the next day. He had classes all through the morning and into the afternoon, the first one at eight, and after that the football team to coach until dusk. His puzzlement increased at the thought of the football team. If anyplace, it was there, with all the physical contact that the game required, that he would have expected an outbreak, but that had gone smoothly, better than even he had dared to hope, and then, just as he was beginning to relax, to triumph, abruptly, fiercely, irrevocably, everything that had been accomplished, everything for which he had toiled so long, with a suddenness that left him dazed, was rudely, cruelly, decisively, and insensately obliterated by the primordial brutality of an alley fracas.

  His consciousness was throbbing now with the dim recogni
tion of atavistic pressures that were emerging uncontrollably all about him. He could see but not understand them, and they were horrifying in their mute and immutable finality. All afternoon he had been watching the terrible recrudescence of savage animal passions, and he was tormented by the helpless despair of being unable to arrest it, of being unable, even, to try. His confusion rose suddenly, filling him with panic, and he dug his nails painfully into his forehead and shivered.

  The sound of footsteps roused him to attention. His eyes went hopefully to the door, but it was only Henney returning with the sandwiches. He stepped into the room spryly, swinging the door closed behind him, and delivered a brown paper bag to Mercer. There was no stop on the door, and it slammed shut with a sharp, reverberating boom that rattled hollowly through the walls of the building and seemed to shake the foundations. Carter winced and Mercer frowned, and Henney, himself surprised by the report, shifted uneasily and smiled at Mercer with apology.

  Mercer pushed a package of cigarettes to Carter and began tearing the bag along the seam, doing it slowly, with very deliberate caution. His thoughts were obviously elsewhere, but the intense preoccupation they gave his manner solemnized the act, and for a moment he seemed like a surgeon making a careful incision. There were four sandwiches inside, each wrapped sturdily in thick wax paper. Gazing at them, Mercer spoke to Henney. He said, “Did you see Beeman?”

  Henney shook his head. “No, Jay. They said he was still in the hospital.”

  “Who said?”

  “The men outside.”

  Mercer sighed with exhaustion and looked up at him.

  “Henney, what’s going on outside?”

  “Nothin’, Jay,” Henney said quickly. “Just a few men waitin’ around to see what happens.”

  Mercer regarded him steadily for a moment and then stared down at the table. He had large hands, Carter noticed, with strong, callused, fleshy fingers. There were spots of dirt on each of the big knuckles and in the folds of skin between them.