Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem

by Conda Douglas

  Ellen didn’t want to take a pill in front of Albert. She knew how much the dear boy worried about her health. She had the evidence of his misplaced concern right in front of her, in the form of those horrid brochures, resting on the table, another stain.

  Albert looked at her face then down at his still-full tea cup. “I apologize for that remark about convenience. It was ungracious and rude,” he admitted.

  She blinked.

  “I know you’re on a tight,” here Albert showed his teeth, “budget.” He set the teacup down into the saucer with a clatter.

  What should she say? What would please and relax Albert, in this (she hoped) his final Thanksgiving dinner together? Ah. Of course. She knew what might work.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she said, “perhaps I do need more ease in my life.” And she knew how to get it.

  Albert leaned back in her husband’s old armchair, sloshing tea over the lace antimacassar. Her mother’s. From the Depression. The real one. The great one. When people scoffed and said there could never be another, Ellen always pointed out that’s what they said about the Great War.

  “What, you’re agreeing with me?” Albert’s eyebrows rose almost where his hairline used to be, back when he was young and handsome and charming.

  Same as dear Henry, who’d swept Ellen off her feet many decades ago, with expensive roses and perfume and at last an enormous five carat diamond ring. The same ring now remained on her wedding finger. She would have put it into the safe deposit box after Henry passed to keep it forever, but she couldn’t get it off her now always swollen finger.

  “Yes, of course, I am, you’re such a clever boy,” Ellen said. She gazed around her dusty front room. “But you know it’s so difficult for me to even imagine leaving all this luxury.”

  With the curtains drawn to protect the furniture from sun fading and one low watt lamp on, the room appeared as it had before Ellen’s husband passed away. Rich, luxurious, expensive, to match the outside of the mansion sitting on Boise’s Harrison Boulevard, in the oldest neighborhood, the North End, once the one and only upscale neighborhood.

  Ellen’s mansion, built by a nineteenth century Boise mayor of brick, would stand forever, never changing, the mortgage paid off. However, property taxes rose, ballooning upward in the always uber-chic neighborhood.

  All those years ago, after hubby died, she’d gone over the finances and realized that on her meager widow’s pension of a few thousand a month, she’d have to be careful, attentive and parsimonious. She’d created a time capsule to last the rest of her life, her, she hoped, long, long life.

  “Luxury?” Albert said, bringing her back to the present.

  He stared down at her beloved, wonderful Aubusson carpet where she’d easily covered the worn-through spots with inexpensive throw rugs. It’d last.

  “What luxury? Where?” he asked.

  She opened her arms in a wide, expansive gesture to the glorious, expensive room.

  Albert gazed up to the cream colored, so classic, ceiling. He reached up towards a long, large cobweb hanging from the room’s main light, a carved milk glass globe from the magnificent Art Deco era. “This place is a fire trap.”

  She dropped her arms. How could Albert say such a cruel thing?

  “I’m surprised you haven’t croaked in a blaze.”

  For a second, Ellen wondered if he’d considered setting fire to her home, with her trapped within. Staring at his weak chin and drinker’s-vein-dappled cheeks, she realized he’d never possess the guts to do such a thing. She was about to tell him so, when he said, “But if you sell now, while it’s still not a gutted shell—”

  “Nonsense, nothing a little dusting wouldn’t fix,” Ellen snapped, and grimaced at her harsh tone. At least she hadn’t blurted out about his cowardice.

  Albert stared in her direction. “Have you been drinking?” he asked. “I mean, I know it’s good for the heart—”

  “No, that’s your expensive addiction,” Ellen said. She bit her lower lip. She knew her last words, her reminder of how she disapproved of his drinking, might keep Albert from drinking in front of her.

  “I wouldn’t need to drink if you’d only give me the money—listen to reason,” Albert said.

  “Good save, nephew, at least of words,” Ellen knew she shouldn’t have said that either. “I’m sorry. You know how I worry about money.”

  “You wouldn’t have to be so tight-fist—I mean so worried,” Albert said, another save, “if you’d just accept the change in your life and move on to the next stage.” He sighed. “You could spend some money, live a little.” He set down the tea cup with a cracking clunk. “Sorry, Aunt Ellen. Really.”

  Now it was Ellen’s turn to sigh. “I’ll glue it like the others—”

  “I’m sorry my plans haven’t worked out,” Albert continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “If they had, I’d have the money to help you, and there’d be no question of it running out.”

  He sounded so bereft that for a moment Ellen wavered on her own plans.

  Then he smiled at her, his best insincere salesman grin, all lies, and said, “Assisted living is my best idea yet. You buy the condo and your worries and mine are over.”

  She stared at his hopeful face, with the ravages of years of indulgence cutting deep discontented lines, and she wondered at how much he resembled Henry.

  “So if I move out—” Ellen began. Her heart gave an unwelcome jump in her chest. Never happen, she reassured her delicate organ. She’d remain in her beautiful, hard won mansion forever, with the only way she’d leave would be feet first.

  She sniffed to smell again the faint always comforting aroma of her husband’s pipe tobacco, still present even after fifteen years. So much better than the presence of the man himself, she mused, so less expensive to deal with, easy, simple, uncomplicated.

  “Move out, move on, move forward,” Albert said.

  “Forward? How do you move forward in a nursing home?” Ellen demanded. “The only forward in those places is into the grave.”

  At the word “grave” Ellen thought she spotted a small smile on Albert’s face. There were advantages to never spending the money on eyeglasses. Without such crippling assistance, her eyes still could spot the smallest telling detail.

  Then he shook his head. “Not a nursing home. Assisted living is completely different.” Albert spread his hands wide in imprecation. She always hated it when he begged. “Which with your heart condition, you need.” He picked up the top brochure on the pile. He thrust it toward her. “Come on, Aunt Ellen, you have to be reasonable.”

  Insistent. Pushy. Just the same as his uncle, whenever Henry wanted something.

  “Consider the alternative,” Albert continued, “and nothing and no one lasts forever.”

  She stared at Albert’s stained, frayed and tattered shirt cuff. He wore one of her husband’s favorite silk shirts, highest quality. Ruined, trashed simply because Albert insisted on paying for dry cleaning instead of using those lovely, delightful inexpensive dryer sheets at home.

  Her nostrils spread wide. “If you’d taken care of that shirt, it would still be as good as new.”

  Albert’s lower lip protruded. “And it still wouldn’t fit me.” He forced his mouth into a smile-like grimace. “Aunt Ellen, please, if you would only look at—” He flipped a hand toward the brochures, creating a small dusty breeze.

  She turned her head away.

  He dropped the brochure back onto the table. “I’m only thinking of your welfare,” he said in a low sad voice.

  A doubt whispered in her mind. Perhaps he did care about her. She shook her head. No, he was only thinking of his own good. What she planned was for his own good, as well. He’d hate living poor. So would she. She knew how he’d spend the money. It’d never last.

  First, however, she needed to convince him otherwise. Needed him to believe she’d leave her home, her life’s blood. “I know, dear heart,” she said. “I understand.”

  Albe
rt’s small, beady eyes narrowed in suspicion. His eyes almost disappeared into his bottom eyelids, into his drinker’s fat pouches beneath.

  She pressed her hand over her aching heart. “Really. I need to think of my own welfare.” And she was.

  No change in Albert’s expression.

  “And to seal the deal,” Ellen said, with a bright thought, “let’s have our traditional Thanksgiving brandy?”

  Albert frowned. “Aunt Ellen, it’s been years since we drank Uncle Henry’s brandy, for any occasion.”

  Ellen winced. Of course that was true, but she’d counted on Albert’s alcoholism to make him not care. “It’ll be all the better for having been saved.”

  Albert glanced sidelong at the thousand-dollar-brandy-bottle on the bookcase. “Saved—that’s right. You never want to use the last of anything.”

  “But things are changing—let’s start with the brandy—an old tradition becoming a new one?” Ellen hoped her words hadn’t sounded desperate.

  Albert’s frown deepened, turning his face into a twin of his uncle’s. “The last of anything, much less the much contested brandy.” He gave another quick look at the bottle.

  Ellen groaned inside at the memory of one of the few true fights she and her Henry had waged over his purchase of that bottle. Sometimes sacrifices must be made, sometimes you have to spend in order to save, she reprimanded herself now. She’d thought the same while pouring the powder into the brandy.

  She straightened, tightening her resolve around her aching heart. “But after all, dear boy,” she said, “it is Thanksgiving.”

  Albert looked again at the bottle and this time his gaze held. He licked his lips. So close to success … inspiration hit Ellen again.

  “Why don’t you take Henry’s snifter?” she asked. Henry’s snifter—big enough to drown in, to die in. “I only want a tiny taste to sip and roll over my tongue. You know, to make it last.”

  That did it. Albert jumped up so fast he knocked his teacup and saucer off the table.

  Ellen didn’t look at what she knew had to be the carnage of her special china. She’d glue the pieces together later, after the ambulance left. It’d be fine.

  Albert poured all of the brandy into the snifter. He forgot to pour Ellen’s bit, as she had hoped and half-known he would. He took a huge gulp. He coughed.

  Ellen’s body jerked, trying to get her to jump to her feet. She forced her body to relax and settle. Surely, Henry’s prescription pills wouldn’t work that fast?

  “Mmm,” he said. He smacked his liverish lips. “It’s aged well. Much sharper.” He took another large swallow, almost draining the glass. He sprawled back into Henry’s armchair, finished the brandy, and used the empty glass to gesture at the brochure. “Now, about the condo, it’s perfect for you, but you need to move—”

  She leaned back into her armchair with a crackle of old plastic. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the Taj Mahal, and they charge enough for that tiny condo it might as well be, I hate the very thought of leaving my wonderful home.”

  “Home? You mean this mouldering mausoleum?” Albert flung his ill-fitting-silk-shirted-clad free arm wide and gestured to take in her front room.

  “Put Henry’s glass down,” Ellen ordered. He’d already cost her too much this visit. “I won’t have you destroying another heirloom and wasting my money.”

  “Your money?” Albert slammed the glass on the table. It survived.

  Ellen suppressed a giggle. Unlike Henry, or Albert would.

  “Don’t you mean Uncle Henry’s money? And this tomb?” Albert continued before Ellen could protest. His florid drinker’s face grew redder. “A memorial to my uncle, who, let’s face it, Aunt Ellen, you always despised?”

  “I never—I loved your uncle.” A hard pulse started in Ellen’s temples.

  Albert gave a short, hard bark of a laugh. The alcohol and drug cocktail must have gone to his brain and loosened his tongue.

  “You loved his money. And what it could buy.” Albert raised his chin towards the room.

  “That’s not true—I—” She grabbed her bottle of nitroglycerin tablets. She let go. No, not yet. It’d all be over in a few moments. Then, in the new silence, her heart would settle and quiet.

  Any second now Albert would collapse. Heart attack brought on by his lifestyle, they’d say. Ironic, they’d say, when it’s his aunt with the bad heart.

  “Not as much as you, nephew,” she said when she could speak. “You’ve spent it fast enough.” She jutted her chin toward the brochures on the table. “If we’re facing facts, Albert, I know you want me out of here so you can sell my home. How much is this place worth?” Even in a rundown condition, she knew the place would be worth plenty. Housing prices in the ultra-chic North End, especially the iconic Harrison Boulevard, seemed to skyrocket daily.

  “Aunt Ellen—” Albert’s face glowed a deep, dark red. He leaned forward in his chair. His hands twisted in front of him, the knuckles white.

  “The problem with you, Albert, is you’ve never known how to make anything last.” Ellen used her cane to knock the brochures to the floor. “I’ll not let you force me out. I’m here until I die.”

  Albert stood. His shoulders slumped. “I believe you, Aunt Ellen.”

  “Which will be a long time from now,” she added, hands clasped to fallen bosom.

  “No, it’s only true you’ll be here until you die,” Albert said. He pulled the plastic bag off the table. “But it won’t be a long time. He stepped around the rosewood table toward her.

  Albert?” A pain started behind Ellen’s eyes. “Nephew?”

  He grimaced, mouth turned down in regret. “It was you who taught me the necessity of stretching the money out. The condo was my last and final offer. There’s only one other option. With the life insurance policy I took out—”

  “You wasted money on—” Ellen couldn’t complete the sentence, for the pain now jabbed, hot stabs of agony.

  “Not a waste and cheap at the price,” Albert said. His mouth quirked into a twisted smile. “With the insurance money and the money from the sale of this house and furnishings and without your expenses … there’ll be plenty for me for a long, long, time.”

  Ellen leaned back into her armchair. Her breath came in short gasps. She regretted her earlier thrift with her nitro pills. She remembered her mother always saying to her, “Penny wise, pound foolish, that’s you.” Ellen never listened. She never understood. Now, at last, she did.

  Albert smoothed out the plastic bag. “All I have to do is cut off your air—”

  “But—but—they’ll know I was suffocated.” Agony built in Ellen’s chest. It won’t be like your death, she tried to add, but couldn’t find enough oxygen in her lungs to speak.

  “Not if your heart stops first.”

  “Please…” was all she could manage.

  “This is going to take a while,” Albert said, holding the plastic bag stretched wide in both hands, “I’ll make it last.” He brought the bag down over her face.

  She clawed at the plastic, but he held it fast.

  As the last few beats of her heart faltered, Ellen reflected that she should have used one of her own prescriptions to poison Albert. Henry’s pills had been long, long expired.

  Useless. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw his prescriptions away. And she was so proud to have found a use for them, long after she’d used them to poison Henry. The same use for Albert, it possessed a wonderful, thrifty sort of symmetry.

  Or so she had believed.

  As the last of her life slipped away, she thought all she ever wanted was to make it all last till the end.

  And she had.

  Conda’s note:

  One of the traditions in Idaho is every year, in certain parts of the state, we have Huckleberry Wars. Huckleberries are a member of the blueberry family, smaller and sweeter and much prized. People squabble over huckleberry patches growing in the woods. Sometimes, bears, also aficionados of the ber
ries, join in.

  The bears always win, unless of course, it’s bear hunting season.

  Mama Chin’s Last Great Bear Hunt

  I stared upward at the great bulk of the bear where it laid on the deer trail, a furry lump half hidden beneath a huckleberry bush. Myriad questions flooded my mind as I studied the odd tableau.

  Next to the bear, Dora stood, arrayed in an oversized bright orange hunting vest that clashed with her red hair. I’d known Dora since she could only ask me for a cinnamon roll in baby talk. With her hands over her mouth, she gazed wide eyed at the bear, as if she’d never seen a dead animal before. Which I believed must be impossible. In the mountains surrounding our little town of Starke, Idaho, almost everyone, with the possible exception of Dora, our one and only Buddhist, often hunted during the season.

  However, the fall hunting season started tomorrow.

  Dora shivered in her lightweight shell and hugged it tight around her. I scrunched my shoulders in sympathy. What was Dora doing out here in the cold woods? I shook my head. Trust Dora to be inappropriately dressed for the fall day, having perhaps done something inappropriate for a Buddhist, with an inappropriately dead bear.

  “Dora?” I called out. I used my best “calm but firm” voice. Dora sometimes resembled a perpetually startled squirrel. I thought Buddhism, with its tenets of meditation and acceptance, would quiet a person down some. Didn’t seem to work with Dora.

  Her head jerked up and she let out a tiny “eep,” followed by, “It’s Mama Chin.” Again with surprise, as if everyone didn’t know I snuck out to go hunting the day before the season. Most recent years, that didn’t signify anything illegal, as I was only pretending to hunt, pretending to kill my annual bear and foregoing the skinning, butchering, tanning the hide and rendering the fat to fill my dozen Thanksgiving turkey fryers. It’s more work than it sounds.

  Dora continued to stare at me with that odd look. Did she believe she knew the dead bear in a previous incarnation?

  “That’s right, it’s me, good old Mama Chin.” I tried to modulate my voice away from its usual sharp-as-knives tone. I didn’t suffer fools, ever, and most people were darn fools. But Dora wasn’t a fool, only foolish with a too tender heart.