Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  I hid the gun behind my back. There’s no place on a black cat outfit to hide anything, not even an extra roll of fat. It’s just a black body leotard, some phony ears and a tail.

  “There’s no way we’re getting this motorhome out of the ditch, you know.” I said, watching my grandmothers half-carry Mr. Smith between them, his metal costume half on him and half off. “If you’ve got Triple A, we can ask in the motel if we can use their phone.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” he yelled.

  “No Triple A?” I asked. “I’ll bet Aunt Nozzie has it. Maybe we can use her account.”

  “No, no, no.” By now he was dancing furiously up and down. “Get in there and drive.”

  “Okay, but Aunt Nozzie’s not going to be happy with how you’ve treated her property. No one except for her is allowed to put dents and scratches on it.”

  I heard a sound not unlike a cross between a bear growling and the yowl of someone in pain. I was certain it was the hit man grinding his teeth and sobbing at the same time.

  But who was I to argue? He had the real gun while I had part of Grandma Mama’s PI costume. I quickly switched the gun from behind me to in front of me as I got in the passenger’s door and slid into the driver’s seat. He followed silently. Well, except for the grinding noise mixed with whimpering. He reached over me and locked my door and his own.

  I slid the gun onto the floor to the left of my seat and started the engine. I shifted back and forth between drive and reverse, rocking the big rig on its wheels until suddenly we shot out of the ditch backwards onto the road.

  And straight into an oncoming car.

  “Didn’t you see the lights behind us?” asked the hit man, who again seemed undamaged by the accident. “You could have killed us.”

  “Well, yes, but I thought it was more important to get us out of here anyway I could. You seemed to be kind of in a hurry to leave.”

  “We’re out of here. Drive!”

  “Don’t you think we should check on the other driver, who might be hurt?” I nodded toward the car now sitting smack on our rear end.

  “I don’t care about the other driver.” And there was that growling and grinding sound from him again.

  I looked in the rear view mirror and saw my flowered trooper emerge from the car. The other car doors opened and my grandmothers and Mr. Smith got out. I rolled down my window and stuck out my head.

  “I picked them up hitching back to your house. They said I’d find you here. I was worried, so I came after you,” Cal said.

  “Great. Now arrest this guy,” I said.

  Another car pulled up behind Trooper Cal’s. It was mine, driven by Aunt Nozzie with a wet pumpkin-clad president in the passenger’s seat.

  “Oh, great. Now I’m gonna have to shoot someone.” My captor glared at me. “And it might as well be you. Where’s my gun? I lost it when we hit that guy. Turn on the overhead light.”

  It was dark in the rig, but I wasn’t about to give him the light he needed to look for his weapon. Instead I reached down thinking I’d retrieve my fake gun. In the darkness I could point it at him, and he wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t real.

  It was gone.

  Gunless, both of us began to scramble around on the floor searching with our hands for our weapons. All I touched were some apples that were still lodged under the seats. Most of them were squishy. Obviously rotten. I doubted I could throw them at him and deliver any kind of stunning blow. He must have found the same because now the grinding, growling noises were accompanied by yuk and ugh sounds.

  Trooper Cal banged on the locked doors. My hit man and I continued to crawl around searching for the guns. My advantage was that I knew he had a gun, but he didn’t know I had a fake gun. Some advantage.

  “Got it!” he cried at the same time my hand closed around my gun. We stood up, and he reached over and turned on the interior lights.

  Both of us pointed our guns and fired.

  Chapter 7: Bang! You’re Dead

  The sound of the shot seemed louder than the pain I felt, and it was. I looked down at the weapon in my hand and then at the one in his and began laughing. Out of the end of the barrel of his gun hung a white flag reading “Bang!”

  “You don’t use a real gun either?” I asked. “What kind of a hit man are you?”

  He stared at me, then down at his weapon, than back at me. “This isn’t my gun. Somebody arrest me, please. I can’t take any more of this,” he moaned.

  I removed the gun from his hand and unlocked the door. Cal moved up the steps into the motorhome and cuffed the guy.

  “I was sure I heard a shot,” I said.

  “You did, and you fired it,” said Cal.

  “Where did the bullet go?” I asked. “I see a hole in the passenger side window, but then where did it end up?”

  “It ended up in the punkin prez,” said Grandma Mama, pointing to President Anderson who was rolling around in agony on the ground.

  “I think we need an ambulance,” added Grandma Papa.

  By now Mr. Smith had managed to shed all his armor and was standing alongside the road in his underwear.

  “I’d really like to go home,” he said.

  Aunt Nozzie tried to examine the president. “He won’t let me look at it, but there’s not a lot of bleeding, and he’s still alive.”

  “What first aid course did you take?” asked the president. “I’m alive and in pain. Do something!”

  “Just let me see where you’re hit. I can’t help you if I can’t see the wound,” said Nozzie.

  By this time, the owner of the motel had arrived to see what all the commotion was about.

  “Anyone hurt?” asked the motel owner.

  “Just a scratch, I think,” said Aunt Nozzie. “I’ll drive him into the emergency room. No big deal.”

  “Maybe not to you, but it hurts like crazy. Look where the bullet hit,” said President Anderson.

  Oops. I’d unintentionally hit my president in a tender area, just one side of his big boy parts.

  Aunt Nozzie shook her head. “You know how hard it is for me to find dates, Darcie, and now you’ve gone and shot him. He’s useless to me now.”

  “I wasn’t aiming for him. It was an accident. I’m sorry, Aunt Nozzie.”

  “Hey, you two crazy ladies. I’m the one who’s shot. Apologize to me.” The president rolled to one side, pulled his knees up around his chin and covered the wounded area with his hands.

  “I think I’d better get him to the hospital. He’s my president. I could lose my job.”

  “Dang right you could. You don’t even have tenure yet. I can fire you without cause if I want to, and I really want to,” threatened the president.

  Shooting my president might be considered more than cause. The college personnel committee probably wouldn’t even consider my side of the attack. My career was in jeopardy.

  “Don’t you dare fire her. When’s the last time you had this much fun at a party?” asked Aunt Nozzie. “Now buck up, pumpkin man.” She picked him off the ground, walk-dragged him to the car and propped him against the fender while she opened the car door.

  “Can we come too?” asked the grandmothers.

  “Sure, hop in, but you’re going to miss the rest of the party at my place,” I said.

  “Gosh, we don’t want that,” they agreed.

  “Cal, can you drop off my grandmothers back at the house on your way to the trooper’s station?”

  “No!” yelled the hit man. “I’ll confess to anything. Just keep those geriatric chicks away from me.”

  “Well, the motorhome is still drivable and so is my car. Let’s see…,”I said.

  “Will someone please, please take me to see a doctor?” asked President Anderson. “I’m bleeding all over this pumpkin costume, and it’s rented. I won’t be able to return it.”

  “No problem,” said Grandma Papa. “I can drive the motorhome back to Darcie’s while Darcie drives Aunt Nozzie
and the wounded guy to the hospital.”

  The wounded guy moaned again as Nozzie crammed him into the back seat of my car and got in after him.

  “What about me?” asked Mr. Smith.

  “You’re coming with us,” said Grandma Papa. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

  “I need another drink and my suit of armor if we’re going to play again,” Mr. Smith said.

  “And I need you. I don’t have anything to put behind me on the seat or my shoes with the wooden blocks on the bottom. I can’t reach the accelerator. I’ll sit on your lap. That’ll let me see everything I need to,” said Grandma Papa.

  I watched Mr. Smith get into the motorhome driver seat and Grandma Papa climb on his lap. My other grandmother got into the passenger seat. The engine came to life, and the motorhome came away from Trooper Cal’s car with a crunch and lurched onto the road.

  “You need to turn around,” I yelled.

  The brake lights came on and the rig swung into the middle of the road, then moved backward toward the other side, then forward toward the opposite side, then backward, repeating the maneuvers again before finally heading in the right direction toward my house. Grandma Papa laid rubber and sped out of sight.

  “A perfect eight-point turn,” said Cal. There was admiration in his voice. “Well, I’ve got to get cracking to the station. It’ll take a while to write up all the charges against this guy.” He nodded toward the hit man slumped down in the back of the car.

  “How will you explain the damage to the trooper car? I hit you. Do you want my insurance information?” I asked.

  “Nah. I’ll say he was at the wheel. What’s another charge with everything else piled up against him? Besides, I think he’s looking forward to a long time in a men’s prison, the longer the better.”

  “Don’t you want a statement from me and Aunt Nozzie and the others?”

  “Stop by the station. Tomorrow is soon enough.” Cal gave me a disarming smile.

  “Tomorrow is fine, just fine! Get me to the hospital,” yelled the president from my car.

  “Calm down, sweetie. All in good time. Just rest your head on my shoulder and relax,” said Aunt Nozzie, who grabbed him by his pumpkin head and pulled him into her.

  “I’m off,” I said to Trooper Cal. I was reluctant to leave him. Would I ever see him again? Would he want to see me again? Or was this just another routine evening in the life of a state trooper? I suspected it was not.

  “I’ll stop by the house when I’m finished at the station. I assume the party will go on late.” He waved me off.

  I returned his wave and turned my attention back to my car.

  “I think he passed out,” Nozzie said. “He’s awfully quiet. I hope he’s not dead.”

  “Nobody dies of a flesh wound to the, uh, groin area.” At least I hoped not. Maybe he went into shock.

  But he groaned and sat up. “Are we there yet?”

  “At the hospital? Not yet, but soon,” I promised, throwing the car into drive and speeding off.

  Aunt Nozzie comforted him by pushing his head into her bustier. “Just relax.”

  “You’re suffocating me,” he said or something to that effect. His voice was muffled by Aunt Nozzie’s bosom.

  At the emergency room, when asked about his reason for checking in, the president explained. “I was drowned by a witch, then kidnapped by a dominatrix, and finally shot by a black cat.” He then fainted, and an orderly wheeled him off down the hall.

  “Do you think they believed him?” Nozzie asked.

  “Not a chance,” I said. “Let’s get back to the party. I’m dry as a bone.”

  Chapter 8: The Next Holiday Is….

  The president survived his gunshot wound, but his story of being attacked was odd enough to merit the hospital admitting him for psychiatric evaluation. Trooper Cal never showed up later Halloween night, and when Nozzie, my grandmothers and I stopped at the trooper station to give our statements about what happened the night before, another trooper told us that Cal had been assigned the duty of accompanying the hit man back to Illinois for violating parole there.

  Aunt Nozzie nudged me as we spoke to the trooper.

  “What?” I asked.

  She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “This guy is a real hottie, better looking than Cal. Go for it, Darcie.”

  I shook my head.

  “Are you married, honey?” asked Nozzie of the trooper.

  “Yep.”

  “Happily?” she asked.

  “Our granddaughter here is divorced in case your marriage doesn’t work out,” said Grandma Papa.

  “And she’s a psychologist in case you have problems getting over the marriage,” added Grandma Mama.

  I shoved all of them toward the door before they could do any more damage.

  I knew it was no good lecturing them about staying out of my love life. Instead, I asked Aunt Nozzie when we got back into the car, “Do you want to visit the president in the hospital?”

  She shook her head.

  “I thought you liked him.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Well, I have to stop by to leave some flowers and a card saying I’m sorry I shot him. It’s the least I can do.”

  She sighed. “After a while the guy got to me. He’s boring. Are all academics so boring?”

  “I think only if they become administrators,” I said.

  “You won’t do that, will you, Darcie?” asked Aunt Nozzie.

  “They make more money than professors,” I said.

  “Okay, so if you can stand the boredom, maybe you could marry one,” Aunt Nozzie helpfully suggested.

  “It’s a thought,” I replied and added, “When do you think you’ll get on the road for home?”

  “Tomorrow looks good,” Aunt Nozzie said.

  Uhm. I tried to say I wanted them to stay longer, but the words stuck in my throat. What an ungrateful person I was. They were family, my only family, my crazy family. I sighed and mentally shrugged my shoulders. Wasn’t I just a chip off the old loony limb?

  ~*~

  We woke up the next morning to an early snow storm.

  “I’m not driving that rig in this weather,” announced Aunt Nozzie.

  “Oh, goodie. We can stay until Thanksgiving. Or longer.” My grandmothers clapped their hands together.

  Grandma Mama began singing a Swedish Christmas carol. “Glurgle, glurgle, glurgle through the snow.”

  We all joined in. It was so beautiful, I cried.

  --The End--

  Lesley A. Diehl is the author of a number of mystery series and standalone mysteries as well as short stories. The third book in the Eve Appel murders (from Camel Press) A Sporting Murder was awarded a Readers’ Favorite Five Star Award and her short story “Gator Aid” won a SleuthFest (2009) short story first place. Aunt Nozzie and the grandmothers first appeared in the Thanksgiving anthologies, The Killer Wore Cranberry: Vols. 1-4. She hopes the Aunt Nozzie and grandmothers stories will not result in her being thrown out of her family or possessed by a deceased family member.

  Visit her on her website: www.lesleyadiehl.com

  Raven House: A Jillian Bradley Mystery Novella

  By Nancy Jill Thames

  Editor’s Note: When a reporter is murdered after a fundraiser at the historic Raven House, the police call on Jillian and her Yorkie Teddy to help them investigate.

  Chapter 1

  A text for Help! bleeped on my phone. It was from Cecilia, my friend who occupied the main house on my property. Come quick! it read.

  As I scrambled from my recliner, a twinge of arthritis in my left hip reminded me I was no spring chicken. When Teddy, my sweet Yorkie companion, heard the bleep, he perked up his ears and hopped off my lap. He cocked his head as if to ask, “Where are we going?”

  “Come on, boy. Cecilia’s in trouble.”

  He followed quickly out the door as I rushed to her kitchen and walked inside the gray smoke-filled room.

 
Teddy barked, Cecilia and I coughed, while her poor toddler, Katie Rose, cried as her mother struggled to get her out of her high chair.

  I held the back door open as Cecilia carried Katie Rose outside. Teddy was at her heels, still barking.

  “What on earth happened?” I asked.

  As she hugged her daughter, Cecilia laughed. “I used wax paper to line the baking sheet instead of parchment paper. Not a good idea. At least the cookies weren’t burnt.” Then she laughed even harder. Was she getting hysterical? I wondered. The smoke cleared and we walked back inside.

  “It was stupid of me. I was making pecan cookies, but my mind was elsewhere,” she said. “I apologize for making you rush over but I really thought the oven was on fire. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

  “That’s okay. I’m sure if it happened to me, you’d do the same.” As a widow, living in the renovated cottage while renting out the main house to this young family gave me peace of mind. I liked having Cecilia and her little family close.

  I watched Katie Rose toddle to the toy basket in a kitchen corner to investigate her new toy iPhone, as Cecilia made a pot of tea. “I don’t think the cookies are burnt. Would you like to try one?”

  “Sure. I love pecan pie.”

  Cecilia placed blue and white toile mugs filled with steaming tea on the table along with sugar, milk and a plate of cookies, then joined me. She brushed back a long strand of dark brown hair and sighed. “I thought they sounded so easy to make with only three ingredients. You know how busy I am keeping up with the kids, driving them to play dates and pre-kindergarten.”

  “Pre-kindergarten?” I sipped tea, and took a bite of cookie. “Oh, yum. These are delectable.”

  When Katie Rose saw us munching cookies, she made an “uhh” sound. Cecilia smiled. “That means ‘I want one, too.’” We both laughed. Cecilia went to the pantry and selected a shortbread. “Now into your highchair, young lady. We keep Gigi’s house nice.”

  I liked the name her son D.J. had given me. Having no children of my own, it made me feel like a grandmother. After Katie settled in with her bib attached, Cecilia put the shortbread and a cup of milk on the tray.