Suicide Supper Club

by Rhett DeVane

  Glenn Bruner never made idle threats. The only way she could leave her husband was death. He would take that decision away from her at some point. It was only a matter of time.

  Buttercup nuzzled her hand and she rubbed the downy fuzz around his ears.

  Glenn’s recent even temper frightened Sheila more than any well-aimed sucker punch. Over the years, she had grown to understand the cycle. Relative good humor followed by a mounting edginess that bloomed into anger and physical acting out. Like a macabre waltz, Glenn led and Sheila followed. Hurt. Heal. Hurt. Heal. The intervals grew smaller. Soon, Sheila feared no space would exist between the extremes.

  A dog, often beaten, belly-crawled with anticipation of abuse. Even if the hand above its head held no threat, the animal reacted as if it did. Sheila empathized. Better to exhibit the groveling posture of the Omega than risk the wrath of the Alpha.

  “Go on back to your little house, baby.” Sheila kissed the yellow kitty on the head and lowered it to the ground in front of the shrubs. The cat looked at her with sleepy eyes, meowed softly, and disappeared behind the leaf cover.

  Sheila stood and shook off her fear before opening the back door. What could possibly happen if she asked Glenn the question? Slap, punch, rape? Nothing she hadn’t experienced before. Worst case, he would beat her to death. Then the answer would be pointless.

  Glenn reclined in the den. Either his hearing was failing, or he kept the volume loud because he could. Sheila waited until a commercial break and handed him a fresh glass of whiskey. “Would you like some chips and dip? I have some of that horseradish and bacon stuff mixed up.” She faked a smile.

  Glenn released a resinous belch. “Yeah. Sure. When’s dinner?”

  “About fifteen minutes or so. I’m just waiting until the rolls are done.” Sheila picked up the empty highball glass.

  “Smells like spaghetti.”

  “Actually, I made lasagna.”

  Glenn’s eyes narrowed. “Some special occasion? What do you want now?”

  “Can’t I make my husband’s favorite dish without a reason?”

  The sportscaster’s voice blared. Glenn turned his attention back to the television. “Whatever. Shut up. You’ll make me miss my show. And bring my plate in here.”

  Sheila glanced at the flat screen, the only recent furnishing in the house. The couch and recliner—hand-me-downs from Glenn’s parents—showed so many wear facets, they appeared moth-eaten. Throw pillows disguised the worst spots. The kitchen appliances clicked and moaned. But by golly, Glenn Bruner had a high-definition LED television. “I do need to ask you one question, Glenn.”

  “Can’t it wait until the next commercial?”

  “Sure.” Sheila returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she heard Glenn bellow her name and she scurried back into the den, a basket of chips in one hand and a bowl of dip in the other.

  “So what’s this burning question of yours?” He scooped a tablespoon-sized dollop of dip onto a tortilla chip, crammed it into his mouth, then chased it with a swig of booze.

  “I was wondering, if a person wanted to hire . . . umm . . . a hit man. How would she, or he, go about it?”

  Glenn sputtered a mouthful of whiskey onto his shirt. A milky sheen of dip shone on his lips. “The hell? What kind of a lame-ass question is that?” He swiped his mouth with the back of one hand.

  Sheila took a slow breath. Steeled herself. She would finish this. “Just curious.”

  “You have someone in mind needs killing?” His rheumy gaze caught and held hers. “Huh Sheila?”

  “Don’t be silly, Glenn. I’d never. Taking the life of another is against God’s commandments. Just . . . someone I know asked me. I suppose this person thought since you were in law enforcement, you’d be an expert.”

  His expression flashed with annoyance, then morphed to something like interest. “I could ask around.”

  Sheila’s head spun over the weird mood switch. One of his blow-ups loomed. Several times within the past couple of days, Sheila had recognized the subtle clues of an eminent explosion. Snipped, harsh words. A tightness around his lips. His large calloused hands stretching and clenching.

  Her mouth went dry. She licked her lips and forged ahead. “If you would. I’m sure this person would appreciate it.”

  “This person you keep talking about have money?”

  Sheila nodded. “Yes.”

  “Not like I have a connection with that type of lawless deadbeat, but I can see if I might get a name and number for you to pass along. As long as no one asks where you got it. I have my career to protect.”

  “Of course.” A bell sounded in the kitchen. “Oh . . . my rolls. I almost forgot!” She turned toward the kitchen. Glenn chuckled and mumbled something about a new boat.

  Two weeks before suicide, Saturday

  Abby McKenzie stood at the threshold of her second bedroom, a cramped hole that served as her computer space. The size of the rooms in the old cottage-styled house amazed her. If she put a double bed and one chest of drawers in the room, she would need a crowbar and a can of Crisco to move between the bed and door. The master bedroom wasn’t much larger, but at least she could see the floor.

  She had spent her childhood and adolescence in this room. Then it had provided a safe cocoon. Now, the walls threatened to close in.

  Abby carried the laptop into the living room. Thank heaven Mason Dixon had installed the wireless Internet router. The only contraption tying her down was the four-year-old printer, a device requiring a direct-wired link. The dang thing chewed up paper and went through ink cartridges with a singular vengeance. The past week, one of the cartridges had failed, spilling thick black goop over the printer heads. No big loss. A good opportunity to justify a newer version, one with more capability. Good riddance to bad electronic rubbish. Even if Abby wouldn’t be around to see the next one become obsolete, she could enjoy it for the time she had remaining.

  Might as well relish her final days, cram in all the small pleasures. Whatever she wanted. She wouldn’t buy sugar-free chocolate. She’d eat cheese. Hot bread slathered with butter. Fried everything. Maybe not wear a bra.

  Abby heard Mason’s double-knock and met him at the front door. “I appreciate you coming to hook up the new printer.” Abby led the way to the computer room. “Suppose I could do it myself, but why take the chance of killing it straight out of the box when I have an expert living right next door.”

  Mason Dixon used a letter opener to snap open the box lid. “No problem, Abs.”

  Abby grinned at the adolescent’s nickname for her. “Be sure to keep up with the time you spend. I don’t consider your time a gimme.”

  “Wireless. Cool.” He mumbled to himself as he thumbed through the owner’s manual. Unlike many males, Mason took time to read printed directions.

  Beneath his hormone-ravaged surface, Abby sensed a faint glimmer of the man Mason would become. He wasn’t a high school football star or handsome in a dazzling sort of way, but sincerity and gentleness idled beneath his shy, nerdy persona. The hunky guys might take the lead straight out of the starter’s box, but the steady, kind men caught up by the time the pack reached the second turn. Women weren’t, for the most part, stupid. Though she had been.

  Oreo walked past her in his three-legged skipping gait and trilled at Mason’s feet. He picked the kitten up and settled it into his lap.

  “Mason, if anything ever happened to me, would you be willing to adopt Oreo?”

  He glanced her way. “Sure. He’s cool.”

  “Your mom wouldn’t be upset, would she?”

  “She likes animals. As long as I pay for the vet bills, I don’t think she’d freak.”

  Mason was a thirty-year-old in a teenager’s body. If all adolescents were more like him, they wouldn’t have such a bad rep. “That makes me feel better.”

  He extracted the combination printer, copier, fax, and scanner from its box and discarded the foam packing inserts. “You okay, Abs?”


  “Sure. Just . . . one never knows what the future will hold. I wouldn’t want Oreo to end up at the shelter. Not many people would want to take in a special-needs kitty.”

  Mason scratched the top of the tuxedo cat’s head. “One less leg doesn’t make him less of a cat.”

  “You know Mason, you are going to make some lucky woman one heck of a husband one day.”

  His head swung her way. “Get real.”

  “You want a soft drink?”

  “Have any of that green tea?”

  “Coming up.”

  Abby paused on her way to the kitchen and looked around the living room. Where would all of this stuff end up? Someone would have to go through it and glean the parts worth saving. The other junk would be carted off to the dump.

  Maybe if she tried again, if she attacked a little section each day, her heir wouldn’t have to deal with the same tower of possessions she had faced after her parents died. A web of weariness pressed her shoulders down. Who was she kidding? She hadn’t coped with it then. Why was now any different?

  Preparing for her “final destination” was like planning for a long trip. Stop the paper. Hold the mail. Leave the refrigerator void of perishables. Make sure she had her papers in order. That, she had to do for sure.

  Easy sparky. Don’t get too carried away. The group of four had agreed: nothing could call undue attention. Their deaths had to appear spontaneous, not carefully mapped out and financed.

  A will. She didn’t have one. Funeral plans? Nope.

  She could go online and download a simple will. Better yet, call that attorney in Tallahassee, the woman Elvina always crowed about. It wouldn’t be terribly expensive, and she would rather not run the risk of screwing up. Abby knew who her beneficiary would be.

  Abby’s plans stretched to the workplace. So much to be done. She would leave the front office organized: that she could do. Though she liked to think she was indispensable to Dr. Payne after so many years, Sabrina’s recent extended absence had highlighted one fact: no one was irreplaceable. Some people might leave a larger ripple when they passed, but all would be forgotten. The tide would rush in. Their footprints would fill in with fresh sand.

  “Here you go.” Abby set a tall glass of iced green tea on a coaster beside the computer armoire.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re most welcome.” Abby hesitated. “Have you given any thought to college yet, Mason?”

  His thin shoulders lifted, fell. “I’d like to attend FSU, but it’s expensive. I’ll end up at some junior college for a couple of years. Maybe by that time, I can save up enough to transfer. No way can my parents come up with that kind of cash. And I don’t want to graduate with a boat-load of school loans.”

  “Don’t tell me . . . computer science.”

  He pushed his thick glasses back on his nose. “What was your first clue?”

  “A lot can happen between now and when you’re ready for college. A chest of money could fall into your lap.”

  “Right.” He plugged in the printer. It beeped, flashed lights, beeped again. “Abs, you need to lay off those drugs.”

  Elvina Houston pulled the Oldsmobile to the curb in front of the Reverend Thurston and Lucille Jackson’s modest brick ranch-styled house. A gravel-paved circular drive looped in front of the main entrance, but Elvina seldom parked there. Vehicles came and went from the parsonage, and she had been blocked in a few times too many. Steering forward was one thing. Worming her way out of a tight spot between two cars was another.

  She toyed with the idea of entering through the side access before deciding to ring the front doorbell. Only one house had she felt comfortable enough to enter without a formal invitation: the late Piddie Longman’s. No matter if either woman caught the other half-naked or sitting on the toilet, neither had an obligation to phone first, nor even knock. A resounding yoo-hoo was sufficient warning to keep from scaring the ever-lovin’ beejezus out of the other.

  A diminutive black woman with a welcoming smile answered Elvina’s knock. The crimp in Elvina’s spirit loosened, as it always did whenever she saw Lucille Jackson’s kind face. No small wonder Piddie had counted Lucille among her top-tier friends, Elvina being number one, naturally.

  “Come in, do come in.” Lucille Jackson ushered her into the cozy parlor. Elvina hadn’t quite made the cut for a kitchen-visiting friend.

  At first, Elvina’s association with the Reverend’s petite wife had been born of the need to hang fast to any earthly link with Piddie. Over time, the loose connection had developed into friendship. Though not as intense for either woman, the tie served as a decent consolation prize.

  “I’ve made us some of that green tea you like so much. And one of our members dropped off a few slices of red velvet cake. If you don’t eat a piece, my Thurston will inhale every last bite. His cholesterol has been a little high, so I’d rather not have too much here to tempt him.”

  “I can always eat cake,” Elvina said.

  When Lucille smiled, an even row of teeth showed. If Elvina didn’t simply adore the little woman, she’d envy a hole clean through her. How could someone pushing seventy have an unlined face and good white teeth? And she was tee-tiny to boot. Not an ounce of spare padding anywhere to attest to time and menopause. If not for the brush of silver across her eyebrows and temples, Lucille might pass for years younger.

  Lucille returned a few minutes later with a serving tray. Elvina stood in front of a wall of photographs. She recognized a few of the people, other than Lucille and Thurston.

  “Crying shame you and the Reverend only had the three boys,” Elvina commented when she sat down on the pillow-strewn couch across from Lucille. “You would have done well with a houseful of children.”

  Lucille’s expression darkened. She poured two cups of tea and handed one to Elvina. “There was one more, but she went to Heaven before we had a chance to meet. Sometimes God’s plan isn’t the same one we write for ourselves.”

  “Doesn’t mean we have to like it.”

  Piddie had often alluded to the baby girl Lucille had miscarried, but never shared the details. If a thing was told in confidence, she would harelip Hell before giving it away. Piddie had taken so many confidences to her grave, Elvina wondered how that woman had fit into the urn.

  Elvina squelched the burning need to pry. You didn’t push Lucille Jackson. She might look like a delicate flower, but she could dig in her heels. Elvina had witnessed the preacher’s wife stand down a drug-pushing adolescent boy three times her size. One scorching stare from Lucille, and he had high-tailed it out of the church playground like he had been chased off by one of the horsemen from the Apocalypse. The power of a black woman’s conviction, especially one backed by the Almighty, was nothing to sneeze at.

  Elvina took a bite of cake. The layers were moist, and the icing a perfect blend of sweetened cream cheese and chopped pecans. It was going to take everything she had not to wolf it down and lick the plate. “Absolutely scrumptious.”

  Lucille nodded. “It is, isn’t it? I sneaked a little sliver earlier. The lady who made it also does a sinful coconut layered cake. Needless to say, I live for the church dinners when I know she’s bringing dessert.”

  “Y’all holding the fall festival again this year?”

  “The planning committee is working out the details now. We’d like to be able to fund another stained glass window for the sanctuary.”

  “I can bring a pot of chicken ’n’ dumplin’s. I know mine will never measure up to Piddie’s, but they’re passable. I can follow her recipe to the letter, and they still won’t taste quite the same.”

  “I’ll let Yolanda know. She’s heading up the food committee. I’m certain she’ll call you soon with a date. We’re planning around FSU and FAMU football games, and all kinds of special events. Everything seems to happen at the same time, once you hit mid-September.”

  “And it’s really a blur after Thanksgiving.”

  Lucille took a sip of tea and regarded
Elvina. “Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  “How would you know I’m unsettled just by a two-minute phone conversation?”

  Lucille’s small shoulders rose and fell. “Comes with the job, I suppose.”

  Elvina wiped the red velvet crumbs from her lips and set the empty plate down on the coffee table. From its position in the entrance foyer, a maple grandfather clock chimed. “I’ve had the most churned-up feeling, Lucille. I can’t put my finger on it exactly.”

  “Might be the change in seasons. Affects many people that way. We see a great amount of depression around the holidays, especially closer to Christmas.”

  Elvina bit on her lower lip. “My depression isn’t seasonal. It’s the kind that feels at home any time of year. Besides, the doctor has my medication regulated. I hardly ever sink that low anymore.”

  “I know you miss Piddie. I miss her too.” Lucille waited a moment. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it?”

  “No. Something else is chewing on me.” Elvina listened to the comforting rhythm of the heirloom timepiece. Time bustling past, one tick-tock at a time. “I bumped into Choo-choo Ivey a couple of days back.”

  “She’s such a sweetheart.”

  “You know she lost that little dog of hers?”

  Lucille moved her head from one side to the other. “I hadn’t heard. She must be terribly sad. The loss of a pet often makes people feel as bad as losing a family member. Which really, they are.”

  “That’s what has my puzzler sore,” Elvina said. “I saw her the day after she had Prissy cremated and she was torn all to pieces. I didn’t even think she liked that little dog. Can’t say I blamed her. It had the nastiest disposition and had gotten bad about peeing all over her house, though to hear Choo-choo tell it, Prissy had learned to confine it to one rug. The last couple of times I visited, the smell made me gag.”