Odd Partners

by Mystery Writers of America

  Reverend Purge staggered backward before grabbing the pulpit for support. He stood silent for nearly a minute, his head turning slowly, face contorting. Then, in front of the assembled community, he fell to his knees, clasped his hands, and began praying, squeezing his hands together so tightly the knuckles whitened.

  The prayer was short by Reverend Purge’s standards. When his head rose, his face had relaxed.

  “Beadle,” he said, “might you bring Goody English to the meetinghouse? I wish to beg her forgiveness.”

  The major rose from his seat and limped off to get the frail woman.

  The reverend’s eyes suddenly widened. “Granting what you say means we still have a witch who stole William English’s life and made a mockery of our Lord.”

  “I have prayed for discernment,” Samuel began. “The clothes were stripped and the marks added after he had been clubbed down,” he said, looking to the faces of the men who had been called out that first night. “Remember what you saw. There was no blood on the snow nor had the wounds bled. They served as a ruse to distract.”

  He saw the nods of the men among the original party.

  “The Widow Glower will not leave her home, for fear she will be taken by the Devil,” Samuel continued. “She sees his flickering lights and smells brimstone. These are not of the Devil. They come from the Bennetts’ cowshed. Timothy, you reported finding English’s body upon your return from the cowshed, did ye not?”

  “That is where I found him,” Timothy said, still standing near the meetinghouse doors. Sanaa, Samuel noticed, stood on the opposite side of the doorway, barely on the women’s side.

  Samuel turned his attention away from Timothy and to the crowd of men. “Who among you has shillings? Take them out.”

  Samuel waited until the rustle of clothing and the clink of money pouches had died down.

  “Whose coins, like mine, have smooth edges?”

  Around the room, hands were raised.

  “Left without the means to support his family, English shaved coins. Collecting the silver scrapings, he melted them down and mixed in bits of lead. Coin shaving debases our currency, and is a crime punishable by death. Thus, English performed this work at the far cowshed. If you travel there, you will find the furnace still warm. He thereby doubled his coins and helped to preserve his family.”

  Samuel paused, his eyes sweeping the congregation. “Had we proved more welcoming, none of this may have occurred. We share blame for English’s sinful crime.” Samuel allowed the silence to linger for a moment before continuing. “Melting silver and counterfeiting are hard work. He would need an associate. The work would also require ready access to the Bennetts’ property. His accomplice, I fear, motivated solely by greed, struck him down in a dispute.”

  Samuel turned to Timothy. “Your chores include caring for the cow, do they not?” Before the young man could answer, Samuel continued, “Yesterday, I was in your home. The Bennett family has recently been blessed with financial success. How do you profit during winter?”

  “I know nothing of what you speak,” Timothy answered in a reedy voice.

  Samuel’s eyes returned to the crowd. “You men remember the burns on English’s fingertips. Young Timothy has them also.”

  In a room silent as a tomb, silver coins hitting the wood floor made a sound heard by everyone.

  Timothy Bennett grabbed at the coins that had fallen from beneath his cape, snatching them before they rolled away. Suddenly aware of the eyes upon him, he stood up and looked around the room. “Those aren’t mine,” he said. He then threw open the meetinghouse door and dashed outside, running straight into Major Dan. They both fell onto the snow, entangled in each other.

  * * *

  —

  After all the confusion had settled down, Samuel sat at his dining table and massaged his temples. Sanaa moved behind him and kneaded his shoulders with her powerful hands.

  “Fortunate coincidence that Timothy’s secret purse split at that moment,” Samuel said.

  “A spirit revealed him,” Sanaa said.

  Samuel arched his neck slightly to see her better. “We should not make light of such matters.” He reached his thumb and forefinger slightly up the sleeve of her blue dress and withdrew the fine penknife he knew her to carry. “We should not make light, especially when we know that witchcraft was not involved.”

  “A spirit revealed him,” Sanaa insisted, “but sometimes spirits, both good and evil, still need de help.”

  What Would Nora Do?

  GEORGIA JEFFRIES

  Justyce Joyce Underwood was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree and sentenced to seven years’ incarceration at the California Institution for Women in Corona by Judge Stanton Kriskieger. Ms. Underwood, headmistress of the Eastlake Academy, graduated Wellesley summa cum laude, and became the first Eastlake alumna to lead her alma mater. This was the third trial for the former Rose Bowl Princess and goodwill ambassador of the Tournament of Roses, the previous trials having ended in hung juries. Each time Ms. Underwood pleaded not guilty by reason of temporary insanity.

  —Pasadena Independent, July 23, 2010

  JJ smiled. The words were coming again, the secret words no one else could hear.

  One of the things people always say to you if you get upset is, don’t take it personally. Please, I beg you, take it personally.

  JJ did as she was told. Because that was what her partner in crime advised she must do from the first moment she discovered her husband’s betrayal. Yes, the words were coming again, calling her to rectify a wrong still unpunished.

  “JJ?”

  Her brother’s eyes followed her as she carried the breakfast cereal bowls to the sink then returned to brush burnt crumbs from the table into her cupped hand.

  “Today at twelve noon, okay?”

  “Today?”

  “You forgot yesterday’s appointment.”

  “Did I?”

  “Not everybody gets free rent and free dental care!” Robert tittered, speaking in exclamation points as he often did when her distant moods spooked his equilibrium.

  JJ and her mentor, silent now, did not respond.

  “I’ve got to do a root canal at ten thirty. Noon is the only time I can squeeze you in.”

  Robert’s rules of order resonated in her unquiet mind.

  “No need to worry about the procedure. It’ll be painless!”

  JJ frowned. Unconvinced. First the dental implant to replace her back molar, then the headaches. The same temple-throbbers that foreshadowed her previous disturbance.

  “You were up late last night.”

  “I was reading.”

  “Anything interesting?” The last of his milky Earl Grey cooled.

  “ ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’ ”

  Her brother lifted a concerned eyebrow. “Don’t you think something lighter would be—”

  “What, Robert?”

  A quick gulp of tea caught in his clenched throat. “Better for your spirits?”

  “I’m not Mother.”

  “All I meant was…well, books can be hard on the eyes!”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Videotheque on Mission has stacks of great old comedy DVDs. Some Like It Hot, Bringing Up Baby, all those Nora Ephron rom-coms from the ’90s. You always liked those.”

  “If you say so.” JJ lowered her eyelids.

  “Wasn’t Ephron one of your commencement speakers at Wellesley?”

  Her beloved’s words rang through time and space, —your education is a dress rehearsal for the life that is yours to lead— but JJ did not speak them aloud.

  “Yes, I remember. You wanted me to take a picture of the two of you after her speech. I bet it’s still in your college album.”

  JJ did not answer. Some memories were
too precious to share. Instead she peered over Robert’s shoulder at the dry arroyo below. Such lovely thin glass walls in his midcentury house. Gazing at the wildflowers thirsting for next season’s rain, she heard a duet sung low and sweet. A pair of mourning doves. Mated for life.

  “You know…” Robert hesitated, then forged ahead. “…I’m sure you know, Ephron’s husband cheated on her, too. But that didn’t take the wind out of her sails.”

  “No, you’re right about that.”

  “The point is she moved on. Kept her sense of humor. Made herself useful.”

  JJ did want to be useful again. Especially to family. And the prison chaplain had taught her that all humankind counted as family. Even her son-of-a-bitch ex-husband.

  “No crying over spilled milk! I give the lady credit.”

  JJ’s head tightened. Despite the 600 mg dose of Motrin and a heavy swig of Robert’s cache of Christmas brandy, her prefrontal cortex was rebelling with a mind of its own.

  “Noon sharp.” His chair scraped the polished concrete flooring as he stood. “And no detours. Promise?”

  She knew he was referring to the restraining order. Her ex-husband’s overreaction to a casual visit to his house after she left church last Sunday.

  “I’m not a child, Robert.”

  “What do they say? Living well is the best revenge!”

  JJ had lost her marriage, her job, her reputation, her friends, and her freedom for seven years. Yes, the time of living well was overdue.

  Rushing toward the door, her brother turned to have the last word. Four actually, punching each one with conviction.

  “What would Nora do?”

  “What would Nora do?” she repeated.

  Her dear brother was wiser than he looked.

  “Yes!”

  Nora would dry her tears over a truffled lobster feast at Le Bernardin and slay every dragon that threatened to immolate her queendom. But JJ lived 3,000 miles west of the Big Apple, so Le Bernardin was not an option this morning. For the best perhaps. At least she was spared the sight of towering skyscrapers that looked like giant penises frozen in rigor mortis. Restitution perched just around the corner under the blinding, blue California sky. Ready to strike when the time was right, as Nora ordained. All her favorite student had to do was listen for direction. Listen hard.

  “It’s going to get better, JJ!”

  He flashed one final Gromit-like grin of encouragement, whitened teeth even and perfect. JJ half smiled back, twisting her lower lip until the bottom half of her jawline looked like a neck lift gone bad. The least she could do in exchange for free rent and dental care.

  * * *

  —

  JJ plunged her hands into the hot soapy water soaking the dirty dishes in the sink. Nerve endings tap danced underneath her scalp. She rinsed the china plates abandoned by their mother. Caressed the old family utility knife Robert used to cut his morning strawberries. Worn with the years, it needed a good sharpening. Perhaps she’d do that today on the way to her dental appointment: a gift to her brother. The prison chaplain had always advised considering others’ needs first. Such a lovely man, with kind eyes that baptized his brethren in pools of hazel.

  “I’m innocent,” she confessed to the good father. “My husband is the guilty one.”

  “Jesus taught us to love our enemies.”

  “Even when they betray us?”

  “Have we not all sinned against one another? We must learn to forgive.”

  Yes, forgiveness was the answer.

  Scooping up her brother’s used teabag, she bent over to discard it along with the rest of the morning’s refuse. An unexpected complication derailed her best intentions.

  The butterfly pop-up lid on the Simplehuman wastebasket refused to pop.

  Why on earth a malfunctioning $89.99 garbage container should bring JJ to tears was beyond her. She stepped on the foot pedal a second time. Then a third effort, a fourth, even a fifth. All failures. The broken lid refused to budge.

  Surprises are good for you.

  JJ listened to Nora’s voice purring in her ear and examined the soggy Earl Grey pouch. Robert never used his teabag more than once and never bothered to throw it away after he was finished. Another token of disrespect from the men in her life. Somehow it didn’t seem fair. Unlike her brother, JJ drank coffee. Strong black coffee with multiple refills.

  On the rare occasion they shared cups of tea together, she saved every single one of her used teabags in a crystal dish shaped like a teapot. Only after the very last drop of tea had been leached on the third day could she toss the shriveled bag and begin anew. Last week on her forty-fourth birthday she made a rare exception and brewed a fresh cup from a teabag not yet squeezed to its limit. A survival perk like one of those American Legion ribbons given to battle-scarred veterans, many of them former prisoners of war like herself.

  Ding dong!

  The doorbell chimed its annoying chime. Louder than usual for some reason. Ding dong, the witch is dead. JJ twisted her head to check the happy plastic hands on the starburst clock above the stove.

  8:57.

  This was no time to be distracted by Mormon missionaries. One lonely ninety-degree morning during the last heat wave, she invited them inside because they were sweating through their white shirts. After they had lapped up an entire pitcher of ice water to lubricate their sales pitch, she realized she’d made a mistake. Their certitude about her family’s destined togetherness in the hereafter would be hell in heaven.

  JJ fixed once again on the crumpled teabag. The trashcan outside the kitchen door held recyclables only. As long as the lid refused to open, she, too, was stuck.

  Ring! Ring! Ring!

  Shockwaves slammed across the back of JJ’s skull. No doubt her father calling from the racetrack at Santa Anita. Win, place, or show? That’s the only reason he called her. To pick his ponies. She brought him luck, he said. But what did he bring her?

  The last time she’d gone to the racetrack she was two months pregnant and had taken her father at his word that he was on the wagon. He had escorted her to lunch at the restaurant with a million-dollar view of Thoroughbreds running their paces on command. A family outing, just like the good old days. Before her mother slit her wrists in the bathtub one bitter November night.

  Her father had ordered a porterhouse smothered in béarnaise and knocked back a whiskey neat to celebrate. Just one, he promised JJ, to toast his grandchild-to-be. And so began another afternoon’s wet slide into oblivion. She had excused herself before dessert. That night she miscarried her first and only child.

  Of course, she forgave her drunken philandering father. Her bastard husband, too. Even her devoted secretary who stole the man who had sworn to stay with JJ through sickness and health. Compassion transforms all God’s children, the prison chaplain promised. Grow in the narrow places and you, too, can grasp the keys to paradise on earth.

  9:23.

  The phone was still jangling. Her head split into jagged pieces of igneous rock, tumbling into a crater with no end.

  What would Nora do?

  The first of the morning’s epiphanies struck like a lightning flash over Niagara Falls. A wrong number. Yes, she remembered now. Her father had died in a drunk driving accident the day she was released from prison. Welcome home, daughter. The phone went silent.

  JJ could breathe again. The past had passed. The present, chock full of demanding deadlines, snapped its whip. First things first. Sharpen the family utility knife and repair the broken mother-of-pearl handle on the ice pick that had missed its mark.

  Such a lovely wedding gift, that ice pick. A favorite of her husband’s. Which was why she had chosen it to deliver her message when he was walking out the door to move in with his mistress. Perhaps she should have emptied a hot pot of linguini with clams on his lap instead. A scalded groin
might have appeared to be a silly accident. Not so the almost mortal wound spurting blood two inches above her husband’s lying heart. Ex-husband. He and his new wife were very happy together, according to an ex-friend who no longer returned her calls. So many exes.

  That sound. What was that sound? The toilet in the guest bathroom is running again. For weeks Robert had promised to call the plumber. One miraculous day when she happened to be feeling human, JJ offered to make the call herself, but her brother insisted he would get to it. Better if she put a cap on her nerves and a smile on her face. Of course, she understood. All those patients, such a busy man. Her brother, that is. The plumber, too. Not that she could complain. Babies were dying in Darfur and bombs were exploding in Kabul.

  9:59.

  JJ marched to the bathroom to do her duty. Falling to her knees, she lifted the lid off the tank and gave the rusted chain a fierce twist. Still, the toilet continued to run with impunity. She tugged and jiggled and pushed. Angry boils of sweat drenched the binding straps encasing her heaving breasts.

  The WonderBra is not a step forward for women. Nothing that hurts that much is a step forward for women.

  JJ laughed out loud at her partner’s wit and fell back against the wall, just missing the trap set by a shiny spider weaving her heart-shaped web from toilet to ceiling. A black widow lurked behind the crapper, with no white knight in sight.

  What would Nora do?

  Striding into the kitchen, her head lighter now, her thoughts clearer, JJ assembled a cornucopia of ingredients essential for a culinary triumph. Flour. Sugar. Salt. And, la pièce de résistance, French bourbon vanilla!

  But wait, the butter was missing. So were the eggs. And what happened to the chilled jar of brandied cherries she’d bought at Gelson’s to garnish the key lime pie for Saturday’s dinner party? All missing. Where had they gone? JJ scanned the barren refrigerator shelves. Moved the pickles. Slid the aging olives to the back corner. Hauled out the Tupperware of chunky salsa festering in mold. Yes, the butter was definitely missing.