JUST LIKE OLD TIMES
By Shari Held
I hadn’t set foot
in our old hangout since I retired five years ago. Not much had changed since then. Same
sticky floorboards, autographed picture of John Wayne hanging lopsided on the wall, threadbare
pool table. The joint smelled of stale beer and fried onions. I stopped beside the booth
where I’d agreed to eliminate Jagger so Grosjean could take over his operation. It
was my first job. Grosjean and I had been a good team. Over the years, the body count from
our successes had reached two figures.
I
found Grosjean at the U-shaped booth in back, a Bud waiting for me. Just like old times.
His forehead creases were deeper, jowls longer, gut bigger, and the twinkle in his eyes
had dimmed.
“Templeman, good
to see you,” he said. “You okay with a post-retirement assignment?”
I shrugged and sipped my Bud.
“I need to teach an up-and-comer a lesson. Thinks he’s hot
shit. Doesn’t have to kiss my ass no more.”
“Want me to rough him up?” I sounded as dubious as I felt.
Those days were long behind me. Anyone with two functioning eyeballs could see that.
He gave me a familiar look. “He’ll be an
example for all those young pricks. Get my drift?”
“Loud
and clear.” If Grosjean wanted the kid dispatched
badly enough to call me in, his control over the organization must have hit the skids.
“Double your usual pay. You in?”
I nodded.
“Good. I know I can
trust you.” He wiped at a trickle of sweat rolling down the side of his cheek, passed
me a folded piece of paper, and motioned to a fat manila envelope on the table between
us. “Meet me here for the other half when it’s done.”
After
he left. I finished my beer, then stuck the note and envelope in my jacket pocket and split.
#
At my condo, I
read the note. Danny Hughes. I didn’t recognize the name. No reason I should, I guess,
but you never know. I packed a pee cup, a coffee thermos, binoculars, my 22-caliber revolver
and suppressor, and took off.
In Hughes’s
neighborhood, people socialized while walking their dogs or pushing baby carriages. Upscale,
but nothing swank. I drove by the house, then parked my rental car in the alley and ambled
toward his tree-lined property. If anyone noticed me, all they’d see is an old man
carrying one of those chairs in a bag people take to outdoor concerts. The trees provided
me with privacy, and I’d still be well within my 120-foot range.
What was the kid thinking? No fence, no dogs, no security.
The setup was a hitman’s wet dream.
A Mercedes SUV pulled
into the drive. Two rug rats scampered out of the house. “Daddy! Daddy!” Hughes
knelt and gave each a big hug. The wife, a petite little thing, waited for her turn. He
gave her a kiss, then patted her on the butt.
Unbidden, Laura’s
face flashed in front of me. A part of my past I thought had died years ago kicked me in
the gut. What the fuck? My hand shook on the binoculars, and I released my hold on them,
letting the neckband check their fall.
The family went
inside but soon reappeared on the patio with dinner fixings. A cookout. The last one I’d
attended, Chiggy Sanders’s head fell into the bowl of mustard potato salad, my bullet
lodged in his forehead.
My target was cooking
burgers. No idea that this would be his last meal—unless I plugged him before he
finished grilling. The aroma of mesquite and charcoal made my stomach gurgle. I never eat
before a job.
I popped a few
Tums. But it wasn’t hunger pangs for burgers I felt.
The kids
and wife went inside. Now was my chance. I pulled my gun out, screwed on the suppressor,
adjusted the scope, and aimed at the red dot on Hughes’s white polo shirt.
#
The following day I met Grosjean. My beer and an envelope were waiting
for me on the tabletop. I pocketed the envelope. Our routine hadn’t changed.
But I had.
This time I walked
out with Grosjean as he was leaving. I waited until he got in his Porsche, then motioned
for him to roll down his window. I leaned over to speak. And ran an icepick through his
temple. Quick and easy.
Just like old
times.
I couldn’t kill a
young husband and father so some fat-assed old gangster could call the shots for a
few more years. Not now.
In
my car, I wiped down the icepick and tossed it in a residential trash can on my way to
I-465. Maybe I’d head south. Rent a little house on the beach in Pensacola. Fish,
make friends. Maybe, even, a woman friend. And try to create a semblance of the life
I was never able to have with Laura.
A STINGING REBUKE
by Shari Held
Mrs. Bristow clenched and unclenched
her fists as she cast her gaze on the lifeless body of the man who had made her
a widow a scant two minutes ago. It was all over now. Him. Their marriage.
She removed his rugged black farm
jacket, straightened his shirt, patted down his hair, and closed his eyes. She’d
been mucking out the milk barn and her hands stank of manure. Didn’t matter
now. Even if he were alive, it wouldn’t matter. He’d lost his sense of smell—anosmia
they called it—years ago. She untied the pink-checked apron she wore over her faded
dress and laid it across his face. Then she retreated to the farmhouse to call
the sheriff, her shoulders stiff as the jacket she carried with her.
The telltale plume of dust on
the unpaved road arrived on the horizon minutes before Sheriff Hogan and the
coroner. They parked the car in the middle of the winding gravel driveway near
the body, not far from Mrs. Bristow’s apiary and herb garden.
She watched behind pristine lace
curtains as the coroner lifted the apron from her husband’s face, then stood beside
the sheriff and studied Joe’s body for a few minutes. As Sheriff Hogan headed toward
the house, she went to the kitchen, returning to the front parlor with a
pitcher of lemonade and two glasses on a tray.
The sheriff took off his hat as he
entered. “Sorry for your loss, ma’am. Joe was a good man, well-respected around
town.
Mrs. Bristow didn’t trust
herself to speak, so she silently motioned for him to sit on the sofa while she
poured the lemonade. She wondered what the protocol was in a situation like
this. Should she begin the conversation or wait to be questioned? She decided
to leave it to the sheriff. The less said, the better.
He took a sip and cleared his
throat. “Mrs. Bristow, you’re a bee expert. Raised them for years. What do you
think happened?”
“Well, he was deathly allergic.”
The sheriff pursed his lips.
“Then why would he allow you to have a yard filled with hives?”
“Joe and I never had any
children. And he knew I loved caring for those bees. Did you know that more
than three-quarters of all the earth’s flowering plants need pollination to
bloom? On the practical side, the sale of honey and beeswax supplemented our
income. You know how hard it is to make a living farming these days.” She bowed
her head, grabbed the tea towel from the lemonade tray, and buried her face in it.
After a minute, she raised her
head, her eyes red-rimmed and overflowing with tears. “It’s all my fault Joe’s
dead. I was trying to attract swarms of bees to grow my hives. Have more honey to
sell. A swarm must have appeared while he was near the hives. If he flapped his
arms and tried to scare them away, they would have attacked and stung him
relentlessly.”
“Wouldn’t he know better
than to
do that after living around your bees?”
“He would. But with hundreds of
bees swarming about, I think he forgot and reacted on instinct.”
“Yes, you’re probably right.”
He
looked out the window and saw the coroner writing in his notebook. “Excuse me,
ma’am. I need to talk to the coroner. I’ll be right back.”
#
“So, what’s your call, Dave?
You
ruling this an accidental death?”
The coroner stood up. “Not necessarily,
Sheriff.”
“No? Why not? Wasn’t he
killed
by an allergic reaction?”
“That’s the cause of death.
But
I’m not so sure it was accidental.” The coroner pointed to the body. “Take a
closer look. Tell me what you see.”
“I see a man covered with bee
stings, his face swollen and red.”
“Yep. You see that distorted
face and you don’t look any further.” He covered the victim’s face. “Now, look
again. What do you notice?”
The sheriff’s gaze traveled from
the dead man’s neck down to his arms. “He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, but he
doesn’t have a bee sting anywhere on his arms. What the heck?”
“Exactly. I’d say he was
wearing
a jacket that covered his arms and torso. And for whatever reason, someone—he
looked toward the house—removed his jacket before we arrived.”
“Now, why would she do that?”
The sheriff paced the area a bit, while he conjured up and discarded different
scenarios. He ended up in the herb garden, his eyes focused on the patch of
lemongrass. “Unless. . .”
#
The sheriff marched to the house
and knocked on the door. It took Mrs. Bristow a few minutes to open it.
“Sorry, Sheriff. I was about to
sort the laundry. Life goes on, you know.”
“I’d like to see that laundry,
if you don’t mind.”
For the first time since he’d
been there an emotion flitted across her face. Fear.
“What? I . . .I don’t
understand.”
“Oh, I think you do. Tell me.
Didn’t your husband suffer from a permanent loss of smell?”
She nodded.
“And
isn’t it true that a spray containing
lemongrass, an herb you grow in your garden, is often used to attract swarming
bees? If I go to the laundry room, will I find your husband’s jacket? And will
it stink to high heaven of lemongrass?”
Mrs. Bristow turned as white as
her lace curtains.
That was all he needed. “Mrs.
Bristow, I’m arresting you for the murder of your husband.” He read her the
rights, then retrieved the jacket, reeking of lemongrass, from the laundry room
as well as the tea towel she’d used earlier. It contained a slice of cut onion
tied into one corner. So much for her widow’s tears.
“Why’d you do it, Mrs. Bristow?”
She gave him a look as venomous
as the bees that had killed her husband. “He wasn’t the model citizen everyone
thought he was. Always belittled me in a million little ways. This morning he ragged
at me for burning his toast. I got tired of it.”
She shrugged.
“It was one stinging rebuke too many.”
