DEADLY BY THE DOZEN
12 Short Stories of Murder and Mayhem
Edited by Mark Terry
OROX
Books
“A Hard Line Drive to Wrong” Copyright © 2011 by Jude Hardin
“I Died, I Did” Copyright © 2011 by Natasha Fondren
“Identity Theft” Copyright © 2011 by Robert Weibezahl
“Living On The Blood of Others” Copyright © 2011 by Betsy Dornbusch
“Indian Summer” Copyright © 2011 by Lise McClendon
“Flat-Footed” Copyright © 2011 by Mark Terry
“Into Stone” Copyright © 2011 by Keith Snyder
“Marigold Mourning” Copyright © 2011 by Merry Monteleone
“Little Siberia” Copyright © 2011 by Erica Orloff
“A Break In The Old Routine” Copyright © 2011 by Simon Wood
“Whereby Ignorant People Are Frequently Deluded and Defrauded” Copyright © 2011 by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
“Plundered Booty” Copyright © 2011 by Travis Erwin
Other Materials Copyright © 2011 by Mark Terry
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved by the individual authors. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the individual author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Permission has been granted by all authors for inclusion in this collection.
Publisher/Editor:
MARK TERRY
Digital Layout:
NATASHA FONDREN
Cover Art:
MATT ELLIOTT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction by Mark Terry
A Hard Line Drive to Wrong by Jude Hardin
I Died, I Did by Natasha Fondren
Identity Theft by Robert Weibezahl
Living On The Blood of Others by Betsy Dornbusch
Indian Summer by Lise McClendon
Flat-Footed by Mark Terry
Into Stone by Keith Snyder
Marigold Mourning by Merry Monteleone
Little Siberia by Erica Orloff
A Break In The Old Routine by Simon Wood
Whereby Ignorant People Are Frequently Deluded and Defrauded by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
Plundered Booty by Travis Erwin
INTRODUCTION
MARK TERRY
CUE UP THE Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends.” Get those lyrics in your head, Ringo Starr going at it, or maybe you’re more of a Joe Cocker fan. I can go either way, it’s the lyrics that matter this time.
A couple years ago, to make a point about character tags, I decided to write a short story and serialize it on my blog. In fact, I serialized it as I wrote it. This was a trick, actually, because although I can be the harshest taskmaster around in terms of my novels and my nonfiction and other writing gigs, I all too often let myself off the hook when it comes to short fiction. But I knew that if I started serializing a long short story I’d finish it, because I just can’t bear to disappoint readers—and I can’t bear to miss a deadline, even if I’ve created it myself. Obsessive-compulsive disorders of this kind can be a professional writer’s best friend.
So that’s how my humorous short story, “Flat-Footed” featuring dwarf P.I. Biz Leightner, came into being. It was a writing lesson—can I take a character built only of character tags—dwarf, P.I., drinks stingers for breakfast—and turn those tags into a character and put him in a story that will entertain people, perhaps especially myself.
And so I did and the response was good. But the reality of the modern short story in the mystery field is that markets are few and far between, so when those didn’t come together, the story sat and gathered digital dust on my hard drive.
And a curious thing happened—e-books took off. They took off in a way that was fairly unexpected, driven by the Amazon Kindle, the Apple iPad, the Nook, the Sony e-Reader and all the other variants. So I thought: Why don’t you put together a collection of short stories and publish them yourself?
The first notion was to write them all myself, but as mentioned above, if I did that, it would never get done.
The second notion was: Hey, you have a ton of friends that are writers, successful, published writers of fiction and nonfiction and all sorts of other things. Ask them to contribute a story, take care of the e-publishing, split whatever proceeds come our way and call it a creative adventure.
And that’s what I did. And I was surprised by how much I liked the stories they contributed and was even more impressed by their stunning array of talent. I love voices, you see, unique, rich, distinctive—and that’s what I got. The theme? Some sort of crime, I said, making it broad, letting these creative professionals do their thing without any restrictions except those they provided themselves (and a deadline).
Jude Hardin supplied a hardboiled PI story featuring his series character, Nicholas Colt, in “A Hard Line Drive to Wrong” and Erica Orloff offered a meditation on memory and familial crime in “Little Siberia.” Mary Reed and Eric Mayer, who are not only married to each other but co-authors of a series of highly regarded historical mysteries featuring John the Eunuch, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, give us a taste of historical English justice in 1750 in “Whereby Ignorant People Are Frequently Deluded And Defrauded.” In another bit of historical crime, Natasha Fondren gives us “I Died, I Did” and Simon Wood, who writes mysteries and suspense novels under his own name and horror novels under the name Simon Janus, offered “A Break In The Old Routine” that is part con, part caper, part murder mystery…or is it? And Travis Erwin gives us, ah, Travis, dear friends, gives us “Plundered Booty,” a story of love, lust, crime, pirates and car salesmen. What more could you ask for?
I brought on a few more writing friends. Robert Weibezahl twists our expectations in “Identity Theft” and Betsy Dornbusch introduces a rough, raw female hitman (hitwoman?) in “Living On the Blood of Others.” Lise McClendon takes us to a meditative piece on murder and moving on in “Indian Summer” and Keith Snyder ponders crime and memory in “Into Stone.” Merry Monteleone offers a surreal thriller in “Marigold Mourning.” As I said earlier, there are many different approaches and tones to this collection.
Some stories are light and humorous, some dark and brooding; some are modern, some are historical; some are violent, some are not. They are a painting with a varied palette, a smorgasbord of voices and stories. I hope you enjoy these. I know I did. And I hope that if you like these stories you will hunt up the novels written by many of these wonderful writers and check out the entertaining lives, stories, characters and worlds of a group of today’s top writers.
Cheers,
Mark Terry, Editor
Of Jude Hardin’s debut novel, to be released by Oceanview Publishing May 2011, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen says: “POCKET-47 sucked me in and held me enthralled. Author Jude Hardin keeps the pace frantic, the thrills non-stop, but best of all is his hero, the wonderfully ironic Nicholas Colt. This is a character I’m eager to follow through many adventures to come.” Jude studied creative writing at the University of Louisville, and has since worked as everything from a professional drummer to a registered nurse. His real passion, though, is cooking up gritty hardboiled detective tales peppered with murder and mayhem and just a pinch of wry humor. He gives us a tantalizing taste of private investigator Nicholas Colt in “A Hard Line Drive to Wrong.” So belly on up to the bar, have a beer and a shot, and be prepared to duck when the you-know-what hits the fan. And if you make it out in one piece, be sure to visit www.judehardinbooks.com for contact information and the latest in Jude’s publishing journey.
A HARD LINE DRIVE TO WRONG
JUDE HARDIN
ORDINARILY I WOULD have gotten perturbed about a news bulletin flashing in the middle of a windup, with two outs and two men on, but the Marlins were at bat with a comfortable three-run lead and I was at Kelly’s with a comfortable three-bourbon buzz. I stood to win five hundred if the big fish held on, so happy hour was living up to its name for once.
According to the TV reporter, a convicted murderer named Jonathan Lester Skaggs had escaped from the Florida State Prison, which was located approximately fifteen miles southwest of my barstool. I remembered the case. Skaggs was a psychopath, a world-class nut job from a family of morticians. He had confessed to killing seventeen women, and the forensics on nine of them indicated profane desecration up to three days postmortem. Naturally, his trial and subsequent conviction had generated a wealth of material for the late-night comedians: Come to Skaggs’s, where we put the FUN back in funeral…
And so forth.
“What’s that mean?” the guy sitting two stools over asked. “Necrophilia?”
“It means he did them, and then he did them,” I said.
“You mean, like, sexual intercourse, with a corpse?”
“Exactly.”
“Man. That’s sick.”
He lit a cigarette and sucked the last few foamy ounces from a sweaty brown bottle. It was mid-afternoon, still too early for the after-work crowd, and he and I were the only customers at the bar. He wore a dirty white t-shirt, a JOHN DEERE ball cap, greasy Levi’s and a well-groomed mustache. He looked like a seventies porn star who had somehow ended up on a landscaping crew.
“Have another beer,” I said. “On me.”
“Thanks, man. Hey, what’s your name?”
“Nicholas Colt.” I slid him a business card.
“Ralph Jackson. Pleased to meet you.” He examined the card. “You’re a private investigator?”
“When I want to be. Today I’m a professional gambler.”
The bartender was making her way down a line of bistro tables along the wall, lighting globed candles with a butane torch. I motioned for her to bring us another round.
“Can’t you see I’m busy?”
She smiled.
I smiled back.
She lit the last candle, then came and poured a double on the rocks for me and popped the top on a longneck for Ralph.
Ralph picked at the label on his beer bottle, deep in thought. He got it off in one piece, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He stabbed at it with his thumbs, responding to a text message.
The game was back on, so I settled in for the top of the eighth. I watched the first batter go to a full count and strike out. The next man grounded to short on the second pitch and couldn’t beat the throw to first. I thought it was going to be a one-two-three inning, but batter number three hit a hard line drive to right. He was rounding second and heading for third when Jonathan Lester Skaggs came crashing through the front door armed with a 12-gauge pump. He blasted a hole in the ceiling, jerked another shell into the chamber, and shouted, “Everybody on the floor! Now!”
Under the circumstances I thought it prudent to comply. For one thing, I’d left my .38 in the glove box of my ’96 GMC Jimmy, and I’d left my ’96 GMC Jimmy at home. My girlfriend Juliet had dropped me off at Kelly’s on her way to do some shopping. We had dinner plans for later.
I figured Skaggs wanted money, and that’s generally not something I risk dying to protect. He could jack the register and be on his merry way, and Ralph and the bartender and I could live to tell the story. Everybody happy.
The plank flooring my face was now pressed against smelled like stale beer and dirt. On macro display were cigarette butts in a variety of brands, a flattened wad of chewing gum that used to be blue, and a shriveled Band-Aid with a crusty spot of blood in the middle. And a Twinkie wrapper. I was wondering who eats a goddamn Twinkie in a saloon when Skaggs said, “Bitch behind the bar. Get up with your hands on your head.”
She didn’t respond. Frozen with fear, I thought, which would be anyone’s natural reaction.
The next batter hit a home run, which cut the Marlins’ lead to one.
“Hey, you understand fucking English? Get up!”
Teri Chopin, who had been slinging cocktails at Kelly’s for several years and who always gave me a generous pour, rose abruptly then, but her hands weren’t on her head. Her hands were wrapped around the grip of the 9mm Beretta she kept on a shelf under the bar. She squeezed off two quick rounds, and one of them got Skaggs in the right shoulder. He dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees. He clamped his hand on the wound, trying to stop the blood from gushing.
I crawled toward him, hoping to get to his gun and end this thing. There was no need for any more bloodshed. Skaggs was disabled, and a quick 9-1-1 call would put him on the highway back to prison. Game over.
But before I got to him, another shot rang out. I turned and saw blood splattered on the wall behind the bar, and a plume of blue smoke rising from the revolver in Ralph Jackson’s hand.
Teri had crashed into a rack of bottles on her way down. The heavy stench of blood and hard liquor mingled with the burnt gunpowder and cigarette smoke like some sort of potpourri from Hell.
“Don’t move,” Ralph said to me.
I didn’t.
Ralph made his way to where Skaggs was sitting.
“You all right?”
“I’m all right. Help me up.”
Skaggs got to his feet, stomped over to the bar and grabbed a towel. He pressed it against his wound.
“Is it bad?” Ralph asked.
“Just grazed me.” He stretched across the bar and looked down at Teri. “Damn. You fucked her up good.”
“Let’s get the money and get out of here.”
“You think I’m going to let that go to waste?”
Ralph chuckled. “You’re a vile human being.”
“Hey, dead girls need love too.”
“We’ll take her with us.”
Skaggs considered that. “All right. Pull the car around back.”
Teri Chopin had been a friend of mine for a long time. Like most bartenders, she was part athlete, part public relations specialist, and part psychological counselor. She certainly knew the continuing saga of Nicholas Colt. Now she was dead and these scumbags were going to take her somewhere and have their way with her lifeless body. Thinking about it made me want to beat them to death with a chair leg.
“What about this asshole on the floor?” Ralph said.
“You go get the car. I’ll take care of him.”
Ralph handed Skaggs the revolver and grabbed the shotgun on his way out. He exited through the storage room behind the bar.
The baseball game was tied now and heading into extra innings. The news reporter interrupted again, this time displaying the fugitive’s mug shot. Skaggs hadn’t changed much. He was fat. He had a double chin perpetually dotted with stubble, and glassy blue eyes that didn’t seem to track properly. Greasy black hair. His front teeth had been capped badly and were coated with nicotine.
He walked my way, knelt down, and pressed the barrel of the .357 against my forehead. He didn’t say anything. He was just going to execute me point blank. His breath smelled worse than the barroom floor.
The front door creaked open and a silhouette appeared in the glare. It was Juliet. I recognized the shape of her. She stood there for a few seconds letting her eyes adjust to the gloom. By the time she saw what was going on it was too late to retreat.
“Don’t move, bitch,” Skaggs said. He trained the gun on her.
Her knees buckled. She almost fell. “My God! Nicholas, what’s going on?”
“We’re going to be all right, babe. Just take it easy and do what he says.”
It wasn’t likely that we would be all right, but I didn’t know what else to say. Skaggs motioned for her to come forward. She did. Her fingers trembled and little mewling sounds came from her throat.
“Get down on the floor here next to your boyfriend. Sorry I’m going to have to kill y’all. You know, wrong place wrong time. Who wants to go first?”
He pointed the gun at Juliet, then at me, back and forth while mouthing eenie meenie miney moe. I was about to make a move on him and probably get my face shot off when Ralph Jackson burst through the back service door and galloped into the barroom.
“Jon, the place is crawling with cops.”
“What the fuck?”
“Somebody must have heard the gunshots.”
Skaggs’s dysfunctional eyeballs suddenly appeared even wilder than usual. “Go lock the back door. I’ll get the front.”
They went in opposite directions and met back at the bar.
“Now what?” Skaggs said.
“You tell me now what. You’re the one who came in here blasting away like—”
The phone rang. It was an old black rotary model from the sixties, loud and harsh enough to cut through the normal din of a drinking establishment or the flight line of an aircraft carrier.
Ralph propped the shotgun against a barstool and lifted the receiver from its cradle. “Hello?” He listened for a minute, then identified himself and confirmed that Jonathan Lester Skaggs was in the bar with him.
The party on the other end was probably a detective from the Clay County Sheriff’s Department. That was my guess. The detective was probably telling Ralph that everyone inside needed to walk out single file with their hands in the air.
Bottom of the tenth. Marlins at bat and down by one.
Skaggs was behind the bar, digging through some drawers. Ralph looked at him questioningly.
“I ain’t going back to prison. Do whatever you have to do. Just get us out of here. Tell them we got hostages.”
Ralph lit a cigarette. He clicked the lid of his Zippo open and shut as he listened to the detective, and then responded with an air of confidence I knew to be false.
“Here’s the deal. We have a couple of people in here who are going to die real soon if you don’t give us what we want. We have a private investigator named Nicholas Colt, and some Asian chick who joined the party late. Hey, Asian chick. What’s your name?”
“Her name’s Juliet,” I said. “You need to give it up, Ralph. There’s no way you’re walking out of here alive. Right now there are six guys in the back of a van wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons. Those guys are waiting for the order to ram through the front door and the back door simultaneously. They don’t carry handcuffs, because once they enter a room there’s never any bad guys left with a pulse.”
“You shut up,” Ralph said. He returned to his phone conversation. “The Asian chick’s name is Juliet.” He paused. “I think I’ll shoot her first just for being so cute.”
Skaggs emerged from behind the bar with a roll of Saran Wrap. He made me lie flat on my stomach while he bound my wrists and ankles. Then he did the same to Juliet. She was crying softly, her tears creating a tiny puddle of mud on the filthy floor.
Skaggs moseyed to the bar and sat on a stool beside Ralph. “What did they say?”
“They want us to give up one of the hostages.”
“Give them the dead one.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Fire off a couple rounds, then throw her out the front door like you just now killed her. It’ll show them we mean business.”
“That’s a good idea. Damn good idea.”
“She’s cold already,” I said. “You think the cops are stupid? They’ll know she’s been dead a while. You should let Juliet go. Then—”
“You should shut the fuck up before I stomp your face in,” Skaggs said.
“Wait,” Ralph said. “He might have a point. Go on, cowboy. Tell us your plan.”
“Mind if I turn over?”
“Go ahead.”
I rolled onto my back.
Saran Wrap isn’t the best material for tying someone up. Juliet probably wasn’t strong enough, but I had already started stretching the plastic securing my wrists. A smarter maniacal killer would have used duct tape or electrical cords.
“There’s a guy on the north side of Jacksonville named Paul Stiglione,” I said. “He’s very wealthy, but he’s paranoid. Hardly ever leaves the house, and when he does it’s in a Hummer that’s been outfitted with bullet-proof glass and one-inch steel plate. The tires are solid rubber. It’s a rough ride, and it only gets about six miles per gallon, but it’s virtually unstoppable. Paul owes me a favor. A big one. All I have to do is call him and he’ll send his chauffeur over here with the car.”
“Then what?” Ralph asked.
“Tell the cops you want a helicopter on the roof of the Prescott parking garage in downtown Jax. It’s the tallest building in the area, nowhere to position a sniper. You can let Juliet go now, and take me along as a hostage. From the Prescott you can have the pilot fly us to the Okefenokee Swamp. That’s your best bet for a clean getaway.”
“Something ain’t right,” Skaggs said. “It’s some sort of trick.”
“No trick. I just want to see my girlfriend walk out of here.”
“I like it,” Ralph said. “You got this Paul what’s-his-name’s number?”
“Stiglione. It’s programmed into my cell phone, which is in my right front pants pocket.”
“Get the phone,” Ralph said to Skaggs.
“You giving orders now? Who died and made you boss?”
“Just get it.”
Bottom of the tenth, Marlins at bat. Bases loaded. Two outs. High fly to center, struck well. Going, going…
Skaggs slammed the revolver on the bar and walked to me. When he knelt and reached into my pocket, I quickly locked my right forearm around his throat and crushed his trachea. He made some high-pitched sucking sounds before collapsing.
Ralph fumbled for the shotgun, but in his haste he knocked it from where it had been propped against the barstool. It fell to the floor and discharged with a deafening boom. As he bent to pick it up, I rolled to the nearest bistro table and kicked at the lower part of the stem. The table tilted, and the candle slid from the edge and dropped into my hand. I launched it toward the back bar like a grenade, hoping the spilled liquor would ignite. It did not.
Ralph had the shotgun now. He pointed it toward me and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He gave it a confused look, tossed it aside and grabbed the revolver. He called me a stupid son of a bitch. He aimed, cocked the hammer, and a split second before he squeezed the trigger and ended my life a fountain of blood and skull and brain exploded in the neon glow of the Budweiser sign behind him.
Teri Chopin stood there with the 9mm, her face nearly as white as her blood-soaked shirt had been at the beginning of the shift. She looked at me and said, “I hope you know I’m going to have a bruise where you hit me in the head with that candle.”
She smiled.
I smiled back.
The S.W.A.T. team stormed in then, but there was nothing left for them to do. One of them said something into a radio, and a few seconds later some paramedics trotted through the demolished doorway and attended to Teri.
“Hey, can someone please untie me?” Juliet said.
I ripped the Saran wrap from my ankles and scooted to her side. “You all right?”
“I think I peed my pants. Who the hell is Paul Stiglione?”
“I made him up. I just wanted Skaggs to reach into my pocket so I could wring his neck.”
“I thought for sure that other guy had you with the shotgun.”
“He never pumped a fresh shell into the chamber. Dumbass.”
Juliet gave me a big hug.
I glanced at the clock over the bar. We still had time to make our dinner reservations, but it didn’t matter. I was broke, five hundred in the hole.
The center fielder had caught the ball at the warning track.
Game over.
Natasha Fondren is a writer, pianist, and herpetophile living in the Sonoran Desert. She writes fiction and pop culture essays, with contributions to two Smart Pop Books anthologies: Perfectly Plum and Ardeur. When not writing stories, playing gigs, or hunting rattlesnakes, she codes ebooks for her company, the eBook Artisans (ebookartisandesign.com). She shares her writing and desert life on her blog at natashafondren.com.
I DIED, I DID
NATASHA FONDREN
A STONE, IT was, what killed me—a stone to me loaf. Never thought me head could hurt so, but it was over right quick and then I was dead.
It began the night ’afore the Skeletons had a ruck with the Salvation Army. The Sallys fancied themselves a peaceful sort, parading the streets as soldiers in their uniforms and tryin’ to rid the East End o’ the likes o’ me. Stirred up trouble everywhere they went, they did. Bad for business, it was—bad for business.
Them’s the ones who started it all, who messed up the order of things.
The Commissioner of the Salvation Army, you see, he had his needs, and I was his needs. It was a bit o’ a secret, but not secret enough. The Abbess told us girls to keep mum about it. It was easy; the old codger was a sweet one in bed, all kind and gentle like. Never treated me like a shilling whore, not once, though I was only that until the Abbess found me and took me into ’er home. Said I was pretty, she did—pretty enough for a prince. Gave me soap and supper and dressed me up proper. Best anyone ever did for me.
All so’s the stylish and square-rigged Toffs who came down our way could tup a pretty Toffer like meself. The more chink they had, the worse their wants. Some o’ them couldn’t spend themselves till they made a girl scream. ’Twere a bit o’ a fashion, those screams. Most just wapped us until we screamed, but we learned: we learned to scream ’afore they made us. It was the best way to do it; the Abbess taught us that.
The Commissioner, he never wanted screams. No, might be he were a good and proper Christian like he say, though a man that sides with the Sallys by day and dallies with the down-and-outs by night is what me mum calls a hypocrite.
But he were kind and gentle, so I cried over what happened to ’im that night. We all did. We all stood and cried over his body, which is more than his wife did ’im.
The night started out peaceful enough. I’d been to visit me mum who was ill, and it was late when I walked home on me own. Knowin’ the copper’s beat, I ducked into those dark alleys where none go but thems that knows them. No copper would turn into one o’ those murky passages where the fog settles like a shroud on the dead; they were safety for the likes o’ me, but dangerous for the likes o’ ’im.
That’s when I tripped over the body, whiter and deader than a ghost.
Ain’t none of my business, that’s what I thought, ’til I saw it was me employer lyin’ there with ’er throat slit open to ’er collarbone, grimacing amidst the alley trash. A dog licked at ’er blood-soaked dress—or maybe he’d found a bit o’ victuals amongst the litter that’d fallen on ’er chest.
I shooed ’im away, and me dead Abbess gawked at me with wide, unseeing eyes. Scared me, it did. I stepped through the garbage and closed her eyes ’til I could breathe again.
What was I to do? I stood there for some time, lookin between ’er and the starless sky, hopin’ for some sign, some answer. Me Abbess was dead. I feared for me livelihood as much as anything. She’d been a right kind employer. Life as a shilling whore was much the worse than as a Toffer sleeping and doing her business in a warm bawdy house with plenty o’ food for supper.
I thought to get the copper, but he’d as like turn me in for examination. The doctor, he was another one who liked to make the women scream. Thought it was his godly duty to make the examination as painful as possible so we’d give up our profession. If he found evidence o’ the disease, he’d send us to a lock hospital; some women went in and never came out. Those that submitted to the cure could speak of screams the like of which I’d never heard. It’s men that make the laws, men that part our legs, men that put us away, and men that make us scream—always men from the day we’re born to the day we die.
No, I wouldn’t call an Inspector. I stood in the abandoned alley and wondered who would mutilate me Abbess. Rats rooted through the trash and mice ran over ’er belly. She had a big one, she did—she liked to eat. One mouse sat up on ’is haunches, right there on the crest of ’er belly, nibbling at some morsel ’tween ’is tiny paws.
I said a prayer for ’er. It warn’t nothing pretty, just a simple prayer, whatever words that came to me head.
And that’s when I saw a women lookin at me. She disappeared ’round the corner ’afore I could have a Butcher’s at ’er; I caught only the sight of her navy blue dress and a red sash around ’er bodice. A Sally, I gathered, come to save the Abbess’s soul, though it be too late for that.
I shivered, chilled and frightened both. The streets at night, they didn’t scare me—but tonight they did. Something terrible was afoot, something ’twould hold a candle to the devil.
I started for home; the Commissioner, he’d be waiting for me.
*
T’was the lady again—the lady in the navy blue dress with the Sally sash draped over ’er bodice. She stopped at the sight o’ me, stopped and greeted me with ’er smooth words, wearing ’er unruffled uniform. I could ’ardly look at ’er, so distracted and disturbed I was. I should’ve looked at ’er face, that’s what I should’ve done, but I ’ad to see the Commissioner. He’d know what to do about the Abbess.
I ran up the apples and there he was in me bedsit, waitin’ for me but lyin’ there with ’is throat cut open and ’is face lookin scary like, just as the Abbess had looked.
I screamed.
No one came.
I screamed again.
The dead Commissioner gaped at me, as if he found me hysterics horrifying. He were a kind and gentle man, never given to making a girl scream. I felt abashed, as if—even dead—he’d scolded me proper. It was harder to close his eyes than it’d been to close the Abbess’s. I touched ’im and remembered how we’d touched each other, how we’d lain together and spoken softly in the other’s ear. His eyelashes, so long, were so beautiful I wanted to cry—and cry I did. My sweet Commissioner, ’e was dead.
Another girl in the house screamed, and I ran to ’er door and flung it open, but she was but making the beast. The man was done as soon as she screamed; seemed but a moment later he was putting on ’is coat, tipping ’is hat at me, and strolling out with a smile on ’is face.
“The Commissioner,” I cried, “Come see! And the Abbess, she’s brown bread in the frog! What’ll happen to us now?”
There was nothing to be done but to call for the Inspector and send for the Commissioner’s wife. She’d be shamed, we knew—’er husband dying amidst the likes of us, what with ’is position in the Army.
But she was more angry than grieved or shamed. She talked o’ how he’d been set up, arranged in me bed by the Skeletons, though we knew it wasn’t true. She even pointed to the spot o’ blue paint on his trousers; we all agreed that could’ve got there any time.
No sooner ’ad ’er husband’s body been carried away, and she was preaching Salvation to us. The four o’ us Toffers stood all respectful like in a circle around me bloody bed, and she talked and talked. None of us were listening, not much, until we heard the words, “turned out,” and “no supper” and “bunter begging in the streets.”
She had our attention then.
And when she said the women preached as much as the men, she ’ad me won, she did. A place where the women could tell the men what God meant to say in ’is book sounded like a place I wanted t’see. Me sisters in the Abbey weren’t of the same mind, but I won over two o’ them; not the third.
The Commissioner’s wife, impassioned to her cause by the death of ’er husband, marched us to the Sally meeting house. The three of us were souped and soaped and put to bed. In the morning, they dressed us in navy blue dresses and red Sally sashes. I shuddered t’see them; the blaze of red hung heavy across my bodice. Me heart ached for the Commissioner—for the Abbess, too.
The Salvationist soldiers united in outrage over the Commissioner’s murder. They would march, they decided—march and sing o’ Salvation. The three of us were t’march, too. Yes, we were right proper soldiers: soldiers of God. The Commissioner’s wife told us we must be willing, as any soldier must, to sacrifice our life for the cause o’ salvation. She told us a good soldier must be willing to do anything to save souls. Prostitution, she said, was evil, but I didn’t tell her things had been good and sweet when I’d lain with ’er husband.
Then there was more soup. Me sisters were here more for the soup than the salvation. Or maybe they were like me: I’d been dizzy with grief and shock and the Commissioner’s wife had led us here. What else were we to do?
Life rolled on, faster than I’d like.
When we set out on the march, we were given banners and flags to carry. A drummer brought up the rear, and a flutist marched alongside ’im as we all sang the Salvationist songs. The men were more boisterous than the women, singing loudly and out o’ tune.
March on! March on!
Soldiers of the Army!
Sing on! Sing on!
Sing till all the world hear!
Fight on! Right on!
Soldiers of the Army!
Jesus will be with us,
Never fear!
Tar dripped from the bricks o’ the buildings in the alleys, besmirching our dresses and trousers. Still we marched through the drizzle and gloom, singing as joyfully as if we were announcing the Second Coming itself.
But when the Skeletons caught up wit’ us, they raised a ruckus, banging drums and bellowing the Skeleton’s burlesque lyrics over the Sallys’ singing:
March on! March on!
Soldiers of the Army!
Prig on! Prig on!
Prig till all the world hear!
Grind on! Right on!
Soldiers of the Army!
Cock lane will be with us,
Never fear!
Our smartly-dressed corps stood ’afore a rabble of roughs made up of publicans, beer sellers, and butchers who looked ready to kill us as soon as sing to us. I was afraid, but I had a Butcher’s at me fellow soldiers and saw how brave and confident they were. I mustered me courage and sang as loud as any of ’em. It was a ca-coph-o-nic battle, our songs warring with each other ’til the first rotten egg flew ’cross the street and broke at the feet o’ the Commissioner’s wife.
A moment of quiet, just a moment, before we took up the battle cry of the son and holy spirit: “Blood and Fire!” we yelled. We waved our flags and raised our banners, putting on a show that would change men’s hearts.
The Skeletons drowned our words out right quick, making noisy music with their trumpets and flutes and drums. “Blood and Thunder!” they yelled. Rotten eggs and flour missiles came at us from every direction; the roughs surrounded us.
The Sally women reminded our ranks of peace; the Skeletons surged into our midst, bring fists to men and women alike. Those that surrounded us pelted us with stones and brickbats. Me Abbey sisters clutched at me arm.
And the Salvationists sang. The tune wavered; as we sought to survive the attack without resorting to violence, we did more yellin’ than singin’.
An egg filled with blue paint cracked and splattered on the red sash of the Commissioner’s wife. ’er eyes grew more peaceful at this event, as if the injury made her more holy. But she’d had enough. She grabbed me elbows from behind and ducked behind me back, using me to shelter ’erself from the rotten eggs and stones. Another paint egg splashed on me new uniform. I stared at it, hoping no one would be angry that I’d spoilt me new dress.
It was over when the brickbats started flyin’.
A piece of brick struck me arm. I opened me mouth to sing again, and an egg pelted me belly. I doubled over and then it happened: a stone to me head.
Maybe I screamed. The rock split me loaf; me skull cracked. I imagined it leaked blue paint…or maybe red paint to match me Sally sash that marked me a soldier—a right proper soldier as good as any man.
I fell on me back. I remember the sky, the bright blue sky—but that couldn’t be right; it’d been gray and drizzly ’afore I’d been struck. The noise quieted; I saw only the Commissioner’s wife. She stood over me, gesticulating and waving her arms. Was she screaming? I thought she was. I thought she was screaming. ’er eyes opened as wide as ’er mouth, and in ’er hand I thought she held a knife.
I screamed, I did. I screamed and right quick I was dead.
Robert Weibezahl is the author of the crime novel THE WICKED AND THE DEAD, and his stories have appeared in CrimeSpree, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Mouth Full of Bullets. “Identity Theft” was first published by Beat to a Pulp and was a Derringer Award finalist. Visit him at www.RobertWeibezahl.com.
IDENTITY THEFT
ROBERT WEIBEZAHL
DALE EUSTIS NEEDED some luck. He needed it sooner rather than later. Good luck, not bad. He’d already had plenty of the bad kind. It was the bad kind that had landed him between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Stranded him there, in Portland, a city he barely knew and had no desire to get to know better.
Dale only wanted to go home. Well, to San Francisco, the closest thing he had to a home. And to get there he needed some luck.
He felt betrayed. He had been betrayed, but what could one expect? “Lie down with dogs,” his Bible-thumping grandmother used to say. For once she would have been right. The old cow liked being right. Dead ten years and still her cut-glass voice wouldn’t leave his head. She would have liked that, too.
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly bad luck that had hung him out to dry in that wet town. It was deceit. By the look of things, a pure, old-fashioned double cross by his so-called partners. But why? Everything had been running so smoothly—clerks and waiters, greedy to make a few bucks, willing to run the cards of clueless customers through scanners; a well-hidden garage operation (even Dale didn’t know where it was) where bogus cards were made with the stolen account numbers; a like-clockwork distribution network up and down the coast. That’s where Dale came in: distribution. The middleman, though the way he saw it, something more…important. It was he who would light out to new territories, find new operatives. A vital part of the operation. That’s what had brought him to Portland in the first place.
From the moment he arrived in the stinking “Rose City,” it did nothing but rain. Two days running, he waited by the fountain outside the Portland Building, but his connection never showed. When he called the only number he had for the guy, he got that recorded voice: no longer in service. The cell numbers of his partners back in L.A. had been disconnected, too. And none of the cards he was carrying worked. He tried half the debit cards at five different ATMs before giving up. Same with the credit cards—rejected. Now, on Day Three, money was running low. He couldn’t even come up with enough cash to get the hell out of town.
And he wouldn’t get much sympathy if he went to the police and told them his partners in crime had left him stranded.
He hadn’t had enough cash for even the seediest motel, so he’d slept the night before in Washington Park, sheltered from the rain by a culvert near the Forestry Center. By morning, the rain had finally stopped and, with nothing else to do, he wandered over to the zoo, as good a place to think as any, he supposed. He managed to get through the turnstiles without paying admission (Nine bucks! Just to look at a bunch of pathetic animals?) by glomming onto a school group and acting like one of the parent chaperones. Then he faded away from the group while the harried teacher was trying to pair off the kids by the buddy system. Good luck, sister. He killed some time checking out the exhibits, wandering past the bears and giraffes and monkeys, trying to figure a way out of this mess. Everybody else at the zoo was part of a family or group, but no one seemed to take much notice of a solitary young man. People rarely noticed Dale, which was why he had been so good at distribution.
Now that the rain had ceased, it started to get hot, so after an interminable hour communing with the caged beasts, Dale headed over to the refreshment stand for something to drink. He was hungry, too, but his budget wouldn’t stretch to the steep food prices, so he just ordered a small Coke. He took a seat at an unoccupied table on the patio. The snack bar had been built alongside a miniature railway depot where a narrow-gauge train, complete with a shrunken nineteenth century-style locomotive, periodically departed or returned. Too cute for words, Dale thought. He sat for almost an hour watching the happy, waving children and their proportionately unhappy, exhausted parents board or disembark from the train. Not a care in the world, he thought. Suckers.
He took out his cell phone—at least it hadn’t been turned off—and tried to call Sam again. Disconnected. Then Carlos. No longer in service. He had to fight off panic. What was going on? Why had they done this to him? He thought they had been a pretty good team. Now he was stranded in freaking Portland, the last place he wanted to be. Out of luck, big time.
Or maybe not.
Dale spotted a man approaching the plaza. The guy was out of breath, animated, disheveled. Feeling the heat. Dale monitored the guy with interest, and watched as he threw something into the trashcan, then went over to the snack bar, where he picked up a pre-wrapped sandwich and ordered a soda. He took his food and drink over to a vacant table, and before sitting removed a fanny pack from around his waist and placed in on the tabletop beside the food. Because it was the kind of thing Dale had trained himself to notice, he saw right away that the guy neglected to zip up the pack after paying for his food. Bingo. The chump seemed to be alone, too. Lucky for Dale. Even better, he was about Dale’s age and size.
Dale let a few minutes pass, biding his time. When he heard the announcement that the little tourist train was just two minutes from departure the pieces of his plan came together. He strolled over to the man with the sandwich.
“Got a cigarette?” Dale asked.
The man looked up, startled by the interruption. Then it was Dale’s turn to be surprised, because the face he was looking into was astonishingly like his own. Rounder, yes, for this guy had more meat on his bones than Dale, but there was no denying the resemblance. They could have been brothers.
“Uh, no,” the seated man managed. “Don’t smoke.”
Dale could tell from the guy’s expression that he, too, found the resemblance uncanny. But he made no comment. He stared at Dale for a couple of seconds, then turned his attention back to his lunch. Dale shook off the weirdness of the moment, then with the sleight of hand that had always served him well, seized the opportunity to lift the guy’s wallet from the open fanny pack.
“Thanks anyway,” he said.
The man didn’t look up or even bother to acknowledge these parting words. Dale strode quickly across the plaza, bought a ticket for the train, and boarded just before it pulled away.
The little train rode through the wooded park for a few miles, but Dale didn’t waste time taking in the beauty of the local flora. Sitting by himself in the last seat of the first car, he searched through the contents of the stolen wallet. Sixty-seven dollars in cash, two credit cards, and a driver’s license issued in Washington State. The name on the license was Warren Jeffers. The height listed was the same as Dale’s; the weight a little higher. In the washed-out mug shot on the license, Jeffers could easily have been Dale.
No question, it was spooky. Was this Jeffers guy related to him in some way? Dale was an only child, raised by his single mother and crazy grandmother in an increasingly dismal series of down-market trailer parks south of Atlanta. His mother died when he was ten, and after that it was just he and Gram, until he hitched a ride west three days after his sixteenth birthday. He never knew his father, didn’t even know the bastard’s name. Come to think of it, he chuckled to himself, it was he who was the bastard, wasn’t he? His mother was an only child, too, and Dale never knew any cousins or distant relations. He’d never heard of any family connections in the great state of Washington, that was for sure.
But you couldn’t beat the luck, Dale thought. If he was some kind of relative, the guy couldn’t have picked a better time to waltz into Dale’s life.
After a few minutes the train stopped at another miniature depot, this one alongside a rose garden. More damn roses, Dale thought. He got off and walked through the park until he found a bus, the number 63, that would take him back into the city. Downtown, he went into the first Internet café he saw and went online to book a flight to San Francisco using Jeffers’s American Express card to pay for it. He printed out a boarding pass, then took the light rail out to the airport. The TSA agent glanced at the photo ID, then at Dale, and scribbled an OK on the boarding pass. Dale made his flight with time to spare.
*
When he got to San Francisco Dale took the BART into the city and booked himself, under the name Warren Jeffers, into a shabby hotel a few blocks from Union Square. The place was decidedly rundown, but it was better than what Dale was accustomed to, and was certainly a step up from the soggy ground in the park the night before. Since Jeffers’s credit card was still working, Dale prepaid for an entire week.
He had no way of knowing how long the patsy would wait before canceling his cards, but until then Dale planned on living large. He treated himself to an early dinner at John’s Grill. Thirty bucks for a steak—outrageous, but it tasted heavenly. And a martini, extra dry. He put the meal on the second card, which to his surprise and relief was still working too. After a piece of New York Cheesecake he left the restaurant and wandered over to a bar he knew on McAllister. There were always some pretty amazing looking girls in that bar, and he bought drinks for an Asian girl and a white girl who had come in together. After talking to them for a few minutes, though, he realized they were too stuck-up for his taste. Lawyers, maybe. Or something over at City Hall. He should have known from the way they were dressed. He didn’t mind—was really kind of glad—when they started talking to a couple of guys in thousand dollar suits. He just turned his full attention back to his martini. The Grey Goose had the desired effect. He was feeling pretty good, what with the prime dinner and the drinks and the free ride he was getting from that schmo Warren Jeffers. Screw Sam and Carlos. Who needed them? He’d be back on his feet in no time.
There was a TV above the bar, but Dale couldn’t hear it over the din in the room. Still, he watched CNN for a while, occasionally reading the news bites across the bottom of the screen. That attractive reporter with the foreign name he couldn’t remember interviewed some guy in a turban, and then there was a report on New Orleans’s misery six years after Katrina. Poor chumps, Dale thought. Didn’t know enough to bail while the bailing was good. But, hey, wait a minute. What was he looking at now? On the screen was a headshot of a man. A driver’s license photo. A photo that looked an awful lot like the one on the license that was in his pocket at that very moment. It couldn’t be. But then they plastered the name Warren Jeffers across the bottom of the screen. Dale stared in disbelief. Was he imagining this? Without sound he had no idea what he was seeing, and the unconnected words about rising gas prices that scrolled across the bottom of the tube gave him no clues. Jeffers’s photo was replaced by what appeared to be a high school graduation picture of a teenage girl, blonde and innocent looking. Then the newsreader was back. Her lips were moving, but lip reading was a skill Dale had never acquired.
Wobbly from the third martini, he staggered a little as he made his way down Larkin Street. Even with the effects of the alcohol, he was keenly aware that he had just seen something incomprehensible. He didn’t know what it was all about, but he had a bad feeling. Would CNN run a news story about a guy who had his wallet stolen at the Portland Zoo? No way. And who was the pretty young thing with the honey-blond hair? He needed to find out, but there was no TV in the fleabag room he’d rented.
Then, as if guided by some twisted guardian angel, Dale realized he was standing at the glass portal of the city’s new public library. Well, new to anyone who had lived in the city and remembered the old public library. Here was the information he needed just a few clicks away. On sea legs he climbed the stairs to the third floor where he knew the Internet sign-up desk was located. The library was busy, but Dale was lucky to find an unclaimed terminal. That word again—lucky. First he visited the CNN website. There was no pertinent headline under “latest news,” but when he searched the name Jeffers, a story popped up: Murder Suspect Flees Portland.
Murder?
Dale clicked on the link and read. A man identified as Warren Jeffers was being sought by Portland police in connection with the murder of Carolyn Reynolds, 17, in Washington Park. Authorities have reason to believe that Jeffers left the city—
“Holy shit,” Dale said aloud, earning a dirty look from the middle-aged woman at the next computer.
He Googled the Oregonian website and read more details about the story. The girl had been found dead late that morning, her body discovered by two kids playing in a wooded area between the Children’s Museum and the Zoo. The victim had been strangled, but there was no sign of sexual assault. The murder had been carried out with precision, and police were stymied by the lack of forensic evidence at the scene. An insurance card bearing the name Warren Jeffers had been found not far from the girl’s body. Only one witness had come forward, a woman who had seen a young man in the area around the estimated time of the killing. Details obtained from DMV records for Jeffers closely matched the witness’s description of the man seen in the park. Credit card usage indicated that Jeffers left Portland on a flight in the early afternoon. Police would not reveal Jeffers’s destination, but inquiries by the Oregonian reporter indicated that he may have flown to San Francisco.
Dale’s alcohol-softened brain felt like a carnival tilt-a-whirl. Could Jeffers have murdered that girl? Hadn’t he seemed agitated when he had arrived at the café in the zoo? Of all the pigeons for Dale to target. Now the police believed that Jeffers was in San Francisco. But, of course, it was he, Dale, they were following. Dale, who looked a lot like Jeffers and was carrying—was using—his credit cards. He had taken on the identity of a criminal. Of a killer.
Dale clicked on a sidebar piece and read more about Jeffers. He was a year younger than Dale. Like Dale, he was originally from Georgia, a fact that went straight to Dale’s heart. Could they be related? Could they be brothers, even? Could the father Dale never knew have been Jeffers’ father, too?
He could tell the police who he really was. Why he had been in Portland and what he had seen. But would they believe him? The real Jeffers was no doubt long gone, maybe out of the country already. Certainly no longer using his real name now that it was splashed all over the national news. No, but Dale had used it, forged the signature of an alleged killer. The paper said they had little or no forensic evidence. That could mean no DNA. But if there were DNA, and he and Jeffers were somehow related—brothers—would Dale be able to prove he hadn’t been the one who killed that girl?
He needed to stop being Warren Jeffers right here and now. Back to Dale Eustis, loser. Loser, maybe, but not murderer. Identity thief, yes, but not murderer.
He was about to do a search to find out what he could about DNA evidence, but a librarian tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time to log off. It was almost eight o’clock and the library was closing.
He needed to go back to the hotel, get his things, and clear out. If he had to, he would sleep in Golden Gate Park. He’d try to find Sam or Carlos. They would have to help him. They could swear to his real identity. This was bigger than any misunderstanding they might have about the operation.
When Dale got to the hotel, everything seemed normal. He thought maybe the clerk behind the bulletproof glass gave him a funny look, but he told himself he was just being paranoid. Even if he had used Jeffers’s credit card to pay for the room, it had only been a few hours. The police couldn’t possibly have tracked him down yet.
Up in the room he threw his few possessions into his backpack and stuffed the little bit of cash he had left into his pocket. It wasn’t enough for a room anywhere. He wondered how far he could get on a Greyhound. He would head for the terminal and get on a bus to Los Angeles. Or Vegas. It was easy to get lost in Vegas. And he’d be Dale Eustis again. He’d ditch Jeffers’s wallet and cards down a grate in the street on his way to the bus station. Goodbye Jeffers, hello Eustis. The cops had never heard of Dale Eustis. They were looking for Warren Jeffers, and he was probably in Canada by now.
In Vegas he’d find something to get him by. There was always something going down in Vegas. Hell, he didn’t need Sam or Carlos. He could start his own operation. He’d always been damn good at the identity theft game.
Dale zipped up his backpack and moved to turn out the lamp next to the sagging bed he would never get a chance to sleep in. Then there was a sound—the creak of a hinge—and he turned to see someone step out of the darkness of the bathroom. Warren Jeffers.
“Nice to see you again,” the intruder said, though his voice, flat as tin, betrayed no pleasure. He steadied a handgun in the direct vicinity of Dale’s head.
“But…how did you find me?” Dale stuttered from his shock. “Wait…how did you get into the room?”
Jeffers laughed. “I just told the desk clerk I’d lost my key. He thought I was you. Imagine that.”
“But, how—”
“The minute I saw you lift my wallet, it all fell into place. You’re an easy guy to follow.”
Dale didn’t know much about guns—despite the life he led, he’d never had the need to own one—but he could see that the one Jeffers was holding so intently was outfitted with a silencer. This time, Dale knew he needed more than luck. He needed to buy some time.
“Why’d you want to find me? I figured you’d be out of the country by now.”
“I won’t have to leave the country if I’m dead,” Jeffers said.
The meaning of Jeffers’s words sank in. This killer had come to kill him. Dale noticed that his look-alike wore gloves. He planned to make it look like suicide. The only prints in the room would belong to the dead man—to Dale—and the cops would think they’d found their murderer. Case closed.