Edgar Allan Cozy

by Sheila Connolly et al.

The name on the stone was Jonathan Edgar.

  Okay, fine, the guy at the bar had had family here, way back. That made sense. Or maybe he’d picked the name out of the air, or knew it because he’d been sleeping rough in the cemetery.

  But it was the rest of the inscription that got me. The whole thing read:

  Jonathan Edgar

  1783 - 1832

  Lost at Sea when the Discovery Went Down

  Erected by his wife Margaret

  Ohh-kay. Seriously? Had to be my drinking buddy’s great-great something or other. I sat down in front of the stone, never mind the wet grass, and tried to remember the guy last night. I’d seen the man. I’d watched him drink a lot of beers that I paid for. He sure as hell looked real to me.

  But the waitress claimed she never saw him. I’d thought she was conning me. But was I wrong?

  I thought about what this Edgar guy had told me, especially that last story about the ship. I’d been pretty wasted by then, so the details were fuzzy. Had he ever mentioned the name of his ship? Maybe he had.

  I hadn’t heard the little old lady approaching until she said, “I see you’ve found our lost sailor.”

  I scrambled to my feet. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect the dead. I thought this was interesting, though. You know who he was?”

  “Everyone in town does. He was one of the sons of the town’s founder, but by the time the inheritance was distributed, there was nothing left for him. He kissed his wife good-bye and said he was leaving to find work. He never came back.”

  “And nobody ever heard from him again?”

  “On the contrary, he wrote his wife Margaret regularly, although it often took a long time for the letters to arrive. In the last one she received, he said he was shipping out on the Discovery, headed to South America. After that, not a word. Margaret came from a good family, and she refused to believe he had abandoned her, so after a bit she had this stone put up. There’s no one under it, which is why it’s at this back end of the cemetery.”

  “And nobody ever found out anything more?”

  The woman shook her head. “Poor Margaret—they’d had no children together, and she couldn’t marry again, what with not knowing. She led a sad life, almost a shut-in.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for.

  “That’s nice, but it’s nothing to you, now, is it?”

  Our eyes locked, and I almost asked her if anybody else in this place had shared an evening with Jonathan Edgar in the last century or two. And decided against it. I didn’t want to know if I’d been drinking with a ghost.

  After trying out a variety of careers, ranging from art historian to investment banker, Sheila Connolly, Anthony and Agatha Award–nominated and New York Times bestselling author, now writes three mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, set in Philadelphia, rural Massachusetts, and the Wild West of Ireland. In addition, she writes the Relatively Dead paranormal romance e-series published by Beyond the Page Press. She lives in a too-big Victorian in southeastern Massachusetts with her husband and three cats. In her spare time she loves to travel and to excavate old trash heaps.

  Find out more about her at her website, www.sheilaconnolly.com.

  An Intolerable Intrusion

  by Edith Maxwell

  The glare from the monitor pained my eyes as I massaged manuscripts into readable form for the Raven Harbor Review. The beef-and-broccoli stench of the receptionist's microwaved Lean Cuisine offended my nostrils. The peppers in a favorite Thai dish now burned my tongue. My rear end ached from the formerly comfortable ergonomically designed office chair. I once again cursed the heightened senses my recent illness had caused.

  I kept my desk pristine clean, every paper filed so it wouldn't rustle, every speck of dust wiped clean with a damp rag twice a day so the stale smell and gritty feel of air pollution and other people's shedded skin cells couldn't abrade me. My hearing was the most sensitive, though. I could hear every bloody thing in the office, right down to the copy editor's tap-tapping five cubicles away and the gurgle of the coffeemaker six aisles down and around the corner in the kitchen.

  But the worst? The worst was the intolerable intrusion of Brian's damn game. And he sat right on the other side of the gray upholstered cubicle wall from me. Silicone earplugs were defenseless against the onslaught.

  Brian. Three months ago the editor-in-chief of our Maine-centered literary magazine had called the entire staff into a meeting. We gathered in the open space near the kitchen, Ellen standing in a power pose, with her usual black suit open to a low-cut turquoise camisole that matched her three-inch heels.

  “I'm pleased to announce I have hired our new IT manager.” Ellen gestured to a tall skinny young man with blond surfer hair hanging in his hooded eyes. He wore clean jeans and a red long-sleeved shirt. The former holder of the position, who often appeared post-lunch with alcohol perfuming his person, never showed up for work one day. He finally reported in from San Francisco that he was now driving a cab for a living.

  “Please welcome Brian Zabrowski,” Ellen went on. “He comes to us from the Nonce Corporation, and was highly recommended. I know you'll all do your best to make him feel at home here.”

  Brian gave a little wave and mustered what looked like an ironic smile. That's the last time I ever saw him show even that much pleasure.

  We all needed Brian. He was brilliant with keeping our digital devices in perfect running order. Our network, our laptops, our all-important copiers and printers, all of it. He didn't like being interrupted. We'd taken to texting him to ask when a good time to meet might be instead of just knocking on the door of his cube. Models of red sports cars like the low-slung version he drove to work lined up on the shelf above his workstation. Rumor had it he lived with his mother.

  To my seventy-year old eyes, Brian appeared to be barely out of high school, but he was probably thirty, plenty old enough to have his own place. And he earned a pretty penny at this job, I knew.

  I had one more year here until my penny would be at its own pretty maximum. I'd spent a number of years out of the productive work force. Living on a shoestring and a welfare check, I'd raised a passel of children on my own after Howard's unfortunate demise, and my recent illness had reduced my income again. My monthly social security check was a laugh. But the magazine had been good to me, and a year from today their matching of my 401K contributions would fully vest. Then I could safely retire and write my own stories instead of editing other people’s.

  I love my work, don't get me wrong. And I'm as brilliant at it as Brian is at his job. I'm just tired. Tired of dying these white locks red. Fed up with being nice to everybody. Sick to death of driving by the allure of beautiful Raven Harbor Point on the way to the office every day and not being able to stop and enjoy it. And really, really tired of the soft beeps and blips coming from Brian's cubicle. It was time for Georgina to stop being a slave to others. Maybe I'd change my name to Georgie. Or Guinevere. Or even Gabriela.

  But because I needed to stay at the job for now, I grew ever more furious with the sounds of Brian's game. Before he was hired, I was always the first into the office at six o'clock every morning. Now I was greeted with the underwater bloops and annoying beeps of whatever bloody game he played instead of working.

  The first couple of days I leaned into his doorway. “Good morning,” I said to the figure hunched over the iPad in his lap. A cup of sweet-smelling creamy coffee sat on his desk. Maybe if he knew a coworker monitored his activities, he'd cut out the extracurricular entertainment.

  He barely glanced up. “Morning.”

  “Are you finding your way around?” I kept my tone bright.

  “Mmm.” He kept his eyes on his game.

  “The fitness room downstairs is a great resource, isn't it?” Now I had his attention.

  “I don't do fitness.” Those deep-set eyes glared at me. “I surf.”

  “Right. Well, have a nice day.” So much for trying to be fri
endly.

  His game playing didn't seem to bother anyone else in the office. I didn't know when he ever worked, but at our next staff meeting, Ellen beamed at him.

  “Brian is doing a great job. Have you all noticed how he's sped up our intranet?”

  Others bobbed their heads. “Doing awesome, dude,” said a fresh male intern, who I saw conferring with Brian over the iPad that day at lunchtime.

  As for me, I became obsessed. My own work suffered. I'd be pondering the correct placement of a semicolon or if the lede had enough of a hook when those supremely irritating noises would speed up, or slow down, grow louder or fainter. Even if I conferred with a colleague on the far side of the office, my ears reverberated with the sinister creeping feet of that monster of a game. The one thing the sounds never did was stop.

  No, I take that back. Every morning at exactly seven, when we were still the only two in the office, he took the blasted device into the men's restroom with him. Actually, I somehow could still hear the noises but at least they were muted. The guy was so regular, or maybe it was his bowels that were, you could have set the Times Square clock by him.

  *****

  I started taking more and more breaks to tend my little garden in the lunch room, just to get away from Brian. It didn't matter that an icy wind whipped down Main Street. Inside I nurtured a window full of vining tropical plants that flowered as if they flourished in my native Georgia (no, my mother wasn’t very creative when it came to names). The Gelsemium sempervirens was particularly cheery, with its trumpet-shaped flowers the rich yellow of butter from grass-fed cows. Ellen had given the shelf of plants her blessing, saying it cheered things up around here.

  Once when I was clipping and tending the pots, Ellen clicked on her heels toward me.

  “What’s that pretty one?” she asked.

  “It’s evening trumpet flower.” Why was she asking me? What did she care?

  “How are you, Georgina?” She paused, cocking her head.

  Did I look ill? More nervous than usual? I tried to smile but that damn tic in my upper lip beat faster than usual.

  “I'm good, Ellen. You?”

  She waved away my question. “Fine, fine. You just seem, I don't know, a bit troubled lately.”

  I blew out a breath. “Actually, since you ask, Brian is always playing a game on his iPad. A game that makes noises. It's kind of driving me nuts.” No, no, Georgina. Wrong choice of words. “I mean, I can hear it all the time. I'm surprised he ever gets any work done.”

  Ellen leaned in so close I could smell her Crystal Noir perfume and see the flecks of black on her heavily mascara-ed eyelashes. “I'll stop by to have a listen. Have to tell you, I've never heard any sounds from his cube. And his work is excellent. Maybe you need to take some more time off. More sick leave.”

  “Oh, no. I'm fine, really. I just need to get used to the sound, I guess.” I did my best to perk up my face. “I have some super noise-canceling earphones at home. I'll bring those in.”

  “That's the kind of initiative I like to see. You take care now.” She turned and swept out of the room.

  Crap. I never should have said anything. Another enforced sick leave and I was sunk. My 401K would only vest if I was here in the office full time. I took in a long breath and smoothed the dust off the pointy dark green leaves. Tending this little garden was the only relief from the stresses of my life.

  *****

  The day Brian died, I felt terrible for him. At about eight o’clock I'd just come back from checking the plants when I heard him panting. Then he cried out. The receptionist, who was walking back to the front desk with her coffee, rushed over at the same time as I rounded the cubicle wall. Brian lay crumpled on his side, panic widening his eyes. His skin had paled to a sickly shade and one hand gripped the collar of his shirt into a noose.

  “Brian!” the receptionist cried, squatting in her heels and tight jeans, feeling his neck. “Call someone, quick,” she urged me, glancing up. “He's still alive but it must be a heart attack.”

  I rushed back to my cube to call 911. My fingers fumbled on the office phone's keys, but I finally managed. I stood and watched until they'd taken away poor Brian strapped to a gurney, a paramedic pumping air into his still form.

  After they were gone, I strolled by his cube. The iPad sat blessedly silent on his desk, as did his coffee cup. Someone must have pressed the power switch on the cursed device. I hate to say it, but my relief from the noise was like diving into a deep pool of sweet cool water. After I peered into the mug, I thought it only right that I scrub it out for him. Anybody taken away sick didn't need to come back to a germy, spoiled-cream-encrusted mug. But it slipped out of my hand in the kitchen and crashed to the tile floor. I swept it up and deposited it all in the trash. I would give him one of my spare mugs when he came back.

  After lunch Ellen called us all together again. “I'm terribly sad to say that Brian passed away this morning. They’re still looking into how he died. He seemed very young for a heart attack, but sometimes there are undiagnosed underlying conditions. Many thanks to Georgina, though, for calling emergency services so promptly.”

  I bowed my head, nodding my acknowledgment as I gazed at the floor. Brian wasn't coming back, after all. I could release my obsession. Get back to productivity. Finally be able to think again.

  I finished editing two stories on deadline and had donned my coat to head home at four o'clock when Ellen appeared at my cube entrance.

  “Georgina, these officers would like to ask you a few questions about Brian's death. Got a minute?”

  “Certainly.” I was in no rush to get home. I would tell them all I knew, which wasn't much.

  A man and a woman clustered behind Ellen, who excused herself.

  “Please, sit down.” I gestured to my guest seat. “Let me just get another chair.”

  “We'll stand, thanks,” the woman said. “I'm Detective Colby, and this is Officer Dubois. Now, what time did you arrive here this morning?”

  “Six o'clock, as always.”

  “Was Mr. Zabrowski at his desk?” The woman glanced at her companion, a younger guy silently poking one finger at the keyboard on a digital tablet.

  “Yes, he always is. Or was, I guess I should say.” At the sight of the tablet, a ringing started up in my ears. His wasn't an iPad, and he wasn't playing a game. I shook my head to rid it of the ringing. The woman asked me more questions. After some minutes, I had trouble concentrating.

  “Pardon me?” I said, keeping my tone bright and interested even though all I could hear was the erratic noise in my head.

  “I said, do you know if the deceased had problems with any of his coworkers? Quarrels, workplace tensions, that kind of thing?” She gazed at me.

  I gazed back. “No, I don't think so.” I raised my voice to cover the terrible din. “He pretty much kept to himself. Would you like to see his cubicle?” I rose, but she waved me back down.

  “We'll get to that.”

  With a slap like an electric shock, I now knew the sound in my ears was not ringing. It was Brian's iPad. The beeps and blurps were back. But it couldn't be. My nostrils flared and I jumped up again.

  “I must show you.” I pushed past them and slid around the corner to the next cubicle. I froze. The iPad lay dark and quiet on his desk. Who was playing that game? Where was the sound coming from? I stared at the red toy cars, at the ring of coffee on his desk, at the pyramid of soda cans.

  “Ma'am? Ms. Flax?” the woman called to me.

  I stumbled back into my cubicle.

  “Is everything all right?” She raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows.

  “What?” My head was about to explode. My skin grew clammy, my hands numb. I gasped for breath.

  “You don't seem well.”

  “I'm fine,” I shouted over the deafening roar. “I'm fine.”

  The detective folded her arms. “Your manager said you were unhappy with Mr. Zabrowski. Is that true?”

  How could they sta
y so calm? Didn't they hear these blips, those beeps? The sounds came at a rapid rate now, blasting the air. How could they stand there smiling as if nothing calamitous was in the ether, as if the walls weren't about to explode outward onto Main Street from the pressure?

  “I...I...” I stared at her, the noises drowning me.

  She stared back, a little smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Ellen appeared behind her, expression alarmed.

  “Yes, I did it! I extracted gelsemine from the trumpet flower and poured it into his coffee. He was driving me mad. He still is!” I held out my wrists. “Take me away. Arrest me! Anything to stop this damned noise in my head.”

  Agatha-nominated author Edith Maxwell is a former farmer, childbirth educator, linguist (among other occupations), and resident of southern Indiana. She writes the Local Foods Mysteries and the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction.

  Maxwell lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats, and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors. You can also find her at www.edithmaxwell.com, @edithmaxwell, and on Facebook.

  Within These Walls

  by Sadie Hartwell

  There were many things I’d grown to hate about my husband. But most of all, I hated the clown.

  The ridiculous, oversized oxblood shoes. The blue goo he sprayed into his longish, graying hair, then pasted up into a high flat-top. The greasepaint makeup with which he covered his face, the stuff that looked like the diaper rash ointment I’d happily smeared on the bottoms of our four children, before they grew up and moved away.

  And the costume. Oh, the costume. The one with the harlequin pants and vest covered in tiny bells so that with every movement he made, he jingled. The one he expected me to repair when one of the bells came loose. Most people enjoy the sound of bells. Sleigh bells. Oven timer bells. Wedding bells. I might have once. Not anymore.

  I stabbed the needle through the heavy cotton fabric of the vest, then through the shank of the blasted bell, which tinkled as I repositioned it on the garment. The thread knotted up and caught. “Damn!” I cried.