by Elise Sax
Amos put Boone into a headlock and they fell to the ground, rolling around as they wrestled. “You shut up!” Boone yelled.
“No, you shut up!”
“No you!”
“No you!”
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” I told Adele.
“Family can be a difficult thing,” she said.
“What?” I asked, surprised. “Boone and Amos are related?”
“Didn’t you know? They’re brothers. Fraternal twins. Boone’s ninety minutes older.”
Of course. Now it seemed perfectly clear. I had thought Boone looked familiar, and it was because he looked like Amos. Twins. Boone had been Mr. Secretive, and he had never told me his last name. Boone Goodnight.
And Boone had been right. It was complicated. “This is like the Bible,” I said to Adele, as we watched Amos and Boone continue to roll around the ground, wrestling.
“Cain and Abel,” she agreed.
But which one was Cain and which one was Abel? There had to be a lot of bad blood between them to make brothers hate each other so much, but Boone did save Amos’s life, so maybe the bad blood was only surface deep. Maybe all of the rancor was based on a simple misunderstanding.
“Can’t we all just be friends?” I called to the two men.
“They’ll work it out,” Adele said. “They’ve only been fighting for a few years.”
“Years?”
Adele shrugged. “Goodnight men are stubborn. They also have large penises. At least that’s what I hear.”
While Boone and Amos continued to wrestle, Adele walked back to Goodnight UFOs with me to get my clothes. I apologized to Norton for losing his alien head, and Faye apologized to me for losing my sneakers. I bought a pair of Martian flip-flops and picked up my purse and went back to the Plaza.
When I returned, Boone and Amos had finally calmed down. Amos had put Wade and Steve in the back of his SUV, and now he was standing with Boone, studiously ignoring him.
“Don’t worry. They’ll be behind bars for a long time,” Amos told me, touching his bloody lip. “Bastards almost killed me. They’ll get justice for Jimmy.”
“They didn’t kill Jimmy,” I said.
“What?” Boone asked. He looked at me through one eye because his other eye was swollen and bruised.
“They didn’t kill Jimmy. I know who did that now,” I said.
“You do?” Amos asked. “Who?”
“This might sound strange, but I want to tell you in front of Silas,” I said. “He was almost killed three times. I think he deserves to hear the whole story.”
Amos surprised me by agreeing to move our discussion to Silas’s hospital room. I also asked him to invite a large group of people to come, too.
Along with Amos, Boone, Silas, and me, I asked that Faye and her husband Norton, Adele, Nora, Mabel, Rocco, Klee, Jack, Gloria, Wendy, Jimmy’s parents, and Wade and Steve come hear about what really happened.
Silas was delighted to have the company in his hospital room, and even more delighted to see Wade and Steve handcuffed.
“I knew I would get you guys,” Silas told them with glee. “You murderers.”
“Almost murderers,” I corrected. “They tried to kill me and Amos, but otherwise they’re innocent.”
“Right. Innocent,” Silas said, sarcastically.
“Go ahead, Trouble,” Amos said. “Tell us what you brought us here to say.”
All of a sudden, I got nervous. I had never spoken in front of so many people before. But I knew I was right about the killer, and I couldn’t wait to tell the world.
I stood next to Silas’s bed and faced everyone.
“Let me start by saying that I’m not crazy, and I never wore a BDSM sling and rode a giraffe.” I shot Rocco the stink-eye so bad that he had to look away.
“It started when Jimmy came into the Gazette office, thrilled that he had made progress to the story about New Sun Petroleum,” I began. Jimmy’s mother wiped at her eyes. “He was a good young man,” I added. “Talented and enthusiastic. Silas wanted to celebrate, so he passed around cigars. I don’t like cigar smoke, so I left. A little while later, Jimmy came out into the courtyard, and we all know what happened.
“There was no shortage of suspects right off the bat,” I continued. “Anyone could have poisoned the cigar at any time. But why kill Jimmy? What was the motive? It quickly became clear that only one cigar had been poisoned, and it had been meant for Silas. Poor Jimmy was collateral damage. Now, the mystery became more mysterious. I mean, everyone wanted Silas dead, right? No offense, Silas,” I added, patting his shoulder.
“No journalist worth his salt is liked,” Silas announced. “Being hated is a sign that I’m doing my job.”
“The first suspect, of course, was my roommate,” I said. Boone’s eyes widened. I nodded back at him. “He was so secretive. And dusty. And he was always at the scene of the crime. Those were way too many coincidences for my taste.”
“And don’t forget he was flirting with you,” Adele said.
“Which was totally a bad sign because only killers and liars like you,” Faye added.
“Right,” I said, pointing at them. “Exactly. So, mysterious Boone was a major suspect. But there were others. Klee could have been irritated looking at the same suit every day, for example.”
“Hey!” Klee complained.
“She has a point,” Silas said. “I make a unique fashion statement.”
“And young Jack,” I continued. “He could have wanted Silas out of the way so he could quit school and take Silas’s place on the paper.”
“Is that possible? Can I quit school?” Jack asked.
“No!” Amos and Boone yelled at Jack in unison.
“At that point, we didn’t know yet that Silas had been the real target,” I said. “That all changed when we found out about the cigar. Silas was called by a secret source who asked to meet him on the roof of Goodnight UFOs.” Wendy shifted in place, and I tried not to look at her in order to preserve her anonymity. “Later that source said that the call had been faked. It was actually the killer who had contacted Silas to lure him to his death.”
“That was a good plan, if I do say so myself,” Silas said. “I didn’t see it coming.”
“The second attempt on Silas’s life produced a bunch more suspects,” I said. “First there was the source, who could have lied later and had really waited for Silas and pushed him off the roof. Second, of course was Wade, who had threatened Silas every chance he could because of the article.”
“I wouldn’t have pushed him off a building,” Wade spat. “That’s a pussy way to kill a man.”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Don’t skip ahead,” I said. “I found a few clues on the roof after Silas was pushed off.”
“You did?” Amos asked.
I blushed and continued talking. “First there were the marks where the flying saucer was cut free.”
“The killer used the wrong tool,” Faye announced.
“Exactly. Why would he do that? There were also different kinds of cuts, as if the killer had made several trips. That told me that either the person wasn’t very strong…”
“Or that there was more than one killer,” Nora finished for me. “This is so good. I wish I had popcorn.”
“You can have my rice pudding, if you want,” Silas told her. “It gives me gas.”
Nora took the rice pudding and scooped a spoonful into her mouth.
“The other clue was a piece of paper left at the scene.” I pulled it out of my pocket. “It came from a flier for the giraffe parade. I only recognized it when I went to the parade and saw my picture and longed for the original poster.”
I scrunched up the scrap of paper and threw it on the ground. “It turned out that it wasn’t a clue. The last clue was the biggest clue, but I didn’t know that it was at the time. I smelled an odor that I couldn’t place on the roof.”
“That’s right,” Faye said, excitedly. “I forgot a
ll about that.”
“Then, there was the location, itself. Goodnight UFOs. All roads seemed to lead to it, and that was suspect,” I said.
“Are you saying that Norton…?” Faye asked.
“There was the old t-shirt,” I continued.
“The old t-shirt you wanted to see?” Norton asked.
“It was suspicious. I’ll tell you about it another day,” I said, not wanting to go into the story of the vanishing girl. I didn’t think that would help my credibility. But Boone seemed to know where I was going with it, and he smirked at me. I tried to ignore him.
“Anywho,” I continued. “The main suspects continued to be Wade and Steve, especially after I allegedly broke into New Sun Petroleum, and Wade shot at me in the forest after, hitting my dog.”
“I categorically deny that,” Wade said.
“Talk to the hand,” I said back to him. “Mabel and Rocco were dragged into that suspicion after I saw each of them talking to Wade, and Mabel took something from him and put it in her purse.”
“What? You were spying on me?” Mabel asked, upset. “Wade gave me a check for a fish pedicure. That’s all. Totally innocent.”
“My damned toenails fell off!” Wade yelled at her.
“Coincidence,” she countered.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t care what Mabel and Rocco were doing with Wade. It has nothing to do with Jimmy’s death. But I didn’t know that at the time because I was fixated on New Sun Petroleum as the number one suspect.
“Then, later at Jimmy’s wake, I was told something about his family that threw the suspicion from New Sun in a totally different direction. That moment solidified my belief that Wendy had lied to me about Jimmy’s case.” Amos and Wendy exchanged a quick glance. “My turn to a different direction in the investigation continued when my friends reminded me that whoever the killer was, he had used different methods to try and kill Silas. I was also told that Wade was a shooter and that he wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty, preferring to use a gun.”
“What is this? Gang up on Wade day?” Wade demanded.
“Silas gave me the second to last clue,” I said, ignoring Wade.
“You don’t think that Silas faked all this, do you?” Klee asked.
“No. But that would have been interesting. When Silas was almost killed a third time-- this time almost smothered to death with a pillow-- he told me that he had woken up on the floor with the pillow on his face. He said that it had been heavy.”
“That’s right,” Silas said.
“At the time, I thought it was a strange word,” I said. “Heavy. Why didn’t he say that the person was too strong? He didn’t. He said heavy. That made me think. There were a couple other things that I’ll get to in a minute, but it was Boone who gave me the clue that brought it all together for me.”
“I did?” Boone asked.
“He did?” Amos asked.
“Boone,” I repeated. “He was talking to his brother, and he said, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ Well, that told me everything I needed to know.”
“So, who’s the murderer?” Jack asked.
I looked over at the killer. All eyes followed me to stare directly at Sheriff Amos Goodnight.
“The sheriff?” Wade asked “No way.”
“I always thought there was something fishy about him,” Rocco said.
“No,” I said. “Not Amos.” I continued to stare in his direction, but not at Amos, at the person standing in front of him.
“No,” Silas said, catching on. “It can’t be.”
“That’s impossible,” Mabel said.
“It’s possible,” I said. “Gloria Corbella killed Jimmy and tried to kill Silas three times.”
I waited for the audible gasp in the room, and I was rewarded. Gloria stepped back until she bumped into Amos. I sat down next to Silas on his bed, exhausted by my monologue.
“Gloria had access to the Gazette office and Silas’s cigars,” I explained. “She was there every day. The kind, invisible tamale lady. She could have done whatever she wanted without anyone taking any notice. After Jimmy died, I started nosing around, and I assume that got Gloria worried. So, she put a rattlesnake in my car.”
“That was the Andromedans,” Norton said.
“I was beginning to think so, too,” I told Norton. “You were very convincing. But it was Gloria. She told me right in this room that she wasn’t scared of rattlesnakes and had grown up with them around her house. When I saw her after almost getting killed by the snake, I got the impression that she was surprised to see me. At the time, I didn’t take any notice, but now it makes more sense.”
“What kind of world do we live in when the tamale lady puts rattlesnakes in people’s cars?” Nora asked out loud.
I figured it was a rhetorical question and continued. “Now looking back, the smell on the roof was homemade tamales. I guess when you make hundreds of them every day, the smell stays with you. It only lasted a second, but it was enough to get my attention.”
Faye snapped her fingers. “Tamales! That’s what it was. You’re so good at this, Matilda.”
I smiled big, pleased as punch at the compliment. “It would make sense, too, that Gloria wouldn’t have access to the correct tool to use to cut the flying saucer loose, and a woman would have to come back repeatedly to get the job done,” I continued. “Her voice on the phone could be mistaken for Wendy’s, so that fit, too. And then there was the heavy pillow. Thinking of Gloria trying to smother Silas, the word heavy now makes sense. She wouldn’t have had the strength to smother him with her hands. She had to sit on him.”
“Sonofabitch,” Boone said, like he was truly impressed. I blushed, and Amos scowled at my reaction.
“But why?” Silas asked. “What was the motive?”
I sighed. “Men are so clueless. ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ She did it for love.”
“Love?” Amos asked.
“There’s only the slightest sliver of space between love and hate,” I said.
Gloria stepped forward. “Every day for sixteen years, I’ve fed you tamales and burritos,” she spat at Silas. “Sixteen years, I’ve slaved to make sure you have a good meal.”
“I know. Thank you,” Silas said. “But isn’t that your job?”
“No! I’m a dental technician. Sixteen years ago, my cousin Lupita was sick, so I replaced her. That’s when I met you. I’ve been making you lunch every day since then.”
“In order to be close to you, Silas,” I explained because he still looked confused.
“Why did I fall in love with a fat, ugly, dirty man with one suit? I don’t know,” Gloria said.
“I’m not dirty. I take a bath every evening,” Silas said.
I nodded my head. “That’s true. I’ve seen proof.”
“Day after day, year after year, I waited for you to notice me, to ask me out, to fall in love with me,” Gloria continued. Faye sniffed, and Nora gave her a Kleenex. “But I got nothing from you. Nothing! Then, finally, one day I worked up the courage to ask you, and what did you do?”
She ran at the bed with her arms over her head, like she planned to pulverize Silas. Amos pulled her back easily.
Gloria took a deep breath and lowered her arms. “It was that moment, I knew that I had wasted sixteen years of my life and had thrown away my dream of helping to fix people’s teeth. Instead, I was clogging their arteries! So, I worked up the courage to kill you, Silas. It didn’t take as much time as it did to ask you out. But you wouldn’t die. I even pushed you off a building and dropped a flying saucer on you, and you would not die! Each time, it was like you were rejecting me again. Each time you survived, it fed my rage against you!”
“You killed my boy?” Jimmy’s mother asked, and began to cry. She wailed and cried deep, heaving sobs. Her husband held her tight, and I began to cry, too. There was no greater loss than the death of a child, and witnessing her anguish was too much to bear.
Amos put handcuffs on Gloria. Wendy walked Wade and Steve out of the room. As Amos passed with Gloria, he said, “Nice work, Trouble,” and gave me a peck on the cheek.
Boone didn’t say a word. He walked out before I noticed him leave.
Silas held up a recording device. “Come and get it, Jack,” he said. “Write this baby up. You can take as much space as you want.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Klee grumbled.
“Hey, why can’t I write it?” I asked. “I’m the one who figured it all out.”
“Patience, boss,” Silas said. “You’ll get there.”
Epilogue
Sunday came and went, and there was no sign of Boone. Monday morning, I was back at the Gazette and so was Silas. He had signed himself out of the hospital and was now in a wheelchair, typing with one hand until he totally recovered.
“Boss, I need three hundred words on the pool closing,” Klee told me.
“Closing? It just re-opened,” I said.
“Some of those glow in the dark pedicure fish got into the pool, and now the whole thing is a biohazard. It’s going to take months to clean it up.”
It wasn’t the Watergate story, but I was happy to take it. I was enjoying the reporting thing. In fact, I was enjoying my home, my dogs, my new friends, and the town of Goodnight. I was thankful for my inheritance and planned on relishing it for a long time to come. I was also thankful that I still had my toenails.
I left the house to get Abbott and Costello a couple of bones and find my purse before I went out to cover the pool story. Faye was under my kitchen sink, working on the pipes.
“I found this,” she said, holding up an envelope. “It must have fallen off the table.”
I opened it. I recognized the handwriting at once. It was the same perfect, deliberate handwriting in the note that was left to me when Amos returned my car and purse after the rattlesnake incident.
But it wasn’t Amos who had left the note. Reading it, I knew that now. It was Boone. I read the note: