by Jon L. Breen
Twiddle sucked in a breath as the door opened and closed. They were gone. She was more of a “goner” if she did not take action, but what was she to do? Allow Drake to put her down as he would her cats? Sip her soup and die in what might be a most agonizing way?
“Hell, no,” she whispered, surprising even herself. Mama and Papa had never used such language, nor had they allowed their daughters to do so. The Tidwell family had not been wealthy, but decorum had ranked just below piety. Neither she nor Enid had ever missed church services or Saturday afternoons at cotillion classes.
She waited another minute, then scurried out of the stall and made it to the hallway without encountering any gentlemen intent on using the room for legitimate reason—as opposed to plotting murder. Drake was seated at the table, nibbling bread and nodding at acquaintances. Peter was nowhere to be seen.
Her salad had been served, as had Drake’s. Twiddle sat down and offered a wan, apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry, but I seem to be experiencing some gastric distress. As much as I appreciate your bringing me, I simply cannot eat a bite. Will you please take me home?”
“Of course, Auntie. Do you mind waiting for a minute while I speak to the waiter?”
“How kind,” Twiddle said. “I believe his name is Peter.”
“And I believe you’re right,” Drake said jovially as he stood up and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
As she came up with a solution.
She was mulling it over when Peter appeared. “I’m disappointed that madam will not be dining with us,” he said. “Our French onion soup has been given four stars, and our orange roughy . . . but, well, if madam is feeling ill . . .”
“Madam does not care to feel more ill than she does at the moment,” countered Twiddle, wondering if he might have felt obliged to attend her funeral, or at least serve canapés after the services. Doubtful, in that Alisha would prefer to cut costs. Chips and dip atop the coffin, most likely. “Please do not describe the orange roughy once again. I’m feeling queasy, and I do want to be considerate of the other diners.”
“Of course,” Peter said, trying to sound the tiniest bit European despite his molasses-tainted accent. “Might a cup of tea help settle your stomach before your drive?”
She did her best not to gasp. “Nothing, thank you. Please let Drake know that I’ll be waiting for him in the car.”
“Yes, madam,” he said as he glided away, no doubt chagrined that he would fail to earn two thousand dollars. Drake was penurious enough to demand back the deposit. Peter might have to settle with minimum wage and tips for the afternoon.
Twiddle wobbled her way out of the dining room and down the walk to Drake’s car. Her parents, along with Enid, might have done a few flip-flops in their graves, but she was not inclined to be poisoned so that Derek could attend school in London, Hugh could purchase drugs, and Alisha could donate the flower arrangements to the hospice fund-raiser.
Drake said all the right things as he joined her. At her request, he drove at a civilized speed down the mountain, no doubt pondering his possibilities now that he had witnesses at the inn who could confirm his story of her fluctuating health. Did he think he could turn on a gas jet and leave her to die in her sleep? Did he think a well-placed napkin on the staircase might cause her to fall? He undoubtedly had a vial of some sort of poison in his pocket—a poison that would mimic heart failure.
She had no choice but to strike first. She was entirely too vulnerable, should he make a dedicated attempt to kill her. Once he was gone, she would let it be known to Alisha and the boys that everything she owned would go to the Brossing County Animal Shelter, thereby eliminating any expectations that might lead to future attempts on her life. Alisha might flourish off the proceeds of life insurance, but Twiddle suspected Drake was not the sort to keep up the premium payments.
“I do apologize,” she said as they arrived back in town. “At my age, this sort of thing does happen. I should have warned you that I was far from robust yesterday. I was hardly able to sip consommé.”
“Let me fix you a cup of tea before I leave,” Drake suggested.
Twiddle vehemently shook her head. “I am in no way going to allow myself to be a poor hostess.”
As they went inside her house, she scooped up a cat and squeezed it with a heartfelt enthusiasm, celebrating its life, if not her own. “You remember Monty, don’t you?” she asked Drake as she sat down on the sofa. “He was such a hellfire in his day. Half the cats in this neighborhood have his yellowish-green glint in their eyes.”
“I’m sure they do, Auntie. I’ll take this opportunity to browse in the library.”
“Feel free, dear; you know where it is. I’ll put on the kettle.”
Twiddle released the squirming cat and went into the kitchen. There, she sank down at the table and thumbed through her soul as if it were a paperback novel. Her most heinous crime to date, during her eighty-three years, was an anonymous note to the school board suggesting that a certain teacher might have been less than circumspect in areas of personal conduct. Although nothing had come of it, she’d always regretted it. “Live and let live” had become her motto; now it seemed that Drake did not share it.
If he had his way, that was.
She sat for a long while, aware that Drake was appraising first editions and wondering where to sell them. She was among the most helpless—old, easily dismissed, and should the situation arise, casually carted away to a mortuary. No one really listened to her anymore. Her insurance salesman sent a birthday card each year, spotted with saliva and signed by a shaky hand. Her accountant called every now and then, mostly to explain how well he was balancing bonds and treasury notes. The nice young woman across the street, recently licensed to sell real estate, dropped by with cookies and brochures about assisted-living facilities. None of them seemed to hear her determination to remain independent, to feed her cats and water her violets, to sit at the piano playing the sentimental songs of her youth, to relax on the porch where her parents and grandparents had sat, watching the lightning bugs flicker as the twilight darkened and the streetlights came on one by one, like sentinels protecting everything that was good and just in Brossing County.
She knew she did not have many years remaining, but she had some. What’s more, the very idea that Drake would discuss her imminent demise in a men’s room was so revolting that she felt acid rising in her throat. He and Peter, nearly chortling over the possibility. Giggling, perhaps. Would Drake soon be plotting other scenarios with Alisha, who was likely to be more concerned with a funerary menu than the nuts and bolts of murder?
Eighty-three, yes, but far from the hapless victim. Drake had to be stopped. If he continued to make attempts on her life, he would get lucky, sooner or later.
And thus Twiddle made the ultimate decision to kill her nephew before he killed her. She’d toyed with the idea, but its time had come. He was a direct threat. Alisha would weep copiously, but then align herself with the overly tanned golf pro (there’d been rumors). Derek and Hugh might find reason to dance on their father’s grave. She had no other option.
As the tea kettle whistled, she split a dozen melatonin capsules into a teacup, then added boiling water, a tea bag, and several teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. Eager to leave (and perhaps plot the next attempt on her life), Drake would gulp it down simply to escape her parchment pallor.
Or so she hoped. She sat down across from him and handed him his cup. “You are going to be so angry with me,” she said. “I am old and dithery. I’m afraid I may have left my wallet at the inn. I had no reason to take it out of my purse in the ladies’ room, but I wanted to powder my nose and I was digging for my compact.”
Drake smiled. “Why don’t I call them and ask them to keep it until I can fetch it?”
Twiddle contained herself despite the condescension dripping from his voice. “It’s a bit more serious, I’m afraid. I know how much you and Alisha look forward to treasuring Grandpappy’s collection,
but just this morning I sold a letter to dear old Mr. Sweeny, who’s been hounding me for years about it. He insisted in paying me in cash, and I intended to deposit it after the weekend.”
“A letter?”
“Well, not just a letter. It was a letter signed by General Robert E. Lee granting my great-great-grandmother safe passage through both Confederate and Union lines in order to be with her daughter during a difficult pregnancy in Pittsburgh. A personal note from General Lee across the bottom margin seems to have made it more valuable.”
“How valuable?” Drake asked weakly.
“Sixteen thousand dollars. Mr. Sweeny has coveted it for years, and, well, I’ve been looking at some investment opportunities.”
“You left a wallet containing sixteen thousand dollars at the inn?”
She did her best to look chagrined. “I assure you that it was an oversight. My wallet is no longer in my purse, and I haven’t so much as gone to the grocery since Mr. Sweeny bought the document. I objected to a cash transaction, but he insisted, and the banks are closed. What was I to do? I was not comfortable leaving it here.”
“Sixteen thousand dollars?” Drake repeated. “You think you left it in the ladies’ room? For chrissake, Auntie! If I call, the money will disappear into some employee’s pocket. How could you do such a thing!”
“Perhaps no one has found it. It’s possible it fell behind the sink.”
He stood up. “I’ll go back immediately.”
“I cannot allow you to leave until you’ve finished your tea,” she said, jutting out her chin. “I deprived you of what would have been a lovely lunch. Would you like to take some cookies with you, or perhaps a tuna salad sandwich?”
“I cannot believe you’d leave sixteen thousand dollars in a ladies’ room.”
“Drink your tea, dear.”
Drake drained the cup, seemingly oblivious to what might have scalded his mouth. “You need to allow someone else to see to your financial dealings,” he said coldly. “I’ll have a word with your lawyer after the weekend. Living alone like this in a drafty old house, with cats underfoot, and all these steep staircases . . .”
Twiddle frowned as he banged down the cup. “That is from Mama’s centennial rosebud set. It may be chipped, but it is of value to me.”
“But sixteen thousand dollars isn’t?”
“You sound agitated, Drake. Are you sure you’re capable of driving in this condition? It’s already begun to rain, and the roads can become very slick.”
Drake looked as if he had more caustic remarks to offer, but grimly put on his raincoat and left. Monty crawled into her lap and purred appreciatively as she scratched his ears.
The melatonin, her favorite sleep aid, would affect him within twenty minutes. It was possible that drowsiness would overcome him to the point that he pulled over halfway up the mountain, but she suspected the specter of vanishing cash would distort his judgment. He was undoubtedly cursing her flightiness as his foot pressed firmly on the accelerator.
The lack of guardrails was disgraceful. Papa had complained to their state senator on more than one occasion. She made a mental note to write a letter to the quorum court.
When the telephone rang an hour later, Twiddle nudged an indignant Monty aside and rose. Her heart pounding, she went into the foyer and picked up the receiver.
“Auntie Tidwell,” said Alisha. “Are y’all okay?”
Twiddle battled off a sense of antipathy and maintained a pleasant voice. “Why, yes. I gather Drake has told you how I was a bit overcome at the inn and—”
“No, I just heard something on the news about how a woman was poisoned at the inn and a waiter was taken into custody. She was elderly, and I suppose . . .”
“I am not the only elderly woman in Brossing County, dear. Have you heard from Drake?”
Alisha sighed, either from relief or disappointment. “I expect him any minute now. We’re having a few couples over later this afternoon, and he promised to clean the grill, although I don’t see how we can use the patio if this nasty ol’ weather lasts. I can’t believe that the one afternoon I plan a party, it sounds like a bowling alley out there.” She sighed once again. “Is he on the way?”
“He most definitely is on the way somewhere,” Twiddle said. “I hope nothing happens to spoil your party.”
“Me, too. I had all the carpets cleaned just last week. I don’t know what I’ll do if all these folks come tromping in with muddy shoes.”
Twiddle murmured something and hung up, wondering how the carpets might look after the post-funeral festivities. Perhaps Alisha could rent a room at the country club. She was making herself another cup of tea when the doorbell rang.
She approached the front door with some trepidation. Through the frosted glass, she could see a figure silhouetted by the constant flash of lightning. Thunder rattled the house. Rain streamed off the roof in a gray blanket.
Her hand may have trembled as she reached for the doorknob, but Miss Tidwell had never been one to turn faint at the sight of a mouse or to hesitate to fend off unwanted advances. The prospect of an enraged Drake or even a steely county deputy was more daunting, but she’d gone too far to falter now, especially with Monty and his feline consorts watching from the staircase.
“Goodness gracious,” she said as she gestured for her caller to come inside. “You’re soaked to the skin, Mr. Sweeny. You should have waited until the storm passed. I realize you’re eager to buy that letter from General Lee, but you’re liable to catch your death of cold in weather like this. How about a nice cup of tea and a cookie before we settle down to business?”
Mr. Sweeny nodded with his typical shyness.
“I have to admit I’m a wee bit nervous about having all that cash in the house,” she murmured from the doorway.
He took out a handkerchief and fastidiously dried his wire-rimmed bifocals. “You shouldn’t be, my dear Miss Tidwell. Nobody else knows of this transaction of ours, or even that I planned to come here. It’s our little secret.”
Even at eighty-three, Twiddle mused as she started toward the kitchen, there was no reason why she could not take up a new career. And she did seem to have a hereto-fore unexplored talent.
David Dean
“Whistle”
Some of the stories of David Dean reflect his professional background as a New Jersey police lieutenant. But he says the sources of this tale of mounting terror were the dream of a whistle and his ownership of a corgi.
It was Silkie’s low, warning growl that brought her to full consciousness, though the ragged, frantic barking up and down the street had percolated through her dreams sometime before. Miriam lay in the warm darkness of her bed, eyes open but still unseeing, as the remnants of the dream she had been having gradually released her.
She had dreamed of her husband, though not as she had last seen him in life, but as he had been during their courting over forty years before: full of health and vigor, handsome and boyish. He had approached her with a sprightly step, smiling and whistling at the same time, and she had smiled happily back, trying to recognize the tune, only to realize that there was no tune at all. He strode by her without acknowledgment, his head swinging from right to left, his low whistle rising and falling melodically in a sad, yearning call; while somewhere outside her dreams she felt Silkie grow restless on the bed.
With a huff of breath, she shook her head to scatter the last clinging tendrils of sleep and turned her attention to her closest, and only, companion. Silkie stood on her stumpy hind legs, stretched her full long length to rest her front paws on the window sill. By the faint glow of a distant street lamp, Miriam could see that her dog’s wholebearing was one of anxious inquiry, her slender head whipping to and fro, from the window to Miriam and back again, her tail curled tightly and scything the air in anxiety. (When questioned about the presence of a tail on a corgi, Miriam had always pointed out that her corgi was a Cardigan, not one of your common Pembrokeshires with their poor little stubs. She knew it
was ridiculous to be proud of a dog for being what it was, but couldn’t help herself.)
The dog now thrust its snout betwixt the partially raised window and the sill, squeezing its delicate skull in as far as it could go before reaching the screen, alternately growling and blowing her nostrils clear to better draft the scent so troubling her. All the while, the larger dogs up and down Miriam’s winding street barked themselves hoarse from their backyard pens. She knew that Silkie was dying to join in their chorus, but held back for fear of her mistress’s disapproval. Even so, she cast occasional pleading glances in Miriam’s direction while dancing nervously from one paw to the next.
Miriam sat up in bed. “This is too much,” she muttered. “It’s getting to be a regular occasion around here!”
She heaved her small, rather corpulent frame from the warm confines of her bed and made her way to the window, glancing at her bedside clock as she did. It read two twenty-seven A.M. With a slight grunt, she bent at the waist, shouldering Silkie aside for a view of what could be causing all the commotion. Undaunted, the corgi shoved back and managed to wedge herself into a somewhat tighter accommodation at the window.
Miriam peered hard into the shadowed darkness of the yard and the street beyond, but was unable to discern anything out of the ordinary. Even with the full moon casting its soft, strong illumination, Miriam could see nothing to be alarmed about. She looked down at the corgi, who gazed up at her as if awaiting further instructions, her dark eyes and black nose glistening in the moonlight.
With an explosive bark that made Miriam’s heart jump, Silkie’s attention swiveled back to the window and the world outside it. The dog began a frantic effort to climb up into the window itself.
“Shush!” Miriam cried out, then clamped a hand over her own mouth. Had she seen something move out there? Something, or someone, skirting the sharp edges of the shadows that lay like spilled ink across the street in the Neufields’ yard? Certainly Silkie had sensed something! Had someone been watching her the whole time she had been squinting out the window?