Murder, She Did

by Gillian Roberts

  “Left him by the fence to sleep off the anesthesia. That was the first quiet afternoon in my garden in a long, long time.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Excuse me,” she said. “Willie?”

  Will turned and faced her directly.

  “Shouldn’t I be writing this out or dictating it into a machine?”

  “Well, ah…” What form did they use for hogwash and imaginary confessions? And then, where would he file it? “We’ll do that in just a while,” Will said. “Meanwhile, I’m trying to get a sense of just what kind of complaint you have.” Because I am a civil servant.

  “But I don’t have a complaint! I’m confessing!” Her voice was suddenly shrill.

  He rolled his eyes. They’d taught this in training. Lonely people need to feel big, confess crimes they didn’t commit. But the cases they talked about at the academy had style. Those people claimed they were serial killers, hijackers, major-league embezzlers. Her worn-out imagination was feeble, ending at her garden fence and a moldy dog the Humane Society had put to sleep years ago. “Sure. Of course,” he said. “But all the same, um, why don’t we run through your…confession…once. Kind of a…rehearsal. So it’s fresh and clear in your mind. It’s standard procedure.”

  “And that is exactly what’s wrong with this country today! Bureaucratic rules and routines! Inefficiency! Duplication, everything in triplicate. But all right, then. The dog slept it off most of the afternoon, but he was back to himself by dark, and he barked all night long.”

  Will tsked sympathetically. Anybody still complaining about being kept up by a long-dead dog needed handling with kid gloves.

  “However,” she said with her schoolmarm enunciation, “that particular night, I didn’t mind his barking because I didn’t intend to sleep, anyway. I worked straight through in my lab. Years ago I had a run-in with a lab man because I was female, so I built my own lab. Sexual harassment didn’t start with the young women of today.”

  Exactly what he wanted, a noontime lecture on women’s rights.

  “But,” she said, “the lab man was long ago, in a different city and there’s no point in discussing him.”

  Maybe, just to shake her up, shut her up, he should do what she wanted: book her and throw her in a cell. But the Chief would kill him. He could see the headlines about police brutality with a photo of Hilda Maple behind bars, her white hair like fake Christmas snow.

  “The point of the lab man, however,” she said, “is that way back when, I learned to do my own lab work, and to do it perfectly. I’m a perfectionist, you see. That night in particular, my work was superb. I wished I could have shown them off. In fact, today, the thought struck me that when I’m incarcerated, I might write it up for a professional journal.”

  She needed a shrink and he needed food. He wondered if he should call an ambulance, have her institutionalized for her own good and the safety of all the little victims she still tortured.

  “The next day, I went over,” the light little voice continued. “Lacey was making tea. She told me to get out, threatened to pour boiling water on me. I tried reasoning with her. I like people. I’m a good neighbor. But she was impossible, so I just plain grabbed her and stuck in the needle. Same stuff I gave the dog. First, she opened up to scream. I tell you, the sight of those ill-fitting, shoddy false teeth of hers made me want to scream. Her eyes got fluttery and closed, and I clamped those doggie dentures onto her neck and let them bite down, hard. Very hard.”

  “Dentures? False teeth for dogs?”

  “Well, not for the dog, really. But if dogs wore them, these would have been the best. I am a perfectionist.”

  “Now listen, ma’am—”

  “I know what you’re about to say. There’s more to it than a bite mark. Forensic science, am I right?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. Besides, Nichols had misspelled a name again. Was anybody really named Shcwartz? He’d file it the way it said, and then guess who would get in trouble when the file couldn’t be found?

  “I know you people check things out, so I’d collected some of the dog’s saliva, too, when I took the impression. Your labs would question the authenticity of the bite, otherwise.”

  She looked so earnest. So sincere. Was it maybe possible that she had really made a set of dog teeth and bitten old Lacey to death?

  “If you check your files there, you’ll see that everything I’m telling you is accurate,” she said mildly.

  She melted back into Mrs. Santa with her halo of cotton batting. God! She’d had him going for a second. Of course her story would mesh with the files. She’d had years to work on it. It meant nothing. Nothing meant anything except his getting the filing done. He was in enough trouble with the Chief already without dragging the Case of the Crazy Lady Dentist in front of him, creating more work for everybody and more filing for himself.

  “When she was quite dead, I took her teapot.” Doc Maple’s voice was eager and precise. “The one she was going to throw on me. I poured some of the steaming water on the floor, then I opened the door. The monstrous dog started at me, but I had steak ready again and as soon as he took it, I shot the needle in him, too, and he went ga-ga. I poured the rest of the boiling water on his paw. I was sorry about that, but it was necessary. It must have stung when he woke up. Then I dropped the kettle on the floor and put the pot holder next to it.”

  Two years since old lady Lacey died. Maybe living next door to all the hullabaloo at the time had given Doc Maple a—what was it? He’d just read about it—a trauma. Maybe she was in post-traumatic shock. He sighed and turned around.

  “And you know the rest of the story,” she said. Everybody did. It was ancient history. Lacey and her killer dog were long since buried next to each other, like Lacey had requested in her will. There’d been a lot of flak about that, you can bet. Even an editorial in the paper. After all, Miss Lacey had made that request before her dog turned. But people said to leave it for pet and master heaven, where the dog could forgive Lacey for pouring boiling water on his paw and Lacey could forgive him for reacting with his teeth on—or in, really—her neck.

  “Yes, indeed, I know that story,” Will said, standing straight, sucking in his gut and allowing himself a slight professional scowl. Enough was enough.

  “But what I said was true!”

  “Of course it was.” He went back to his desk, worry gnawing at him as much as hunger did. He gently opened the bottom desk drawer and saw his worst fears confirmed. Leaking mayonnaise had made the Form 15-A’s transparent. Damn. How would he explain this one? He closed the drawer and turned back to her. “Look, ma’am,” he said briskly, “we need some proof, some evidence of your, ah, alleged crime.”

  She shook her head. “I destroyed everything when it happened. I had no idea I’d ever want to be caught.”

  “Well, then.” His stomach growled.

  “You won’t give me a cell?”

  “Oh, Doc Maple, come on. They’re for criminals.”

  She turned and walked away. “But you came here about that band!” he called after her. “Didn’t you want to file a complaint?”

  “What’s the use? It still takes two complaints and the deaf woman is still there on the other side and the wall is still in the back. All my life I’ve known that if I wanted something done, I’d have to do it myself. I was hoping this one time would be different.” She sighed. “Never mind, then.” She pushed the door open and was gone.

  Imagine that. He stared at the door as if her afterimage were still on it. Hallucinating that she’d killed somebody with false teeth. Once a dentist, always a dentist. Wait till he told the guys. But what would he do with those greasy forms?

  *

  She should have known better. Did she think that knights still roamed the land looking to save damsels in distress? Even if they did, men in armor didn’t rush to the aid of gray-haired damsels. Nobody did. She’d have to do it herself. Again.

  She didn’t count the ones when she was really young,
or even the dorm roommate and that god-awful woman in the apartment next to hers, the one who screamed all the time. You couldn’t blame the police for not helping with those problems because she hadn’t even asked them to. She was pretty cocky about taking care of everything herself back in those days. As for the lab man, who could she have asked for help? There weren’t even laws against that sort of thing back then, the dirty things he said, the way he “accidentally on purpose” bumped and rubbed against her. A woman was on her own in those days. It still made her smile to have poisoned him with a dentifrice. Sodium perborate, and how appropriate. A cleaning agent to permanently clean—and close—a filthy mouth.

  After the roommate and the screamer and the lab man, she’d rented a house in a new neighborhood and expected peace and quiet, but she never got her wishes, no matter how simple they were. Because in that house, there’d been Charlie Mallory next door with his so-called antique car collection. Hammering, battering, and gunning of motors! She’d gone to the police that time, but they were as dim and insensitive a group as they were here, so she took care of it. Charlie was gone all day long, so tinkering with his precious car wasn’t much of a problem. She knew physics and chemistry. Dentists had scientific minds, after all.

  The explosion left a mess, though. They buried what was left of Charlie, and that should have been that, but car debris was all over, even in her backyard. Then the landlord, who owned both houses, raised her rent for repairs. Wasn’t fair and she didn’t like the bombed-out look next door, so she’d moved here, where she was positive things would be better. And they were, for a long while. Except then, bad luck again when Lacey got her dog.

  It would have been nice if the police hadn’t left it to her to take care of the Lacey problem, but on the other hand, she’d had the chance to rise to the challenge and be creative. The dentures were much more inventive than the poisons and the bomb had been. She sighed. Maybe she’d peaked with those false teeth. Certainly didn’t have as good an idea about the Johnson Five. There was that pool they’d dug—and what a racket the workers had made! A swimming accident, perhaps, while drugged? Everybody knew about teenagers, especially the musical ones. Laughing gas, maybe?

  Why did people keep doing this to her? Keep creating these situations?

  The drummer first. Definitely the worst of them.

  Or maybe electrocution in the pool? They kept speakers and guitars with wires and all manner of things too close to the water.

  It was possible that they’d replace the drummer, that the rest of them would have to go, too.

  Perhaps a car accident? A few of them all at once, that way, and heaven knew they drove too fast, that kind, so maybe…

  But even after she took care of all five Johnsons, there’d still be more to do. She was sick and tired of the police’s insensitivity. Patronizing her that way, that stupid Willie with the film on his teeth!

  What good were laws if they didn’t apply to the important things? And who needed police if they didn’t enforce anything? She’d be doing a public service, getting rid of them, easing the tax rolls.

  Willie had always been obnoxious, even as a child. He’d be a good place to start—right after the Johnsons. Little Willie Pritchett shouldn’t be much of a problem. She remembered how he’d come into her office years ago, bits of food still lodged between his teeth. Always eating, that one.

  And even today, she’d seen him shove a sandwich in the desk drawer, seen the glob of mayonnaise caught on his poorly shaved chin. A piggy man. So food it would be. At work. Something he could sneak. Something quick…

  She walked carefully, brow slightly wrinkled, a little old lady in a flowered dress and tennis shoes, humming “Feelings.” Nobody noticed her.

  After Happily Ever

  Not that you’re likely to believe anything I say, but the reality of it is that nobody should be the least bit surprised by what she did and how she did it. Assuming, of course, that you’re willing to take off the blinkers, forget the brainwashing and comprehend that she did do it. All of it. That she has no heart. Never did.

  The thing you probably don’t want to know and surely don’t want to believe is that despite everything you’ve heard about her from the cradle onward, she was and is a world-class bitch. Actually, she never lived in the world, so “world-class” is not completely accurate. She—and all the rest of us—live in what’s called “Far, far away,” or “Fairyland,” although that is another misnomer because fairies are only one of our ethnic minorities and such gross labeling has resulted in a lot of bickering and factions. The gremlins, to name only one other group, have threatened to relocate en masse unless recognized.

  The “once upon a time” place where we live and which we simply call “Here,” would more accurately be described as a parallel universe. Once upon a time is now. And then. And then some. And forever. Ever after.

  I say all this because I know earthlings like the sound of scientific precision. Like to believe you are in charge of the facts.

  Yes, we know about you. Our telescopes and observatories are trained on you as a source of entertainment just the way your imaginations are tuned into us. We tell our children bedtime stories about your exploits as often as you do ours, and they are as charmed by your odd behavior as yours are by ours—although I think our behavior is much more logical. Try explaining the concept of “random violence” to a child who lives in “Here.” You’d be laughed right out of the nursery.

  I wonder if the stories we tell about you are the real truth (not that we are hung up on a single, knowable “truth.” Science hasn’t really caught on hereabouts). I do know that the stories you tell about us—especially about my family—are fabrications. In any case, I doubt that you have the sort of PR people and spin doctors that we do, because if you did, your stories, like ours, would be more interesting, if you’ll forgive my speaking bluntly. Where are your tales of globe-circling quests, transformations of gross matter into gold, boiling oceans, ice mountains, great and near-impossible heroic challenges and deeds, giants and trolls and curses and magical rescues and revelations? Where is your magic?

  Where in fact is your story of the dusty girl who cleaned the fireplaces becoming Queen of all the land? Now that I think about it more, I’m sure the stories about you must be distortions and that’s why they’re so lacking in color, or at least have been since Attila the Hun and a few of the Russian Czars. So perhaps I should be more forgiving of your tales, and I will—if you will also be tolerant as I try to clarify everything you always thought you knew about my family, so cruelly victimized by publicists and image consultants. And by their employer, my sister Agnesa.

  Here’s what you don’t know about the part you think you already know.

  There were three of us sisters—Agnesa, Lora (that’s me) and my twin, Flora. You think you know all about Agnesa. She’s a catchword in your world, the name for entire categories of wonderful, happy occurrences. Rags to riches. Sudden wealth. Eternal bliss. A Cinderella Holiday! A Cinderella Wedding! A Cinderella Victory!

  How ironic. And how odd that none of you seem even a wee bit suspicious of her, given that she could never even get her story straight. Check it out—you have a slew of different versions, from Disney and his singing bibbity-mice to a truly Grimm version where her dead mother’s spirit provides the fancy duds. And there are a zillion variations in between. Fur slippers, glass slippers and so forth.

  Aren’t you people ever leery of a story that won’t stay put? Don’t you have liars over there? The truth is that everything you heard about my family is a lie concocted by smarmy Agnesa and her tireless team. Their theory was that the worse we all looked, the better Agnesa looked. The sanitation squad is what I call her managers, although to give them their due, they’re good. They’ve scrubbed her image and kept it squeaky clean throughout the centuries, and I’m the living proof.

  At the same time, they’ve clouded my rep to the point where you’re probably wondering yourself why you should believe a wor
d spoken by the nasty and ugly sister.

  And having said that, may I digress for a second? When and how and why did we become not only vile but ugly in your versions? Read what she told the Grimm boys. We’re mean, but we’re called “beautiful and fair of face.” And then, suddenly, the story changes again and we’re hideous. Isn’t that overkill? Isn’t that proof of her petty meanness? Does she become prettier if she makes her sisters uglier?

  And we were sisters, too. It hurts, this step-business. We never thought of her as a hyphenate, a step-anything. She was not yet even toddling when my mother married her father, and she was immediately one of us, the baby of the family. In fact, that was the root of the problem. Mother was so afraid of the evil stepmother cliché, she bent over backwards and sideways and did acrobatics to make sure little Agnesa was never deprived of her heart’s desire. Which is to say, the child was spoiled rotten, and we were all partially to blame for the misery created by the monster Agnesa became. Agnesa. You hear that? Not once did I ever hear the name shortened, except when Dad lovingly called her “Ella sits-by-the-fire.” I certainly never heard it reversed and perverted so that its bearer became a slavey, a dusty scullery maid type creature that sat by—or was it in?—the cinders. Cinderella, indeed! Sure, she sat by the fire a lot. She was always whining about being chilly. Poor fragile wee thing, my mother would say. Baby couldn’t wear long underwear like the rest of us, because it was too “rough” for her fair skin. Instead, she’d be wrapped in fine cashmere shawls and allowed to idle by the fire with a magazine and hot chocolate while the rest of us tidied and cooked and studied like normal women.

  “What do you think you are,” my sister once asked Agnesa, “a princess?” And Agnesa smiled smugly and said—even though she was so small and new to language she couldn’t have—shouldn’t have—been thinking of the class structure of the Kingdom, “I’m in training to be one.” My parents laughed. For all I know, one of them taught her the line, but in any case, they were blind to how dead serious she was about it and they were blind to the accompanying outrageous excesses and because they found all of it humorous, they encouraged the delusions of grandeur the baby had from the moment she was potty trained. It was an insult to suggest that she would have been required to do our scullery work. The actual scullery maid took care of it. All of us were pampered and privileged, only none so much as Agnesa. We were comfortable citizens of Fairyland with lots of household help. Dad was C.E.O. of a lumber business. That job of his was my only point of conflict with him. Dad spent lots of time deciding whether ancient forests could better serve as picnic benches and fences. The results were so awful that I sometimes think that what happened to all of us was retribution for the destruction.