The Best American Mystery Stories 2017

by John Sandford

  After her shift at the library she stopped at the bakery and then walked down the block and around the corner to visit Sylvia, one of the few remaining neighbors who’d been around as long as Helen. Sylvia lived on the top floor of a three-decker, and when she opened the apartment door at the top of the stairs, Helen thought she saw a flash of alarm. Then Sylvia’s gaze landed on the box of cookies in Helen’s hands. “Come on in. How are you, Helen?”

  Sylvia was about Helen’s age, early seventies, but unlike Helen she’d grown very fat and moved slowly. The house was still as clean as ever, though, the windows sparkling, the tables and shelves dust-free. In the front parlor a faded brown recliner faced the window overlooking the street, venetian blinds drawn up to let in the daylight.

  “I’ll just make some coffee to go with these,” Sylvia said, retreating to the kitchen with the pink box.

  Helen listened to her move around as she watched the street in front of the house.

  “Oh, you brought the macaroons!”

  “Those still your favorite?”

  “Oh yes, but I don’t get down there very often anymore. Lovely.” Sylvia moved into the parlor, all smiles now, carrying a tray with a plate of macaroons and two coffee cups. Helen stood. “You need some help?”

  “No. I’m a little slow these days, but I’m not feeble.” Sylvia set the tray down on the coffee table, turned the brown chair around to face her, and sat in it. Then she leaned forward and took a cookie.

  Helen picked up the coffee and sipped. “You still make the best coffee.”

  Sylvia nodded. “I grind the beans every morning. Marie says it’s a waste of time, but you can taste the difference, can’t you?”

  Marie was Sylvia’s oldest, a sensible girl. Helen agreed with her about grinding beans. The last thing she wanted first thing in the morning was noise and mess. “Listen, Sylvia, I met a boy the other day, someone from the neighborhood. Name is Andy. About ten or so? Thought you might know him.”

  “White boy? Fair hair?”

  “Sounds like him.”

  Sylvia nodded. “Sure, I know him.” She set her foot down and pushed on the floor to turn her chair toward the window. “See that building across the street? Not the Miller house, the yellow one next to it. That’s where Andy lives, in the first-floor apartment. But he’s eight, not ten.”

  Like much of Dorchester, the neighborhood was crowded with flat-roofed, narrow, three-story houses, a separate apartment on each floor. Built in the late 1800s to house immigrants, recently many three-deckers in the area had been stripped of ugly aluminum siding and painted in contrasting colors. The yellow building Andy lived in still wore old, scaly-looking siding.

  “Andy’s in third grade,” Sylvia said. “Miss Evanston’s class. My grandson William’s in the same class.”

  Sylvia had about a dozen grandchildren, and Helen would hear all about their clever remarks and accomplishments before she left. She didn’t mind. She wasn’t in a great rush to get home, though Cass would be eager to get her afternoon walk. Sometimes Helen lay in bed at night and tried to recall the moment when her days had changed from too full to too empty. After Sean’s death she’d been busier than ever, what with taking over the business. It was when she’d passed the business to Micky that life had slowed down, but that had been gradual. Her sister filled her time with church, but Helen had lost her faith while still young and wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to get religion now that she needed something to do. No, organic gardening was her only religion, reading her vocation, and on many days Cass her only contact.

  “He lives with his uncle,” Sylvia said, still looking out the window. “No parents in the picture. The uncle is hardly much of a family for the boy. Well, you can see how it is.”

  If a yard was a measure of a first-floor tenant, Jake was a miserable failure. The flowerbeds were empty, the privet hedge overgrown, and the rosebush next to the front steps dead.

  “Is he gone a lot?” Helen asked.

  Sylvia snorted. “No, he’s always home. The Sczeiwskys still live on the second floor, and there’s a Vietnamese family on the third. Say what you will, those people work. They’re always gone. But Jake rarely stirs before noon. No real job, except . . . once a week, like clockwork, he gets a visit.”

  “A visit?”

  Sylvia nodded slowly, her eyes on the offending building. “A black Mercedes pulls up, the passenger gets out, takes a big suitcase out of the trunk, and carries it in the house. About a half hour later, he comes out, puts the suitcase back in the trunk, and off they go. Every week, Wednesday at nine, like clockwork.”

  “Nine at night?”

  “That’s right. I doubt Jake’s up before noon.”

  “What do the men look like?”

  “I don’t get much of a look at the driver. The one who gets out wears a leather jacket, fur collar. Had to guess, I’d say Russian. Something about his clothes and the way he moves . . . I’d be surprised if he was raised here.”

  “What about Jake?”

  “Oh, he’s not foreign. In the summer I hear him yelling at Andy; his voice comes right through my window. He’s always sending the boy out on errands, all kinds of hours. You can bet he’s cooking up some kind of drug in there. Well, what else would he be doing? I expect the building to blow up one of these days. Just hope he doesn’t take the whole block with him.”

  Sylvia swiveled her chair to face Helen, her back to the window, and for a moment seemed nervous, as though she’d just remembered it was Helen she was addressing. Then she reached for another macaroon. “My Marie brought William by the other day. I do believe he’s the smartest of the grandkids.”

  Helen changed her walking route to pass Andy’s house. Sylvia was almost always sitting at the front window, and she’d wave as they walked by. During one of her walks, just as she came up to Andy’s house, a beat-up Chevy Impala pulled to the curb, and out came Andy and a heavy, dark-haired man of about forty. The man had thick brows, hairy forearms, and he needed a shave. So this was Jake. Helen had imagined a thin fair man, someone like Andy. Jake carried a cardboard box full of liquor bottles and moved like he’d helped himself to one of the bottles in the car. Andy glanced in her direction, froze for a moment, and then took a step toward Cass, who was straining at her leash and whining.

  Jake kicked Andy in the seat, and he staggered forward to stay afoot. “Where you think you’re going, stupid? Don’t you know what that is? That’s a fuckin’ pit bull. Bitch will tear your arm right off. Get in the fucking house.” He said “focking” and ran his words together, typical Dorchester accent, but if he’d been a Dot rat, Helen didn’t recognize him. Maybe he was from Southie.

  Andy turned to the house, walking stiffly, his eyes on the ground in front of him. Jake growled “Get the fucking door!” when they reached the porch.

  Neither of them acknowledged Helen with so much as a nod. As she finished the walk, she replayed the scene. Had Andy been ashamed of her? Maybe he’d been ashamed of his uncle. Or maybe he’d been afraid. Jake hadn’t even seen her. There were a few advantages to being old, and one of them was invisibility. She could probably walk past Uncle Jake a dozen times and he still wouldn’t recognize her, would never register more than generic “old woman.” He might recognize Cass, though.

  After the walk she fed Cass and then instead of fixing her own dinner, she sat at the kitchen desk and stared out the window as the day faded. Finally she sighed, reached for the phone, and dialed a number she knew by heart.

  “Dot Vending,” a deep voice rumbled.

  They were supposed to say “Dorchester Vending Machines and Trucking.” So much for best business practices. “Is Micky around?” she asked.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Helen McKinnon.”

  “Oh, er, yes, ma’am,” the man said, his voice moving up an octave. “Hold on, please.”

  Helen smiled at the change of tone and waited.

  “Aunt Helen?” Micky sounded equal parts surprised
and wary, like he was afraid she was going to scold him.

  “Micky. You doing any business in my neighborhood?”

  There was a pause, Micky pondering territory before answering. “Nah. I mean, we got some action on Dot Ave and further west, but nothing in your parish. Why? What have you seen?”

  This time it was Helen who took a moment. Information was currency in their line of work; once you let it out, you couldn’t put it back. Not that she was in that line anymore. Still, the instinct for discretion hadn’t faded.

  “Aunt Helen? You got some kind of trouble?”

  “No trouble. Just curious.” Helen hung up to the sound of Micky asking another question. She needed time to think.

  Helen decided to sleep on it for a few days, but Wednesday evening she couldn’t focus on her book. At 8:50 she picked up Cass’s leash and took her out. The block was quiet, Sylvia’s window dim and the blind down to close out prying eyes, but Helen thought she was probably watching through the slats. A black Mercedes stood at the curb outside Andy’s building, and Helen approached from Sylvia’s side of the street, moving slowly so she could get a look at the driver. The car was parked under a streetlight. As she drew close she wasn’t surprised to see the driver watching her and Cass. He was probably bored. What did surprise her was that his glance didn’t move past them after a few seconds. It stayed with her, the angle of his big, square head changing to follow them as they moved. Even from forty feet away, she could feel a challenge in that stare. He thought this was his street, his block, and Helen, who had lived here all her life, was the trespasser. She wasn’t invisible, his gaze said, and she wasn’t safe looking in his direction.

  Helen picked up her pace and turned the corner, relief mixing with outrage as she moved out of sight. She walked through the dark streets for a long time, automatically sticking to a safe route, the good blocks of Dorchester, while thinking about the man in the Mercedes and Jake. When she returned to the house, she discovered Andy on the sofa, under the blue blanket, already asleep. The Hobbit rested open on his chest. He’d removed his shoes and set them on the floor near the end of the sofa, where he could jump into them in the morning.

  Helen put the book on the coffee table and went to bed, setting her alarm for 6:30. She read for several hours, occasionally letting thoughts of the man in the Mercedes intrude.

  The next morning she asked Andy a few questions as he shoveled in his eggs. Yes, he ran errands for Uncle Jake, “carrying things,” and the territory of his travels encompassed much of Dorchester, including parts Helen wouldn’t send Cass into. All she got out of him about the Wednesday visitors was, “Jake don’t like ’em to see me, says they steal boys.” When asked about Jake’s activities in their home, Andy became evasive and ate faster, so she dropped it. It wasn’t like she needed confirmation.

  That week Helen found herself noticing children more than usual. On her walks, in the library, at the Stop and Shop, she noticed how loud and demanding they were, how often they laughed and cried and yelled, how mobile their faces were. She noticed their backpacks and wondered why Andy didn’t have one. She observed their puffy coats and gaudy shoes and crisp haircuts. She picked up an extra toothbrush and left it in its cellophane wrapper next to the sink.

  Wednesday morning she woke with a sense of decision. She opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and removed her heavy black handbag with the long shoulder strap. Then she pulled the false back out of the drawer and reached through to remove two neat packs of $100 bills. She stuck them in the bag. At noon she went for a walk without Cass, and instead of passing Sylvia’s house, she cut through the yard to the back of Andy’s building. She rang the buzzer to the first-floor apartment several times before a disgruntled Jake appeared.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked, blinking out at her as if the daylight hurt his eyes.

  “I’m here to discuss Andy.”

  “You from the social services? You people are supposed to call first. I warned you last time.” He shook his head and glared at her, but when she opened the screen and moved into the building, he backed up, then moved quickly into the apartment to close the door to the kitchen. He waved her into the parlor, where the scent of beer and garbage lingered. The small room held no books, no pictures or decorative items of any kind, but was crowded by a too-large sofa, a black leather recliner, and a large flat-screen TV. A stack of pizza boxes stood on the floor next to the recliner, the top one full of cigarette butts, and an olive-colored shag carpet that belonged in the seventies was littered with crumpled fast-food bags and empty Budweiser cans. A half-empty bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey lay on the sofa.

  “What’s it this time?” he asked, sounding impatient. “His teacher complain about bruises again? The kid’s clumsy, what can I do?”

  “I’m not from social services. I’m a friend of Andy’s. I live in the neighborhood.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his face showing confusion and then disbelief. “Look, lady, you’re not the social services, you can move your ass out of here!”

  “I think you should let me have him. You’re not doing a good job of caring for the boy. I can meet him outside his school today and let him know he’s going to stay with me from now on.”

  “Let you have him? Let you have him?” He put a hand on her shoulder and she got a blast of rotting teeth, tobacco, and stale whiskey. She stepped away to escape the stench and realized it was a mistake. He’d assume he could bully her.

  “Jesus Christ, who the fuck you think you are, coming in here and telling me to give up my own kid?”

  “My name is Helen McKinnon.” She said her name slowly, watching for recognition. She believed in giving a man a fair chance, even contemptible scum like Jake. The McKinnon crew wasn’t exactly the Winter Hill Gang, but it still ran Dorchester. If the boy was local, he should know the name. “And I don’t think Andy is your kid. Is he?”

  He flinched and then his face blanched. “Look, his cunt of a mother was a junkie. I may not be blood, but I’m all he’s got. She’s probably dead by now anyway.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re the best man to raise the boy.”

  “We’re doing fine. And who the hell do you think you are, coming in here like you own the world?”

  “I’m prepared to make you a deal.”

  That stopped him. Helen released the snap on her handbag and reached inside. Jake leered at the bag. Whatever he was doing for the Russians couldn’t require much intelligence, she decided. He hadn’t the slightest chance in a game of poker.

  “What kind of deal?”

  “I’m willing to pay,” she said, pulling out a form she’d found at the library. “You sign this guardianship form, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars.”

  “You brought the money with ya?” he asked, his tone casual as he shifted closer.

  “You’ll have to sign the agreement.” She handed him the paper.

  He glared at it and shook his head. “Maybe I’ll just take the money and throw your scrawny, wrinkled ass out of here. Give up Andy, just when he’s starting to be useful? You know what raising a kid costs?”

  He shoved her against the wall, gripped her throat, and leaned in, staring into her eyes as if hoping to see panic. He didn’t notice her hand dip into her bag as she struggled for breath. Her fingers found the familiar cold shape, fitted around it, adjusted the angle, and squeezed. The gun made a loud bang and the pressure on her neck ceased. Jake looked confused as his gaze fell to her bag and then to the red spot spreading on his stomach. Then he dropped.

  Helen stood and listened to his moans for a moment, then went and peered through the kitchen door. On the counter were rows of small, neat packages containing white powder. She’d have to call Micky as soon as she got home, so he’d have time to clean things up. By the time the Russians arrived, Jake and the drugs would be gone, along with some of Jake’s things. They wouldn’t find any witnesses in this neighborhood, and they sure as hell wouldn’t call the cops.

&nb
sp; Helen moved back to Jake and looked down at him. He made a weak coughing sound and stared up at her, moving his mouth like he was trying to deliver an important message.

  “Don’t worry about Andy,” she said. “I’ll meet him at the school.”

  JOYCE CAROL OATES

  The Woman in the Window

  FROM One Story

  Edward Hopper, Eleven A.M., 1926

  Beneath the cushion of the plush blue chair she has hidden it.

  Almost shyly her fingers grope for it, then recoil as if it were burning hot.

  No! None of this will happen, don’t be ridiculous.

  It is eleven a.m. He has promised to meet her in this room in which it is always eleven a.m.

  She’s doing what she does best: waiting.

  In fact, she is waiting for him in the way that he prefers: naked. Yet wearing shoes.

  Nude, he calls it. Not naked.

  (“Naked” is a coarse word! He’s a gentleman and he feels revulsion for vulgarity. Any sort of crude word, mannerism—in a woman.)

  She understands. She herself disapproves of women uttering profanities.