Going Out With a Bang

by Joan Boswell

  The last thing Carter saw was the flash from the Luger’s muzzle.

  When English teacher Jean Rae Baxter turned to full-time writing, she planned to concentrate on young adult fiction. Then she discovered that she also had a knack for crime. Her noir short story collection, A Twist of Malice was published in 2005, and her mystery novel, Looking for Cardenio, in the spring of 2008. Between the two, her Y/A historical novel The Way Lies North, was released in 2007. She enjoys writing in both genres.

  The Silencer

  Joy Hewitt Mann

  There was a hit man who sang a bit

  When he wasn’t employed on a hit

  So he muffled the bang

  With the songs that he sang

  And all for the poor victim’s benefit.

  A Three-Splash Day

  Barbara Fradkin

  Not a single promising-looking death among the bunch, I thought as I tossed the paper aside in disgust. I splashed another dollop of Bailey’s Irish Cream into my morning coffee. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I don’t usually pour my first drink until well past noon, and even then it’s a crisp, tingly Pinot Grigio with a very modest kick. But some mornings need more help than others, and this was shaping up to be a two-splash morning.

  But then again, who was to stop me? Who was even to know? My dyspeptic, teetotalling father—he of the pursed lips and muttered prayers—had gone on to kinder, gentler pastures and my mother, even if I knew what beach she was on, would probably just wave her cigarette and crow, “Hell, let’s call it a three-splash day!”

  When you’re sixty-seven years old and live alone—if you don’t count the skunk living under my porch—you can do whatever the hell you please. If I wanted to spend my entire Saturday in my lace negligee guzzling Bailey’s and poring over the obituaries, that’s what I would damn well do. The lace negligée was to put me in the mood for husband hunting, and as long as I didn’t pass any mirrors, it did the job just fine. I could remember the nights when Andreas would slide his fingers under the flimsy fabric, run them over my skin up my belly...

  It made my body tingle just to think of Andreas. He was the best, for a while I thought the only, but when he left, there was Robert and Juan then... Who? Ah, Fred.

  It was Fred who gave me hope now. He was living proof there could be life, a lot of life, in the old body yet. He was sixty-nine years old when I met him, bald as a bowling ball, with spindly legs, coke-bottle glasses, and hair growing out of his ears. But with the lights off and sexy leather briefs, what difference did it make? My skin was doing it’s own imitation of lizard by then, and my breasts were heading somewhere south of my navel. If he hadn’t keeled over into the fish pond one day, I’d be with him still.

  So it was really Fred’s fault that I was reduced to sitting in my kitchen that morning, taking extra shots of Bailey’s to get myself through the dismal selection of fresh meat on the marriage market. I hadn’t thought I needed another husband. I’d been through five, none of whom had a decent life insurance policy between them. But Fred had been a retired lawyer with a portfolio bigger than the GNP of most Third World countries. How was I to know his four scheming children by his first wife had conspired to make sure I didn’t see a penny? How was I to know my Panamanian divorce from Juan hadn’t been entirely legal either? I’d managed to duck criminal prosecution—I guess my mature cleavage was still good enough for the myopic geezer behind the bench—but I walked away without a dime.

  Even so, I hadn’t really been in the mood for snagging a new man. To be brutally honest, the lace negligée is a fight to get on these days and an even greater fight to get off. And most mornings, I’d much rather sit in my lounge chair catching the morning sun, reading the paper, listening to fifties rock ‘n roll and not having to talk to a damn soul. Not having to listen to anyone suck his teeth or fart up the stairs or whine about his Metamucil.

  Peace. Freedom.

  But who knew the Canada Pension would be so damn small! I thought with my modest settlements over the years, I’d be able to make ends meet once I turned sixty-five. I don’t live big. My house is only fifteen hundred square feet, miniscule by my neighbours’ standards. I like my Baileys and my Pinot Grigio, but otherwise my food requirements are modest. Every ounce I eat settles around my waist and lasts for days anyway.

  So I tried toughing it out for a year, but last year, on my sixty-sixth birthday, I got a letter from the Canada Revenue Agency. They want money from me! Four thousand dollars plus interest. I know I hadn’t filed for a few years, but I mean—really!

  So what’s an old girl supposed to do? The marketplace isn’t exactly littered with husband prospects in my age bracket. Time was, I used to be able to go down an age bracket—people always said I looked ten years younger anyway—but gravity gets you in the end. All those years under a sun lamp don’t help either.

  I signed up for yoga. All women, all complaining about their creaky knees. I signed up for a bowling league. I even—God help me—joined a church and tried the choir. All the remotely interesting men were either gay or had wives who never seemed to let them out of their sight. What is it about men over sixty that they’d sit at home asleep in front of the TV all day if their wives didn’t organize them?

  Those pesky wives. That’s where I first got the idea of the obituaries. At church and bowling, I’d noticed that the best men all had wives. Maybe the wives kept them properly fed, clothed and groomed, so they showed well. Or maybe only the nicest men managed to hang onto their wives. Divorce takes a lot out of a guy, making him self-absorbed and resentful, but it can also be the mark of a man who doesn’t know how to treat a woman. I know, because I tried out several in the church and bowling circuit, and I could sure see why their wives had tossed them out.

  Bachelors are even worse. By middle age, they’re a species totally apart, collecting rooms full of spare car parts and forgetting the dinner part of a dinner invitation.

  No, the man you really want—the guy who knows how to treat a woman and who’s still nicely fed and cared for—is the widower. He likes women, he’s used to accommodating women, and he really misses a woman in his life. But you have to move fast. In every grieving widower’s life, there are half a dozen women waiting to pounce. All offering a shoulder to cry on and a claw to sink deep into an unsuspecting back.

  A widower is on the market for a maximum of a year, but usually you have to set the hook within the first month or two. The trick is to find out about them early enough to beat out the competition. And it’s war out there. Available women over sixty-five outnumber men at least ten to one, and they’ve all drawn the same conclusions I have. A widower, as long as he’s breathing, is a hot prospect.

  That’s how I came to the obituaries. I admit, it took me a while to stoop that low. At first I tried to ferret out the widowers in discreet ways. Peeks at their ring finger, which tells you nothing because these guys can wear the rings of their much beloved but very departed for years afterwards. Observation, questioning, word of mouth... I found you can never trust another woman to tell you about an available man. They horde those secrets better than CSIS. You can’t even trust an unavailable woman to give you the tip. They save those valuable, vulnerable widowers for their own single friends.

  After six months of trying to finagle encounters with new widowers, only to discover the church secretary or the gardening club president had beaten me to it, I started reading the paper. At first it was almost by accident. “Peacefully after a courageous battle with cancer, Nancy, 62, beloved wife of Roger...” Poor Roger, I thought. You still have a few good years on you. How long before you’re snapped up? I started counting. Almost every day there was some poor Roger or Jeff or Bill whose wives had been plucked from their lives in their prime retirement years, when they should have been planning cruises and holidays in Tuscany, not a wake.

  “You can still do that,” I’d shout at the paper, “with me.” I’d love Tuscany, cruises, even that once-in-a-lifetime slog up a mounta
in in Tibet.

  The first time I attended a visitation, I felt an utter fraud. Contrary to the claims of my ex-husbands’ families, I do have a moral compass of sorts—just set a little further off true north. I looked into the grieving widower’s damp eyes—it was Stephen that time, if I recall—and I extended my hand.

  “My condolences,” I murmured. “I used to work with Edith. She was such a lovely person.”

  And a look of puzzlement passed over his face. “Edith? Work?”

  That was when I realized the value of research. From then on, I’d arrive at the visitations early and drift through the crowd, listening to the other mourners and joining in their reminiscences. To her work colleagues, I’d be a distant relative. To her friends, I’d be a former co-worker. I’d spend at least an hour collecting information so that by the time I approached the widower, I’d have a tamper-proof identity all worked out. It also gave me a chance to scope out the mark and decide whether he was worth the effort. By the end of my sixth visitation, I had developed a prioritized check list. At the top was a healthy, attractive appearance. Call me selfish, but I did not relish spending my last ten good years babysitting diapers and drool.

  Second, evidence of a healthy bank account. No need to explain that, surely. Third, no signs of grasping, suspicious offspring. I don’t mind offspring, but I wanted the “after all he’s been through, just let him be happy” variety. This kind of offspring could even be useful in encouraging him to put away the dead flowers and the candle by his wife’s picture, and to get out and live a little. Just deliver him into my hands, kids. I’d do the rest.

  I found the perfect catch at my seventh funeral. Philip. Warm brown eyes, square shoulders, tapered waist, elegantly packaged in a charcoal Armani suit. And a smile that had zinged right through my groin as I introduced myself. “One of Lillian’s choirmates.” I’d even played my ace in the hole, a recent bereavement of my own (hey, technically it was true), so I knew how hard it was to keep up appearances. Gently I suggested coffee if ever he felt the need to let his hair down. A glimmer of gratitude lit his red-rimmed eyes, and I was just jotting my phone number on a scrap of paper (a business card being all wrong for this kind of thing) when a fifty-something fake blonde with enough nip and tuck to hold up the Lion’s Gate Bridge appeared at his side. She smiled at me, hooked her arm through his and leaned into his ear.

  “Philip, you must be exhausted. Come sit, and I’ll bring you some tea.”

  Philip returned her smile dazedly. “Excuse me,” he said to me as he allowed himself to be led away. “Ruth’s been a godsend all through Lillian’s illness. Lives across the street, spent half the day with us towards the end.”

  I’ll just bet. What’s that Hamlet quote about the funeral meats being barely cold? These hadn’t even been served yet! This might be trickier than I thought. If the vultures knew a death was in the offing, even months away, they’d already be circling.

  I admit, that’s when the idea of murder first drifted across my mind. Harmlessly. I’ve done a lot of things in my life that have skirted the line, but I’ve never hurt anyone intentionally as an end in itself. So when the idea of dispatching Ruth came to me, I savoured it, laughed at it, and returned to my obituary columns. But the idea, stubbornly set, refused to die entirely As I continued to browse the columns (“peacefully after a long battle...” “surrounded by loved ones...”) I imagined the legions of Ruths hovering in the background. I began to toy with scenarios. Go to the funeral, extend a comforting hand with just a touch of excitement—let’s not forget these guys are men first, who’ve gone without for months, maybe years—identify the Ruths at their side and plan a convincing accident.

  Another funeral, another chance to offer comfort...

  Who would ever connect me with the victim? I use my own name at the visitations, but I never sign the guestbook, and my name—Ann Czyryanitski—is a dyslexic’s nightmare.

  Thus, by the time I reached my sixty-seventh birthday, I was well on my way to convincing myself that a little murder, while not my first choice, was at least on the list. But then suddenly there was a dearth of new widowers in the acceptable age bracket. Day after day, I read the obituaries. Women were living into their nineties or dying in their forties, leaving husbands who were not only twenty years younger than me but saddled with a house full of teenagers. No thanks.

  In a desperate moment, I did think about murdering a perfectly healthy wife, but the truth was, those women had paid their dues. They’d put in thirty, forty years with a guy, so they were entitled to their golden years and a hefty inheritance at the end of the line.

  So here I was in the middle of my two-splash morning, wondering who I could bump off to free up a man, when my thoughts strayed back to Philip. To his guileless brown eyes and his perfectly tailored suit. It had been three months, long enough for him to be over the shock of his wife’s death and for his own yearnings to stir again. Had Ruth solidified her grip? Was she still bringing him casseroles, or had he begun to reciprocate? “You’ve been so kind. At least let me take you out for dinner.”

  Maybe she’d been the one to force the next step. “Philip, you have to start getting out of the house. Lillian would want you to go on.”

  As I poured my third cup, with just a smidgen of Bailey’s this time, I decided some subtle snooping was in order. Purely for research purposes. Did the hovering Ruths of this world really get their man? How long did it take?

  Along with my unpronounceable name, I have a car that would be the envy of private eyes everywhere. A six-year-old silver Honda Civic that looks like half the other cars on the road. It had been Fred’s, my own yellow Miata having been repossessed without mercy in the Great Income Tax fiasco. As an added precaution, I streaked a little mud on the license plate. I picked a blustery Saturday evening in October for my first reconnaissance mission. If Philip was alone at home on Saturday night, Ruth had been a bust.

  He lived in a gabled, three-storey stone house in the upscale Civic Hospital area. The good news was that it was quite close to my own much more humble Hampton Park home, thus justifying my presence in the neighbourhood should I attract attention. The bad news was that it was on a quiet side street which had almost no through traffic but a veritable army of alert dog walkers. A parked car might be noticed, particularly if it showed up several times.

  I parked on the next block and walked towards his place. Trees bent in the wind, and dead leaves scuttled along the sidewalk. I burrowed my face into the faux fur of my coat as I passed by a man walking his dog. He lifted his head for a cursory glance before scurrying on, probably eager to get home. I slowed as I neared Philip’s house. A black Audi sat in the drive, and lights glowed in the windows on the first floor. Shadows moved back and forth behind the gauzy curtains. One shadow. Two shadows. Someone was with him! Was that person the owner of the Audi, or did it belong to Philip?

  I couldn’t make out any features from this distance, particularly through the curtains, but I had brought along a dainty pair of opera glasses. No private eye should be without them. I was just trying to focus the blurry mess when another dog walker rounded the corner and headed towards me. Damn! I strolled on as if looking for an address. The dog stopped to poop. The owner waited, unwrapped a bag, picked up then spent at least five minutes tying the bag in a thousand, impenetrable knots.

  I reached the end of the block, hesitated, and then ducked out of sight behind a large spruce in the corner yard. My stilettos were sinking into the soggy ground, and the damp was freezing my toes by the time the dog and owner ambled by, not ten feet from me. The dog—one of those nasty-tempered little mopheads—gave a low growl and started around the tree, but thank god the owner yanked him back, muttering about skunks and vicious cats.

  Hugging my coat around me, I scurried across the street. I had to make sure it was Ruth before my murderous musings went any further. By the miracle of Canada411.com, I had determined that an R. Strickman lived diagonally across the street at #16. Ruth woul
d be making a definite step up if she snagged Philip. Her own house was a sagging, clapboard two-storey with a purple Neon parked in the single-car drive. The porch light was the only one on. I sneaked up the drive and around the back. No lights on there either. I checked my watch, which read eight thirty. Ruth didn’t strike me as the eight thirty-to-bed type. At least, not in her own bed.

  But I wasn’t about to leave room for error. I returned to my car, gratefully turned the heater on full blast, drove around the block and tucked my pint-sized Honda behind a behemoth of a SUV just down the street. By slouching in the passenger seat, I was nearly invisible but had a perfect view of Philip’s front walk. His mystery dinner guest would be illuminated for a full five seconds by the brass coach lamp in his front yard.

  By eleven o’clock, my enthusiasm for sleuthing had worn very thin. My legs were stiff and cramped, and my bones ached with cold. Plus I was bored silly. After a pack of noisy teenagers trooped by around ten, not a soul had come down the street except two dog walkers, hustling their charges impatiently from bush to bush.

  She’s staying the night, I realized, kicking myself for being so stupid. What were the candles and the formal dinner for, if not a prelude to dessert in bed? I was just manoeuvering myself over the gear shift into the driver’s seat when the porch light went on up the street, and a figure stepped out into the beam. I whipped out my opera glasses. Ruth, all right, turning on tippy toes to press her lips to his. They lingered until I thought they’d both asphyxiate, then she pranced down the stone steps, purse twirling and fingers waggling over her shoulder. For a moment I pictured her tripping and pitching head first onto the flagstone walk. No such luck. Blowing one final kiss, she disappeared into the shadows of the street.