Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem

by Conda Douglas

Mallard leaned back in his ancient wooden swivel chair, which squeaked a loud protest. “Like who?”

  “Like, um …” How to frame my words so it didn’t appear I wanted to frame Julie for my crime. And where was she? How long did it take to identify a body that we’d all already identified? Or was she doing something—

  Julie walked into the tiny office, wending her way around the three desks crowding the space. Instead of wearing the same shirt, she now wore a tank top, to better show off her well-exercised arms, I figured. Just as I figured she’d run home to change. For an instant, a vision of Julie using those strong arms to press the huge squash over Dave’s face flashed into my mind.

  I swallowed a groan. My last hope of confronting Julie with the lacey evidence of her crime faded.

  Maybe if I surprised her by yanking the lace out and waving it in her face, maybe she’d break down and confess. Maybe. Probably not, but it was worth an attempt to shift at least some of the suspicion away from myself. I tried to think of a way to get her to come over to Mallard’s desk. Wasted effort, for over she came, to stand next to my own squeaky chair and loom. It seemed to be a day for murder suspects looming over me.

  “Why aren’t you in a jail cell?” she asked in a tone that suggested I needed a trial, a judgment and hanging, and soon, maybe today. It looked like she’d decided the best way to protect herself from any accusations was to make a few of her own.

  Why aren’t you? I wanted to ask and swallowed the words. Still, I might as well try to deflect some suspicion. I reached into my pocket for the piece of lace, and my fingers grasped … nothing. Another pocket, maybe? I rummaged around in my many, too many, pockets in my big men’s cargo pants, avoiding Julie’s gaze the whole while, not wanting to tip her off. My fingers finally found the scrap, just as I spotted something. Something better than any old piece of cloth.

  Julie pointed at me and said to Mallard, “We found him standing over my boyfriend’s body after killing him, why haven’t you arrested him yet?”

  “You mean you found me conveniently standing over him, a readymade suspect, after you killed him, left and then returned with Dora,” I said. “You knew that the person that finds the body is always a suspect. You must have been awfully pleased to find me there.”

  Julie’s mouth opened, but no words came out. She rubbed her eyes and sobbed. Yup, an act, and a good one, because Mallard stood and went to her, and then patted her shoulder.

  “Whoa, hold up,” he said. “You’ve got not a single bit of evidence against Julie here.”

  “I’ve got something better.” I pointed down at Julie’s pant cuff. “I’ve got a single zucchini seed, a huge one, so big that it had to have come from that squash on Dave’s face.”

  Mallard left off patting Julie’s shoulder and leaned down to stare at the thumb-sized seed. Julie’s sobs increased.

  I said over her faked distress, “You’re the one who left and then came back. I’ll bet if we ask Dora she’ll say she found you close by Dave’s. You never got near the body, so how’d you get that seed? You should have changed your pants along with your shirt, Julie.”

  With my last statement, Mallard straightened, took Julie’s arm and said, “All good questions, you got some answers?”

  Julie’s sobs silenced in an instant. She drew herself up, showed her teeth and said, “I showed him, break up with me because I’ve gotten too skinny? I sat on him and squashed his face. Guess I hadn’t lost too much weight living on this stupid zucchini after all.”

  As Julie confessed, Dora came out of the back room and stood and stared. When Julie finished, Dora said, “Well, that’s one way to bean a guy—I mean zucchini him.”

  That’s our Dora, always has the last word.

  Conda’s note:

  Although Boise is a techie town, with some major companies such as Hewlett Packard and Micron residing here, technical ability has never rubbed off on me. This story comes from my frustrations with technology. I figured there must be some advantages to the newest technological advances …

  Sweet Dreams

  When my husband rewired the house and I almost electrocuted myself I decided to kill him. My predicament’s my own fault. I knew my husband was hooked on sleeper programs. I never knew it’d get this bad.

  I met Henry when I clerked in a sleeper shop, one of the myriad ones that sprung up all over Boise, a tech-capitol and first adopter of the new technology. I made sure I was always the one to serve him. One thing led to another and we married. Now I know he married me because I knew a lot about the programs. I wish the fool things had never been invented.

  I never bought a sleeper program before Henry and I’m never buying one after he’s dead. Henry says they’re the wonder of the western world—learn anything while you sleep. Put on a Swahili language tape at night and in the morning speak Swahili.

  Except people, especially people like Henry, can’t accept there’s no real shortcuts in life. I told Henry that the subconscious level where sleep learning works is not long term memory retentive. Planned obsolescence. The programs fade away over two weeks. And they only work with a one-time application.

  I told Henry that sleeper programs never create ability where there’s none. Warnings printed on every package of S.P. tell a customer about potential problems. Henry never has read one of those.

  There was the warning printed on the Olympic skier program Henry purchased for our winter vacation: “This program requires certain physical aptitude and agility to be effective.”

  I told Henry. He ignored me, took the program and his first time on skis hit the “Black Diamond” expert slope in Boise’s nearby ski area Bogus Basin. Fine, if he’d had the body and co-ordination of an Olympic skier. Henry is fifty pounds overweight and falls over while putting his pants on in the morning. He broke a leg on his first, never finished, ski run and we spent our vacation money on hospital bills.

  So what if the warnings are printed in a teensy font on the back of sleeper cassettes—you’d think he’d learn. Most people buy lots of programs at first, like any fad. Then they realize the programs don’t change them into different people and then only buy a program for a real need. “Income Tax Preparation” is a steady seller before the April deadline.

  This never happened to Henry. He never learns the limitations, never tires of the sleeper programs. He buys every new cassette. The cost doesn’t deter my husband.

  “Think of the money we’ll save when I fix it myself,” he always says to me. As if he knew one end of a screwdriver from the other.

  Like when he “renovated” our kitchen. He “renovated” it back into the 19th Century and now I wash the dishes by hand and candlelight. Where was the money to pay a repairman? Spent on more sleeper programs. Instead of a dishwashing machine I get Henry speaking Swahili for two weeks.

  I suspect he spoke it badly.

  Then he insisted on taking an electrician’s program to fix the lights. I found that he had fixed them by pulling them out of the walls and leaving live wires behind. I discovered that by grabbing one.

  That’s when I decided to kill him.

  With no money left and our only assets a lot of used and useless sleeper programs, all that remains is the life insurance I took out on Henry. It’s not as if I haven’t given the marriage a chance, it’s been six months. Six long months.

  Also, it took me a couple of months to figure out how to kill Henry.

  After all, I’m the first person the police will suspect. I had to discover a way that was foolproof and beyond question. And oddly enough, it was a sleeper program.

  Working in the biz, I know some of its odd cracks and crannies, its shady side. I know who to ask for some of the more—um—unusual programs. Programs such as “How To Build An S/M Playground In Your Basement In Your Spare Time” and “Fifty Ways To Be A Drug Pusher” and other even stranger cassettes are available.

  I’ve never told Henry about these programs, for fear he’ll race out and buy and try them, until, while c
hatting with a co-worker, I found one I wanted him to try.

  “Say,” my fellow clerk said, with a giggle (she’s sixteen), “have you heard about the latest nightmare?”

  Nightmare is slang for the illegal cassettes.

  “It’s called ‘How To Commit Suicide In Two Weeks Or Less Or Your Money Back.’ What next?”

  What indeed, I wondered as I purchased the program from someone who knew someone who was a sorta friend of somebody I kinda knew. Granted a suicide S.P. is not for your regular customer, but where there’s a market … and I’m not your regular customer.

  When I got it home I steamed off the label from the outside of the package and glued on another label from a legitimate program I had also purchased, “How To Paper Train Your Puppy.”

  Henry’s severely allergic to dogs, so I knew he couldn’t resist such a program.

  “Henry,” I said to him over our candlelit dinner that night (with Henry’s homemade-by-sleeper-program candles dripping dyed wax onto my grandmother’s antique lace tablecloth, destroying it), “my old college alumni are having a class reunion next week in Portland. I know it’s a bit of a drive and I’ll have to stay with friends …” I’d stay in a motel and I’d get no pleasure seeing the old losers from high school, but nobody knew that, including Henry.

  Henry looked up from his beets. Beets grow well in Boise backyard gardens, unfortunately. We had home grown and canned, by Henry, until I almost died from a combination of food poisoning and the noxious weed he’d canned along with the beets.

  He shrugged. “Sounds okay by me, hon. I’ll be busy the next couple of weeks building the garage.”

  Another program—hang yourself from one of the ceiling girders, please, Henry.

  “It doesn’t matter if I take the car and drive?” I asked. Thank God Henry had not yet tried the car repair program so the car still ran. “I’d like to see the countryside—” I gulped at the huge lie. Much of the drive between Boise and Portland consisted of boring desert scrubland. “Sort of a vacation?” I added, hoping Henry didn’t think about what I said. He almost never did.

  “No problem,” Henry said. Trouble was it was always a problem with oblivious Henry. “I know how you missed not having a winter vacation. Sorry about that.”

  Sorrier than you know, I almost said, but stopped myself in time. I said instead, “Oh great, I’ll take a couple of weeks then, dear husband,” and kissed him on his balding head. The “Grow Your Hair Back” program only worked on Henry’s back hair.

  So, after informing everybody I could think of about my wonderful vacation (my alibi vacation) I drove off to Portland. But first I left the S.P., gift wrapped, next to Henry’s bed, a going away (forever for him) present. I knew he wouldn’t wait to try my gift.

  I drove to the reunion, every moment taking care to pay by credit card and chat up waiters and maids at the hotels. Then I attended the reunion. Every moment, I was bored to tears, which was excellent practice for me to be the grieving widow. Every moment I expected the call informing me of the tragic suicide of my husband.

  No call came.

  I took my time heading home, even staying overnight in Pendleton, town of blanket fame, along the way, although I could have made the drive in a long day. After all, the program did say two weeks. Or your money back.

  Anyway, knowing Henry, it’d be several botched attempts before he managed to pull off his suicide.

  But still, no call. So I ended up at home three days before the two weeks were up. Even as incompetent as Henry was, I figured he surely must have killed himself by now, even if by accident. Same difference.

  With a great deal of confidence I drove into our driveway, gratified to see the building materials for the garage still scattered all over the lawn. No more projects! I walked into the house, expecting it empty.

  Henry sat at the kitchen table, cleaning a gun. On the kitchen table sat a new S.P.: “How To Be A Sharpshooter.”

  Oh my. Was Henry practicing to not miss a really big, really close target, his head? I hoped so. But as I managed to get through the evening, I realized that save for the gun that he kept cleaning, Henry seemed the same old Henry.

  Not suicidal.

  After welcome home sex (my private parts never were the same after Henry used “How To Satisfy Any Woman”—ouch, ouch, ow) Henry fell fast asleep, the ear buds for “No More Snore” snug in his ears. His snores made the walls shake.

  I pulled the covering label from the S.P., preparatory to replacing the original. I’d find the dealer tomorrow and get every dime of my money back. I checked the label to make certain it did say “satisfaction guaranteed” and boy, was I one dissatisfied customer. Then I saw what I’d missed. It was in tiny print, tucked away in one corner of the label.

  “Warning,” it said, “use of this sleeper program by persons not prepared to take final steps may result in extreme violent tendencies towards others in said persons.”

  That explains the gun.

  In three days the programming on the suicide sleeper program runs out, so I only need to survive seventy-two hours. Seventy-two long hours. And with any luck, Henry will be as inept at shooting as he is at everything else. And I’m a moving target.

  Just in case, I’ve bought a new S.P. for myself. I’m never interested in sleeper programs, but I might need this one.

  It’s titled “How to Survive a Bullet Wound.”

  Conda’s note:

  Here’s a flash fiction piece inspired by my family’s stories of Grandfather MacDonald, my great-great grandfather who came out on the Oregon Trail to Idaho. And while the final mystery will never be solved I have it on good authority, from my southern great-great grandfather’s point of view, that he blamed all Yankees for … everything.

  A shorter version of this story won second place in Hyde Park Books’ Flash Fiction Relics, Fossils and Bones Contest, 2015.

  Head Stands

  Grandfather MacDonald broke his leg stumbling over a railroad tie while marching to the Battle of Gettysburg. He missed the battle. That set all right by him, for he was on the losing side.

  “Better a bone crack than a rifle crack,” he’d say, though the leg went bad and he wore wood below the knee forever after.

  After the Civil War, he married a blind woman who had attended Ford’s theater the night Lincoln died.

  “Didn’t see it,” she said. “Course, I’ve never seen anything, don’t know why that night’d be any different. I heard the shot though, a death knell, it were.”

  Together, the mismatched two came out to the Idaho Territory on the Oregon Trail. Grandfather MacDonald rode on the wagon all the way, his peg leg his reason. His wife always said there weren’t no reason for him tying her, a blind woman, to the back of the wagon and making her walk, ’cept pure orneriness.

  For five decades Grandpa MacDonald and his Yankee wife carried on a personal re-creation of the Civil War. “Pity Booth didn’t keep on shooting,” he’d say to her, “he might’ve got you.”

  He belonged to the South, so towards the end he gave ground.

  His wife took to standing on her head, thinking it’d bring vision to her blind eyes.

  Grandpa MacDonald, incited by the sight of his 75-year-old wife standing on her head, fled to the higher ground of the barn’s roof, where he spent hours smoking cigars, in a temporary truce. Till the day he slipped on his wooden leg and tumbled off, broke his neck, and lived long enough to say, “I knew that Yankee’d get me some day.”

  We never did figure if he meant his wife or the soldier who shot him.

  Conda’s note:

  This is a “prequel” short story to my Starke Dead series. This story takes place when Starke was a dying mining town, high in the Idaho Rockies. None of the characters in this story re-appear in my Starke Dead novels. Hmm—yet!

  A Woman’s Touch

  Deputy Kelly Brown sucked in her lips as she studied the crime scene, worried that she might miss an important clue. The vast kitchen/dining space showed
the aftereffects of a meticulous dinner and sloppy murder. Massive oak beams crisscrossed the dining room ceiling, framing the opulent wealth of a nineteenth century miner who struck a silver ore mother lode.

  An attempt at tidying had been made, the table cleared and the expensive chef’s knife jutting from the old man’s chest wiped clean, but dirty dishes remained, stacked high in the double granite sinks. The maid had discovered the always mean and now dead old man this morning.

  Kelly sighed. Who could tell how much evidence remained or had been destroyed? It figured that she’d get called out on her first murder on a case where clues, evidence and suspects abounded. It figured that it’d be a murder case in her first month as a new police officer, while she still worked to prove herself a real cop. It figured that she needed to prove herself to an old and old style Sheriff.

  “Yup, it’s a real mess,” Sheriff Montgomery said. He pulled his heavy gun belt higher on his skinny hips. “Hoped you could turn a fresh eye to it, maybe add a woman’s touch, being a domestic case—”

  Kelly bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from backtalk. She reminded herself that the Sheriff, almost to retirement age, had been the only law in the remote town of Starke, Idaho for decades. He wouldn’t be living in the new women’s lib world of 1972.

  Still, he called her in, despite her newness, inexperience, and being a woman cop dumped into Starke, perhaps to get her to quit this man’s world of policing. She frowned at her traitorous thought that since the dying mountain mining town’s little crime was mostly on the level of Saturday night drunkenness, Sheriff Montgomery might be a mite inexperienced when it came to murder.

  Her annoyance must have shown because the Sheriff smoothed a hand over his regulation brown tie. His rumpled and stained tie, Kelly noticed with another twinge of irritation.

  He said, “Why don’t you interview the family members in their homes? They might relax and let something slip with your woman’s tou—” He stopped and held out his hand toward her in supplication and apology. “Sure could use the help.”