by Robert Bloch
Mary shrugged. Yes, she knew John had been restless lately; a wife can always tell. And she and John had been so very close through all the years. But for that very reason, she had no intention of leaving him, now or ever. Let him have his fling, poor dear. Sooner or later, it would blow over.
“But what if he came to you and demanded a divorce?” Frances had persisted. “What if he just walked out on you, cold, and left you for another woman?”
“He wouldn’t do a thing like that,” Mary answered. “He just couldn't; John isn’t that type at all.” Then her apologetic air had suddenly given way to grim resolution. “But if he did, he’d be sorry, believe me! There are laws, you know. I’d see to it that he paid—I’d get everything I’ve got coming to me. By the time I was through with him, he and this little tramp, whoever she is, would be good and sorry they ever started anything.”
Frances had reported the conversation to John the following evening and they both agreed, sadly but logically, that Mary meant what she said. Moreover, she had the power to execute her threat. A divorce would mean an irreparable financial loss to John, perhaps even the loss of his business. And as for Frances, her elderly employer (who never, under any circumstances, ever handled a divorce proceeding) would fire her handily. Love in a garret is all very veil for moonstruck teenagers, but both John and Frances had reached a time in life where they enjoyed the creature comforts both of them had striven for over the years. And, being human, they felt the equal necessity of protecting their present status as respectable members of the community.
So divorce was out. And the only apparent result of Frances' conversation with Mary was that she began to gorge herself still more heavily. Dr. Applegate’s latest diet was tossed overboard and Mary stuffed herself night and day. John would come home and find her consuming candy from the store—indeed, she insisted that he constantly supply her with more each time he put in his appearance from a night of work behind the counter.
“Cheer up,” John told Frances, although he didn’t really believe she would follow his suggestion. “The way the old sow is going now, she’ll eat herself to death in a few years.”
“A few years!” Frances looked at herself in the mirror behind the soda-fountain. Then she looked at John. She didn’t say anything, but then she didn’t have to. John knew what she was thinking. A few years was all they had left, really. A few years of being together as they wanted to be together, or a few years of this endless aching, this ceaseless torment of furtive, fear-filled meeting interspersed with interludes of mocking, maddening pretense. And meanwhile Frances would have to live on in her little cell-like apartment, while John stayed with the fat pig.
That’s what Frances called her now. “The fat pig.” A year ago she would never have dreamed of describing anyone that way, let alone her best friend. But a year ago she hadn’t really known John, hadn’t wanted John. So now it was easy for her to say what she really felt. “I can’t go on like this. I won’t go on! It isn’t right. It would be different if she felt anything for you, darling, anything at all. But she doesn’t. I’ve talked to her, and I know. To Mary, you’re just property. Another household appliance, something she owns, a convenience that supplies her with food and shelter and performs menial chores around the house for her comfort. When I hinted you might be running around, she wasn’t even jealous—just angry. The way you get angry at some gadget when you suspect it might be going out of order and cost you something to repair.
“I can’t bear to think of you putting up with her any longer; the way she just sits around all day and all night feeding her fat face—why all the time I was talking to her, even when she started to get excited, she kept eating those damned macaroons out of a big box and watching the Arthur Godfrey show. She isn’t any good to you. She isn’t any good to herself. Nobody would miss her if she died tomorrow.”
She stared at John. He lowered his eyes and didn’t answer.
“Look, darling. I’ve been thinking. You’re a druggist. Isn’t there something you could give her that—”
John shook his head. He continued to avert his gaze as he answered. “I won't lie to you. I’ve been thinking about that, too. And it wouldn’t work. Just because I am a pharmacist. Don’t you realize that’s the very first thing the police would think of if they ever became suspicious? And they would become suspicious, because of the medical report. A doctor would have to be called, he’d have to sign the death-certificate, and he’d know right away. Contrary to what you may be thinking, there just aren’t any drugs that will do the trick without detection; at least nothing I could get out of stock here. And I couldn’t order anything special or obscure without accounting for it. We have to make out reports, they check on us, we’re inspected. No, that’s out.”
Frances put her hand on his arm—her cool, slim hand, with the long fingernails which could claw so deeply when she clung to him.
“All right,” she said. “All right. But you’ve got to do something. I can’t take much more of this. In fact, I’m going away.”
“Going away?”
There was such anguish in his response that her own voice softened. “Don’t be alarmed, darling. It’s just a vacation. I’ve got two weeks coming this year, you know. At first I wasn’t even going to take them, but I decided I’d better. All this has made me so nervous lately. There’s an aunt and uncle of mine out in Portland—they’ve asked me to visit them.”
“When?”
“Next week. I’ve got plane reservations for Monday.”
John blinked. “But that means I won’t be seeing you again, not for almost three weeks.”
The nails dug into his arm. He could feel them even through his suitcoat. “Maybe longer than that,” she said. “Darling, I meant what I told you. I can’t stand living this way any longer. It’s up to you, now. Either you find some way out for us, soon, or this is the end.”
“But I can’t—”
“You must! I don’t care if you hit her over the head with a club and lock her in the deep-freeze. All I know is that I’ve had it. From now on, it’s all or nothing.” She relaxed her grip. “I didn’t tell you this, darling, but my aunt and uncle have been urging me to move out there. They say the climate is wonderful in Oregon, and I’d have no trouble finding another job in Portland. When I visit them, I’m going to investigate the possibilities. Maybe that’s the best thing to do, after all.”
“No!” John muttered. He stood up taking a deep breath. “You’re coming back here, you’ve got to promise me you’ll come back.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. And I’ll make you a promise, too. I’m going to think of a way. I don’t know how, but I'll think of one. When you come back, she’ll be gone.”
John kept his word. From that moment on, he thought of a way. He thought of a hundred ways during the next few days before Frances’ departure. He thought of them by day while he sold bobbie pins and aspirins and band-aids in the store, and he thought of them by night as he watched Mary eating doughnuts in the living-room, belching in the bathroom or snoring stertorously by his side in bed.
He didn’t see Frances again during the weekend, but he saw a lot of Mary. There was, he reflected grimly, quite a lot of her to see. She tipped the scales at about 240 now. All weekend long she kept babbling about still another new diet Dr. Applegate wanted her to try. And all weekend long, John kept thinking about ways of killing her. A hundred ways.
But none of them were any good. None of them would work. Oh, he could murder her all right, but the point was to get away with it. Get away with it scot free, get away with Frances, sell the damned business and move to Oregon after everything was over. That part would be easy. But the method, the method—
One Sunday night it came to him, just like that. And there was nothing particularly surprising in the phenomenon, because it had been there all the time. Frances had told him; he was a pharmacist and he had access to poisons.
Not obscure poisons, not undetectable poisons, but that didn’t matter; he
didn’t need anything special, as long as he made sure he administered a lethal dose. Of course a physician would examine Mary’s body before writing out a death-certificate, but there wouldn’t be any trouble.
Because the physician would be Dr. Applegate. And Applegate, in addition to being the family doctor, was the man who had come to John when he needed some extra, but also extra-legal, prescriptions for narcotics. Now he would come to John’s aid in his hour of need. And he would not demur, he would not question, he most certainly would not talk. If he did, then John would talk too, and Dr. Applegate would be up on criminal charges.
It was really very simple, now that he realized how to solve the medical aspects of his problem. Mary’s few friends all knew that she was grossly overweight, that she had put a strain on her heart. So the death-certificate would testify, and nobody would ask any embarrassing questions.
All that remained to be considered now was the exact modus operandi to employ.
John thought about it all that day Monday in the store. It kept him from thinking about Frances’ departure that morning. On the other hand he was really quite glad that she had left, under the circumstances. It meant she’d be out of town during the time of the tragedy; there’d be no strain of having to simulate grief, attend the funeral, and avoid any accidental betrayal of her true feelings in John’s presence. Better still, her absence would rule out any evidence of collusion.
For his own part, it would be ideal for him to dispose of Mary immediately; the funeral and the subsequent winding-up of her affairs would occupy him during the next two weeks and keep him from brooding about Frances’ absence. Yes, all in all, this was the ideal time.
And the method?
He had the whole pharmacopoeia at his disposal, everything from acetanilide to zinc phosphide. Yet in the end, John decided upon the simplest toxic agent of all, the old standby of Borgia and bourgeoise alike—plain arsenic. It was fast, reliable, deadly, and that’s what he wanted; it didn’t in the least matter if the symptoms of arsenic poisoning were apparent to a physician under the circumstances. More to the point, John could easily remove the necessary quantity from his stock without fear of its loss being noted.
Administration of the dosage would be no problem, either. He’d put it into some chocolates; bring Mary a box of candy from the store, as she expected. With her sweet tooth, she’d gobble down one or two—probably just one, because of the taste, but that would be enough. More than enough. Her resultant agonies would be painful to witness, but John had no intention of being present. He’d take her the box tonight but neglect to give it to her until tomorrow when he left again for work. That should give her something to do while she watched her daily soap-operas. Of course, there was always the off-chance that Mary, after swallowing a piece of the candy, would manage to get to the telephone before collapsing. But even then there was little risk; she would either call him or Dr. Applegate. He knew how to react, and as for Applegate, John intended to have a chat with him this evening in private before heading for home with the chocolates. It might prove to be a bit messy, but he knew he could convince the physician to cooperate.
As it turned out, he had little difficulty with Applegate. The only really messy part of the entire business was in actually introducing poison into the candy.
There were so many things he hadn’t anticipated; opening the box itself and removing the plastic wrapper without damage, so that it could be resealed without detection—carefully melting the chocolate coating and removing a portion of the creamy fondant to make room for the poisonous powder—then re-melting the coating and smoothing it over until each individual piece of candy could survive inspection.
But finally he was finished, and the telltale evidence of his labors obliterated so that Willie Hayes, the assistant pharmacist, would notice nothing tomorrow morning when he opened the store, John made a mental note; he must remember to dispose of the remainder of the chocolates tomorrow night, the moment he was sure Mary had succumbed. If he took care of a few details like that, the rest was just a matter of routine.
The routine of going home, after his brief but satisfactory interview with Dr. Applegate. The routine of greeting the old sow as she grunted up at him from her chair before the TV set; of kissing her fat forehead and asking her the same stupid questions about the same stupid daily routine; of using the bathroom and turning out the lights and settling down in bed next to that repulsive mountain of flabby flesh (for the last time) and composing himself for sleep.
Sleep did not come easily, because anticipation stood in its path; anticipation of the morning, when he’d give her the box of candy and leave for work. He’d let Willie handle the evening shift tomorrow, as was usual on Tuesdays, and come home for supper early. No sense in waiting too long; suppertime would be long enough. She ought to open the box right after lunch, and then—
No, John did not sleep. He merely planned. He planned what he’d do after he found the body and phoned Applegate, planned how he’d break the news to the neighbors and send a wire to Mary’s sister in Omaha. While he was at it, he might just as well be practical and consider what undertaker to select. A decent funeral would be expected, but there was no need of being unduly lavish. Mary had two thousand dollars’ worth of life insurance. He could probably pick out a nice coffin for about four hundred; the whole deal would run a little under a thousand. Then, with the extra thousand, he could think about something for Frances, later on. On their honeymoon, perhaps. Say a year from now, or a little less. He could sell the business, sell the house here, move out to Portland or some other city. He’d always wanted to see the West Coast anyway; he’d never been there. Maybe Frances and he could take a plane over to Hawaii. That would be nice. Oh, it was all going to be nice, after tomorrow—
The odd thing was that he felt no guilt, no fear, no remorse. It had been Frances who actually came out and suggested the murder, of course, but now he realized that he had been killing Mary for years, in the deepest, darkest dungeon of his own mind. He was completely prepared to accept the act; he welcomed the role of murderer as familiar.
Everything seemed familiar, everything was normal. In the morning he rose and shaved and dressed and Mary had his breakfast ready as usual. She made the usual pretense of passing up the meal—”just coffee and orange-juice, that’s enough for me today”—but he knew she’d fry herself the usual three eggs as soon as he was out of the door. And when, at the door, he produced the box of chocolates as an afterthought, she could not conceal her squeal of delight. Hogs always squeal.
John managed to conceal his own elation long enough to peck at her cheek and escape.
Escape. Today was the day he would really escape! Escape forever.
Forever is a long time, and before the afternoon was over, John was thinking only of escaping the store itself by five o’clock.
He wanted to get home and get it over with. He didn’t actually look forward to seeing what he’d see when he got there, or doing what he’d have to do during the subsequent evening hours. But the whole point was that it was something which must be done, and the sooner, the better.
So he drove home, as usual, at Five-thirty, parked the car in the driveway, and went inside.
The kitchen was deserted, and he could hear the idiot drone of the TV set from the parlor beyond. Naturally that’s the way it would be; she’d settled down to watch the afternoon programs, opened the box of candy, popped a chocolate into her mouth, and probably never managed to leave the easy-chair.
John tiptoed through the hall. He saw her then, slumped in the big chair, with just the back of her head showing—the back of her head and her big fat neck with those repulsive rolls of heavy flesh. Frances had a slim neck; a pale white adorable neck, with delicious little hollows made for kisses.
John was glad he could think of her under the circumstances because it proved he wasn’t frightened, he wasn’t going to lose his nerve, even at a time like this. A time like this, when he walked into the parlor to see his
wife’s dead body—
His wife’s dead body turned and stared at him. And then it rose from the chair. Mary was standing in front of him, big as life. Hideously big, hideously alive. She grinned at him.
“Early tonight, aren’t you?” she said. And then, “John, what are you staring at?”
It took a moment for him to answer, and when he did he couldn’t help himself, he had to blurt it out.
“Wh-where are the chocolates I brought you?”
The stupid grin loomed closer. “Surprise! I didn’t eat any of them! Remember that new diet I told you about? Well this time I’m sticking to it. I’ll lose at least twenty pounds, you’ll see. I was telling Frances—”
“Frances?”
“Yes, Frances, silly! Remember she was supposed to leave yesterday? Well, she didn’t. She left today. She stopped by here this afternoon, on her way to the airport. And since she was going on a trip, I gave her the box of candy to eat on the plane.”
“You gave her—?”
“Sure.” Mary giggled. “I figured it was a sort of a farewell present…”
Backward, Turn Backward
Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Sheriff Andrew Willets stood at the living-room window and watched his deputies herd back the curious, restive people of Pottersville. Some had started out from their houses, shops or gardens at the first sound of his siren, and throughout the long morning the crowd had swelled again.
Behind him in the kitchen, from which the body of Matt Thompson had recently been removed, the technical crew of the Slate police were at work with microscope and camera, ultraviolet lamp and vacuum cleaner. He had full confidence in them but grave doubts that their findings would add much weight to, or counterbalance by much, the spoken testimony against Phil Canby. They had not waited, some of those outside, to give it to police or State attorney; they passed it to one another, neighbor to stranger, stranger sometimes back again to neighbor.