Tom looked at the drawing. “That’s more like it, I think. It looks balanced.”
Mr. Howard added a label in his neat engineer’s printing. “There you go. Spirit River Dam, 1920. You come back here and paint it then, it will look all different.”
“Maybe I’ll just paint it that way now,” Tom said. “Who knows where I’ll be by 1920. Out west, maybe.”
“Or fighting in France?” He pulled a flask out of his pocket and offered Tom a tot of rye for his mug.
“Thanks. You think the war will last that long?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. Before those politicians and generals are finished, they’ll be calling up men your age. Maybe even mine,” he added, with a bitter laugh.
“God, I hope not. I’m just getting started making a career out of painting.” They’d rejected him back in ’99 when he’d tried to sign up to fight the Boers. He didn’t want to stop painting now to go and fight a younger man’s war.
“Just starting, eh? I had you pegged for about forty.”
“I am, nearly. I wasted too much of my life with commercial art. I figure I’ve got to make the most of the thirty years or so I’ve got left. Just painting the wilderness, making up for lost time.”
“Yeah, well, this war has upset a lot of people’s plans for their lives.” He raised his flask in a toast. “Here’s to yours working out.”
“Thanks.” Tom raised his mug. “And here’s to your new dam.”
* * *
Tom Thomson drowned in Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, on July 8, 1917. He was thirty-nine.
Edward Lodi
Edward Lodi’s short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is the author of more than thirty books, including five novels in his Cranberry Country Mystery Series. A sixth is scheduled to appear in 2019. Find him on Facebook as Rock Village Publishing.
Oubliette
Edward Lodi
The wind was picking up, turning the leaves on the trees along Marlborough Street belly up, like dead fish. Overhead the boughs of a gnarled maple swayed and creaked like cheap furniture.
Gavoti stifled a yawn. It would be nice to get out of the car to stretch his own cramped limbs. But he didn’t dare. Not yet. Not until dark. Planning. It was all in the planning.
He found encouragement in the leaden skies and the damp wind that came careening off the Charles River. They promised rain. And an early nightfall.
He maintained the pose of a man engrossed in his newspaper as he squinted at the row of houses across the street. Four stories tall, they loomed grotesque in the fading light, stacked together like matched volumes on a gigantic shelf, their rounded red-brick facades the fine morocco bindings that completed the illusion.
He had his eye on the door diagonally across from where he sat in the parked car. Mere whim—or was it instinct?—led him to choose it from all the others. He had staked it out for three consecutive weeks—at different hours, from different angles, in various guises; had followed the woman on her nightly excursions. He knew her habits, now, better than he knew his own.
All along Marlborough Street lamps flicked on, their weak orbs only accentuating the gloom, as if some minor deity unequal to the task had snapped fingers and commanded light.
Soon—just a matter of minutes—the old woman would emerge from the house, the carcass of a weasel-like creature wrapped tight around her neck, thin wisps of her own gray hair curling like smoke above the fur. Her hat would be slightly askew, and she would be bundled against the wind in a fashionable and expensive coat. Heavy rings would bedizen her fingers.
In the three weeks of his vigil Gavoti had seen no one else enter or leave, had spied only her pale visage behind lace curtains. In the narrow alley that skulked behind the row of attached houses he had seen only rubbish cans and delivery trucks, an occasional rat. Never pedestrians.
Right on schedule the door opened and the old woman popped out like a clockwork figure onto the platform above the steps. She took her time locking the door, tested it several times, twisted the knob and shook it. He watched eagerly, appetite whetted by her caution.
When she had disappeared around the corner headed toward Newbury Street—to dine at one of the fashionable restaurants catering to the Back Bay—he slipped out of his car, walked casually around the block in the opposite direction, then ducked into the alley. It was dark now, the alley deserted. He found the rear entrance and easily and quietly forced his way in.
He paused just inside the doorway to meld with the shadows that filled the darkened room. The first thing that struck him was the smell. An acrid odor, hanging heavy in the air like a noxious gas. A neglected litter box? It would take a dozen cats to leave a stench that bad.
Noiselessly, without the aid of a flashlight, he explored the kitchen. As he poked through cabinets and cupboards his practiced eyes took in details of the old woman’s life. One fact puzzled him: the shelves held too much food—cheap cereals, mostly—for just one person. A cupboard stacked with cans of cat food seemed to corroborate the presence of cats.
He listened. The refrigerator’s labored hum muffled all other sounds. Leaving the kitchen, he slipped into a foyer fronting the street. The smell moved with him, like a vengeful spirit placed there against intruders.
Light from the street squeezed in through Venetian blinds. To the right a door, locked, led presumably to the cellar. Opposite, a narrow stairway crept to the upper floors. Against the wall, beneath the banister, an antique mahogany side table stood ready for pilfering.
The first drawer contained bills—gas, electricity, telephone—and the usual junk mail. The second drawer contained a surprise, something totally unexpected: welfare checks.
He moved closer to the window to examine them. There were five checks, all for the same amount, all dated within the past two weeks. What were they doing there? He glanced uneasily at the darkened stairs. This was no boarding house. No one lived here but the old woman.
He grinned. A welfare queen, committing fraud, collecting benefits under several names? The grin faded. All of the checks were made out to men. She couldn’t be that good an actress.
Setting that mystery aside for the moment, he returned the checks to their drawer and began to explore the rest of the house. The rooms upstairs were a burglar’s delight. The old woman owned the best of everything: tapestried sofas, high-backed chairs with carved, bulbous legs, gold-framed paintings, mammoth lamps with crystal pendants and elaborate, pleated shades, ornate clocks, heavy silverware, jewelry, furs, and antiques—the quality items you see advertised in The New Yorker.
Gavoti touched everything, took nothing, made a mental note of the better items, the portable ones. Time was running short. He would return later, perhaps tomorrow, and clean the place out.
Downstairs the smell, temporarily forgotten, once again assailed his nostrils. Curious, he stopped at the foot of the stairs. He had seen no sign of cats, yet it was there, a sickening blend of urine and feces and vomit and something else he could not quite identify. And there were those cans of cat food in the kitchen.
He was a cautious man, the reason why he had reached his thirties and never been caught. The woman would be returning soon. He should leave now, slip out the back.
Yet he hesitated. There were sounds, noticeable now that the refrigerator was silent. Scufflings, too loud to be made by cats. They came from the cellar. He crossed the room, put his ear to the locked door. Perversely, the scufflings ceased, as if whatever had caused it was listening, too.
No light seeped through the crack under the door. Whatever secret the old woman kept in her cellar lay hidden in darkness. Maybe it was cats, after all. Or rats.
Or maybe it was something else. Something Gavoti could turn to profit. He took a ring of keys from his pocket, found one that fit, and eased the door open.
It was too dark to see farther than the top two steps of the wooden stairway leading into the pit below. Drawn upward, the stench drifted past him like something h
e could reach out to and brush aside. The black rectangle that formed the cellar entrance too much resembled an upright grave for him to want to venture in. Instead he groped for the light switch, snapped it on, and immediately realized his mistake.
The brilliance blinded him. He clenched his eyes shut, but not before he had seen them. The image seared itself onto his brain cells: round white faces, upturned, maggot-like, eyes shrinking at the sudden light.
When his own eyes had adjusted he allowed himself to stare. There were about a dozen, some lying, others sitting, but each of them chained to a cot.
The cots were spaced a few feet apart in rows. Bare bulbs, controlled by the switch at his side, hung on frayed cords from wooden rafters, illuminating the concrete walls, the floor covered in filth.
So that was it. The old woman was holding a bunch of derelict men—most of them lacked teeth, and drooled, and gazed through senile eyes—in order to collect their Welfare benefits. Gavoti estimated the potential. Half. He would demand half. Half their Welfare benefits each month for keeping his mouth shut.
She may have returned home earlier than usual, suspected something, and entered the house quietly. Or, knowing all along that he had been tailing her, she may have deliberately followed him back into the house. In either case she was there, in the foyer. Gavoti first became aware of her presence when a blunt object came crashing onto the base of his skull pitching him headlong down the stairs.
When he came to he was chained like the others to a cot. His vision was blurred and he knew that he was badly hurt.
The old woman was sitting at his side.
“Don’t you fret, dearie,” she said when she saw his eyelids flutter. “First thing tomorrow morning I’ll go down to the Welfare Office and file an application. We’ll have your first check in no time at all. Food Stamps, too.” She patted his hand. “In the meantime I’ll take care of you free of charge.”
Because of the pain Gavoti could not turn his head. But he was aware that she had reached for something on the floor.
“I do hope you like seafood,” the old woman said, leaning over him. “It’s so nutritious.” Forcing open his lips, she began to spoon cat food from the can into his mouth.
P.A. De Voe
P.A. De Voe, an anthropologist and Asian specialist, writes contemporary cozy mysteries, as well as historical mysteries and crime stories immersed in the life and times of Ancient China. A Silver Falchion award winner and an Agatha and Silver Falchion award finalist, she is a member of Sisters in Crime National and Guppy Chapter, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, St. Louis Writer’s Guild, Saturday Writers, the Historical Novel Society, and Mystery Writers of America/MWA Midwest. Find her at padevoe.com.
Gambling Against Fate [From Judge Lu’s Ming Dynasty Case Files]
P.A. De Voe
The rotund innkeeper acknowledged Judge Lu with a short bow. “Sir, we are honored to have you stay at our humble inn.” He looked toward a young man sweeping in the back of the room and called out, “Rong, what are you waiting for? Come and assist our guest.”
As the youth hurried over, the innkeeper remarked in a loud voice: “My son. He’s a lazy oaf. I have to keep an eye on him every minute.”
The son glared at his father, but the emotion quickly washed away, leaving a bored expression in its place.
The innkeeper went on: “We have another official staying with us, the Honorable Shen Zhong-lan. He arrived last week from the province of Zhejiang. He is passing through on his way to southern Hunan, where he will take up his first official post as Chief of Police.”
Lu rotated his shoulders, stretching them. The innkeeper’s prattling formed a thin, background noise to his troubled thoughts. The day had been long. He and his entourage were traveling south along the Gan River, with the excuse that he was on a holiday. However, it was an upsurge in highway robberies along this important avenue for trade that brought him out of the yamen and onto the road. His Majesty, the Emperor, considered eradicating such crimes essential in maintaining his country’s security. And whatever was important to the Emperor, was critical to Lu.
Recently appointed by the emperor to his position as Magistrate, Lu—an outsider from a different province—did not yet know which of his judicial or other governmental subordinates were trustworthy. All locals had large familial and personal networks to whom they were beholden. Since Lu would be held accountable to the Emperor for even a whiff of incompetence or corruption, he traveled with a small and highly trusted entourage. Ma and Zhang, the two guards accompanying him, were his own men and loyal only to him. The third person in his entourage, Lu Fu-hao, was his court secretary and younger brother.
The innkeeper’s son began picking up Lu’s bundles and reached for a small satchel among the pile. However, as his fingers closed over the bag, Lu stopped him. “Leave that. I’ll take care of it.”
The boy nodded and carried the other bags upstairs, Ma close behind.
The innkeeper swept a hand toward the tables. “Have a seat and I’ll bring you tea.”
Grateful to be off the road, Lu and Fu-hao made their way to a table against the wall. Lu liked to see everything going on around him. Within a short time, the innkeeper brought tea and steaming hot dumplings. As they sipped tea, Zhang took up another table, an eye on both his master and the room.
At a nearby table a couple of men played a gambling game with quiet intensity. Periodically, a yelp of victory by the winner or cursing from the loser punctuated their game. Fu-hao couldn’t keep his eyes off them.
After finishing the refreshments, Lu said, “I’m going to my quarters. We’ll spend a day or so here, checking for any unusual activity.”
“I’ll be up soon,” Fu-hao said, his attention wandering back to the men at the nearby table.
“Don’t be up too late,” Lu said, rising. “Remember why we’re here.” His younger brother’s fondness for gambling often troubled him.
Fu-hao picked up the satchel and handed it to Lu. “Don’t forget this.”
Lu resisted making a return comment. The reminder was his brother’s way of pushing back. The satchel held Lu’s identity documents and seal of office. It was not likely he would be careless enough to leave them behind.
The next morning, surrounded by the slurps and low conversations of fellow guests, Lu sat eating his favorite breakfast: a bowl of soy milk, fried bread sticks, and several small dishes of pickled vegetables. The comfortable bouquet of warm food added to his enjoyment of the meal.
He sat alone. Zhang and Ma remained discretely alert at a side table. Fu-hao hadn’t yet emerged from bed. Lu wore a simple navy robe and no official hat, which would have announced his governmental position. He relished the anonymity, a rare thing for a magistrate.
Lu was about to have Zhang fetch his brother when a man wearing a loose-fitting, long dark robe and a low-level official’s hat burst into the room. Stopping within a few steps from the door, he raked the room with an angry gaze. “Where’s Innkeeper He?”
Within a breath, the innkeeper appeared at the kitchen door. Seeing the new arrival, he rushed forward and, hands clasped before his ample belly, he bowed several times. “Sir, what is the trouble?”
“Trouble? Indeed, there is trouble! A man, your guest, is dead. Your guest. Slain in his bed.”
All color drained from the innkeeper’s face. “Dead? In my inn?” he asked, in a daze. A silence filled the room, as if through muteness, each person could disappear, unnoticed.
“Naturally, I will have to report this to the proper authorities. However, since this small town has no official law officer, I will investigate the matter myself.”
Lu spoke up. “Are you Sir Shen Zhong-lan, Hunan’s Chief of Police appointee?”
“I am. And who are you, Sir?” the fellow asked, jutting his chin out.
Lu stood and said, “I am Lu Wen-xue, magistrate for Jiangxi’s Tai-ho County.”
Shen paused a moment, eyes focusing on Lu. Then, raising his hands and clasping
them at chest level, he bowed deeply. “Honorable Sir. At your service. I hope you will forgive me for taking command of the situation. I wasn’t aware of Your Honor’s presence.”
“You did right, Sir Shen. But, since I am here, as magistrate I will investigate the death.” To show respect for the appointee, he added, “Given that you’ve been in town the past week, I would appreciate your insight into the case.”
Lu ordered Zhang to tell Fu-hao to meet them in the slain man’s room with his court recording materials. As magistrate, Lu was required to personally examine the body. Fu-hao would take official notes on the proceedings. All of the details would be included in a formal court document sent to Lu’s superiors, who reviewed each case.
Shen led Lu and Ma through a short hallway to the victim’s room on the ground floor. At the entrance to the small room, Lu told Shen to remain outside. A medium-sized man lay face down, spread out half on the bed and half on the floor. Blood stained his clothing. A knife lay nearby.
“Stabbed in the back,” Ma murmured. He stepped away from the body.
Lu glanced at his guard. He should have told Ma to fetch Fu-hao and have Zhang come along to handle the body. Ma feared the ghosts of those who died violent, unnatural deaths. Such malevolent spirits took revenge on any and all around them. Thus, Ma had a deep revulsion of examining the bodies of homicide victims, which—he believed—angered their spirits even more. Zhang, on the other hand, had a pragmatic view of the mundane, everyday world and the supernatural world. He did not object to touching the deceased. Lu hoped it didn’t take Fu-hao long to gather his things together and get over to the crime scene.
Before approaching the victim, Lu scrutinized the bare, windowless room. A single bed took up most of the space. A covered chamber pot sat in one corner, next to a washstand. Except for the knife and a short coat strewn over the end of the bed, the room was empty. Lu bent down and examined the area around the bed. Nothing. As he straightened, the innkeeper approached the door, followed by Fu-hao and Zhang.
The Best Laid Plans Page 4