Jack pulled her close and kissed her. “You did great.”
“I’m just glad it’s over,” she said. “I was so nervous, I had to pour myself a drink just to calm my nerves until you arrived.”
Jack laughed. “Well, it’s done. Once I get home and discover the body of my dear wife, it will be just a matter of time before you and I live happily ever after on Marge’s life insurance.”
“What about Fred?” Molly asked, her eyebrows drawn. “What if he talks?”
“He won’t. He can’t go to the police without implicating himself.”
“You’re alive!” Jack stood in his living room, shocked and angered at seeing his wife standing upright. “If Fred were here now, I could kill him with my bare hands,” he screamed.
Marge poured herself a drink. “Too late. Fred’s dead.”
Jack stared. “You killed him? Why?”
“To frame you and Molly, of course. I’ve known about the two of you for months.” She sipped her drink. “The way I see it, now you’ll have to give me everything. And if you don’t, I’m going to the police and have you arrested for Fred’s murder.”
“The police aren’t stupid. They’ll figure out who really did it.”
“Maybe,” Marge said. “But are you willing to take that chance? After all, you’re the one sleeping with his wife.”
“She’s alive?”
Jack nodded.
“But Fred killed her.” Molly slumped against the bed.
“Well, apparently he bungled the job. But Fred’s dead.”
“Fred’s dead? Who killed him?”
Jack’s eyes misted as he produced a gun. “I’m afraid you did, Molly.”
Molly backed away. “You can’t be serious. We love each other.”
“But I love my freedom more. It’s the only way, Molly. The police will think you killed Fred, then took your own life in a murder-suicide.”
As soon as Jack pulled the trigger he heard the pounding on the door.
“Open up! Police!”
“You’re alive?”
Fred stood beside Marge outside the jail cell. “That’s right, Jack. I knew you had set me up as soon as I returned to the house after you supposedly removed Molly’s body. That’s when I noticed a wineglass on the table with Molly’s lipstick on it. Since I had cleaned the living room before I called you, I realized Molly couldn’t have been dead.”
“So we set you up using your own plan,” Marge added. “After twenty years, I knew you’d kill Molly if it meant saving your own neck. As soon as you left the house, we followed you, and then called the police.”
Marge wrapped her arm around Fred. “Once we collect Molly’s life insurance, Fred and I will be living in luxury.”
Jack pulled his eyebrows together. “So you two are...?”
Fred kissed Marge’s cheek. “That’s right, Jack. And to think, we owe it all to you. I don’t know how we’ll ever repay you.”
Killer’s Brand
by Jeffry Scott
Melanie Skeets arrived at the mini-mall minutes before the killing, in nice time to settle into a ringside seat and take a few sips of white wine.
The new shopping mall was a ring of sorts, albeit a broken one. It formed rather more than a half circle, two floors high, starting and ending at the main street opposite a London underground station. The sweep was punctured in the middle by a short passage to the minor street beyond.
To the left of the archway was a supermarket, the rest of the circle held a cafe and wine bar, a members-only gym, and a ticket agency, with more stores entered from the passageway. Outside the wine bar were scattered light metal chairs, and on a fine day there were few better spots for people-watching in comfort.
The arena held by the building’s outstretched arms wasn’t cluttered with the usual benches, litter bins, and concrete planters. The architect had decreed a textured surface with cobblestone stripes, colored brick swirls, and ribbed tile walkways, suggesting a giant pinwheel frozen as it whirled. Melanie Skeets often wondered why all that didn’t look a mess, but somehow it worked and was fun.
Mrs. Skeets looked at and appreciated the world rather than just seeing it. Often she thought it a shame that so few people using the mall noticed what passed beneath their feet, or understood that its patterns and materials weren’t random.
Ninety yards wide, the pinwheel seldom seemed crowded, although pedestrian traffic was constant. People hurried into the supermarket, others left less speedily, lugging plastic bags. Something about the newness of the half circle persuaded some to detour from the main street and stroll beside the arc before going on their way.
Busy, busy, Mrs. Skeets mused smugly. She’d retired recently and dawdling in the middle of the day still had a taste of playing truant. Where were they all going, and why?
Silly, she scolded herself immediately, use your eyes, half of them are shopping and most of the rest are on lunch break.
The talkers were good value. Right arms raised in permanent salute — unless they were left handed, of course — they sleepwalked hither and thither over the arena, chattering on mobile phones. Mrs. Skeet’s game was to guess what kind of conversation was in progress: business, romantic, or domestic. One had about twenty seconds to pick up messages of body language and facial expression, then the target was out of sight.
The pretty girl there, hair with a raven’s wing sheen — goodness, those heels, she was living dangerously, given the cobblestones and furrowed tiles — was fending off an unwanted date. No question about it, from her yeah yeah whatever toss of the head as she snapped the phone shut and passed on.
Such a minx, and good luck to her. Melanie Skeets nearly giggled aloud. Amusement gave way to a frown. She was trying to pin down a what-is-wrong-with-this-picture query at the back of her mind.
Then it came to her. More passersby were talking on mobile phones than walked in silence. The scene was not wrong, simply different. If we had seen that when I was a kid, and I’m not that old, we’d have assumed they were funny in the head, she mused. And the notion of phoning on the hoof without trailing miles of wires — science fiction.
Now it was so commonplace that if she mentioned her mild wonder she would be called silly or a perceiver of the obvious. All the same, animated conversation with one’s hand, as it looked like at a glance, was rather strange.
This time the giggle escaped Melanie. Any poor soul drawing suspicious glances by talking to himself in the street could achieve instant normality by pressing a matchbox, cigarette pack, or whatever to their ear.
Four minutes before the killing, Melanie Skeets smiled at her whimsy and returned to the game. Several talkers were easily pigeonholed, but a youngish man baffled her despite being in range for longer than average.
She could not see much of his face, though it left an impression. An El Greco face, she thought vaguely, dark pits for eyes and an aura of intensity as he prowled the same few square yards near the main street. The phone rode at his temple but his lips seldom moved. Melanie surmised that he was being passed from department to department with increasingly unwelcome results — no basis for her hunch, merely empathy. That morning had been spent trying to get sense out of her bank and cursing the robot voices shunting her around.
Melanie heard an automatic door sigh open behind her. The gym was next to the wine bar, and the man who’d just emerged was drenched in aftershave. Not the cheap stuff, either, but too much was too much, and she took against him on the spot. A large brute, hair damp from the shower, radiating arrogance and power. Moneyed, they usually were, with gold winking on a thick wrist and fingers. No class, hits first and asks afterwards, she accused.