I never learned of a single person who did, but I’m sure the little chef felt better after baring his soul. I’m also sure network executives felt better after removing the chef and his show from their lineup.
Emmett retired to work in his herb gardens full time. Denise’s scalded face healed, and she’s hoping to avoid prison by claiming temporary insanity.
I learned many things in my first job-like solving a culinary case is tougher when murder’s on the menu. And I learned it’s not always true that crime doesn’t pay. My aunt split the fee with me. I’m on the way to Tootsie’s Boutique with my half to see if they sell sneakers in alligator.
C. Ellett Logan spent the first half of her life in the Deep South, an experience that informs her settings, and troubles her characters, southern-Gothic-style. Now in Northern Virginia, she’s a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Her stories “Backseat,” “Anchors Away,” and “Alligator is for Shoes” show off in the Chesapeake Crimes anthology series (Wildside Press). Her novel, Miasma, part of the Quagmire Murder Mysteries, is set in Georgia’s low country. www.celogan.com
NEXT STOP, FOGGY BOTTOM, by Karen Cantwell
Athena Papas didn’t fall off the platform onto the tracks the way they reported it on the news. She was pushed.
How do I know?
Because I pushed her.
Then I watched happily as the screaming train crushed her thin, limp body like an empty aluminum can. It was a good day. And while she probably would not agree, I would say it was a good death. Not many people hated Athena as much as I did. Trust me, I had good reason, and not just because she’d been my boss. It was so much more. Every day during the ride from New Carrolton to Foggy Bottom, I listened to her blathering into her cell phone while she flipped through another edition of Washington Bride Magazine.
“We’re meeting with another caterer tomorrow,” she said one day. “The last company was a disaster. They were inexperienced and unorganized and kept trying to push the chicken on us.” She flipped another page and shook her head. “No. I don’t want chicken. Too common.” The pages kept turning and her glossy, painted lips flapped on. “And they don’t even do the cake. I want someone who does it all. Is that too much to ask?”
Blah, blah, blah. She made me sick with her crimson fingernails and milky skin. Her black hair as soft and shimmery as the surface of a calm lake on a summer’s day. Her pencil-thin waist and perfectly small, pretty feet. Sick, sick, sick.
The hum of the train on the rails, the gentle bobs and turns lulled my churning soul. Lights strobed in the tunnels while the PA announced stop after stop. Smithsonian. Federal Triangle. Metro Center. Finally, three stations later, they’d call it, “Next stop, Foggy Bottom.”
For other passengers, relief was in store. But not for me. She never stopped talking on that damn phone even as she stepped off the train and walked the four long blocks to the office of Hillard, Smithwick, and Rowe. “Mom,” she’d say. “I want you to meet Terry before the wedding. Come for Mother’s Day.” Then she’d laugh. “Wait until you see the diamond. It’s the size of Texas.” Her graceful arm would be crooked at the elbow, holding a fancy bag, while the diamond twinkled. Truthfully, she exaggerated. It was more the size of Vermont, but either way, it was big. Bigger than my all of my pathetic chips put together.
Then a full day at the office where she held the title of office manager, but played the part of office beauty queen. She probably would have worn a swimsuit to work if allowed, just to add pizzazz to her already disgusting flirtations. “Oh, Mr. Hillard,” she’d coo to the hundred-something founding partner, “if I didn’t already have a fiancé…” On a daily basis, my mind simmered, figuring out ways to shut her up.
She would even talk to strangers on the underground platform at Foggy Bottom while waiting for the train home. “My fiancé,” she once told some bored lady in a gray suit and tennis shoes, “said I could have the biggest wedding I wanted, so I’m making him keep his promise.” Her bleached white teeth gleamed when she smiled, her fancy bag dangling effortlessly from her arm while she tapped a lime green pointy toe. I never could have stayed upright in heels as high as the ones Athena wore. Black flats were more my style.
Once I decided to kill Athena Papas, I had to calculate the most effective method. I wasn’t very strong so I never would have been able to strangle her. Not even close. I couldn’t shoot a gun. Poisoning was out of the question. My options were limited. After following her for some time, it became obvious that the best plan would be to push her off the platform at Foggy Bottom. The trains there moved fast, the platform was quite high, and the crowds were big enough to make it look like an accident.
My problem was that Athena didn’t have a habit of standing particularly close to the edge. She often hung back, chatting with some stranger or on her cell, waiting till the last minute when the train arrived, then relying on her beauty and the kindness of willing men to let her pass through the crowd. Irksome. But I had all the time in the world to be patient. I knew that one day, the time would be right.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait very long.
She must have been distracted by her own conversation. “But, Terry, sweetie, handsome man that you are,” she purred. “You don’t understand. I don’t care…what? Margaret? I don’t care about appearances. I want…hello? I said, I want my wedding my way!” She shook her head and tapped her foot. “Hello? Terry? I can barely hear you.” Her shiny tresses bounced around her shoulders like in a shampoo ad. “Terry, we’ll talk about this when I get… I don’t care about Margaret’s family. Who are they to me?”
Luckily, poor Athena was becoming increasingly frustrated. Her voice raised by octaves and decibels. She was inching closer and closer to the edge of that big, beautiful, dangerous platform at Foggy Bottom. I looked at the digital clock. The express train to New Carrollton would pass soon. Because it didn’t stop at Foggy Bottom, it would sail right through at breakneck speed. The Fates were on my side. My time would soon come. So would hers.
Athena Papas would pay for what she had done to me.
For stealing my husband.
It happened at that office Christmas party-I know it. With her unblemished skin and her soft hair. Her fancy bags and her perfect teeth. She had everything I didn’t, and he fell for it like a fat man on a tightrope. It didn’t matter that I loved and adored him. That I slaved for hours every Sunday making his favorite meal of roast lamb with orange marmalade sauce, fresh steamed, French-cut string beans, and mashed red potatoes with a four-layer, double-chocolate cake for dessert. That I washed his underwear, ironed his shirts, and remembered his mother’s birthday. None of that mattered to Terry, who I once called husband and now called The Devil. The man she called Sweetie, Handsome Man.
I had practiced the push for weeks, building up the strength and the ability to get it just right. It wasn’t easy. There’s an immense learning curve to mastering the art of moving mass. Not all of us can do it. I needed the right amount of power to bump her skinny, taut body right over the edge, into the path of an oncoming train.
A heavy hum from the tunnel let me know the train was on its way. Lights on the platform blinked to warn passengers back. Athena was too engrossed in her own world. “Margaret is not my problem, I’m telling you-.” Her eyes flashed with anger; her free arm waved about like a marionette limb on strings. “Not my problem!”
She didn’t know the train was there. She didn’t know I was there.