Fenimore was just recovering from the shock of this unusual declaration, when he felt a stirring on his left. To his horror, Horatio was getting to his feet. The doctor resisted an impulse to pull him down and held his breath.
After a prolonged clearing of his throat, Horatio’s young voice rang out. “I just want to say that Miss Jennings was a nice woman. She really cared about people. She even cared about me! And I’m sorry she got offed... er... that she’s gone.” He sat down.
A few people looked his way and several women smiled. An elderly man stood up and in a wavering voice said, “I think this young man has put it very well. Martha Jennings did care about other people — and she showed her caring through her good works. She will be sorely missed.”
A short silence followed this speech, then the people on the facing bench leaned toward one another and shook hands, the signal that the meeting was over.
Someone announced that the burial would take place in the adjoining cemetery immediately after the meeting and anyone who wished to attend was welcome.
Fenimore told his companions to wait for him at the car and sought out the black woman who had spoken. He spied her standing alone on the brick walkway surrounding the meetinghouse. She was staring at the graveyard with its plain white headstones. He hurried over to her. “Excuse me,” he said, “I’m an old friend of Miss Jennings and I was interested in what you had to say in there.”
Almost a head taller than the doctor, the woman looked down at him. Statuesque, Fenimore would have described her. “What makes you think Miss Jennings wasn’t the victim of a random mugging?”
She frowned and bit her lip.
“Andrew Fenimore.” He offered his hand. “I was Miss Jennings’ physician.”
Her face relaxed slightly. Other people had come outside and were gathered on the path, talking in low tones. “Rose Walker,” she said, accepting his hand. Glancing over her shoulder, she said, “Could we go somewhere more private?”
He led her to a wrought-iron bench under a tree, away from the crowd. When they were seated, she said in a low tone, “I was a witness.”
Fenimore sat up. “But you didn’t come forward!”
She drew back, her eyes narrowing. “I have a family.”
Fenimore nodded. Reprisals in the form of beatings and even death were not uncommon in her neighborhood.
“But I couldn’t stand all those wh—” she caught herself, “people thinking one of us had hurt Miss Jennings.” She raised her chin and her mouth was set.
“What did you see?” Fenimore asked gently.
“It’s not what I saw, it’s what I heard.”
“Go on.”
She glanced around, making sure no one was within hearing, before she spoke. “The mugger’s face was hidden by a scarf. I couldn’t even tell if they were a man or woman. But after the first blow Miss Jennings turned and seemed to recognize them, because she said, very clear, in a surprised voice, ‘Does thee murder?’ ”
Fenimore drew a deep breath. “Are you sure she said ‘thee’?”
“Oh yes, because it struck me as strange.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“I don’t know, because I ran to get help.” She gave a deep sigh. “But by the time I got back, it was too late.”
“Can you describe the mugger in more detail? Size? Clothes...?”
“No. It was getting dark. And they were bent over when they struck her... no, I couldn’t judge their size.”
“What about the voice? Male or female?”
“They didn’t speak. Wait a minute...” She stared at Fenimore. “I saw their watch. As they raised their hand, their sleeve slid back and the watch was caught in the light of the street lamp...”
“Yes?”
“It was a man’s watch.”
Fenimore closed his eyes. When he opened them, Rose was walking away.
He looked across the drive at the graveyard. A mountain of earth stood at some distance from the hole and a small circle of people had gathered. Fenimore tried to make them out. Ms. Stokes, her head bowed, Henrietta, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat — and Mike.
Fenimore waited until the simple ceremony had been performed and the small group broke up. One by one the mourners turned and came across the grass, stepping carefully between the headstones. Mike was in the lead. Slowly Fenimore moved forward to greet him.
He offered his condolences, and they said how nice it was for him to come.
“And who was that delightful young man who spoke so beautifully?” asked Ms. Stokes.
Fenimore told her. His office assistant. Then he said, “I must be off. Still have my hospital rounds. By the way, what time is it?”
Eager to help, all three looked at their watches. Mike pulled out a large pocket watch on a silver chain. “Belonged to my dad, and his dad before him,” he said. Henrietta glanced at the delicate watch on her sturdy wrist. And Ms. Stokes let the sleeve of her jacket fall back so she could see her watch — a masculine variety with a wide elastic band and broad face. Catching Fenimore’s expression, she laughed and said, “I lost my watch about a year ago. My husband lent me his and I liked it so much I kept it.”
Over her shoulder, Fenimore saw Horatio and Mrs. Doyle waving from the car. They were getting restless. A pity, because it was going to be a long afternoon.
Restraint
by Alison Gaylin
Alison Gaylin makes her EQMM debut here, but will already be known to many readers for her thriller novels. They include Hide Your Eyes, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, and 2012’s And She Was, an international bestseller that introduced P.I. Brenna Spector, a sleuth distinguished by having perfect autobiographical memory. A new kook in the Spector series, Into the Dark, has just been released. June will see the publication of the author’s first Young Adult novel, Reality Ends Here.
When the woman who killed Kevin Murphy’s daughter walked into Cumberland I Farms to pay for her gas, the first thing Kevin noticed about her was the way she crumpled her money.
There were a lot of other things to notice — the small, smooth hands, the neatly trimmed pink nails that reminded Kevin, briefly, of the polished conch shell he had bought for his ex-wife Candace during a trip to Jamaica. There were the thick blond streaks in the brown hair, the pale lipstick and the pastel clothes and the golden summer tan — all new things. All attempts, no doubt, to soften the hard angles, to make her appear sweeter, to make Kevin, to make anyone think, It wasn’t her fault. She’s a nice woman. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t mean to...
Attempts to hide what she really was.
Above all, there was the fact that it was her at Kevin’s counter. After three years of working this job, of changing twenties and carding twelve-year-olds for cigarettes and filling out intricate and pointless orders for lottery tickets, three years of listening to his manager Chuy bemoan his failed rap career and the lack of “quality tail” up here, four hours north of New York City on the outskirts of a tiny town called Pinekill which Chuy had nicknamed “Pig-Squeal.” Three years of silence — the type of silence that roars in your ears like ocean waves and then recedes, taking a little bit of you away with it each time until you start to feel hollow — a shell, staring out the glass door of a convenience store. An empty thing but for the pain, the waiting.
Three years and then this. The waiting over. The moment here. His daughter’s murderer standing over him and saying, “Thirty-five on pump three,” and yet all he bothered to see was the money... A twenty. A ten. A five. Looked like she’d dug them out of the garbage, blown her nose in them, balled them up and driven her car over them a few times before finally throwing them back into her smudged and overstuffed wallet. The way some people treat their money, Kevin thought. Disgusting.