“I’ll call an ambulance,” I said. She shook her head: No use. The nearest hospital was miles away, of course. I knew that. Best to make it look good, to show I’d done everything possible. But with Geoff’s health history, and those scars on his chest, they’d never think to look for the poison donated to the cause by his son. Brian had provided me with the sodium azide from what was left of his plantation; that morning I had put it in the thermos of coffee with lots of sugar, the way Geoff likes it. Liked it. Sodium azide, used as an insecticide, mimics the symptoms of a heart attack. I’d used it once before, on the chemical-factory owner who’d been my boss, and who then became my husband, and my ticket out. The husband after him had peanut allergies that came in handy.
My third husband was a binge drinker. If he’d been a steady drinker, maybe I could have coped, but I don’t like surprises. I had coped before, with my father. Geoff was number four, and arguably the best of the lot, except for that gambler’s streak he called “investing.”
What happened next is hard to believe, even for those of us who know that dogs are not only smart but noble creatures with a sixth sense. Akea bit me.
And Bitsy, or whatever her name was, gave me a look that could peel paint. I pretended not to see. In full frantic-widow mode, I sprinted back up the path from the waterfall.
“I’m going for help,” I shouted.
From the hospital, where Geoff was duly pronounced DOA, I called Brian.
“It’s done,” I said.
He was already having second thoughts, and I had to give him a little pep talk to remind him we were in it together. I’d known from the start Brian was going to be the weak link. But he wouldn’t be around for long either. Not much longer than it took his rich, besotted old aunt to pass to her reward. In the meantime, so long as he kept his mouth shut, no one would guess at his involvement. Certainly no one would link him with me. And I had my new identity, my new look, my new hair color ready to go.
For our wedding, we’d go somewhere no one would know us. Somewhere with a short waiting period, like Scotland. Who would even notice two more youngish people getting married? One of them a wealthy widow. The other, soon to be rolling in his aunt’s money. A double or nothing kind of deal.
Some people think I married Geoff for his money. People have no idea. As if just anyone could do what I do for a living. It’s just not that simple. It’s a job.
Sometimes I felt like one of those well-trained customer-service reps you get sometimes — skilled at talking down irate customers who’ve once again lost their cable connection. (“I am so sorry to hear the connection was lost, Mr. X, and I know how frustrating this must be for you. Let’s work together to resolve the issue”.)
I could anticipate the moods. I could soothe. I could entertain and empathize. I could be whatever they wanted me to be.
I was a professional.
I had to stop Geoff before he handed the money over to that missing link, Jimmy.
Still, Akea had cramped my style. Not to mention that nitwit woman. But she couldn’t know anything, not really.
Still, I’d never been suspected in any serious way in the previous “mishaps.” From now on, I’d have to watch my step, in case anyone bothered to listen to Patsy.
Brian, I’d be saddled with for slightly longer than I’d planned, but no matter. I had to make absolutely sure no one recognized me now.
Plastic surgery would once again be called for. I’ll go for the Carla Bruni look next time.
Sometimes You Have to Climb a Mountain
by Tom Tolnay
Short stories linked to form a “novel in stories” are enjoying increased popularity, and Tom Tolnay’s new book, Profane Feasts, belongs to the category. “The myths of the extended Hestiakos clan are colorfully retold” in its 13 tales (some from EQMM), Iconoclast said. “Though they are Greek, this family could be many other ethnic families bound by love, hard work, and loyalty.”
As my cleated tires thumped up our gritty driveway I didn’t see Hazel’s CJ-5 parked out by the woodshed, but I dragged myself into our sagging house anyway. For the past year she’d been keeping her mind and mouth to herself... until the two of us had reached a place where we’d stopped thinking and saying the things a husband and wife oughta be sharing with each other. With its fiberboard walls surrounding our every move in five and a half tiny rooms, the prefab had grown increasingly cramped and cruel. Some days the silent stillness between us felt like a fork prong jabbed under my fingernail, and I’d exploded — shouting and swinging my fist at her face which, once soft and worth staring at, had grown stiff with resentment.
I squeezed the back of my neck, trying to loosen a knot that was promising to swell into a full-blown migraine. All the while I kept glancing out the living-room window, still hoping, expecting to see Hazel’s car rumble up the driveway. It was only later, when I noticed the one suitcase we owned was missing from the front closet, that I began thinking this time she wasn’t coming back.
Sinking onto the loveseat’s squashed cushions, I rocked back and forth between anger and regret: blaming her for not appreciating how shitty my life had become — earning a half-assed living as a self-taught carpenter, part-time woodsman; keeping our doors and windows sealed against the wall of cold north woods surrounding us, splitting and stacking firewood for the wood stove in the kitchen, making sure the Nissan pickup would start so I could drive off to replace the steps leading into the Bellows village hall or align someone’s front door — and finally coming around to admitting my wife had plenty of reasons to quit on me. I’d slumped into a routine of taking a few drinks and, when I could get hold of some, sniffing coke or smoking a joint or two, putting what little income we had at risk by flaking out or getting into a fight on the job, and never placing hands anywhere on Hazel’s body unless my fingers were clenched.
Frustrated with waiting for something that seemed increasingly unlikely to happen, I kicked the back door open, hopped into my pickup, and left our patch of scraggly acreage in the rearview mirror. In town I cruised past the post office, where Hazel worked helter-skelter hours: Her Jeep wasn’t parked outside, so I continued along Main Street to the edge of Bellows, pulling up at and entering Toby’s Tavern. The jukebox was blasting a Country Western ditty as I stomped my heavy boots across the floor of the house trailer that Toby had converted into a bar. I signaled Jim for a shot of whiskey even before sitting down. Wobbling on one of Toby’s short-legged stools, I wondered what had become of Toby — one day he’d disappeared from Bellows just like my wife: Where did these people who were here one day and gone the next go?
After a coupla quick belts I began sniffing around, asking if Jim behind the bar, or Randy and Mitzy on stools, happened to see Hazel in town that day. Even if any of them had bought stamps from her at the post office, or saw her bumping along in the CJ-5, I doubted they’d have said so: I suspected word had gotten around that I’d hit her. More than once. Four shots of Wild Turkey went down as I watched the jukebox flash red and blue and yellow. Finally, slapping greenbacks on the gouged oak counter, I shagged out to my truck and bounced along the rutted road that led back to my house. Hazel’s parking spot was still empty, but I went inside and stormed from room to room anyway, stupidly calling out her name.
Irritated by the prefab’s emptiness, I allowed my knees to buckle and dropped onto the kitchen floor, where I slipped the Altoids box out of my jacket pocket and rolled up a pinch of my stash. Lighting up, I sat there exhaling sour, smoky breath in between sucks on the joint, keeping at it until it had burned down to a nub, stinging my fingertips. But this time the weed didn’t help. I jerked up onto my feet and stumbled out the door, furious not only at Hazel but with everyone in the village, everyone in the whole stinking world. As I hoisted my ass into my Nissan and sank into its cushioned bucket, for a moment I felt weirdly safe, the truck having become more of a home to me than the house.