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Thin Ice

Crime Stories by New England Writers

Edited by

Mark Ammons

Kat Fast

Barbara Ross

Leslie Wheeler

Published by Level Best Books at Smashwords

http://www.levelbestbooks.com

text composition/design by Kat Fast

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Table of Contents

IntroductionThe Bank Job, Bev Vincent

A Good, Safe Place, Judith Green

Double Take, Mo Walsh

Duck Sandwich, Mark Ammons

Key West, Barbara Ross

The Kitchen Witch, S.A. Daynard

Wall to Wall, John R. Clark

A Perfect Landing, Kat Fast

Closer, Joe Ricker

Madame Blavatsky Takes a Lover, Mary E. Stibal

Tribute, Michael Nethercott

Gracie Walks the Plank, Kate Flora

Reduction in Force, Edith M. Maxwell

Size Matters, Sheila Connolly

Changes, Ruth M. McCarty

Unleashed, Cheryl Marceau

Inside Out, Virginia Young

Long Live the Queen, Alan D. McWhirter

The Recumbent Cow, Susan Oleksiw

Hard Fall, Ben Hanstein

Ring of Fire, Steve Liskow

Tag, You’re Dead, J.A. Hennrikus

Communion, Ray Daniel

The Book Signing, Kathy Chencharik

Dead Man’s Shoes, Leslie Wheeler

Connect with Level Best Books Online

Introduction

When the editors at Level Best Books announced that the seventh anthology, Quarry, would be their last, like many in the New England writing community, we were disappointed but not surprised. Disappointed, because the Level Best collections have been such an important and integral part of the New England mystery writing scene. Not surprised, because we knew the anthologies were a labor of love, with emphasis on both the labor and the love.

The idea that we would take on Level Best started as a “could we?” and rapidly progressed to a “should we?” We were ardent fans of the collections, and, in fact, two of the four of us had our first fiction publication with Level Best. We had functioned together as a writers group for almost fifteen years. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses; we had a lot of complementary skills and perspectives; but we had never run a business together. Incredibly, we found the more we talked about the prospect, and the more we talked to the former editors, the more enthusiastic we became. “Should we?” became “we must.” The die was cast. We stood in a circle, held hands high, and vowed to do our “level best.”

Kate Flora, Ruth M. McCarty and Susan Oleksiw have been generous in their support. We truly would not be here today without them—without their advice, without their patience in answering what must have seemed the most obvious questions, and, most of all, without the legacy they created by having published seven previous anthologies of the highest quality short fiction.

With this edition, we have tried to honor that legacy. Like the previous editors, we have included stories from debut authors and veterans, and from authors all around New England, telling every kind of tale that can be told with a crime at its center. We have aimed to do this the way that Kate, Ruth and Susan did, by using quality as our ultimate guidepost.

As always, we are proud to begin the anthology with this year’s winner of the Al Blanchard Award. Bev Vincent’s “The Bank Job” is a rich story about the power of loyalty and friendship. In counterpoint, Ray Daniel’s “Communion” looks at the same themes from a different and darker angle.

We’ve also included a 2009 Al Blanchard honorable mention winner: Mo Walsh’s “Double Take” explores the improbable connection between lederhosen and larceny.

Edith M. Maxwell’s “Reduction in Force,” about the dangers of layoffs, and J.A. Hennrikus’ “Tag, You’re Dead,” about Facebook, tell tales that are particularly of the moment, while in Mary E. Stibal’s “Madame Blavatsky Takes a Lover” and Michael Nethercott’s “Tribute,” the actions in the present spring from events buried in the past.

Cheryl Marceau has her first fiction publication with “Unleashed,” a tale of a New England town meeting gone terribly wrong. John R. Clark’s “Wall to Wall” also describes a uniquely New England crime revolving around a stone wall.

Judith Green is published for the eighth time by Level Best with the brilliant “A Good, Safe Place.” While Woody Hanstein’s stories have appeared in the anthologies in the past, this year, his son Ben makes his Level Best debut with the comic romp “Hard Fall.”

In “The Book Signing,” Kathy Chencharik flashes us with a grisly surprise in under four hundred words. Sheila Connolly’s “Size Matters” and Alan D. McWhirter’s “Long Live the Queen” weave satisfying whodunnits in a few thousand words. Steve Liskow’s “Ring of Fire” and Joe Ricker’s “Closer” tell stories of revenge. S.A. Daynard and Virginia Young challenge us to question everything we read in “The Kitchen Witch” and “Inside Out,” respectively

This year, we are delighted to have wonderful submissions from all three former editors with Kate Flora’s “Gracie Walks the Plank,” Ruth M. McCarty’s “Changes” and Susan Oleksiw’s “The Recumbent Cow.” And finally, we’re pleased to offer our own stories with Mark Ammons’ “Duck Sandwich,” Kat Fast’s “A Perfect Landing,” Barbara Ross’ Al Blanchard 2010 honorable mention story “Key West,” and Leslie Wheeler’s “Dead Man’s Shoes.”

Before we began work, the former editors warned us that the quality of the submissions had gone up in each of the previous seven years, and that the decisions would be challenging indeed. Seeing for the first time the rich variety we have to choose from, we now understand better the difficulty of the task. But, we think we’ve done Kate, Ruth and Susan proud, and we hope you enjoy reading the collection as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

Mark Ammons

Kat Fast

Barbara Ross

Leslie Wheeler

The Bank Job

Bev Vincent

I didn’t even know that Joey DeStefano was out of the joint. Last I heard he was serving three to five in Walpole for roughing up a pregnant woman who fell behind on her payments. I figured I was free of him for at least another year.

“Frankie,” he says when I answer the phone. My skin goes cold when I realize who it is. I briefly consider saying “Wrong number” and hanging up, but that would only delay the inevitable. It’s not like I can go somewhere to get away from him. I don’t even have enough money for caller ID.

“We have a little unfinished business,” Joey says.

I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. He’s probably used to that. Takes a guy with high self-esteem to do his job, since pretty much everyone hates him. It’d give me a complex. I want people to like me, which is one reason I get into so much trouble. Someone says to me, “Hey, Frankie, let’s knock over that convenience store,” and I say “Sure” just to be agreeable. Next thing you know the cops are on our tail, and I have to lay low for a while. One of these days I’m going to figure out how much of my life I’ve spent laying low. At least half, I bet.

“When did you get out?” I ask, not because I care, but because it’s something to talk about besides the five grand I owe him that I don’t have.

“Last week,” Joey says. “Good behavior,” which I think is pretty hilarious, but I keep that to myself and offer him my congratulations. He probably thinks I’m kissing up, which I kinda am. “I’m a little upset you didn’t visit me,” he says.

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not. “I’m allergic to prisons,” I say, and he laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. Makes me laugh, too, though all of a sudden I feel like I need to go to the bathroom.

“Doesn’t explain why you didn’t write,” he says, and just like that, I’m the only one laughing. I clear my throat. My palms are sweaty. Then Joey laughs again, but this time I don’t join in. I’m too busy thinking about how I’m going to get out of this hole that suddenly dug itself around me. I’ve been pretty much keeping my nose clean lately. A few little things, but nothing major, nothing that can get me into big trouble . . . and yet trouble found me all the same.

“The way I see it, Frankie, old buddy, old pal,” Joey says, not that we’ve ever been any more buddies than you’re a buddy of the guy who mugs you in a back alley. Definitely not pals. “The way I see it, I’ve got fifteen grand coming my way.”

“Five,” I say before I can stop myself. That’s another problem I have. Can’t keep my damned trap shut. Talk first, think later—that’s me. One day it will be the death of me. Seriously.

“Compound interest, Frankie. Plus a penalty, whatcha call a late fee. Just like the IRS. Like I said—you shoulda sent me a few letters while I was away. Kept up with your payments, you know?”

I only thought I was in a bad spot. Five gees is way beyond my means, let alone, what, two, three times as much. Might as well be a million. So I do the only thing a guy in my position can do: I lie. “I’ve got your money, Joey. Honest.” Guys like Joey appreciate it when you tell them you’re being honest. It reassures them. “It’ll take me a few days to get at it, is all. Maybe a week.” My mind is swimming. “Two, tops.” Two years wouldn’t be long enough for me to raise that kind of money.

Joey doesn’t say anything. For a minute I think we’ve been disconnected, but no such luck. Me and luck, we ain’t on a first-name basis, let me tell you. We’re hardly even on speaking terms. I’ve been doing my best to stay away from racetracks and casinos, because that’s what got me into this mess in the first place. Bad luck. Those places, they know what they’re doing, with their free booze and pretty girls. They mess with your mind, make you take risks you wouldn’t ordinarily.

“I don’t wanna have to do something we’ll both regret,” Joey says finally. That’s pretty funny, too, because Joey doesn’t regret anything except lending money to deadbeats and getting busted by the cops. Everything else about his business he plain enjoys, including sending a few guys overdosed on steroids to beat someone into seeing the wisdom of getting back on the payment schedule. He absolutely loves that. Sometimes he rides along just to watch.

“Don’t suppose you’d take a check,” I say with a laugh that sounds hollow to my ears.

Joey chuckles. “Tell you what,” he says. “Stop by and see me tomorrow afternoon . . . let me check here . . . around two. You know the place. Then you can tell me how you’re gonna come up with that much money when you can’t afford a Happy Meal. Then I’ll explain your options.” He doesn’t say “Capice” at the end, because he’s trying to get away from his ethnic roots, but I hear it all the same. He hangs up without saying goodbye. I guess he has other calls to make, other people to intimidate. Busy guy.

Joey’s call ruins my day to say the least. Likely to spoil the rest of my pathetic life, too, unless I can come up with a plan, and fast. The only thing I can think to do is join my buddies down at Marty’s at the end of Beacon Street in Chelsea, near the river. That’s where some of my best thinking gets done. Some of my worst, too, to be honest, but I’m all out of options, and I don’t look forward to hearing the ones Joey will have for me tomorrow.

The boys and me, we have a table near the back. It’s next to the bathrooms, so it’s almost always free. We have this thing we do whenever one of us arrives. Everyone who’s already there calls out the guy’s name, just like on TV with that big guy, Norm. It sounds a little lame when there’s only one person there, but it picks up after that, and we always get a kick out of it. I like hearing my buddies calling out my name. I mean, there are probably people in the world who don’t have two friends to do something like that for them, let alone four.

The guys figure out pretty fast that there’s something on my mind, probably on account of the way I ask Holly for a shot with my beer. I don’t usually splurge on liquor, but I’m willing to go a day without food for that warm burn and its afterglow. After all, if I don’t come up with a plan, and soon, I’m not going to be eating anything that won’t go through a straw—and that’s only if Joey is feeling generous. Not a trait he’s known for.

“What’s up, Frankie?” Huey asks. His real name is Donald, but we call him Huey, you know, like in the cartoons. He doesn’t seem to mind. We could have picked Duey, after all.

Holly delivers my drinks, and the others hold their questions while I take care of business. They all know I’m sweet on Holly, but she’s out of my league. You can tell she’s got class, in spite of the get-up Marty makes her wear. I think she looks sweet in her ripped T-shirt and skimpy shorts, but she’d look good in anything. She always has a smile for me, and today’s no exception. I want to say something cheerful and witty, but I’ve got a lot on my mind, so all I manage is “Thanks,” which is kind of lame, because just about everyone says that.

The scotch burns all the way down, like kerosene. The beer puts out the fire, which I guess is why you drink them in that order. I clear my throat and say, “Joey DeStefano called me a while ago. He’s out of jail.”

My friends all nod. Most of them have done business with Joey, so they know what that means. “How much you owe him?” Edgar asks. The others are probably wondering the same thing, but Edgar’s the only one who would come right out and ask. He’s about six-six, two-eighty, and thick as two short planks, whatever that means. It’s one of those things my daddy used to say that sounds like it makes sense, but doesn’t. Edgar’s a solid guy, though. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for a person—friend or stranger. Happy? Let me tell you, you’ll never meet a happier guy this side of the looney bin.

“Fifteen,” I say. There’s no point in lying. If I make it less, the guys might not think it’s so bad. I mean, most of them live in houses, and some of them even have regular jobs. Like I said, it might as well be a million bucks for me, but for the others maybe it’s not very much.

“Whoa,” Mikey says in that high-pitched girlie voice of his, and the others look equally shocked, so I guess it is a lot after all.

“Whatcha gonna do?” Vinnie asks. “I mean, you don’t got that much, right?”

“Huh,” I say. “I’ve never seen that much money in one place in my whole life. Supposed to be only five, but Joey said there’s compound interest and late fees.”

“Like the IRS,” Edgar says. He had some bad dealings with them a few years back. Almost went to jail, but that didn’t dampen his spirits one bit. At least the Feds weren’t going to break his jaw, or chop off a finger, or kill him, nothing like that. I mean, that’s not the sort of stuff they do, is it?

“Yeah, that’s what he said.”

We’re all quiet for a while. Holly comes by often to see if we need anything. She takes good care of us. I wish I had more money, so I could tip her every now and then, but she doesn’t seem to hold it against me. She must sense something’s wrong, though, because the fourth time she passes our table she says, “It’s happy hour. Next round is on the house.” We all know it isn’t, because Marty’s never has happy hour, especially not one where the drinks are free, but it’s kind of her to offer, and we pretty much have to play along or else it would be like we were calling her a liar, right?

After we finish this round of drinks, Vinnie comes up with a great idea. I mean, Einstein would have been proud of this one. The way he lays it out, it’s like something you might see on TV or at the movies, it’s that brilliant. All I have to do is tell Joey we’re going to rob a bank, and that will be the end of my problems.

“He’ll love it,” Mikey says. “You’ll see.”

* * *

“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Joey says the next afternoon when I meet him at the bowling alley on Saratoga where he hangs out. He has a big booth not far from the counter where they rent shoes that’s within shouting distance of the bar.

Trying my best not to look too hurt by his reaction, I explain how we have the whole thing worked out. We sketched it all out on a napkin and transferred it to a sheet of paper Holly fetched for us from Marty’s office. Edgar knows where to get ski masks, I tell him, and Huey says he can come up with a few guns.

“So, when is this great heist scheduled for?” Joey asks.

“Next week,” I say, being careful not to spill all the beans. “We still have to case the joint and get our gear together. Pick up a getaway car. You know, stuff like that.” Joey must have robbed his fair share of banks in his time. Where else would he get all the money that he lends people?

“Right,” he says. “Right.” I can tell he’s thinking about something from the way he says it, like he’s talking to himself. Then he looks me square in the eyes and says, “Do you know what assets are, Frankie?”

“Yeah,” I say, though I have only a vague idea.

“Then you understand that I have to protect mine.” Joey waves at the bartender and a few seconds later a buxom waitress on roller skates arrives with a glass of draft. I’m not offended that he didn’t ask me if I wanted anything. Not much, anyway. He takes a sip, wipes his mouth on his sleeve and says, “Right now, Frankie, you’re one of my assets. You’re worth fifteen grand on the books. How you gonna pay me back if you get arrested during this crazy stick-up?”

“It’s not crazy,” I say, though probably not loud enough to be heard over the rumbling from the nearby bowling lanes.

“You ever hit a bank before?”

I contemplate lying again. All it would take is the word “Yeah,” but then he’d probably ask me questions I couldn’t answer, so I shake my head. “Convenience stores, though,” I say. “And a liquor store once.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember that job. As I recall, the guy behind the counter tripped the alarm, and you had to high-tail it outta there with nothing.”

“Mikey got a case of smokes.”

“This is how it’s gonna be, Frankie. You and me, we’re gonna be partners. You don’t do nothing without checking with me first.” Again, no “Capice,” but I can tell he wants to say it. “You’re no good to me cooling your heels in Walpole.”

I’m no good to him in traction, either, but I keep this thought to myself. Around Joey, I do a much better job of keeping my mouth shut than usual, because all he needs to do is nod at the right guy and my body would end up in a landfill with a bowling ball crammed down my throat.

“I hear you been doing stuff you’re not telling me about, and we’ll talk again, and it won’t be in such posh surroundings. Clear?”

I nod without saying anything. Feels like the bowling ball is already wedged in my throat.

* * *

This bank job is complicated. Not penny ante stuff like we’ve done where we see a place, go in, stick our index fingers through our jacket pockets, and take what we can. Unless, of course, the guy behind the counter triggers the alarm, as Joey so kindly reminded me. None of us ever cased a place before, so we find some paperback novels with bank robberies in them and read those parts a few times until we know what to do. Edgar underlines all the important passages, so we can refer to them again.

Huey comes up with two starter pistols, two cap guns and a flare gun. They look pretty real to me. It’s not like we’re going to shoot anyone, after all. Edgar must have looted his grandmother’s knitting basket for the ski masks. They have bright stripes and pom-poms on the top.

Mikey scouts a couple of banks in Chelsea, but when I tell Joey about this, he snorts and says something about not crapping in your own backyard, which I take to mean we shouldn’t rob a bank in the neighborhood. Because Vinnie is the only one with a car, he scopes out a couple of places across the Mystic. He brings Mikey along to take pictures, something we learned from one of those paperbacks we skimmed.

Joey keeps calling me to find out what’s going on, and I keep answering because I think it might be one of the guys. “Tick tock,” he tells me during one of these calls to remind me he’s not going to wait forever for us to pull off the gig, and the interest is mounting daily. “Pretty soon you’re going to owe me twenty gees,” he says, which boggles my mind.

The night before the bank job, we meet at Marty’s, like always. Vinnie and Mikey are the last ones to arrive. “Vinnie,” the three of us say, because he’s a few steps ahead. We wait for him to sit down and then call out “Mikey.” I catch sight of Holly picking up a drink-laden tray from the bartender. She’s smiling. For a second, I almost forget about all that money.

Mikey pulls a bunch of pictures from his coat pocket. After Holly delivers our orders, he spreads them across the tabletop. “This is the place. It’s not one of those chain banks. Vinnie thought they would probably have more experience getting robbed, so we eliminated them.”

The rest of us nod. Makes perfect sense. From the outside, it looks like just about any other bank. A brick building with double doors in front. There’s a parking lot to one side and meters on the street in front.

The bar gets quiet all of a sudden. When we look up, there’s Joey looming over us with two thugs in tow. Joey might be trying to play down his ethnic origins, but he and his musclemen look exactly like what they are: Trouble with a capital T.

“Frankie, you neglected to invite me to this little rendezvous.” He likes to throw around big words like that. He looks at my friends. “Gentlemen,” he says, as if he’s just stopping by to say hello. No such luck. He grabs an empty chair from a nearby table and pulls up next to me. One of his goons watches the main entrance, and the other keeps an eye on us.

“I was going to call you,” I say. “Honest.”

Joey grabs Mikey’s pictures and looks them over. He holds one up to the guy staring at us the way a Rottweiler eyes a chunk of beef

“Whatcha think?”

The goon squints at it and nods, which is hard for him to do since he doesn’t have a neck. “Could be done,” he says.

“When are you planning to hit it?” Joey asks me.

“Tomorrow.”

“What time?”

That’s a detail we haven’t worked out yet. “Ten o’clock,” I say, picking a number out of the air, because I’m on the spot.

“Right when they open. Good thinking,” Joey says. “I’m coming witcha.”

About twenty things leap into my mind. Fortunately, none of them make it past my lips. I nod.

Joey looks at the others. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says. I’m glad he does, because I sure as hell don’t. “An extra mouth at the table.” When no one picks up on this, he says, “I’m not looking for a cut of the money. Just what Frankie here owes me. I’m simply protecting my assets.”

Edgar raises his hand like a schoolboy who needs to use the bathroom. Joey stares at him. “What?”

“Our car.”

“What about it?”

“It only holds five people.” Edgar points at each of us in turn, except for Joey and his thugs. “One, two, three, four, five.” For Edgar, that’s advanced math. Calculus, almost. The IRS guy must have had a ball explaining deductions and withholdings to him.

“My guys here will get a van. That way there’ll be room for all those bags of money you’ll be hauling out of the bank.”

“Good idea,” Huey says.

“Meet me here at nine,” Joey says. He leaves us with our warm beer and our photographs and a plan that hadn’t accounted for huge bags of money. I wonder what else we’ve overlooked. All I want is to get out of the hole for a while. I haven’t thought about anything beyond that.

I seldom do.

* * *

The battered white van pulls up in front of Marty’s right on schedule. Gus, the goon behind the wheel, gets out and Joey tells me to drive. He’s traveling light—I’ve never seen him with only one bodyguard before. “Understand this,” he tells me. “You get us lost or stuck in traffic, and the fish they serve at that new restaurant near the aquarium on Central Wharf are going to be of the well-fed variety, if you catch my drift.”

I catch his drift. The van makes me nervous, because I’ve never driven anything where I have to use side mirrors to see behind, but I get us through the toll plaza and across the Mystic River Bridge without sideswiping some delivery truck crowding my lane.

We get to the block where the bank is located with thirty minutes to spare. Edgar volunteers to go to Dunkin’ Donuts and get us all coffee and something to eat while we wait, which I think is pretty nice of him, but Joey tells him to stay put. So we sit in the van, seven guys all wearing baseball caps, all with eyes for only one thing—the bank across the street. Gus grunts when he sees our weapons. “Watcha gonna do with that one?” Joey says, pointing at the flare gun. “Alert the Coast Guard?”

Huey’s lower lip juts out a fraction of an inch.

“This is how it’s going to work,” Joey says, even though we went over everything during the drive. “Frankie is going to stay with the van. He’s gonna keep the motor running and the side door ajar. The minute he sees us running out, he’s gonna slide open the side door, jump back into his seat and be ready to go the minute I say so.” Talking about me as if I’m not even here.

“Gus and me, we’ll go in first. All of us go at once, the guards are gonna think something’s hinky.”

Edgar laughs. Joey gives him a look, not realizing that Edgar probably thinks “hinky” is a dirty word.

“Gus and me will wait at the place where you fill out deposit slips. Thirty seconds later, the rest of you cross the street. Look at the ground. There are cameras outside the bank, too. Talk to each other like you’re good buddies, not four guys about to rob a bank.”

“We are good buddies,” Edgar says.

Joey glares at him, a look he probably practices in the mirror. “When you reach the door, pull on your masks. Forget about those toy guns. Gus and me, we’ll show the guards our pieces and make sure they don’t cause any trouble. You four move in on the tellers and get them to fill these.” Joey hands around garbage bags from a roll. “Don’t let them take anything off the bottom of the till or do nothing funny with their feet. We’ll probably get a dye pack or two, but we’ll let Edgar here open those. He’d probably enjoy it.”

Edgar grins. I can imagine him engulfed by a cloud of purple dye wearing that same smile.

All the while, I’m watching the dashboard clock. A couple of people are hanging around outside the bank entrance, waiting for it to open. At ten o’clock, a teller appears at the door, turns the lock with her key, and pushes it open. “We’re on,” Joey says. “Remember—wait thirty seconds. One Mississippi, two Mississippi.”

“Three Mississippi,” Edgar says. “Four Mississippi.”

“Not yet,” Joey says. “Don’t start until Gus and me are inside. And leave behind anything that could identify you. I don’t want one of you dunderheads dropping your wallet on the way out and squirreling the whole deal.” He and Gus remove their own wallets and put them on the bench seat. “Remember to put on your masks unless you want your faces plastered all over WBZ at six.”

Even though it’s a cool morning, I sweat behind the wheel of the stuffy old van. Gus pulls open the side door, and he and Joey climb out. Edgar starts counting Mississippis after Joey and Gus go inside. When he reaches thirty, he, Vinnie, Huey and Mikey cross the street, staring at the ground and waving their hands like they’re discussing baseball or women. The moment they reach the steps, I start the engine, make a U-turn and pull into an empty spot in front of the bank. Then I reach back, open the sliding door a crack, and stare at the entrance.

It seems like they’re inside forever, but it’s only a few seconds. Then the front door swings open and they come tumbling down the steps toward the van. I push the side door open the rest of the way, check the mirrors for traffic and hit the street before the door slams shut.

“It worked?” I ask.

“Just drive,” Vinnie says. “Go a few blocks, turn the corner and pull over.” He takes his ski mask from his pocket and stuffs it into one of Joey’s garbage bags. The others follow suit.

I park next to a fire hydrant on a side street. Everyone grabs the gear, and we get out and saunter along the sidewalk as if we’re out for a leisurely stroll. A Boston PD squad car roars past on the main street, sirens blaring, lights flashing. Sooner or later the van will get towed, and that will be the end of that. A few blocks east, we encounter another Dunkin’ Donuts. We toss the bag of masks into a Dumpster in the parking lot, along with the weapons and the gloves we’ve all been wearing so we wouldn’t leave fingerprints inside the van. Those paperback novels are good for details like that, things we might have overlooked.

We go inside, order coffee and donuts, and sit around a big table near the window where we can watch the parade of blue-and-white cop cars heading toward the scene of the crime.

“Well?” I ask, impatient to hear what happened.

“Like clockwork,” Huey says.

“Exactly like we planned it,” Vinnie says.

“Tell me,” I say.

“As soon as Joey and Gus see us coming through the door, they put on their masks and pull out their pistols. Then Mikey yells, ‘Oh my God, they’ve got guns,’ in his girliest girly voice and the guards are all over them faster than you can blink,” Huey says, taking a big bite out of his donut. “In two seconds flat, they have them both on the ground crying uncle. No one figured out who yelled.”

“They just let you go?”

“They were too busy taking care of Gus and Joey,” Mikey says. “We just turned around and walked right back out.”

“Armed robbery,” I say. “Should be good for ten years, right?”

“At least,” Vinnie says. “Looks like you don’t have to worry about Joey DeStefano for a while.”

“You’re sure he won’t rat us out?”

Vinnie shrugs. “If he thought we set him up, he might, but this way it just looks like the job went bad, and we vamoosed. The cops have him dead to rights—they’d have no reason to make any deals.”

“You guys are the best,” I say—and they are. They saved my bacon. Vinnie was the one who predicted that Joey would insist on taking over our robbery, and they all played their parts brilliantly. Even Edgar.

“Wait, there’s more,” Huey says. He reaches into his pocket and hands me two wallets, stuffed with cash. I glance inside one and see a bunch of brand new hundred-dollar bills. I don’t want to count it sitting in front of the window with all those cops running around, but there must be a few thousand bucks in them. “Joey and Gus left them in the van,” he says.

“What are we waiting for?” I say. “By the time we walk back to Marty’s, it’ll be time for a beer, dontcha think?” I hold up the thicker of the two wallets. “Joey’s buying.” And this time, Holly’s going to get a nice tip, too. Maybe the biggest of her life. I’ve got a lot to make up for. Maybe I’ll even take her out to dinner with my share of the money.

“I have a question,” Edgar says as we head toward the bridge. The confused look on his face is familiar to the rest of us.

“What?” I ask.

“Whose name we gonna call out if we all get there at the same time?”

“We’ll figure out something along the way,” I tell him. “We’re good at that.”

Bev Vincent is the Edgar® and Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Stephen King Illustrated Companion. He’s a contributing editor with Cemetery Dance magazine and has written over fifty short stories, appearing in places like Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the MWA anthology The Blue Religion, and other anthologies including When the Night Comes Down, Evolve and Who Died in Here? His website is bevvincent.com.

A Good, Safe Place

Judith Green

As Celeste hitched her walker into the living room, she stopped short. “Who are you?” she demanded.

The young woman looked up from the old rolltop desk where she had been rearranging stacks of papers, a feather duster tucked under one arm. She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “I’m Lisa, dear,” she said with elaborate patience, as if she were talking to a child. “I’m here to help you while your daughter is away.”

Watch your tone, young lady. Celeste pushed her walker across the floor and lowered herself into her armchair. “Is Margery at school? She teaches school, you know.”

“No, Margery’s in Wisconsin, dear,” this Lisa person chirped. “They all went out for Melanie’s graduation. Oh, aren’t you just so proud of your granddaughter?” she added, with that false, bright smile. “Now, can I get you anything? A cup of tea? Are you warm enough, dear? Would you like a blanket over your legs?”

Celeste waved the questions away. She wished the woman would stop fussing. She looked at the desk, its top still rolled up to expose bundles of yellowed papers, a stack of leather-covered ledgers, a box of old Christmas cards. “What are you doing in there?” she asked. “What are you looking for?”

The woman looked at the desk, then at her. “Me? Why, nothing, dear. You were looking for something in the desk this morning. Shall I close it?”

“No. Leave it.” This morning? Had this woman been here already this morning? This person—What had she said her name was? Never mind.

At any rate, that had been Walter’s desk. Ever since he’d been gone, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to use it. She kept her important papers in—Hm. Well, they were in a good, safe place. Somewhere.

“What’s that sound?” Celeste’s head snapped around. “Who’s in the kitchen?”

“My husband,” the woman said. “I hope you don’t mind if he—”

But Celeste hauled herself to her feet again and started hitching her walker toward the kitchen doorway. At the table by the window sat a beefy sort of man unwrapping a hamburger. He nodded curtly in Celeste’s direction, and then laid the hamburger on the paper it had come in and reached a paw into a white paper bag for a fistful of french fries. Celeste could smell the hot grease.

She peered out the kitchen window. “Whose car is that out there?”

The woman had followed her into the kitchen. “Why, that’s our car, dear.”

“What’s it doing in the back yard?” Celeste asked. “We’ve always parked in the driveway, right next to the front steps. There’s plenty of room, now that they’ve taken my car away. He needn’t go mucking up my back yard.” She glared at the man, who kept his eyes fixed on his hamburger, holding it in both hands as if it might get away. He took a huge bite and chewed noisily.

“Oh, but,” said the woman, “that’s where Margery told us to put it.”

“Why would she tell you that?” Celeste hitched herself around so that she could look at the woman again. “Who did you say you were?”

Again that sigh, the droop of the shoulders. “I’m Lisa, dear. Your caregiver.”

“Caregiver!” Celeste snorted. “That’s a stupid word if I’ve ever heard one!”

But the girl did look familiar. Where had Celeste seen her before? In the grocery store? Yesterday, perhaps, at the hairdresser’s. There’d been someone getting a trim, all swaddled up with that sheet thing around her neck, while she and Gladys had been under the hair dryers. Celeste had caught the person’s eye in the mirror once, while Gladys had been going on the way she always did, shouting over the roar of the dryers about immigrants who can’t speak English. Oh, and about banks failing all over the country. The two of them had been smart, Gladys said, to get their money out yesterday before their own town’s bank failed.

Celeste shook her head. Whatever would she do without Gladys?

“Here’s your lunch,” the woman said, trotting over to the table with a sandwich of some sort, neatly cut in quarters, on a plate. “By the way, you’re out of coffee.”

“I couldn’t be!” Celeste homed in on the table. The meaty husband had, mercifully, already choked down his hamburger and was just heading out the back door. “I’m sure there’s at least half a jar of coffee left.”

“Well—” The woman held up the jar, which held nothing except a dark crust around the bottom. “Empty!” she sang.

“Hmph!” Celeste snorted. This woman’s husband must have drunk up quarts of Celeste’s good instant coffee to wash down that nasty hamburger. She hmphed again as the man let the back door slam shut behind him so hard that a satchel stuffed full of folded brown-paper grocery bags jumped off the doorknob and fell to the floor.

“Let’s just hang this over here, shall we?” The woman crossed the floor to hang the satchel on the cellar doorknob. “Now, what else do we need? We should start a list. Probably the usual. Bread, milk. Are we out of eggs?”

We? Celeste gripped the edge of the kitchen table and hoisted herself out of her chair, then grasped her walker and swung it smartly into position. She hitched her way back into the living room and lowered herself into her armchair. She always felt more—well, collected in her armchair. Smarter, with her calendar, and her box of Kleenex, and her magazines, and the TV remote, and a nice hundred-watt bulb in the lamp. She thought of her armchair as Headquarters.

But the woman had followed her, carrying the plate with the quartered sandwich, which she laid on Celeste’s card table, right on top of the letters Celeste had been meaning to answer. Now she hovered, backlit by the early summer sunlight streaming in at the window so that her face was in shadow. “Would you like to go after you’ve finished your lunch?” she asked.

“Go where?”

“To the grocery store!”

“Oh, that.” Ignoring the sandwich on its little plate, Celeste riffled through the magazines in the basket next to her chair and drew out a Woman’s Day. “What did you say your name was?”

“I’m Lisa, dear. So we’ll go to the grocery store right after lunch.”

“Oh, no.” Celeste peered at the magazine’s brightly colored cover. Hm. Easy Summer Barbecues Your Family Will Love. “I always take a nap after lunch. Besides, I do my shopping with Gladys Whitman.”

“Yes, but Gladys is in Millinocket, isn’t she? She went to visit her sister for the Memorial Day weekend.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose.”

“So we’ll go right after lunch, okay?”

Oh, dear. Go where? The young woman seemed to expect an answer, so Celeste smiled her sweetest smile. “We’ll see,” she said.

She looked back down at the magazine in her lap. Turn Your Deck Into An Outdoor Living Room. That sounded interesting.

* * *

“My, my, look at you!” chirped the woman. “I came in to fix your supper, and here you are eating already!”

What was the woman’s name? Priscilla? No, that didn’t sound right. Melissa? Celeste gave up and went back to her toast. She’d fixed it as she always did, buttered and then a thin skim of marmalade, with a cup of tea to which she’d added a half-teaspoon of sugar and a dite of milk from the plastic jug in the fridge.

Hm. The milk might have gone by. Perhaps this woman could make herself useful and get some more. Otherwise Celeste would have to call Brenda, next door. She hated to bother Brenda.

“What else would you like to eat this evening, dear?” The woman opened the cupboard door and began moving things about. In a matter of moments, she had the saltines next to a box of cereal, and the cans of soup where the sack of sugar ought to be.

“Leave that be!” Celeste snapped. “I’ve already made my supper!”

“Oh, yes, dear,” the woman said. “But just a piece of toast won’t be enough.” She stood on tiptoe to survey the top shelf. “How about a can of Chef Boyardee spaghetti?”

“Thanks, but no.”

The woman closed the cupboard door and looked at Celeste, her skinny blond eyebrows drawn together in a worried frown. “Well, then. I’ll get a load of laundry started.” She bustled into the back room, and Celeste could hear her opening the cupboard doors in there, too. “Just looking for the laundry soap,” she called.

“Well, it’s in there somewhere.” Celeste took a sip of her tea. Yes, the milk was quite definitely off. She’d really have to see about sending that woman to the store in the morning for another pint.

Did she have any money in her pocketbook? No, she’d put her last dollar bill in the collection plate last Sunday. She glanced over at the satchel of shopping bags hanging from the cellar doorknob. She’d better give the woman at least ten dollars. There was bound to be something else they needed. Perhaps even a twenty.

But before she could begin the process of getting up, the washing machine started up with a slosh, and the woman reappeared beside her chair. “Can I get you more tea, dear?”

“No, thank you,” Celeste said. “I always have one cup.”

“You just enjoy it, then, and I’ll go turn down your bed.” And the woman scuttled toward Celeste’s bedroom. Well, properly it was the dining room, but Margery had insisted that she sleep downstairs after she took that fall—was it last year? Two years ago?

Now, there’d been something she wanted that woman—Lisa! That was it! Lisa!—to get at the store. But what?

Celeste looked around the kitchen, hoping for inspiration. She took another sip of her tea. Hm. Was the milk a little off?

* * *

“Hey, Mom, how’s it going? This is Ted.”

Celeste sat up on the edge of her bed, where she’d been having a bit of a lie-down after supper, and smiled into the telephone. “Why, hello, sweetheart. How nice to hear your voice. How’s Nellie?”

“She’s great. Just great. So— Everything’s okay? You’re eating, and everything? Taking your meds?”

“Yes, yes. I presume that your sister asked you to check up on me while she’s gone.”

“Yeah, well—”

“She’s always worrying about me. Silly girl, hiring someone to stay here with me while she’s away. I’ve been perfectly used to living alone ever since your father died, but Margery stops in every day on her way home from school and—”

“Wait a minute, Mom. Did you say she hired someone?”

“Why, this woman Lisa, of course. Her husband, too, I suppose, though he’s been mostly tidying the cellar and the attic. Just for something to do, he said.”

“Mom, there’s someone staying there with you?”

“I told you: this woman Lisa and her husband. She’s very attentive—”

“Mom—”

“But I wish her husband would park in the driveway instead of behind the house.”

“Mom! These people—”

“It’s just while Margery’s gone. She’s in Wisconsin, you know.”

“Yes, Mom. For Melanie’s college graduation. But about these people— ”

“What people?”

“Staying with you. How do you know them?”

“I told you. Margery got them to—”

“Crap! Mom, are you sure—”

“Language!”

“Sorry. Look, Mom, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to try to get hold of Margery.”

“But, sweetie, we’ve hardly—”

“Bye, Mom.”

Celeste sat glaring at the receiver before she replaced it in the cradle. “Boys!” she muttered. “They’ll never tell you what’s on their minds!”

“Who was that?” Lisa stood in the doorway. Her hair was tousled, and festooned with bits of cobweb. Helping her husband in the attic, most likely.

“Hm? Are you all right, dear? You seem awfully tired.”

Lisa straightened up. Plastered that cheery smile on her face. “I was just wondering who you were talking to on the phone.”

“The phone?” Celeste looked down at it, resting quietly on the bookcase beside the bed. “Oh, the phone. I was talking to my son in California. He just called to say hello, but he never stays on the line for very long.” She sighed. “It gets lonesome sometimes.” She looked up at Lisa. “Would you like to look at some pictures for a minute?”

“Uh—yes, sure.”

Celeste patted the bedspread, signaling Lisa to sit next to her, and pulled a photograph album off the lowest shelf of the bookcase. She opened it, spreading it across both their laps. She pointed to a blurry snapshot of a tiny baby in a carriage, so bundled up that nothing showed but a button of a nose. “This is Ted. The one who called. And here he is holding Billy, my other son,” she added, pointing to another snapshot. “I remember when that picture was taken. He was so afraid he’d drop the baby and break him.”

The page crumbled slightly at the edges as she turned it. Tiny fragments of black paper slid into her lap, and she brushed them off onto the floor. “And this is Margery. Here she is when she was four. Look at those fat little legs! This is her with her favorite doll. You know, I haven’t had this album out for years! Now, here’s Billy with his first bicycle. Doesn’t he look—”

“Beautiful children.” Lisa smiled brightly. “But, oh, my, look at the time! Shouldn’t we be getting you ready for bed?”

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