Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011
- Автор: Коуди Лиза, Faherty Terence
- Год: 2011
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011». Краткое содержание книги:
She’d inherited the farm when her own boys were little. She and Royce had spent a fortune renovating it and making it the perfect weekend getaway. They dug a pond on the back forty and would come up every weekend when the boys were young. But for the last few years she’d driven up on her own, hiring Merv to fix things around the place and to keep the furnace going all winter so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. All this so the whole family could come up for Thanksgiving and Christmas. How long had it been since they’d all been here together? Was it last Christmas? The year before? She refused to think about it.
It was the damned dog’s fault. All of it. Sadie, an elderly Rhodesian Ridgeback. “Rhodesian swayback, more like,” she’d joked when she first saw the creature — only nobody had laughed. She was a rescue, Emily had said piously, as though she herself had fought her way across the grasslands of Zimbabwe to snatch the animal from the jaws of a lion.
How Moira hated the mangy bitch. Hated her wantonness, the disgusting teats swinging from her slack belly like overripe fruit, the look of disdain she’d given Moira the first time she went into heat and started flagging her tail at male dogs. She’d marched her off to the clinic to have her spayed, but the young veterinarian had refused. Too old, he’d said. It would endanger her health, he’d said. What about my health, Moira had wanted to wail. What about me?
She raised the leg of her trousers to examine her knee. It didn’t look good. A deep purple bruise was spreading over the swollen kneecap and an inch or two up the tightening skin on her thigh. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket, fished some ice cubes from her glass, and knotted them into a wet parcel. She yelped as the scotch hit raw skin.
At that moment, the lights went out. She listened as the refrigerator stuttered a couple of times and fell silent, and within a few seconds she heard the furnace click off. She waited until her eyes adjusted to the dark before heaving herself to her feet and, clutching her empty glass, limped slowly into the kitchen and felt through the drawer for a flashlight. When she turned it on, a weak yellow beam was all it could offer. She ran her hand over the counter until she found the scotch bottle, spilling some on her fingers as she poured. There were logs in the fireplace and a jar of matches in the cupboard above the fridge, but her knee felt too wobbly to risk climbing onto the stool to reach it. She wandered back to the living room and when her foot found the sofa again, she sank into it.
She woke to a definite chill in the air and a pounding headache. She should eat something, but the groceries were still in bags on the vestibule floor and she couldn’t muster up enough energy to search through them in the dark. She felt around on the floor for the flashlight, but the batteries were finally dead. There was no dial tone on the portable phone in her lap but she remembered the landline on the bedside table. She felt her way into the bedroom and punched in Merv’s phone number.
“You know what time it is?” Merv’s voice was hoarse with sleep.
“How am I supposed to know what time it is? I can’t see an inch in front of my face.” Moira’s mouth was dry, her throat scratchy.
“Hydro trucks are out, but it’s going to be awhile before they get things going again.” Moira could hear him lighting a cigarette, taking a long drag. “What made you drive up in this storm?”
Moira ignored the question. “You’re going to have to come over and start the generator. I’m freezing to death.”
“It’s midnight, Mrs. Tappin. I’m not going out in this weather. I’ll try to get over on the snowmobile first thing in the morning.”
“Morning?” Moira cried. “I’ll be dead by morning.”
“I laid a nice fire for you. You won’t freeze.”
“I can’t reach the matches.” She was crying now, tears coursing down her cheeks.
“Bundle up and you’ll be fine until I get there. Just don’t turn on the taps. The pump’s off and—” A dog barked close to the phone.
“Wait a minute,” she interrupted him. “Whose dog is that?”
There was silence on the line.
“Merv? You don’t have a dog.” Her head was pounding.
“Well, sure we do, ma’am. Got ourselves a nice little puppy since you were here.” Merv’s voice had gone very quiet.
“That wasn’t a puppy. That’s Sadie, isn’t it? You didn’t shoot her after all.”
“Sure I did. She’s right where you told me to put her. In that big hole she’d dug by the barn.” Merv was speaking quickly now, anxious to get off the phone.
“I don’t believe you.”
“So long, Mrs. Tappin. See you in the morning.” Moira heard the click as he hung up the phone. She hit redial but the line went straight to voice mail.
“Coward!” she shouted into the darkness. “If I find...”
She stumbled back to the parlor, shivering in her wool sweater and corduroy pants. She found her coat on the chair where she’d dropped it and limped into the vestibule to feel around for her boots among the fallen groceries.
The wind flattened her coat against her body as she stepped into the storm. Once off the steps she turned and moved slowly along the side of the house, supporting herself with her hands against the cold stone until she made her way to the back deck. She turned away from the house and into the gale. Fifty feet ahead of her the barn loomed black through the blizzard. She squinted and thought she could just make out a dimple in the snow where two months ago Sadie had dug her last enormous hole, throwing up stones and precious rosebushes in her wake, ignoring the screams and frantic pounding of Moira’s fists on the window. She knew she’d never get outside in time and had watched helplessly from behind the glass as the dog finally tired of her mad burrowing and lowered herself into the new lair.
Moira had reached for the phone and the deal was struck. Merv told her to tie the dog to a fence post when she left for the city and leave the check under the mat on the front verandah. Later, he would come over with his rifle. When the deed was done he would bury her in the hole she’d just dug. That was the way Moira wanted it. That way justice would be done.
But Merv had betrayed her, hadn’t he? Kept the dog and kept the money, too. The thought filled her with rage. She pushed her hands deep into her pockets and, leaning into the wind, set out, wincing from the pain in her knee and the sting of icy pellets on her face. Each footstep seemed to sink deeper than the one before. Her right boot stuck and she pulled her foot free and continued on in her sock. She tripped over a snow-covered boulder but kept going, crawling now and flailing snow out of her path with numb, bare hands. Somewhere along the way she lost the other boot and her mitts. No matter. She was nearly there.
She slid into the depression Sadie had made. There was an explosion of pain from her swollen knee as it hit a rock. She cried out and floundered, trying to scramble up the other side, but the pain was excruciating. She turned back and saw that the lamps were back on in the parlor, spreading their warm light across the snow beneath the windows. She smiled and rested her head against the side of the cavity, letting the snow cover her like a huge eiderdown. She wondered if the dog would come.
The Tall Blonde With the Hot Boiler
by Harley Mazuk