Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018
- Автор: Ловси Питер, Зельцерман Дэйв
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018». Краткое содержание книги:
“How much.”
“A hundred grand.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
She rinsed her cloth and went back to cleaning Lizzy’s hair.
“Not as much as it would cost for a lawyer to fight a murder charge,” said Lizzy. “Not as much as it would cost to lose the election.”
“If I agree to a hundred thousand dollars...”
“Per year,” Lizzy interjected.
Wanda yanked the tuft of hair she was cleaning. Lizzy yelped and slapped Wanda’s hand away.
“You want me to call nine-one-one and get this over with?” said Wanda. “Because I will, I swear it. We can make this tragic accident disappear to our mutual benefit, but that’s a big risk that I’m only willing to take if you’re going to be reasonable.”
Lizzy gestured toward Homer’s decapitated body. “You call that reasonable?”
“You did your part to make this happen,” said Wanda. “So don’t you go thinking you’ve got all that much leverage.”
“Then you go on and call the cops, Mrs. Coulda Been Attorney Gen’ral. ’Cause I got nothin’ to lose if you don’t make this worth my while.”
Wanda struggled to keep her fury in check.
“I’ll make it worth your while. Don’t you fret. But I’ll need to get Enoch on board, and he isn’t exactly in a negotiating mood at the moment.”
“Well, I ain’t gonna wait till the chickens stop layin’.”
“You want to speed things along? Go get those shovels out of your truck.”
The derelict storage sheds were almost two hundred years old, originally built to house slaves. Tonight the forced labor fell to Lizzie and Enoch. They’d chosen the fallow field behind the sheds for Homer’s grave, but were finding the ground hard to dig up, as if the earth were resisting their efforts. Enoch cracked at the crusty surface with his shovel blade again and again, his face aglow in the moonlight from a salty blend of sweat and tears.
Lizzie had never seen Enoch express the slightest vulnerability before, much less weep. She’d been in awe of him since kindergarten, where she’d become friends with his little brother. Everything about Enoch overshadowed Homer. Enoch had always been athletic — second-string quarterback on the high-school football team, varsity wrestler, pole vaulter. Homer, on the other hand, had been a wimp who measured his weightlifting prowess in increments of twelve ounces, bottled by Budweiser. She’d rarely been alone with Enoch without Homer around until the summer vacation of her junior year in high school. Homer and his parents went to visit an ailing aunt in Alabama and Lizzie wound up playing house with Enoch for two weeks. It had been a magical affair for them both, but Enoch left for college at the end of the summer and they’d never rekindled the fire. This was a painful regret she relived every time she heard his name or went out with a loser.
If Enoch had a flaw, it was his predictable habit of belittling Homer. Enoch was the model of confidence, Homer was the model of its lack, and Enoch never let Homer forget it. But at the moment, Enoch’s confidence seemed to be flagging. As she watched him dig his brother’s grave, he seemed fragile for once, like a robin’s egg, which only poured propane on the fire of her attraction to him.
It took them about an hour to dig their way through the sunbaked foot or two of crust, but once that was breeched, the digging went faster. For the first hour, they both dug from opposite ends, but when the hole got so deep that they had to dig from inside, there was room for only one person, so they took turns. Three hours later, they were both covered in the rich earth of the Mississippi Delta, arms and hands aching. Lizzie ran out of steam and they decided that the grave, which was taller than Enoch, was deep enough. He jumped into the hole to help her out. Putting his hands around Lizzie’s waist, he gave her the boost she needed. She felt tingly where he touched her. She brushed at the dirt on her clothes as he collected the shovels and tossed them out of the grave.
“You need me to fetch you a ladder?” she asked.
“I can manage.”
Enoch reached up and got a firm grip on the edge of the hole, then muscled himself up and out, arms bulging large from the strain.
“I swear,” said Lizzie, “you’ve got some impressive biceps on you.”
“I work at it,” he said, and flexed for her.
“Let me feel.” She gave him a suggestive grin and felt his arm. Then, on a whim, she dropped her hand to his crotch for a playful squeeze.
“Whoa!” he said.
“Just checking to see if there’s still a correlation,” she said. “It’s been a spell since I’ve squeezed the produce.”
He glanced over his shoulder and saw Wanda, in the distance, cleaning the interior of the truck with paper towels and Clorox Clean-Up.
“You’re lucky Wanda didn’t see,” said Enoch. “She’d shoot us both.”
“But she ain’t lookin’, is she?” She put her hand back on his fly, this time caressing more purposely. “Do you ever think about our time together?”
“Jesus H, Lizzie. Homer isn’t even cold.” But he made no attempt to remove Lizzie’s hand.
“I think about it all the time,” she said. “We was hot at it day and night, remember? I reckon it was the best sex I ever had, and I’ve had more than my share.”
She felt him growing hard beneath his clothes.
“I do wonder sometimes, what it would have been like for the two of us, but I can’t imagine a more inopportune time to think about it,” he said, gently pushing her hand away.
She lifted her hand to his chest and started brushing moist earth off his clothes.
“I’m sorry, Enoch,” she said. “I know you’re all ramped up over what happened to poor Homer. And I am beside myself too. I truly am. But life is movin’ so awful fast. And we was screwed by bad timin’ that summer. Maybe this terrible tragedy was the Lord’s way of throwin’ you and me back together, so’s at least one good thing could come of all this.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. He didn’t react for a moment, but then she felt the tip of his tongue on her lip, like a toe testing the waters.
“I’m a married man,” he said, as if excusing his tepid response. “Wanda’s the mother of my children.”
Lizzie cast her eyes downward, looking more embarrassed than she felt. She pushed a rock into the hole with her foot.
“I’m sure she means well. But you look me in the eye and tell me she ever got your hormones to spinnin’ like you know I do. You and me had the kind of somethin’ special you only come across once in a life. And I don’t think it ever ended.”
He looked warily back toward Wanda and Lizzie knew she had her hook in him. Then his brow furrowed with concern.
“Where’d she go?” he said.
Lizzie followed his gaze and saw that her truck was now empty. Then her head seemed to explode.
Enoch stared dumbfounded at Lizzie’s body on the ground. Wanda felt blood drip on her hand from the shovel. She lowered the blade in disgust. Her eyes were on Lizzie, watching for movement in case she needed another whack.
“Are you crazy?” said Enoch. “What if she’s dead?”
He sounded panicky. The last thing Wanda needed right now. The idea of being first lady to the attorney general sort of lost its luster if the AG were to be convicted of felony murder and obstruction of justice. Especially if he implicated Wanda too.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me. But maybe it’s a good thing. We need to protect your future. Isn’t that the most important thing? You could be governor someday if we put all this behind us.”
“My brother’s death was an accident. This wasn’t. I’m a judge, for Christ’s sake.”
“If that girl talked, you could spend the rest of your life in state prison. We can’t afford to take that chance. What would happen to me and the girls? I’m sorry, Enoch, but this chore had to be done and I stepped up to protect you from having to do it yourself.”