Bound by Mystery Page 5

  Now he was trapped with these two boys and a goddamn Boy Scout leader who wanted to inspect every bug and leaf.

  He watched sullenly from the fire. He knew instinctively that Kenny’s dad would disapprove of the appearance of a small flask of scotch. A sudden yelp of pain and the announcement that he had a sprained ankle recused him from climbing. Then there was the regretful discovery that he had left his “good” camping gear at home. It saved him from revealing that he didn’t have a clue about coping in the wilderness.

  ***

  Back home, Augie threw himself at Sharon the moment she opened the door. Kenny was right behind him. “Mom, I had the best time. And guess what? Kenny’s dad let us sing “Ninety-nine Bottle of Beer” all the way home and didn’t even complain.”

  “My dad’s great that way,” Kenny bragged.

  “That’s wonderful, honey.”

  “Can we do it again? Please.”

  “Of course. Just as soon as Dwayne has time.”

  “Right. But first things first.” Exhausted, Dwayne struggled to control his temper. “We’ve got the fair coming up and I haven’t seen a bit of progress on the bomb booth.”

  “Not true,” Kenny said. “We’re nearly done.”

  Dwayne froze. Nearly done? “Hey, I’m supposed to be your supervisor, remember?”

  “We’ve been keeping it a secret,” Kenny said.

  Augie’s face whitened as Dwayne swung around to look at him. No mistaking the guilt written there. The thought came to Dwayne as surely as the sun came up in the morning. The little shit planned to hurt him. Kill him, even. And he would think he was doing the right thing. Protecting his mom and all that.

  He smiled at the boys’ not-so-secret meetings in the cellar. He didn’t know exactly what they had planned, but he certainly knew where things were being planned. In a flash he knew where the photos were too.

  “I’ll be by tomorrow to look at the booth.”

  Augie held himself very still and his freckles were even darker than before against his eggshell-white skin. He said nothing.

  ***

  Sharon called the next day. “You have an ally,” she said cheerfully. “I told Mr. Tillhook about your worries over Augie and he agrees with you. He noticed on the camping trip how my son edged away from you. He deliberately ignored you. He’s going to have a talk with Augie.”

  “A talk?”

  “About character. About rudeness. About respecting his elders. And most of all about the sinfulness of deceit.”

  “Deceit?”

  “Yes. Turns out the boys were lying about the progress they have made on the booth. I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but Kenny finally fessed up and told his dad he lied and they had barely gotten started on the booth.”

  Dwayne’s mind raced. So that’s why the little shit looked he had been caught stealing chickens. Honor, and all that.

  “In fact, Mr. Tillhook says the boys have something important to show him. And it’s why they couldn’t think about anything else. They are going to get whatever it is right away.”

  Dwayne said nothing. He had to get ahold of the pictures.

  ***

  The dew hadn’t burned off yet. The odor of burning leaves wafted across the yard. There were pumpkins in Sharon’s dying vegetable garden. Dwayne glanced up at the flock of geese heading south. He looked around before he opened the door to the cellar, easing it shut as he went down the steps. He turned on his flashlight and scanned the dark interior. There was a nest of old blankets and a pillow. Practically a second home. And Playboy magazines and a few more racy ones. The envelope of photos lay on a shelf next to a candle holder and a pack of matches. He grinned. He reached for the pictures.

  He would burn them here. But one last time. Just one. He slid down the wall and unbuttoned his pants and pulled them to his ankles.

  Too engrossed with the old familiar pleasure, he didn’t hear the voices until they were nearly upon him. No time to pull up his pants. Frantic, he hugged the photos to his chest and dove under the disheveled pile of blankets.

  “The lock is undone.” Sharon’s shrill voice was right there by the cellar door. “Boys, how many times have I told you to stay away from here? You know there are snakes. You know that. Mr. ­­­­­­Tillhook, you’re going to think I’m a careless mother, but I had no idea they were coming here.”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Winter. I’m sure you are doing the best you can.” His voice was deep and authoritative. “Kenny, I’ll deal with you when we get home.”

  “But we have something to show you,” Augie insisted.

  “And we never leave the lock undone. I swear it.” Kenny’s voice trembled with outrage. “Never, Dad. I swear.”

  “Look. Just look. Please,” Augie begged. “Please!”

  Dwayne heard the door slowly creak open.

  “You are not going down there, kids.” Sharon’s voice rose another decibel.

  “Give me the flashlight. You’ve got to look,” Augie pleaded. “There’s an envelope on a shelf. When you look inside it you’ll understand.”

  Beneath the blankets Dwayne held his breath, imaging the play of light on the empty shelf.

  There was dead silence.

  “It’s gone.” Kenny’s voice was a soft as a mouse’s squeak. “Gone.”

  Augie didn’t say a word.

  “I’m going to take care of this problem once and for all. Stay right here with the boys, Mrs. Winter, while I get my toolbox from the car.”

  “I’ve tried so hard,” Sharon said.

  Dwayne heard a car door slam. Kenny’s dad returned. A metallic lid clanked. Augie still hadn’t spoken.

  What was the devious little brat thinking?

  Wham. The cellar door vibrated as the hammer struck the first of the nails. Tillhook pounded plenty of nails in the door. Plenty.

  Dwayne counted twenty.

  Ten would have done it.

  “Can we help? Augie asked.

  Be My Friend

  Donis Casey

  Working as a librarian for most of my adult life, I had a strong foundation in academic writing, but I’ve always written fiction privately for fun. I had only been reading mysteries for four or five years prior to trying my hand at my own, but once I began, I felt as if I’d found my true voice. I decided that, just for once, I was going to write from the heart. I allowed myself to be more authentic and not so intellectual. Like a lot of academics, I had always wanted to write the Great American Novel, be like F. Scott Fitzgerald or James Joyce. Writing from the heart was an infinitely more satisfying experience.

  Once I finished the first Alafair Tucker mystery, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, I began looking for an agent and studying mystery publishers. I must admit that I targeted Poisoned Pen Press from the beginning. I had lived in the Valley twenty-one years by then, and I had been hanging around The Poisoned Pen Bookstore from its inception. I was aware when they started the Press and I began reading the books they published. Then I began to read about the Press in publishers’ magazines and newspapers, and I knew they had a good reputation. I studied their submission requirements online and saw that they were willing to accept unagented materials, and I thought that while I was in the midst of the agent search, I might as well take a shot and send them a query letter. Poisoned Pen Press was indeed intrigued. After the manuscript went through about ten readers, it was accepted for publication in 2005, before I even acquired an agent. I was thrilled, to say the least. Since then, Poisoned Pen Press has published nine of my Alafair Tucker Mysteries. And thus began a wonderful working relationship, which I hope to continue for some years to come.

  —D.C.

  ***

  He has been watching me for weeks. When I go to work in the morning, come home at night, if I go outdoors for any reason, the old man is there, sitting at his parlor window
and observing my every movement. He smiles and waves whenever he sees me. I scowl at him. I ignore him. Yet he smiles and waves.

  When I have my tea in the kitchen or when I’m preparing for bed, I can feel his eyes on me. Our semi-detached houses share a wall. I hear him at night, pacing. I’ve looked for the peephole into my bedroom, but I have not found it yet. I am sure it is there, nonetheless. Somewhere.

  He has begun leaving notes, tacked to my door or propped up against the window. Once a note had been slipped under my entry door. It was in an envelope. The notes are all the same. They say, Be my friend.

  The notes are not signed. I have not seen him deliver one. I have never seen him move from his parlor window. But I know he is the writer. Who else would be? The notes did not appear until shortly after the old man moved in next door.

  I do not want a friend. For thirty years I have lived for chartered accountancy. I have added numbers in long columns. I have my ledgers. The numbers never fail, never change, are never unpredictable. For thirty years I have arisen every morning at six, brewed my tea, toasted my bread, and boiled my egg for three minutes, exactly. I prepare a sandwich for my luncheon. I shave and dress. I don my bowler. If it is cold I wrap a scarf around my neck. If it is raining I unfurl my brolly. I board the Number Six bus at seven-forty and arrive at the offices of Byers and Son Shipping Agency, Ltd., Plymouth, at eight a.m. I go through the back entrance and thus avoid having to exchange pleasantries with Mrs. Flanders at the front desk. I hang my hat/brolly/scarf on the hall tree and seat myself at my work station. I enter numbers and balance books for eight hours with a thirty-minute hiatus for luncheon. At five o’clock I close the ledger, put on my hat, and board the Number Fourteen bus, arriving home at five forty-five.

  Four times a year I deliver my ledgers to the auditor, Mr Bakely. Once a year I am called to the office of Mr. Byers, Sr., for a performance evaluation. My work never varies. My bookkeeping skills are unparalleled.

  I had no regard for Mrs. Kellingham, the woman who had lived in the other half of my semi until she died last year. She was a querulous hag with a detestable, flea-ridden cat that made itself at home in my back garden until I poisoned it. I do not know if she ever realized why the filthy beast disappeared. We never exchanged more than two words in the years we lived next door to one another.

  After she died, the semi stood empty for months before the old man moved in. He has a son, or some younger male relative, who stops by at least once a day. The younger man has not introduced himself to me, nor have I spoken to him. The old man does not leave the house.

  He spies on me from his window when I am in my garden and I am aware that he watches me through his hidden eye-holes when I am in my house. He waits until I am away from home to creep about and leave his nefarious notes: Be my friend.

  I will not be his friend. I will never acknowledge him in any way. At first I crumpled the notes and tossed them into the rubbish bin. Then I began ripping them into tiny shreds. Lately I have taken to burning them over the wash basin and burying the ashes in the garden.

  Yet he persists. He waves at me every morning and evening. I know he presses his ear to the wall to listen to my movements. He watches me sleep. I can feel it. He leaves notes all about my property. Be my friend.

  I do not know how much longer I shall be able to endure this.

  ***

  The notes are coming faster now. I am being inundated. I find a note on my entry door every morning when I leave for the bus and another every evening when I return home. I fear opening the door to the back garden, for sometimes a note is tacked to the lintel and two or three others are scattered about through the rosebushes. This afternoon I found a crumpled yellow slip in my luncheon box. The message was scrawled across the paper from corner to corner.

  Be My Friend.

  He has been inside my home. How else could he secret a note between my sandwich and my apple? How else could he have slipped the message into the box after I packed it?

  How does he get in? How does he elude detection?

  Will the demon never leave me alone?

  Is there no one else he can torment?

  Shall I lodge a complaint with the police? I have no doubt about the old man’s trespass, but other than the notes themselves, he leaves no evidence. The constabulary did nothing when I notified them about the depredations of Mrs. Kellingham’s cat. I cannot abide the memory of the desk sergeant’s expression of disdain. They will laugh at me again. They will tell me that if I wish for the notes to cease, I should be his friend.

  It is clear to me that I shall have to take matters into my own hands.

  The old man does not want to be my friend. He wants to unhinge my mind. But there is something he has not reckoned upon. When Mrs. Kellingham died and the emergency personnel came to remove her corpse, I crept into her kitchen unseen, and spirited away the extra house key that she kept on the hook beside the back door.

  ***

  I planned my course of action very carefully. On Saturday afternoon, I took the Number Fifty-nine bus to Sparkwell. No one knows me in Sparkwell. I walked to a chemist’s shop and purchased foot coverings such as are used for clean rooms and hospitals, along with a packet of latex gloves, and a hair covering. Then I returned home with my purchases in a plain brown-paper wrapping. The old man was at his window and waved at me as I opened the front gate. For the first time, I smiled and returned his greeting. I could not help myself, knowing that I was shortly to be delivered.

  I did not vary my routine in the evening, since I knew he was watching and I had no desire to arouse his suspicion. At ten o’clock I changed into my pyjamas, turned off the light and went to bed as I always do. I lay in the dark for an hour to make certain that the old man had given up his spying and retired. Even so, I feared that he would hear the pounding of my heart and be alerted to my scheme. I slipped out of bed in the dark, careful to make no noise, and crept downstairs, where I had cached my coverings in the cupboard by the entryway. After I dressed, I searched my house to make sure that he was not skulking about, leaving his notes in the teapot or the parlor grate.

  Thus assured, I retrieved the key from its hiding place and slipped out the back door. I had to climb over the wall between our properties. I had feared that I would leave a sign—a footprint or a stray thread—when I dropped over the wall. But the old man’s back garden was dry and overgrown, untended perhaps since he had taken up residence. And Mrs. Kellingham had thoughtfully placed stepping stones throughout the garden. I did not have to step on bare ground before I reached the back door of the house, where I donned my foot coverings and gloves before entering.

  The lock turned quietly and I was able to creep through the kitchen, into the foyer, and up the carpeted stairs without making a sound. I eased open the first door at the top of the landing, but the room was unoccupied. This caused me some concern. What if he was watching me?

  When I saw his form in the bed behind the second door, my breathing slowed. I felt as though I were floating as I crossed the room. It was the work of but a moment to slide the pillow from beneath his head and cover his face with it.

  He did not even struggle much—one or two blind swipes and a muffled moan. I pressed down with all my weight, I do not know for how long. It seemed hours, but I was determined to make sure the deed was properly done.

  Long after movement ceased, I gently removed the pillow and placed it back on the bed beside the old man’s desiccated carcass. Then I walked downstairs, out the back door, over the wall, and back into my own abode.

  I am free now. When I left to catch the Number Six bus the next morning, there was no grinning skull-like visage at the window to wave me on my way. I disposed of the clothing I had worn the night before by wrapping it in a plastic grocery bag and spiriting it out of my house inside my briefcase. When I arrived at the offices of Byers and Son Shipping Agency, Ltd., Plymouth, at precisely eight a.m.
, I made a casual detour to the toilet, which is located next to the stairs to the basement. It took me five minutes to slip downstairs and toss the clothing into the boiler.

  When I arrived home in the evening, the old man’s body had already been carted away. His front door was open and the son was puttering around in the foyer. When he saw me open my front gate, he stepped outside to inform me that his father had passed away during the night.

  The codger was so old and ill that no one thought to question the method of his demise. There was no post-mortem.

  It has been a fortnight since my deliverance. There have been no more notes. A “For Sale” sign has been posted beside the old man’s front gate, but if there has been any interest in purchasing the house, I am unaware of it.

  My joy is unbounded. The sun shines more brightly and the rain falls more softly. My delicate mind has returned to its proper balance.

  ***

  Detective Inspector Wells stood in the foyer of the semi-detached and waited for the forensics team to deliver its report. The body had been hanging by the neck from the stairwell for nearly a week and was not in good shape. If the other half of the semi were not for sale and a prospective purchaser had not complained of the smell, the body might have hung there until there was nothing left of it but a skeleton. When the medical examiner stood up from the floor where the body had been laid, Wells took a step toward her. Not too close. He didn’t enjoy the odor.

  “What’s the word, Doc?”

  She shrugged. “It’s just a preliminary opinion, but it looks like death by asphyxiation to me. No obvious signs of trauma. I’m thinking suicide.”

  Wells nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve been here before, you know. This fellow was a bit bonkers. A few years ago he was convinced that the neighbor’s cat was out to get him. Well, we’ll try to scare up some relatives to notify. Okay, Doc, you can remove the body now.”

  Wells stood aside as the medical team hoisted the remains onto a gurney, covered it with a plastic sheet, and rolled it down to the waiting ambulance. Wells was about to follow when a young patrolman appeared at the top of the stairs.