Fiction: Slender Reed

“I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here,” said Inspector Trottitt of Scotland Yard. He looked sharply around the room as if expecting an answer.

One man, in an overstuffed chair, shook his head slightly, causing the inspector to frown.

“Well, I shall tell you,” he continued. “After a thorough investigation, I have determined that one of you … is the murderer!”

Three constables stood behind him at the closed door, keeping watch on everyone. Trottitt began to pace around the room. As he did, he took a cigarette case from his jacket pocket and selected a smoke. The cigarettes were an expensive brand, distinguishable by the gold, silver, and black bands ringing the center. Trottitt came to a halt in front of Miss Wensley and lit his cigarette. Then he pointed at the man seated next to the young woman.

“Mr. Haversham! You stand to profit greatly from Mr. Haddock’s demise. The business is now in your hands alone. Such an opportunity has driven many a man to murder.” Haddock opened his mouth to protest, but Trottitt kept talking. “But His Royal Highness has vouched to me that you were in his company on the evening of the murder, and his word is, naturally, unassailable.”

“I should think so, too,” said Mr. Haversham.

The man in the overstuffed chair sighed loudly and repositioned himself. Trottitt took note of it and began pacing again.

“Mrs. Cravat! As his longtime housekeeper, you stood to know all of Mr. Haddock’s secrets. Perhaps he learned one of yours, too, and you killed him to keep him quiet.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “I have no interesting secrets.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” the detective snapped, “but you also have an alibi, having been at the church jumble sale at the time the murder was committed. The vicar has said as much.”

“Of course he has.”

The man in the overstuffed chair groaned softly. Trottitt whirled to confront him.

“Mr. Reed! Does the unveiling of a murderer – someone who is so anti-social and depraved as to kill a fellow man – bore you?”

“Not at all,” Mr. Reed said. “But your theatrics do. Couldn’t you just make an arrest and bugger off?”

One of the constables snickered but had regained his professional face by the time Trottitt had turned around to find the guilty party. Trottitt glared at all three for good measure and returned to Mr. Reed.

“I have my methods, Mr. Reed, and I will keep to them.”

“I hope you keep to your methods in the courtroom. And that the judge fines you £5 for delaying the trial.”

Trottitt fumed silently. “While we are dealing with you, Mr. Reed, your company has been losing money hand over fist to Mr. Haddock’s.”

“That’s putting it nicely. My company is all but bankrupt. But do tell the room why I didn’t kill Haddock.”

Inspector Trottitt smirked. “Your stature, of course. You are – ha! – shall we say, too slender a reed to have done the deed.” Reed rolled his eyes. “The murderer is possessed of much greater physical strength. Which means it was you, Mr. Soames!”

In the space of a thought, Soames leaped from his chair and flung himself on the detective, working to crush Trottitt as he had Haddock. The constables were jarred from their reveries and joined in the fray. They pried the murderer from their boss and laboriously handcuffed him.

“Take him downstairs, men,” Trottitt ordered as he regained his breath. “I’ll be along shortly.” Two constables pulled Soames out the door. The killer left a stream of invective in his wake.

As he straightened his tie, Trottitt stared hard at Mr. Reed.

“I took note during our earlier interviews that, curiously, you keep a small gun up your right sleeve. It is on a rail and may be produced quickly. May I ask why you did not employ it in my defense just now?”

Reed shrugged. “Soames is going to hang for one murder. I didn’t mind if he were to hang for two.”

Mrs. Cravat and Miss Wensley gasped at the rude reply.

“May I inquire, Mr. Reed, what I have done to earn the enmity we have seen you display this evening and that I saw privately on earlier occasions?”

Reed sat up in his chair. “Really? Something the great Inspector Trottitt doesn’t know?”

“How could I?”

“You could think back to your school days. The days when you were a bully without a badge.” Trottitt’s eyebrows began to climb. “The days when you would put firecrackers down the pants of someone like Jerry Whitsun, who couldn’t possibly fight back. The days when you would shoot peas at someone like Billy Street as he battled his stutter to recite a poem before the class.”

“Reed,” Trottitt whispered.

“Yes, and you called me a slender reed in those days, too. I’d have thought you’d have recognized your own pitiful joke. I still remember the awards day ceremony when you tripped me as I went to collect my award for top speller. I went down on my nose and lost my moment in the sun before my peers and my parents.”

The others in the room frowned at Trottitt.

“Well, Reed, that was a long time ago. Water under the bridge, eh? Boys will be boys?”

Reed stood and began to pace the room in imitation of Trottitt.

“Oh, I let all that go. But then you did something unforgivable: you married Maisie Andrews, the prettiest, most vivacious girl in the class. Why her father pushed her into your arms I never knew and never shall.”

“And you are upset with me over my choice of wife?”

“Not for my sake, but for hers. She deserves better.”

Trottitt pulled himself up haughtily. “I think she is well satisfied as my wife.”

“I know you think so. That, in addition to your not recognizing me after two private interviews and this gathering, tells me you’re not at all the detective you believe yourself to be. Maisie is miserable as your wife. You’re scarcely home, and when you are you treat her like a servant. You insist that she remain in when you’re out. You’ve had her locked up like a princess in a tower.”

“Everything I do is for her particular benefit. This is none of your affair,” Trottitt said.

“Actually, old bean, it is my affair. My affair with your wife. We had a chance meet one day when she disobeyed your order to stay home. We’ve been meeting ever since, and I’ve been giving her some of the joy you otherwise take from her.”

Trottitt’s face reddened.

“You have been meeting with my wife? Behind my back?”

“More like under your ruddy nose, you twit. There’s been no great need to be careful about it as you pay her no mind. Oh, yes, you caught a murderer today, but for all intents and purposes you lost your wife ages ago without having a clue.”

Trottitt now imitated Soames and leaped onto Reed, forcing him to the floor. The detective beat his wife’s paramour savagely. It took the remaining constable and Mr. Haversham together to pull Trottitt off of Reed, and their hold on him was shaky.

Reed flexed a muscle in his right arm and produced the little gun Trottitt had mentioned. The sight of it in Reed’s hand froze Trottitt in place.

“What wonderful headlines I can see,” Reed said. “ ‘Cuckolded Detective Pummels Smaller Man,’ perhaps. Or ‘Yard’s Finest Bloodies His Wife’s Lover.’ Something along those lines. Maybe ‘Inspector Fails to Detect Trouble at Home.’ That’s got a nice sound to it.”

“I will kill you, Reed.”

“First he batters me and now he threatens murder. Constable, I want this dangerous man arrested and charged.”

The constable pulled on Trottitt’s arm. “Come along, Inspector, before more harm is done.”

“He can’t get away with this!”

“Inspector,” the constable said quietly, “you’ve got a murderer downstairs to deal with. Plenty of good headlines in that. This bloke can wait.”

Reed stood. “You’re all witnesses. He struck me. He threatened me. I demand justice!”

The constable kept a snarling Trottitt moving, and they left the room.

Mrs. Cravat produced a small cloth for Mr. Reed, who applied it to his bleeding face.

“I agree, Reed, that we’re witnesses to what he did to you,” Mr. Haversham said, frowning sternly, “and that police officials have to set the standard for good conduct. But I don’t know that given the circumstances a judge will have much to say about it.”

“No, likely not,” Reed agreed. “But Maisie, at least, will get a divorce from that rotter. He won’t keep her, now.”

“That’s a rather callous way to talk about a woman, Mr. Reed,” Miss Wensley complained.

“Oh, fear not, Miss. I’ll make an honest woman of her again. We’ve already discussed it. Tonight, I’d better go see her safely away from her home, in case Trottitt would decide to stop in and confront her. I’ve a friend who will put her up.”

“Yes, that would be best,” Mrs. Cravat said.

Mr. Haversham turned to Miss Wensley. “I beg your pardon for asking, Miss, but why were you considered a suspect in Mr. Haddock’s murder?”

“Oh, that’s easy. He and I had been secret lovers. I’m from the wrong side of town, so he was never going to marry me, and he had just spurned me for another woman. I suppose Inspector Trottitt had thought I might want to kill him for that.”

“Oh, I see,” Mr. Haversham said, coloring at the sound of still more improper carnal activity.

“I would have, too, but Mr. Soames beat me to it. Lucky for me, really.”

Mr. Haversham looked at the floor.

“One last thing, Mr. Reed,” said Mrs. Cravat. “Did you consider killing Mr. Haddock?”

As the late Mr. Haddock’s partner, the question caught Mr. Haversham’s interest, and he studied Reed’s face.

“Goodness, no, Mrs. Cravat. My business is failing because I’ve been ignoring it to be with Maisie. My fault entirely, not poor Haddock’s. And I’m getting into a new line of work soon.”

“What line is that, Mr. Reed?” Miss Wensley asked.

“Those fancy cigarettes of Trottitt’s? My brother’s firm makes them, and I’m going to work for him. So every time Trottitt lights one up, I’ll be getting part of my salary paid.” Reed smiled. “I’ve got a feeling that the way his nerves are, business will be good.”

Fiction: Birth Order

“Kristen’s escaped.”

Sub-Proctor Anne’s mouth was tight, as though she were braced for me to gloat.

“Oh,” was my entire contribution to the conversation; it was the most Christian thing I could think of to say.

“I thought you would want to know,” Sub-Proctor Anne said, still guarded. I nodded politely at her, and she moved on to resume her work.

I wasn’t surprised. How many times had I warned everyone that Kristen would remain here only as long as she wanted to? The church’s Joliet Maximum Assistance Rescue Ark hadn’t held her during a previous pregnancy. She slipped past the dogs and the guard towers and the electrified fence as though they didn’t exist. So what chance, I asked, did the minimum assistance-level St. Reagan’s Birth Assurance Home have? An electronic gate and a simple nine-foot chain-link fence with a thin strand of razor wire on top meant nothing to someone like Kristen.

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Fiction: Call and Response

In most of the pews, one hand held half the hymnal, and the other fanned its owner.

This Sunday had been overcast, and the wind, which had whipped ladies’ hats from their heads before morning services, had died away to nothing by the time worshippers arrived for evening services. Now a sticky stillness permeated Cherrydale.

“Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus!” they sang in the sanctuary of the First Lutheran Church, a moderate brick building erected twenty years earlier when the town and the congregation were growing before the Great Depression began. “Thou hast loved us, love us still.”

Eyes kept going from the hymnals to the windows. Evening was coming, to be sure, but too quickly. The unnatural darkness had everyone on edge, even in the house of the Lord.

And so they sang with more feeling than usual: “Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus! Thou hast loved us, love us still.”

The Rev. Morton stepped into his pulpit. “Be seated.” As his flock sat, he stole another glance out the windows himself.

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Fiction: One Low Payment

“I’m going next door for just a little while,” Pastor Henniks told his wife.

“All right,” Sue said. “I’m going on to bed. Don’t be too long.”

He nodded at her and went out the front door of his parsonage and walked across the lawn to his church. He let himself in a side door and went directly to the sanctuary. The pews could hold about eight hundred people, and most Sundays they were filled. He turned on the chancel lights, leaving most of the room in darkness.

He knelt before the altar and stared at the gold-plated cross.

“Lord, I know I’ve done wrong. I’ve done more wrong than a man should, especially a man in my position. I’m sorry. I am so very sorry. Please, please help me. Don’t visit my sins on my poor family or on my congregation. They don’t deserve that. I know I’ve done wrong. But I’ll change, I’ll change. I’ll mend my ways if you’ll just take this cup from me.”

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Fiction: The Weapon

“Your mother’s funeral,” Aunt Margaret repeated as they sat down. She spoke, as she always did, so Eric and everyone else at the table could hear her.

It was a gorgeous late spring day and the women of the First Baptist Church had set up the funeral dinner outside rather than in the church basement. Only the mildest of breezes blew and it was scented with lilac.

Eric said nothing. He had learned long ago to keep his responses to Aunt Margaret short and polite, whatever else he might want to say.

“Where on earth were you, Eric?” Aunt Margaret demanded from across the table. “What did you think could possibly be more important than being on time to your dear mother’s funeral?”

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Fiction: A Day in the Life of Captain SuperMiracle

“Why – why, look! It’s Harkness Rorholm, the church organist and intrepid, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning, crusading freelance photographer!”

Rorholm smiled at the young man, accustomed to being recognized by well-informed people wherever he went; his handsome Aryan features and naturally wavy blond hair were every bit as familiar to those in the know as his work.

“The very same,” he quipped. He fished a business card from a pocket of his perfectly pressed suit and gave it to the fellow as a souvenir:

Harkness Rorholm
Senior Organist (All Saints Episcopal)
Three-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner
Intrepid, Crusading Freelance Photographer

and it was already autographed.

“Gosh, thanks, Mr. Rorholm!” the youth gushed. Rorholm, still smiling at him, walked on down the sidewalk.

He stopped suddenly, his sensitive nose smelling something burning just as he heard a cry for help. He looked across the street at an open window six stories up in an apartment building where a wisp of smoke lazily trailed out.

He aimed his camera at the window and the altered viewfinder showed him what danger lay inside.

The appeal from the window came louder, and people on the street looked up. Rorholm took advantage of their inattention and swiftly vaulted upward and onto the roof of the building he had been standing in front of. There, under the shade of a water tower, he doffed the outer garments of the organist and freelance photographer and became something even more — Captain SuperMiracle.

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Fiction: Critical Mass

After more than three decades as a priest, Father Joe thought nothing of the two men who came into the church after the mass had begun. Not even when they all but marched down the center aisle, failed to genuflect, and sat in the front pews on either side where two other men already sat. Father Joe was caught up in his work.

When it happened again during the Act of Contrition, he still did not give it more than the most passing notice. People came in late, babies cried, people unwrapped peppermints. Church was a strangely noisy place.

At the end of the first reading, two more men strode down the aisle and seated themselves down front, just as the others had done. Father Joe was starting to notice. He looked briefly at the men and was startled to see the hate on their faces. But he didn’t have time just then to sort it out.

In the middle of the second reading, two more men came in and took their places with the others. The congregation was beginning to stir both at the unusual procession and the lack of respect paid to the altar.

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Fiction: Fallen Gods

“Omari, you promised that this year you would explain the human Christmas to me.”

“So I did, Naji. Come, then; let’s take a little walk.”

Omari stretched, curving his back high, and ended up on all four paws. He led the other cat out of the warm shed and down the alley.

“Tell me, young Naji, about Egypt.”

“In Egypt we were worshipped as gods,” Naji replied brightly, “because we were the ones who killed both the rodents that infested the granaries and the fearsome cobras. This knowledge is part of every cat and is every cat’s birthright.”

“Very good,” the older cat said. “But later?”

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