For those of you who subscribe to my monthly newsletter, this story was featured in yesterday's.
I love the NYC Midnight writing contests. I've done the flash fiction one twice now, short screenplay one once, and am now attempting the short story one for the second time.
In January, I was given 2500 words and 8 days to write a short story on the following genre/topic/character prompt:
mystery / greed / fiance
All in all, not as crazy as some prompts I've gotten, but that almost made it tricky to approach it from a fresh angle.
This is what I came up with; I hope you enjoy it. Either way, I'd love to hear (well, read) your feedback!
SAMUEL JOHNSON AND HIS RED CORVETTE
Her mascara had run, and black streaked her cheeks.
“You don’t understand,” she sniffed. “I’m supposed to be doing a cake tasting tomorrow!”
Detective Christen raised his eyes from the pad of paper he was bent over. Thirty-two years on the job, and that was one he hadn’t heard. “A cake tasting?”
“For the wedding! It’s only in three months and we still don’t have a cake and we were supposed to finalize it today.”
“You taste cake?” He rubbed his chin and his whiskers scraped at his hand. When was the last time he shaved? Not this morning. Not yesterday morning.
“With all due respect, Miss Taversh, your fiance is dead. I don’t think it matters what flavour of cake you were going to choose for your wedding.”
Emilie Taversh wailed, hiccupping and snorting as though the extravagance of her mourning would bring back her husband-to-be.
The detective sighed, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Young folks didn’t even carry them around anymore. But he knew that there was a certain way that things should be done, and part of that included offering handkerchiefs to blubbering women, regardless of how inappropriate her priorities seemed.
When the young woman’s wails turned to whimpers, he cleared his throat. “Shall we try this again, Miss? I really do have to ask you these questions.”
At her nod, he looked back at his notes. “Now, just to re-establish ourselves, I understand your wedding date is coming up?”
“June 17. Only three months from now.”
“And how long were you acquainted with the deceased?”
She dabbed at her eyes with his handkerchief. “Four years. We met at a party, one of those charity affairs Miranda was always throwing. Then after they split up, he and I started seeing each other. We never fooled around at all until after they were over, I swear. Anyway, he proposed a year ago. Took me to Paris and got down on one knee in front of the Eiffel Tower.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. It was so romantic. He always wants me to have the best of everything, you know. Just the kind of guy he is.” She twisted his handkerchief in her hands, and gulped. “I mean, the kind of guy he was.”
Her lip quivered, and Detective Christen glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes and they still had a lot of questions to get through. And he had a lot of other family and friends to interview. If she broke down again he’d never get home.
He looked down again at his pad of paper. What could he ask that would keep her from dissolving?
“Tell me more about Miranda.”
Of course an officer had already talked to the ex-wife, and Detective Christen planned to head there next for a more thorough chat, but he was sure the new fiancé would have her own version of the woman.
Air whooshed from Emilie’s nose and her sniffles stopped as though a switch had been thrown.
“Her. Busybody, mostly. She seems like she’s such a good person, all those charities she works with, all those events she runs. What a load of crap.”
“You aren’t a fan, I take it?”
She scoffed, and handed Christen back his handkerchief. “Understatement. I don’t even know what Samuel saw in that woman. She was always after him, after his money, his house, his investments. She didn’t love him for him, not like I did.”
The detective tried to reconcile the young beauty blubbering before him with the image of the deceased, who was at least thirty years her senior and toothpick-thin everywhere but his gut. Still, the beauties love combovers when that combover comes with millions. He blinked back the thought to focus on the teary fiance.
“One of his cars, the red Corvette…” She ran her fingertip under her eyes. “It was his favourite, you know. He said he wanted it since he was a boy. He loved that car, just polished it and visited it. Only drove it on the best weather days. Sunshine, top-down days, he said.”
“Okay?”
“Well he came in one night just freaked right out. This was a few months ago now. He shut himself up in his office but I could hear him screaming at her over the phone. I guess when he went out to the garage he found that Corvette all scratched up.”
“And he blamed Miranda?”
“Of course. She hated that he loved the car so much. Probably just upset he loved it more than he ever loved her.”
“How did he know it was her?”
“She wanted the car in the divorce settlement. More, too. But she was really stuck on the car. She was all about it. ‘If I can’t have it, you can’t either.’ That kind of stuff. She said he could give her the car or else. And he didn’t. And some other stuff went missing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Ski equipment, couple mountain bikes. Samuel had this real vintage baseball signed by some big shot. And one day it was gone.”
“And you think Miranda did it?”
“Samuel thought so. It was all stuff she’d specifically wanted when they split. And then for it to all go missing? Hell of a coincidence.” Her eyes widened. “Would she have gone so far as to go after Samuel?” Her mouth opened and closed, and a polished, manicured hand pressed against her heart. “She was so upset, so angry with him. Angry over all that stuff, angry that she didn’t get it all. Angry he was marrying me.”
“Was she jealous?”
“Of course she was! But I never thought she’d go so far as to actually hurt him. Neither of us thought that.” Tears spilled down her cheeks again. “If she did… that makes it partly my fault.”
And then she was off again, hiccupping and gulping through unrestrained sobs, and Detective Christen held out his dampened handkerchief once more.
* * *
Detective Christen tapped his fingers on the edge of the pad of paper. The ex-wife - what was her name again? Oh yes, Miranda. She’d said what was expected.
“Damn predictable yuppies,” he muttered. His voice was rough but quiet, the voice of a man who’d interrogated, comforted, told harsh truths and stared down harsher faces over his many years on the job. His voice was as lined as his face, and as contradictory; both hard and soft, worn and warm.
Miranda hadn’t given him anything new. She’d gone on and on about the new wife, well, not wife, not yet. Fiance. She’d called her a gold-digger. Of course she said the fiance was only interested in Samuel’s money, in the lifestyle of the rich and famous. And of course the ex denied having anything to do with scratching that Corvette.
He knew suspicion always fell on those closest to the victim, usually the spouse. No doubt the women knew that too; there were enough crime shows on TV nowadays. And what else could either of those women do but watch TV and go to the gym and get their hair done and nails done and walk their ridiculous little purse dogs around the block? He didn’t know if they had dogs, but he was sure they must. Lots of opportunity for crime show watching. So they had to know the police were watching them both very carefully.
He tossed the pad of paper on his cluttered desk and straightened the photograph of his wife. It was an old picture, taken years ago. When he leaned back, the springs of his chair creaked.
“Sounding ‘bout as old as me now.”
He twisted his wedding ring as he stared at the ceiling. “There’s enough anger there.” He was talking to himself, but that wasn’t uncommon around the precinct, and no one paid him any mind. “Could probably just sit back and let the two womenfolk fight it out. Something might come out that makes one of ‘em look more guilty.” He tapped his paper again. He was getting too old for this; maybe the ex and the fiance would end up doing his work for him.
* * *
“So the thing is, I think it has to be the ex.” Detective Christen paced his living room. He often ran cases past his wife, Stacey. After thirty-five years, she just listened now, and of course he never divulged specific details; that wouldn’t be professional. “She has no alibi. A history of violence. Motive. Greed is always the best motive for murder.”
Stacey said nothing.
“Good point. Revenge is the best motive for murder. Or sex. But usually only when someone is greedy about it. So I stand by what I said. And that one’s damn greedy.”
Still, Stacey made no reply.
“Oh of course it could be the fiance, but that doesn’t add up. The victim’s insurance hadn’t switched over to her yet. Everything was still in the ex’s name. Damn fool to wait to take care of that sort of thing. Course those rich idiots just assume they’re gonna live forever. Everything’s gonna work out for them just ‘cause they say so. Man never had any idea he’d not make it to the church this time.”
The detective paused in his pilgrimage around the room and looked out the window. “Of course, there is all that cash that went missing from the victim’s house. No leads on that. Even at the ex’s. But I don’t think that will be a problem. If she checks off all the other categories….”
He caught the shadow of his reflection in the glass. He needed a haircut. Needed a shave. “I look haggard, Stace.”
Silence. He didn’t expect anything else, of course.
“I can’t decide if you’d be disappointed in me or proud.”
He turned back and looked at the empty room.
“Probably both.”
* * *
Miranda Johnson was arrested on May 12 for the murder of her ex-husband, Samuel Johnson. She’d kept her married name after the divorce, and even insisted to the press that it was proof of her lingering affection for the deceased.
“How could I kill him? I shared my life with that man for three whole years!”
The press loved her, but they loved the scandal and the story more. It had everything news companies loved; there was intrigue, love, jealousy, greed, and murder. The day the trial started, the front page of the Herald boasted a huge photograph of lovely Miranda Johnson, community sweetheart and head of countless charities. Her chin was raised and she was looking straight into the camera. It was juxtaposed with another picture, this one of poor old dead Samuel, lying on the floor of his condo, blood pooling around the stab wounds.
The weapon was easy. A kitchen knife from Samuel’s own home. When fiance Emilie Taversh found the body, the knife was sticking straight up out of him.
“That’s the photo they used? Damn disgrace, Stacey,” Detective Christen said to his living room. He ruffled the pages and held up the front page. “Can you believe the crap they’re allowed to put in the papers these days? No one should have to look at a hacked up body if they don’t damn well feel like it. But there it is, splashed all across the front page. Just to sell. All about the money. Damn papers.”
He closed the paper and leaned back. He loved this easy chair. He’d gotten it with his second, no, maybe it was his third, paycheck, right after he joined the force. It was soft in all the right places and hard in all the right places, just like how he saw himself.
“I’m sorry, darling. I shouldn’t curse in front of you. Just upset is all. Time was, papers had some respect. Time was people had some respect.” He paused, nodded. “You’re right, of course. No excuse for the language. Ought to leave that at work.”
On the mantle on top of the fireplace there was a row of photographs, just as there was on every mantle above every fireplace in every home like this one. The pictures told their story, Detective Christen’s and his bride’s, chronologically, so if you started on the left and eased your way down the line, you could read their tale page by page, chapter by chapter. On the far left, young sweethearts. Detective Christen’s chin is the same, of course, but his eyes have changed, have hardened and dulled and emptied with the years. Move down further. A wedding picture, laughing and running from the steps of a church. A snapshot in front of a sold sign in front of a house, this house. A vacation, her laughing as she sits in the sand. Him in full uniform, her arm holding to his as though she were afraid the job would take him from her.
But she was the one who was taken away. All those sleepless nights she complained about, worrying about a phone call or a knock at the door, and he was the one who woke up to a cold bed in the early hours of morning.
They didn’t know who did it. A hit and run, and no witnesses. No one heard, no one saw. It was dark. But a security camera picked up a car at about the right time, careening down the street, and a traffic cam a couple blocks away offered a better picture. It was blurry, and if the investigating detectives dug up any leads from it, they hadn’t told him.
He let six months go past before the tension in the marrow of his bones and the screaming in his veins got to him. Barbara, down in evidence, let him have a peek at the photo. “Now I ain’t letting you see this, mind.” She poked at the file between them. “But if I happen to turn my back while this is out, and you happen to have a little glance at it, why, not much I can do about that, is there?”
The license plate was blurry, but at least he saw the red car.
“Way I see it,” he explained to Stacey later, “only rich folks have cars like that. And only so many of those ‘round town.” He had paused then, as though listening, and nodded. “Yeah, damn shame. But that’s just how it has to be. Someone has to take the fall. Some other rich person. All so greedy for their money and their stuff. Makes them all look damn suspicious. And not like they’re innocent little lambs, them yuppies. They already get everything. All the money, all the power. We look the other way and they get away with all kinds of garbage. But you? Nah, sweetheart. They don’t get to take you away from me, too.”
Detective Christen didn’t know much about cars, but he knew a Corvette when he saw one. And only three other people in the area owned one.