Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

Leaning forward, he kissed her lightly on the lips.

“Goodbye, Hannah Greer.”

She brushed her tears away. “Goodbye, Mr. Private Detective.”

Minutes later, Brad was in his beloved yellow Studebaker Champion, back on Highway 51, driving north toward the Tennessee state line, and on to Memphis.

Copyright © 2006 Clark Howard

Meredith Anthony, a humorist whose articles have appeared in MAD magazine and Hysteria, is co-author of the humor book 101 Reasons Why We’re Doomed. Her well-trained satirical eye comes into play in this (her first) venture into fiction writing. Ms. Anthony lives in New York City with her husband, who is also a writer. She has recently completed a novel which she describes as a thriller.

Hunched and ugly, the little coal town squatted sullenly in the weak morning sun like a frog on a urinal, contemplating its few dreary options. In this part of the Appalachian foot-hills, the Rust Belt had just about rusted through.

Nevertheless, Helen Goode slept soundly, secure in her place in the world. She was the queen of her town and she slept the dreamless sleep of the righteous or the sociopathic.

Her husband, Chief of Police Beauregarde Goode, plump and arrogant, woke up pleased with himself. Sitting on the edge of his bed, he scratched himself vigorously. In his uniquely high-pitched, wheedling voice he asked his wife to make him pancakes. “I believe,” he intoned slowly in the untraceable accent that was built up in layers from his Appalachian childhood and his wartime service in the Marines Corps, “I believe that a substantial breakfast is necessary to begin a productive and successful day.” The self-satisfied delivery was attributable to his many years of being the most important man in a small town.

“Get away, Beau,” his wife muttered, not unkindly, but trying without hope to ignore his mosquito whine for a few more minutes of slumber.

“Well,” he said, drawing the word out into several high-pitched syllables, “we could always start the day in another fashion.” His wheedling falsetto was equal parts Mike Tyson and Divine. He knew he wasn’t going to get any sex, not on a weekday morning, but he liked to tease his wife. “You’re going to be late anyway, so what’s a few more minutes?”

Helen’s eyes flew open. “Goddamn it, Beau. I’m going to quit my job. I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t. I hate it.”

Beau ignored the long morning litany of her complaints. She had always hated waking up. By the time he came out of the bathroom and patted her behind with an affectionate murmur of, “precious thing,” she already had on queen-size pantyhose and an industrial-strength brassiere and was heading past him for the bathroom to remove a nightmarish effluvia from her teeth.

“I’m just going in long enough to quit,” she gargled, her mouth full of Crest. The blue foam made her look like a cartoon mad dog and her hair stuck up in unlikely peaks from yesterday’s hairspray. At fifty, her torso thickened from too much fatty food and too little exercise, her skin coarse, her hair damaged from years of bad red dye, Helen was still one of those inexplicably compelling women who make a certain kind of man breathless and sweaty-palmed with lust. Every time — and there had been three — every time she divorced a husband, her driveway immediately filled up with the Chevys and Fords of hopeful suitors.

Beau Goode, her fourth true love, was one of those men who found her irresistible. “You go right in there and quit, pumpkin. You’ll have more time to play with me.”

He leaned into the bathroom and tweaked what he thought was her nipple, but was actually a small air pocket in the pointed business end of the big, stiff bra. She hadn’t adjusted her large, blue-veined breasts yet. But she appreciated the thought and squealed with feigned pleasure.

“Get away from me, you crazy old bastard.” She swatted his hand, spraying blue flecks on the bathroom mirror.

“Now don’t you go looking for me today, sugar. I’ve got to go over to the state capital to talk to the judge about changing the venue on that three-time B&E artist we got locked up. I want very badly for them to try him right here.”

Helen was shimmying into a tight red wool skirt and he stopped to admire her efforts on his way to the kitchen. “Goddammit, Beau. I’m going to be late.”

She grabbed a silk-blend blouse with an op-art print that could stimulate an epileptic into a full-blown seizure. It had a collar that tied into a bow. She fished high heels out of the welter of shoes in the bottom of the closet, finding two navy-and-white spectators that matched on the third try. She tugged them on, ran a brush through the worst of her hair, swiped on bright, orangey-red color from a lipstick that had been tortured into concavity from heavy-handed use. She grabbed the jacket that matched the skirt from the closet, sending the hanger crashing to the floor.

“What do you care if you’re late?” Beau said slyly. “You’re just going in long enough to quit.”

Cursing and snarling, Helen Goode drove the thirty congested, potholed miles to her job. She exited the highway, throwing a last vile oath at the rushing traffic, and swooped into the parking lot, sliding expertly into a space near the door. As she braked, she bumped the handicapped sign. The uniformed guard, a slightly spastic young man adorned with virulent acne, gave her a tentative wave as she slammed the car door. She gave him a dazzling smile as she breezed past, late as usual. He blushed hotly, causing his pustules to flare to cherry color. He was deeply in love with her.

Inside, Helen was greeted warmly by several men and women who had all been at their jobs for half an hour. Strangely, no one glanced pointedly at the wall clock, tapped their wrist watch accusingly, or shook their heads with an ironic smile. Helen could do no wrong at her workplace; she was universally and inexplicably adored by men and women, old and young, from the management to the janitors, the engineers to the typists. Everyone she passed expressed various heartfelt versions of how good it was to see her.

By the time she reached her office, her anger had eased considerably. Her fat, homely secretary, Carole, struggled to her feet and poured the first of many mugs of bad coffee. Handing Helen the World’s Best Boss mug filled with a scalding brew of burned coffee, artificial sweetener, and petrochemical cream, Carole began her ritualized morning offering of compliments, information, and lies.

“Carole, stop pouring warm syrup all over me,” Helen purred, an honest appraisal that neither stemmed the tide of warm syrup nor inhibited its soothing effect.

Helen began to genuinely relax under the ministrations of her assistant, a cunning, ambitious, manipulative woman who would stab her mother in the heart if it would lead to advancement, but who wisely saw that her own career was tied inexorably to Helen’s. Carole had pushed her boss relentlessly up the corporate ladder, each time climbing to the next vacated rung. Now Helen was a vice-president and Carole had the title of associate vice-president. Helen liked Carole. Carole was smart, funny, and devoted. Helen had always chosen perfect protégés. They worked like sled dogs for her and she saw to it that they were rewarded. Carole was one of the best. She could curse like a sailor and lie like a priest and as long as her career progressed, she was perfectly reliable.

Forgetting, as she did every morning, her plan to quit immediately upon arriving at work, Helen got busy.

Helen worked the way she performed sexual acts — reluctantly, only after much preliminary bitching, and with astonishing expertise. Her superiors, a dimwitted crew of Caucasian men, most of whom were smitten with her anyway, put up with her irreverent attitude, her constant complaining, her chronic lateness, and a host of other employee no-nos because she was smart, talented, hard-working, imaginative, and attentive to details. She was much too good for their pathetic little company and they knew it. They tolerated her parking in the handicapped spot, smoking in her office, and taking massively long lunch hours. They allowed her to hire crazed sycophants as assistants. She worked hard all morning.