John Boland: Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 54, No. 3, March 2009

Coughlin pushed off his battered desk, rolling his chair toward the office coffee pot. “That’s the one thing I haven’t figured out.” He tipped his mug in Holzer’s direction. “When I get that, I’ll nail her.”

“I’m getting Luke’s antibiotics now,” Holzer reassured Jan by cell phone as he sat in the waiting area of the CVS pharmacy in Lyme. “I’ll be home by six.”

He hung up and checked his messages. Three from Coughlin. That could wait till morning. The strain between them had grown all week. The captain kept telling Coughlin he didn’t have enough to arrest Michelle Fanning. At the same time, the Fannings’ supporters were complaining to the mayor and writing letters to the editor that the police were harassing the family. They had a point. How many times could you interview the neighbors, the colleagues, the friends, before you had to accept they weren’t going to give you what you were looking for? How long before you had to accept that what you were looking for wasn’t there?

“Fifteen minutes,” Holzer heard the pharmacist tell the next customer.

“Mommy, can I go look around the toy aisle?”

“Okay, but stay where I can see you.”

Holzer glanced up just as Michelle Fanning turned. They stared at each other awkwardly. If anything, she looked even more beautiful than the first time Holzer laid eyes on her. The strain of being under suspicion showed in her face. But instead of looking haggard she came across as fragile, like the wildflowers Luke picked for Jan, then cried over because they didn’t last.

“Hello, Mrs. Fanning.” Holzer moved over on the bench, giving her plenty of room.

She nodded and sat. Neither spoke. The minutes ticked by. How long could it take to shake a few amoxicillin tabs into a bottle?

Michelle shrugged off her jacket and Holzer caught her delicate scent. Now she seemed much closer to him although the space between them hadn’t changed. Her profile floated at the edge of his vision, the tumbling curls, the frail wrists. He fought an urge to face her and say, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry for your trouble, sorry my partner is making it worse.” He imagined her crumpling into his arms and weeping on his shoulder.

“Mommy, look!” Little Natalie ran up, waving a small stuffed dog. “Isn’t he cute? Can we buy him?”

Michelle sighed and stroked her daughter’s cheek. “Sure, sweetie. If you like him.”

“Yea!” Natalie hugged the toy and spun around, catching sight of Holzer. “Hey, I know you.” Her whole face scrunched into a frown. “You’re a policeman. Have you caught the bad man who hurt my daddy yet?”

“Holzer!” the pharmacist barked.

The detective leaped up to claim his order. He wanted to pay and get out of there. Still, he glanced at the waiting area as he left. Mother and daughter studied him with big green eyes, mournful and wounded.

When Holzer walked into the office in the morning, Coughlin greeted him with a Verilli’s bakery bag. “There you are! I couldn’t have protected this Danish from poachers much longer.”

Holzer accepted the offering, wary but hungry. Sean seemed unusually chipper. Maybe he got laid last night.

“Guess who showed up? Or maybe I should say, started showing up.”

Holzer said nothing, just chewed and watched.

“Coupla kids walking their dog on the beach in Madison found a suitcase washed up on the sand. Poor little bastards opened it. Male human torso.”

Holzer swallowed. The pecans felt like razors in his throat.

“Then we got a call from a fisherman in Old Saybrook. Pulled two male legs in a rolling duffle bag out of the Sound. ME looked at ‘em. Says they were removed by someone with medical training. Also says the femoral artery in the left thigh was slashed.” Coughlin dunked a donut in coffee. “Head hasn’t turned up yet. That’s probably in the carry-on.”

“For Christ’s sake!” Holzer tossed his Danish in the trash.

Coughlin leaned across his desk. “What’s the matter, Pete? Feelin’ a little queasy knowing that your precious Michelle diced her husband up? That she bled him out like a butchered hog and packed him into matching luggage for easy disposal? I figure she tossed the bags off the bridge into the Connecticut River. The current carried them out to the Sound, but last night’s storm brought them back in.”

The smug satisfaction on his partner’s face ignited a bottle rocket of fury within Holzer. “This has gone far enough! I won’t let you destroy this woman’s life when you have no proof, no—”

Coughlin flipped open a file folder. His calm confidence sucked the fight right out of Holzer.

“Remember when we searched their financial records?” Coughlin asked. “Never found any big, unusual expenditures. Every month pretty much the same. Every month Michelle spends about two hundred bucks at Costco. You know you have to show your member ID card to shop. They keep track of every item you buy. Last month Michelle spent $430 bucks there. I thought I’d see why.”

Coughlin slid a copy of the bill across the desk. It lay there, as attractive and repellent as a fiery roadside wreck.

Holzer forced himself to look. Circled in red: 3pc whld lugg set... $230.00. In that one line, Holzer could see clear to the end of the investigation. He knew Michelle wouldn’t be able to produce the luggage. He knew Neil Tollson would admit the affair.

Coughlin stood up and thrust his powerful arms into his sports coat. “It’s like Patty used to tell me when we were moving into our condo — pack three light boxes instead of one big heavy box. Women have little strategies to compensate for their weakness.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” Jan popped her head into the family room, where Holzer stared at a black TV with a glass in his hand. “Is that scotch? ” She sat down beside him. “So Sean was right about Mrs. Fanning. Does it matter that much?”

Holzer stared at his wife, drinking in every detail of her familiar face: the slight gap in her smile, the worry crease between her brows, the freckles, fading now that summer was over. Then he looked down at her strong, capable hands and imagined a hunting knife there. The vision sent a tremor through his body.

“Pete, what is it?”

“She lured him outside, Jan. She must’ve stuck him with a needle full of morphine and when he collapsed, she slit his femoral artery and watched while he bled out. Then she cut him apart just like you do with the turkey carcass so you can fit it in the soup pot.”

Janice winced in disgust, but that wasn’t enough for Holzer.

“She met a guy she liked better than Brian. So she chopped up the father of her children.” He drained the scotch, banging the glass onto the end table. “How do you explain that to your kids? If you killed their dad during a struggle, maybe you could hope someday they’d understand. But this...”

Jan massaged his hands, rolling the thick, callused fingers between her own. “You liked her, didn’t you?”

Holzer pulled his wife into a rough embrace. She smelled of pot roast and Play-Doh and Mr. Bubble. His tears soaked into her gray-brown hair.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, but Jan didn’t seem to hear.

Copyright © 2008 S. W. Hubbard