Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

No change from Jason. She took a breath.

“But there was one more common thread. Took a bit of digging, but that’s what we journalists do. Find stuff out. And what I found out is that all four men, all four, had criminal records. For domestic violence. All four were men who abused their wives, abused their children, all four were bullies. And now all four of them are dead.”

He remained silent. She lowered her voice. “How do you choose them, Jason? Do you hear about them, in the morning, when the place is packed? Hear gossip about who’s beating his wife, how he’s getting away with it... Is that it? And you can’t stand it, can you? A man who’s dedicated his life to fighting bad guys, to being a good guy... you decide to do something about it. Something involving your old skills. Old skills that would allow you to get away with a death without any suspicions being raised.”

Jason looked down at the papers and looked up again. “This isn’t an article you’re working on now, is it? It’s something else.”

Elaine nodded. “Yes. It’s something else.”

“Blackmail,” he said. “What do you want? Eggs? Bacon? Money?”

She looked at him, and then reached over to a napkin dispenser and pulled out a white napkin. She moistened one corner of the napkin with her tongue and then started gently rubbing away the makeup about her right cheek and eye. She rubbed for a bit, until she was sure that the bruises were now revealed.

“Your help,” she whispered, tears coming to her. “I want your help.”

The other morning she had stood in the empty living room, watched the taillights of Casey’s SUV descend down the long drive-way, and she had folded her arms and wondered if she could actually do this, actually go through with it, and she touched her eye and her cheek and her jaw, and she had no doubt.

Jason sat silently for a moment, and then he reached over with a large hand. For one thrilling moment Elaine thought that he was going to gently grasp her own hand and say that it would all work out, but instead, he gathered up the sheets of paper and returned them to the file folder.

“I admire your research, Elaine, and what you’ve done.”

A pause. Her heart racing so hard that she thought he could hear it.

This time, Jason took a breath. “But I’m sorry, I can’t do anything.”

He stood up and said, “Write what you want to write. Or not. But I’d suggest a bit more research. We happy few do more than what you think.”

And he walked off, and she was alone, and her jaw and cheek and eye ached terribly.

And so weeks went by, miserable weeks, punctuated by brief moments of peace when Casey went off on yet another business trip to keep his new company afloat, and it got to the point that she didn’t particularly care anymore about anything. Twice he had struck her some more and it was as if she was above it all, gazing at how he was hitting her, as if it was some sort of out-of-body experience. She noodled about on the story about Jason and the diner — leaving out all the juicy stuff about his CIA past — and submitted the story, and Winslow, her former colleague, e-mailed back that the story was nice but the queue to be published was full, and the story probably wouldn’t appear for months.

Fine. Whatever. She kept up with her running, tried her hand at coming up with another nonfiction piece to write about, but she found herself being forgetful, or oblivious. A couple of times she had come home from jogging and found the side door unlocked. Other times laundry had remained in the dryer for a couple of days in a row. Though now a bear about housecleaning, she sometimes found bits of tape and plastic stuck in the corner of a room, and she redoubled her efforts to keep the house neat for Casey. An odd equation, but it worked: a clean house, clean clothes, meals on time meant the hitting would stop. An equation that would have horrified her back in Manhattan, but Manhattan was far away, and her bank account was so very thin, and she was so very scared, for Casey had once said that he would never allow her to leave, not ever, and she had no choice but to believe him. A few times she even had the sense she was being watched, and she suspected that Casey had hired someone to keep an eye on her.

So one November day she came back from a run, feeling the frost in the air, a part of her terrified that winter would soon be here, a type of northern New Hampshire winter where you could be housebound for days on end, roads and driveways blocked by drifts of snow, and she knew it would not last, could not last. If Casey were to live, well, she would do something so that he would live alone. And at least the pain would stop. Even jogging wasn’t fun anymore; she felt like her arms and legs were made of concrete, weighing her down, slowing everything.

She went into the house, breathing hard, and Casey was there, cup of coffee in his hand, looking at her, dressed in clean and pressed black slacks, white dress shirt, and red necktie. Her heart thudded some, looking at his eyes, trying to determine what was going on here, and he looked fairly calm. Not a guarantee — it was amazing how quickly his calm moments could spin into a vicious storm — but she would take whatever positive sign she could.

“Hey,” she said, going to the sink, grabbing a couple of sheets of paper towel, wetting them, wiping down her face and neck.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “Good run?”

“Pretty good.”

“Hunh,” he said, raising his coffee mug. “Saw the mail on the dining room table. Looks like it’s not sorted yet.”

Heart thumped again. “I’ll... I’ll get right to it.”

He stayed silent, but she felt the tension in the air, a faint crackling, like a far-off thunderstorm was heading this way. She strolled out to the living room, saw the pile of mail, berated herself for not having sorted it before the run. Something easy to do, just a minute or two, and then Casey wouldn’t have gotten angry, Casey wouldn’t be in a bad mood, Casey wouldn’t be tempted to raise his fist.

Catalogue, catalogue, PSNH bill, flyer advertising used cars, and another flyer, and—

This one, a light blue.

Something she had never seen before.

From the Have a Seat diner.

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL, it announced on top.

Then it listed its times of operation, some menu items, breakfast and lunch, and on the bottom, in bold: HUSBANDS EAT FOR FREE IF THIS FLYER PRESENTED.

Her heart started thumping hard again. She reread the flyer, to make sure.

Could it be?

But hadn’t he turned her down?

Looked at the flyer again.

Hold on. He had said something else... something else that day.

What had it been?

“Hey, hon!” she called out, hoping her voice wasn’t trembling. “Be there in a sec. Want to check something in my office.”

Casey grumbled something back and now she was in her office, going through the notebook. That last thing he had said. What had it been?

Pages flipping; fingers shaking.

Hoping Casey would stay in the kitchen.

There.

“We happy few do more than what you think.”

That’s what he had said.

What did he mean by that?

Her computer was up and after a few minutes of Internet searching, she sat back in the chair, arms hugging tight against her chest. She had found an obscure article about the CIA and its special field agents, the ones who killed people, and one team member — speaking anonymously, of course — had quoted Shakespeare’s famous lines in Henry V, about “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” The CIA operative had said that we happy few do more than what you think. We observe. We learn. We do reconnaissance. We don’t go off half-cocked, and we don’t target someone unless he deserves it.