Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

To the right lay the casino, where a group of strangers waited around a green felt table, the dimly lit room hazy with smoke. In his mind’s eye he saw an empty chair, a stack of chips in front of it, five cards facedown. He saw himself sit, pick up the cards, and toss his ante into the pot. The pull was there. Even with his bloodied face and aching chest, he felt it. He wanted to go there. He wanted to join that table. There was still time. Nobody would care how he looked. Nobody.

But to the left, somewhere beyond the shadowy hill, he saw something else: his daughter’s dark room, the street lamp in the parking lot breaking through the gaps in the blinds. It was as if he were standing there in the doorway, his clothes still dripping. The room smelled so much different than the casino — no smoke, but instead the faint stench from her soiled diapers, an odor her diaper pail couldn’t quite contain. It didn’t smell bad to him, though. It smelled wonderful. He saw himself move quietly into the room, navigating around dolls and blocks and board books littering the floor. He saw himself ease down in the glider across from her bed, cringing when it squeaked. He saw his trembling hand reach for her sleeping form, his fingers inches from her hair.

He closed his eyes. He saw her so much more vividly this way. If he concentrated, he could almost feel his fingers brushing against her hair. Soft, like the finest silk. If he thought about how it felt, if he didn’t allow himself to think about anything else, not even for a second, the feeling could save him. He knew it could. It had power. All he had to do was surrender himself to it. All he had to do was turn his hands to the left.

It should be so simple.

It should be so easy.

And yet, as he opened his eyes, and with a last convulsive shudder forced the wheel to the left, he knew it was both the hardest and the greatest thing he had ever done.

© 2007 by Chris F. Holm

Born in Syracuse, New York, Chris Holm is the grandson of a cop with a penchant for cop stories. Hardly surprising, then, that his debut fiction should be a mystery. He is also a scientist who currently manages a marine biology lab on the coast of Maine. He has recently completed his first novel, a supernatural thriller.

It’s hot. Too hot to sleep, I think, though the gentle rise and fall of the sheet as my wife slumbers be-side me argues otherwise. I glance at the clock on the night-stand. It’s not quite four A.M. The curtains flutter in the warm summer breeze, translucent and insubstantial by the pale glow of the street lamps. They’re beautiful — one of a thousand tiny reminders that the world is as it should be.

I kiss my wife gently on the cheek and slip out of bed. She smiles but doesn’t stir. I pad down the hall past Maddy’s room, pausing a moment to listen to the quiet sound of her breathing. Downstairs, I make myself a cup of tea and head for the porch, the screen door creaking in protest as I ease it closed. I’m greeted by the scents of dogwood and honeysuckle, and of fresh-cut grass sweet like hay — the scents of summer in Virginia.

It’s been twenty years, I realize. Twenty years since the summer that changed my life forever. Sometimes, after the first hard frost has browned the leaves and the chill rains of winter are on their way, it seems a lifetime away. But on a night like this, when even the setting of the sun provides no relief from the oppressive Southern heat, it seems so close. Truth be told, I know it’s never far away.

The summer of 1986 was one of the hottest on record. Drought had been declared in the city of Richmond, and sprinklers and hoses were forbidden. Though the air was thick with moisture and our clothes stuck heavy to our skin, the grass grew dry and brittle beneath our feet, and eventually grew not at all.

My family and I lived in a well-manicured house in a suburb at the edge of town, where the last tendrils of development stretched into the wild Virginia countryside beyond. At the end of the street was a turnaround, past which lay a dense thicket of brambles that gradually gave way to an old-growth forest of birch and oak. A single, winding path cut through the brambles into the forest beyond.

I’d often wondered where the path led, but I was a shy kid, bookish and afraid. In the end, it was that fear that drove me down it. I was certain then that I could hide. Now, of course, I know better.

It all started with the squirrel.

“Go on, Timothy , do it!”

Billy McMahon’s eyes glinted with mischief. He knew damn well that nobody called me Timothy but my mother, and what’s worse, so did everybody else there.

“No. I won’t.”

“What’s the matter, Timothy, you too much of a pansy?” Billy’s nostrils flared in animal aggression. Billy McMahon was a cruel child, the kind of cruel that made you mighty popular at that age. He had me on the ropes, and he wasn’t about to let up. Not while he had an audience.

“Timothy’s a pansy! Timothy’s a pansy!” This from Mike Harrington, and in a whiny falsetto, no less. The kid lived in Billy’s shadow. Honestly, living in Billy’s shadow was one of the better moves he’d ever made. Mike was a little slow, and small for his age, and standing behind Billy McMahon was a sure-fire way of never ending up in front of him.

“I’m not a pansy,” I said through gritted teeth. The crowd gathered tighter around us, humming with voyeuristic interest. I scanned their faces for an ally, but all I saw was relief that it was me in the hot seat and not any of them.

“Then touch it.”

The squirrel lay dead on its side in the center of the street, one blank eye staring skyward. It looked to me like all it wanted was to be left alone. I knew how it felt.

“Fine,” I replied. “Give me the stick.”

“No stick for you, Timmy-my-boy. You gotta touch it bare-handed. You’re lucky I don’t make you pick it up for being such a girl about it.”

A voice cut through the rising din of the crowd. “Leave him alone, Billy.”

The crowd parted. I couldn’t help but wince. There, straddling her bike, was Alison Ashbrook, all elbows and scabby knees. Billy broke into the kind of grin that you feel in the pit of your stomach.

“You hear that, Timothy? Your girlfriend wants me to leave you alone.”

“His girlfriend,” Harrington echoed in that same singsong falsetto.

I opened my mouth to reply, but all that came out was a dry croak.

“Hey, Billy,” Alison said, nodding toward Mike, “tell your boyfriend he sounds like my little sister, only maybe not as cute. You think he’s getting jealous you’re paying Tim so much attention?”

Harrington went red and silent.

“You should watch your mouth, you little bitch,” Billy replied, shaking with rage. The crowd had turned on him, laughing at his discomfort from the safety of a few feet away. Anonymity is a hell of a cure for cowardice.

“And you should watch yours,” she replied. “Every time you open it people get to see what kind of guy you really are.”

Billy picked up his bike from where it lay on the street and climbed atop it. “C’mon, Mike,” he said. “Let’s bail. Too many losers around here for my taste. Oh, and Timothy? I’ll see you around.”

Mike collected his bike without a word, and they rode off, leaving a snickering crowd behind.

With Billy and Mike gone, the crowd began to disperse. I was grateful. My face was flushed with embarrassment, and tears welled in my eyes, threatening to spill over. Soon it was just me and Alison. She looked at me with an expression of sympathy. I looked at my shoes.