Otto Penzler: Dangerous Women

“Where’d you go?”

“ Ann Arbor. Criminal justice major. I took the CS exam and landed a spot on Detroit PD. Worked there for a while. Narcotics mostly. Then moved out here and joined the force in Seattle.”

“And you’ve got your gold shield. You made detective fast.” Heath looked over the house. “She lived here by herself? Where’s your father?”

“Dead,” Beth Anne said matter-of-factly. “She killed him.”

“What?”

“Wait’ll you read the extradition order from Michigan. Nobody knew it at the time, of course. The original coroner’s report was an accident. But a few months ago this guy in prison in Michigan confessed that he’d helped her. Mother found out my father was skimming money from their operation and sharing it with some girlfriend. She hired this guy to kill him and make it look like an accidental drowning.”

“I’m sorry, Detective.”

Beth Anne shrugged. “I always wondered if I could forgive them. I remember once, I was still working Narc in Detroit. I’d just run a big bust out on Six Mile. Confiscated a bunch of smack. I was on my way to log the stuff into Evidence back at the station and I saw I was driving past the cemetery where my father was buried. I’d never been there. I pulled in and walked up to the grave and tried to forgive him. But I couldn’t. I realized then that I never could-not him or my mother. That’s when I decided I had to leave Michigan.”

“Your mother ever remarry?”

“She took up with Selbit a few years ago but she never married him. You collared him yet?”

“No. He’s around here somewhere but he’s gone to ground.”

Beth Anne gave a nod toward the phone. “Mother tried to grab the phone when I came in tonight. She might’ve been trying to get a message to him. I’d check out the phone records. That might lead you to him.”

“Good idea, Detective. I’ll get a warrant tonight.”

Beth Anne stared through the rain, toward where the squad car bearing her mother had vanished some minutes ago. “The weird part was that she believed she was doing the right thing for me, trying to get me into the business. Being a crook was her nature; she thought it was my nature too. She and Dad were born bad. They couldn’t figure out why I was born good and wouldn’t change.”

“You have a family?” Heath asked.

“My husband’s a sergeant in Juvenile.” Then Beth Anne smiled. “And we’re expecting. Our first.”

“Hey, very cool.”

“I’m on the job until June. Then I’m taking an LOA for a couple of years to be a mom.” She felt an urge to add, “Because children come first before anything.” But, under the circumstances, she didn’t think she needed to elaborate.

“Crime Scene’s going to seal the place,” Heath said. “But if you want to take a look around, that’d be okay. Maybe there’s some pictures or something you want. Nobody’d care if you took some personal effects.”

Beth Anne tapped her head. “I got more mementos up here than I need.”

“Got it.”

She zipped up her windbreaker, pulled the hood up. Another hollow laugh.

Heath lifted an eyebrow.

“You know my earliest memory?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“In the kitchen of my parents’ first house outside of Detroit. I was sitting at the table. I must’ve been three. My mother was singing to me.”

“Singing? Just like a real mother.”

Beth Anne mused, “I don’t know what song it was. I just remember her singing to keep me distracted. So I wouldn’t play with what she was working on at the table.”

“What was she doing, sewing?” Heath nodded toward the room containing a sewing machine and racks of stolen dresses.

“Nope,” the woman answered. “She was reloading ammunition.”

“You serious?”

A nod. “I figured out when I was older what she was doing. My folks didn’t have much money then and they’d buy empty brass cartridges at gun shows and reload them. All I remember is the bullets were shiny and I wanted to play with them. She said if I didn’t touch them she’d sing to me.”

This story brought the conversation to a halt. The two officers listened to the rain falling on the roof.

Born bad …

“All right,” Beth Anne finally said, “I’m going home.”

Heath walked her outside and they said their good-byes. Beth Anne started the rental car and drove up the muddy, winding road toward the state highway.

Suddenly, from somewhere in the folds of her memory, a melody came into her head. She hummed a few bars out loud but couldn’t place the tune. It left her vaguely unsettled. So Beth Anne flicked the radio on and found Jammin’ 95.5, filling your night with solid-gold hits, party on, Portland… She turned the volume up high and, thumping the steering wheel in time to the music, headed north toward the airport.

OTTO PENZLER owns the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and founded the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books. He has written and edited several books, including the Edgar ®Award-winning Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection and the anthologies Murder Is My Racquet and Dangerous Women . He is also the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories of the Year .