Шарлин Харрис - Small Kingdoms and Other Stories

The origin of Anne DeWitt was as random as most ideas are. I noticed one day that I washed myself in the same order every day. Face, then arms, etc. I wondered how many little routines we employ daily, without being aware of them. Since I’m a writer, I then wondered what would happen if those routines were violently interrupted. Most of us wouldn’t be able to cope with the shock.

But what if we were?

What if one woman was more than capable of defending herself with vigor?

It would have to be a woman with a blameless job and reputation—an orderly and disciplined woman. Hmmm. How had she acquired that discipline, that physical and mental toughness?

Gradually the world of “Small Kingdoms” began to take shape. I decided Anne needed a partner, and Holt Halsey was born.

I’ve now written several short stories about Anne DeWitt (initially known as Twyla Burnside) in the past few years, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing every one. With each new story, I’ve tried to show a different side of Anne. I hope you enjoy her adventures. And I hope she’s not the principal of your child’s school.

On this particular spring Tuesday, Anne DeWitt was thrown off her regular schedule. Between brushing her teeth and putting on her foundation, she had to kill a man.

Most mornings, Anne was as accurate as a precision watch. Between the moment she rolled out of bed and the moment she got into her car, attractively groomed and dressed, Anne used a total of forty-five minutes. Following a fifteen-minute drive, during which she reviewed the day to come, Anne walked in the front doors of Travis High School at ten minutes before eight o’clock. Her secretary had better, by God, be sitting behind her own desk when Anne’s heels clicked on the office floor.

But this Tuesday morning was not like most mornings, due to the short struggle and the longer effort of body disposal.

On the drive to work, she figured he’d scaled the roof while she was asleep, broken in a dormer window in the attic, and let down the attic steps while she was in the shower. (She’d noticed some specks on the carpet under the attic opening. Insulation?) Anne wasn’t pleased that she hadn’t foreseen this possibility, but she tried not to be too hard on herself, either. A woman had to sleep. A shower made noise.

It was her fault, however, that she hadn’t included the attic windows in her security system. She’d rectify that immediately.

It was Anne’s good luck that she was looking in the mirror. If she hadn’t been, she might have missed the flicker of movement as he came through the bathroom door, might not have realized the man was there until the wire cinched around her neck.

It was the would-be killer’s bad luck that Anne was standing before the mirror naked, trimming a few errant hairs in her bangs, scissors in her hands. She pivoted instantly, her knees bent, and drove the sharp points upward into his throat, the two blades sinking in with a minimum of effort. Anne never bought inferior steel. Anne’s hand came away, leaving the scissor blades in the double wound to minimize the inevitable leakage.

As a bonus, the dying man landed on the cotton bathmat with its no-slip rubber backing, which soaked up the trickles of blood.

Anne squatted by the body as the man died and looked at him intently. She was mildly surprised to discover she knew him: Bert Sawyer, her neighbor of two months, who’d moved in two doors west. He’d come over to borrow her jumper cables a week before. Anne spared a moment to think about that as she got the extra shower curtain liner, still in its packaging, from the bathroom linen closet.

She assumed “Bert” had had backers. They’d taken time to set this up, time and money. If Bert had been acting on his own, his preparation was even more impressive. This had been a carefully thought-out plan. None of the kids at Travis High School would have recognized their principal as she smiled at the failure of this plan, at her victory.

But it had been a victory by too narrow a margin. Anne’s smile faded as she called herself to task. She was alive only because Bert had made stupid choices.

Why hadn’t he attacked while she was asleep? Why had he waited until daylight, until she was clearly up and about? She stared down at the body, tempted to give it a kick. She was pretty damn irritated about losing the scissors.

A glance at her wall clock told her she was already running five minutes late, and there was a small spot of blood on her left shoulder. Dammit! She stepped back in the shower and washed herself off in case there were specks she hadn’t noticed, careful not to get her hair wet since she’d already styled it for the day. She didn’t want to spend the extra time to repeat the process.

As the water beat down, she thought hard about her next step. She was tempted to leave the body where it was until she came home from work, but there was always the chance that they (if there was a “they”) would call the police, concoct some story that might compel the police to check out the inside of her house. Heard screams… saw smoke… think someone’s broken in… any of those might make a conscientious cop insist on checking out the interior.

Anne puffed out her cheeks in exasperation as she completed her makeup. No, she had to do a certain amount of cleanup. Now she would be late, no doubt about it, and her record at this job had been as perfect as her record at her previous employment. Son of a bitch.

Her jaw set in a grim line, Anne pulled on rubber gloves and removed the plastic liner from its packaging. Anyone might use rubber gloves to clean, just as anyone might keep an extra shower curtain liner. Right? Hindered by the small floor space, Anne (who was very lean and athletic) managed to roll the body and the bathmat onto the clear plastic sheet and began securing it from the feet up, using duct tape from a fresh roll.

She left the scissors in the man’s throat with a pang of true regret. She’d looked at many pairs of scissors before she’d selected those, and she’d used them exclusively to trim hair. That was why they’d maintained their great edge.

Well, she thought, it was worth it. She’d wiped off the handles, of course. She was sure any tiny snips of her hair that might have adhered to the blades would be too degraded by the time the body was found to be of any use to criminalists. In time, she’d acquire some more scissors for the rare self-trim job. Before she covered the dead man’s face, she took another look.

Like Anne’s, Bert Sawyer’s hair was thick, though his was sable brown, several shades darker than hers. She wondered if Bert’s hair was dyed, like hers; probably. She had another sudden thought and pushed aside the would-be killer’s hair in a couple of spots close to his ears. Huh. He’d had plastic surgery. She turned his face to the overhead light again, really concentrating on its contours, but there’d been so many faces in those ten years she’d run the school at her previous job.

And that had to be why he’d come here.

Anne deployed the duct tape until Bert Sawyer was encased and leak-proof. She cast a critical eye around the bathroom. There was no blood visible to the naked eye on the vanity or the mirror, but she ran a washrag over them nonetheless. All the while, she puzzled over Bert Sawyer’s true identity. But she dismissed her concerns after a glance at her watch; twenty minutes late, and the body to dispose of!