Gene Wolfe: Pandora by Holly Hollander

“I doubt it,” Blue said. “Perhaps she anticipated the sort of situation Lieutenant Sandoz envisioned—your uncle’s starting a legal fight to remain free. Or perhaps she let something slip there in your hospital room that indicated she had planted the bomb, and shot your uncle to silence him. My best guess is that he knew how the Pandora boxes worked—he had been raised to take over the family business, remember—and he said enough in your hospital room to frighten her. Certainly he had been to the site of the explosion, since he must have picked up your rose there. No doubt he had talked to people who described the drawing, but we’ll never know unless she tells us.”

Muddy said, “Tomorrow I’m gonna stew some with bread crumbs and green peppers.”

That about winds it up; you don’t have to read this last part if you don’t want to. Bullets from the gun in my father’s desk matched the bullet they took out of Uncle Herbert, and the police found a nurse’s aide who’d seen him and Elaine leaving together, so that was the one they tried her on. About once a month I hitch downstate to visit her, but I haven’t used any of the stuff she’s told me in the visiting room when I put together this book, because it’s different almost every time. My father still has his place on the Gold Coast, only now there’s a woman named Marcie living with him; she’s maybe five years older than I am. I haven’t seen him for a couple of months, but yesterday I got him a birthday card at Ozco’s, and when I send this off to the first publisher on my list I’m going to mail his card to him. Maybe it’ll remind him my own birthday’s coming up pretty quick now. You never know.