Mark Dunn - American Decameron

“Which I assume, my loverman, is the exact bequest that we should expect to see when the will is ultimately probated,” Alice Rose concluded.

“And what of Emma? It seems that her fast-following death kept you from carrying out your plan to get all of her money into the hands of the Rescue League.”

“Yes and no.” Alice Rose smiled mischievously. “When I went to tell her what it was that I was now compelled to do, courtesy of her sister’s long-nursed hatred for her, Emma suffered an attack of nephritis and then fell down her back stairs.”

“And died there as you stood watching?”

Alice Rose shook her head. “A couple of days later. But I cannot help attributing the demise to my threat.”

“Are you pleased with this outcome?”

“I’m not pleased with the fact that I was unable to wring more money for the Animal Rescue League from the two sisters, but I’m quite satisfied that two of the three most notorious murderesses in the long chronicle of New England criminality are now gone from this Earth. And the third — that Bridget, whom Lizzie and Emma insisted on calling Maggie, probably because their previous maid was named Maggie and they couldn’t be bothered to learn a new name — would receive a personal visit from me if there were profit in it. Alas, there is not, and I fear for my own safety, besides, since the maid has already demonstrated that she will not hesitate to use a hatchet when the situation requires it.”

“And what happens to the incriminating letter?”

“I plan to sell it to some future biographer for a kingly sum.”

“No doubt to the benefit of the Fall River Animal Rescue League.”

“That very charity.”

“And where is the letter now?”

“Safe and quite secure. I have just this morning placed it in my safety deposit box in the Union Savings Bank. That was Andrew Borden’s bank, you know.”

Two things crossed Amelia’s mind when she woke that morning. First that she was married. At long last. At the ancient age of thirty-one. When no one in her family thought it should ever happen. Here she was, wed for life to a handsome man, a prosperous man, officer in the local Kiwanis, a man who loved every little thing about her — even the fact that she wasn’t from Richmond and wasn’t (horrors!) even a Hoosier.

The second thing that crossed Amelia’s mind was that the marriage, only one month old, was a mistake — a terrible, grievous mistake. For all his William Haines/Ramon Navarro boyish good looks, for all his charm and bonhomie, for all the respect that he commanded in this very odd community that had welcomed Amelia with, if not open arms, then at least with arms that were not blatantly closed, she should not have wed Chester Bream.

Richmond, Indiana, in the year 1928, was a Midwestern dichotomy of Quakers and non-Quakers; of men who wore white collars and those who wore blue; of men whose collars, in fact, were hidden under white hooded robes, and those men and women who were the object of their disfavor. This last group included Negro jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and Joe “King” Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton, who recorded with the town’s Gennett record label and were earning Richmond the impressive nickname “The Cradle of Recorded Jazz” in spite of all the Klanimosity.

Richmond had colleges. It had a large artistic community, and a full orchestra. But it also had factories that made farm machinery and lawnmowers and school buses. Amelia’s new husband Chester was employed by Wayne Works, where the school buses were put together. He headed WW’s national sales department. Chester, thirty-eight, had come a long way from his early years as stock boy at Knollenberg’s Department Store, elastic-stitcher at the Atlas Underwear Company, and assistant to the chief ivory procurer for the Starr Piano Company.

Amelia wondered where her husband was this morning. She wondered if he’d gone to work as usual. The night before, as he was stalking out of the house, she’d asked where he’d be spending the night. He said he was going to the Rex Hotel. He packed a large suitcase. This made Amelia think that it might be a while before he ventured back home.

Amelia wanted to go home. Back home to Ohio. She wanted an end to the marriage, an end to this ill-begotten sojourn in Richmond. She didn’t like Richmond. She’d made only one friend since Chester moved her here after their brief three-day honeymoon in Chicago. The woman was a neighbor. Her name was Lurelle. Lurelle was thirty-three and married to a fireman who spent over half of each week at Hose House #3 (on North A between 15th and 16th Streets). Lurelle’s husband Gaines felt guilty for being away from his wife and three daughters for so long at a stretch. He easily agreed to Lurelle’s demand that her kitchen be rewired and fitted with multiple outlets so that she could have as many electrical appliances as her lonely heart desired. On Amelia’s first visit to drink coffee and exchange gossip about people whom Amelia neither knew nor had any desire to know, Lurelle showed off her new electric table grill, her electric corn popper, her flat-top toaster, her no-burnout iron, her electric waffle iron, and her shimmering, newly minted Nicalume four-piece percolator set with gold-plated creamer and sugar bowl.

Amelia woke at seven thirty. Thirty minutes later she was still in bed. She was looking at the roses that climbed the trellis outside her window. At eight fifteen she put her face into her pillow and cried. At eight thirty she studied a robin that had perched upon her windowsill. At eight forty she cried. At eight fifty-five she rose and put on her robe and went into the bathroom and prepared herself for a day filled with uncertainty.

Having dressed and having had some tea and a boiled egg that she cooked with her non-electric New Perfection Oil Cook Stove — or rather Chester’s oil cook stove, because it was, after all, Chester’s house — Amelia was roused from her reflective nibbling of a slice of buttered toast by a knock on the front door.

Was it Chester? Had he returned? Had he forgotten his key? And how did she feel about his coming back?

It wasn’t Chester.

The young man at the door was Ichabod gangly. He had an Adam’s apple protruding from his stringy neck that looked big enough to be an Adam’s grapefruit. His suit looked to have been recently purchased, and ill fitted a man of his height and long pipe-stem limbs, giving too much of a view of his socks. It wasn’t necessary for the slightly nervous young man to explain the purpose of his visit. He was holding it next to him. It was a vacuum cleaner — a new, self-contained, self-adjusted, dust and dirt-proof, lubricant-packed, ball-bearing-motored Greater Energex life-lasting cleaner, and it could be Amelia’s for only $24.95.* (*Without attachments.) The young man, in spite of his greenhorn appearance, was salesman enough to have said all of this to Amelia before she was even able to return his “good morning.”

As he finally took a breath, she wedged in. “Are you always this talkative so early in the morning?”

“Is it early?” He glanced at his wristwatch. The watch was easy to see since his cuffs and sleeves were nowhere in its vicinity. “It’s after nine thirty.”

“Then let me say that it’s early for me . Moreover, sir, I’m not in the market for a vacuum cleaner.”

“Perhaps you would change your mind, madam, if I told you that it’s the best vacuum cleaner in its price range. It has several truly astonishing features. Are you familiar with the ‘Airizer’?”

“No. And I haven’t really much of a desire to be.”

The man flashed a smile that said that he was all but certain Amelia’s statement was only a passing jest. “The Airizer is a marvelous new way to air your blankets, pillows, woolens, and baby’s things. It forces fresh air through every thread and fiber by vacuum. So, you see, our product not only sucks, but it also airs with sanitary precision.”