The Toronto International Festival Authors salutes romance writing. On Saturday, November 22nd, 1 pm, Mme Lisa De Nikolits will be moderating the panel on YA Romance with authors, Jackie Khalilieh and M. K. Lobb.

The festival is taking place at the Yorkville Royal Sonesta Hotel, 220 Bloor Street West, Toronto.

For members of Crime Writers of Canada: you don’t want to miss Mme Melissa’s webinar on how to get the medicine right in your murder! As a special bonus, Melissa is giving a beginner’s intro to forensic pathology.

Dr. Melissa Yi could slice your throat and sew it back up again. Legally, because she’s an emergency doctor. She is the author of the Hope Sze medical crime series and the winner of the Derringer Award for Best Crime Story for her short story, “My Two Legs”. Her work spans many genres: crime, speculative fiction, romance, fantasy and even poetry!

Mme. M. H. Callway Met the Queen!

You might think public health is boring, but it’s anything but! At Disease Control, I was a real-life detective hunting down the sources of disease outbreaks and dangerous chemical exposures.

For several years, I also helped to ensure safe food handling for VIP visits to Ontario. I mean, what could be more embarrassing to Canada than giving food poisoning to the Royal Family or the Pope or the Aga Khan at a banquet in their honour? And, as the police officers on security told us, one of the most effective ways to knock out an army is to give the soldiers gastro-enteritis.

The visiting Royals always met and thanked operations and security staff personally – truly a class act. That’s how I met the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip – and have a framed photograph with them to show my grandchildren!

Huge congratulations are in order: Mmes Sylvia Warsh and Melissa Yi’s YA novels, The Orphan and The Red Rock Killer made it to the list of the Judges Best Picks for the Silver Falchion awards.

Here is how they describe the Judges Best Picks category:

“These selections highlight manuscripts that our judges wished could have made the Finalists lists, but with limited finalist slots, intricate cuts must always be made. Despite the sheer number of entries this year, our dedicated judges went above and beyond once again. On their initiative, they submitted a list of titles they felt deserved extra recognition: manuscripts they felt should be on everyone’s reading list.”

Introducing our new mid-month feature, Mid-Month Mayhem, where the Mesdames and Messieurs share secrets about their lives that their readers could never guess.

And what better way to debut our new feature than to reveal secrets about our three CWC Award nominees, Catherine Astolfo, Therese Greenwood and Melissa Yi!

Mme Catherine Astolfo is a world traveller!

Cathy tells us: “On my tenth trip to Israel, assisting with pilgrimage groups, I stepped off the bus into a hole and broke my ankle. Part of the reason for falling over could have been my backpack full of beer. No, this does not have anything to do with the title of my recent novel, Auntie Beers.”

Cathy’s story, “Farmer Knudson”, one of the connected stories in Auntie Beers, is a finalist for the 2025 CWC Award for Best Short Story.

Mme Therese Greenwood escaped a wildfire!

Therese tells us: “I was alone with fifteen minutes to pack when escaping the Fort McMurray wildfire. After our house (and entire neighborhood) was destroyed, I wrote in What You Take With You about the “valuables” I grabbed on my way out the door: A rolling pin, a beekeeping book, a cat photograph, and a box of stuff that wasn’t worth fifty bucks. Turns out, almost everyone who fled Fort McMurray that day had a box of similarly random items.”

Therese’s story, “Hatcheck Bingo” from our very own anthology, The 13th Letter, is a finalist for the CWC Best Short Story Award.

Mme Melissa Yi can cut your throat – and get away with it!

Melissa is an emergency room physician who can save your life by performing a necessary tracheotomy. How does she find the time to save lives, raise a family AND publish several works a year in a variety of genres from crime, speculative fiction, romance, poetry and YA? Maybe she’s a magician who bends time…

Melissa’s story, “The Longest Night of the Year”, published in EQMM, Nov/Dec 2024, is nominated for the CWC Best Short Story Award. AND her YA mystery, The Red Rock Killer, is short-listed for the CWC Best YA/Juvenile Novel Award!

THE MOB BAR MOB

A Dr. Hope Sze Mystery

by

MELISSA YI

“Open the book, Hope,” said Tucker.

He’d reserved a table for us at the Mob Bar, a retro speakeasy in the basement of Montreal’s Musée Mafioso. I was extra late because Tucker had forgotten to text me the password, so the doorman had refused to let me in.

Once I’d received and muttered the password, Zozzled, the doorman had checked off Dr. Hope Sze in a small, black notebook, tucked the notebook in the left breast pocket of his navy peacoat, tipped his matching retro police cap, and finally allowed me to enter.

I tiptoed into this dark cellar with low ceilings, brick walls, and a mahogany bar. My high heels clacked on the wooden floor, and I scanned past an elderly couple and a trio of drunk businesspeople before I spotted Tucker’s blond hair and green suit gleaming under the dim, yellow light.

Just before I sat down, facing the door, a female server in a discreet black dress placed a glass of ice cubes in front of me, with a blackberry on top of the topmost cube.

“Uh, thanks.” An empty glass?

She pressed a black book, titled The Snitch’s Diary, onto the dark, wood table, beside my right hand.

Tucker also received a book and a glass of ice.

I raised my eyebrows.

That was when Tucker told me to open the book. But the heavy hardback was stuck closed, and its pages were glued together. I sputtered, “This is a fake book!”

Tucker laughed, so I turned the book sideways and used my nails to pry open the lid. It was really a cardboard box made to look like a book. Inside lay a glass flask filled with clear liquid.

“Pretty neat, huh?” said Tucker. “You have to pour your drink yourself. They used to hide booze inside books during the Prohibition.”

The server smiled, and whirled away to serve the businesspeople at the next table, interrupting their chat about mergers and acquisitions.

I popped open the flask and tipped the strong-smelling alcohol into the glass. I might prefer books to booze, but I was willing to try it. “What did you order me?”

“The Hope Diamond Gin. I got the Bee’s Knees.”

I laughed. “They say that in the Archie comics. It means fantastic.”

“Yeah. They named the drink in honor of Bee Jackson, famous for dancing the Charleston, even though she probably ripped off an African-American dance called the Juba.”

I sighed to myself. Ain’t that always the way?

“Yeah. Gin, lemon, and honey sound good, even if it is cultural appropriation.” He started to open the box, but struggled even more than I did.

“Open the book, Tucker,” I said, with an innocent wink.

“I can’t. Mine’s, like, taped shut.” He picked up a sharp swizzle stick.

“Don’t hurt their book!”

“I’m not. The tape would hurt the book more than this stick.”

Tucker’s a family medicine resident like me. I know he’s got good hands. Still, I kept a nervous eye out for the server. I’m pretty sure they don’t want you damaging fake books at the overpriced 21st-century speakeasy.

Fortunately, the server seemed more interested in the old couple by the door. The man held up his glass, showing that he wanted a refill.

Meanwhile, the white businessman next to us grumped, “What about my moonshine?”

I glanced behind me. The bartender rolled up the cuffs of his white shirt and reached for a glass.

In other words, no one noticed Tucker’s surgery on the booze book. I breathed a little more easily—until Tucker opened the book and basically turned translucent. He doesn’t have the half the melanin in my Asian gene pool.

“What is it?” I mouthed at him.

He shut the book, fingers trembling. “It’s not mine.”

“What isn’t?” I whispered.

He texted to me instead of speaking. I’m guessing $20K.

I blinked at him. We went out for a drink and ended up with $20,000 in a booze book?

The doorman seemed like an obvious choice to tell, if only because of his Prohibition police uniform. But maybe I’d been fooled by his cap and double-breasted coat?

We couldn’t trust anyone.

I twisted in my chair to survey the room. The tall, tattooed, toothsome male bartender stared back at me; I counted two servers, including our own; the three businesspeople at the next table—who were the grumpy white man, a white woman, and a Black man; us; and the elderly white couple who looked like they might have survived the Prohibition, or at least been born in the same era as my grandma. None of them were obvious sources of twenty grand.

“Huh,” I said. “So, we should call the police?”

Tucker shook his head. “I don’t know that this is a crime.”

“Yeah, but money doesn’t fall out of the sky. Or out of a book.”

“Agreed. It’s just…I’ve never seen so much money before.”

Both of us were poor students. I don’t think anyone outside medicine has a clue that most of us graduate with at least $200,000 in debt. So free money was awfully tempting.

Tucker exhaled and said, “Okay. We have to figure out what to do with it. Let me go to the secret room.”

I started to ask, “What secret room?” But he’d already leaped out of his seat, the book tucked under his green suit jacket as he headed for the door.

I whipped out my phone to research Prohibition. When the U.S. banned liquor sales in 1920, people turned to speakeasies, or underground bars. Modern speakeasies tend to replicate secret rooms, if only so they can charge $20 a drink.

If Tucker had a second password, that doorman could probably find him a good hidey-hole.

I prayed that Tucker had that password.

“Where is it?” demanded the businesswoman with a sharp nose, and an even sharper voice, drawing my attention back to the neighboring table.

“I don’t got it,” snapped the oversized white businessman beside her.

I shrank down in my seat, remembered I was supposed to be cool, and stirred my drink instead. I didn’t dare drink it; I had to keep every last brain cell active.

“Ronald, where’d you put it?” the Black businessman beside him asked.

“In a safe place,” grumpy Ronald replied. “I told you that you could trust me, Rose,” he added to the sharp woman.

Okay. Ronald and Rose. Those should be easy to remember. At least they were both R names. I avoided their eyes. Both men looked ready to fight. Even Rose could probably smash me. She looked twice my age, but also gave off a vibe like she’d fight dirty.

“I told you to leave the money alone. Now, where is it?” Rose issued each word deliberately and viciously. Like a bullet.

Ronald shrank away. “I sent it to the back. I used a code word.”

“You idiot. What code word?” Rose snapped.

“Look, no one’s mad at you, Ronald, but we need the money,” said the Black guy.

Rose shifted closer to Ronald. “I’m mad at you. I’d cut your eyes out if Xavier here didn’t stop me.”

Ronald bleated back to her, “Bees.”

“What?”

“That’s the safe word. That’s how I know it goes to the right place. Bees.”

“You idiot. One of the drinks here is called the Bee’s Knees. In fact, I think that old lady ordered one.”

Uh-oh. They all turned to stare at the old lady by the door, who continued to chat with her white-haired husband. The doorman/policeman hovered in the doorway too, although I saw no sign of Tucker.

Rose smacked her glass on the table. “Only one way to find out.”

Oh, no. I couldn’t let her hurt that old couple.

I headed for the door, pretended that my feet were hurting in my stilettos (true story), and plopped in a seat at the empty table next to the oldsters so I could adjust my heels, letting the trio pass by.

“Good evening,” said Rose to the old lady. “We got our drinks order mixed up. Any chance you got the wrong book?”

The tiny, bespectacled, white-haired lady pointed to her drink. “It’s quite delicious, thank you.”

The elderly man looked up from his black notebook, where he was making notes. “Nothing wrong with my moonshine.”

“May I see your Snitch’s Diary?” Rose said, now displaying a tiny gun in her hand.

I dialed 911, and prayed under my breath that Tucker would hide in that secret room, far away from the door.

The doorman/fake cop took a step from the doorway toward the couple. “Hey, now.”

“Hey, what?” Rose turned the gun on him.

His hand twitched toward her, and she pulled the trigger, hitting him on the left side of his chest.

The blast reverberated through the basement, and the doorman collapsed with a heavy thump, making the wood floor vibrate under our feet.

“Rose!” Ronald gasped.

“Shut up and find my money, unless you want to go with him!”

Meanwhile, my cell phone speaker said, “Nine-one-one, how may I direct your call?”

“Man shot at the Mob Bar,” I whispered.

“I can’t hear your response, ma’am. Do you need police or ambulance?”

“Both!”

I didn’t dare say more, but I left the call live so that police could triangulate the Mob Bar’s location—if cell phone reception kept working in the basement, which was a big if.

“Now get his book, you idiot,” said Rose. “Xavier, you take care of everyone else.”

I cringed, scanning the room for weapons. My flask rested on my table. I could break it over someone’s head, but not three someone’s heads, let alone one armed with a gun. Chair—not great. My stiletto—same.

The old man rose to his feet. “Now, son, we can figure out another solution to this.”

“Shut up, Grandpa,” said Rose.

Grandpa yanked a gun out from under his suit jacket. “If you insist.”

What? Another gun? This is Canada!

Then Grandma planted her feet, and locked her arms, both hands bracing her own pistol.

A third gun? You’re kidding me.

I couldn’t outrun three guns. I hit the deck, banging my knees before I caught myself with my hands. Plus, I bit my tongue when my chin conked onto the floor. Still, I was alive.

Alive enough to hear sirens wailing outside.

“Is that the cops?” Ronald asked.

Cars screeched to a halt. Doors slammed.

“Kill them!” Rose shouted. “Ronald, take out the old biddies!”

“Don’t do it, Ronald!”

I flinched, recognizing Tucker’s voice from the hallway.

“D’you hear what I said?” Rose yelled.

“Killing them won’t bring back the money!” I shouted from the floor.

“Everyone shut up!” Rose screamed.

Feet trampled down the stairs, and the police—the real police—shouted at us to put our hands up.

I obeyed.

So did Rose and Ronald, especially once Xavier turned a fourth gun on them. Turned out he was an undercover cop.

As were “Grandma” and “Grandpa,” whose aging makeup didn’t hold up as well once the bartender turned up the lights full blast.

I rushed to check on the fallen doorman. He blinked, and met my eyes when I ripped open his navy peacoat and hauled up his white cotton undershirt,—revealing only an indented bruise on his left breast.

Don’t tell them, he mouthed at me.

He wanted to stay “dead” until the coast was clear. Smart man.

“But—” He wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest. How had he survived Rose’s gunshot?

I yanked the coat closed. His black notebook thumped on the floor, a tiny bullet trapped in its back cover.

I almost laughed, but I buttoned his coat up until the police led Rose and Ronald out the door.

Author’s Note: Inspired by the true story of Constable Jeremy Snow, a New Zealand police officer whose notebook stopped a bullet aimed at his heart: www dot stuff dot co dot nz/national/4654409/Shot-officer-saved-by-notebook

Called the “Queen of Comedy” by the Toronto Sun, Melodie Campbell was also named the “Canadian literary heir to Donald Westlake” by Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  Winner of 10 awards, including the Derringer and the Crime Writers of Canada Award of Excellence, she has multiple bestsellers and has been featured in USA Today.  She is the past executive director of Crime Writers of Canada (CWC).

Melodie joins CWC’s Erik D’Souza for a chat about the issue of women’s rights in her latest novel, The Silent Film Star Murders, and also what makes a Canadian cozy, as opposed to those written in the UK or the US.

You can find the interview on CWC’s Buzzsprout or Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music and numerous other podcasts.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2232876/episodes/16894134

THE RANCHERO’S DAUGHTER

by

SYLVIA MAULTASH WARSH

My father, the famous psychiatrist, Sebastian de Aguilar, was dying at the age of 62. I had taken over his patients in the sanitarium he founded on the rancho 30 years ago. Our family still kept horses, cows and hens that wandered freely among the banana plants, to the delight of the half dozen patients. They helped in the care and feeding of the animals, an integral part of the treatment at our facility. My father understood that it soothes the mind to think about someone other than oneself.

He was a pioneer in this kind of therapy, where patients and animals are brought together for the benefit of both. I myself was cheered by a tiny dog who adopted me on the street a few years ago. She was too straggly to have an owner, and though hesitant at first—she was not a man’s dog—I took her home. I named her Luz, since she was a light in my life. I have a tendency toward melancholy, which she alleviated with a touch of her diminutive paw.

My father called me into his bedroom in the evenings to check on his patients’ progress and give me direction. He would sit up in bed, leaning back against his pillows, while I pulled a chair to his bedside. My little Luz lay curled at my feet. I glanced at the old photo of my mother on the night table, the dark eyes moist despite the radiant smile. She had died when I was three.

My father’s concern for his patients lasted several months. But as his illness progressed, he began to divert from this path and wandered into memory. He would relate milestones in his career: his studies in psychotherapy in Vienna, the autopsies of the nervous system he conducted in New York, his positions in the Ministry of Health at home.

One time he began in the same way, dredging out from dim memory the names of old physicians who had taken him under their wing in Zurich and Berlin. Then he stopped, the soft white curls on his head trembling. I had never seen him so weak. The disease was gnawing away at his identity, leaving behind a stranger.

“Mateo, you were not yet born when a ranchero in the neighboring valley started having trouble with his beautiful but insane daughter. He was a rich landowner from a distinguished Spanish family who had come to Honduras in the 1700s. Now, 200 years later, the family was in danger of disappearing, with the girl the last offspring. The ranchero’s wife had died, so the girl lost her beloved mother and became even worse. The stepmother could not control her and came to hate her.”

This was not my father talking! He had never demeaned himself with gossip.

“The girl was a beauty, but completely mad. One never knew what to expect from her. She whirled around when there was no music. She talked to the horses and cows, and claimed they talked back. She would scream for no reason, as if someone were killing her. They could not keep maids because the girl would curse them and prick them with a fork, threatening to eat them.”

My brilliant father was disappearing. In his debilitated state, his low raspy voice arrived slowly, between halts.

“Such a beautiful girl, with long black hair and dark green eyes like a forest. The only creature she truly loved was her Chihuahua, Conchita, a demanding little dog who ate the shredded beef out of the girl’s tortillas. She had the seamstress sew a special pocket in all her skirts so she could carry the dog around, its ugly little head poking out.”

With effort, my father sat up and glanced at the Chihuahua lying at my feet. Luz lifted her fawn-colored head, alert. “Your dog could be her sister, they’re so much alike.”

I tried not to take offense at the comparison, and steered his mind back to the practice of medicine.

“Did her father take her to see a doctor?”

“In those days, they did not understand mental disease as we do now. They thought she was possessed by spirits. Because her father was rich, everyone pretended to overlook her behavior, but they murmured behind his back. He had his heart set on his daughter marrying the handsome son of a nearby ranchero. However, this family would not hear of it, having witnessed the girl’s madness.

“While she was a child, her father went to the church in town every Sunday to pray for the spirits to leave her. When she turned 18, at his wit’s end, he announced to the world that he would bequeath half of his land to the person who could cure his daughter’s insanity. You can imagine that this offer brought all sorts of schemers to the rancho to try their luck. A woman came from far away who claimed to have psychic abilities. After a few hours, she gave up, saying the devils were too strong in the girl. A man who was famous for his powers of hypnosis arrived. When he put her under his spell, she became quiet and peaceful. Her father rejoiced. But as soon as the hypnosis wore off, she started to scream that someone was trying to kill her dog.”

My father’s voice had become so quiet I had to lean forward to hear.

“Men appeared from far and wide, their common attribute the conviction that their charm alone would break the spell of her madness. Two young men distinguished themselves from the others. One was a musician of medium height but well-muscled, who arrived carrying his guitar. Black hair and black eyes, he sang ballads of honor in war in a passionate voice that made even the lizards stop and listen.

“The other young man couldn’t have been more different. Tall and fair, with well-formed limbs, he was a poet who recited his stanzas about the sky and the stars from memory. While the musician thrilled the girl with his ardent voice, the poet left her spellbound with his soft words that were laden with longing and regret. These two young men vied with each other to bring soundness to her mind, one with passion, the other with peace.”

I had become absorbed in the story when heavy shoes sounded in the hall. Beatriz gave a knock at the open door. “El Doctor should have some tea.”

A young boy whose parents worked on the estate carried in the tray. Beatriz could carry nothing but herself since, as a child, she had contracted polio, which destroyed the muscles in her legs. She moved awkwardly into the room on her crutches, pushing along her useless legs encased in leather braces that ended in solid shoes.

One of my father’s first patients, Beatriz had arrived as a young woman soon after the sanitarium opened, her family not knowing what else to do with her. She was normal in every other way, though her upper body was muscular from the labor of pulling herself around. Not pretty so much as interesting, with wide nostrils and brown eyes that tended to protrude. But her small face was animated, softening the sum of the parts.

Though my grandmother, my abuela, had assumed the running of the household when my mother died, her severe nature precluded any affection. Beatriz took pity on a lonely child, and loved me. She was as close to a mother as I would ever know. I was the only one she had allowed to strap her into her braces, an intimate procedure that required access to her thighs. Once I was 12, we both shied away from the physical contact, and she had to struggle, herself, to lift the dead weight of her legs into the torturous contraptions.

Her brow creased as she gazed at my father, whom she worshipped. “He is tiring himself out.”

I stood up, Luz suddenly awake on her tiny feet. “It’s my fault.”

Standing at the foot of the bed, Beatriz gave me her sardonic smile. “He enjoys your company.”

I bent to kiss her on the cheek before I left the room, her powder scenting my lips. Now in her 50s, she was still vain enough to apply makeup.

The next evening, my father continued the story of the ranchero’s daughter. By this time, I knew he was failing quickly and was content just to listen to his voice.

“The girl could not make up her mind between the two young men. The musician excelled at throwing knives and twirling the lasso, while the poet milked the cows with much success, the animals entranced by his words and responding with more milk than usual.

“Both young men made a show of treating the dog with deference, knowing the girl’s attachment to her. Neither of them knew the reason for the attachment—the girl had somehow come to believe the spirit of her dead mother lived in the dog. When she asked Conchita for advice, people didn’t understand that she was talking to her mother. When she gave Conchita the best pieces of meat from her plate, she was feeding her mother. And the dog was a lifesaver. Once, when the girl didn’t recognize her father and thought he was the devil, Conchita kept her from attacking him with a knife.

“It happened to be the season of banana fruiting. The poet had never witnessed the harvest and was loath to chop off the heart that sits beneath the banana clusters. You have seen its magenta blossom that resembles a heart, heavy with unopened flowers of baby plants inside. The new green bananas grow from it in clusters above, like a crown. But the energy required to open the unborn flowers within the heart keeps the new bananas hard and green. The old heart must be chopped off to allow the bananas to ripen. Just as I must die and you shall continue in my place.”

Before I could respond to this he went on.

“The musician had no qualms about cutting off the heart of each plant with his sharp knife. The magenta blossom fell into the dry banana leaves littering the ground below, clear sap dripping from the stalk.

“The girl was greatly agitated by the keen competition between the two young men, and paced along the rows of banana plants, lamenting to Conchita. They saw the girl bent over her skirt, conferring with the dog, finally clapping her hands with pleasure at some resolution. The dog, it seemed, had an idea which the girl thought brilliant. She told the two young men to stand six feet apart in front of her amid the dry banana leaves. Then she lifted Conchita from her pocket with one hand, placing her on the ground. ‘Conchita will choose between you. With her dog instinct, she can see into your hearts better than I.’ The two men were shocked that their future was to be determined by a dog!

“Then the musician started addressing the Chihuahua in his sing-song voice. ‘Here, Conchita, you know I’m the best one. I’ve seen you sway to my music.’ He waved his hand at the dog to approach. She sniffed the air, then pranced toward him, her tail raised high. When he put his hand out to pick her up, she opened her little jaws and bit down hard. He held up his bloody hand, screaming, ‘You bitch! You’re just as crazy as she is!’

“With blood dripping down his arm, he lifted the little dog into the air by her neck and proceeded to choke her with his good hand. She yipped a few times, then her tiny eyes closed.

“The girl shrieked. She thrashed around in the huge dry leaves on the ground and found the musician’s knife. With strength beyond her size, she plunged it into his heart.

“Immediately, he dropped the dog. He stared at the girl in silence before sinking to the ground.

“The poet was appalled and relieved at the same time. The girl bent beside the lifeless dog, weeping, inconsolable.”

Luz gazed at me, her bulging brown eyes fraught with terror. How could she know what was being said?

“The poet lifted the tiny body of the dog, laying it in the crook of his arm. He pressed his fingers down on her chest rhythmically, once a second for a minute. Then he opened her muzzle with one hand and bending over, blew gently into her mouth.

“Time stood still. The girl held her breath. Conchita’s furry little chest moved. She opened her eyes and blinked. She tried to yip but only a squeak came out. She was alive!”

Luz growled in her throat with relief.

“The poet buried the musician in an overgrown field on the estate. When the girl’s father asked where the musician was, she said he had gone home because she had chosen the poet. She was not cured, but was quieter because she loved the poet and knew he loved her.”

My father stopped. He leaned his head back against the pillows, his face ashen.

Beatriz pulled herself into the room on her crutches, alarmed. I had been so enrapt by the story I hadn’t heard her heavy shoes in the hall.

“Sebastian,” she whispered near his ear. But he could no longer hear.

I held his hand while he slipped away. I wept into my pillow all night, Luz whimpering beside me.

***

After the funeral, when the visitors had left, I found Beatriz crawling on the floor in the hall near my father’s room. I placed a warning hand on Luz, whom I was carrying in one arm.

I had not seen Beatriz creeping along the floor for years. When I was young, she would sometimes get into a funk about the braces and how they chafed her skin; it was easier sometimes not to put them on. But then she was reduced to crawling on the ground like a lizard. She didn’t care that a child saw her pulling her dead weight along with her arms. Now I was embarrassed for her.

She was heading back to her room. I waited until she reached it. When I heard her door close, I gave her a moment before putting down the dog and knocking.

She called for me to enter. I found her upon the settee, her face flushed from the exertion. I brought her braces toward her, but she shook her head.

“I loved him, you know.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed nearby. “I know.” Luz jumped onto the settee and began to lick Beatriz’s face. A large tear rolled down her cheek.

“The story he was telling you—” She bit her lip. “It was not just a ranchero’s daughter. It was Adelita.”

“Adelita! But that was my mother’s name.”

“Yes. Your mother.”

I blinked at her, not comprehending.

“She was a beauty. But quite mad.”

“My mother?”

She nodded.

“Then—the story was about her?”

She just looked at me and I understood. My head was spinning. I thought of the photo of the beautiful young woman on my father’s night table, how little I knew about her. He had never talked about her. I racked my brain, trying to recall the details of the story.

“Then—who was the poet?”

She shook her head as if I were blind. “It isn’t so difficult.” When I didn’t respond, she said, “Your father.”

I sucked in a breath and started to cough.

“He had no more time for poetry after the ranchero sent him to medical school in the city. The ranchero knew your father had a gift for seeing into people’s hearts. When Adelita danced to the music in her head, your father danced with her. I think after a while he heard it too. She seemed at peace when she was with him, and the ranchero thought your father could do more for her if he studied. Your father loved her more than life itself and would do anything for her. When he finished medical school, he opened the sanitarium here. He thought she was improving. You were born, and she loved you very much.”

Dear little Luz could see my distress. She jumped down from the settee and stood in front of me, begging to be picked up. When I obliged, she lay down on my lap, not taking her eyes off my face.

“But she was afraid of what she might do to you. She couldn’t always control herself, and she was terrified that she might… well, she had killed a man once. She was always whispering to Conchita—in her mind, her mother—for help to restrain herself.

“But when Conchita died, an old dog at 17, Adelita beat her breast as if her real mother had died again. She feared for you, that there would come a day when she would look at you and see the devil, and there would be no Conchita to keep you safe from her.” Beatriz stopped.

“Please go on.”

She shook her head.

“Please.” I dreaded what she would say.

She took in a deep breath. “I envied her that she could walk, but she was more broken than me. One day she walked to town, climbed up to the steeple of the church…and jumped off. She did it to protect you.”

A sob caught in my throat. I had lost not only my father, now I was losing a mother I had never known. I tried to compose myself. “He told me she died from heart disease.”

“He could not tell you the truth.”

Tears coursed down my face. Luz gazed at me with moist brown eyes. I was stunned to find they were not dog eyes, but glistened with a mother’s tears, a mother’s love. A shiver skipped across the back of my neck. My mother had sacrificed herself for me. Such love vanquished time, transfiguring flesh and bone, to land before me.

Little Luz finally lay her head down on her paws and let herself sleep, now that I understood. Such a tiny body, such a towering spirit.

THE END

There’s a new venue for readers, hosted by Emily A. Weedon. Drunk Fiction takes place at the end of every month in the fabulous Scottish pub, The Caledonian, 856 College. St. Lisa has been invited to read on Wednesday, March 26th at 6 pm. She’ll be sharing her work in Devouring Tomorrow and of course, giving a big shout-out to The 13th Letter!

We were delighted to be interviewed by Erik D’Souza of Crime Writers of Canada to tell listeners about our history, work together and our SIX anthologies, especially our latest, The 13th Letter.

Listen to our podcast here:

CWC Website: https://crimewriterscanada.com/index.php/en/page/podcasts/permalink/the-mesdames-and-messieurs-of-mayhem-the-13th-letter

Podcast page: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2232876/episodes/16312361

Direct Link to MP3: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2232876/episodes/16312361-the-mesdames-and-messieurs-of-mayhem-the-13th-letter.mp3?download=true

As of Monday, December 30th, we’ll be on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/tFH_vtmAZcY

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

THE MOONLIGHT SONATA

by

CARO SOLES

I have never lived in such an elegant place as this. It’s like being in another world here, with the gold-braided doorman and echoing black-marble vestibule. Up we go, Mother and I, in the golden cage to the fourth floor where more marble awaits. Two large vases stand on either side of the entrance, holding huge ostrich plumes more suited to be waved in front of some Egyptian pharaoh like Tutankhamen. There’s even a second floor inside the apartment, with wide banisters and a curving stairway with shallow carpeted steps. The red runner has brass rods holding it in place. I stare at them sometimes, almost hypnotized. The rooms here are large and filled with shadows, the long windows hung with heavy lace and velvet drapery. There are oil paintings, suspended by long ropes, on the walls.

Of course, this isn’t our apartment. We could never aspire to anything this grand. It belongs to my Aunt Esmé and Uncle Robert. We’re just the poor relations. When Mother ran away with an Italian musician years ago, she was disowned, but now that he’s dead in the war and I am so good at what I do, it seems much can be forgiven, if not forgotten. “If only he had been an officer, like Robert,” Aunt Esmé would say, “you would have been taken care of.” Everyone knows Uncle Robert was never anywhere near the front, but Mother says nothing, just bites her lip the way she does and then changes the subject. Mother swallows her grief for me, so that I can perform during their musical evenings. Perhaps someone will notice and remember me, and take me away to study and perform elsewhere. And bring her with me. I spend a lot of time practicing on the square grand piano my aunt and uncle are so proud of. It is lovely to look at with its mother-of-pearl inlay, but its tone leaves something to be desired, a fact I keep to myself. It is, Mother says, the ship that will sail us out of bondage. She says things like that sometimes.

Today Aunt Esmé swept out the door in a formidable velvet hat with a tassel hanging down on one side like a bell pull. Mother thought her dress shockingly short, halfway to her knees, but Aunt Esmé says this is the fashion now. She is meeting her lord and master for lunch at The Club. At least that’s what she says. I followed her one time a few weeks ago when she said the same thing and found out The Club was not her true destination. But I digress. Mother went out as well on some errand or other for my aunt, so there is no one here but the maid and Cook. My shoulders gradually relax as I start up the stairs.

The grandfather clock in the marble foyer wheezed into its job of striking the hours and was followed in short order by the French clock on the mantel in the main salon, the Ivan Mezgin Russian monstrosity and all the other lunatic timepieces so beloved of Uncle Robert. The man was obsessed with time, or perhaps only with timepieces, since he hired a clockmaker to come once a week to look after them all. Amusingly, he claims not to have the time himself, but I think he does not have the patience. I was upstairs and out through the French doors onto the terrace before the clamor ceased.

Out here, the extravagant blooms have died in their cement urns, trailing skeletal remains over the edges. No one has come to clean the dead leaves from the stone floor. I walk through them to the low railing, leaning over to greet the leering gargoyle I can just make out over the entry. If I lean over far enough, I can see into the neighbor’s apartment that joins this corner, forming the small courtyard. They’re new here, having moved in with all their goods and chattels a mere few weeks ago. I had watched as every settee and sideboard, hamper full of crockery and roll of Persian rug, Tiffany lamp and pier glass made its way inside. Last, but not least, came the grand piano, a real Bösendorfer. A girl began to practice on it the very next day.

She was lovely, this girl, with long dark-gold hair almost to her waist, held back from her face with a huge hair ribbon that never seemed to go limp. She was like an illustration in an old book. I watched her every move avidly, drinking in her grace, the dimple in one cheek, the way she tossed back her hair with one hand as she played. She came to the window one time, and I saw she had eyes the color of lavender. Her mouth smiled, as if she saw me and liked what she saw.

I soon discovered that I could see and hear her even better from our music room if I pulled the drapes way back and opened the window. I began to spend a lot more time there. No one but the maid ever came into the music room, so no one but Mother noticed. When I heard her at the door today, I jumped down from the wide window seat and slid onto the piano stool.

“A little chilly in here, isn’t it?” Mother closed the window and pulled the drapes closer together, the brass rings rattling like a rebuke to my ears. “We don’t want them complaining about the heating.” She sat down on the ottoman near me and folded her hands. I noticed she was wearing one of Aunt Esmé’s old dresses, which she must have altered, since she was smaller than her big-boned sister.

“I know things are not easy for you here,” she began, and I tensed. “You must study and practice and do well, my dearest. It is our only chance of getting away from here. You are my lodestar, my hope.” She looked at me in that intent way she had, and I felt my insides turn over and my heart swell with love.

“I will,” I promised, tears in my throat.

“Esmé is having a big dinner party next week, and she wants you to play beforehand. Nothing too modern, mind.”

“Don’t worry. No Russians, I promise.” I grinned, trying to make her smile.

“Thank you, dear.” She reached over and patted my hand. “Now I must go. Esmé wants me to help with the flowers.”

I sat there for a long time after she left, thinking about how things used to be, in our small walk-up apartment that was always full of music and laughter. No one here laughed much, I noticed, and the only music was provided by me. And that wonderful girl next door. I got up and opened the window again.

At once the flowing strains of the Moonlight Sonata filled the dim room. I laid my head against the wooden casement of the window and pulled my legs up to my chin. The melody was like a balm to my heart, although her technique was far from perfect. Somehow, the erratic slowing of the chords or speeding up when she felt more confident was endearing. “What is your name?” I wondered.

When she stopped, I closed the window again and began to practice. At first, just for fun, I played the Moonlight Sonata, like a distant echo of the girl across the way, only slightly faster as it should be, and I played the whole thing. Then I began to practice in earnest, thinking hard about what pieces I should choose for next week. Beethoven? Chopin? Perhaps just a little Scarlatti for a change of pace? A lot depended on who would be there, so I decided to prepare enough that I could choose seemingly on the spur of the moment—opting for technical difficulty, feeling, interpretation, depending on the audience.

I kept pestering Mother to find out who was invited, but she was not very forthcoming. So, I waited, and practiced, and watched for another appearance of my golden muse. I dreamed about her sometimes. In the dreams, we were playing duets and laughing together. In reality, it nearly happened one day when I left the window open as usual and she was playing Für Elise. I joined in and we finished together, but in truth, I’m not sure she was even aware of our shared performance.

The days passed, and I was getting anxious. I had performed for these parties before, but Mother said this one was special. For one thing, it was bigger than usual. For another, Aunt Esmé had started calling it a musical soirée, which was a bit alarming. It meant there might be other performers. It also meant there might finally be someone important in the audience who might mentor me.

At last Mother confessed. She had been in charge of writing most of the invitations, so she had added three of the musical luminaries of the city: Godfrey Rider the impresario; James Untermeyer, the music critic for the Herald; and Carlo Sanders, the talent agent.

“What will you say to Aunt and Uncle if they come?” I asked.

“That they were friends of your father. After all, he did play in the orchestra in several theaters Rider does bookings for. And he did meet Sanders one time.”

“They won’t come,” I said glumly.

She smiled at me knowingly. “I think they will,” she said. “I enclosed a short note in each one.”

I stared at her, but she refused to tell me what was in the notes.

“Don’t be nervous,” she said, just as she was leaving. “The others are just amateurs, and you are my star.” She blew me a kiss.

The next day, she appeared again to reassure me about the competition. “Cousin Sally will sing, I’m sure, and the Samson brothers will do their clever patter songs. Fred Lynley will recite some amusing drivel, just as usual. But you will have a chance to really shine in front of some people who matter.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. The more amateurish the others were, the better I would sound.

The day came. The house began to fill with flowers and the chatter of extra housemaids preparing the silver and dishes. The kitchen was a steamy place of mouthwatering magic, and Cook chased me out with a shout. Although I’m sure she had done this many times before we arrived, Aunt Esmé seemed to need Mother by her side at every turn. It occurred to me for the first time that Mother had been used to all this as a girl, that she had arranged flowers and ordered the maids about, inspected the laying of the table and sparkle of the crystal. She had loved my father, Francesco Martino, enough to leave all this luxurious servitude behind her. And she expected another Martino, me, to take her away from it all again. Maybe even tonight.

I straightened my shoulders and went to inspect my new clothes. I don’t really enjoy dressing up as many do, but admit it does make one feel that the event is more of an occasion. And this event truly was. Even as I finished getting dressed, I could hear the tinkle of glasses, the scrape of chairs as the guests took their places, the buzz of conversation, the bass tones of the men droning an accompaniment to the lighter voices of the women.

I went down the stairs slowly, gathering my thoughts. They had moved the piano into the grand salon, where all the tuxedoed men in their sparkling patent leather shoes and satin striped trousers sat with their ladies, strings of pearls draped over their chests and feathers in their bobbed hair. I was glad Mother had not given in to this latest style and still had all her lovely long hair that Father used to love to brush when he came home from a job late at night and they thought I was asleep.

As I walked through the door, I almost stumbled. There she was. My dream girl. My muse. Standing in the front row, leaning against a stylishly flat-chested woman I assumed to be her mother, her long pale mauve dress with the wide, low sash echoing the color of her eyes. She was even more beautiful close-up than seated at her piano 30 feet away.

No one paid any attention to me as I hung back in the shadows. I had meant to take an inventory of the crowd, look carefully to see if any of the three people of importance to me had actually come, but seeing her there had thrown me. I suppose it was sensible to invite the new neighbors. My aunt and uncle might even have known them before they moved here, for all I knew. They might even be great friends. I hadn’t thought of that. I never thought of her in relation to anyone but me. When I saw her, she was always alone, with only occasionally the shadow of her music teacher in the background.

The evening proceeded along the lines that Mother had predicted, people chatting together softly during the singing and recitations, the occasional laugh smothered by a lady’s hand, until Aunt Esmé stood up and introduced me, “without whom no musical evening would be complete.” That was warming, but the fact she used an anglicized version of my last name was not. I was not Martin, but Martino! I glanced at Mother as I stood by the piano, but she gave a slight shake of her head and her eyes warned me to ignore the slight. Carry on, they said. You are my star.

I sat down, shook out the tension from my hands and swept into the Scarlatti, my fingers rippling along the runs, bringing out the brilliance of the melody. After that, I had planned on Chopin, Nocturne Opus 9—much slower, with a depth of feeling to show I was not all technique.

I stood to acknowledge the applause, caught Mother’s eye and saw she was smiling a genuine smile that made my heart sing. Then I saw the smile fade as Aunt Esmé rose to her feet.

“Very lovely, but before you go on, I would like to invite our young neighbor Lillian to sing something for us. Her mother tells me she is quite talented musically. You could accompany her, if you will?”

I smiled and sat down again, glad that I at least still had control of the piano. She would sing, and then I would continue.

Lillian seemed quite self-possessed as she came to the piano and asked me if I knew “Annie Laurie.” I tried not to look insulted and asked her what key. That gave her pause but only for a moment.

“The right key for me,” she said, and her dimples flashed.

I felt a flash of annoyance, but everyone else was laughing so I smiled back and made a stab at what I thought it might be. I had heard her sing it, after all.

As it turned out, I was right, and she sang it with a purity of tone that was quite lovely. The audience was very enthusiastic, more than her rendition deserved, I thought, but she was very sweet and pretty.

I was flexing my fingers to continue with my program, when she spoke up, her voice high and childish, carrying to the back of the room.

“I would love to play the opening of the Moonlight Sonata for you, too,” she said, her childish hands pushed against her flat chest. Even before she had finished speaking, she was moving around to the keyboard, looking at me pointedly, expecting me to move.

What could I do? “That would be lovely,” I said, getting to my feet. But I did not move far.

“Lillian is preparing for a recital soon,” her mother said, smiling indulgently.

I gritted my teeth as she began the opening, much too slowly. In her excitement, she seemed to have forgotten it was supposed to be pianissimo. None of the first movement ought to be more than piano. It was a poem that should linger in the mind, but this interpretation should be forgotten as quickly as possible. I noticed the tip of her tongue appear between her sharp little teeth in concentration as the piece went on, her hands slowing even more from time to time as she focused on reaching the right notes. I sat down against the wall and looked at the audience. They were all smiling tolerantly. I sighed. At least this travesty wouldn’t take long. I had never heard her play the whole first movement all the way through and suspected her teacher, that shadowy presence I had never seen, had suggested the cuts.

When she finished, the whole room stood up and applauded, led by my aunt and uncle. Of course, Mother had to stand as well. What would it look like if she had not? I stood, too, and moved my hands as if I were clapping, but I made no noise. My hands did not even touch. She was doing a pretty curtsy now, her cheeks unusually pink from pleasure.

My hands clenched. Lillian had, in effect, stolen my night. She had a recital coming, to which her family would invite all the swells and cognoscenti in the world who might help her. This was supposed to be my night! My mother had connived and even lied (if only a few little white lies) to get three people here who might help me. Me. Someone who had no wealthy parents to pay for a musical debut, no influence to put me on any program where I might be seen and hired. I had this one night. She had stolen it.

Everyone was chatting now, taking champagne from the maids passing though the room, the ladies using their fans to punctuate their conversations and flirt. Lillian stood alone, still by the piano.

“Were you very nervous?” I asked, moving to her side.

She nodded. “I was. I really was. But you know, I was also really happy at the same time.” She looked straight into my eyes. “Isn’t that strange?”

“I think we feel the most happiness when we’re doing something really difficult, and doing it well,” I added, giving her what she would deem a compliment.

Sure enough, she blushed in pleasure.

“I’ve been listening to you play for a while now, you know,” I said, watching her.

“No,” she said. “You can’t have.”

“But I have. Do you want to see how?”

She nodded and took the hand I extended to her.

We went up the stairs side by side, leaving the chattering and laughter behind us. I was only a little taller than she was, I noted. I felt so very much older that this discovery was a surprise.

“You have a terrace,” she exclaimed as I opened the door and the cool breeze touched our faces. “We have a balcony but it’s over the street. Funny, I never noticed this.”

I suspected she was not one to notice anything that had no relationship to her.

“Look,” I said, leading her to the low stone balustrade. “See?” I pointed to the window of the room where her beautiful piano sat in the shadows.

“Is that the right room? Really?”

Above us the moon slid into view, sending a shaft of moonlight into the courtyard, where the shadow of the gargoyle crept into sight.

“There! Now you can see.” I slid my arm around her waist as she bent over, her long blond hair falling over one shoulder.

“Yes! I see it now! And your window is just kitty-corner?”

“Lean over a bit more. There. See?”

“Yes, but––let me go!”

And I did.

As she slid into the night below, the moon ducked back behind the clouds. I left the terrace door open a crack and went back downstairs. I noticed that people had moved around, some changing their seats to sit beside another friend. They were settling down now, almost ready to listen again. Mother still sat in her place. She nodded to me, her smile gone. Your time is running out, her nod said. You are going to lose them.

I sat down at the piano and quickly scanned the room. I still couldn’t tell if the big three were here. It didn’t matter. I would play for them anyway. For them and for my mother. As soon as there came a brief lull in the conversation, my hands crashed down on the keys, and I rushed headlong into the last movement of the Moonlight Sonata. The one filled with passion and dark fire and breathless hope. The one Lillian could never play.

Mme Lisa De Nikolits is reading at the the Halloween “Spooktacular” event by Minstrels and Bards this Tuesday, October 22nd, 6:30 to pm. Costumes encouraged! The event takes place at the Southern Cross, Tranzac, 292 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto.

And Mme Ros Place’s story, “Too Close to the Edge”, is now available in the ghostly anthology, Dastardly Damsels (Crystal Lake Publishing).

SOUL BEHIND THE FACE

By

Madona Skaff

The Great Leonard sat motionless on the wooden chair. Shoulders back, his arms rested comfortably on the Plexiglas table before him. He controlled his breathing and the relentless need to scratch at the electrodes attached to his chest and scalp. He resisted the urge to fiddle with the oxygen monitor on his left index finger. The four researchers, wearing intense expressions, watched him from outside the glass-enclosed booth.

He closed his eyes and tried hard not to laugh.

After 10 years of pretending to be a psychic, life was good. Profitable. Comfortable. And boring.

So when he heard about a northern university’s research study to verify psychic abilities scientifically, he volunteered to be a test subject.

Leonard pictured the headline: Psychic Is Real Deal, Scientific Tests Show. He’d be famous—and filthy rich.

He’d fooled the eggheads for three days, graduating to today’s final, most rigorous stage.

Late at night, when he’d first arrived, he’d sat in his car in the parking lot to hack into their computers to download the tests. This one consisted of a series of numbers he’d have to “see.” With so many sets of numbers and no way to tell which he’d be assigned, he’d memorized them all, thanks to his only legitimate talent—a great memory.

It took four to five numbers before he knew which set the researchers were using. He threw in random wrong answers to make his “vision” seem legit. He smiled inwardly. Took a dramatic deep breath for the last answer.

“Fifty-nine!”

He opened his eyes, expecting to see expressions of surprise and awe.

You didn’t need to be a psychic to realize that something was horribly wrong. The techs stood there, staring at him. Finally, the head technician, Stanley, came into Leonard’s booth, holding something behind his back.

“The Great Leonard,” Stanley mocked. “Proud of how well you did?”

Leonard’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes.”

“You really sailed through every test. Even passed this last one. My personal favorite.”

Then with a magician’s stage-show flourish, Stanley revealed a laptop hidden behind his back. He tossed it on the table. It bounced once.

Leonard’s mouth went dry. He recognized the computer as his.

“Look at the great confused psychic,” Stanley gloated. “Halfway through this test, I switched to a new set of numbers. But you happily continued on the first.” He leaned forward on the table and tapped the computer with his index finger. “You really should lock your car.”

With a laugh bordering on maniacal, Stanley left. Another technician came in to remove the electrodes. Leonard winced as a couple of chest hairs were yanked off in the process.

Leonard stood, buttoned up his shirt and squared his shoulders. His face calm, he slipped his laptop under his arm and, with head held high, left the lab. He ignored the cackles behind him.

Stiff-legged, Leonard returned to the parking lot, opened the door of his navy Mercedes and pitched the laptop onto the backseat. Then he collapsed into the driver’s seat, panting with suppressed anger.

What a way to end a lucrative career. Debunked by a bunch of geeks. Maybe it was time for The Great Leonard to return to plain Lennie. Life had been simpler then.

All he wanted right now was the quickest route out of this place, but of course the GPS was useless out here. He tossed his cell onto the passenger seat and pulled out a map.

With the car’s tires squealing, he roared out of the university parking lot. Within minutes, he was on a washboard gravel road with occasional potholes. The unnaturally straight road and the flanking trees created a claustrophobic tunnel effect. That, along with the groans of his Mercedes shuddering over the rough surface, soon irritated him. He turned on the radio hoping for some distraction. Static. Damn stupid northern town. Did anything work here? He punched Autoscan.

Then something up ahead that wasn’t a tree caught his attention. A roadside memorial. He’d always zipped past those shrines on his way somewhere. He didn’t have to be anywhere now, so he pulled over.

The memorial was a wooden cross, about three feet high, with pots of brilliant flowers at the base. There was a simple inscription on the cross: OCT. 4. No name. No year.

Today was Oct. 2.

He shut off the engine and got out for a closer look. As he came around the car, he doubled over with intense nausea. He gagged and leaned against the car, managing to stay on his feet. He swallowed the acrid taste in his mouth.

Lennie had felt like this once before—when he was nine at his grandfather’s funeral. As he walked deeper into the cemetery, he’d felt a bit dizzy and queasy. Without warning, the air thickened and forced itself down his throat into his lungs. He sputtered as if he were drowning. Fists of pain had pounded on his chest. Knocked him to the ground. He’d come to and saw his mother’s tear-streaked face looking at him. His parents had described it as a seizure. The doctors had agreed.

He’d never set foot in a cemetery again.

The stress of being unmasked today and being strung out on too much coffee had triggered the memory. Nothing more, he told himself as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Enough sightseeing. He just wanted to get home and set up his next scam. He returned to the driver’s side of the car and pulled on the door handle.

Locked. With the keys in the ignition. Damn! He punched the roof of the car with both fists. He rested his head on his fists and closed his eyes to hold back burning tears of frustration.

He heard a loud rustling in the woods, jerked his head and scanned the forest in wide-eyed panic. With his luck, it would be a bear. He’d bought the gun a few years earlier, after receiving threats from the furious husband of the woman who’d been cheating on him. Lennie had that gun with him now—safely guarding the glove compartment.

When nothing arrived to eat him, he relaxed and reached for his cell to call for roadside assistance. Then he laughed bitterly; his cell sat on the passenger seat. He’d have to walk back to the main road and civilization, such as it was. This was the last place where he’d want to be walking in the dark. He looked up to see the sun hugging the treetops. Best to get moving.

After walking for a while, he got tired of his brisk pace and glanced at his watch. Only 3:30? He squinted searching for the turnoff in the distance. How fast had he been driving to get so far? He glanced over his shoulder and saw…

His car! A few yards away. Impossible. He’d been walking for…how long, only to be back to where he had started?

He turned to face the vehicle as thick, humid air rushed into his lungs. Pressure pounded on his chest. A heart attack! Here? All alone? With all his strength, he sucked in long, deep breaths. The pain eased.

Time to get the hell out of here. Now! He rushed to his car and yanked on the door handle.

“Damn!” He punched the roof of his car. “Calm down, Lennie. Relax. Think!”

Locked car? No problem, with the universal key. What he needed was a rock. The only ones big enough were holding up the cross.

“Sorry.” He picked one up. “I’ll bring it right back.”

A shadow hovered over him, and he spun around. He lost his footing and fell back, knocking the cross over and breaking several flower pots. He cried out in pain as a sharp piece of ceramic pierced his hip. He held up his arms to shield his face, expecting to be attacked by some animal. He was alone.

He checked the wound and removed the fragment. He’d live. He started to get up, but was pushed back down by some unseen force.

Brain racing, he lay still. It felt like a hand on his chest. He gasped as a shadow moved overhead. Nothing there. He tried to sit up and was forced down again. Less gently. Another attempt. This time, a powerful punch to the chest knocked him flat. He lay on the destroyed shrine as images and sounds enveloped him. He shut his eyes, but couldn’t block out the vision.

Lennie holds a beautiful, dark-haired woman in a loving embrace before driving away. Turns onto a dark road. This road. An oncoming car. It pulls over. Lennie makes a U-turn and stops behind the other car.

The scene faded as Lennie sat up.

Rubbing his chest with the heel of his hand, he stumbled back to his car. He tugged on the door handle and didn’t question why it was unlocked. He got in and revved up the engine to get the hell out of there.

That’s when he saw a wallet lying among the crushed flowers. He checked his pants’ side pocket. “Damn it!”

He got out and braced against the urge to puke as he picked up his wallet.

A blow to the middle of his back dropped him face-first into the flower pots. Through the blinding pain he heard…

A gunshot.

Lennie falls sideways onto the front seat, and his arm hits the car stereo. Rock music blares from the speakers. How can she listen to that crap?

Ears still ringing from the blast, he looks up to make eye contact with a man staring at him through the open car window. There is a blurred movement. He closes his eyes and through the loud music he hears the echo of a second…

Gunshot.

Lennie rubbed his temple to relieve the lingering pain as the vision faded. He was sitting in his car with the engine running. His clothes were clean. The shrine undamaged.

He checked the time. Three-thirty. Peering through the windshield, he was relieved to see the sun still hovering over the treetops.

God, he’d never fallen asleep at the wheel before. He rested his head on the steering wheel, grateful that he’d pulled over in time. Loud music startled him fully awake. Autoscan had found a station playing a song by the Scorpions.

“How can she listen to that crap?” He clicked off the radio.

Surprised by his comment, he laughed at how vivid the dream had been. He actually liked “Soul Behind the Face” and reached to turn the radio back on when the air gradually thickened around him. He remained calm as the images drifted back and finished the story.

After the vision faded, Lennie looked at the cross. He understood now. Armed with the date and the face of the man who had looked in through the driver’s side window, Lennie drove back to the university library.

***

Lennie used the library’s WiFi to search the Internet for local news stories. Within moments, he found a newspaper article dated Oct. 4 of last year. The headline read:

Prominent Businessman Franklin Boyd Commits Suicide.

The article had the usual obituary-type details. Boyd had enjoyed a successful career in accounting. Coworkers and friends were heartbroken and couldn’t imagine why he’d taken his life. “Because it wasn’t suicide,” Lennie whispered to the computer screen.

He had to tell someone. But who? Stanley, the technician? He could still hear the guy laughing. The police? They’d lock him up for sure when he mentioned the visions.

He thought about his grandfather’s funeral and in the calm of the library he remembered forgotten details. As he’d walked through the cemetery, images from each grave had conjured up a different, horrifying scene. Violent deaths, lonely deaths, lingering deaths. He remembered the pain had become unbearable the more he’d tried to block out the images.

So many years lying about being a psychic—he could only laugh at the irony.

He looked at the article. He couldn’t let Franklin Boyd’s killer get away with murder.

“Lennie…” a voice whispered behind him.

He spun around, but no one was there. Damn his overactive imagination. He turned back to the computer in time to see his fingers on the trackpad clicking through several Web pages on their own. He yanked his hand away.

Great. Not only was he stressed and depressed about his crumbling life, now he had to deal with hallucinations.

Loud rock music cracked through the silence, then faded away. Looking behind him, Lennie shook his head at the person he presumed was playing the music. How ignorant and inconsiderate to be doing that in a library. But the staff and students didn’t pay any attention.

Funny that it was the same Scorpions’ song that had been playing on his car radio. It must be a local favorite, he decided as he turned back resume his search.

His eyes widened, lips parted as though to speak. He’d found the killer in a photo in an article. It showed people handing out balloons to children at a charity fundraiser. He checked the names in the cutline and smiled.

Dan Kabala worked at the same accounting office as Boyd had.

***

Lennie checked into a hotel on the outskirts of town. The key to any good scam was preparation. He spent Saturday searching for information on both men and the accounting firm they worked at. From what he understood of human nature, the best time to confront the murderer would be on the anniversary of the crime—tomorrow, Oct. 4.

On Sunday, Lennie showed up unannounced at Dan Kabala’s apartment just before 3:30, when the murder had been committed. His lame excuse of being Franklin’s college buddy got him inside the plush three-bedroom condominium.

Dan was a gracious host. Anything for Franklin’s old college buddy. Over coffee, he chatted freely about how nice Franklin had been, how his friends and coworkers missed him.

“Terrible how Franklin died,” Lennie interjected.

“Yes.” Dan’s voice was sombre.

“It was early morning, right?”

“No, 3:30 in the afternoon.” Dan swallowed hard and stood abruptly. “How about some more coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Dan picked up both mugs and started for the kitchen.

Lennie hadn’t seen any reference to music at the murder scene in any of the news reports. That was a detail only the killer would know, he concluded. He decided to egg Dan on.

“It must have been terrible for him to lie dying listening to music he hated,” Lennie observed.

Dan turned around, still carrying the mugs. “W-what are you talking about? What m-music?”

Lennie sensed Dan’s hesitancy and pressed ahead. “Wasn’t there a CD playing hard rock?”

Dan stared at him, shook his head and started to turn away. “Look, Lennie, I’m sorry, but I have some work to do.”

“Working on the weekend? What a shame,” Lennie said mockingly. “I guess that’s ironic, too.”

“What?”

“Well, if Franklin had gone to work on a weekday rather than a Saturday, there would have been people around. They might have noticed he was…well, you know…suicidal.”

Dan’s hands trembled so much that he barely got the mugs back to the table. He collapsed into the armchair and ran his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end.

The image of a folder flashed before Lennie’s eyes. “I guess he went in to pick up the Trelaine file.”

Dan’s face blanched. His eyes moistened.

Lennie continued, “He probably stopped on the side of the road to either talk to or help someone and they shot him. Close range, so it’s no wonder the police thought it was suicide.”

“Stop it!” Dan screamed as he jumped to his feet

Startled, Lennie reached inside his windbreaker for the gun he’d brought with him. Dan stopped his advance as he leaned his hands on his knees for support. Lennie released his grip on the weapon.

“It was an accident. I swear!” Dan’s voice was shrill, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

Lennie helped Dan sit down. “Tell me what happened.”

“I was on my way home from work when I saw Franklin coming the other way. He signaled me to pull over. Asked why I was at work on a Saturday. When I told him I was picking up some files with irregularities, like the Trelaine file, he freaked out. Yelled something about refusing to be blackmailed anymore. Then he pulled a gun on me!

“I grabbed his wrist, but the gun went off. He fell over. I ran. I could hear rock music. I didn’t know where it came from. But I got back in my car. Left. Left him there.” He sobbed once. “When the morning news called it suicide, I kept quiet.”

“Yeah, right,” Lennie cut him off. A faint image of a gun in a gloved hand came to him.

“It was an accident, Lennie, I swear. My God, he tried to kill me. I couldn’t take the chance the police wouldn’t believe me. You can understand how I felt, can’t you?”

Lennie was angry. “You let his family think he committed suicide?”

“He’s never been close to any of them.” Dan frantically fingered his hair. “I needed to do something, so I placed a cross at the spot. Every day I stop to make sure the flowers are doing fine, watering them, replacing them.”

“Very touching.”

“No one knows that I do it. With those potholes, hardly anyone uses that road. I make sure the shrine’s never without a flower tribute, so I can’t even take holidays. My wife wants me to pay attention to the living. I think she’s going to leave me soon. But I have to do this.”

Lennie had brought his gun with him because he’d expected to meet a greedy, cold-blooded killer—not a sniveling, pathetic shard of a man slumped in an armchair.

Lennie heard the condo door open. He started at the sudden blare of that same Scorpions’ song. The music stopped abruptly when the door closed.

“Dan, I’m back!” a woman called from the entrance, then walked into the living room. “Wait until you see the dresses I—” she broke off as she saw Lennie. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company.”

She tilted her head, giving him an approving look and a seductive smile. Instead of being flattered, he felt like a caged animal.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Dan wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, then went to greet her with a peck on the cheek. “Angela, this is Lennie, Franklin’s friend from college.”

Lennie didn’t miss that Angela never noticed her husband’s red eyes, strained smile or trembling voice.

When Lennie reached out to shake her hand, the air in his lungs thickened. He stayed calm. He felt Franklin’s presence in the room. This time, the information flowed freely.

This was the dark-haired woman in the loving embrace.

“You were there,” Lennie whispered. “You were having an affair with him. You were there.”

“You hired a private eye?” she screeched at Dan. “Our marriage is in trouble because of your problems. Don’t start inventing affairs!”

“Honey, no…I didn’t…this…he isn’t…”

“You were blackmailing him,” Lennie said to Angela. “You were partners at first. You gave Franklin your husband’s computer codes to access the clients’ investments and liberate a tiny amount of their profits—too small to be noticed. But when he started having second thoughts, you blackmailed him to keep going.”

“Are you going to let him talk to me like that?” she screamed at Dan.

“That last day,” Lennie continued, “after you’d made love, you guessed that Franklin was going to work to cover his tracks. Maybe you were worried he’d make sure you got all the blame. Or that he’d implicate your husband, which meant you’d lose this cushy lifestyle. Whatever the reason, you followed Franklin. Took advantage of the scene on the side of the road.”

Lennie turned to Dan. “You didn’t kill him. The bullet missed and went out the open passenger window. He was just stunned by the sound of the gunshot. When he fell over, his hand hit the car stereo. She kept her CDs in his car.”

He turned back to Angela. “He hated rock but put up with it for you. As he lay dazed and helpless on the seat, you came by and picked up the gun. You wore gloves, so no prints.”

Lennie watched her expression change from denial to amazement to fear and finally to anger. Then a disturbing coldness swept over her eyes.

“Quite a nice story you’ve cooked up.” She turned, dropped her shopping bags on the sofa and reached into her purse. “Too bad no one else will hear it!”

She turned holding a gun leveled at Lennie’s chest, only to come face to face with the gun in Lennie’s hand.

Her eyes opened wide and her lips parted as Lennie’s finger pulled the trigger.

Lennie’s heart pounded, threatening to rip open his chest. He watched as, in movie-style slow motion, she fell backward, her startled eyes staring at him. Blood and brain matter formed a halo around her head. Somewhere beyond the sound of blood rushing in his ears, he could hear Dan screaming her name.

She lay on the floor, her blood pooling on white marble. Lennie’s mouth opened in a silent cry. He hadn’t meant to fire. The adrenaline rush of seeing a gun in her hand had made his finger squeeze the trigger. He wanted to drop the gun before it went off again. He willed his fingers to open. They refused.

Lennie finally managed to shift his focus from the body to Dan. The man was huddled on the floor in the corner, rocking himself as he sobbed Angela’s name over and over again.

He wanted to go to Dan and make him understand—before the police arrived—that it had been an accident. He tried to move, but his feet felt leaden.

A tremor rippled through Lennie’s body as a thick rush of air moved through him. He suddenly realized that Franklin wasn’t after justice; he was intent on revenge. A voice echoed in Lennie’s head.

I had to endure Dan’s sniveling each and every day. Knowing that he took my clients. Made money that should have been mine. No one else stopped on that road. Until you, Lennie.

Lennie felt his hand start to rise. No, he screamed silently. He wouldn’t kill. Not again.

Why let that useless bastard live and enjoy a life that is rightfully mine?

Lennie grabbed at the gun with his free hand, but only managed to flail at it pathetically. The gun was aimed at Dan, who paled and pressed himself into the corner, trying to escape.

Lennie’s heart pounded as he braced for the inevitable deafening blast. Sweat trickled down his back as he helplessly watched his finger begin to squeeze the trigger.

He refused to take another life. “Stop!” he cried, but his hand ignored him. He gulped in mouthfuls of air and stopped the thickening in his lungs by a will born of panic. He heard the Scorpions’ song grow louder, but he forced himself to ignore it.

“No!” Lennie shouted at his hand. It lowered the gun.

No, he had lowered the gun. With a sharp sense of relief, he realized hew was finally strong enough to keep Franklin under control.

Dan stared at him with wide eyes and stood up.

Lennie said, “It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.” What must the poor man be thinking as he watched the ravings of a lunatic? Lennie gave him a comforting smile and added gently, “It’s all right, Dan. I’m in control now.”

Dan shook his head. Then, with halting, almost robotic steps, he approached Lennie with his hand extended. He spoke calmly. Too calmly, Lennie thought.

“Just give me the gun,” Dan said. “I know you didn’t want to shoot her. Give me the gun. It’ll be okay.”

Lennie nodded and handed over the weapon. He realized that Dan’s calm voice was just an act to get the gun safely away from him. Which was just fine with him.

Taking the gun, Dan studied it carefully. Then he draped an arm around Lennie’s shoulders. Pulled him close and stared into his eyes. When he smiled, Lennie felt a shiver run down his back.

“Lennie, it’ll be okay,” Dan said gently, wrapping his arm tighter around Lennie in a brotherly embrace. “I’ll tell the police it was self-defense.”

The faint music echoed in Lennie’s head from a distance, as though he were listening to it coming from another room. He looked closer into Dan’s eyes.

“Franklin?”

Word on the Street happens at Queen’s Park this weekend, September 28th from 11 am to 6 pm and September 29th from 10 am to 5 pm. The Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem are sharing a booth with friends from Toronto SinC and Romance Writers: Alice Fitzpatrick, Kris Purdy and Maaja Wentz.

Big thank you to Mme Sylvia Warsh for organizing! Come meet Sylvia and M. H. Callway, Blair Keetch, Rosemary McCracken, Lynne Murphy and Lorna Poplak.

Mme Melodie Campbell will signing her fabulous 1920s mystery, The Merry Widow Murders and meeting fans at the Cormorant Press booth on Sunday, September 29th at 1:45pm.

And Mme Melissa Yi will be on Zoom for the 2024 Discovery for Authors Summit to speak about “Fun Marketing for Busy Authors”. Register here. https://academy.storytellersruletheworld.com/2024-discovery-for-authors-summit-virtual?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

On February 21, 1890, Detective John Wilson Murray of the Ontario Department of Criminal Investigation received word that two woodsmen had made a grisly discovery in Blenheim (now Benwell) Swamp, near Princeton: amid a tangle of briars, fallen logs, and dense brush, the body of a man with two bullet holes in the back of his head. 

As he tells us in his 1904 Memoirs of a Great Detective, Murray, also known by the moniker “Old Never-let-go,” immediately launched an investigation. The body was that of “a young man, smooth shaven, of refined appearance, and clearly a gentleman.” From the style and cut of his garments, even though all labels had been carefully removed, he was also, clearly, an Englishman. Photographs sent out Canada-wide failed to reveal his identity. 

A breakthrough came five days later, when a man and his wife arrived in Princeton asking to see the body, claiming that the victim had possibly been a shipboard acquaintance. Through Murray’s brilliant investigative efforts, the case was soon unravelled. 

The “suave, handsome” visitor was identified as a conman named John Reginald Birchall of London, England; his victim was Frederick Cornwallis Benwell of Cheltenham, who had shown interest in investing in Birchall’s purported horse farm in Ontario. 

Benwell and another potential investor, Douglas Raymond Pelly, had sailed across the Atlantic with Birchall to view the farm. Instead, Benwell was lured to the desolate swamp and killed. More by luck than skill, Pelly managed to avoid suffering a similar fate.

Birchall was arrested in Niagara Falls on March 2 and tried in Woodstock for murder.

There was no “smoking gun” in the case — in fact, no gun ever seems to have been unearthed — but a cascade of circumstantial evidence coalesced to doom the accused. 

After an eight-day trial, Birchall was found guilty and sentenced to hang, which was the mandatory penalty for murder at the time. He went to the gallows in Woodstock on November 14, 1890. 

What became known as the Blenheim Swamp Murder was an international sensation at the time. The reason, as noted by J.V. McAree in a 1940 Globe and Mail article entitled “Birchall’s shot was heard round the world,” resided not in the details of the case — a sordid story of theft and premeditated murder with an easily identifiable perpetrator. No, the trial was of importance because “the characters involved … were what is known in England as gentlemen … who do not murder each other except in fiction.” And, at a time when Canada was actively courting immigrants with means, “were there many like Birchall to swindle and eventually murder them?” Fortunately, there were not.

The case remained without question Murray’s most famous investigation.

Decades later, on the release of his memoirs, Murray was quizzed about his fateful first meeting with Birchall and Florence, his hapless wife. At the launch, Murray’s “collaborator” (possibly ghostwriter?) was revealed as Victor Speer, “a well-known newspaper and magazine writer.” 

The memoirs offer fascinating glimpses into Ontario society in the last quarter of the 19th century, when poverty was rife in rural areas, marauding gangs terrorized farming communities, and murders could be committed for very little gain: 80 cents, in one case. The book stretches to a whopping 450 pages; each of its 82 chapters is devoted to different episodes gleaned from Murray’s colourful past.

In the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Jim Phillips and Joel Fortune cast a skeptical eye on some of Murray’s anecdotes about his early life; as his memoirs “contain many misrepresentations about later events,” they write, “little reliance should be placed on them other than for details of birth and family.” What does seem to be without doubt is that he was born in June 1840 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and that his family emigrated to the United States when he was a young boy. After an education both in the States and in Scotland, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1857. 

Even with possible fabrications regarding his early life — such as his claims that he thwarted a Confederate attack against the ship on which he served during the Civil War and investigated counterfeiting for the Treasury Department after his discharge from the navy — and possible exaggerations regarding his professional life after moving to Canada and joining the Canada Southern Railway as a detective in 1873, Murray’s achievements may still be regarded as nothing less than extraordinary.

Murray received a formal tender of appointment from Attorney General Sir Oliver Mowat in 1875 to become the first (and, for nine years, the only) provincial detective of Ontario, with an annual salary of $1,500. 

At that time, the justice system was in transition. Underpinning the older model were largely untrained local constables and justices of the peace who were remunerated on a fee-for-service basis. County Crown attorneys relied for their prosecutions on information provided by the police. Detectives did not play a significant role, but, increasingly, a perception emerged that the poorly paid rural constables could be relied upon for the investigation of minor crimes only. 

Mowat stressed to his executive council that, given the growing sophistication and organization of criminals, a skilled man was required, one with “qualifications superior” to those of the ad-hoc detectives usually employed by the provincial government. 

Murray, who described himself as having “brought to his work a rich experience and rare training” and who had “schooled himself in the details of information of every class of crime,” was clearly the man for the job: to investigate, either in person or in a supervisory role, crimes throughout the province of Ontario — “its total area was 101,733 square miles, and its division was into eighty-four counties” — and also “to follow criminals to any place and run them down.” Wrongdoers, warned Old Never-let-go, “were to hear the tread of footsteps in pursuit, that never ceased until the pursued was dead or behind prison bars.” They would “realise that the old order of things had passed away.”

The value of this new order was demonstrated in Murray’s very first case as government detective: the murder of Ralph Findlay, a farmer in Lambton County. Summoned to the case by the county attorney, Murray discovered that the “countryside” believed that Findlay had been murdered by horse thieves after he had surprised them in his barn. Murray looked for a motive and, based on eyewitness information, found it in the amorous relationship between Mrs. Findlay and William Smith, a hired farmhand. Murray bullied the woman into confessing that she had egged on her lover to murder her husband. 

Murray had very definite views about crime and criminals. “Crime is a disease. It is hereditary, just as consumption is hereditary. It may skip a generation or even two or three generations. But it is an inherent, inherited weakness.” And forget about reforming criminals: “Once dishonest, always dishonest. That is the general rule. Reformation is the exception.” In 1880, by dint of dogged investigations that took him to multiple cities in the U.S. and Canada, he ran to ground the Johnson gang, a notorious multigenerational family of counterfeiters (father, sons, and daughters), who were said to have put over a million dollars in fake notes into circulation. Murray kept the plates, worth around $40,000, as souvenirs. 

He was also a strong believer in the value of circumstantial evidence. “I have found it surer than direct evidence in many cases … There are those who say that circumstances may combine in a false conclusion. This is far less apt to occur than the falsity of direct evidence given by a witness who lies point blank.” 

Although most of Murray’s efforts in bringing villains to justice consisted of interrogations, intercepted letters, pursuits over land and water, and the like, he was open to the adoption of newer techniques, such as the examination of footprints (in one case, he notes that he “marked the tracks carefully and arranged to have plaster casts made of them”), photography, autopsies, and forensic investigations. As early as 1876, analyses conducted at the School of Practical Science in Toronto had revealed that traces of blood and small bones were from a human being, not an animal, which helped to convict a wife murderer.

Murray’s easy manner endeared him to police and newshounds alike. He was even generally liked by the desperadoes who crossed paths — or swords — with him. 

And his sense of humour was legendary. He once told a Globe reporter of a time in court when a “little lad” had been charged with stealing several sticks of dynamite. On being asked by the judge what he had done with them, the boy, crying, took a couple of stick-like objects from his pocket and started to toss them onto the clerk’s desk. “I was near the judge’s bench when he threw the first one,” recalled Murray, “but I think I was half way down the street when the other one fell on the desk.” Fortunately for all, the dynamite failed to explode.

In 1906, after having served the people of Ontario for 31 years, now Chief Inspector Murray died of “a stroke of paralysis” in bed at his Toronto home. In an obituary in the Toronto Daily Star, he was praised for the “skill, logic, trained memory, and delicate intuition” that he had brought to the business of detection. 

But perhaps we should leave the last word to the man himself. The concluding sentence of his memoirs reads: “Well, Murray, you’ve done pretty well, after all.” 

Sources:

Globe editions of March 14, 1890, March 22, 1890, September 23, 1890, September 25, 1890, April 21, 1894, October 29, 1904, June 13, 1906, June 23, 1906

Globe and Mail editions of March 8, 1940, November 19, 1977

Murray, John Wilson. Memoirs of a Great Detective: Incidents in the Life of John Wilson Murray. Toronto: William Heinemann, 1904.

Phillips, Jim and Joel Fortune. “Murray, John Wilson.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, 1994.

Quebec Saturday Budget edition of November 15, 1890

Toronto Daily Star edition of June 13, 1906

Toronto World edition of November 15, 1890

BAD VIBRATIONS

by

ROSALIND PLACE

“I don’t know, Chris. Can’t the board do something? I’m thinking of packing it in.”

Amy ran her fingers through her hair as she sat down, flattening half of her carefully managed curls. It gave her the appearance of a crested bird, an image reinforced by her black sweater, black jeans and high-heeled black boots, now tapping anxiously against the auditorium stage floor. She felt nauseous and angry, as she often did after one of Neil’s so-called motivational meetings.

Chris didn’t seem to be paying attention to her. “Do you ever get the feeling, when you come back from a break or something, that things aren’t quite as you left them?” Hands on his hips, he stood staring at his bass, which was resting on its side propped against his chair. In his sweatpants, T-shirt and running shoes, he looked like he belonged on the track, not in the string section of a community orchestra. Tonight, his normally serene expression had been replaced by a frown. He crouched and leaned forward, pushing his instrument ever so slightly backward.

“No, I don’t,” Amy answered, growing impatient. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m going to pack it in.”

“You’re always threatening to quit, Ames.” Chris straightened, his frown replaced with a smile. “We’re a community orchestra, and we’ve got no say. If he wants to put us in the band shell again, he can. If he wants us to play the 1812 Overture again, he can. True, he can’t keep time, despite his friggin’ ivory baton with the silver handle crafted by I forget who. The board doesn’t care. They just want someone on the podium.” He looked around. “Christ, why is it still so cold in here?” He pulled a tatty gray sweater from the back of his chair and threw it on.

The other orchestra members began to file in. Their clothes reflected their reasons for being there. Although it was only a rehearsal, some, like Amy, were serious musicians who had dressed carefully. Many were still students who hoped to move on to professional careers. Others, like Chris, were just as serious about the music, but had to juggle the rehearsal schedule with day jobs, family or other demands.

As all the players found their seats, they looked more alike than different—all silent, all downcast, focused on their instruments and on warming up. No one made eye contact.

Neil, a tall, angular man who did nothing slowly, strode across the stage carrying his baton. As always, he was dressed in a tailored black suit, white shirt and startlingly bright red tie. His thick, black hair was perfectly styled, shiny and immovable.

“I hope our little meeting inspired everyone to do their best from now on.” He raised his baton. “From the top.” The musicians lifted their instruments. Taking longer than necessary, he waited, and then, with a flourish, began.

---

“That was the most humiliating experience of my life!” First Flute complained. “When did the 1812 Festival Overture become the 1812 Funeral Overture? How did he ever get hired and why don’t they do something about it?”

The instruments were alone again, the players having been summoned to another room for another inspirational talk.

“Well?” First Flute demanded. She was so upset that the music stand she lay on started to quiver. Wasn’t she a world-class instrument? Wasn’t her owner, Amy, a talented if rather tense player, on her way up?

“They’re not going to, are they?” Oboe responded. Unlike Flute, her owner was on his way out. “They either play or walk away, and none of them have anywhere to walk to. There’s no ‘I’m going to the Philharmonic’ talk here anymore, is there?”

“So you just want to stay in this wretched auditorium forever, playing the same old repertoire over and over again, with whatever moron they decide to throw onto the podium?” Flute asked. “Don’t you want more? Don’t we all want more? You’ve heard the new music; don’t you want to play that? Where’s your ambition?”

Flute went on, “Wasn’t it you, Oboe, who, all last year, went on ad nauseam about the Littlewood Symphony, the orchestra that started on a shoestring with a few good players and ended up in Carnegie Hall?”

Flute knew this was a very sensitive subject. Oboe’s previous owner had been a talented, ambitious young musician. She had recently graduated to a semiprofessional orchestra and promptly purchased a better instrument. Oboe had been sold to Jamie, the new but definitely unambitious oboist.

“That was last year,” Oboe said. “That was when Maria was here and we were all delusional. We’re just a small-town orchestra, Flute. We’re lucky to have a conductor at all. Amy’s been making you listen to those stupid podcasts again.”

“Well, maybe Jamie should spend a little time listening, too,” Flute responded. “If today’s rehearsal is anything to go by.”

“There’s no need to resort to personal insults.”

“Will everyone please stop arguing!” It was First Violin, who had been happily contemplating his imminent return to the string quartet he loved so much. The audition last week had gone well, despite the fact that Evan, who suffered from performance anxiety, had been high at the time. Yes, he could see the light at the end of this particular tunnel quite clearly if everyone else would just shut up.

“Let’s just get through the rehearsal,” First Violin continued. “We’re at the band shell next week. The 1812 is a good choice for the band shell. And we don’t really mind playing there again, do we?”

Trombone jumped in. “Don’t mind?! Are you kidding?!” The entire brass section was humming angrily.

“Let’s just all calm down.” First Violin realized, too late, that he had been careless. “I know we all remember what happened the last time we played the band shell. However, Neil is now our conductor. We work with what we have. Flute, laughter is not helpful at this point. Bass, you’re unusually quiet.”

“Yeah, Bass. Nothing to say, eh?” Flute’s music stand was still quivering. “The biggest of all of us, in one piece and heavy enough to actually accomplish something. Look at me. I’m lucky if I’m not in three pieces, trapped in a case and even if I’m all put together I’m either in the air, on a music stand or on a chair. If I roll off and break a key, where would that get us?”

“Out of the 1812, at least.”

First Violin attempted to gain control again as the percussion section began to vibrate. “Whoever made that comment, I am disappointed in you. It was not helpful.”

Bass was barely paying attention. Chris had just started a new weekend gig with a jazz ensemble, and it had been a revelation. That was where he belonged, not here, in this orchestra full of unhappy instruments and unhappy players. Since Maria left, well, he didn’t even like classical music anymore.

“Well, Bass?” Flute ignored everyone else. “You know what I’m talking about. And you won’t even consider it? The so-called accident last year wasn’t your fault. Everyone knows it but you.”

“I think that is a topic best left…” It took a moment for First Violin to regain enough composure to intervene. Just the mention of the accident was enough to send the entire orchestra off the deep end. Bass was already vibrating loudly behind him, clearly very upset and who could blame him? He had been so fond of Maria.

It had been Maria, on that fateful last performance in the band shell, who had tried to save Bass when his stand gave way. As a result, Maria lost her footing, and fell from the stage. She was carried off on a stretcher and never returned.

“Yes, I know, First Violin,” Flute cut in. “God forbid anyone mentions the accident. It goes to show, though, doesn’t it, Mister First Bass, who won’t do anything to help the rest of us? Easy for you, who looks down on everyone. But then, you don’t have to worry so much, do you? Basses don’t play in marching bands, do they?”

The woodwinds were vibrating now; in fact, the entire orchestra was starting to quiver in distress.

“You didn’t know?” Flute addressed them all. “He’s going to do it. Next spring. A marching band!”

“Flute! Quiet, everyone! Please!” First Violin ordered. “They’re coming back. Trombone, is that how she left you? Cello, were you not facing to the left?”

---

The rehearsal ended earlier than usual despite the extra break. Neil slumped dramatically over his music stand, hand over eyes. then straightened up, tucked his baton under his arm and, with a flick of his wrist, told the orchestra to go home.

Chris and Amy were the last to leave.

“You know how it is when you walk into a room and everyone’s been talking and they suddenly stop?” Chris said. “That’s just how it feels.”

He waited as Amy carefully put her flute away and slipped sheet music into her briefcase, then straightened her chair and the one next to it. She had been known to straighten all the chairs in the orchestra before leaving—a pointless exercise, since the school janitor would pile them all up the next morning to clear the stage for the school assembly.

“We don’t have another rehearsal before Saturday,” Amy said. She turned to Chris. “It’s going to be a disaster. What kind of a conductor thinks tuning an orchestra is an unnecessary evil and when he does deign to do it, tunes to an oboe who regularly plays half a tone flat?” She glanced back at the chair she had just straightened.

“It happens every time we come back from a break, Ames. As if there were people here, whispering to each other and…moving things.”

“Moving things?” Amy asked.

“It’s just a feeling,” he said. “I didn’t say it made sense.”

Chris watched Amy move toward the next set of chairs. “It’s okay, Ames. Let’s just get out of here.” He touched her lightly on the arm, and she turned back to him with a small smile. “I was just saying that something feels wrong, that’s all,” he said.

“Something’s wrong all right. We have a conductor who cannot conduct, an oboist who cannot play and a bass player who’s losing it.”

---

A school bus had been booked to take the players and their instruments to the fairgrounds. The musicians had been told to arrive half an hour early, leave their instruments in the bus and meet inside the school.

Everyone in the orchestra was required to wear a black jacket. The order created hard feelings among the players as they searched for the proper apparel at local secondhand stores. No one had money to burn.

When everyone had been gathered and seated in the auditorium, Neil, baton in hand, appeared on stage. He was followed by a very young woman, dressed in a long sweater and leggings, who looked tense and uncomfortable.

The conductor said, “I felt it my duty, given the importance of today’s concert, to do my upmost to prepare everyone. Leanna is here today…”

He paused, raised his baton and pointed it at her. The woman took a few steps back and bumped into a row of music stands not yet put away by the janitor. The stands clattered onto the stage floor.

Neil waited, baton still raised, as one of the players jumped up to help the woman. “As I said, I felt it was my duty to ensure you are prepared, and to this end I have asked Leanna here today to teach everyone some simple techniques of meditation.” He promptly left the stage.

Leanna, red-faced and still recovering from her brush with the music stands, hesitantly stepped forward.

---

Bass was regretting, and not for the first time, the way Chris always chose to sit with Amy. He was now trapped at the back of the bus right next to Flute, who was getting everyone upset.

Flute’s constant carping about Neil was getting on Bass’s nerves more and more, and making all the instruments anxious and irritable. Bass would be perfectly content working weekend gigs at the bar if Chris would just give up this lost cause.

Flute, whose speechifying had been going on for some time now, was getting louder and impossible to ignore.

“Just what are you suggesting, Flute?” asked First Violin, who sounded distinctly nervous.

“There is a rumor—it’s surprising what one can learn when forgotten in a conservatory hallway—that Maria has recovered and may wish to return. Neil is about to make us all a laughing stock. If we don’t want that to happen, well, something has to be done. Isn’t that right, Bass?”

Several instruments chimed in at the same time. “What?” “What something?” There was a definite vibration running through parts of the orchestra, and Bass could feel the tension rising up around him. He wasn’t happy that Flute had addressed him directly.

“All right. I’ll say it, then.” Flute waited, ratcheting the tension up another notch. “Neil has to go and he has to go soon. He’ll never resign, not unless he gets a better offer. But who would have him? No, he has to go and the only way I can see it happening is if he were… well…unable to continue.”

“Yes!” cried Trombone, who almost slid off the seat across which she had been carefully laid.

The vibration was now a hum, moving down the rows, instrument to instrument. Oboe, uncertain and unwilling to give in to Flute on anything, would have refused to join in, but for the impossible-to-ignore thought that this could be a way to get back to where she had once been.

Only one instrument did not react. Bass remained silent and perfectly still.

---

The bus was almost halfway to the fairgrounds when the rain started. The driver had warned Neil back at the high school that the forecast had changed. Neil ignored her, so she repeated it, more loudly, as the players trailed onto the bus. The meditation lesson had left them more irritated than calmed, but all knew better than to raise a protest. They stoically watched as the sky darkened, the wind picked up and the first drops of rain splashed against the bus windows.

By the time they arrived at the fairgrounds, a full-blown thunderstorm was sending fairgoers running for cover. The chairs lined up on the band shell stage were sliding away in the wind. The temporary steps at the front of the stage that Neil had demanded—as the conductor, he couldn’t possibly enter the stage from the wings like everyone else—had been pushed sideways.

The musicians waited, listening to the pelting rain and the crashing thunder, feeling the wind pushing against the bus with alarming strength. When the sandwich board announcing the orchestra’s performance fell facedown into the mud, even Neil had to admit there would be no performance.

As the bus turned around, Neil stood at the front, shouting to make himself heard above the storm, and reviewed the schedule of performances for the next three months. Unfortunately, the fall season finale would be in the same band shell during the Festival of Lights.

“Really? Outside at the end of November?” complained Jamie, the oboist. “We’ll freeze our asses off.” Tall and extremely thin, he pulled his ill-fitting black jacket around him and shivered as if he could already feel those chill winter winds.

The bus had arrived back at the high school just as the sun came out, and the players were returning to their cars.

“And what was it he said about a marching band?” Jamie continued.

“A marching band?” asked Jeanie, the petite trombone player. “Who said anything about a marching band?” She hefted her instrument case onto the backseat of her truck. Nightmarish memories of high school football games ran through her mind, making her a little dizzy. “You can’t have heard him right.”

“Oh, I heard him all right,” Jamie said. “You should’ve seen the look on Amy’s face! He’ll be firing us left, right and center if he gets his way. Speaking of which, did you hear the latest?”

The small group of players who had gathered around him all shook their heads.

“Well, Maria wants to come back and got turned down,” Jamie said. “The word is that there’s going to be an investigation of her accident. Word is, it wasn’t one.”

Chris came up beside the group. “What’s up?”

Jamie had a nasty habit of gossiping about other players that Chris wanted to quash. Amy had already stalked off to her car.

“Nothing,” Jamie replied. He didn’t make eye contact. Chris was impossible when it came to any kind of gossip. “We were just talking about the marching band, that’s all. Nothing you have to worry about.”

“Hmm.” Chris nodded and turned away. He asked himself when everything had started to feel so wrong. A vision of the auditorium stage, chairs empty but for the instruments, appeared before him, and he felt a chill creep from the top of his head to the base of his spine.

“Get a grip,” he muttered as he got into his car. “All that BS about phantoms moving instruments around. Amy’s right. You are losing it.”

---

It took about six weeks of playing outdoors in their black jackets in the summer heat, six weeks of alternating sycophantic praise and bullying from Neil, and six weeks of band shells and distant town halls before some of the orchestra members decided they’d had enough.

By the time October—with its promise of extra rehearsals for the endless Christmas concerts Neil had signed them up for—rolled around, there were mutterings about going to the board. This was something of a pipe dream, as none of the players knew who the board members were, where they met or if they would be the least bit interested in what any of them had to say.

Leanna, the meditation teacher, had been replaced by Bjorn, the life coach, who had just been replaced by Ariana. No one was sure exactly what Ariana’s specialty was.

So the players and their instruments found themselves in the gloomy auditorium again, on a busy weekday evening, rehearsing the 1812 Festival Overture again. The Festival of Lights was fast approaching, the temperature was dropping daily and it appeared to everyone that Neil was intent on making the final concert of the outdoor season one to remember.

“Open minds, everyone. Open minds!” Neil stepped down from the podium and walked slowly around the stage. This was extremely disconcerting to any female player he paused behind, as he stood just a little too close and placed his hands on the back of her chair, making it impossible to move forward.

Neil’s hands had a tendency to wander, as did his thoughts, evidenced by sudden and abrupt speechifying that left many a woman trying to ignore the moist warmth of his breath against her skin.

Tonight, however, he walked off into the wings and beckoned the players to follow. Ariana was waiting, and, as long as their minds were open, she would lead them all on a spiritual journey that would bring their playing to new heights.

---

“We’ve been over this. How many times have we been over this?”

Flute had started to address the instruments as soon as the last player had followed Neil off the stage. Then she turned her attention to Bass. “It’s perfectly simple. Those steps were dangerous last year, and they haven’t done anything to fix them. That’s a sign. We are meant to do this.”

“There is no ‘meant to’ only ‘must do,’ remember?” Trombone, quoting Bjorn, interjected. “And is that the royal ‘we’ you’re using, there, Flute? I don’t see that you actually have to do anything at all. It’s Bass who has to ‘move,’ a euphemism if ever there was one.”

Flute was annoyed by the interruption and offended by the sarcasm. “Well, I’m obviously not in a position…” But she stopped herself from saying something she’d regret later. Stay on point.

She turned to the full orchestra again. “All he has to do is fall over. That is all he has to do. He’s in the perfect position to do it, now that Neil has moved everyone around. Bass falls over, Neil loses his balance, and, with any luck, given the condition of those steps…well… there’s a good chance he’ll be laid up for a while. It gives us some breathing room, some time to…to…”

“Find a way to get rid of him?”

“Yes, thank you, Oboe,” First Violin cut in. “We can always rely on you to be on the mark.” He waited for the hum of nervous instruments to subside.

It had been a difficult summer for First Violin. His longed-for move to the concert world had not come to pass, despite all signals to the contrary. He had received the news on the very day that Flute had come to him. She had presented her plan in such cool, well-thought-out terms that he found himself unable to say no.

“As you all know, as Concertmaster, I cannot condone this kind of action. However—”

Flute cut him off. “I was going to say, some time to consider our options.” She paused, seeming to come to some certainty, then continued. “But Oboe is right. That is what we all want in the end.”

When had things started to go so wrong, Bass wondered, as the arguments continued around him. They had been replaying them all summer and fall, and Flute had been haranguing him every chance she got. He had been able to stand up to her, but she was winning over the string section.

And when had Flute become so powerful anyway, powerful enough to make them all think that he would do something like this on purpose? Last year had been an accident, and they had all lost Maria as a result.

Bass could still remember the sickening feeling he had as the instrument stand snapped and he started to slide, then Maria stepping forward to try to catch him and then stepping backward into space. How could they expect this of him?

Bass had been sold after that accident, his player telling everyone he couldn’t face playing him anymore. It was sheer luck that Chris, the best player he had ever had, had been the one to buy him.

“I think we can all agree that what happened last year was not Bass’s fault,” Flute said. “I think we are all familiar with the rumors. When Neil was in the orchestra, the last chair in the violin section if I remember correctly, it was clear that he had ambitions. Well, he fulfilled those ambitions, didn’t he? Not through talent—we all know he has none of that—but by a nasty little bit of sabotage.”

“What?” Bass could feel the vibrations building to an angry hum around him. “What do you mean, a nasty little bit of sabotage?”

“Just what I said.” Flute turned to Bass, but she was addressing the entire orchestra. “Neil wanted to conduct; he made sure he got the chance. If wanting to get rid of the worst conductor we have ever had isn’t enough reason for you, then think of it this way—it’s time for a little payback. Come now, Bass, wouldn’t you agree?”

Receiving no response, Flute continued, “It appears all concerns have been dealt with. Is that not so, First Violin?”

“Yes, Flute, yes…ah…yes, certainly…ah, I believe some of the players are returning.”

---

Chris stood in front of the band shell, arms crossed, surveying the stage. Chairs were askew, and some instruments lay across them. Others, like his bass, stood neatly in their stands. The scene was no different from that of any other performance. Yet there was that feeling again. It wasn’t exactly whispering … he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

Preconcert jitters, Amy had told him. Something he wasn’t usually prone to, but then again, it was their final concert at the band shell and the forecast was for snow flurries. Neil seemed to be blissfully unaware of what the cold would do to the instruments and their players.

With all the resentment that had been building since spring, Chris didn’t want to be here.

“What did you say?” Amy came up behind him. “You’re talking to yourself again.”

“No, I wasn’t. I just…did you hear anything?”

“I know. You don’t have to tell me. It’s your ghosts again. Maybe the band shell is haunted, too. Probably by all the players who came before us and cannot believe what they are now hearing. That I would believe.”

“You know, I’m a regular kind of guy,” Chris said. “I go to work, I go home, I practice, I come here. This, though, is creeping me out. Look at your flute, Amy. Your flute wasn’t like that when we left.”

The other players began filing back onto the stage, and Chris turned away to go back to his own place. He looked back at Amy, who hadn’t moved and was looking back at him.
“It’s just bad vibrations, Chris. That’s all it is.”

---

It was during the break between the first and second performances that it happened.

The players had all rushed into the hall behind the band shell to warm up. The first performance had not gone well, which was no surprise given that the temperature was hovering close to zero.

Neil had said nothing to any of them, striding off alone toward the bleachers. He arrived back well before the second performance, though, and stood at the entrance to the hall. He stared at each of them in turn, a look of disgust on his face. With a flick of his baton, he beckoned them to follow him back to the bandstand.

But no one paid much attention. The musicians were past fearing the flick of Neil’s silver-handled, ivory baton. No one wanted to leave the warmth of the hall, and they still had 10 minutes of their break left.

Which was why Neil was alone when he walked, fast, toward the stage. He took the first two steps in a leap, jumped again onto the third and landed heavily on the final, crucial step. No one was there to hear it give way, nor to witness him, one foot on the stage and one on the collapsing step, turn and, still holding his baton and arms flailing, fall face-first onto the ground below. There was a scream, and then nothing.

The players ran to the band shell, as did some of the audience members. They were all too late. They milled around in confusion and horror as Neil’s body was lifted onto a stretcher and carried away.

No one noticed the bass. It lay where it had fallen, across the cracked steps, pointing at the bloodied, snow-covered grass where Neil had landed.

---

It was a long time before the orchestra was able to assemble again.

Two terrible incidents, one fatal, occurring within the space of a year had resulted in investigations by the police, the Department of Health and Safety, and the previously invisible orchestra board of directors. All had come to the same conclusion—that these were two very nasty, undoubtedly coincidental, accidents.

So it was months later, on an unseasonably warm March day, that the players came together again. Depositing their instruments in the still chilly auditorium, they went back outside to await Maria’s arrival.

Chris, standing with Amy, couldn’t help but feel that things were on the upswing at last. Those strange forebodings of last year, those bad vibrations, were gone. The cloud of guilt that had surrounded him ever since the accident had lifted with the end of the last investigation.

And Amy had finally auditioned for the jazz ensemble; she was a shoo-in.

“It feels good to be back!” Amy said, slipping her arm into his. “It’s going to be a good year; I can feel it!”

---

In the auditorium, no one was thinking about Maria or looking forward to the new season. The instruments were on edge, watching a familiar, unnerving scene play out in front of them, with no one to keep things under control.

First Violin had left the week before. on to better things, or so he said, though all suspected he had simply lost his nerve.

“It was murder, pure and simple,” Bass declared, comfortable enough in his new stand to let himself vibrate and be heard. He was determined to get Flute to admit the truth. Then he would let it go. He had done what he had done and would have to live with it, but he was damned if Flute was going to get away with pretending it hadn’t happened at all.

“It certainly was not!” Flute shot back, vibrating loudly. “How long are we going to have to discuss this?” She was sick and tired of Bass going on and on, trying to make her feel guilty. She felt no guilt and never would. The plan had been more successful than she could have imagined.

“They investigated not once, not twice, but three times,” Flute said. “All three were ridiculous, and I still can’t imagine how they got away with any of them.”

“I can imagine,” Oboe cut in. She had had quite enough of Flute, and was stressed out by problems of her own, namely Jamie. “It was because it was the second time. They probably thought Bass was some conductor-killing serial murderer.”

“Oboe, don’t be absurd,” Flute replied. “It was an unreliable instrument stand. Which was perfect. Bass, you fell perfectly. If Neil hadn’t held onto that ridiculous baton, he wouldn’t have fallen on it, and it wouldn’t have—well, you all know what happened.”

A shudder went through the instruments as they remembered the grisly scene.

“It was murder,” Bass said. “It was what you wanted. And you got me to do it”

“Excuse me! It was what everyone wanted.”

Flute had had enough. She had been angry and upset all week. She still couldn’t believe that Amy had auditioned for the jazz ensemble. Flute was as open-minded as any other instrument about music but jazz! No, Neil had only got what he deserved. Flute had saved them all. And she would do it again.

“As I have said many times, Bass, it’s not like someone took his baton and stabbed him to death. In fact—” Flute turned to the orchestra again “—if you really think about it, it was the stairs giving way that did it. It really had nothing to do with any of us, at all.”

Bass could feel the mood changing around him now. She was winning them over, and there was nothing he could do about it. He thought of Chris, the ensemble, Maria. He would just go forward and never listen to Flute again.

“We all need to think about this differently,” Flute said. “Maria is back and we need to think about what we can accomplish under her.” Flute felt excited, sure of herself, sure of her power. “We want to get out of this wretched high school auditorium, don’t we? We want something better, don’t we? Isn’t that what this has all really been about?”

She had them now. “In light of what we have learned from this…” She paused. Bass had said nothing more, was silent; in fact, the entire orchestra was silent. Yes, they were waiting for her, waiting for her to show them the way forward.

It was time. It was her time. She would not be turned back, not by Bass, or anyone.

“In light of what we have learned from this,” she repeated, certain and calm now, “I, for one, see nothing wrong with a little more weeding out. Oboe, has Jamie been practicing?”

THE END

THE HAUNTING OF MISSISSIPPI BELLE

by

Ed Piwowarczyk

Circus owner P.T. Barnum is supposed to have said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” but the Hollywood moguls of the 1930s didn’t agree. That’s why they had people like me, Curtis Lynch, on their payrolls.

My title was general manager of Galaxy Pictures, a middle-tier studio—not one of the majors, like MGM and Warner Brothers, but not a Poverty Row denizen, subsisting on low-budget productions with casts of minor stars or unknowns.

More importantly, I was a “fixer.” I concealed bad behavior by actors, directors and producers from the press and authorities, covering up anything—car wrecks, affairs, pregnancies, abortions, drinking, drug addiction, homosexuality—that could tarnish Galaxy’s image with the public. Bribes, blackmail or intimidation solved most problems.

However, Mississippi Belle, was different. A cloud of bad luck hung over the studio’s latest and largest production, and whispers began to circulate among the film crew that the movie was cursed.

Superstitious nonsense, I assured Dorothy Pearson, who ruled over Hollywood gossip in her syndicated newspaper column and radio show.

But I didn’t believe it. The movie was haunted by the woman who should have been its star—Mae Webster.

#

Galaxy Pictures was struggling with its finances, and studio boss Isaac “Ike” Hoffman was desperate for a hit. When producer David O. Selznick snagged the rights to Gone With The Wind, Hoffman had studio writers crank out Mississippi Belle—another Civil War-era romance featuring a headstrong Southern woman. With Selznick in the midst of a massive search to cast Scarlett O’Hara, Hoffman wanted to have Mississippi Belle in production and on theater screens first.

The plum role in Mississippi Belle was that of Annabelle Adams, a plantation owner’s daughter, who spurns her family and her longtime beau, Jubal Ferrell, to pursue Ambrose Warren, a wealthy New Englander who owns a munitions factory.

Everyone assumed the part would go to Galaxy’s most popular star, Mae Webster, a five-foot-six blonde with wavy, shoulder-length hair, green eyes, shapely legs and a slim figure rounded in all the right places. She was temperamental but talented, a tough-as-nails negotiator when it came to landing roles she wanted.

And she wanted the role of Annabelle. “The role of a lifetime,” she told Dorothy Pearson on her syndicated radio show, Inside Scoop. “Once Mississippi Belle is released, people will realize no one could have played Annabelle Adams but me.”

“We’re still waiting for an official announcement,” Pearson said. “I hear there’s someone else pushing for the part.”

“Dorothy, I’m telling you and your listeners that someone else will play Annabelle Adams over my dead body.”

#

A few days later, Hoffman had studio publicists draw up a press release with a bombshell announcement: Virginia Burke—“a bright new star in the Galaxy firmament”—would play Annabelle Adams in Mississippi Belle.

Known around the studio as Ginny, she was a five-foot-four brunette with a pixie cut and spit curls, large brown eyes, full cherry-red lips, and a curvy figure. The studio had been assigning her small roles—secretary, wife, girlfriend, and the like—but she’d set her sights on stardom.

She had been thrilled to be cast in No Cure for Heartbreak, playing a nurse to Mae’s dying socialite deserted by a cheating fiancé. She’d hoped to get friendly with the star, but Mae haughtily dismissed her as “that Betty Boop creature.”

When Hoffman announced the Mississippi Belle project, Ginny, stung by Mae’s rejection of her advances of friendship, saw an opportunity to boost her career and get even.

After hours, Ginny visited Hoffman in his office to convince him that she’d be the perfect Annabelle Adams. She was very persuasive, Hoffman later told me. Her casting couch audition had been a smashing success.

#

“Get your paws off me, you…you…big ape!” Mae spat out as she squirmed in my grasp.

The minute I’d heard the Mississippi Belle news, I moved to intercept what I knew would be a livid Mae. I grabbed her just before she arrived at Hoffman’s office.

“Settle down, Mae.” I turned her around and started to march her back to her dressing room.

“Let go of me!” She tried to wriggle free, but I squeezed her arm harder. “Ow!”

We arrived at her dressing room door, and I turned her around to face me. “No trouble now, okay?” I said. “Calm down.”

“No! He can’t do this to me!” Mae tried to beat my chest with her fists, but I’m a burly guy and I kept her at bay without any problem.

Suddenly she stopped squirming. I loosened my grip, she threw her arms around me, and I patted her back to console her.

#

Mae and I once had a thing going. I had saved her career from being derailed just as it was getting on track.

Before coming to Galaxy six years ago, Mae, desperate for cash, had appeared in a stag film, Her Naughty Ways. The “producers” contacted Galaxy, wanting the studio to cough up big bucks for the original negative, or Mae’s nude frolicking would headline screenings at brothels and “smokers”—private all-male parties featuring erotic entertainment. As Galaxy’s fixer, I had to make this problem go away.

I brought along an underworld associate—Gino “Jersey Gino” Rossi, now on the studio payroll—to prevail upon the “filmmakers” to part with their negative gratis and tell us where to find the prints. We did some not-so-gentle arm-twisting, and the negative and prints were ours. Back at the studio, they were burned.

“How can I ever thank you for saving me from public shame?” Mae gushed as the celluloid melted. Keeping a copy of Her Naughty Ways for myself, I had screened the film before our little bonfire, so I knew how naughty she could be. I bent down and whispered in her ear. She was wide-eyed at my suggestion, but, biting her lip, nodded in agreement. That night, and for a brief period after, she bestowed her favors on me.

“We’re even now, right?” she asked as she dressed after our last night.

“Yeah, we’re even.” I hadn’t told her about my copy of Her Naughty Ways, so I could call on her again if I wanted to. But I didn’t, because I had the company of other troubled stars to enjoy.

So Mae and I went our separate ways until Mississippi Belle came along.

#

I leaned against the door of Mae’s dressing room as she paced, listening to her fume about the injustice of the Annabelle Adams role going to Virginia Burke.

“What was Hoffman thinking? Why did you stop me from seeing him?” Mae demanded.

“You needed to cool off,” I replied. “I had to keep you from saying something you’d regret, or doing anything to hurt your standing with the studio.”

“Standing? I’m the studio’s biggest moneymaker, and they don’t give the part to me? The best part in years, and it goes to a talentless unknown. Ginny Burke, of all people! Where’s the respect for what I’ve done?”

Before I turned to go, I stared into the green fire of her angry eyes. “Listen, Mae. Let me talk to Hoffman. Maybe we can sort something out.”

I was stalling; the only thing that would mollify her was getting the Annabelle Adams role.

“Promise me you’ll stay put,” I said. “I’ll be a while, so don’t do anything foolish.”

“Foolish? Moi?” She batted her eyelids in mock innocence. “Okay, Curtis.” Then her voice hardened. “Just make sure that Hoffman understands that nobody plays Annabelle but me. Nobody! And that without me, there’s no Mississippi Belle.”

#

“Ike, we have a problem.”

Hoffman puffed on a cigar, fiddled with a letter opener, put it down, then folded his hands on his desk.

“So? Fix it. That’s what we pay you for.”

I leaned forward in my chair across the desk from him. “Any suggestions? You must have known Mae would be livid over your announcement.”

Hoffman looked down at his hands, but said nothing.

“What were you thinking?” I couldn’t help echoing Mae. “Virginia Burke over Mae Webster?”

“Ginny has very special…talents.” Hoffman looked up at me. “Understand?”

“What I understand is that you’re jeopardizing this production and the studio’s future for a piece of tail.” I paused. “Mae won’t back down on this. She’s money in the bank for us and for our exhibitors. Give her the part.”

Hoffman glared at me. “I won’t have anyone, least of all Mae Webster, hold Galaxy Pictures hostage and dictate what I do.”

I sighed in exasperation. “Don’t you get it? Mae has Dorothy Pearson’s ear, and there’s no telling what harm she could do us.”

Hoffman leaned back in his chair. “I’d be the laughingstock of the industry if I gave in to Mae. Ginny’s going to play Annabelle, and that’s the end of it.”

I stood to go. “So what do you want me to tell Mae?”

“You’ll think of something,” Hoffman answered. “Just make sure you do anything—and I mean anything—to get her out of my hair.”

There was a knock on the door. Chuck, a security guard, stuck his head in. “Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Lynch, you better come quick. Something terrible’s happened. It’s Miss Webster and Miss Burke.”

#

Mae Webster’s dressing room was in a shambles. A couple of chairs and a bench had been knocked over, a lamp was broken, makeup was strewn over the floor.

Lying in the center of it all was Mae, lying facedown. I crouched and turned her over. Her flickering eyelids were the only sign that she was alive. Blood blossomed beneath her breasts, a dark stain spreading on the cream-colored antebellum gown she would have worn in Mississippi Belle.

I stood, and looked over at Ginny, who was leaning against Mae’s dressing table. Mae had gotten her licks in. Ginny’s left cheek bore two deep red scratches, her hair was disheveled, the bodice of her green gown—another Mississippi Belle costume—had been ripped.

Ginny was breathing heavily—and clutching a pair of bloodied scissors. When I held out my hand for the scissors, she surrendered them wordlessly. I pocketed them.

“What happened?” I asked.

Hoffman interjected, “Surely you don’t think Ginny—”

“Shut up!” I snapped, keeping my eyes on Ginny. “Let her tell it.”

“I was in Wardrobe, trying this dress on, and I asked to see the cream-colored gown.” Ginny touched her scratched cheek, looked down at the blood on her fingers, and winced. “They told me Mae had taken it. That wasn’t right!” Her voice grew strident. “That dress was mine! To play Annabelle.”

“You were upset, you ran over here to have it out with her, and then…?”

“She went after me like some kind of…of…crazy woman. Look at what she did to me!I saw the scissors on the dressing table, grabbed them, and…and…” Ginny looked at Hoffman. “You understand, right, honey? I had to. She might have killed me!”

I shoved Ginny toward Hoffman. “Get her out of here, and clean her up! Leave the rest to me.”

Once they’d left, I knelt down to check Mae’s pulse. Faint, but still there. She wouldn’t last long without a doctor.

Mae groaned. Chuck, who’d been waiting in the background, said, “I guess I better fetch Doc Evans, huh?”

“Yeah—no, wait!” I realized here was a solution to the Mae-Ginny problem. “Get Gino over here—pronto. The doc can wait.” I paused. “And Chuck, not a word of this to anyone.”

Chuck nodded and hurried away.

Mae moaned. “C-Curtis?” she whispered. “H-help me. Get a d-doctor.”

“Sorry, Mae, but you and Ginny, all this fuss about Mississippi Belle, it couldn’t go on.” I slipped the scissors out of my jacket packet. “It was you or her, and Hoffman picked her.”

“B-bastards! All of you!” She gasped and struggled to continue. “You’ll…you’ll regret this. You’ll—”

I thrust the scissors into her. The bloodstain spread, and she stopped breathing.

#

Once night fell, Gino and I drove to Mae’s home in Brentwood. I took Mae’s body in her car; Gino followed in mine. We parked a few doors down from the house and waited for all the lights on the street to go out before pulling far into the driveway.

Gino jimmied open the back door, then we carried Mae into the living room. I laid her out on the carpet, while Gino hurried back to my car for a can of gasoline. After we’d soaked the couch, the armchair and the front drapes with fuel, we tossed lit matches at them.

Smoke started to fill the room, and we watched flames lick up the drapes and the furniture. Gino quickly splashed gas around other parts of the house.

As we were about to leave, we heard a voice croak “H-help! Help!” I turned, and there was Mae, struggling to get up.

“Impossible!” I cried. “I would’ve sworn she wasn’t breathing.”

“I’ll finish the job.” Gino reached for the gun in his shoulder holster.

“Wait!” I pulled his arm down. “You put a bullet in her head, and nobody will believe this was an accident.”

Mae started to crawl toward us, but collapsed after a few moments.

“The fire will finish her off,” I said to Gino, who grunted in agreement. “Let’s get out of here.”

Mae screamed and vowed vengeance. “I’m coming for you!” she cried.

Gino and I watched outside, as the house was engulfed in flames,

#

Galaxy Pictures shut down production for a week to mark Mae’s death. Newspapers declared her death “mysterious and tragic,” and the airwaves were rife with tributes, peppered with clichés such as, “We’ll never see her like again.”

And, of course, a few comments were hypocritical and self-serving. The most galling was Virginia Burke declaring to Dorothy Pearson that she’d miss having Mae as her “guiding star” at Galaxy Pictures. Typical Tinseltown blarney.

While I greased a few palms to make sure there was no autopsy, Hoffman took charge of the funeral arrangements. He chose to have Mae laid to rest in Evergreen Cemetery, the oldest burial ground in Los Angeles, but without the cachet of Hollywood Memorial Park or Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

Hundreds of Mae’s fans turned out to see her casket lowered into the ground, but not the thousands Hoffman had hoped for. But what had he expected? Mae had been a star at Galaxy Pictures, not MGM.

With Mae Webster gone, Hoffman and I thought the studio could get back to shooting Mississippi Belle without any further complications.

But the haunting of Mississippi Belle was about to begin.

#

Light bulbs that weren’t turned on exploded. Scaffolding for a set collapsed, sending four stagehands to hospital. A storage building for props caught fire, and many of the items were destroyed before the blaze could be put out. All accidents, but none of them could be explained.

Most unnerving for the cast and crew of Mississippi Belle, however, were the gusts of cold air that blew through the set whenever shooting was about to begin. That had them shivering, both from cold and from fright.

“What do you make of it?” Dorothy Pearson asked me one day. Hoffman had invited her to the set to get her early stamp of approval, so that her readers and listeners would be sure to see Mississippi Belle. But Hoffman had left me to field her questions, figuring I’d come up with a satisfactory explanation for the mishaps.

I gave her an admiring once-over before answering. I pegged Dorothy to be in her mid-50s, but it was hard to tell. A brunette with a trim figure, she’d maintained her good looks. Fascinators and furs were standards in her wardrobe.

“The accidents? Just a bit of bad luck,” I said. “C’mon, Dorothy. That could happen on any set.”

“Some of the crew think otherwise,” she said. “They say all this started after Mae Webster died, and that the movie is cursed.”

“Movie and theater folk are notoriously superstitious,” I countered.

“Don’t be so dismissive,” she said.

A chill continued to hang over the Mississippi Belle set, and Dorothy shivered inside her mink jacket. “How do you explain why it’s so cold around here? Not the rest of the lot, just here.”

“To be honest, I can’t,” I confessed. “Something weird must be going on with the weather.”

“When the temperature in a room suddenly drops, do you know what people say it is?” Dorothy replied. “The presence of a ghost.”

I laughed off her suggestion. “Wrong studio. Don’t you think a ghost would be more at home at Universal, with Frankenstein and Dracula?”

“If I believed in ghosts, I could think of one who’d belong here,” she said. “Mae Webster.”

A shiver ran through me at the mention of Mae’s name.

“Something wrong, Curtis?” Dorothy asked.

“No, just the cold air.” I coughed, then said, “Why would Mae’s ghost—if there was such a thing—be here? People here loved her. Her death was tragic, but—”

“The show must go on,” Dorothy concluded.

“Speaking of which,” I said, escorting her to a set of director’s chairs at the edge of the set, “maybe watching a bit of the shoot will convince you there’s nothing cursed, jinxed, whatever you want to call it, about Mississippi Belle.”

After Hoffman joined us and we’d exchanged pleasantries, Dorothy settled into her chair. “So what are we watching?” she asked.

“The duel scene between Jubal Ferrell, Annabelle’s longtime suitor, and Ambrose Warren, the New Englander she’s fallen for,” Hoffman said.

“They’re using flintlock pistols,” he continued. “They’re replicas, so there’ll be a bit of smoke, right, Curt?”

“Right,” I said. “No live ammo.”

The props manager had created replicas of vintage dueling pistols, but rigged them so no lead balls were loaded. I oversaw him testing them to make sure only white smoke came out of the muzzles of the 10-inch barrels.

The actors playing the duelists—both dressed in white shirts and dark trousers—stood with their backs against each other, holding their pistols with the barrels pointed up. One actor wore a gray vest, the other’s vest was deep blue.

“I know Ted Cooper, of course,” Dorothy said, indicating the sandy-haired man to her left. “Gray vest, so I assume he’s Jubal. Who’s the dark-haired one?”

“That’s Roy Walker,” Hoffman replied. “With those chiseled good looks, we figure he may be the next Clark Gable.”

“Quiet, everyone!” director Viktor Franz cried. “Action!”

Walker and Cooper each counted off 10 paces, turned to face each other and fired. That’s as far as it went, according to the script. But instead of just Cooper’s Jubal crumpling, Walker’s Ambrose was also writhing on the ground. Both men clutched their guts, and blood trickled through their fingers.

“Cut!” the director yelled. “Cut!”

Dorothy gasped and put her hand to her mouth. Hoffman gaped in disbelief.

Screams, calls to find Doc Evans, and pleas for an ambulance were all part of the ensuing pandemonium. I scooped up the pistols and hurried over to the props man. “What happened?”

He was speechless at first, then shook his head and shrugged. “You were right there when I loaded those guns. Where could the live ammo have come from?”

I hurried after Dorothy Pearson and caught up with her at the studio gate. I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it from my grasp.

“Please don’t print anything about this,” I begged. “We’ll make it worth your while to keep this quiet.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve got an exclusive.” She got into her car, revved the engine and stuck her head out the open window. “Don’t dismiss talk of a ghost.” She pointed at something behind me. “What’s that over there?”

I glanced over my shoulder, saw something dark hovering behind me. I turned around, but it was gone.

“You must’ve seen a shadow,” I shouted. “There’s nothing there.”

“I saw something, Curtis” she said, putting her car into gear. “You did, too, but you don’t want to admit it,” she added, and pulled away.

#

I rolled two lead balls, roughly the size of marbles, in my hand.

“This is what they dug out of Cooper and Walker at the hospital?” I asked Doc Evans, who was sitting across from me in my office.

“Yup. Not what they usually pull out of people’s insides.” The studio doctor shifted in his chair. “What are those for, anyway?”

“Ammo for flintlock pistols, for a duel scene in Mississippi Belle,” I answered. “Except they weren’t supposed to be in the guns. How they got there…”

“Well, for phantom ammo, they sure caused enough bleeding,” Doc Evans said. “It’s a good thing your actors are bad shots. Another inch or two, they would have hit something vital. They’re lucky they’re not dead.”

“I’ll hang on to these,” I said, placing the lead balls in my pocket. “How long will our boys be out?”

“I’ll check with the hospital.” Doc Evans stood to leave. “Anything else?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Dorothy Pearson was on set when it happened, and she’s not going to play ball with us to keep things quiet. So you may get some calls from the press or the boys in blue. Just send them my way. I’ll take care of it.”

After Doc Evans left, I put the lead balls in a small safe in the back wall of my office. Then I realized there was something else I needed to lock up.

Returning to my desk to retrieve the scissors used to stab Mae, I stared into an empty drawer. The scissors were gone.

#

Shooting without the two male leads continued over the next week, but mishaps continued to plague Mississippi Belle. Doors opened and shut, seemingly on their own, and that meant a number of retakes. Crew members suffered minor electrocutions. Power went out without explanation partway through scenes. Virginia Burke tripped down a plantation staircase; fortunately, she only sprained an ankle.

All this meant delays, which meant going over budget, which meant losses for the studio, which meant Hoffman might not have a studio if things continued as they were.

So his evening phone call came as no surprise. I assumed he was going crazy with frustration and looking for a sounding board. “Meet me in the projection room,” was all he said. What struck me was his tone of voice. He didn’t sound angry or upset. He sounded…scared.

“What’s up?” I settled into the seat next to him in the projection room, where we screened “dailies”—raw, unedited movie footage. “You’ll see,” he said. Then he called up to the projectionist, “Pete, dim the lights and roll the film.”

The Adams plantation house in Mississippi Belle flashed up on the screen. As the camera moved in, we saw a figure in a black dress and a long black veil standing in front of Annabelle’s home.

The camera stopped, then the figure started advancing. The veil was lifted to reveal a face with charred skin, horrible to look at but recognizable—Mae! The skin started to peel away, revealing the skull, with a death’s-head grin, beneath.

The screen went blank for a few seconds, then Mae’s image returned, looking like the beauty she once had been. She was smiling, but it was a wicked grin. She raised an arm and pointed at the camera…at us.

Then we stared at a title card, like the ones they used for dialogue in silent movies: I’m coming for you!

The lights came up, and the screen went dark.

“Where did this come from?” I demanded.

“Pete swears he doesn’t know who delivered this cannister to the booth,” Hoffman replied. “It was labeled Mississippi Belle, so he assumed I’d arranged for it to be sent over. I called you when I saw the footage.” He paused. “What can we do?”

“More security on the set. Personal guards for you and Ginny. Restricted access to the studio. Short of that, I don’t know.”

“That’s all well and good, but what if we’re dealing with something—” Hoffman dropped his voice “—supernatural?” He paused. “Do you believe her ghost could be behind all this?”

“I didn’t before, but after seeing that film…”

“How do we make her—it—go away?”

“We can’t,” I said. “Think of what you just saw on the screen. Mae won’t stop until she’s had her revenge.”

#

The next day, Chuck dashed into my office, waving a copy of the Los Angeles Times and pointing to the front-page headline: MOBSTER KILLED IN CAR BLAST. “Boss, I thought you should see this. Mr. Gino, I can’t believe it. He always treated me real good.”

I took the newspaper from the security guard. “Chuck, don’t talk about Gino to anyone, especially to cops or reporters. Just send them to me. I’ll deal with them.”

The article said Gino “Jersey Gino” Rossi had been rumored to be on the payroll of the Luca Marino mob, and speculated that he had been killed after a falling-out with his bosses back east.

According to the report, around sunset the day before, residents of the San Bernadino apartment building where Gino lived heard an explosion. Some saw Gino’s car, parked outside the complex, burst into flames. A few claimed to have heard muffled screams and said they saw someone inside the vehicle desperately pounding on the windshield and windows trying to escape.

Not unlike Mae trapped in her Brentwood home. No simple coincidence.

Mae’s words echoed in my mind. I’m coming for you!

But she got to Jersey Gino first.

#

With all the misfortune surrounding Mississippi Belle, the cast and crew were increasingly hesitant to show up on the set. Hoffman pooh-poohed their fears and coaxed them into carrying on. The most hesitant were convinced by his threats to terminate their contracts.

A few days after Gino’s murder, I accompanied Hoffman to Ginny’s dressing room.

“Burning down Annabelle’s mansion…I don’t want any part of that,” Ginny whined. “That sounds dangerous.”

“Nonsense! It’ll be perfectly safe,” Hoffman said.

“Like it was ‘perfectly safe’ for Ted and Roy in the duel scene?” she asked.

Hoffman threw his hands up in exasperation. “Explain it to her, Curtis.”

In the script, Annabelle has decided to marry Ambrose and live in the North. But once war breaks out, she realizes her heart is in the South. She undertakes a perilous journey back to the plantation, arriving to find her home in flames and Union troops marching off in the distance.

I told Ginny the set designer had created a miniature replica of the Adams mansion—a dollhouse version of the plantation homestead. It would be set ablaze and shot in close-up, giving the illusion of the mansion going up in flames.

“That won’t involve you or any other member of the cast,” I told her. “You won’t be hurt in this scene.”

I also described how the crew had created a partial façade of the mansion—its front steps and doors, flanking pillars and part of the porch—to be used in shots in which she appeared. That would also be set on fire, but she would be well-distanced from the flames.

“Satisfied, Ginny? You won’t be near any flames. There’s nothing to worry about.”

She eyed me warily. “Will you be there? I’d feel better about it if you were.”

“You want him there, he’ll be there,” Hoffman announced. “Now, can we please get this scene done? Let’s get to work.”

#

I made a safety check on the façade, while Hoffman, the director and Ginny huddled over copies of the script.

“You’re staring into the fire, your back to the camera, then you slowly turn around,” Viktor Franz said to Ginny. “You face the camera, and a tear runs down your cheek. You’re tired, hungry, bewildered. You don’t know what’s happened to your family. Your childhood home, with so many memories, is going up in smoke.”

The director placed his hands on her shoulders. “But you are strong. You hold your head high as you walk toward the camera, in slow measured steps, sad but defiant. Understand?”

Ginny nodded, then looked warily over her shoulder at the façade that would soon be set ablaze.

“Don’t worry,” Hoffman assured her. “Everything all right there, Curtis?”

“From what I see, everything’s good,” I told them.

The façade had been doused with kerosene, and the cans taken away. Six stagehands with brass extinguishers stood by, out of the camera’s eye, to ensure that the fire would be contained once the scene had been shot. If the blaze got out of control, we’d call the L.A. Fire Department.

“All right.” Franz signaled the stagehands to light the fire. “Now, Ginny, when I call for action, you step 12 paces toward the fire. Then stop, count to 10, and turn around slowly. Face the camera and walk toward it. Remember, don’t rush. Slow and steady.”

“You don’t have to tell me again,” Ginny snapped. She glanced at the flames. “Let’s get this over with.”

“C’mon, baby,” Hoffman urged. “Go get ’em.”

Franz yelled, “And…action!”

Ginny took a few tentative steps, stopped, then continued gingerly toward the fire. “That’s it…just like that…perfect!” Franz said.

As Ginny turned around and took a few steps toward the camera, she suddenly stumbled backward. She fell, screamed, tried to get up, but something seemed to be pushing her to the ground.

I sprang forward to help her, then…bang! I hit something hard that sent me sprawling backward. It felt as if I’d run into a wall, but there was nothing there.

Crying for help, Ginny staggered to her feet, only to stumble again and clutch her abdomen. Blood seeped through the fabric of her gray dress.

A dark mist swirled around us, then hovered in front of Ginny. The black mist then transformed into a woman in a black dress and a dark veil, clutching a pair of scissors. Mae!

Lifting her veil, she turned her charred face toward Hoffman, Franz and me. The skull’s eyes glowed green, and its death’s-head grin widened. The creature lunged at Ginny, pushing her closer to the flames.

The stagehands frantically pumped their extinguishers, but nothing came out of them.

The creature shoved a screaming Ginny into the burning façade. The fake wooden front crashed down on top of her. Within moments, she lay still, flames dancing around her body.

A dark cloud formed over the fire, then dissipated as smoke rose from the blaze. No longer held back by the invisible barrier, I rushed forward. A few feet short of the fire, I threw up my hands to shield myself from the intense heat. I couldn’t save Ginny.

Hoffman stared stonily at the inferno. Ginny was dead, and so was Mississippi Belle. With no one to play Annabelle Adams, there was no movie. What actress would want the part now?

#

I’m coming for you!

Her Naughty Ways flickers on a screen in my office as I sit in the dark, waiting for Mae to arrive. I have no doubt she will; her vengeance won’t be complete if it doesn’t include me.

With a .38 revolver beside me, I watch Mae cavorting in a lake, then drying herself off on the beach. She’s naked. Her back is to the camera as she drops part of her towel to reveal her shapely derrière. She pivots slowly, clutching the towel to her chest, then lets it slide to the ground.

Suddenly Mae disappears, and I see bubbling and a white spot. A burn hole on the film. I turn off the projector, but it continues to throw light up on the screen. In seconds, the lake is back in view, but not Mae.

“Hello, Curtis.”

Where is she? I grab my gun, stand, and fire wildly, first at the screen, then around the office.

“You know that won’t stop me.”

“Show yourself!” I keep pulling the trigger until the revolver is empty. I collapse back into my chair, the gun dangling from my hand.

“Come out!” I yell. “Let me see you!” I drop the gun on the floor.

Mae steps out of the shadows, water glistening on her bare skin. She holds scissors in her right hand.

“W-where did you c-come from?” I stammer.

She points over her shoulder with the scissors. “Back there. The lake.”

I’m transfixed, unable to move, as she advances. Dread envelops me as I think of what happened to Ginny and Gino.

I’m coming for you!

“You knew how it would end, didn’t you, Curtis?” Mae leans into me and thrusts the scissors into my gut—once, twice, three times. She twists the scissors into the wound with her last stab and leaves them there.

It takes all the energy I can muster to pluck the scissors out of the wound, and send them clattering to the floor. I lean back in my chair, exhausted, blood seeping from my gut.

The projector catches fire. Tentacles of flame reach into every corner of my office and will soon wrap themselves around me.

“Goodbye, Curtis,” Mae says, and turns toward the screen. “It’s over.”

I watch her naked backside disappear into the flames.

I close my eyes, and everything fades to black.