Dear Readers,

New books, library panels, author readings and a double book launch! Along with pumpkin spice, the fall season is in full swing for the Mesdames and Messieurs.

CONGRATULATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS

Mme Madeleine Harris-Callway’s new book of short stories, Snake Oil and Other Tales (Carrick Publishing) went live on September 30! It’s now available in ebook, paperback and hardcover. Snake Oil and Other Tales eBook: Callway, M.H.: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

 Snake Oil and Other Tales is the second collection of short stories by author M.H. Callway. These dark tales include strange guardians, mysterious bakeries, faithful dogs and yes, the slithery reptiles that strike fear in even the toughest bro’s heart. Many were finalists for the Crime Writers of Canada Awards for Excellence. They stretch from traditional mysteries to thrillers to speculative fiction and even to horror. What unites them are the characters struggling for justice–or their own warped perception thereof.

Danny Bluestone and Corazon Amorsolo, the protagonists of Callway’s debut novel, Windigo Fire, return in the thriller, Last Island. And Dr. Benjamin Amdur, the hero of Amdur’s Cat, has a second adventure in Amdur’s Ghost, a finalist for the 2023 CWC Best Novella Award.

 Mme Melissa Yi’s September Kickstarter was a big success. Look for a December release for Sugar and Vice, Melissa’s latest book in the Hope Sze Seven Deadly Sins series.

Do feasts and fiction make you drool? Do dragons delight you? Want to catch bad guys and eat happily ever after? Sleuth Hope Sze tastes murder at Montreal’s Dragon Eats Festival in this sweet culinary thriller of food and the fantastic.

Sugar & Vice: A Mystery of Death, Dumplings, and Dragons by Melissa Yi — Kickstarter

MESDAMES ON THE MOVE

The Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem will be at the Beaches Library, 2161 Queen Street East, Toronto on Wednesday, October 18^th at 6:30 p.m. We’ll be talking about Chills, Thrills and Fun Facts of Crime Writing and share the ups and downs of being a crime author in Canada. The panel features Mesdames:Lisa De Nikolits, Blair Keetch, Rosemary McCracken, Lynne Murphy, and Caro Soles with M. H. Callway moderating.

BREWS AND CLUES

Brews and Clues, the Crime Writers of Canada monthly author pub reading event, launched on September 14th with M. Blair Keetch as guest author. Brews and Clues takes place on the second Thursday of every month. This month, it’s on Thursday, October 12th at Stout Irish Pub, 221 Carleton St., Toronto at 6:30 pm.

SAVE THE DATE!

Saturday, November 4th at 2 p.m.

Mesdames  M. H. Callway and Caro Soles are hosting a book event at our favourite bookstore, Sleuth of Baker Street, 907 Millwood Road, Toronto on Saturday, November 4th at 2 p.m. Mad is launching her new book, Snake Oil and Other Tales and Caro, her latest book in the Merculian series.

There will be cake and possibly a special guest!

Wednesday, November 1st

The Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem will be back at the Toronto Public Library, this time at the Parliament Street Branch, to present Chills, Thrills and Fun Facts of Crime Writing. Time TBD

A FRIENDLY REMINDER

The deadline for submissions to the 2024 Crime Writers of Canada Awards is December 15th Starting this year, all submissions must be in digital form. Please see the CWC’s website for the submission rules and required forms.

https://www.crimewriterscanada.com/awards/submissionrules

OCTOBER STORY

Our October free short story will be one of Mme Cheryl Freedman‘s always clever mystery scribbles. Title to TBD.

Catherine Dunphy is a critically acclaimed biographer and author of young adult novels. After a long career as a journalist, she retired to take up a life of crime…fiction.

Cathy adores bookshops and libraries. Her crime-solving librarian, Winona, is the hero of her stories in the Mesdames anthologies. Enjoy “Winona and the CHUM Chart” from our fourth collection, In the Key of 13.

WINONA AND THE CHUM CHART

by Catherine Dunphy

Tuesday morning was brisk, the kind of weather that telegraphed winter was coming, dammit. But Winona didn’t mind as she nudged aside some of the lingering leaves in the park path behind the Millartown Library. She loved Tuesdays, her day to open the old building situated in the treed dip near Main Street.  She loved its early morning serenity and silence and that’s why she always paused when she came inside the library’s back door before flicking on the series of switches that illuminated her workplace in a sudden magical flash.

She let out a satisfied breath. She twirled on her toes, arms outstretched; this was all hers. She had ninety minutes alone, alone, alone until 8:15 when her boss arrived. She hustled into the staff room, tossing her shaggy cape over her office chair. In the ‘70s someone else who was plus-sized had cherished that alpaca cape. Winona believed its somewhat mangled state made it all the more worthy of her own Size 18 love now.

With a practiced swoop, she gathered her colleagues’ used coffee mugs and lunch dishes, dropped them into the antiquated, extremely noisy dishwasher and turned it on. The racket was, as expected, excruciating.  Wincing, Winona wiped the counter and filled and set the coffee machine to start ten minutes before the others were due in.  They’d be happy to have the stuff freshly brewed for a change. Usually she’d bash the button right away for her own morning hit, but for some reason, she had gone off coffee.

Whatever. It was time for her favourite part of Tuesday. She hurried out to the main area of the library and hauled the book return bin just inside the windowless front doors back to the staff room, kicking shut its door behind her. She emptied the contents onto a long table and sat down. Here be treasures.

Winona almost rubbed her hands in glee.  She still had more than an hour to go through the  bin’s contents and remove all the pressed flowers, bobby pins, twenty dollar bills – yes, it had happened to her — love letters and gas bills with which people marked their place in books. The library never threw anything out. Well, maybe the bobby pins. Winona had seen women weeping over reclaimed mementos they’d thought gone forever and agitated men breathing more easily when that white envelope containing a large cheque was handed back to them. What people leave in library books never ceased to astound – and sometimes disgust – her. Like the time she found a condom. And that desiccated pizza slice.  

Still she eagerly fanned the pages of the book at the top of the pile, then another and another. Just bus transfers today.  She ignored the sounds of the dishwasher’s squeals and shrieks as she worked steadily , flipping open the cases of the CD discs and movie cassettes to ensure they weren’t returned empty and checking the children’s picture books to check for torn pages. She kept cello tape handy for that. 

Hang on. Winona picked up her library’s only copy of The Library Book.  In fact, Susan Orleans’ latest bestseller was the library’s newest acquisition, dropped into circulation just the day before.  People were clamouring for it.  And here it was back already. It was 336 pages; someone read it that fast?  Winona picked up the book and automatically fanned it. Its binding cracked. The book hadn’t been opened. It hadn’t been read. But there was something in it. She turned the book pages down and shook. A piece of yellowed paper fluttered and dropped onto the table.

Winona picked it up gingerly.

It was an odd shape, almost but not quite square.  Chum 30 it said in a weird puffy lower case typeface she recognized from her posters of ‘60s psychedelic concerts. It was a CHUM chart for the week ending September 14, 1974.  Winona swooned.  This was retro gold, the real thing from a time when one of Toronto’s – hell, Canada’s — biggest and brashest Top 40 hit-playing radio stations gave them away every week. She knew that most CHUM charts were small and folded, the kind you stuffed in the big back pocket of your jeans and opened up to read.  This one was different. One page front and back. Interesting, she thought. Likely a short-lived experiment before they reverted to the tried and true pocket sized version. Bet there weren’t many of these around.

There were streaks on it and she had to look closely to see that “I Shot the Sheriff” by Eric Clapton was at the top for a second week in a row beating out songs by Elton John. Paul Anka, Donny and Marie Osmond – Winona shook her head in disgust – but also Guess Who and, yes, ABBA.

 Wow. This was so cool. There was no way she was adding this to their lost and found file. And it really was a mess. The brownish red streaks almost obliterated the top album listings.  She removed her turquoise cat’s eye glasses for a quick clean before holding it up to the light so she could make out the famous names: Endless Summer Beach Boys; Band on the Run, that would be McCartney. She peered closer. Who or what was Golden Earring?

A door slammed. Winona dropped the paper which fell to the floor; she knew she hadn’t unlocked the front door yet.   

Then the door to the staff room swung open so forcefully it hit the wall.  It was her boss.  Roseann Mills was usually elegant and pulled together but this morning her hair was falling out of a messy ponytail and she’d thrown a ratty black cardigan over workout clothes. And there was a man close behind her.

 “This will disrupt our entire week. People count on the Library being open.” Winona had never heard Ms. Mills sound as upset.  “And I don’t appreciate your people putting that yellow tape all over the place.”

A look of annoyance flashed across the man’s face then vanished.

“Well, it is a crime scene,” he replied.

Winona rocked back in her chair.  “What the –,” she gasped. “What happened?”

“A woman died on your doorstep,” came the laconic reply. “Jogger found her. Beaten to death.”  He sat down opposite Winona and shoved a business card across the table. It said he was a detective and that his name was Hendricks.  His calculating eyes said he meant business.

“What time you get here this morning?”

Winona glanced over at her boss, who was leaning against the wall looking very worried.

“Winona gets in around seven o’clock on Tuesdays,” she said. “By the back door, right?”

Winona nodded, unable to speak.

“You didn’t go round to the front? See anything unusual. I don’t know, maybe like a dead body?” The detective didn’t look like he was joking.

 “I got here before 7 o’clock,” she finally managed to squeak. “But I didn’t open the front door or anything. I’ve been inside, right here working.”

The cop raised an eyebrow.

“Lady, you’ve had two police officers and an ambulance at your front door already this morning. But you didn’t hear anything.” 

“For goodness sakes.”  Ms. Mills strode to the dishwasher and shut it off mid groan. “How could she hear anything over that?”

Winona came to life. “You mean someone was killed when I was here?”  She grabbed the edge of the table

The policeman relented.  “A woman. Late thirties. Maybe early forties. We think the time of death might have been earlier this morning. Much earlier.”

“And I didn’t even know.” Winona felt sick to her stomach.

“I think Winona needs to go home now, Officer,” Ms. Mills said, gesturing to the man to follow her into her office. “She has your card.”

The man nodded at Winona and got up. “I’ll be in touch.”

The door to Ms. Mills’ office closed behind them with a click. Still Winona didn’t move. Couldn’t. Finally managing to get up from the table, she slowly retrieved her cape and bag stumbling over the CHUM chart.  She bent down to retrieve it and shoved it in her bag.

Jason was leaning on the kitchen counter, drinking coffee and deep into his computer when she walked into their kitchen.

“Knew you’d be back,” he exclaimed. “A woman found dead at the library’s front door.  F–king amazing. It’s breaking news all over the ‘net. “His dark goatee was vibrating he was so excited.  “Guess we get the day off.”

Winona threw off her cape for the second time that morning.  Jason was not the library’s most dedicated employee. He didn’t need to be. He was heir to the fortunes of the richest family in town. But he shouldn’t be treating this like something on Netflix.

 “Jason, for God’s sake. The police say she was murdered.” Winona dropped into the chair beside him.

Jason stopped tapping on his laptop, his six foot six lanky frame suddenly taut.

“Murdered. It didn’t say that on the news.” His voice was a whisper.

Then, “You okay?”

Winona took off her Princess Leja hairband and toyed with it before answering. “Yeah, I guess. I didn’t see her. It was outside at the front and I went in by the back, the way I always do. The detective said it probably happened way before I got into work.”

 Jason wrapped an arm around her. “Still, you might have been in danger.”

Winona smiled at him. “I wasn’t. Ever. “

They sat silently until she suddenly had a thought. “I think I might be able to find out who she is – was.”

“How?”  Intrigued, Jason turned back tohis laptop and fired up his search engine. “Did you see something?”

Winona reached into her Peruvian woven shoulder bag and withdrew the yellowed brochure.

“I found this old CHUM chart today in the returns.”

“Gro-o-ovy.” Jason drawled as he picked it up. “Maybe it’s one of the more valuable ones. You can get ten, twenty bucks for some of ‘em.  The ones that had coupons you tore out and mailed in are really rare—“

He stopped. “What’s this stuff on it?”

Winona sighed.  Deep down she’d always known what the reddish brown streaks were. That lingering metallic smell. The aura of violence and despair.

 “Blood,” she said, more to herself than to her live-in. “And it’s got something to do with that woman’s murder.”

Jason raised an eyebrow as Winona went into the living room to retrieve her own computer. As the library’s IT specialist, it was easy for her to find who had taken out The Library Book.  A few swipes and she was looking at the library profile of a Susan Dalgleish who lived at 29 Rummer Road – definitely not the best part of town anymore. Winona scanned the extensive history of the books Susan had borrowed. She certainly read a lot.

 And lately Susan had been reading about Canadian and California pop culture.  

“Jason,” she called out. “I think I might have known her.”

He was by her side in a flash.  “Phone the cops.”

Winona said nothing, remembering the woman she’d recently helped find old touring schedules for bands, current websites for aging rock stars and more.  Although grateful for Winona’s help, she’d been so diffident, always hiding behind her curtain of dull dark blond hair. She could have been 20; she could have been 40.  Winona had noted with approval her clothes were thrift-shop finds, not her own retro punk’d style but from the classic tweed era. And with her lean frame, she rocked the look. Once Winona had tried to tell her that but the woman had immediately retreated, flushed and flustered. Winona had kept it purely professional from then on.

“Phone the cops?” Jason repeated.

Winona shook her head. She thought of Susan and how desperately she had been to receive whatever Winona could locate for her.   She thought of Detective Hendricks and his cool assessing eyes. “Not yet.”

Then, before Jason could stop her or even ask where she was going, she grabbed her cape and bag and ran out of their apartment.

The house at 29 Rummer Road had once been beautiful. No, Winona thought, looking at its curved front window and the ornate iron railing leading up stone stairs to a burnished oak door, it had once been grand.  

Now it was tired and divided into flats. Small flats, Winona thought, looking at the double row of buzzers. She pushed the ones on either side of the button labelled Dalgleish, hoping for a friendly neighbour. No response. Then she pushed the buttons of all the ground-floor flats, hoping for a nosy neighbour.  And got lucky.

“Hello?” The voice was rusty from age and lack of use.

“I’m a friend of Susan Dalgleish.” Winona rationalized that she wasn’t lying; she would have been her friend had the woman allowed it. “May I speak to you about her?”

The woman didn’t reply but the door buzzed and Winona walked in. The musty hall was dim save for a streak of light at the end coming from an open door. The tall white-haired woman standing there was gesturing to Winona.

 “I knew she was in trouble,” the woman proclaimed as Winona found herself in a surprisingly large but empty room.  Winona realized it had not always been so. She could see the outline of ornate settees and large paintings in the faded wallpaper.  “I just knew she would come to a bad end after that awful man kept coming by.”

 Winona’s head swirled.  So she was right. The dead woman was Susan Dalgleish. And the police had already talked to this woman.  But what awful man?

“I told those police officers about him,” the woman said as if reading Winona’s mind – or perhaps the look on her face. This woman was alert and shrewd. “Not that they paid any heed.  You know, the ramblings of another rattled old woman.”

Her clear gaze swept over Winona.

“But you might be different,” she said, turning away. “Although I know you were not her friend.”

Winona flushed.

The woman waved away Winona’s embarrassment.

“She didn’t have any friends.  Didn’t want any, either.”

Winona followed her through bevelled French doors to another grand room centred on a carved alabaster fireplace made golden from the morning sunlight filtering through stained glass windows. A single chair and matching sofa were the only furnishings in a room designed for entertaining.

The woman opened a side door to an office, no, a magnificent library. Book shelves lining three walls were interrupted only by a massive roll top desk, at which the woman sat herself.  She seemed to have regained her composure; in fact, she was positively regal. It was here where she belonged.  

“My name is Alice Hornsby and my family has lived in this house for more than one hundred and fifty years,” she stated as her fingers stroked the desk’s burnished wood. “I live on the main floor. All of it. The other buzzers are there to keep people away.”

Her upraised hand cut off any comment.

“I take in one or two paying guests who live on the second floor. Quite comfortably I might say. They are all carefully vetted. I insist they be quiet and cultured. Susan has – had – been with me for the past two years.”

Ms. Hornsby commanded her to a chair by the desk. “And now, you will tell me how you really know Susan.”

And so Winona told her about helping Susan in the library. But not about what she held in her purse.  The woman listened impatiently as if waiting for something specific but also something Winona wasn’t saying.  Two spots of colour appeared on the woman’s patrician cheeks.

“There’s something I think you should see,” she announced.

She unlocked the roll top and unveiled thick piles of plastic files. CHUM charts. Hundreds of them.

 Winona gawked.

 “It’s a complete set.  Worth something.  A good something.”  Alice Hornsby had noted Winona’s reaction and seemed satisfied by it.  Her eyes bore down on her. “He wanted these. I know he did. He wanted them from Susan.”

***

 “Yeah, like I would kill for another CHUM chart? She’s batty.”  Morty was as miserable and  grimy as his namesake  hole- in- the- wall music memorabilia shop in the far end of Old Town.  “I can’t give away the ones I have.”

Jason had easily tracked down Susan Dalgleish’s mystery man.  Millartown wasn’t home to that many guys with a salt-and- pepper waist-length beard still dressing as if it were the tie- dye ‘60s, a fashion decade Winona loathed.  After Jason had let her know how he felt about her running off, he had calmed down enough to insist he go to see Morty with her. As the library was still closed and they both had the day off, Winona couldn’t see a way out of it.

“You’re not the only one who gets to play detective,” Jason had said as they hoofed it across town. Winona had pulled a face but now she was glad Jason was here because Morty wasn’t looking her in the eye.

Winona knew he was lying. She just didn’t know what he was lying about.

She decided to find out.

“Look,” she said, laying aside an armload of old newspapers so she could sit. She almost regretted it when the chair swayed and tilted under her weight. She fought a wave of vertigo by   keeping both feet on the floor for balance. Then she took out the stained CHUM chart from her purse.

Morty recoiled.

“It’s ruined! How could you – Let me see.” He reached towards her.

“Not so fast,” Jason put an arm between Winona and the grasping dealer. “I happen to know that some of Canada’s most famous people collect these charts. Mike Myers. Martin Short.”

Morty snorted.  “Been reading up online, have you?”

“So what if I have?” Jason parried. “It’s a goldmine of information. Speaking of gold –” he gently took the chart from Winona. 

Morty exhaled. “Give it to me and maybe I can tell you what you want to know.”

After a moment Jason relented and handed it over. Winona noted Morty’s sudden grace and care as he turned the CHUM chart from front to back, frowning in concentration.

Then a start. A double take.  Wonder crossed his face.

“What is it? What’s there?” Winona wanted to know. She could feel Jason grow tense next to her.

Morty removed his cold coffee mug from the vicinity before lovingly placing the chart in its place. His shrug was forced.

“Nothing,” he said. “For a minute I thought – but no, it’s just one more CHUM chart that’s been disrespected. Where did you get it?”

His rheumy eyes followed the chart as Winona very carefully put it back in her bag and got up to leave.

“The library,” she said. “Where I work.”

A phone message from Roseann Mills was waiting for her when they got home.  It was back to work tomorrow.  The library was re-opening. The yellow tape was gone. So were the police. The police. Oh God. Winona sank onto a chair, stomach roiling. The CHUM chart somehow held the key to whoever killed Susan Dalgleish.  She should never have kept it; she should have handed it over then and there to that cop, but it was too late now.  She could be charged with obstruction of justice.  Maybe Jason too. And that mustn’t happen. Not to him. He was the good guy in this.  It was up to her – not him — to find out why Susan had hidden the CHUM chart in the book. Then she’d tell police everything. But first —

Alice Hornsby.   She would know.

***

The library was busy all day – crowded with gawkers checking out the scene of the crime and those who made sure to lodge their complaints at being inconvenienced by the closure.  Winona was exhausted at the end of it but needed a word with her boss before heading home.

 Ms. Mills looked equally worn out. Winona glimpsed Hendricks’ card on her desk.

“Any word from the police?’ Winona asked.

A shake of the head.

“I know who she was.” Winona plunged ahead. “Susan Dalgleish. She was in here a lot recently looking things up.”

Winona was not going to say that she’d done some looking up herself to find that out.  And that inside her Peruvian shoulder bag she had stashed some of the heavy library books Susan had been using for references. Maybe tonight at home she could figure out what the dead woman might have found in them.

Ms. Mills reached for the card and picked up the phone. “Thanks.”

Winona felt better as she left the library, much better.  Of course the police had already identified Susan even if they hadn’t made it public, otherwise why would they be talking to Alice Hornsby? But Winona wanted the cops to think she was helpful.

  And Ms. Mills hadn’t asked her how she knew it was Susan.  Finally, some luck. She straightened her shoulders and shifted her heavy bag as she crossed into the park. Tomorrow she didn’t start work until noon so there‘d be time to drop in on Alice Hornsby again. Winona had a gut feeling that the woman could help her shake the truth out of Morty.

“Hey. You. Stop.”  A hand gripped Winona’s shoulder from behind.

“Let go of me,” she yelled, whirling to face her attacker, ready to swing her purse strategically.

It was Morty, holding up both hands in surrender.

“I just wanted to talk with you,” he whinged, as if she were the aggressor.

Winona willed her heart to stop racing.

“You said you worked at the library. I waited for you to come out.”  

Winona gazed at him with disgust. To think she’d been frightened of this weasel – but steady there, she told herself. Proceed carefully now. Susan Dalgleish probably thought the same thing about this weird guy with his strange eyes and crumb-filled beard. And he may be carrying a weapon in his canvas army bag.

“What do you want to talk about?”

He looked around him.  Office workers were filling the street at the end of their work day.

“Not here.”

 Winona thought fast. “The CHUM chart. “

“You have it with you?”  Decades dropped from his voice in his eagerness.

Winona drew her bag closer to her. “Come with me.”

They walked in silence until they turned onto Rummer Road. Morty jerked to a stop as Winona had known he would. She was ready with a lie.

“Just moved in here. You know the place?”

“Nope.”

You lying scumbag, Winona thought.

 She stepped between him and the door and used her Peruvian bag to cover up the fact she was pushing Alice Hornsby’s buzzer, not unlocking the door to her phantom flat. The door clicked open. Morty reluctantly followed Winona down the hall to where Alice Hornsby stood.

The woman’s cool eyes went past Winona to Morty. A tilt of her head indicated they were to follow her and Winona grabbed Monty by the arm, practically dragging him through the empty room into the room with the fireplace and the only places to sit. Alice Hornsby strode to the arm chair beside the darkened hearth leaving Winona and Morty no choice but the sofa.

Something didn’t feel right, Winona thought as she tried to make as much space as possible between her and Morty. I am supposed to be on her side, not his.

She tried to catch Alice Hornsby’s eye. Failed.

“So, you’ve come to your senses?” Alice Hornsby said to Morty. Her voice sneered. Her face twisted into cruelty. Winona tightened, confused. Thoughts spun out of control.

“Hand it to me.” Alice Hornsby snapped her fingers.

“She has it.” A shaking Morty indicated Winona beside him.

The already dim room seemed to darken more as Alice Hornsby turned to Winona. Her long arm reached out and strong fingers wrapped themselves around the fire poker.

“How long –” Alice Hornsby knocked the poker against the fire stand and glared at Winona. “I suppose you are going to tell me that Susan – your very good friend — gave it to you?”  Her voice oozed scorn.

She rose from her chair. “You stole it. “

She crossed the floor to the sofa in two swift steps. “I would like it back.”

Winona shrank into the couch, instinctively holding her bag against her.  Alice Hornsby understood.

“It’s there,” she cried. “You have it in your bag.”

Winona saw the madness in those furious eyes before she felt the first blow of the poker.  She felt waves of pain. She heard her own screams. Her arm covered her head, trying to block the trajectory of the iron weapon.  Morty was screaming.  Stop, stop. Again, stop. I’m calling the police.  But the blows kept coming to her shoulders.  Hard metal.  Somebody pulled at her bag. Now there was nothing to protect her.  A voice urged her to turn fast, turn her back to the blows. Protect. She must protect.

A thud, gasp and it stopped. The beating stopped.  

“You okay? You okay? Tell me you’re okay.” Morty’s rasping voice sounded far away. Winona shuddered, then turned.

 A panting Morty was holding her bulging Peruvian bag over the figure on the floor. Alice Hornsby had been felled by a blow of her Peruvian bag containing Susan’s reference books.  The fire poker lay on the floor near her outstretched hand.

Then the door burst open.

“Hands up where we can see them.”  The police. They were here. Winona was safe.  But they were arresting Morty.

Winona recognized Detective Hendricks.  “Not him. She –“

Hendricks held up a hand.  “We need an ambulance,” he said into a phone.

***

“Ready to tell me now?”

Winona squinted at the police officer standing at the end of her bed. Then remembered. Hendricks.  His name was Hendricks.

She sighed, then winced.  She’d been in hospital for two days. Her broken left arm was in a cast and her fractured ribs made it hurt to breath let alone talk. Other than that everything was fine.

 “Tell you what?”

The cop echoed Winona’s sigh as he pulled up a chair by her bedside.

“Let me catch you up on things,” he said, leaning forward. “Alice Hornsby has decided to talk. Now that she no longer has a complete set of these CHUM charts — It had been desecrated is how she put it – she doesn’t care.  She won’t get the money and she can’t hang onto her house so she’s lost the fight. As well as her grandniece, but she doesn’t seem as upset about that.”

He was watching Winona carefully as he spoke.

“Susan Dalgleish was her grandniece.  Her only relative.”

Winona’s eyes widened.

“Seems she didn’t bother to tell you that.”

Winona shook her head.

“Susan was the only other person who knew about the collection.” Hancock became very still. “Besides Taubman.”

Winona  frowned. Taubman?

Hendricks tilted the chair back onto two legs. “I believe you know him as Morty. He says that a complete set of CHUM charts – like that one – was worth a lot of money. Quarter, half a million maybe. ”

That was a crazy amount of money for something they used to give away, Winona thought.  But in a way it made sense.Otherwise none of this would have happened and Susan Dalgleish might still be coming to the library.

“The girl — well she wasn’t a girl, she was 41 – knew it too. She used to drop by Taubman’s   shop. Pick his brain.” Hendricks cleared his throat. “Even took him to her place once to show him what she had.  Seems Susan figured the collection was hers because it used to belong to her mother, not Alice Hornsby.”

Hendricks’s upended chair legs hit the floor.

“Susan’s mother died when she was a kid.  Just 12. Seems that Ms. Hornsby swooped in and took everything – except Susan. She had to go into care.”

Winona let out a sigh.  What a cruel thing to do to a child.

Hendricks cleared his throat.  “She moved into Rummer Road with Hornsby last year.  She told Taubman her aunt needed her rent money because she was too proud to rent rooms to just anybody. “

That jibed, Winona thought. But Susan also may have been plotting the whole time to get back at the aunt who didn’t want to raise her. Wrecking a complete set of charts would do that, nicely.

“So here’s where you might fit in,” Hendricks said. “Hornsby has said she saw Susan filch one of the charts and stick it in a library book. Who knows why?  Maybe revenge is sweeter if just one thing is missing from an otherwise perfect set.  Maybe she wants the soon-to-be- missing chart to be somewhere safe like a library. Maybe she thinks it’s easy to get it back.  Or maybe she thinks it’s gone forever when she pushes it through the Returns slot.

“We’ll never know because Hornsby picked up that poker from her fireplace set – I think you’ve had a nodding acquaintance with it – and followed her. Tried to stop her when she figured out Susan was dumping the chart off and, well, we know what happened next.” Hendricks stood by the bed.  “We think Susan got the book into the library somehow – even while she was being bludgeoned to death. “

He stopped.  Let the silence unsettle her. “We think you may have found the missing CHUM chart that morning at work. Do you have it?”

For a moment, just one moment, Winona was tempted to tell the truth. 

But the cops had their confession. They didn’t need the CHUM chart and they didn’t need to know she had it.  Or that she had had it from the beginning.  

“No,” she said.

***

It was later afternoon, hours after the detective had left and Jason was slumped by her bedside. His go-to grin had been replaced with all the signs of worry and exhaustion. Winona reached for him.Yesterday, after they had run tests, taken X-rays, assessed all the damage Alice Hornsby had inflicted, long after she’d been cleaned and bandaged and attached to intravenous tubing, a beaming nurse had appeared by her side.

“Your baby is fine,” she’d said.

Winona had cried happy tears and reached for the phone to call Jason and tell him she now knew why the floor sometimes tilted and coffee tasted strange —when the nurse removed the receiver from her hand, reminding her it was 3 a.m.

Now she took his hand.

Jason was insisting on Spock for a name, be it boy or girl, when Winona spotted a droopy figure at her doorway. Morty Taubman looked so hangdog his beard was close to brushing his knees. He thrust a bouquet of grocery-store daisies at her, which Jason deftly intercepted as he stood to escort him out of the hospital room.

“No, let him stay,” Winona said. “I think Morty saved my life.”

Morty looked sheepish. “Whacked her with your bag.  Sorry for grabbing it. Got her right on the head.  Good thing you had those books in it. Thought she was really going to kill you. “

 “Touchdown,” Jason pumped the man’s hand and gave him the seat by the bed. Morty lowered himself carefully onto it.

“Sorry,” he said again, waving a floppy hand at cast, the tubing and the rest of the medical paraphernalia.

“Yeah,” Winona grimaced. “All this. For a CHUM chart?”

Morty looked away.

“What’s the deal with it anyway?” she asked.  “Was it worth dying for? “

A weak smile. “That’s the $64,000 question,” he said. “Actually I guess it’s now more like a quarter of a million dollar question.”

Winona got the reference to one of television’s first game shows, all right – except she still didn’t get it.

“But why?”

“First of all it was a complete set. That’s big. And that chart – the one with the streaks, the one that’s missing – turns out it was pretty special too.”

Jason and Winona exchanged a look.

“Why?” they both said.

Morty looked at his rapt audience. “Because of Golden Earring.  A Dutch band. Had a big single called “Radar Love” and the No. 6 album that week.”

“And?”

He sighed elaborately. “There are a lot of people out there who dig this stuff, ya know. “ A look of cunning crossed his face. “People with money.”

Winona signalled Jason to hand over her Peruvian bag hanging on the back of the door. 

“Look, Morty,” she said, fishing out and holding up the CHUM chart with her good arm. “Why this chart? You better tell me right now.”

Morty went pale. “I thought it was gone.”

 Winona waved it impatiently. “It’s not.”

“Here.” Morty reached towards the chart and pointed at the bottom of the page, where Winona now saw there was a scrawled signature, numbers that looked like a date and the letters S.M. “That proves it.”

“What?” Jason and Winona asked at the same time.

“That Golden Earring really did play Santa Monica on September 19 in ’74. Santa Monica. S.M.  See?   And that signature.  Band founder. And look. Nine. Nineteen, Seventy –four.  Month, day, year. The way Europeans write dates. Americans do it the other way — day, month. People have been arguing about whether this concert actually happened for a long time.  Check the ‘net.”

“So that’s what Susan found out in the library,” Winona said. “That this CHUM chart was valuable on its own.”

“Filching it would ruin her aunt’s collection but it would also make her some money? A CHUM chart?” Jason sounded as if he couldn’t believe it.

 Morty nodded. “Okay, not nearly as much as a complete set of CHUM charts. But I know some people who’d pay just to see this, let alone own it.”

He eyes lost focus as he looked past them out the hospital room window.

Like you, Winona thought to herself.

She held out the chart to Morty.

“Take it. “

“You don’t want it?” Morty was gobsmacked.

She could never look herself in the mirror if she cashed in on Susan’s death but there was more.

“Morty,” she said. “You saved our life. I’m here because of you.”

He looked embarrassed.

“Now go,” Winona said.

He sped out the door.

“Maybe he thought you were going to change your mind,” Jason said with a smirk.

For yet one more time today, Winona rested her hand on her stomach. Slowed her breathing.

 “I think I can feel something.”

Jason loped to her bedside and put his hand over hers.

“Me too,” he said.

THE  END

Lisa is the award-winning author of nearly a dozen novels, all defying the limits of genre fiction. Her work embodies elements of speculative fiction, thrillers and mystery.

Lisa’s story, Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon, was inspired by her visit to the Toronto aquarium. She later expanded it to novel form, due to be published in 2024 by Inanna Press.

Her story first appeared in the Mesdames of Mayhem’s third anthology, 13 Claws, Carrick Publishing, 2017.

MAD DOG AND THE SEA DRAGON

By Lisa De Nikolits

We met at an art gallery one lazy afternoon.

“You and me, we could be listening to Frankie singing at The Desert Inn,” he said with a sideways grin. “I always dress like this, what’s your excuse?”

We were standing shoulder to shoulder and I turned to face him. I let it show that I liked what I saw. He was a straight split between Chaz Palminteri and Anthony Mad Dog Esposito, whose stark black and white photograph I had been admiring on the wall.

This man never really left the jungle, the caption under the photograph read. New York Daily News, 1941, picture credit, Weegee.

“He was nuts,” I said, gesturing to Mad Dog.

 “Not as much as he would have liked to be. Him and his brother pleaded insanity to try to get off a murder charge, they barked and hit their heads on the table at the trial, they howled and cried and behaved like animals for the whole thing.”

“So that’s why they called him Mad Dog?”

“Nah. The New York police commissioner called him and his brother ‘mad dog killers’ for what they did. They killed a man in an elevator for a few hundred bucks and then they ran out into the street and started shooting everybody. That’s the part that was nuts. William, the younger brother, shot a cop and then a taxi driver tried to save the cop and then he – the taxi driver – got shot in the throat but he lived and the cab company got him a new car for his troubles.”

He paused to take a breath. “The whole Esposito family were hoods, the father had done time, the third brother was in prison, the two sisters were thieves. But the mother was behind the whole thing. Mothers. The root of all evil if you ask me.”

He fell silent and turned to look at Mad Dog Esposito again and I thought I had lost him and I struggled to think of something to say. I panicked. Things had seemed to be going really well but now it had come to a grinding halt. My sister had given me a bunch of lines to use but I couldn’t remember any of them, my mind was a complete blank and I felt close to tears. I was going to ruin this before it even started. To my relief, he picked up the thread of conversation.

“Look at Ma Barker,” he said, turning back to me. “I don’t care what they said, she made her boys and her husband do what they did. She led that gang, I don’t care what anybody said about her being innocent. And Violet Kray, Ronnie and Reggie’s mother. It was all her fault too. She used to dress Reggie and Ronnie up like little girls after her baby girl died. No wonder they were both bisexual paranoid schizophrenics. Violet killed Reggie’s wife, Frances, and made it look like a suicide. Mothers are behind most gang wars and crime. Women. You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.”

He shot a glance at me and gave a shrug as if he was about to turn and leave and I fired a question to stop him. 

“What happened to the Mad Dog brothers?”

“Their pathetic attempts to look crazy didn’t work. Him and his brother were electrocuted in 1942.”

He looked angry about something and once again I felt like I had ruined the great start to our conversation and I frantically fished around for a way to get us back on track.

“I love these photographs,” I said in my most practiced sultry voice and I could see his mood lift again, his shoulders relaxed and he smiled, a halfway twisted smile that I wondered if he practiced in front of the mirror.

“Yeah,” he said. “Weegee. Great photographer. His real name was Arthur Fellig. He got his nickname after the boardgame for his weird way of knowing where to be when a story broke. He said it was just in his blood.”

“You’re a wealth of fascinating information,” I purred. Why couldn’t I remember what my sister had told me? We had practiced often enough. But all I could think of was cigar smoke and Paco Rabanne. Could you even get Paco Rabanne anymore? Obviously, yes.

“Paco Rabanne,” I said and he smiled and he straightened his tie. His suit was charcoal pin-stripe and he had a blue tie and matching folded handkerchief sticking out of his pocket. His shirt was crisp white and he shot his cuffs, giving me a glimpse of gold cufflinks.

“Yeah. So what’s a dame like you doing in a joint like this?”

I smoothed my form-fitting red dress over my hips and made sure my chiffon scarf was draped just so. I was wearing six-inch heels and I was still only eye level with his chest, this man was a linebacker.

 “I could ask the same of you,” I said, looking up at him, trying for coy. “You look more like a business man than an art aficionado.” I figured he’d like feisty and he did.

“Well, you gotta love Weegee,” he said. “He used to say the easiest kind of a job to cover was a murder because the stiff would be laying on the ground. He couldn’t get up and walk away or get temperamental. He would be good for at least two hours.” He laughed like this was the funniest thing. “He also said murder is my business. I can relate.”

His last sentence sent chills up my spine but I forced myself to smile, full wattage, trying for Jessica Chastain if she’d been a star in the late 50’s.

He grinned and moved closer to me and I figured I was in. But I didn’t have big boobs. A guy like this, he’d want big boobs and I’m tall, with a good round ass and a tiny waist and long legs with slender calves and a finely turned ankle if I say so myself but there’s no getting away from the fact that my boobs are like teacups. I sighed.

“Bored of me already,” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

I shook my head. “My boobs are too small for a guy like you,” I said and he gave a sharp bark of laughter.

“See, I knew I liked you already,” he said. “You tell it like it is, no beating around the bush. Hey, I wouldn’t worry about it. My wife’s stacked, double D’s and I don’t much care for her.”

His wife. I shut the whole thing down with a look and turned away but he grabbed my elbow.

“Don’t be like that,” he said and he held my hand between both of his. His hands were enormous and slightly damp.

“This is nuts,” I said, my voice breathy like Marilyn’s. “I met you like three seconds ago, what’s with the electricity between us?”

He grinned and pulled me closer.

“Maybe it’s Dog Esposito getting me so excited,” I whispered in his ear. “I’ll be honest, I crush on crazy criminals. This is the third time I’ve come to see this exhibit and now you’re here.”

He caressed my palm and I leaned into him, my eyes shut, my breath coming fast.

“Crazy criminals aren’t all they’re made out to be,” he said but I only half heard him. The Paco Rabanne and his touch and the whole situation I was in was making me feel dizzy and I worried for a moment that I was going to faint.

“Oh, we’ll have ourselves some fun, you and me,” he said, and all I could do was nod.

“You want to go someplace?” he asked. I nodded and that’s how it all started. Me, letting him know that I wanted him, with Mad Dog leaning over my shoulder and this man, all big and handsome, and the gallery lighting throwing shadows like cloaks and daggers.

But he was a gentleman. He took me for coffee. The place was deserted except for us.

“Tell me about you,” he said while I dipped my finger into cappuccino foam and licked it clean.

“I was born into the wrong era,” I said. “In my real life, I’m a late night janitor in a high-rise office. Believe me, you’d have a healthy fantasy world if that was your life too. I spend my spare time and money, not that there’s much of either, sifting through thrift stores looking for garments from a better time. I’ve got quite the wardrobe by now, I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

“Girl like you should have new clothes,” he said. “Shiny. Styling, yes. But new.”

I shrugged. “It is what it is,” I said. “No use in complaining. And you? Tell me about you.”

He was silent. “I’ve gotta be careful,” he said. “My life’s complicated. My work, my family, it’s all complicated. I’ve got a wife, like I said but let’s not talk about her. She’s a piece of work but let’s not go there. I’ve got a daughter. The apple of my eye.”

He dug out his wallet and showed me a picture of Anne of Green Gables, red-hair, braids, freckles and all.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” he said. “God help the boy who lays a hand on her. She’s only ten years old, so I’m okay for a while. I wish I could lock her up in a tower forever, keep her safe from the world.”

“She’s pretty,” I said. Kid looked like she thought her dad was Santa and the Easter bunny all in one.

“Enough about me,” he said, “I want to know more about you.”

I felt like I had run out of things to say and I hesitated but luckily for me, he looked at his watch. “Oh darn. Listen babe, I gotta run. Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

“I’m good,” I said. “I’ll catch the streetcar.”

“Nah, let me give you a ride. But listen, come here, you’re driving me nuts. I’m giving you some warning here, I’m going to kiss you, babe, I can’t help myself. It’s kismet that we met like we did.”

“So stop talking already and kiss me,” I said and he did and we were locked into each other when a loud nasal voice broke the moment.

“Get a room people,” the voice said and we broke apart and looked up to see the skinny teenage barista standing there, hands on his hips. “Don’t you think you guys are too old to be deep-throating it in a public place?” He grinned at us, a stupid goofy smile, not a care in the world.

My guy stood up and adjusted his suit and next thing the kid was crumpled on the floor trying to breathe.

“What’s wrong, kid?” my guy growled. “You can’t handle a punch from a geriatric like me, huh? Come on, babe, let’s get out of here.”

We left the guy on the floor and I tottered after my new boyfriend, wondering if I really could handle what I had gotten into.

He gave me a ride home and when I updated my sister, she seemed satisfied.

“I told you,” she said. “We’re gonna land the big fish this time.”

The next time we met, it was at the bar at the Four Seasons hotel and he had booked a room on the fourteenth floor, with a view of the city that stretched for miles.

“I hope you don’t think I’m presumptuous,” he said as we rode up on the elevator. “I have to watch who I am seen in public with, I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” I said but my heart was hammering in my chest like a nail gun.

When we got to the room, he ordered champagne and an array of desserts and pastries.

“My mother watches what I eat like a hawk,” he said, biting down on a cream-filled éclair and washing it down with champagne. “Now my wife, she wouldn’t dare say a word to me but mothers can say whatever they like. You never get out from under the thumb of your mother.”

 “Never, ever talk about his mother,” my sister had told me. “Italian matriarch, she’s like the Virgin Mary and the Queen of England all rolled into one. The woman is a saint to him. I met her once. She was like Hannibal Lector in drag. She’s more dangerous than I can tell you. When he talks about her, just nod.”

I nodded.

“You’re not eating, babe?” My guy drew my attention back to the spread in front of us. He was chewing on a custard Danish, crumbs flying everywhere.

“Don’t want to ruin my figure,” I said, running my hands over my waist suggestively. Actually I could eat like a horse and never put on an ounce, something my sister constantly reminded me, as if that was my fault. If she even walked past a muffin, she gained a pound. But I was sick with nerves now and couldn’t eat a thing. I couldn’t even take more than a sip of champagne. What if I didn’t get the sex right? What if he didn’t like me?

“I’m nervous,” I blurted out. “I’m worried you won’t like me or find me attractive. I just want you to like me.”

“Oh honey,” he said and he came over to me and pulled me up out of the chair I had been sitting in. “You have no idea how much I like you already. I haven’t been able to think about anything except you. I can’t concentrate. I can’t think straight. Come here, let me show you just how much I want you.”

And he did. And it turned out the size of my boobs was perfectly fine, thank you very much, and when he cupped my ass in his big hands, it seemed like it was all working out just like we had planned.

I lay on my side as he slept next to me, his arm draped over my waist and I looked out at the stretched out city below and I thought that maybe for once, I really did have the world at my feet.

“I just don’t want to screw it up,” I said to my sister when I was getting ready for a date. “What if he gets bored of me? What if I say something stupid?”

“You can handle it,” my sister said when I told her my concerns. “You just don’t think you can. Why someone with your looks has such low self-esteem is beyond me. Let me tell you, if I had your looks, I’d own the world. Frickin’ own it.” I had lost count of how many times she had told me that in my life. “The mistake you made in the past,” she continued, “was dating good looking losers who folded like cheap tents when it counted. This time, just listen to me, do what I tell you and you’ll come out the winner.”

I nodded. I didn’t agree with her that I had low self esteem. And I was no floozy. I had only fallen in love with one guy and he had let me down badly, that much was true but you couldn’t help who you fell in love with, it just happened.

My sister had always been more like a mother to me than a sister.

When I was five, my father came home and found my mother passed out on the sofa, drunk. He sat down next to her and he looked at me. I was sitting on the floor, waiting for my sister who was making me chocolate milk and toast for supper.

“I can’t take it any more,” my father said to me, and I remember exactly how he said it. He was very matter-of-fact, very calm.

Then he turned back to my mother and he pressed a cushion to her face, pushing down on her while her legs thrashed and flailed and drummed against the arm of the sofa.

I wet my pants and sat there in a puddle while my father killed my mother and my sister made my supper in the kitchen. She didn’t hear a thing.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” my father said and then he got up and left me alone with my mother who was staring straight at me with bloodshot eyes. Not that bloodshot was anything new.

I don’t know how long it was before my sister came in with my supper and when she saw my mother lying there, she dropped the toast and the chocolate milk and the brown puddle spread into my pee and I just looked at my sister and stuck my thumb in my mouth.

“Where’s dad?” she asked urgently and I shook my head.

She ran to the bedroom and she was gone a long time. When she came out, she said she had found him and she needed to phone the cops. He had hanged himself, off the doorknob in the bedroom. I remember I wondered why she had been in there so long with his dead body but I couldn’t ask her because I had forgotten how to speak.

It took me a long time to talk again after the murder suicide and that’s when my sister became my mother, my best friend and my guardian angel.  We went to live in a bunch of foster homes and I escaped into books, reading anything I could get my hands on. I loved Wuthering Heights best of all and when I met Joey at one of the homes, I thought he was my Heathcliff forever. He was the love of my life. I was sixteen and my life finally seemed good. I was even happy for a while but a couple of years later, Joey got arrested for armed robbery and that was the end of that. I never stopped loving him, not for a moment but my sister never let me see him again. I would have visited him in prison but she wouldn’t let me.

So I made up this fantasy world where I was a big movie star with elegance, grace and style and I spent hours in thrift stores, finding the right garments that a real star would wear. I practiced talking in a slow and famous way, keeping my voice lazy and even. I pictured myself on a big screen wherever I went, like the world was watching me with all my grace and loveliness and I never let myself slip. My name was Vickie but I changed it to Jessica, after Jessica Lange. I thought I looked a lot like her. And no one was allowed to call me Jess or Jessie. I was Jessica.

My sister’s name is Glennis. And she told me all the time that I had ruined her life. But it wasn’t me who ruined her life. What ruined my sister’s life is that she’s not like me. She’s not a looker. It’s like she got the opposite of everything I did. I’m tall, she’s short, I’m willowy, she’s a dumpling, I’ve got tiny tits, she’s loaded. When looks were being handed out, she came out on the short end and there isn’t one thing about her that is pretty and if you ask me, that’s why she was so mean to me all the time. And I felt bad for her, how would I feel if I looked like she did? I’d be angry with life too and my heart broke for her when I saw how people looked at her.

“Life’s not fair and that’s just the way it goes,” she often said but she would look at me accusingly, like it was all my fault that she wasn’t pretty and she’d never had a man to love her.

Apart from Joey, and he didn’t count anymore, my sister was the only person in my life.

“Why do you need friends when you’ve got me?” she asked me when I made plans with schoolmates and after a few tries, I just gave up. It was easier that way.

“Do what I tell you,” she said again, when I told her I was worried I was going to screw things up with my guy. “I’ll make sure you land this man, get him in the bag, hook, line and sinker.”

And she did well. I paid attention to what she said and I worked hard and not even a month later, my guy made me give up my job and he moved me into a brand new condo with a view of the lake. He’d never been to my place, I’d told him I shared a basement apartment with another janitor but he hadn’t cared about those kinds of details about my life.

“You don’t need to be handling anybody’s garbage,” he said. “You’re my girl now and I’ll take care of you. Thing is, I got some rules. First off, you don’t get to talk about my wife. Ever. Next, you do not step out on me. Thirdly, you tell me where you are, twenty four seven. Fourth. Do not steal from me. If you need money for something, you just got to ask me. You wear my gifts, you do not sell them. Number Five. You always gotta look like a million bucks and smell like a peach. I don’t want to turn up and find you in your pj’s with your hair from yesterday. One more thing. You’re only out if I say you’re out. Out of this – you and me. Never think you can skip town on me, you got that? Wait. One more thing. Don’t ever ask me what I do for a living. Any questions?”

“I got it,” I said. “ But I will ask one thing of you and if you agree, then you’ve got yourself a deal.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“I want a leafy sea dragon,” I said. “It won’t be cheap. It won’t be easy to get. And it will cost you about ten grand.”

“A leafy sea dragon,” he repeated and he smiled.

“There’s one at the aquarium,” I said, “I can show you.”

“I know what a leafy sea dragon is,” he said. “Looks like a fancy long seahorse in a wedding dress. They’re special, just like you, babe, beautiful and delicate. Sure, I’ll get you one.”

“How do you know what it is?” I asked.

“I take my kid to the aquarium a lot,” he said. “She loves them too. You’ve got good taste.”

I wasn’t sure why I asked for a leafy sea dragon. Maybe it was because I thought there was no way he could get me one and that my asking would shut down this crazy thing once and for all.

I was glad I never told my sister about me asking for the leafy sea dragon because she would have killed me. She would have said I was self-sabotaging and ruining everything.

Now, here’s the thing. My sister has worked for my guy for ten years. Ten years and he still can’t remember her name. She works in the accounts department, faithfully handling all kinds of stuff and no matter how many hours she logs, or how much money she saves him or how many secrets she keeps, he can never remember her name. He calls her doll or cookie but in ten years, he has never once said her name and finally, one day, she had enough and that’s when she got the idea for us to work him over.

 She had realized that the girlfriend on the side was no longer in the picture and that it was time for him to get himself a newbie. It was all her idea. She knew all about previous girlfriends, all Jessica Rabbit look-alikes that he’d kept in gilded cages. Clothes, cash, jewelry – my sister said we could collect a real good stash and head to Florida. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, she said. And I didn’t have to do anything except look pretty.

“Nice work if you can get it,” she said and she sounded bitter like always and I wondered if she had a crush on my guy and that was the real reason she wanted to get me in to score the big bucks. Maybe it was her way of getting revenge. But wasn’t she putting me in the line of danger? But would she do that?

“If they all had it so good, why did they leave?” I asked and my sister gave me an even look.

“Who says they left? You’ll have to be careful. But don’t worry, I know how his timing works, I’ll get you out when the time comes. And who knew, all your bargain basement fifties clothes will actually be good for something. All this time, I thought your obsession with dressing like a vintage calendar girl was a waste of time and money but it’s going to turn out to be perfect for what we need.”

Her admission didn’t make up for her nasty comments every time I had brought home a new five dollar gem of a dress or a pair of shoes that fit me just so but I held my tongue. If this scored us the big time, it wasn’t worth arguing about.

As luck would have it, she heard him talking about the WeeGee exhibit and she knew exactly when he was going to the gallery. So we came up with the plan, I got all dolled up, and next thing, Bob’s your uncle, I was sitting in my gilded cage and Daisy the leafy sea dragon was happily waving her lacy little fins at me and floating around her five hundred gallon tank.

My guy had no idea that I had only seen a leafy sea dragon because of him. He’d had to cancel a trip to the aquarium with his daughter and he had given the tickets to my sister because he had chewed her head off about something and then he couldn’t go with his kid and even although he couldn’t remember my sister’s name, he gave her the tickets.

The aquarium bored me but when we found the sea dragon, I fell in love. There was this perfectly beautiful little creature, with her lacy fins spinning and waving, and that perfect tiny horse face looking me, only at me.

And there was me looking at her. I could see my reflection in the glass. I was lovely too, exotic even, with my careful coiffure and my perfect red lipstick and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. The sea dragon was stuck in her cage and I was stuck in mine. My life was a cage. So what if I was beautiful? It’s not like it ever got me anything except my sister’s quiet rage and my own heart broken.

Which is why, when my sister told me about her cockamamie plan, I agreed to do it. I wanted to try to be something more than a late night janitor with thrift store dress-up dreams. Maybe I wanted to prove to my sister that I was worth something. Or maybe I was tired of being poor. It sounded nice to have a guy look after me and not have to worry about money all the time and it would be nice to not have to live with my sister. And to be honest, the whole thing made me feel like I was the star of the show, like I was playing a role in a Dashiell Hammett book, with shady gangsters with names like Whistler, and beautiful women who wore dresses made of Crêpe de Chine.

And then when my guy asked popped the big question about setting me up for real, the leafy sea dragon popped into my head and I asked for her on a whim and my guy said sure, it wouldn’t be easy but for me, anything.

I settled into a routine pretty quickly and it wasn’t too bad at first. I got to buy all the books I wanted and I read for all the hours of the day and night. And I can’t say I minded the fancy jewelry boxes that came filled with glittering gems or the envelopes of cash that elevated my wardrobe to that of a real star.

But I wasn’t in love with him and I couldn’t even find a way to like him and sometimes when we were having sex, I felt like I was a custard Danish he was chewing on. And it was horrible, never knowing when he was going to show up. I had to be ready, on call all the time and when I heard the sound of the key turning in the lock, my stomach clenched.  He liked to surprise me by coming at all kinds of different hours like he was testing me and after a while, I couldn’t even concentrate on my books, I was listening for that sound, that grinding sound that told me it was time to sit up and look happy like a good puppy dog.

And now, it’s six months later.  I am sitting here in my prison, dressed to the nines, waiting for my guy and Daisy is looking at me inquisitively, like she wants to know what’s going to happen next. “I don’t know,” I whisper to her. “I don’t know.”

 I try to stop myself from picking at my cuticles because my guy hates it, he says only poor drug addicts pick at themselves until they bleed. But I get a release from the pain, it helps me focus my worry and fear.

“When will it be time to get out?” I asked my sister the last time I had seen her. We met once a week in the hats and glove section of the department store and we talked like spies do, side by side, facing forwards, pretending to be strangers who just happen to be muttering at each other, like that’s not obviously weird or anything.

“Not yet,” she said, trying on a pair of lambs’ wool gloves.

“When is yet?” I asked. “My life is killing me.”

“Poor baby,” my sister said. “Living in the penthouse, being treated like a queen. Suitcases of cash to spend on whatever you want. Sex with a gorgeous man. Yeah, you’ve really got it tough.”

Sex with a gorgeous man? I swung around to face her, not caring who might see us arguing.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” I asked. “You’ve always been in love with him.” I saw the hatred flare in her eyes as she looked at me.

“But why set me up with him?” I asked when I saw she wasn’t going to answer me. “What good would that do you? Is it the money? You know I am saving as much as I can, for you and me, just like we planned.”

She was struggling for words, I could see she was thinking half a dozen things and that she wanted to say something but she couldn’t find the right words.

“You and him. You deserve each other,” she finally said.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Talk to me. I don’t get it.”

“He thinks you love him,” she laughed. “So stupid. I like to look at him and think to myself, buddy, you’ve got no idea how you are being played, played by me! Nameless, faceless me! What would he think he if knew?”

I felt dizzy and the department store lights seemed to swell like crazy faces and I nearly stopped breathing.

“Do you plan to tell him somehow?” I asked, hardly able to talk. “He’ll kill me. And he’ll kill you.”

“Like I’ve got so much to live for,” she said. “I’m nothing but a blob. No one sees me. I don’t matter to anyone. I’ll never be happy. I’ve never been happy, not once, not my whole life.”

“You’ve got me,” I said. “We’ve got each other. We’ve always have had each other. Through everything. You’re just upset now. Think about our lives in Florida, how we’ll live in the sunshine and never have to worry again. We’ll be happy then, we will be.”

But would we be happy? Who was I kidding? My sister was right. She would never be happy. And me? I didn’t think I could find a way to be happy either, not even with all the money in the world.

I was silent and we turned away from each other and starting touching the gloves again, picking up random pairs.

“Maybe,” she finally said, “his mother fill find out. If you ask me, you should be worried about her, not him. I get the feeling she doesn’t approve of him having fancy girls on the side. But you know what? I like her. She stopped by the office and we got chatting. What do they call people like her? Salt of the earth, that’s it. Salt of the earth.”

“Tell me,” I said, struggling to get the words out, the words that had been stuck in my throat for over twenty years, “what were you doing in the bedroom all that time with dad’s dead body?”

She stared at me. “You’re asking me that now? Why now?”

“I always wondered,” I said.

She shrugged. “I was letting him finish the job. He could never get anything right, our father. So I stood there and I made sure he did it right, for once.”

Then she left me. She didn’t say another word, she just turned and left. And I didn’t know what to do. Would she tell my guy? Could I even go back to my apartment? But where else could I go? What else could I do? So I went home and I watched Daisy float this way and that, and I tried to figure out what to do.

I can’t tell Daisy what I am really thinking because I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that my guy has the place bugged. So I press my face to the glass of her tank and I know that Daisy knows. She knows that I have no choice. I’ll have to kill my guy. And I’ll need to be packed and ready. I’ll take all my fancy clothes and all my jewels and my stash of money and I’ll leave and I won’t go to Florida, I’ll go somewhere glamorous like Las Angeles and maybe I’ll try my hand at acting. I’ll become a star and then it will serve them right, both of them. I try to think but my head hurts and the glass of Daisy’s tank is cool and soothing against my forehead.

I’ll make sure you’re looked after, I tell her silently. Don’t worry. I’ll never let you down.

I don’t have a phone. I’m not allowed one. I am too afraid to buy one. I think about trying to call my sister from a pay phone. My sister hasn’t met me for our drive-by hello after that terrible conversation. I walked around the hats and gloves for hours on our appointed meet-up day, picking things up and putting them down but she never showed. I was sure she would come back and say she was sorry, that she had never meant to say the things she had said, that she loved me and our plan was a good one and she had just been tired that day. Maybe my guy had been rude to her and she had taken it out on me. I was so sure she would show up and tell me everything was going to be okay. But she didn’t and that’s when the real terror began.

It was time to face the facts. Life’s not fair and that’s just the way it goes. My sister watched my father die. I watched my mother being murdered. And now I’d have to rely on myself to get out of this.

I don’t want to die. So I sit and watch Daisy and I know that one day, I’ll come up with a plan. I will kill my guy and I’ll make my great escape. I just don’t have that part figured out yet.

And now I’m not sure how much time has passed. I have the terrible urge to suck my thumb but I sit on my poor picked-at hands instead. All I do know is that I can’t remember the last time I ate and I need to take a bath. Nerves have left me fragrant as a marathon runner’s old shoes and my hair passed yesterday’s sell-by-date by a long shot. Why hasn’t my guy come? And he was supposed to bring the fellow who cleans Daisy’s tank which is looking worrying cloudy. The apartment is filled with dead air and I can’t explain the silence.

There’s a knock at the door and I jump up in fright. Why is my guy knocking when he’s got the key? But then my heart fills with joy – it’s my sister, she’s come to say she’s sorry, she’s come to rescue me. We’ll make our big getaway together and go and live our lives in the sun.

I rush to the door and pull it open. The big wide smile on my face is killed by what I see.

I’ve never met the woman before in my life but I know who she is. I am looking up at my guy’s mother. She’s tall like him and just about as wide and the expression on her face doesn’t reassure me.

“I thought it was time we had a little visit,” she said, pulling on a pair of gloves which alarmed me even more. “Step aside dearie and let me in.”