LITMIR.BIZ

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Peter’s plate separate from Lori’s and my own. Although he didn’t know it, my husband was on a special diet. When he started to get sick, Lori called me up and asked if I thought maybe Peter should cut down on his workouts a bit. She was really very concerned. So sweet of her. I told her he probably just needed more greens in his diet.

      He died in his sleep. The doctor explained that he’d had a massive respiratory shutdown, probably owing to overexertion. “Too much running on an empty stomach,” he’d said, and I’d nodded in agreement. Nobody thought to test for aconite, or monkshood, the pretty flower I had been cultivating in the garden next to the vegetables.

      At the funeral tea, I served sausage rolls wrapped with butter-heavy pastry, and smoked salmon on sour cream slathered toast. Horns of phyllo pastry, bursting with fresh berries and kirsch-laced whipped cream jostled for position with profiteroles and drizzled caramel. Everybody we knew came, and everybody said how sad it was that Peter, who was looking so good, had died so young.

      Lori was there, dressed in black, her ponytail secured with a black bobble-thing.

      “I just knew he was working out too much,” she sobbed. “I forgot how old he was. We were having so much fun together.” She was really so sweet. I patted her thin wrist and offered her an eclair. Over by the stove, Dr. Herb Foote, the fellow who hadn’t thought to test for aconite, stuffed a whole cream horn into his mouth and smiled at me. He had love handles.

      H. MEL MALTON is the author of the Polly Deacon mystery series, published by RendezVous Press, including Down in the Dumps (1998), Cue the Dead Guy (1999) and Dead Cow in Aisle Three (2001). She has published numerous short stories, articles and poems in periodicals such as The Malahat Review, Grain and Chatelaine. She is a great believer in the healing power of rich, high-fat food and doesn’t indulge in exercise if she can possibly avoid it. Her two dogs, Ego and Karma, take her for a stagger in the bush twice a day and spend the rest of their time chewing on old manuscripts.

       THERE’S A WORD FOR IT

      MELANIE FOGEL

      On our last Tuesday Scrabble night, Mrs. D. handed me a sealed lavender envelope and asked me to keep it, “in case.” Two days later she was dead.

      She was the type who always looked like she was on her way to church: lipstick, permed white hair, twin set and modestly high heels. For years we’d crossed paths in the building, at the mailboxes or in the lobby, never exchanging more than a nod hello. When we finally got into a conversation in the laundry room, she introduced herself as “Mrs. DesRochers.” I countered with “Annie Sapp”—let her figure out my marital status.

      “You live in the basement, don’t you?” she asked as she pulled folded clothes from a baby blue plastic basket, shook them out and placed them in the washer.

      I answered in the affirmative, upending my green-garbage laundry bag into the machine beside hers.

      “I guess you don’t get much light down here,” she commented sympathetically. “Does the traffic bother you?”

      “You get used to it.” What the hell was she after?

      When she invited me up to her place to wait while Coin-a-Matic laboured for us, I guessed she was lonely. I prefer a limited circle of acquaintances, and nosy old ladies are pretty far outside the perimeter. But I was also itchy for another dose of the computer Scrabble game I’d been playing for six straight hours, so to prove to myself I wasn’t addicted, I said okay.

      She lived on the third floor, overlooking the parking lot. As we approached her door, a bird started chirping. “That’s Bijou,” she said, smiling with a pride that could be mistaken for maternal. “He always recognizes my footsteps.”

      Her furniture looked like she did: old, solid, highly polished; a Turkish rug for colour and lace antimacassars that probably dated back to the days of hair oil. She greeted Bijou, a turquoise and yellow budgie who welcomed her with an enthusiasm worthy of a Pomeranian, then went into the kitchen to make tea. I took the opportunity to read her bookshelves. Mostly historical romances and royal biographies. And The Official Scrabble® Players Dictionary.

      We spent most of the twenty-two minutes talking Scrabble. I discoursed on the delights of playing against a computer, but Mrs. D. wouldn’t take the hint; she wanted a Scrabble date. She preferred afternoons, and I being a self-(i.e. rarely) employed librarian, could have said yes. But I like afternoons for the web, since it’s slow in the evenings, so I lied about wanting to be home should a client call. We decided on Tuesday because it’s a lousy TV night.

      Mrs. D. proved an excellent opponent—better, in some ways, than my computer version, whose sound and graphics lacked the charm of her wit and hospitality. Despite the heavy old furniture, her apartment was bright and airy—a nice change from my Goodwill-eclectic pit. At first I went easy on her, but when she played mangabey and flitch back to back, the kid gloves came off.

      That last Tuesday, she was distracted. Didn’t bat an eye when I put enquirer on a triple word. During the four months we’d played, we’d rarely gotten personal, so I didn’t ask what was wrong. She gave me the envelope as I was leaving, and I said “sure” without comment. Then, on Thursday, I met the super in the garbage room and he told me she’d died. “Damn!” I said, somehow resentful she hadn’t consulted me. Then, “Who’s going to look after her bird?”

      He shrugged. “She was your friend,” he accused.

      Acquaintance, I corrected silently. But she had a couple of my books, as well as a key to my flat, as I had to hers, in case one of us locked herself out. “One of her relatives might take him. If she has any,” I said to a face neither hopeful nor helpful. “If he doesn’t starve to death first.”

      “Well…” He went back to emptying the blue box. He wasn’t going to do anything for a tenant who couldn’t tip.

      I returned to my flat thinking I’d better retrieve my books before they got packed with whatever her next of kin would be taking. I could feed the bird at the same time.

      The super hadn’t told me about the police tape. I debated crawling under it, but that wouldn’t tell me why it was there. So I called Bernie, the only cop I knew and the man who was likely handling the case, and for a change didn’t have to leave a message.

      “It’s just a formality,” he explained. “I’m sure it was natural causes.”

      The paper boy had found her that morning. When she hadn’t responded to his knock as usual, he’d tried the knob. Bernie’s scenario was that Mrs. D. had fallen, as old ladies are wont to do, and hit her head on the cast-iron radiator.

      “C’mon,” I said. “There’s nothing by the radiator she could trip over.”

      “At that age, you don’t need anything. A dizzy spell, your knee buckles. She wore orthopedic shoes.”

      “So? She was healthy as a horse. She used to take the stairs for exercise.”

      “Yeah, but at that age. We see it all the time, Annie. Old people. Weak bones.”

      “So you’re going to save money on an autopsy by chalking her up to statistical probability?”

      “No, we’re waiting on the autopsy. She isn’t high priority.”

      Alone people never are, I thought.

      “Actually, you might be able to help,” Bernie said. “You ever been in her apartment?”

      “Plenty of times.”

      “Good. Her door was probably unlocked all night. Get the superintendent to let you in and see if anyone took advantage.”

      “Me? Didn’t she have one of those ‘in case of emergency phone so-and-so’ numbers?”

      “You tell me. Apparently she’s got a son someplace, but we haven’t tracked him down yet.”

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