September 2012 Winners

Following are the top stories in the September Crime Fiction Contest. There was a tie for third place. The scoring was tough, the stories were good. Enjoy them!

First Place: Who’d Ever Suspect?

by Pat Decker Nipper, a naive Idahoan, born and raised in Grangeville, Idaho on the Camas Prairie in north central Idaho. She grew up hearing a lot of stories about this area, rich in western history. Her grandparents were born before Idaho became a state in 1890 and established a ranch on the prairie in the early 1900s, buying land from the Nez Perce Indians. In 1972 Pat moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Under her former name Pat Decker Kines she wrote several books, short stories, and articles, including the book A Life Within a Life, a biography of Libbie Custer, wife of General George Armstrong Custer and a short story titled “Who Really Killed President Lincoln?” that is featured in the anthology Black Hats. Her most recent endeavor is a mystery titled Murder Under the Hair Dryer and she is currently seeking an agent.

Who’d Ever Suspect?

I can’t point to the exact moment when my dislike for our next-door neighbor Wayne turned to hate. Nor am I sure exactly when I decided to kill him. However, as the neighbor from hell, his days were numbered. I would see to that.

Wayne did not respect our rights from the day he moved in. He drove a large SUV and made a point of parking it as close as he could to our driveway. When my husband Jim asked him to park a bit farther forward, he laughed. “It’s a public street,” he said. “I can park anywhere I want.” He continued to do as he pleased, making it difficult for Jim to back out without destroying a corner of our yard.

In addition to the parking problem, Wayne chopped off all the limbs of our elm tree that were growing onto his property and dropped them into our yard. I heard the dead limbs fall as they crushed the pansies we had planted along the fence. There was also his dog, who barked incessantly when Wayne was away. That animal was so mean and vicious that the mail carrier told us he stopped leaving mail at that house, forcing Wayne to go to the post office to collect it.

My hatred was ignited the Saturday that Jim started backing out and inadvertently clipped Wayne’s parked SUV with our driver’s side mirror. Though Jim stopped immediately and walked next door, offering to pay for a paint job to fix the tiny scratch, it wasn’t enough. Wayne saw the mark from our car on his vehicle and became enraged. I could hear him screaming and swearing, even while I was inside the house. He didn’t stop there either. “Better keep a close eye on that fucking cat of yours,” he threatened. “This is a risky neighborhood for a cat. In fact, it’s a damned dangerous neighborhood for anybody. People can get hurt, too.”

Because of the threat and because another neighbor’s cat had recently disappeared, I decided it was time to dispatch the son of a bitch before any ill befell our cat – or us.

Years ago, when I had turned nineteen, my father gave me a Lady Smith – a small Smith and Wesson nine mm handgun designed for women. He also taught me how to use it. “You’re more vulnerable than most,” he insisted, “and you need protection.”

He taught me how to load it and how to clean it, and, best of all, how to point and shoot. Nobody knew about the gun except my father and he’d never tell. I myself had never had a reason to use it – until now.

Although this murder would be premeditated, I was quite certain I’d get away with it. So I began to study Wayne’s habits. I timed his comings and his goings, figured out precisely how far it was from the back of our house to his front porch and how fast I could cover the distance. In the meantime our cat was killed and his body left on our porch. The vet said he had been smothered. I was devastated. That cat was a lover, not a fighter. He had never harmed a single person, or a bird or mouse, for that matter. He had not fought with even another cat.

I knew Wayne did it, but I didn’t know how or when. We kept our cat inside at night. Wayne wasn’t really home when the cat was outdoors, but because of his threats I knew it was his fault. I settled down to wait for the perfect opportunity.

By the time the Fourth of July rolled around I knew it was the perfect time. Kids living on the street behind us had been shooting off firecrackers and various rockets for days leading up to the holiday. Nobody would pay much attention to another bang, so I waited and listened for Wayne’s SUV to drive up.

When I finally heard him drive up and back to the very edge of our driveway, as he did every night, it was around ten p.m. I wanted to catch him before he went inside so I left the house and hustled to our garden shed. I had already cleared a path around the boxes and mowers, various garden tools, and assembled junk to the locked box in the back where I had hidden my loaded Lady Smith. I kept the pistol wrapped in a cloth with the distinctive smell of gun oil. All I had to do was take it and go back along the fence line to the front of the house.

I heard Wayne talking to his miserable dog on the porch and I began to have second thoughts. “How was your day, boy?” he was saying, the dog happily panting. Anybody who was nice to his dog couldn’t be all bad. Could he? I was preparing to just wish him a happy holiday and leave, but when he heard me walk up to him, he snarled, “What do you want, bitch?” I could smell the alcohol on his breath.

“I heard somebody killed your useless cat,” he added, laughing his evil laugh. “Hope you don’t have any ideas about replacing it with another cat. It’s like I told you. This neighborhood is dangerous for cats. And people.”

“I know you did it,” I told him. “I just don’t know when.”

He straightened up. “You can’t prove a thing,” he said. “Lots of people around here don’t like cats. They kill birds, poop in the dirt, they’re useless.”

“Yeah? Well so are you.”

He had gone too far. I pulled the gun out of my pocket, pointed it, and squeezed the trigger. He fell with a thud. The dog started snarling and snapping at my feet so I shot it, too.

Astonished that I had been so bold, I walked back to the garden shed to put the murder weapon away. I wasn’t filled with remorse so much as wonder at my actions. My hands were shaking as I cleaned the gun and locked it away, vowing never to use it again. “I probably shouldn’t have shot the dog,” I thought. “That alone could hang me. Wayne was dispensable. The neighborhood would be glad to see the end of him. But the dog . . .”

I entered the house through the kitchen, washed my hands carefully to get rid of any gunshot residue, then went to the bedroom and changed my clothes. I tossed everything I’d been wearing into the washing machine, added soap, and turned it on. Jim was eating popcorn and drinking beer in front of the TV, watching a program with lots of music and patriotic speeches.

“Where did you go?” he asked.

“I was just checking on my tomatoes.”

“Ah. Did you hear a couple of loud bangs outside?” he asked as I sank into my chair. “Sounded like gun shots.”

“Probably firecrackers,” I said. “Those boys in the apartments behind us have been shooting them off for days.”

“Yeah, probably. I wonder where those yahoos buy all these fireworks. They are against the law,” he mumbled. “Doesn’t faze any of those idiots.”

“I worry that they’ll start a fire, then where would we be?”

Before long we heard the scream of sirens. The sound intensified, drawing closer until they seemed to stop in front of our house.

Jim got up from his chair and went to the door. “What’s going on?” he muttered. “Looks like something is going on next door.”

“Really? Which house?”

“Wayne’s, I think. Oh, boy. Maybe he’s insulted somebody for the last time. Maybe he finally got what’s coming to him.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure. There are two cop cars out here and an ambulance.”

“Probably that nasty cur of Wayne’s bit somebody,” I said.

“No, they’re bending over a body. I think it’s Wayne.”

“Good,” I commented. It would sound phony if I responded otherwise, after complaining about the bastard for months.

“Now I think I see the coroner drive up. Oh, oh. Somebody must be dead.”

“Why isn’t the dog barking?”

“That is strange. Maybe I’ll wander over and take a better look. You okay here?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’ll listen to a few John Philip Sousa marches.”

While he was gone, the doorbell rang. I answered the door, my hands clammy, my heart pounding. Could I really bring this off?

“Ma’am,” a young man said, “I’m Officer Downing. I’m investigating the shooting next door.”

“Shooting?”

“Yes, your neighbor has apparently been shot and killed. The dog, too. Did you hear anything?”

“My husband said he’d heard some loud bangs. We thought it was somebody shooting off illegal fireworks.”

“Did you see anybody in the vicinity, somebody who perhaps didn’t belong on the street?”

“Officer, I’d love to help you, but obviously I didn’t see a thing.”

“Why not?”

I removed my dark glasses. “Because I’m totally blind – from birth,” I explained.

He took a quick look at my cloudy, opaque irises and I could hear him backing away. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” he said. “You have a good Fourth of July.”

“I shall,” I told him, and it was true. I had some misgivings about what I’d done. But on the other hand, it was an Independence Day to remember.

Second Place: Angel of Death

by Janie Peterson. Janie graduated with a Masters in Music Performance in 2006. Having grown up outside of Philadelphia, she is a huge Phillies fan. She married her best friend, a carpenter named Chad, and currently lives in a suburb of D.C. She teaches private music lessons in violin, cello, piano and guitar, and homeschools her two step-children, Morgan and Nathan. Her hobbies include writing, scrap-booking making faerie houses out of bark and twigs, reading to her step-kids and spending time with family.

Angel of Death

Ray had heard that when facing possible death, a person’s entire life flashes before his eyes in a moment’s time. Looking over the shoulder of Ricky Sikes into Michael Potter’s eyes, Ray couldn’t tell what was going through Michael’s mind. But what he did know was that with just the slightest of finger movements on Ricky’s behalf, Michael’s life would end.

“Do you feel it?” Ricky breathed with insane pleasure, pressing the muzzle of his revolver hard against Michael’s temple. “You feel the angel of death callin’ you?”

Michael shut his eyes and swallowed.

“God, not him! Please!” Ray whispered. Michael was only twenty-nine. He’d just gotten engaged. His widowed fiancé’s little girls were already calling him daddy. Don’t take him, Lord!

“You hear it, don’t you?” Ricky said.

“I don’t know,” Michael replied, his voice tight and squeezed.

Ray doubted Michael was thinking of angels. He was probably thinking of his fiancé, whether he’d ever see her again, whether he’d live to see another day.

Ricky’s eyes shifted to Ray’s. “What do you think, Judge? You think the death angel’s comin’ for the sheriff tonight?”

Ray had graduated from law school with honors, passed the bar exam on his first attempt, and put away more criminals than he could count; but in the forty-five years he’d been alive, he’d never stood face to face with an insane man and attempted to talk him out of something that he believed in with religious conviction. His mind anxiously searched for options. Distract him? How? Kill him? With what? The only thing he and Michael brought between them was the six-shooter in the holster on Michael’s left hip, and it wasn’t loaded. As the justice of the peace living in a small town in Georgia, Ray often had to step in as Michael’s deputy, but he rarely carried a gun himself. He had no idea what knocking on the Sikes’ front door that night would unleash. He only knew that the family hadn’t been seen in days, and “Crazy Ricky” had been thrown out of the bar for proselytizing doom at the drunks and prostitutes more times that month than usual.

“What’s that smell?” Michael had asked after knocking.

Ray had shrugged. “The marsh, maybe.” The Sikes lived in the wooded wetlands, the poorest corner of town. The houses were often crooked and shifting because of the marshy land.

“Smells like sump’n rottin’,” Michael had said.

When no one answered their knock, they’d pushed open the door, called out to Ricky and stepped inside the dark house. That was the last rational thing that had happened in the last twenty minutes. Now, Ray wondered if even the act of entering this house had been rational. He cursed himself a hundred times over for telling Michael not to load his gun. He’d started to when the house first came into view, but Ray had said, “Mike, it’s jest Ricky. He may be crazy, but I ain’t aimin’ for anybody to be shot afore the night’s over.”

“Yes, sir,” Michael had said and put his gun back empty.

If he dies, it’ll be my fault. God don’t do that to him, please!

“Tell me, Judge,” Ricky said. “What’s your mind sayin’ to you?”

Ray tried to think of an answer that would get Ricky talking—talking so adamantly about his beliefs, that he’d forget his mission just long enough . . .

“I don’t know. I ain’t omniscient.”

“Omniscient,” Ricky said grinning, the gaps between the few teeth he still possessed looking like ominous, black holes. “Only God’s omniscient. You know that. You’re a religious man, ain’t you, Judge?”

Ray nodded.

“Religious, but blind. Only a few really see truth.”

“Like you? You see it.”

“Course, I do. God speaks to me. He’s the one who told me about the sheriff. Told me he ain’t a true follower of God. You know who he really is?”

Ray shook his head.

“He’s the false prophet from Revelation. You know that book, Judge?”

“Yes, I know that book.”

“Remember where it says, ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothin’, but inwardly they’s ravenin’ wolves’? He deceived you, didn’t he? He deceived everybody in this town, but not me. I knew he had the devil in him the moment I laid eyes on him. Then Friday, I heard the voice of God sayin’, ‘And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire, where the beast and false prophet are.’ Did you notice the words, ‘where the beast and false prophet are’? That’s when I knew God wanted me to fulfill that verse. The false prophet ain’t in the lake of fire. Yet! But now’s my chance to send him there.”

He turned to Michael. “Well, Sheriff Potter, you ain’t deceivin’ nobody now, are you?”

Michael didn’t speak. He barely moved, except for the gasping rise and fall of his chest.

Ray took one very slow step toward Ricky, trying to be inconspicuous, but Ricky’s head whirled back and his eyes flashed on his face. “Don’t try and stop me, Judge Johnson! Don’t keep me from my mission!”

Ray shook his head. “I ain’t tryin’ to stop you,” he said, feeling no shame for his lie. “Where’s your wife, Ricky? Nobody’s seen her in days.” As he said the words, understanding dawned on him. That smell. It was decay.

“She tried to stop me. I couldn’t let her keep me from the Lord’s will.”

Ray squeezed his lips together tightly to keep back the groan of horror and disbelief tearing through him. If Ray had known how crazy Ricky was, he would’ve locked him up years ago. “And your baby, Ricky?” Ray said. He didn’t want to know, but he had to keep him talking. He took another cautious step forward.

“I don’t trust you, Judge,” Ricky said. “You stay where you is, understand?”

“I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said, trying to sound gentle. “I just wanna understand how everything fits together.”

Ricky smiled, apparently pleased to have someone willing to listen. “You wanna understand my mission?”

“Course. I don’t wanna be like everybody else. I wanna see truth.”

The hand with the gun moved slightly, as if Ricky were relaxing, getting comfortable, growing tired of holding it so tightly to Michael’s head. “Well, my woman didn’t understand. She said the sheriff was a good man. She didn’t know that he don’t even got a soul ‘cause the devil done stole it outta him. I woulda taken care of him Friday night when he went to that harlot’s house. That’s when God told me to kill him. But she kept makin’ things difficult, you see?”

“Yes, I see.” Despite all the horrifying circumstances, Ray breathed a little easier at those words. Friday night, Michael was at his fiancé’s house. Had Ricky gone there to kill him, would he have shot the fiancé and her daughters, as well as Michael?

“But your baby, Ricky,” Ray said, trying very hard to extinguish all emotion. Feel nothin’, he told himself. “That baby’s innocent. What about your baby?”

“But she had bad blood in her. Her mother’s blood.”

“Oh, dear God! Why?” Michael cried out.

Ricky cracked the revolver in the side of Michael’s head, screaming, “Don’t call on him, you blasphemer! Who are you to call on God? You, the very agent of the devil!”

Ricky hit him across the face several times then shoved him up against the wall. He jammed the muzzle into his neck, but his back was to Ray now, and that was all he needed. He didn’t even think. He flew at Ricky so fast that they both crashed into the wall, caving through it, landing on a pile of wood, nails and rock. Ray heard the gun fire in the blackness and felt a ringing in his ears and pain in his left shoulder, but he managed to find Ricky’s arms and force them down. But Ricky was strong and younger than Ray, and Ray’s left arm was slowly growing numb. In almost seconds, he was on his back, and Ricky was over him, beating him in the face with his fist. The click of a hammer stopped the punches.

“Ricky Sikes, touch him again and you die,” Michael said, his low and steady voice the most reassuring thing Ray had heard all night.

Silence followed. Ray’s jaw throbbed, and he tasted something warm and thick in his mouth. He felt Ricky’s weight lifted from his body. He saw the silhouettes of both men move backward into the other room. He pulled himself to his feet with his good arm and stepped out of the hole.

Michael forced Ricky into a chair, the gun at the back of his head. “Judge?” he said. “You hurt?”

“Not bad,” Ray said, though he wasn’t sure how bad it was. He just didn’t want Michael thinking about him when he was within arm’s reach of a killer.

“Get me rope,” Michael said.

“Don’t do it, Judge!” Ricky yelled. “He ain’t on our side! Don’t let him deceive you!”

“Shet up!” Michael said.

In a flash, Ricky turned and lunged at Michael.

“Kill him, Mike!” Ray screamed.

Michael fired.

Ricky’s body fell.

For a moment, neither of them moved, as if expecting him to get up again. He didn’t, and the pool of blood beneath his head was getting bigger.

Michael dropped the gun and collapsed to his knees. “Oh, God!” he cried.

Ray had never seen him cry. He rushed to him. “It’s all right, Michael. He was askin’ for it. He was insane! Better him than either of us.”

“That ain’t it,” he said. “That ain’t it.”

“What is it, then?”

He just pressed his face into his hands, weeping.

“What is it?” he said gently.

“His little girl. He killed his little girl.”

Ray clenched his stomach and reminded himself again not to feel.

“If he didn’t want her, I’d of taken her,” Michael said. “I’d of taken good care of her.”

Ray breathed deeply then let it out. He had tried very hard to detach himself from the reality of Ricky’s words and deeds, especially since he could do nothing to change them. For the last half hour, he’d focused every part of his being on saving Michael. That mission was a success; he didn’t want to dwell on anything else.

“Why the little baby?” Michael said.

Ray leaned close to him. “Somebody else wanted her too, Mike. Somebody who can love her and take better care of her than you or I ever could. And He’s holdin’ her in His arms right now.”

It took him a moment, but Michael stopped crying. He fixed his eyes on something in the distance. Again, Ray wondered what was going through his mind. Being so close, he could see the bruises across his jaw, and a dark mark against his temple.

Michael nodded his head slowly then looked at Ray. “There ain’t never jest one way of lookin’ at things, is there? God knows.”

Ray rubbed his hand in Michael’s hair. “Yes. God knows.” Ray thought how differently things could have gone had God not been omniscient, had He not been watching out for them. Never again would Ray stop Michael from loading his gun. He knew when Michael was feeling better, he’d tease Ray about that.

Michael let out a long breath then looked at him fully. “Where’d he shoot you?”

“Left shoulder. But that ain’t what hurts. It’s everything else. I’m too old to be roughin’ around like this.”

Michael smiled a little and helped him up.

“Emma won’t be happy with me tonight,” Ray said. “She says I ain’t allowed to come home with holes in my clothes. Ain’t nothin’ worse than washin’ out powder burns.”

Michael touched his back. “I have a feelin’ she’ll be very happy to see you.”

Ray smiled. “I reckon so.”

Third Place (1) Irony in a Backpack

by Carol Folkert. Carole is a devoted family person married to her best friend and is the mother of their seven children who are the constant source for writing material. She got her first degree in Theatre Arts and vocal music and her second degree in education. She left the stage and the school system to raise her family and when she went looking for something creative to do with her life, she found it at home in front of the glorified typewriter. And it is there that she actually found herself. She continues to raise her family with all their shenanigans and writes in her spare time.

Irony in a Backpack

“LISTEN TO ME!” She yelled as she slammed her fists into the table top and stood. Her tiny frame trembled visibly as she pushed her hair behind her ear and smoothed down the front of her jacket. She glared at the administrators who had clearly been startled into awareness that she was, in fact, still here. They put down their papers, made disgruntled eye contact with each other, checked their watches and glared back. They were, after all, late for lunch.

“Mrs…” Principal Watson dropped his eyes down to the file in front of him, “Mrs. Fennesey, while I can, we ALL can, understand your concern for the safety of our students, we think the methods you are proposing are over the top aside from beyond our budget. I am sure you can appreciate the fact that with the increased student body and lack of federal funding and supplies, the ideas you have suggested would be preposterous.”

“You are missing the point entirely. If we, ALL of us, don’t take the safety of our children more seriously and implement my suggestions for a safer campus, we will have another situation like last weekend!”

“We cannot discuss the details of the…” he glanced at the others and whispered his response, “death of the student with you. And it didn’t happen on campus so it ultimately isn’t our responsibility.”

“Do you honestly think the kids aren’t talking amongst themselves? They all know what happened! A freshman died, Principal Watson. One of your students! What kind of funding do you get per student? Surely with one less you can put that money towards a safer campus and get rid of who did this to him.” She was coming unhinged. She had spent the entire weekend planning what to say to this group. Despite their reluctance in the past to accept responsibility for anything that might put them and their A+ school into a less than glorious light on the evening news, she had felt a degree of confidence that they would at least listen to her. She felt bad that she had brought up such a sad situation, but it was getting too out of control.

“Again, we understand your concern. It is indeed a tragedy that such a young boy met with such an untimely death, and with such potential, but I just don’t see how increased security and a…” he again looked down and opened up the file, “drug dog? You can’t be serious about having a drug dog on campus, Mrs. Fennesey. What do you think they’d find anyway?”

“They would find the kid who brings this poison onto campus and sells it to our kids for their lunch money! For the love of God will you just consider it? One week! All I’m asking for is one week. You’ve already had one kid die and it’s murder as far as I’m concerned. The sign in front of the school says ‘Zero Tolerance.’ You are essentially letting a killer on campus every single day. How is that zero tolerance?”

“We simply can’t afford it,” he replied and made an effort to stand.

“Stop right there. If money was not a concern, would you do it?”

“Of course I would, in a perfect world, where money was not a problem.” He snickered to the man on his right. “We should be so lucky.”

“Well, clearly it is NOT a perfect world or this wouldn’t be happening, but my husband and I are prepared to foot the bill and we’ve made arrangements for the officers and dogs to be here Tuesday.”

“Fine. It’s your money, but I think it is a total waste. We screen our kids, we know our kids. It is our little hamlet of a school and you aren’t going to find any drug lords here ma’am. I can assure you.”

“Oh you are wrong, Sir. We will find out who your campus dealer is and put an end to this once and for all. My kids deserve to be safe at school, all of our kids do and if it takes our family to fund it, then so be it.”

“Alright then. Project ‘Sniff’ commences Tuesday.”

“You can re-read the instructions of how the officers want to handle this. They are outlined in the packet I gave you all. No one is to discuss this ahead of time. No one should be given any heads up because we are on a tight time line to be the most cost efficient. I am confident we will be able to flush this bastard out in a matter of days. The undercover cops will appear like students visiting from another campus and should be allowed access to anywhere students have access, remember?”

Mr. Watson was done with this meeting and made it known, “Mrs. Fennesey, we understand the rules and will cooperate to the best of our ability. I hope you are prepared to accept what they discover. Probably nothing and all this fuss will have been for no reason. This meeting is concluded. I trust you know your way out.”

Lorna Fennesey picked up her paperwork and walked out of the office without another word. She smiled to herself though and secretly gave herself a pat on the back. She felt very strongly about this. She knew money would talk and she’d be right. There was someone not only selling drugs on campus, they were selling bad drugs and one of their closest friends’ son had died this past weekend. She was intent on stopping it.

Lorna watched on Tuesday as a busload of students from Shadow Desert unloaded and waved at the student body on morning announcements. They were a mixed bunch of “students” ranging in popularity from cheerleader blonde to seedy dark characters that made students hold their backpacks just a little tighter. The student anchorwoman said a bit too animatedly, “Treat these students with respect and have pride in our campus and represent the school’s philosophy of excellence everyone!” Following that announcement Principal Watson came on, a rare appearance, and announced that students might notice increased security on campus and also mentioned the canine unit would be around, just routine, no worries, and to carry on with everyone’s normal daily activities.

Between classes the students could be seen whispering to each other with their eyes darting furtively from group to group as the officers walked up and down the halls and across the grassy knoll with huge smiling dogs that looked innocent enough but clearly were not. The visiting students seemed to fit in with the groups they belonged to. Somehow the popular kids found the popular kids and those misfits, the ones that don’t fit in, look sketchy and somewhat sinister were welcomed in by the local stoner group and all was right with the world.

As per “the instructions” the school increased security at lunch and Lorna had put out a plea to the PTA so there were additional parents on campus each day at lunch. It all appeared rather copacetic. On the third day of all this Lorna wondered if she perhaps had made a rash decision and jumped the gun a bit as the campus was as peaceful as her own kids had told her it was. She discreetly waved across the yard as her son made his way through the lunch tables. He did the typical seventeen year old head nod and disappeared into the crowd. Everything was just fine here and she felt her shoulders release the tension she’d been holding onto for over a week.

She stood there taking in the mid day sunshine when her attention got pulled abruptly in a different direction. Students had gotten up from the once tranquil lunch setting and were pushing in towards the shaded area to the side of the cafeteria. Shouts could be heard from the students and just under that buzz she could make out the sounds of dogs barking. She noticed officers coming from various posts on campus, making their hurried way to all the commotion. She smiled smugly to herself. She had known something would “go down”. She made her way to where the kids were a being forced back from when all eyes turned to her. She recognized three of the undercover agents but looked past them to the others. She thought, “You can be mad at me for busting up all your fun and your dealer, but you’ll thank me one day.”

One little girl stepped out from the crowd, “Hey Mrs. Fennesey you might want to…”

“Hello there, Sarah. It’s fine. I was the one that brought the officers to school. I am WELL aware of what’s going on here.” Sarah grabbed her arm again and stood in front of her.

“But Mrs. Fennesey, I just don’t think you need to see any of this.”

“You’re sweet to care Sarah, but I want to see who’s responsible for all this…” She pushed past her and stopped dead in her tracks. There, face down on the cement, was her son. An officer was kneeling on the middle of his back and had both of his arms handcuffed behind him. Three massive German Shepherd drug dogs, teeth barred and growling, were being held back on chains by their agents. Another officer held her son’s backpack. She recognized it at once with his inked artwork and random lettering on the gray patches and the small tear in the zippered pencil pouch. He was forever losing his pencils.

By now the crowd had grown silent and instead of looking at the boy on the ground, all eyes focused on her. “What is going on here? Let my son up off the ground. Get off of him,” she yelled making her way to the officer that was now hoisting her son to his feet. The officer put his hand up to warn her to stop.

“Ma’am, you are going to have to stay back. This is a DEA matter.”

“But that’s my son.” She growled. “You have made a terrible mistake! You let him go. Don’t you know who I am? My husband will be talking to your boss before you get to your squad car. You will have lost your job before dinner!” Lorna screamed at him.

“Give it up, mom.” Came the cold and calculated response.

Her head spun in the direction of the voice, “What are you talking about Isaac? You have rights. They can’t do this to you!”

“They can. They will. And, you pretty much let them. Thanks for that.” Isaac chuckled, “Guess I’ll be needing that allowance back, huh?” He didn’t blink and the sides of his mouth turned up into a small grin. “Ain’t it just ironic? Just like the preacher’s kid is drinking behind the church and the doctor’s kid is always sick? How ‘bout that? Now the state prosecuting attorney’s son’s gonna need a damn good lawyer for selling drugs on campus.”

“You’re lying. Who are you covering up for? You can tell them.” She turned to the crowd of students and pointed her finger at them and went from face to face yelling, “Is it you? You? How about you? Which one of you is really selling? Who set up my son?” She pleaded with them to confess as two officers led her son from the circle. “WAIT!” She ran after them. She put her hands on either side of his face and spoke softly, “Isaac please. Please tell them who really did this. Who did this to you?”

“That’s rich mom. Who did this? You really want to know who did this to me? You did. You and dad both did. When the two of you were fighting everyone else’s battles, sticking your noses in where they didn’t belong and being the perfect parents, you did this!”

“When Isaac? When?”

“When you weren’t looking.”

Third Place (2) It Never Rains in Dogtown

byC.A. Fichtelman, a writer and legal editor who currently lives in St. Louis. Born and raised in Ohio in a family of law enforcement officers, she attended Ohio State and then the University of Toledo Law School. After practicing law in Michigan and D.C., she moved to Missouri where she became a pension rights advocate for elderly clients before taking up writing and editing full-time. In addition to It Never Rains in Dogtown, she has published several short stories, including Dogtown, USA, the “prequel” to this third-place winner.

It Never Rains in Dogtown

Fast asleep, Detective Boyd Kelley dreamt of chasing down that thug when the call came in at seven Monday morning. He had just gotten to sleep around two after a marathon drive from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Finally, back in his own bed. Snuggled against his wife. His three-year-old twins, Alex and Shannon, secure in the next room.

“Hey, Boyd, the cell.”

“Huh?”

On his stomach, buck-naked, ass in the air, he wondered how Mary Jo knew about the jail cell. The young tough he captured who tried escaping while being questioned. Did he really push the punk into the cement floor? Or did he just dream it? However the magic words uttered by his wife made him shoot bolt upright in their king-size bed.

“Major Case Squad?” he repeated, alert despite a lack of sleep.

“Yep.” A woman of few words, and always right to the point, she thrust the phone at him and ambled away, her silky pink bathrobe clinging to her behind.

“Nice ass,” Boyd exclaimed, now fully awake.

He always had lascivious thoughts about Mary Jo in the morning. But it’d have to wait. A call from the Major Case Squad meant a capital homicide occurred somewhere in metropolitan St. Louis, an area spanning both sides of the Mississippi River and encompassing numerous counties in Missouri and Illinois.

“What’s up, Frank?” he squawked, sensing that Francis Xavier Matson, a detective based in Ferguson, was on the other end.

“Hey, I know you’re on vacation ‘til Wednesday, but we gotta double murder-suicide. At least that’s what we’re calling it now. In Dogtown: your old stompin’ grounds. Wife and two kids. Boy and girl. Six this morning.”

“Husband?”

“Home when it happened. Called 911. Twice.”

“Oh? That’s interesting…”

“It is,” agreed Frank. “You St. Louis City boys sure are quick.”

“Yeah, I know. What’s the address?” Boyd seized pen and paper, always kept on his nightstand, poised to write; yet the pen didn’t move. “Okay, let me shower and shave. Be there in twenty minutes.” He punched the fire-engine red “end call” icon and placed the cell on his nightstand beside his wristwatch and wallet.

Dogtown, huh? Despite growing up there, a section of south St. Louis City filled with bungalows, brick ramblers, and shotgun houses, he hadn’t been back in years. Yet he knew the address well. Lloyd Street. Why shouldn’t he? He had spent practically every day of his life there until the age of ten.

Funny, he mused; he hadn’t thought about that house in decades.

Caught in an October downpour as he exited his house, Boyd waved good-bye to his wife and kids and left the DeBaliviere neighborhood on the city’s western fringes near Forest Park. As he drove south on Skinker in his souped-up Mustang, dressed in an old sport’s coat, khakis and matching maroon shirt and tie, he spied an ambulance speeding eastward on Forest Parkway towards the medical complex. That’s why they bought the three-story brick house, just a stone’s throw away from the hospital where his wife worked as an ombudsman. A former law firm lawyer, Mary Jo loved advocating for hospital patients, helping healthcare victims.

His victims usually were deceased. Killed by drifters, grifters. Nogoodniks who committed heinous crimes and blamed society or their rotten, miserable childhoods for their downtrodden lives. He and his colleagues called this “the-devil-made-me-do-it” defense. Just man-up and admit it, he reflected countless times while testifying at trial or urging a suspect during an interrogation. Say you’re a shit and committed that home invasion, kidnapped and raped that little kid, burned down that church, killed your wife and unborn child.

Screw your constitutional right to a jury trial, he believed. Just man-up and confess to your crime. Save the taxpayers some money. That’s because he, Boyd Kelley, a police officer’s son, stood on the side of the little guy. Or in this case a woman and two children murdered in Dogtown, his old stompin’ grounds.

But when Boyd pulled up to the house on Lloyd, a two-level structure with shutters clinging to life, it wasn’t raining. In fact, the area was bone dry. Dry as dust, he observed. No wet grass. Pavement the color of parched paper. Things never change, he mused; it never rained in Dogtown. Even when he was a kid. Something about the cold jet stream and warm Gulf air colliding over the northside.

Brushing aside a news reporter, Boyd threaded his way through a throng of gawkers towards the ramshackle front porch. Despite the initial murder-suicide tag, Boyd surmised this case would probably pan out to be another disgruntled husband gunning down the wife and kids, attempting to make it look like the wife did it. All because she was leaving him or he had a girlfriend or whatever feeble excuse the guy coughed up. Nine times out of ten the man always did it when a woman went missing or turned up dead.

“So, Mats, fill me in.”

Wearing his usual brown rumpled suit, Frank complied. “There’s the husband,” he added, pointing to a short, stocky white guy in baggy jeans and tee, sporting a long greasy ponytail. The guy slouched next to a tall African-American woman wearing a bright blue suit.

“Already lawyering up, I see,” he commented, noticing hubby had hired Cynthia Holte-Greene, St. Louis’s most famous female defense attorney.

“Yeah, when I first got here, he kept yammering that it was his fault. But for some reason, he’s clammed up now,” Matson smirked.

“Well, he’s got the best. Come on, let’s get to work,” ordered Boyd.

Stepping over the yellow police tape, Matson trailing right behind, Boyd felt his adrenaline kick-start into high gear. The way it always did when he encountered a crime scene. But once he crossed over the threshold, an eeriness saturated the scene. Crime scenes never shocked him, yet being in this house again, under these circumstances, set Boyd’s teeth on edge. This was Tommy Flanagan’s old house. His best friend in elementary school lived here with his mother and little sister Susie.

It was as if he had stepped back in time. Livingroom to the left. Diningroom on the right. And straight ahead, the kitchen. Christ, it looked the same. Same greasy yellowish walls. Same scuffed linoleum floor. Same chipped metal cupboards. And there, sprawled on the kitchen floor, a young boy drenched in blood.

“Where’s the mother?” demanded Boyd.

“In the pantry,” pointed Matson. “Boy’s Blake Carlucci. Just turned ten. Fifth grade. Pix already taken. The little girl’s upstairs in her bedroom.”

Putting on protective gloves, Boyd lingered over the boy as though in pray, then stooped to examine the body. He took his time. Next came Theresa Carlucci. Age thirty-five, Matson revealed, hovering nearby like an acolyte, waiting upon Boyd, the chief detective for this case. Finally, Boyd straightened his back and stood, reflecting on matters. Boy shot multiple times; mother just once: a bullet to the brain. Solving a crime was basically putting the pieces of a puzzle together. And sometimes it ended up being one of those thousand-piece monstrosities.

“It’s curious,” he frowned. “Women rarely shoot their kids. They drown ‘em in the bathtub or drive the car into the lake. Suffocate ‘em. Put poison in their juice or cereal bowl. Guns, though, well that’s rare,” Boyd declared, pointing to the handgun lying on the kitchen floor between the boy and his mom. “Make sure the tech bags it. We need to check the serial number, see who owns it. When, where it was purchased. Also, make sure everyone’s hands are bagged. One time, some tech forgot. Christ, my balls got blistered for that…”

“So, you thinkin’ the husband did it? Made it look like a suicide?” Matson muttered, not wanting the tech to overhear. “Like that guy in Illinois?”

Boyd shrugged. “Anything’s possible. Maybe a relative. A disgrunted neighbor. The boy…” Matson gave his partner a peculiar look but Boyd chose not to notice and continued. “Anyway, you question the neighbors and any friends. I’ll take the relatives and husband, make sure he’s checked for residue. Hey, someone call the county medical examiner,” Boyd barked. “Let’s make sure we confiscate all cell phones and computers.”

Then he headed upstairs to the little girl’s bedroom.

Painted pale pink, it was frilly and girly and filled with stuffed bears and dolls. It was Tommy’s old room, Boyd recalled. Except back then it was painted puke green and jammed with toy airplanes and comic books. Unlike her pajama-clad brother, the little girl was all dolled up: pretty polka-dot dress, lacy white anklets, and red leather shoes. Was she dressed to go to a party? Or her own funeral?

As Boyd came back downstairs, he saw the ME take the bodies away. Something he witnessed dozens if not hundreds of times. Yet for some reason, he felt as if somebody had taken a sledgehammer to his chest. Clutching his left arm, he escaped onto the front porch, trying to catch his breath. No way he was having a heart attack; he was only forty-five.

“You okay?” queried Matson. “You look kinda pale.”

“Yeah, well, you know us redheaded Irishmen. I was born pale,” joked Boyd, glancing up at the crystal blue sky, his eyes stinging, wondering why it never rained in Dogtown. Thinking about Tommy Flanagan…

“Hey, Mary Jo, I gotta go. Press conference,” he whispered, his wife still in bed.

This time he dressed in his best suit: a gray pinstripe with crisp white shirt and red-gray striped tie. Mary Jo helped pick it out the night before. Hard to believe a full week had gone by since the homicides in Dogtown, on Lloyd. He and Matson and the rest had busted their balls gathering evidence, chasing down leads, examining test results.

“You look very handsome,” murmured Mary Jo as Boyd bent down to kiss her.

“Yeah, well, ya know I’m going to get grilled. And don’t worry, Jeanette’s here; she’s got the kids up and dressed. So you stay in bed.”

“Okay, but no more anxiety attacks. What time is the press conference? So I can tell Susan Flanagan.”

“Nine o’clock,” said Boyd.

He needn’t mention where it’d be held. Mary Jo, who once babysat Susie after an aunt and uncle adopted her, knew about both cases now: the first and hopefully last homicides that would occur at 221 Lloyd. He figured on buying the place from the widower, Tony Carlucci, using a straw buyer, and then tearing that fucker down.

When he arrived at eight-thirty, Boyd noticed the dark clouds overhead, the press setting up, the podium placed on the walkway in front of the house. Frank was already there. Lots of other officials, including the FBI, but Boyd would be announcing the official results of the investigation. The speaker for the dead.

“Hey, Boyd, congratulations,” smiled Frank, shaking his hand.

“It’s a helluva surprise. But a good one,” exclaimed Boyd, fielding kudos on his wife’s pregnancy, a miracle at age forty-three. “Hey, Frank, I’m gonna take one last look around. Keep everyone out, willya?”

“Sure. Take your time. Those assholes can wait.”

So Boyd took his time. Wandering from room to room, he first went over the facts of the Carlucci case: how ten-year-old Blake kept telling his dad that the mother was depressed, off her meds, but Tony Carlucci, clueless his wife bought a handgun, and asleep in the basement while Blake struggled with his mother, believed everything was okay.

So similar to Tommy’s case, Boyd mused, making his way outside to the podium. Except he discovered the bodies. The little sister survived. And the gun, well, Tommy had found it in someone’s yard. Something Boyd always meant to tell his father.

Feeling choked up, the detective cleared his throat and stepped up to the podium.

Then the heavens opened up. Down came the rain, mingling with and masking Boyd’s tears. It finally rained in Dogtown.