Francine! Me! I was the one who’d had a load of shit laid on me. Larry Harshaw wasn’t getting ready to kill Mindy. It was the other way around, and I was going to be a prime witness-for the defense.
For a few seconds, I stood rooted to the spot. Finally I managed to will myself to move. I jumped into the car, slammed the door, started the engine and raced to the bottom of the hill. Afraid Wes might have followed me, I ducked into a driveway two houses up from the intersection. Seconds later the Dodge Ram pickup that had been parked next to the garage came roaring down the hill. The driver paused at the bottom of the alley and seemed to look both ways. I held my breath, but he must not have seen what vehicle I was in when I took off. Or else he didn’t see me parked there. After what seemed like a very long time, he finally pulled into the street and drove off. From where I was, I wasn’t able to make out his license number, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to follow him hoping to get a closer look.
I was getting ready to call 9-1-1 when another car came down the street, signaling to turn into the alley. With a sinking heart, I realized I was looking at the headlights of Larry Harshaw’s Cadillac. I turned the key in the ignition and slammed my VW into reverse. Flashing my headlights on and off, I followed Larry up the hill. He stopped halfway to the top and got out of the car.
“Can I help you?” he called back to me. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” I said. “Something’s terribly wrong. It’s Francine, Francine Drury. I’ve got to talk to you, Larry. It’s important.”
“Well, come on up to the house,” he said. “We can talk there.”
“No,” I said desperately. “We can’t go to the house.”
“Why not? What’s wrong? Has something happened to Mindy? My God, is she all right?”
“You’ve got to listen to me, Larry. Mindy’s fine, but she’s got a boyfriend. They’re planning to kill you and make it look like self-defense. I heard the two of them talking about it just now.”
“Kill me?” Larry said. “Are you kidding? Mindy loves me, and she wouldn’t hurt a flea. That’s the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard. Where did you come up with such an outrageous idea? You haven’t been drinking, have you, Francine?”
“Of course I haven’t been drinking,” I said. “I was standing outside the gate. I heard them talking inside the garage-Mindy and somebody named Wes.”
“Wes Noonan, no doubt,” Larry said confidently. “I’ll have you know Wes is a very good friend of mine. I’m sure all of this is just some silly misunderstanding. Come on up to the house now, Francine. We’ll talk this over, have a drink or two and a good laugh besides when we finally get to the bottom of whatever’s going on.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” I insisted desperately. “Mindy’s going to kill you and try to make it look like you attacked her.”
“She’ll do no such thing,” Larry Harshaw told me. “Now come on. It’s starting to rain. I have no intention of standing here, getting wet and arguing about this. Are you coming or not?”
“Not,” I said. “But please don’t go.”
“I’m going,” he said. And he did.
I scrambled into my car, grabbed my cell phone, and dialed 9-1-1. “Washington State Patrol,” a voice said. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“My name’s Francine Drury,” I said. “I’m on Magnolia, in Seattle. And someone’s about to be murdered.”
I was still on the phone, giving them Mindy’s address, when I heard the distinctive pop, pop of gunfire. There was a pause and then a third pop. “Oh, my God!” I exclaimed into the phone. “Please hurry. She already did it. She shot him. Send an ambulance, too!”
I stood there shaking, leaning against the roof of my Beetle for support as two blue police cars and an ambulance, lights flashing and sirens blaring, went screaming up the hill past me. I’ve never felt more useless. If only I could have made him believe me…
A third cop car pulled up behind me and a uniformed officer stepped out. “Ms. Drury?” he asked. “Are you the one who placed the first 9-1-1 call?”
“Yes,” I managed. “Yes, I am.” Then I burst into tears. “It’s all my fault,” I blubbered. “I heard her say she was going to kill him. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and now he’s dead.”
Something came in over the officer’s radio. I heard a garbled voice, but I couldn’t make out the words. “Sit down, please,” the officer urged me. “Let me get you some water.”
I did. I was too weak to object or do anything other than what I’d been told. I sat where he told me. There were other people on the street now, streaming out of neighboring houses, trying to figure out what had happened and what was going on.
Moments later the ambulance came roaring back down the hill. The onlookers parted to let it through. r
“That’s the male vic,” the officer explained, handing me a bottle of water. His name tag said he was Sergeant Lowrey. “She winged him. Superficial wound to the shoulder. They’re taking him to Harborview. He’s going to be fine.”
“And Mindy?” I asked. “What about her?”
Sergeant Lowrey took out a small notebook. “That’s her name? Mindy what?”
“Mindy Harshaw,” I answered. “What about her?” Lowrey shook his head. “When it didn’t turn out the way she expected, she turned the gun on herself.”
“You mean she’s gone?” I stammered. “She’s dead?” Sergeant Lowrey nodded. “I’m afraid so,” he answered. “I hope she wasn’t a friend of yours.”
“I thought she was,” I said quietly, fighting back more tears.
“But I guess she wasn’t anymore.”
SOFT SPOT by IAN RANKIN
Most evenings, Dennis Henshall took his work home with him.
Not that anyone knew. He reckoned most of his fellow prison warders wouldn’t care one way or the other. As far as they were concerned, Dennis was a bit on the odd side anyway, sitting most of the day in his office, poring over correspondence, ruler and razor blade at the ready. He had to be careful with those blades: one of the rules of the job. Kept them under lock and key, away from deft fingers. Each morning, he would unlock his desk drawer and count them, then remove one, only ever the one. When that got blunt, he’d take it home with him, dump it in the kitchen bin. The desk drawer back in his office stayed locked the rest of the day, and mostly his door was kept locked, too, except when he was inside. A two-minute break to go pee, still he locked the door behind him, the blade back in its drawer, that drawer locked, too. You could never be too careful.
His filing cabinet was secured with a vertical metal bar connecting all four drawer handles. The first time the Governor had visited, he’d made no comment about this added precaution, but hadn’t been able to stop himself glancing over at the tall green cabinet throughout his conversation with Dennis.
The other warders, they reckoned Dennis was hiding stuff; porn mags and whiskey. Hid himself in his office, one hand around the bottle neck, the other busy in his trousers. He did little to dispel the myth, quite liked the fact that this other life was being invented for him. In point of fact, the cabinet contained nothing but alphabetized correspondence: letters connecting inmates to their friends and loved ones on the outside. These were the letters that had been deemed UTF: Unable to Forward. A letter could be deemed UTF if it gave away too much information about prison routine, or if it seemed threatening. Swearing and sexual content were fine, but most letters remained coy, once it was realized that Dennis, as prison censor, would be reading any correspondence first.
This was his job, and he carried out the work diligently. His ruler would underline a contentious sentence, and he would get to work with the razor blade. Excised sections were kept in the filing cabinet, glued to a sheet of stationery with typed comments including date, the inmate’s identity, and reason for excision. Each morning a fresh delivery of mail awaited him; every afternoon, he checked the outgoing post. These envelopes were prestamped and addressed, but not stuck down until Dennis had authorized their contents.