She bathed at one o’clock and began to dress at 1:30. She selected her dress and accessories with great care, but she was, even so, finished and ready to leave by two o’clock, which was too early; so she forced herself to sit down and smoke a cigarette.
She left the house at 2:15 and drove downtown to a municipal parking lot, where she left her car. From the lot it was only a short distance to the Candlelight Lounge, and she walked. She arrived there at five minutes before three.
Inside, the lounge was soft with shadows that were pricked here and there by the tiny lights of guttering candles. Additional light came from fluorescent tubing that ran around the walls just below the ceiling, and from the bright face of an electric clock behind the bar.
Miriam paused near the door until her eyes were adjusted to the shadows, and then she picked her way among tables to one on the far side. At this early hour there were only a few patrons in the lounge, and only one waitress on duty. After a proper interval the waitress came to take her order, but Miriam, looking up, shook her head and smiled.
“Not just yet,” she said. “I’m waiting for a friend.”
Her excitement was now so intense, was such a throbbing thing, so alive and aching in her breast, that it was a wonder to her that any words came freely from her throat. How could she speak at all? By what miracle did she even draw her breath?
It was now, on the bright face of the clock behind the bar exactly three o’clock.
Then she saw Martin. He was standing at the entrance, staring directly at her. In the first shock of seeing him she thought wildly of escape, of hiding where there was no place to hide, but he had caught sight of her and was walking toward her, and she realized she could not move.
She raged inwardly at the improbable coincidence of his coming to this particular place at this particular time, and she searched her mind frantically for an appropriate lie to save herself. But then she understood, as he came nearer, that there was no coincidence, and that no lie was necessary. His eyes were shining with a kind of unholy glee.
His teeth were exposed in silent laughter.
“Hello, my, dear,” he said. “How sweet of you to keep our little tryst.”
Strangely, she was neither angry nor afraid. She could only wonder at the devilish perversion of a mind that had conceived and executed such a cruel deception. She could only recognize in utter despair the depth of her own shame. But she was, in feet, quite calm and controlled, having died in an instant and being dead.
Gathering up her purse, she rose to her feet and looked down at him for a moment almost with detachment.
“Wicked!” she whispered. “Oh, how wicked!”
His amusement was rich and depraved. Walking away, she heard his mocking laughter behind her. His voice followed her, each word enunciated with stabbing precision.
“I shall expect my dinner at seven tonight — as usual,” he said.
She seemed to be walking naked through the streets, but she did not care — for her shame was absolute and could not be increased. At the municipal parking lot she claimed her car and drove home. In her room she changed her clothes and sat down on the bed with her hands folded in her lap.
She must have sat there for a long, time, much longer than she had intended, for suddenly she was aware of the clock striking in the hall below, and carefully she counted five strokes. It would be necessary to go down at once and begin preparing dinner if it was to be ready at seven, and she got up and went down and put a roast of beef in the oven.
Then she began to consider what should go with the roast, and she thought she would have, to start off with, a generous shrimp appetizer. Martin was quite fond of shrimp, and his appetite would surely have been whetted by the complete success of his cruel trick.
Besides, the spicy sauce, with horseradish and all, would disguise the taste of the cyanide that she had discovered, some months ago, tucked away among the gardening supplies in the basement...
The doctor had come, of course, and the doctor had called the police, and the police had been, on the whole, quite considerate. She had spent the night in her own bed, and no one had disturbed her all the next morning. But then, early in the afternoon, a man had called for her with an invitation to come to police headquarters for a little talk, and she had gone with him, for she understood perfectly well that the invitation was really an order.
She now sat in a straight chair in a bare little room, and the only others in the room were a man in a corner with a notebook of some kind and another man whose name was Ryan.
Ryan was sitting on the edge of a desk and he smiled at her; he was young and nice and very friendly.
“Mrs. Sterling,” he said, “there is no good in pretending any longer. You killed your husband, and we know you killed him. Isn’t that so?” She looked up from her hands, which she was holding quietly in her lap.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I killed him. I put poison in his shrimp cocktail. It’s really rather obvious, isn’t it?”
“It is. Did you actually believe you could get away with it?”
“I don’t think so. No, not really. I just thought it would be better to let you make up your own minds.”
“I see. Would you care to tell us why you did it?”
She looked down at her hands again, apparently considering her answer with great care; and when she looked up, Ryan was surprised to see that she was suddenly quite pretty. Color had risen in her cheeks, and her flesh seemed warmed by a kind of inner glow.
“I had a lover,” she said. “I shall never tell you his name, but you will find some letters from him in my room at home.”
My Father Died Young
Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July 1965.
There is no way better calculated to recall old times and old places than opening the grave of a person you once knew long ago. It was not actually a grave, though. It was merely a niche in the wall of my family mausoleum, which stood aloof and slightly apart within an iron picket fence in the cemetery east of town.
Nor did I do the opening myself. It was done by competent workmen, hired for the purpose with official sanction, while I waited at the open door of the old tomb and looked out across green grass and gray headstones, scoured by a morning rain and now drying in the afternoon sun. I could smell red clover in a nearby field.
When had I come with my mother to bury my father in this old place? It was a long time ago, but a time easily remembered, for there were associations vivid enough and grim enough to have impressed even a ten-year-old boy. It was a time of soup kitchens and doles and idle men. A man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt had just been nominated for the presidency of his country, and in the fall he would be elected.
There was unrest everywhere at that time, and in the midwest there was an extraordinary number of bank robbers, although the banks, unfortunately, were failing fast enough, without help. It was, in brief, 1932, and my father died in August of that year.
The best that can be said of him is that he was a young man. Otherwise, he was sadly deficient in the qualities that make a good husband and father, and my mother’s marriage to him was a mistake she eventually regretted. He had no capacity to earn money or to apply himself for any length of time to constructive work, but his faults were not all negative. He had more than his share on the positive side, and the quality I remember most vividly was his insatiable appetite for bootleg gin. Not that he was ever abusive or brutal; he was merely indifferent to his family responsibilities.
However, my mother and I did not go hungry. In fact, we did not want for anything. Her family had accumulated some money and property in our town, and my memory of the depression was fixed mainly by things that hardly touched me personally. My maternal grandfather had been a prosperous undertaker, and my Uncle Ned had succeeded to his trade and condition. Folk must bury their dead in any time, good or bad, and there is usually a small insurance policy to guarantee payment for services.