The Best American Mystery Stories 2016

  The daughter would not be quiet. I put a hand over her mouth.

  She bit me.

  I put my hands on her throat. I made her quiet. She fell down.

  “Get out of there, Jupiter! Take the coins and come!”

  I was scared. I had never done anything so bad before.

  I tried to pick up the old woman by her fur, but pieces of it came out. I grabbed her by the middle and rushed up the bed to the window. I held the woman outside so Goujon could see her. Maybe Goujon could help her?

  His eyes went wide. “What have you done?” he yelled, frightening me. I lost my grip, and the old woman fell out the window to the yard below.

  “My God! What have you done?” Goujon slid down the lightning rod. He ran from the yard. I heard the carriage with the horses pull away.

  I lifted the daughter and looked for a place to hide her. The door was locked. I didn’t want to throw her out the window.

  There was no fire in the fireplace. I hid her in there.

  I heard people running up the stairs, banging on the door.

  I left the coins on the floor and climbed out the window, and it slammed shut behind me. I climbed up to the roof.

  I kept going from roof to roof until I could not hear the screams, or smell the blood.

  Before the sun rose I found a forest. There were many trees and a grassy place with a path where people walked. I climbed into a tree and hid.

  I had not meant to hurt anyone, but I think those two women were dead. I had killed them like the hunters killed Mama. Like Goujon killed Professor.

  Professor whipped me once for hurting one of his helpers. This was worse. What would happen now?

  I stayed in the tree all day. People walked by on the path but they never saw me. I don’t think they were looking for me.

  After dark I went down and searched for food. I found a place where there had been many kinds of food and carts. I found bins where old food was piled and found fruit I could eat. Then I went back to the trees and made a nest.

  That’s how I lived for many sleeps.

  The food was bad. It was making me sick. Professor could make me better but he was dead. Goujon killed him, but maybe he did it to help me.

  One night I knew I couldn’t stay there anymore. I climbed down and followed the smells back to the place where Goujon lived.

  The door would not open, but I knew what to do. I climbed in a window on the top floor. Goujon was in a bed growling like the old woman had done.

  That made me sad.

  I touched him on the arm. He woke with a jerk and sat up. He was afraid.

  “Jupiter! Is that you?”

  I touched his hand.

  Goujon leapt out of the other side of the bed. “Wait, just wait.” He lit a lamp.

  “It is you! I thought you were lost forever. Where have you been?”

  Food and water.

  “Of course! Where are my manners? Come with me.”

  I ate. He drank something that smelled spoiled.

  I told him what happened.

  “What an amazing adventure, Jupiter. I never would have thought you could survive for so long in this city. I am glad to have you back.”

  Are the women in the dead house?

  “Yes. You know you killed them, don’t you?”

  I didn’t mean to.

  “Yes. But I doubt anyone else would believe it.” He put down his glass. “Listen, Jupiter. There was one man clever enough to realize that only an animal like you could have broken into that house. A strange fellow named Auguste Dupin who lives in a ruined house with his boyfriend, I suppose. You should see the place! Nothing but moldy furniture and books, hundreds of books.

  “This Dupin is both a genius and a fool, I think. He tricked me, convinced me that he found you, but he wasn’t clever enough to realize that you are an animal who thinks. And that’s the point, Jupiter. Do you know what they do to murderers in France?”

  What is that?

  “A murderer? Someone who kills people, like you did. They kill murderers—chop off their heads. Do you want them to chop off your head, Jupiter?”

  My hands trembled as I signed no.

  “And I don’t want them to cut off mine either. Understand me, Jupiter. If you are a mere animal, then you are not a murderer. But if you are smart enough to help me steal, then you are smart enough to kill, and they will kill you for it. Do you understand, Jupiter?”

  No.

  He sighed. “If they see you signing, they will know how smart you are. Then I will be killed as a thief and you as a murderer. But if you don’t sign, if you can keep from ever letting anyone see you do it, then they will think you are just a brute, and neither of us will be punished. What do you say, Jupiter? Can you keep the secret?”

  Could I? Could I pretend to be as empty and silent as the horses and the dogs?

  “Jupiter?”

  I didn’t answer. I have never answered.

  Goujon had no money to send me home. I understood. This is my punishment.

  He couldn’t sell me as a talking beast, but he sold me to the Jardin des Plantes. There are many animals here.

  I live in a box of bars in a big house that is always cold. That is my punishment too.

  There are other apes, but they don’t like me. Professor made me different and they can tell. So I live in another building, alone.

  Goujon came once and talked to me. I didn’t answer.

  He thinks I am afraid. He thinks I pretend to be an empty beast because they will kill me if they find out I can think.

  I am not afraid. But after I killed those women I knew I had to decide.

  What am I?

  Professor tried to turn me into a man. I am not a man. I will not be part of a man.

  So I must be a beast. I have decided.

  Beasts do not speak. Beasts do not sign.

  Yesterday there were a lot of excited men in front of my cage. They were all facing one man, who was pointing at me and talking. I couldn’t understand what they were saying until one of them called him by name: Dupin.

  That was the man Goujon told me about, the one smart enough to realize an Ourang-Outang killed the women, but not smart enough to know that I was also smart.

  Now he was telling everyone how he figured out that it was me and the men were telling him how clever he was.

  He looked at me and I thought, If I sign now and he is so clever, he will know that I am signing, even if he cannot understand the words. Would he tell everyone, or would he be ashamed that he was mistaken?

  My fingers itched to sign You are the fool.

  But I am a beast. Beasts are silent. I let him pass me, still thinking that I cannot think.

  There are more people outside my box now. They yell at me and make the playing sound. I do nothing.

  They look at me and I look back. I look back.

  DENNIS MCFADDEN

  Lafferty’s Ghost

  FROM Fiction

  IN THE BED of another woman was by no means unfamiliar ground for your man, but this time there was a twist. This time, he could reasonably argue, it was in the interest of the missus, not merely his own (not that herself would be much persuaded). This time, in the service of their marriage, he’d proved beyond a doubt that their counselor could not be trusted, the same counselor she’d demanded that he accompany her to see if he harbored any hope at all of keeping her roof above his head. He’d demonstrated conclusively that all the rubbish their counselor had been spouting about trust, communication, sharing, that indeed her Ten Golden Rules for a Great Marriage, were nothing but a load of fluff and dander. By Lafferty’s way of reasoning, any marriage counselor worth her salt must be honest, trustworthy, and above reproach, attributes he defined to include being above the temptations of the flesh, particularly when the flesh in question is hanging from the bones of one of her very own clients. And so he’d put her to the test. And so she’d failed utterly, the proof beside him here in her bed. Of course, how to frame the proof
for Peggy, the missus, without jeopardizing his roof or his life and limb was the challenge with which he was now faced, even in the warm throes of postcoital bliss, those of himself and the counselor in question, Katherine Flanagan, LPC, IACP.

  “I suppose I’ll regret this,” she said, though something in her tone suggested to Lafferty amusement more than regret.

  Lafferty said, “I get that a lot,” and sure enough, she laughed. A handsome lady she was, a lady who, unlike most of them Lafferty had known, seemed to become less exposed and vulnerable the more naked she became. She was plenty naked now. She’d a polished smile like that of a shark, and eyebrows painted like breaking waves. The short part like a scar at the front of her slippery black hair showed a root or two of indeterminate color.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “That’s my job.”

  “And I’ve noticed, Mrs. Flanagan, you’re bloody good at your job.”

  “Please. Katie.”

  “Katie? I’d have thought Katherine.”

  “Katherine, Kathy, Kate, Katie-bar-the-door. Take your pick. I love the variety.”

  “I think Katherine the Great, given the grandeur of your position.”

  “And which position did you find most grand?”

  Lafferty considered. “The one hanging by your heels from the trapeze, I think.”

  “Sure, the blood rushing to your head enhances the sensuality.”

  “Keep romance alive. Is that not one of your ten golden rules?”

  “It is. And now you’ve had your lesson, you and Peggy can find your own trapeze, and I’ll claim another victory in the war against the disintegration of the traditional marriage as we know it.”

  Lafferty ran a finger down her ribs like a keyboard. “What’s this?” He’d encountered a scar scarcely visible to the naked eye, a gouge on her side in the shape of a crescent.

  “That,” she said. “That’s my emergency smile. I take it with me wherever I go.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “This skinny fella was asking me too many questions one day, and I had to bump him off.”

  A moment of musing on Lafferty’s part. “And how did that result in a scar?”

  “Who said it did?” She smiled, eyes simmering.

  “I see. We’ll just settle for emergency smile. A scar by any other name. Curiosity is overrated at any rate.”

  “There’s a good lad,” she said, rewarding your man with a squeeze and a snuggle, though he found the bones of her a bit sharper now than they had been before. Lafferty allowed his God-given tendency to retreat in the face of confrontation, of any class of unpleasantness, to shut his gob for him, though a bit of the curiosity lingered still. The mysterious Katherine Flanagan, whatever else she was, was evidently good at her job all right, her propensity for the odd lapse in judgment notwithstanding. For that he had to allow her a bit of leeway, he supposed, given the nature of his own charms, compounded by the dimple in the middle of his own chin. Her success was apparent in the opulence of the place, the breadth and depth of the bed, the silkiness of the sheets, the shine of mahogany everywhere, the grand sweep of crimson drapery covering the wall of windows overlooking the village of Kilduff down below. The office in the front of the house was furnished in teak and brass and warm, soothing hues. And the bathroom, when he’d gone there earlier, had been like nothing he’d ever encountered before. He’d been almost reluctant, in fact, to defile the place by doing his business there.

  It was back to the bathroom his daydreams took him when the woman slipped into a dreamy quiet and he thought he heard a wee snore. For didn’t he have to pee again. And he thought about Peggy, his own wife and her niggardly ways, particularly with the hot water, which she seemed to think required the burning of banknotes to heat. And he imagined luxuriating in steamy water and bubbles in the sunken tub of the blue-tiled room just beyond the polished doorknob there across the poshness of carpet. Decadent and delicious to be sure, the perfect complement to a day such as this.

  As Katie dozed he slipped away for his pee, the bed so fine and firm there was never a squeak to betray him, the carpet soaking up his footsteps like a sandy beach. And doesn’t your man himself succumb to temptations of the flesh, though of a different class altogether, soon finding himself in the tub, up to his chin in hot water. Snug as a fist in a mitten. The flow of the warm water burbling in his ear, the piquant scent of the bubbles tickling his nose, he allowed himself to surrender to the comfort, having earned it, having performed so admirably in the service of his wife and their marriage, and on the other hand, so splendidly in the service of Katherine Flanagan, LPC, IACP, a widow with needs and wants of her own. Whose other hand, after a while, he heard on the knob of the door, whose footstep on the blue of the tiles, in perfect harmony with his dream of a balmy beach in the south of Spain, a dark-skinned girl in a white kimono, and a pitcher of green margaritas. Warm washcloth soothing his eyes, he showed her the dimple in his chin, which he lifted for a smile. “Come join me, love, the water’s grand.”

  But Katie only shuffled her feet.

  “Plenty of room in here for a pair,” he said, his invitation enhanced and made all the more sincere by the stirring of his nether part, the blood flowing again, the buoyancy of the lovely hot water lifting him up, the thoughts of her nearby accessibility making him randy as a pup.

  But Katie made no reply.

  Removing the cloth, Lafferty opened his eyes. To lay them on two of the ugliest men he’d ever seen, standing there gaping down at him as though he were a two-headed donkey in the circus. Though it wasn’t the pure ugliness that first caught his eye, to be sure; it was the gun in the fist of the first one, the cluster of yellow daffodils in that of the other.

  No stranger to tight spots, Lafferty had indeed found himself naked in tight spots before, although tight spots such as those had generally been occasioned by a jealous lover, never before by two calm and ugly men. And seldom before had weaponry been involved, except for the once near Ballyjamesduff, the weapon in question having been a sailing cookie jar (the jealous lover in question having been of the female persuasion), a far cry indeed from a nine-millimeter pistol.

  They brought him to the lounge, where he stood naked, dripping into the carpet. The nakedness was the worst of it and no place to hide, his heart wanting to jump from his throat. The man with the daffodils was the older and fatter of the pair, with lips and ears as thick as your thumb, his jacket brown and stained and two sizes too tight. “Where’s the woman?” said he.

  “What woman?” Lafferty said.

  “What woman says he,” said the fat man.

  “The woman whose name is on the fucking sign out in front of the fucking house,” the other man said. He was skinny and pink and jumpy, twitching the gun as he spoke. The black eyes of him never rested on any one object too long, and his checkered jacket was yellow and baggy and blue.

  “Did you look in the bed?” Lafferty said.

  “Did we look in the bed says he,” said the fat man.

  “Of course we looked in the fucking bed,” said the skinny man.

  Lafferty said, “She was there when I slipped in for my tub.”

  “She was there when he slipped in for his tub says he,” said the fat man.

  “Listen,” said Lafferty, “could you quit repeating everything I say?”

  “Could I quit repeating everything he says says he,” said the fat man.

  “Well, it is bloody fucking annoying,” the skinny man said.

  “That’s your problem,” said the fat man. “No appreciation of irony whatsoever. Everything’s black and white to you.”

  “We got a job to do, and last I looked irony wasn’t in the job description.”

  “That’s your problem, right there,” said the fat man, the tips of his ears turning red. “No appreciation of irony whatsoever.”

  “Can I put on my clothes?” Lafferty said.

  “Fuck no,” said the skinny man.

  “The nakede
r you are,” the fat man explained, “the less likely are you to run. And the less likely you are to run, the less likely your man here will have to put a bullet in you.”

  Lafferty’s knees gave a lurch, his stomach a roll. “Can I sit?”

  “Can he sit says he,” said the fat man.

  They regarded the sofa beside them, deep and plush and beige, five oversized sections arranged in the shape of an L. “That’s one L of a sofa,” Lafferty said.

  It took a moment or two till the skinny man sniggered. Didn’t the fat one chortle as well. “One L of a sofa,” exclaims he, and they both gave in to the laughter. “One L of a sofa!” said the skinny man. They laughed for a minute or more, Lafferty standing bewildered behind his smile. The fat man wiped his eye. “Good one.”

  “I like this fucking guy,” said the skinny man, jabbing his pistol toward Lafferty.

  “Sit,” said the fat man, waving his daffodils toward the sofa.

  “What are the flowers for?” Lafferty said.

  “Ladies love the flowers, sure they do,” the fat man said. “And we deliver.”

  “Special delivery,” said the skinny man.

  “Here,” said the fat man, “you can hold ’em over your oul hoo-ha there.”

  Thankful for little kindnesses, Lafferty took the flowers, holding them over his oul hoo-ha. He sat on the sofa, the fabric prickling his naked arse. The two men made no move to do likewise, hovering above him, feet planted apart. Only now, the shock of it sinking in, was Lafferty beginning to wonder where the hell Katherine Flanagan had got to, how indeed she’d managed to get away at all. Had she spotted them coming up the road and made off through the back? Was she hiding somewhere in the house? And of course the deeper mystery, why two desperate specimens such as these had come calling in the first place. When the fat man put his hands on his hips, Lafferty saw the holster peeping out from under his stained brown jacket, the wee wink of a pistol. Across the room, the curtain was parted on the wide front window, and outside the gloaming was going deeper, the rusty leaves of the rowan tree in front giving a shiver to a white panel truck passing down the road toward Kilduff.