Curtains

A collection of 11 mystery tales, from
gangsters to domestic turmoil, with bonus tales from J.A. Konrath
and Simon Wood.

Copyright © 2010 Scott Nicholson

Published at Smashwords by Haunted Computer
Books

http://www.hauntedcomputer.com

OTHER BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:

The Skull Ring

As I Die Lying

Speed Dating with the Dead

The Red Church

Drummer Boy

Disintegration

Burial to Follow

Flowers

Ashes

The First

Gateway Drug

Murdermouth: Zombie Bits

Forever Never Ends

Transparent Lovers

Creative Spirit

Troubled

Solom

The Gorge

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Dog Person

When the family dog turns up ill, a man is
faced with a brutal choice while his wife carries her own dark
secret.

2. Dead Air

A late-night deejay makes a special
connection with a female serial killer.

3. How to Build Your Own Coffin

A man’s love of woodcraft is equaled only by
his desire for a good wife and trustworthy companion.

4. The Name Game

Vincent wants to escape his past, but he has
to do it as Robert Wells—or maybe Charlie Ehle. He’s not sure
which.

5. Good Fences

Herman is suspicious of the new neighbor, who
just might be the killing kind.

6. The Agreement by J.A. Konrath

A man who goes back on his word is in for a
hot time in the old town tonight.

7. Kill Your Darlings

A writer should know better than anyone that
crime—and crime fiction—doesn’t pay.

8. Making Ends Meet by Simon Wood

A man takes a special approach to family
problems.

9. Sewing Circle

A reporter’s coverage of a local church group
goes from Page 3 to the obituaries.

10. Nothing Personal, But You Gotta Die

Vincent almost got away, but Mikey is out to
make a name for himself.

11. Watermelon

Ricky reads about a regional serial killer
and gets some ideas of his own.

Afterwords

Biography

DOG PERSON

The final breakfast was scrambled eggs, crisp
bacon, grits with real butter. Alison peeled four extra strips of
bacon from the slab. On this morning of all mornings, she would
keep the temperature of the stove eye just right. She wasn’t the
cook of the house, but Robert had taught her all about Southern
cuisine, especially that of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Before they
met, her breakfast consisted of a cup of what Robert teasingly
called a “girly French coffee” and maybe a yogurt. He’d introduced
her to the joys of an unhealthy start to the morning, along with
plenty of other things, the best of the rest coming after
sundown.

Even after two years, Alison wasn’t as
enthusiastic about the morning cholesterol infusion as Robert was.
Or his dog. About once a week, though, she’d get up a half-hour
early, drag the scarred skillet from beneath the counter, and peel
those slick and marbled pieces of pig fat. The popping grease never
failed to mark a red spot or two along her wrist as she wielded the
spatula. But she wouldn’t gripe about the pain today.

Robert would be coming down any minute. She
could almost picture him upstairs, brushing his teeth without
looking in the mirror. He wouldn’t be able to meet his own eyes.
Not with the job that awaited him.

Alison cracked six eggs in a metal bowl and
tumbled them with a whisk until the yellow and white were mingled
but not fully mixed. The grits bubbled and burped on the back
burner. Two slices of bread stood in the sleeves of the toaster,
and the coffee maker gurgled as the last of its heated water
sprayed into the basket. Maxwell House, good old all-American farm
coffee.

She avoided looking in the pantry, though the
louvered doors were parted. The giant bag of Kennel Ration stood in
a green trash can. On the shelf above was a box of Milk Bones and
rows of canned dog food. Robert had a theory that hot dogs and
turkey bologna were cheaper dog treats than the well-advertised
merchandise lines, but he liked to keep stock on hand just in case.
That was Robert; always planning ahead. But some things couldn’t be
planned, even when you expected them.

Robert entered the room, buttoning the cuffs
on his flannel shirt. The skin beneath his eyes was puffed and
lavender. “Something smells good.”

She shoveled the four bacon strips from the
skillet and placed them on a double layer of paper towels. “Only
the best today.”

“That’s sweet of you.”

“I wish I could do more.”

“You’ve done plenty.”

Robert moved past her without brushing
against her, though the counter ran down the center of the kitchen
and narrowed the floor space in front of the stove. Most mornings,
he would have given her an affectionate squeeze on the rear and she
would have threatened him with the spatula, grinning all the while.
This morning he poured himself a cup of coffee without asking if
she wanted one.

She glanced at Robert as he bent into the
refrigerator to get some cream. At thirty-five, he was still in
shape, the blue jeans snug around him and only the slightest bulge
over his belt. His brown hair showed the faintest streaks of gray,
though the lines around his eyes and mouth had grown visibly deeper
in the last few months. He wore a beard but he hadn’t shaved his
neck in a week. He caught her looking.

Alison turned her attention back to the pan.
“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not much to say.” He stirred his coffee,
tapped his spoon on the cup’s ceramic rim, and reached into the
cabinet above the sink. He pulled the bottle of Jack Daniels into
the glare of the morning sun. Beyond the window, sunlight filtered
through the red and golden leaves of maple trees that were about to
enter their winter sleep.

Robert never drank before noon, but Alison
didn’t comment as he tossed a splash into his coffee. “I made extra
bacon,” she said. “A special treat.”

Robert nodded, his eyes shot with red
lightning bolts. He had tossed all night, awakening her once at 3
a.m. when his toenails dug into her calf. He must have been
dreaming of days with Sandy Ann, walking by the river, camping in
the hollows of Grandfather Mountain, dropping by the animal shelter
to volunteer for a couple of hours.

Alison moved the grits from the heat and set
them aside. The last round of bacon was done, and she drained some
of the bacon grease away and poured the eggs. The mixture lay there
round and steaming like the face of a cartoon sun. She let the eggs
harden a bit before she moved them around. A brown skin covered the
bottom of the skillet.

“Nine years is a lot,” she said. “Isn’t that
over seventy in people years?”

“No, it’s nine in people years. Time’s the
same for everybody and everything.”

Robert philosophy. A practical farm boy. If
she had been granted the power to build her future husband in a
Frankenstein laboratory, little of Robert would have been in the
recipe. Maybe the eyes, brown and honest with flecks of green that
brightened when he was aroused. She would have chosen other parts,
though the composite wasn’t bad. The thing that made Robert who he
was, the spark that juiced his soul, was largely invisible but had
shocked Alison from the very first exposure.

She sold casualty insurance, and Robert liked
to point out she was one of the “Good Hands” people. Robert’s
account had been assigned to her when a senior agent retired, and
during his first appointment to discuss whether to increase the
limit on his homeowner’s policy, she’d followed the procedure
taught in business school, trying to sucker him into a whole-life
policy. During the conversation, she’d learned he had no heirs, not
even a wife, and she explained he couldn’t legally leave his estate
to Sandy Ann. One follow-up call later, to check on whether he
would get a discount on his auto liability if he took the life
insurance, and they were dating.

The first date was lunch in a place that was
too nice and dressy for either of them to be comfortable. The next
week, they went to a movie during which Robert never once tried to
put his arm around her shoulder. Two days later, he called and said
he was never going to get to know her at this rate so why didn’t
she just come out to his place for a cook-out and a beer? Heading
down his long gravel drive between hardwoods and weathered
outbuildings, she first met Sandy Ann, who barked at the wheels and
then leapt onto the driver’s side door, scratching the finish on
her new Camry.

Robert laughed as he pulled the yellow
Labrador retriever away so Alison could open her door. She wasn’t a
dog person. She’d had a couple of cats growing up but had always
been too busy to make a long-term pet commitment. She had planned
to travel light, though the old
get-married-two-kids-house-in-the-suburbs had niggled at the base
of her brain once or twice as she’d approached thirty. It turned
out she ended up more rural than suburban, Robert’s sperm count was
too low, and marriage was the inevitable result of exposure to
Robert’s grill.

She plunged the toaster lever. The eggs were
done and she arranged the food on the plates. Her timing was
perfect. The edges of the grits had just begun to congeal. She set
Robert’s plate before him. The steam of his coffee carried the
scent of bourbon.

“Where’s the extra bacon?” he asked.

“On the counter.”

“It’ll get cold.”

“She’ll eat it.”

“I reckon it won’t kill her either way.”
Robert sometimes poured leftover bacon or hamburger grease on Sandy
Ann’s dry food even though the vet said it was bad for her.
Robert’s justification was she ate rotted squirrels she found in
the woods, so what difference did a little fat make?

“We could do this at the vet,” Alison said.
“Maybe it would be easier for everybody, especially Sandy Ann.”
Though she was really thinking of Robert. And herself.

“That’s not honest. I know you love her, too,
but when you get down to it, she’s my dog. I had her before I had
you.”

Sandy Ann had growled at Alison for the first
few weeks, which she found so unsettling that she almost gave up on
Robert. But he convinced her Sandy Ann was just slow to trust and
would come around in time. Once, the dog nipped at her leg, tearing
a hole in a new pair of slacks. Robert bought her a replacement
pair and they spent more time in Alison’s apartment than at the
farm. Alison bought the groceries and let him cook, and they did
the dishes together.

The first time Alison spent the night at the
farm, Sandy Ann curled outside Robert’s door and whined. He had to
put the dog outside so they could make love. They were married four
months later and Robert was prepared to take the dog with them on
their honeymoon, an RV and backpacking trip through the Southwest.
Only a desperate plea from Alison, stopping just short of threat,
had persuaded Robert to leave Sandy Ann at a kennel.

“You got the eggs right,” Robert said,
chewing with his mouth open.

“Thank you.”

He powdered his grits with pepper until a
soft black carpet lay atop them. The dust was nearly thick enough
to make Alison sneeze. He worked his fork and moved the grits to
his mouth, washing the bite down with another sip of the laced
coffee.

“Maybe you can wait until tomorrow,” Alison
said. She didn’t want to wait another day, and had waited months
too long already, but she said what any wife would. She bit into
her own bacon, which had grown cool and brittle.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.” Robert wasn’t religious
but he was peculiar about Sundays. It was a holdover from his
upbringing as the son of a Missionary Baptist. Though Robert was a
house painter by trade, he’d kept up the farming tradition. The
government was buying out his tobacco allocation and cabbage was
more of a hobby than a commercial crop. Robert raised a few goats
and a beef steer, but they were more pets than anything. She didn’t
think Robert would slaughter them even if they stood between him
and starvation. He wasn’t a killer.

“Sunday might be a better day for it,” she
said.

“No.” Robert nibbled a half-moon into the
toast. “It’s been put off long enough.”

“Maybe we should let her in.”

“Not while we’re eating. No need to go
changing habits now.”

“She won’t know the difference.”

“No, but I will.”

Alison drew her robe tighter across her body.
The eggs had hardened a little, the yellow gone an obscene greenish
shade.

Sandy Ann had been having kidney and liver
problems and had lost fifteen pounds. The vet said they could
perform an operation, which would cost $3,000, and there would
still be no guarantee of recovery. Alison told Robert it would be
tough coming up with the money, especially since she’d given up her
own job, but she would be willing to make the necessary sacrifices.
Robert said they would be selfish to keep the dog alive if it was
suffering.