Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

They sat in the stinky, newly painted room. Alone finally. There had been many people buzzing about and many questions. But not enough answers, Rube thought. Though what he had would have to do.

Boggert looked as fierce as a bulldog who’d lost his last fight. “If you’d a just waited,” Boggert said, “I was gettin’ on out to talk to the man. But I didn’t have the damned report yet.”

“If I’d waited, the dog would be dead.”

Boggert just stared. “Oh for Christ’s sake.” He paused. “Then again, you can’t be sure of even that.”

Rube was too tired to hear it. But he knew he would.

“Maybe if you hadn’t let that dog up to the cemetery, well — maybe he’d a gone on home. Or to someone’s home. Or...”

Rube stood up. “Are you through with me?”

Boggert scratched at his leg. “Just about, yeah. Come sign this affidavit.”

The sun was up, hard and bright, as Boggert drove Rube home. “You get some sleep, Rube. It’s been a hard day and night.”

“For a tourist?” Rube said.

“For anyone,” Boggert said.

They drove up Main, trying not to hit the new day’s tourists.

“It was self-defense, Rube. We matched the harpoon wound with one from the rack.”

Rube was horrified for just a moment. “Not the one I killed the captain with?”

“No,” Boggert said. “A different one. The captain was from a long line of oldtime whalers. Guess he kept them as — memories.”

“Memories,” Rube muttered, knowing he now had too many.

“Well, the old man was bonkers. No doubt about that. Betty had broken up with Jesse — some big fight over money — and Jesse, he just couldn’t handle it. The old man found him hanging in a cheap hotel room.”

“Memories,” Rube muttered.

“And then she must have braced the old man for money. Probably said Jesse had promised her half the business. It fits, Rube.”

“I guess,” Rube said.

They stopped at a crosswalk, the closest thing in town to a real stoplight.

“And he was gonna kill the dog and you and drop you over the side.”

“Dropping me over the side would have been enough,” Rube said. “I can’t swim.”

Boggert shook his head. “Maybe you are a tourist, after all.”

They pulled up in front of Rube’s driveway, a winding stretch of asphalt that led to the house in back.

Rube got out. Opened the car’s back door and called.

“Come on, Buddy.”

The big old dog had a bandage on his head, but he stuck out a giant tongue and licked at Rube’s hand, then jumped down from the back of the Jeep and started to follow Rube to the house.

Rube had a garden to start, things to plant. Maybe something good and green would grow. Maybe something green and alive.

Postscript by Michelle Knowlden

Dear Mom,

That was rotten — sending me to the Brewster family reunion, knowing Tom and Emily would be there. You promised me a pleasant June in Kansas, and a journey back to a childhood of Gramps’ drugstore and fireflies at dusk.

I bet you thought it would do me good, getting over Tom once and for all, right? Well, the joke’s on you, Mom. Tom died two days after arriving. His ulcer acted up, and he bled to death. Satisfied?

And then I had to put up with the relatives, giving me sympathetic looks. Honestly, Mom, I haven’t thought of Tom Killian in years. That broken engagement gave me time to finish my MBA and start a business. If I’d married Tom, would I have a string of Adventure Unlimited stores? Would I have traveled four continents, sailed the Black Sea — following an egret from dawn to dusk? No — I’d be a widow, with photo albums and recipe books.

And Tom got what he deserved with Emily. She was a secretive one, with a streak of malice. Since we were kids, she’s lied about her Brewster blood — let everyone believe she was my first cousin when she was an adopted child of a third. I felt more kinship with your poodles. She played the angelic child with adults, but she flushed my guppies down the toilet when her mother wouldn’t let her have one. She poured bleach on Kate’s begonias when her own died. She poisoned the principal’s cat when I made the dean’s list.

When I was in college, she gave Tom, my fiancé, that look of hers. You know, the one we called her Emily Dickinson smile? Obscure but full of sly meaning. She followed Tom around his dad’s furniture store. She tossed her mousy hair and gave him slavish looks. She flattered him beyond his worth. She made him brownies from scratch, and sent him a homemade birthday card.

Okay, so I can’t make butterscotch chocolate chip brownies. If there was a mix for it, I’d give it a try. Okay, so I forgot his birthday. Big deal. But Emily took advantage of his hurt feelings and manipulated him into breaking our engagement. You know the rest. They married six months later.