Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

She watched from the window until he was at the edge of her property. Only then did she lower her groceries to the kitchen table and turn the deadbolt lock on the door. She checked each room for intruders before she came back downstairs to put her groceries away.

She was sitting in the oak rocker, sipping a cup of hot tea and reading a book of poetry, when she heard the key slide into the lock, turn, and the back door open.

She rose to her feet, backing toward the front door, when Kenny Nesco padded into the living room to join her. Her key ring dangled from his hand. What a fool she’d been! In her panic, she’d never removed it from the door.

“Sorry about this,” he said. “I mean, you haven’t done anything mean or bad. You don’t even sit and watch things happen, pretending there’s nothing wrong, like my mom does. That’s why you came here, to get away from all that, because it bothered you. I respect you for that.”

She stared at the long, broad butcher’s knife in his hand. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing would come out, so she pressed her lips together and waited.

“It’s just that you don’t belong here, you know? So you look at things differently and cause things to shift a little. Everyone around here would have blamed Jake Greeley for Hazel’s death. They’d have gossiped about it, but they wouldn’t have done anything.”

“Did Hazel do something mean?” Caryn asked. Her mind raced with ideas to save herself, but none of them seemed promising. The irony of the whole thing hit her, that she’d come here wanting to die — and now she was stalling, hoping to avoid it.

“When all of her kids moved away, my dad made me go to her house and mow her lawn, do all kinds of repair work and stuff. He called it being a good neighbor. She’d always pay me a little. Not much. She couldn’t have hired anyone for what she gave me. And my dad always took the money when I got home. She always went upstairs to get the money, but then she got so senile, she couldn’t remember anything. I wasn’t going to take it all. Just what she owed me. But she wasn’t as deaf as I thought. She came up and caught me.”

“So you pushed her,” Caryn said.

“I’ve never hurt anyone who didn’t hurt me,” he said. “You wouldn’t mean to hurt me, but you would.” He was walking toward her, and fear kept her rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to run and be chased down. She’d never outrun him, anyway. She didn’t want to try to wrestle the knife from his hand. He was too strong.

So she watched and waited.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Suddenly she felt tired and defeated. What had happened to her life, her dreams? She couldn’t make it in the city, and she hadn’t made it here. What was wrong with her?

“This time, there’ll be an investigation,” she argued. “How many times do you think you can kill and get away with it?”

He grinned. “Everyone knows Troy came out here. Josie was Troy’s girlfriend. Who do you think they’ll suspect?”

The kitchen door flew open with a bang. There was a rush of feet, and Troy Habegger lunged into the room. “You bastard!” he shouted as he barreled straight for Kenny.

Kenny turned, gripping the knife; but Troy threw himself at him, and both boys fell to the floor, struggling as they rolled. When they stopped, Kenny was on top. He pushed an elbow onto Troy’s throat, and raised his arm to bury the knife deep in his chest, but Caryn gripped his hand with both of her own and wouldn’t let go. When he loosened his grip on Troy to shake her off, Troy lunged again. This time when they quit rolling, Kenny was lying on top of Troy once more, but his body was limp. Shrugging him off, Troy stood and stared at the wooden handle protruding from Kenny’s back.

“The door was open,” he explained. “I’m sorry I scared you before. Once the beer wore off, I felt bad about it. I went to Kenny’s, but he wasn’t there. Then I got to thinking about Josie. I’d wanted to marry her, but the baby wasn’t mine. She’d always had a soft spot for Kenny, felt sorry for him, you know? Then I got to thinking about old Hiram Becker. Kenny had worked at his place one summer. When we were driving around together after school, he was telling me how things weren’t the same since you’d come to town. He wanted to get me riled up, and that made me wonder...”

“I’m glad you did,” Caryn said, her heart finally beginning to slow.

Troy looked down at his feet. “Kenny was my best friend.” His voice broke.

“He was sick. He would have only gotten worse.”

“I know that now, but I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t made me think. That’s good sometimes, I guess.”

The blood stain was spreading across Kenny’s shirt. “We’d better call Sheriff Taylor,” she said.

“They’re going to kick you out of your house again,” he told her. “But believe me. Once this is over, it’ll never happen again. This isn’t like the city.”

No, it wasn’t. There were good people here, and she had made a difference, after all.

A Meeting at the Cafe Visconti by Janice Law