Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

He watched headline news on CNN, eating the warm dessert while standing up in front of the set. Then he rinsed the dessert bowl out and went out through the mud room into the garage.

He felt a dry-cold rush as he opened the freezer door. Pushing aside a variety of frozen packages, he lifted the trophy head out, holding it up so he could see it in the one-bulb light.

It was frozen solid. He rapped on it with his knuckles. Solid, like a brick. You could crack somebody’s skull with this sucker, he thought. He remembered that old Alfred Hitchcock Presents he’d seen one time on Nick at Nite, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” it was called, the one where the woman killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb and then cooked it up and served it to the police inspector who was investigating the death.

His trophy head would really look good mounted, up on the wall.

There was no hurry for that. It was keeping good right here. He put it back into the freezer, covered it up, and went back into the house.

He was watching the Discovery channel, a show about lions hunting zebras in Africa, when he heard the garage door mechanism. The door opened and shut. A moment later his wife was in the room, glancing at the television set with more than her usual cursory interest. She wasn’t much for watching television; she had her many activities that kept her busy.

He looked up. “Must’ve been a short book,” he commented. He liked shows like this, wildlife documentaries. He would love someday to go big-game hunting in Africa, but there wasn’t hardly any left anymore, and besides, you had to be a millionaire to do that stuff, which he wasn’t.

“Nobody was really into it,” she told him. She pulled the book out of her large purse, held it up for him to see. The cover looked like a dish from a Chinese restaurant. “I’ll read it myself when I have some spare time.”

“When do you ever have any spare time?”

“Sometimes I have a hard time getting to sleep.”

He looked over at her. “I should try to fix that.”

She blushed. “Well... that might work.” She glanced at her watch, that studied nonchalant look he knew. “Is this a good show?” she asked, looking at the set again. She shrugged out of her coat.

“I like it. You might not. We could watch something else.”

“What else is on?”

“I don’t know. Probably some sitcoms or something. I know you don’t want to watch sports.”

“I don’t mind, if you want to.” She checked the watch on her wrist again. “Let me make one phone call.”

“Take your time.”

She went into the kitchen, around the corner where he couldn’t see her. He heard the pinging sound of her fingers on the telephone touch-pads.

A moment later she came back into the room and sat down next to him on the couch. “Is there anything funny on tonight?” she asked, looking at the wildlife show he was watching. “Some dumb comedy?”

“There’s always that.” He picked up the clicker and ran through a bunch of channels until Seinfeld came on.

“I’ve seen this a few times,” she said as she recognized some of the people in the cast. “This is pretty good.”

“Yeah, it is.” He liked Seinfeld.

They sat together, watching. After a moment she moved closer to him, so that they were touching.

She didn’t go out the next night. Tuesday was her bridge night, but two of the women had come down with the flu, so the group cancelled.

They stayed home together, watched some television, and went to bed early.

They made love for the first time in more than two months.

4

The following night she did go out. She stayed out a long time. He was still up when she came home. Usually he was in bed when she was out late, but this time he wasn’t.

“How come you’re up?” she asked, startled at seeing him. She wasn’t expecting him to be up. Seeing him sitting in front of the television set, she turned away from him.

“I was watching a movie. Then I thought, why not wait up for you?”

She turned her face to him. “That was nice.”

She had been crying. Whenever she cried her eyes got puffy and stayed that way for hours. Even if she washed her face and put ice cubes or cucumber slices on her eyes, they were still puffy. Frog eyes, she called them.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. It’s... there was this one kid...”

Wednesday night was Red Cross volunteer night. She would go to local old-age homes, or to the Children’s Hospital, two towns over. A lot of the kids in the hospital were dying from different terminal diseases. The volunteers would read to the kids, play games with them, do whatever they could to cheer them up a little. Some of the kids came from homes hundreds of miles away, and rarely saw their families. Some of the kids had no families, their parents were crackheads or junkies or criminals who had lost their child long ago.

“That must be hard.”

She nodded. “I really don’t feel very good. I’m going up to bed.”

He made sure all the doors were locked and the alarm system was on, turned off the lights, and followed her to bed. They didn’t make love, but he held her comfortingly in his arms.

5