Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

“Your mom’s not going to say a word.” Pizza sauce escaped from Lenny’s mouth and left a greasy orange stripe down to his chin. Eleanor held out a paper towel but he ignored it. “She’s in as much trouble as we are if she does.”

“What?”

“I’m looking forward to seeing your old lady’s face when I tell her. She won’t be so snotty with me then.” Lenny stuffed another corner of the pizza into his mouth and chewed.

“You can’t talk to her. You can’t.”

“Oh yes I can, and I will.”

Eleanor’s head was shaking back and forth like a metronome.

Lenny finished the whiskey and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You think she’s going to tell them her daughter stole the keys, and that she let you know the security code? No way. She’ll keep her mouth shut, don’t you worry, missy. Here, have a piece before it’s all gone.”

Being called missy was another thing Eleanor hated. Worse than anchovies. But she couldn’t deal with that right now. Right now she was totally freaked out. Lenny would tell her mom. He couldn’t, he just couldn’t, but he would. She couldn’t let him.

Eleanor was afraid the knife would glance off one of his ribs like in the horror show she saw last week where the psycho stabbed the prom queen in the back and she fell down dead, but it turned out the knife had only glanced off a rib. So she struck with all the force she had. And no hesitation marks, either; she knew about those from Law and Order.

Lenny barely made a noise. But honestly, what a mess.

“You’ve gone and done it now,” her mother would say.

Eleanor finally sat down. Her mother’s dress was wet with Lenny’s blood, the whiskey tasted like antiseptic when she drank it, and the last slice of pizza was stone cold. Lenny lay sprawled on the floor.

Think, think, think, you silly ditz.

But how could she get out of this mess now? Eleanor took another small sip and wrinkled up her nose. Having no mixer really sucked.

Lenny looked like some cop should come and draw a chalk outline around his body. Then the detectives would find the jewelry, the knife, and her fingerprints. Then her mom would find out. No!

If there was one thing her mother had taught Eleanor, it was how to clean.

She took one more sip and poured the rest of the whiskey down the toilet. Under the kitchenette sink she found a pair of rubber gloves and cleaning supplies. The pizza, cigarettes, and whiskey bottle went into the garbage bag she would take away with her.

Up to her elbows in hot sudsy water, Eleanor scrubbed the dishes and the chef’s knife. She was no fool. Anyone who’d seen half as many episodes of Cold Squad as Eleanor had knew you couldn’t get rid of all traces of blood from a weapon. She’d take that with her, too, and get rid of it somewhere else. Lenny had registered at the motel under a false name and paid cash. At least he knew how they could trace your whole life through credit-card receipts.

She was lucky she hadn’t shot Lenny. Apart from the noise, gunpowder residue would be detectable on her hands for at least another day.

“The harder you work, the luckier you get,” her mother would say, and that was as close to humorous as her mother ever got.

Eleanor scrubbed the table, and anywhere on the walls and cupboards and door she might have touched. She scrubbed the tired bathroom and polished it dry. She soaked the towels in the tub and then cleaned that too. The motel room hadn’t been this clean since before Eleanor was born.

But Lenny. He wasn’t big but he was a dead weight and it took a lot of effort just to get him over to the door. There were no other cars anywhere near this wing of the motel and everything outside was dark. Eleanor turned off the lights inside the room and opened the door cautiously.

She was ready to die herself by the time she dragged Lenny around the back. Heaving, she sat down in the scrub grass and rested her head on her arms. Why did the pig have to eat almost the whole pizza? Now he weighed a ton. The tears rolled down her cheeks. She was exhausted from all the cleaning and getting Lenny this far; she just couldn’t drag him any farther. She’d be caught. She might as well call her mother right now. Eleanor moaned. She couldn’t.

It took forever but she finally got Lenny across the field and down to the river. In the dark it oiled past Eleanor, black and dangerous. If this was The Sopranos, of course she’d have cement, but Lenny would just have to sink or swim on his own. Eleanor rolled him in.

She crept back to the room and there it was. The car!

Eleanor was so tired she could hardly think. That’s what always happened to detectives — they got so involved in a case they stayed up all night working it, having insomnia, ruining their personal lives. Eleanor knew just how they felt. But she had to do something with the car.

Eleanor imagined driving the car to her home and slipping it into the garage, she was that bone-tired. But the thought of her mother — “Eleanor Louise, this is totally unacceptable!” — stifled her giggles.