Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 4, April 1980

“Just the unemployment office. And we’ve got a daughter starting college in another month!”

Fritz Obern was a good and close friend, like Gert. I’d known them since their marriage nearly twenty years ago, and I’d been like an uncle to their kids. Fritz had the appearance of a high school football coach, wearing his hair in a modified brushcut long after the look had gone out of style but in truth he was an accountant and a damned good one. I couldn’t understand Elmbrook Dairy letting him go.

“The whole place is a mess since the merger,” he confided. “I should have seen the writing on the wall, but I didn’t. So I’m forty years old and out of work.”

“Help yourself, lover.”

“You shouldn’t call me that. People will get ideas.” I dug through the lipsticks and chewing gum, past the day’s bank deposit slip from the Liquorium and a key ring with a rabbit’s foot attached. On top of the cigarettes I found a clipping neatly cut from the local newspaper. “What’s this?”

She turned, startled, then smiled when she saw what I held. “Didn’t you see it? I brought it along to show you.”

It was a brief announcement of the fact that Marsha, formerly of Elmbrook, had married her professor in Ann Arbor. “When was this in?”

“Just tonight. You should read the evening paper more closely.”

“Well, I wish her luck.”

“She didn’t waste any time, did she?”

“Not much. The decree was final just last week.”

“So her liberation didn’t last very long.”

I didn’t feel like making small talk about it. “Want a beer before the roast?”

“Can’t. I promised that Walker woman I’d go in the pool with her.”

I glanced around for Fritz but he seemed to be missing. There were some figures silhouetted against the flames out in back but I couldn’t identify them from this distance. Nelse Walker strolled over to watch his wife dive into the pool. In a one-piece bathing suit she was even more dowdy than in slacks, but he didn’t seem to mind. When Barbara appeared, wearing a navy blue tank suit, he asked, “Isn’t that Andy Barron’s wife? The liquor store guy?”

“Something will turn up,” I tried to assure him. “Sooner than you expect.”

“Here’s Barbara Barron,” Helen announced. “But where’s Andy?”

Barbara — tight-jeaned, smiling and sure of herself — shot me a special look reserved for divorced men. “Counting his money. He’ll be along.” Andy owned the town’s only liquor store and it didn’t close till nine. Once or twice when we were going out with them, Marsha and I had waited while he totaled the day’s receipts. On a summer’s weekend like this it could be a sizable amount.

Charles glanced out at the fire. “As soon as the flames die down we can start roasting the hot dogs.”

“How are you, lover?” Barbara asked me. “Enjoying your freedom?”

“Not especially.”

“I’ll bet Marsha’s enjoying hers.”

Mrs. Walker wandered up. “Am I the only one that brought a bathing suit?” she asked again. “I don’t want to go in the pool alone.”

Barbara winked at me. “I’ll go in with you. Helen, have you still got that old suit that fits me?”

Helen nodded. “It’s hanging up in the changing room.”

“Come talk to me while I change,” Barbara said to me.

“No thanks.” I patted her oversized white purse. “Got any cigarettes in there?”

“Sure. I thought you’d been introduced.”

“I didn’t catch the name, but I remember seeing her around the store. Where’s he?”

He glanced around to make sure he couldn’t be overheard and said. “I happened in there one day and Andy was fooling around with someone in the back room.”

“Oh?”

He glanced around again. “I think it was Helen.”

“Helen Riggs?” I looked around for our hostess, but I didn’t see her anywhere. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“It was probably all innocent,” he admitted, backtracking a bit.

Barbara picked that minute to dive into the pool, splattering us both. She surfaced smiling and said, “Hope I didn’t get you boys wet.”

“Not at all.” I wiped myself off with a handy napkin and drifted out toward the fire, leaving Nelse Walker to contemplate the ample flesh of his wife.

Gert and Sally Tern were helping with the fire, but there was still no sign of Fritz. I steered clear of another encounter with Sally and joined Charles instead. He’d assembled ten long sticks for the hot dogs and was beginning to pass them out. Fritz Obern appeared from somewhere then and I decided he’d been off by himself brooding about the lost job. “What’s this party for, anyway?” he asked Charles.

Our host shrugged. “Midsummer night, maybe. It’s July 31st. Isn’t that midsummer night, when people dance around fires?”

Because I knew a little about such things I answered, “Not exactly. Midsummer day is traditionally June 24th, which is just after the beginning of summer. At least that’s what it is in England. But people do dance around the fires tonight, or at least witches do — July 31 is the eve of Lammas, one of the four witches’ Sabbaths, like Halloween.”

Fritz snorted. “I know you don’t believe that garbage, Mark.”