Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

When she was alone, she laid her doll gently on the bed and covered it with a towel. The doll had yellow hair like Miss Williams’, but there was no blood on her bright shining face. We’re all in our places, the song echoed in her head, and Miss Williams’ place had been at the bottom of the school stairs, lying there like a doll somebody had dropped. Rose saw herself standing beside poor Miss Williams, screaming and screaming till the janitor came and then the fourth-grade teacher who was working late. They called an ambulance and Miss Williams was carried away, and the fourth-grade teacher cried. For a while no one noticed Rose at all. When they did remember her, she had already forgotten most of what had happened. It was just there, a shadow behind a curtain, like the magic land her mama had told her not to talk about. And no one but the man here at the hospital asked her to talk about it. She had never told anyone in the whole world that just before the fall her mama had been standing at the top of the stairs with Miss Williams talking talking talking. Pushing. No one else knew. No one else saw. It was a secret forever.

“Here comes your mother, silly baby,” said a voice. It was a mean, jealous voice. No one else’s mother came every single day.

Rose stood up. She ran to the door and into her mother’s arms, as she always did. She bent down to sniff her mama’s elegant scent. Her mama held her a moment and then pushed her away.

“You’re going to ruin my dress, darling,” she said. “Now, tell me how you are feeling today.”

Rose hunched a little so she could look straight into her mama’s eyes. “We’re all in our places with bright shining faces,” she sang happily. She had never sung for her mama before.

Community Effort by Wade Mosby

Steiner was dead, and there were some people who thought this was as it should be. The eulogy was understandably short.

* * *

Nobody, but nobody, worked harder at being an arrogant boor than Philip Steiner III (“call me Phil”), who rode around town in a ragtop Jag (nobody could remember seeing the top up), his stringy hair flapping in the wind and his hi-fi stereo at max volume.

Steiner had a regular box at the baseball park, was overbearingly egocentric at cocktail parties and attended all of the county Republican meetings, although he was never invited. Thanks to an industrious father, he had more money than he could spend. But even so, he refused to contribute to the Community Fund on grounds that the poor didn’t know how to handle money.

The truth was that Steiner could have funded all of the city’s charities for a year if he had just offered his backside as a target in a kicking contest, at about a dollar a kick.

Steiner occasionally sensed that people disliked him, but, being unfamiliar with human insights, he paid no attention to his own. Steiner was handsome, in his own way. His regular features, too early criss-crossed with lines etched by alcohol and varnished by sun and wind, gave him a devilish mask that appealed to some women.

His wife, Carrie, had long since ceased to care. Steiner did as he pleased, and it pleased him to see how many young women in the Community he could defoliate. Carrie’s only feeling toward him was dull hatred. She wanted to end the marriage, but her attorney — who was on Steiner’s payroll — advised against it.

Thus there was shock, but no deep feeling of community loss, when Steiner and his Jag were found at the bottom of a steep embankment early one morning. Both were quite beyond repair.

Deputy Gerald Huber reported to his office that he had come upon the wreckage, one headlight still shining crazily into the leaves above it and the radio still blaring rock ‘n’ roll music on an all-night FM station.

The coroner, Cassius Skates, was awakened by the phone, and after listening to a briefed-down version of Huber’s report, quickly dressed, checked his medical bag and drove to the scene.

Huber was still there, and waved Skates to the shoulder behind his squad car.

“Sorry to get you out, Cass. It’s Phil Steiner. I think he’s dead.”

Skates was a general practitioner who didn’t particularly relish being coroner, especially in cases like this one, but he resolutely picked his way down the rocky hillside. No point in breaking an ankle.

He could hardly recognize Steiner’s gaunt features through the multiple lacerations. The music distracted him, and he switched off the radio and the ignition. Huber should have done that. He examined Steiner’s eyes with his flashlight, and put his fingers to his neck. There was a faint pulse. Skates hesitated for a moment, then scurried back up the hill for his medical kit.

“Dead, ain’t he, Doc?” Huber asked.

“I’m not sure,” Skates replied. “Stay here, Jerry, and keep the other zanies from coming down on my head.”