Mothers day

 

Detective Orr barreled out of interview room B with her shoulders up around her ears.  “She’s asking for a priest,” Orr said, plunking her nearly empty cup on the call desk. 

“A priest?” the desk guy was still keyed up, it’s not every day a woman staggers through the precinct doors on a Sunday morning saying she killed her own daughter. “Do we do that? Get priests or whatever?” he had never heard of someone asking. As she stood there drumming her fingers on the counter, he watched Orr’s jaw working, furiously chewing ice. She’d gone through three large coffees during her interview with the confessed murderer, sending runners out to Dunkin every 20 minutes, scurrying because you did not want to keep Detective Eileen Orr waiting when she was running hot.

“She has the right to an attorney. I don’t know the policy on religious council. If she wants to make her confession to God, I don’t think I can stop her. She ought to try to give Him the same pile of poo she just handed me.” 

“Poo?” the guy remarked. 

“I got a note from HR about my language around the kids. I’m trying to be more of a lady. Professional.”

“How’s that going?”

“Fuck yourself. That’s how. Get the fake killer a priest.”  Eileen did not appreciate having her time wasted. Abigail Monty-- pretty, articulate, well dressed—had spent the better part of an hour lying out of both sides of her lovely mouth, concocting a story that only a rookie might fall for: 

 

Abigail walks in on her husband, he’s kissing her own daughter, a heated argument blows up, somehow a gun comes out of nowhere, a struggle, gun goes off 

 

 Abigail told it all. She cried.  She sobbed. Right on cue. Put on quite a show. But she was a liar. The worst kind. She’d looked Orr right in the eye and told a tale.  Whoever shot Miss Cockburn, the gun was right up against her head, close enough to scorch the skin. One clean shot. Not the scramble Mrs. Monty was trying to cook up.

 

The various other tenants of Rose Hill, where the body had been found just a few hours ago, were coming in to make their statements. Eileen eyed them with more interest, now that she was back to square one, she needed a murderer. 

The Krantz woman was an easy out. Look at her. You’d see her coming a mile away. 

 Andy Li didn’t have the requisite temperament. She could not picture that chess player shooting the girl at the Langdon, much less dragging her corpse all the way to the lobby at Rose Hill. No upper body strength to speak of. 

And, why in the first place would anyone move the body?  Unnecessary. Why go to the extra risk? Orr chewed on this a while. 

 

The humming wall clock was going on 8:11 when she scanned the printout of the Rose Hill Apartment Building cast of characters:

A couple on the third floor, neighbors of Mr. Li, a pair of retired doctors who were on vacation up in Maine.

The deceased and Krantz  on the second. 

The other apartment on the first floor was currently vacant. 

That left Arthur Shaw, who was just now waltzing through the glass door, coming in with a short fellow, the two were laughing like they were off to see a parade. 

 

His mouth snapped shut when he felt again the cold gaze of Detective Eileen Orr. 

 

Shaw and Peter Kaye sat on hard chairs in and area just by the desk, a kind of exile, a limbo place. “So that’s her,” said Peter, admiring the formidable Detective. She was everything he had hoped. Up close she was magnificent.

“I know,” agreed Shaw, who still held on to his proprietary feelings toward her, having met her first. “She’s very sharp,” he added, as if this insight furthered his foreknowledge. Even now he was not aware that he might be in any real danger. She was doing her job, being thorough. He assumed a suitably serious expression, held his hands in his lap, and sat up straight. 

Maxim Monty walked out of one of the interview rooms, his sleepless eyes red from weeping. It was criminal, that he was still the most handsome man in the room. He was shown to another chair in limbo row, told to wait. When he saw the two men he nodded, but as soon as he sat down Max Monty shook with tears, his face collapsed in grief. Shaw made a glance at Peter, unsure of what to do. Such displays of straight male fragility made him anxious. in any other case he might offer a hug, a shoulder to cry on, he might weep out of commiseration, but he decided he didn’t like Monty much, so kept his hands folded and his eyes on the shoe scuffed floor. 

Peter Kaye entertained himself by looking at all the uniformed men, watching the activity of the department with avid interest. 

 

An officer chatted with the desk guy, he leaned with an elbow on the counter. Peter gave a little cough of appreciation. Michelangelo could not have done better, for here was a perfect David in precinct 23. 

“What’s going on?” asked the David.

“Orr is on my ass to find a priest,” said desk guy. 

“A priest?”

“The lady who made the confession. Shot her daughter. She wants to see a priest.”

“Sucks.”

“What, do I just Google it, or?” 

“I guess. You could call a church? But Sunday? It’s like their busiest day.” David sauntered off to impart further wisdom over by the call center where there was a dispatch operator he was keen on. 

Shaw shot up from his chair. “I’m a priest!”

Peter Kaye laughed.

“I mean, I’m a man of the cloth,” Shaw said. “An ordained minister.” He went on a little too long about how he had officiated at his friend Nicole’s wedding to Janice, his hand was reaching for his wallet in his back pocket to produce his credentials, he had an official card, laminated and everything, but the young man waved him off. 

“You don’t look like any minister,” said the guy.

“I’m a Unitarian. We look like regular people.”

“Unitarian? What, is that like Presbyterians?

“More like Congregationalists,” said Shaw. 

“With worse haircuts” Peter chimed in. 

 

The young officer was stumped. Orr demanded a priest. She was off in the records room and hadn’t said a word about what to do about these folks in chairs, he assumed they were waiting to give routine witness statements, like the other tenants. A minister would have to do. “I guess it’s ok.” Who knows, he might even get a smile out of old Hawk Eye from Homicide.

 

Peter whispered: “We don’t know anyone named Nicole. Or Janice.”

“No. And if he asked to see my proof, he’d have seen my library card expired two years ago.”

“I am impressed,” said Peter. 

 

Abigail Monty sat in a small square room, her hands nervously moving, the ring on her left third finger tapping the table.  When the door opened, she had expected to see that Detective Orr, whom she had a sinking feeling did not believe her. Abigail was steeling herself for another round of re-telling her story, the story she had already told four, five times, never varying by so much as a word, realizing too late that was exactly what made her story unbelievable. Rehearsed. Obvious. She only hoped that Monty had kept to his part of the script.

 Abigail’s back stiffened, each vertebra of her spine pressed into the flat back of her seat 

“It’s you,” she said, as Shaw was being let into the room. “What?—" 

Shaw pulled out a chair, it scraped along the linoleum floor. For a while they sat silently regarding each other across the table. She fiddled with the chain around her neck.

“Abigail,” he began, his open hands in front of him. “I’m here for you. Peter too. Of course. We don’t believe for a minute that you could have done this.”

Relief overwhelmed her. For the first time that morning, a sad smile played across her face. Someone was in her corner. This man with the kind eyes and a tiny moth hole in the sleeve of his sweater. 

“Can I get you anything?” Shaw asked.

More than anything, she craved a cigarette. She wanted a deep lungful of mentholated chemicals and nicotine. She wanted out of this windowless box of a room, to feel the spring sunlight. Abigail wanted this to be over. Then she remembered Penelope, remembered why she was here. The smile died on her lips. “It’s all my fault,” she said, “—all of it. Everything. It’s all my fault.”

 

Max Monty’s sobs ebbed. He rubbed his eyes. “This is a terrible tragedy,” he said to Peter Kaye. 

Peter could not help but think that some of the blame for said tragedy lay at Monty’s well shod feet. “Were you having an affair with the girl?” Might as well get right to it. 

Monty winced. He’d already had to answer this question several times in the last few hours. “Yes,” he said, with an outtake of breath. 

“How long?”

“A year, after her 18^th birthday. I swear—”

Peter decided he didn’t like Maxim Monty much, either. He looked the man over, askance, nonchalant. There was something unsettling about the deep cleft in his chin, where the angels kissed him the day he was born. History is rife with handsome faces and the havoc they wrought. That might explain why Abigail was doing this nonsensical thing. He asked, point blank: “Did you kill Poppy?”

Fresh tears sprang easily, streaking those chiseled cheeks. “No.”

“Did you love her?”

More tears. The scoundrel’s shoulders heaved. 

 

“What happened?” Shaw asked. “Do you want to tell me?”

 She did. She was ready. “My daughter is an innocent. A good girl.”

“Last night---"

“He seduced her—” it was out. Abigail hesitated, swallowing, watching his face, willing him to respond. She allowed a single tear to trace its course down her grave face.

Peter sighed. His hand reached out, clasped hers. 

“I met Max when I was at a low point in my life. The lowest. You’ve seen him. He’s beautiful.”

“Handsome is as handsome does, my nana always said.”

“Mine too. Maybe I should have listened to my grandma.”

He laughed. 

For the second time that morning, Abigail smiled. “You wouldn’t happen to have another mint, would you?”

 

No matter how Peter Kaye tried to position himself, legs crossed, uncrossed, this way, that way, he could not make himself fit into the unyielding wood and metal of the chair from purgatory. Monty’s elegant slimness irritated him. More to the point, he was not convinced that Monty hadn’t pulled the trigger. In fact, as the moments ticked away, he became more convinced. “Where did the gun come from?” This was something that had been bothering him.

“Hmm?” Maxim was looking sullenly at nothing.

“The gun? The murder weapon? Was it yours?” 

“No. Abigail hates them. She’d never let me have one in the house. The gun belonged to Poppy. I know. I bought it for her.”

“You bought it for her?”

“It was a gift. For her birthday. Last year. She needed protection.”

“Protection?”

“The security in that building she was living in. Complete joke. Anybody could’ve gotten in the place with a popsicle stick. For her safety, she needed a reliable firearm.”

“That turned out well.”

Monty nodded. “I guess you think I’m responsible?”

“You’re connected to the gun. You two were caught having an affair. And it must be noted that you, sir, are far too good looking. “

“Is that a crime?”

“In your case, the jury is still out. One wouldn’t need much imagination to see you killing someone though.”

“I suppose not.” Monty’s shrug was a feint at casual ease, but Peter was sure he saw real wrath flicker across that face. Max was daring him to go on.

Peter might now be sitting this close to an actual killer. The hum of the busy police station throbbed into his awareness again, and he forced himself to relax into the unforgiving chair while he puzzled this out.  

 

Orr shot out of the records department, a manilla folder in her hand and a text on her phone from one of the uniforms posted at the Langdon School. If she could have skipped, she would have. It tickled her, thinking how the kiddos at their desks would drop dead if she did a Dorothy right here. Ease on down the road. She gave that knobby kid from Charlestown a hard look, savoring the panic it caused. That would have to do. 

 

The front desk guy was sweating over a Sudoku, but he snapped to full attention when Detective Orr stood in front of him. 

“Where is the guy from the apartment building? Number 2?” Orr was pointing to the empty chair next to Peter Kaye. “He was sitting right there. I leave you alone for ten minutes. I should get you a babysitter.”

 The guy had zero to say for himself. Pathetic. It wasn’t much fun making him squirm.

All he could do was nod toward Interview room B. 

 

Peter Kaye watched her stride across the floor. Almost balletic. If he didn’t know better, he might have sworn she just did a little hopping skip. 

 

Detective Orr banged through the door. Abigail and Shaw were like two kids caught by the head nun. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “Neither of you should be talking to the other until we clear you. Until I clear you. Do you understand?”

They looked at her, two pairs of wide eyes blinked in the harsh white glare of the buzzing overhead light. Now that she had their attention, she could ease into it. 

She tossed the folder on the table.

Placed her phone on top of it.

 Sat down.

Abigail made herself return the other woman’s steady gaze, but her eyes could not stop glancing back at that folder. 

“No more make believe, Mrs. Monty. Let’s start over nice and fresh. You were trying to convince me earlier that you somehow shot and killed your daughter Penelope. I know that’s not true.”

This was her last stand. “I don’t care what you think. Or what the law says. I am bound by a Higher Law. In His eyes I am guilty.”

Orr had to appreciate the sheer moxie of the woman. “Do you want this to continue, in front of Mr. Shaw?” 

“Let him stay,” Abigail said. “I need a friend right now.” 

Shaw again clasped her hand, held it. 

“How cozy,” said the detective. “While you two were having this unlawful little tea party I took the liberty of looking you up, Mr. Arthur Shaw. Incidentally, you were, for a while, my favorite suspect in this little caper.”

“Me?” Shaw beamed like a chump. Then the gravity of the situation fell on him with a thud. This was murder. Poppy’s dead body had been found just a few feet away from his own front door. And everyone saw how mad he’d been when she was so rude, so nasty, she really was a terrible little-- “I mean—"

Eileen was sorry she wasn’t going to spend much more time with this one, he’d be endless fun to keep dangling. “Relax. You’re absurdly clean.” She opened the folder, for effect. “There’s not much here.  Nothing that screams Killer. One notable arrest. You were part of a protest that got a little rowdy back in 1994. Handcuffed yourself to an officer of the law.”

“That’s right—” he looked at her as if she were a conjurer who’d unbottled a long forgotten scent of a hundred years ago, like the China Rain they all wore back then, back in his Queer Nation days of marches and anarchy and rage and clove cigarettes. Once, he’d been a young rebel. “I don’t regret it,” he said. 

“Good for you. Chalk it up to youth.” She closed the folder. “Aside from that, nothing. Except your library card expired in 2021.”

“Do I pay a fine, or—”

“It’s not a police matter. Take it up with your local branch.” 

“So now?”

Orr sat back. “So now, sir, I basically have nothing further to do here. I’m going to finish up the paperwork and get myself home, maybe have some pancakes with my wife. Because I’m a homicide detective. And this was no homicide.”

Shaw looked over at Abigail. “I’m confused. Abigail, tell her. Tell her about Monty. Tell her—”

“Hold up,” Detective Orr said. “Is she going to now try to say that her husband did it? knowing I wasn’t buying her tall tale ‘confession’, she’s going to shift gears? And she’s even got you so wrapped around her pinky finger you’re going to go to bat for her?”

“No one needs to bat for me.” Abigail said. “I am responsible. I should have stopped it. I shouldn’t have let him—" Abigail’s voice broke off. 

Orr held up her hand. “Nice try.”

Shaw said, “If this wasn’t a murder, then—"

“Please don’t,” Abigail had real tears now, streaming down her face. “Please. Don’t say it.” 

But the detective had already pulled up the latest text images on her phone. 

 

Maxim Monty could feel eyes burning into his skin Nothing was less nonchalant than Peter Kaye trying to be nonchalant. Monty was used to it. People thinking the worst of him. Just because he looked the way he did, he must be a cad, or worse, a killer. What no one ever thought, what no one might ever have guessed—he loved his wife. Always. Any tears he had shed over this matter was for the pain she must be going through, and he decided he’d had enough. He wasn’t going to let this affair ruin their life together, nor would he allow her to throw herself to the wolves for that little runt Poppy. He was done playing. “Mr. Kaye,” said Monty, “I know your friend thinks he saw the girl and I in a moment of indiscretion---”

“You were having a sexual relationship with the girl, Poppy, your stepdaughter.”

Monty made a face. “Yes. But—”

“But? You got caught?”

“What Mr. Shaw witnessed in the theater last night between me and Penelope wasn’t a love scene. It was a breakup.”

“She dumped you. Good. And then, you killed her?”

Monty had done a lot of things, but he wasn’t about to continue this ruse. “I was trying to leave her. I’d been trying for some weeks. She was becoming possessive. We had an understanding, she crossed the line, demanding, pushing me to leave Abigail. I told her I had no intention of ending my marriage. And certainly not for a little tap dancer. That night, we had it out one last time. She wouldn’t get it through her head—”

“A bullet went through her head,” Peter Kaye said.  

“That’s enough,” his voice rose above the soothing drawl he usually used in public.

 If Peter Kaye was smart, he’d stop talking right about now. “So what did happen?” he asked, leaning in closer.

Monty returned the rapt gaze with frank irritation. “I tried to tell the kid the simple facts of life. She carried on, went hysterical. I left the room and never saw her alive again after that crazy last performance.”

“Why is Abigail in there making a confession when you and I both know she didn’t shoot Poppy?’

            “A mother will do anything to protect her child—” Realizing he’d said too much, Monty stopped, his lips pressed together in a grim line.

 

Shaw was thinking how strange it was that only last night they had all sat together in the dark theater, and here they were again. Last night they were in the audience while Poppy was on stage living out her last hour of life. Now, four chairs were crammed around the table in the small square room, as Abigail told them what happened in that terrible dark aftermath. 

Monty sat rubbing his hands together.

Peter was in rapt attention, he was still watching a play.

To him this was entertainment, but Shaw had to admit that he himself was saddened by the whole mess, the ugliness of it. While Abigail told them how it all began, he could not help but feel the waste and the loss of a young life taken too soon. A hint of that youthful rebel anger shivered through him. He had survived while a generation of men died, and even now all these years later he could almost taste the tang of fury at the back of his throat. Senseless deaths. Poppy was just a kid, too.

“Penelope had emotional issues,” Abigail said in a flat tone. She was exhausted, glad that the whole thing was almost over. “Things began when she was just a child. In school. With the other kids. They called her a bully. I had to take her out of regular classes. We went to psychiatrists, therapists, social workers. My then husband Burt and I took her to a special program for a while. She had the best of them, the best money could buy.” She stopped, thought for a moment, maybe she had said too much already. 

No one said a word. 

“Burt got fed up. He felt we were spending too much on our daughter’s well being, that it was a waste of money because she was just born bad. He actually said that. He didn’t think she’d ever get better because she didn’t want to get better, and why should she as long as she had her mother’s tit? That’s what Burt said, not me,” Abigail wanted to clarify the point, that Burt resented his own child, and like a man just walked away, dropped the whole thing back in her lap to do her best, and he never missed an opportunity to let her know she was only screwing up Poppy worse than she’d be if they’d left her at The Walker School, that expensive glorified juvenile detention facility. She wanted to say all of it, but of course, never would. Some things she would keep to herself. The secret, the shame, died with Penelope. She shrugged, eliding past that history. “My daughter was ill. I didn’t want to accept it. That’s my fault. She was in pain. I should have seen. I should have—"

Her daughter had committed the most mortal of sins. She looked up, at all of them looking back at her, and she could not bear the pity she saw in their eyes.  

Except Detective Orr, who was leaning up against the wall, arms crossed against her chest. Her eyes were closed, as if she was trying not to hear. She was thinking about a grave in Saint Anne’s Cemetery that doesn’t have a headstone. Three years later. Her mother had left a note, too. 

 

Orr’s phone still held the image. 

A Mother’s Day card. 

Poppy’s last words, written in a childish hand:

 

Don’t pray for me. It’s too late.

 

Monty broke the silence. “It was my idea to move the body. Stupid, I know. I thought it would confuse things. Create a distraction.”

Shaw sniffed.

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” said Abigail. “I didn’t know at the time it was your door.”

“We wanted to make it look like a murder—we didn’t want anyone to think—“

Detective Orr shook off her funk. “What you did was tamper with evidence. You will likely be booked for obstruction, and a few other charges related to the illegal handling of a body.” In a softer tone she hoped conveyed the compassion she felt, she said: “I’m sorry.”

Monty’s hand reached for Abigail’s.

 

            Peter Kaye and Shaw stood on the steps of the precinct. They breathed in the damp spring air that smelled of the sea, and rain on the way. 

            “Is it really only 10 o’clock?”

            Shaw nodded. 

            “I’m not usually up for another hour,” Peter fussed. “What do people do on a Sunday morning, so early? It’s too early for a mimosa.”

            “Some go to church.”

            “Just because you played at being a minister for an hour, you have a sudden spark of religious ideation?”

            “When was the last time you were in a church?” Shaw nudged him. 

            “I was baptized on May 17^th, in the year of our Lord nineteen-hundred and sixty-five. Rumor has it the priest burst into flames immediately after.”

            “Do you ever think that we have so much to be grateful for? To be alive? Free? Did you ever think when we were in our 20’s that we would have the lives we live now? Did you even think we might be alive at all?”

            “No.” Peter dropped his usual act. “Honestly? Just us two girlfriends with our hair down? Everybody else was dying. Every day. I never thought I would live past 35.”

            “Me too.”

            “That’s the burden of our generation. Surviving.”

            “Poppy. She was just a child. No matter what else she was, she was suffering—”

            “Fine. I’ll go to Church with you. We’ll light a candle. I’lll sit next to you in a pew, and we will sing the hymns and kneel. But after that. We are going for mimosas.”

            “Will you really sing?”

            “Absolutely not.”

            And they laughed. 

            Then Peter said, “What do you make of Abigail? You think she’ll stay with Monty? I was convinced he was the killer right up until the end.”

            “Handsome is as handsome does,” said Shaw, thinking about the way Abigail had smiled, and the look on her face when she said Monty’s name. 

            “And I suppose, he does quite well—”

            

Their ride pulled up to the curb.  Shaw looked back at the flat gray building where they’d spent the last few hours. As much as he was happy to be out, a part of him wanted to linger, he wanted to see Detective Orr one last time. He wanted to tell her the story of the time he handcuffed himself to a police officer a hundred years ago.

            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The body in the lobby

 

That morning, a lovely fresh Sunday, the body of Poppy Cockburn lay in a heap of rumpled tulle on the checkerboard floor in the lobby of the Rose Hill apartments. Her pale powdered skin scorched around the neat bullet hole in her left temple.   

 

First arriving on the scene at 5:38 a.m., Officer Edward J. Eager began initial questioning of those present while the immediate area surrounding the body was processed. It was an “Only Murders in the Building” situation, he could figure that out at first glance--body in the lobby, stands to reason they were killed here, by someone also in the near area--the tenants of Rose Hill were all to be considered suspects. To shoot at point blank range, you’d have to move in real close, the killer would have to be someone the victim knew, someone maybe she might have seen every day. A neighbor. 

In his eighteen months with the force, Eager had learned to pay close attention to the first bystander to come forward. There is something psychologically dark about some people, they call 911, they hang close to the action, they offer to be part of the process. The officer took careful notes as he questioned Andy Li who had reportedly discovered the body of the young woman when he was taking his dog out for a morning walk. He had called it in to emergency dispatch at 5:17 am. 

There was a lot of fuss getting the dog to shut up, until she was brought upstairs. Mr Li was far more emotional over his pet’s trauma, than he was for his neighbor who lay dead just a few feet away. The man was stone cold as he reiterated the facts: 

“I came down the stairs, ChiChi started to bark, we saw Poppy sprawled out there in front of Arthur Shaw’s door,” even as he pointed toward the deceased, he did not register the least distress, and Eager could easily imagine a gun in the man’s outstretched hand, unshaking, steady. 

Officer Edward J. Eager stood expressionless; his pen poised over his notepad.

Andy nodded to the corpse, “she was kind of arranged there, it didn’t seem normal—”

“Arranged?” repeated the officer. 

“Like someone placed her there, it didn’t look like she just kind of, fell there or—”

“Someone?” 

“Whoever did it?” Andy Li was not the least aware of how intently he was being studied. 

 

Another tenant, who identified herself as Mrs. Rhoda Krantz, widow, residing in apartment 24, responded to the apparent noise created by the dog on finding the deceased, “I sleep with one ear open,” she had said, and she too was there when the first responders arrived. Officer Eager noticed her tightly curled head of blonde hair was an obvious wig set at a haphazard angle, her ratty robe misbuttoned over a long nightgown like she put both on in a big rush. The officer recognized Mrs. Krantz as the other kind of person who invariably shows up at a crime scene- the ones who love the excitement. She had plenty to say about how just yesterday the deceased had maliciously kicked Mr Li’s dog, and how it caused a big to do. Everything she said just dug Mr Li in even deeper for Officer Eager, but the kid didn’t bat an eye even when Mrs. Krantz asked him bluntly: “Did you do it?” She wagged a finger in Andy’s face, “Shoot her?” The finger was a crooked gun pointing at him. “Pow. Pow.”

Andy laughed. “You crazy kook. Oh. My. God.”

Officer Eager jumped in, “We can take a more formal report at the precinct, if you’d like to make a statement.”

The young man scoffed. “I don’t go around killing mean girls who think they’re princesses. I have an actual job.  I’ve never even touched a gun. I’m against them—” the look of disgust on his face at the idea seemed genuine to the officer. “I went down to the precinct right after Poppy assaulted my dog, when she hurt my girl, there’s a report already filed from yesterday morning, see for yourself,” this he said directly to Eager. “That’s what a normal person does when something like that happens. You don’t go around shooting people. This is Cambridge.” Mr Li tugged on his Harvard Chess Club sleeveless T shirt as if emphasizing the ridiculous idea that anyone could be murdered so close to the gated hallowed halls of academia, but even a young policeman knows that this kind of thing happens every day, everywhere. Even Harvard Chessmen do it. Still, Eager made note to check on that report when he got back to the department.  

“You should talk to that one,” Rhoda Krantz said with a nod toward apartment 2. The body was just a few steps away. “That Shaw fellow. Him and his fat little friend started it all by beating on her door yesterday complaining about the noise she was making with the tap tap tap. He was hopping mad she told him to go pound sand. Now. Kaput.” Mrs. Krantz shrugged with a worldly weariness suggesting it was just a matter of time before someone knocked off the dead stage dancer whom she summed up as “a real pip.” 

 

So far, no one had shed a tear for Poppy Cockburn.

 

Shaw came to the door pulling his old blue sweater over the T shirt he’d slept in and zipping up his jeans. He was still in an Ambien haze, and his glasses were opaque with smudges, he gradually took in the solid bulk of officer Eager, the young man’s square face, but he could not understand why he should have been woken up so abruptly, why the series of officious knocks, why Andy Li was standing there, and Rhoda, why there were people in uniform acting busy, hovering just outside his front door.

“Mr Arthur Shaw?” said the officer.

“That’s him,” Rhoda said from where she stood by the stairs. The show was just getting interesting, and she was thoroughly enjoying herself. “That’s the one,” she said. This was better than Mannix.

Just now ChiChi’s disconsolate crying bark from upstairs echoed throughout the lobby—a keening mournful sob—and then he saw.

 

A small foot. A tap shoe. The white dress.

 

A discarded doll, dressed in her favorite party frock, left here on the cold tiled floor. That face. Even in death, Poppy Cockburn seemed to sneer, as if someone had made a mistake and she wanted to see the manager over it. He felt a heaviness, there was something so cold blooded about that clean hole in her head. 

The police were taking pictures, measuring out tape to cordon off the area, collecting fibers and prints. There was a policeman at his very door, looking at him. He shivered and tasted a metallic tang at the back of his throat. 

Officer Eager asked him the usual questions regarding whereabouts and movements. There was little to tell. After last night’s show at the Langdon, he and Peter Kaye had gone to the Eliott for the usual nightcap, they went their separate ways, and Shaw was blissfully in a medicated doze by 10:30 or so. No, he hadn’t heard anything. He slept like the dead, he said, then regretted his choice of words. Yes, there had been an altercation yesterday, there had been ongoing tension with his upstairs neighbor, but--- Eager took notes, considering that the body being found literally on the man’s threshold did not look good for him. Mr. Shaw was maybe older than the typical shooter, Eager knew the stats--young men 17-35 were most likely to commit homicide by firearm—and Shaw did not look like someone prone to violence as he stood there, blinking behind his glasses—that did not mean he wasn’t capable of anger. What Officer Eager was not sure of, was whether this guy could blow with the kind of rage that puts a bullet in someone. He was muddling this thought as he listened. For his money that young  Harvard kid was suspect numero uno, he fit the profile, but Mr. Arthur Shaw could be in the running. Just then he saw his supervisor coming through the lobby door, she was waving him over. “Stick around,” he told Shaw, “I’ll probably have a few more questions for you.”

Shaw exhaled. 

Rhoda Krantz deflated audibly. The anticlimax of the moment left her itching for something to happen. 

 

Homicide Detective Eileen Orr looked like she had just been called out of a warm bed, which she had. Not twenty minutes ago, she was snug next to Angie and the pugs. Her face still  creased from the buckwheat pillow which was supposed to be good for her neck but wasn’t. She had a coffee for Edward Eager, his usual regular light with seven sugars, she got her iced, extra ice and two Splendas. “Stopped at Dunks when I heard you were still on shift,” she handed him his cup. “You must be wiped out.” 

 “I’m clocking out at 7 and hitting my bed hard. But I can’t forget to pick up a card for Kelly, she’ll kill me if I don’t.”

“You kids have a fight? Is it your anniversary already?”

“Ei, it’s Mother’s Day,” he stopped in mid sip. “Jeez. Ei. Detective Orr. I’m sorry. I—you know how I am—”

            “It’s ok. Relax Teddy. It’s fine. Can you believe it’s going on 3 years?”

            “No shit.”

            “I know. Ange’s been on me to take her to Saint Bernadette’s, visit the grave. She keeps saying it’s about fuckin’ time my wife meets my mother.”  This was the joke Eileen always had ready in her pocket, whenever the subject of mom came up. Keep it light and keep it moving. Change the subject. “Kelly’s first Mother’s Day, you better not forget a card. Maybe get some gas station roses, you cheap wad” Eileen took a gulp of her coffee, good and cold going down, her brain hummed to life, synapses fired up. Time to work. 

 

She was looking over at the deceased, who was waiting on the city coroner to officially pronounce her dead. Teddy--Officer Eager she should call him at work--filled her in on his initial thoughts in a low undertone. True to form, he always went for the first person he questioned. He was convinced this was like some Netflix series scenario, one of the tenants, one of these sad characters standing around the lobby probably did it, but Officer Eager was plugging for the young guy in the T shirt and flip flops. Andy Li did not look like a kid who had ever even held a firearm to her, much less handle the recoil from the gun that did this. 

Eileen wasn’t really listening. Her senses keyed to the body on the floor, something not right. She noticed blades of grass, dirt stains, on the soles of the tap shoes, on the dress, grass and earth in her hair. Aside from that, the body was oddly clean. No blood. A shooting like this would have been a messy scene. The victim lay as if put to sleep, tucked into bed by a doting parent, with her arms neatly by her sides. 

 

Homicide Detective Orr noticed one of the tenants, the older gentleman in the baggy pants, who was also studying the body with the same intense focus as she was, he eyed the scene with a clinical attention. She nudged Eager. “This one seems more than the usual lookie-loo. What’s his story?”

“Arthur Shaw. Apartment 2. Had a run in with the deceased yesterday over noise she was causing. The old nut in the janky wig had a lot to say about it.”

“She would,” Eileen laughed, spotting Rhoda Krantz as a classic turd-stirrer, there was one at every scene. She walked up to the man in the blue sweater. 

Shaw recognized her as the Detective who had testified at the trial of the cardiologist that poisoned his wife. Peter Kaye and Shaw attended the trial, followed it with great interest. Orr’s statements on the stand succinctly tied together the evidence that helped convict the murderer. 

 

A competitive, venal thrill went through him at the thought--how Peter Kaye would writhe when he was told he’d missed out on meeting their hero. For once, Shaw had the edge. Wuss no more.

 

“Mr. Shaw?” Orr said, a smile on her face though her eyes showed she was all business, not interested in any foolishness. 

He did not notice. He went right into it, a true fan,  going on about how he’d been there that night at the Eliott when Mrs. Pappas collapsed, how he and his friend Peter had thought she had been poisoned, how Peter figured it was likely the husband.

Eileen heard that Mr. Shaw was another type that always insinuates themselves in a murder case: the wanna be amateur. They listen to true crime podcasts, read mysteries with their book clubs, they have theories. Annoying. For now, he was still a potential suspect in this soup, and she knew enough to let him talk. If he was full of shit, no harm done. If he was the killer, he would be the kind who thinks he’s so much smarter than anybody else, he’d want to show off just how smart he was, he’d go out of his way with his “helping the investigation” and eventually hoist his own petard. They always do. 

Shaw marched in head first, completely unaware, in his mind already re-telling the moment to an envious Peter Kaye about how nice that Detective Orr was, really, one on one, once you get past that gruff exterior. He ticked off on his fingers things that he had observed: “one, the lack of blood at the supposed place where the shooting happened, an injury of that sort would surely have left a sizeable swath of  blood and brain matter and bone fragments.; two, the grass stains on her dress, the grass in her hair; three, the way she was positioned, unnaturally.” All of these led up to his over-arching thesis : “Poppy wasn’t shot here. The murder happened somewhere else, and for some reason brought here.” Shaw allowed himself a moment of smug bravado.

 

The fact that each of his points matched her own gave Orr something to gnaw on. Either the man was a smartie, or he was a smartie who killed someone. It bothered her that the body would be left here, drawing attention to Shaw, and if he did it, it wouldn’t make sense he’d be so dumb as to leave his crime at his own doorstep---unless he was so smart he’d figured on everyone else being dumb—it was feasible in her head either way. What was apparent was that Shaw’s conclusion, that the murder was committed elsewhere, and for some unknown reason brought here, posed here, that had her chewing her ice chips. She ordered Officer Eager to have a look-see around the building, outside, get a few of the idling officers on it, now. Please. She was a little irritated this was not already being done, pretty basic procedure, but she decided to not give Teddy a rough time. Not on Kelly’s first Mother’s Day. 

“What are you looking for?” Officer Eager asked. 

“Whatever you find.” She sipped the last of her coffee, her eyes looking over the cup at Shaw who was starting to come to the unsettling realization that he was in her sights much like a mouse is with a hawk. He never felt more like a wuss in his entire life.

 

When Eager returned, he’d seen clear signs in the damp grass, the flower bed was trampled—everything led to the back of the Langdon School. Whoever killed Poppy Cockburn likely carried or dragged her body through the lawn,  to a back door of the apartment building that had a wonky latch--Eager made a mental note to cite the Rose Hill building management for its egregious lack of security-- he’d left a couple uniforms at the site to continue investigating. 

 

But even as he was telling Eileen, he felt that something had changed. In the few minutes it had taken him to go and come back, something happened, she must have had a phone call, she was still holding it in her hand. “What?” he asked. 

“There’s been a confession.”

“No sir!”

“Just heard from desk officer. Someone walked in, gave a full confession,” Detective Orr could not help but feel a bit cheated, she was just getting into this one-- and now, case closed. Nothing left but paperwork. “Get the team going, hustle all these folks to the station so we can get formal statements.”

“Who was it?” Eager was also disappointed. 

Eileen leaned in close enough to see the kid needed a shave, and a shower, and a breath mint wouldn’t hurt. “Keep it under your hat until we get to the office,” she made him promise.

“Come on. Who?”

“The mother. The girl was shot by her own mother.”

“Jeez.”

 

Peter Kaye was also jarred awake by a knocking on his door. He slept nude, which isn’t important, but it did take him a while to find something suitable to wear, which took some minutes, all the while an energetic pounding on his door. He was tying the belt of a silk robe around his ample waist, when he discovered an excited Shaw on his doorstep.

            “Poppy’s dead. Shot,” Shaw’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. “I have a Lyft waiting to go to the police station. I might be a suspect!

            Both men laughed at the idea of Arthur Shaw killing anyone. “That’s preposterous,” Peter led his friend to his usual seat on a low divan, “Give me five minutes to get dressed,” he said. Out of habit, he poured a hefty Amaro at the bar cart and handed it to his guest.

            “It’s 7 o’clock in the morning,” Shaw said.

            “Give it back then. I’ll brush my teeth with it. Waste not, want not.” Peter headed to his room, leaving the door open so he could hear. “Tell me everything.”

            “For one thing, I met that Detective, the one from the trial. She’s a real pistol. I thought for a minute she would cuff me right on the spot. But I overheard. She got a call. Someone confessed. You’ll never believe--”

            “Who?” Peter said from his closet.

            “Abigail. The mother. I can’t picture her doing it, but there was that affair with her husband. Do you think—”

            Peter stopped buttoning his shirt. He thought about Abigail. Her laugh. Her long dress grazing the damp grass. The glittering crucifix she wore. No. She didn’t do it. Couldn’t have. Could she? “Arthur. Slow down. I need you to slow down, tell me. Every detail you can remember. Start at the beginning.”

 

            The scene at Rose Hill was done. The body was en route to the medical examiner’s office. The tenants were asked to come to the station for interviews. The lobby empty, quiet, except for ChiChi’s lonely crying from the third floor. 

 

Detective Orr offered to ride Officer Eager over. 

While they were buckling up, Eager sighed and said he felt a little letdown. “You know how it is.”

She did. “Maybe we got a false confession this time. Sometimes they’re covering for someone else.  That happens a lot more than people think. A lot of times. People come out of the muck. Crackpots. Maybe she’s one of those.”

“Her own mother,” Eager said. “Can you imagine? Your own mother doing something like that?”

Eileen swore at the problematic stick, jammed it into gear, jolting the Crown Vic as it backed out into the street. 

 The tap dancer upstairs

 

 

Poppy Cockburn was a tap dancer, a student at the Langdon School. Despite the money her devoted mother spent on tuition at the prestigious institution, she would never be more than mediocre. What she lacked in talent Poppy compensated with sheer force of will, furious determination, a dedication to daily practice, rehearsing for hours each day. Every day. 

Poppy Cockburn was Arthur Shaw’s upstairs neighbor. 

 

The light fixtures overhead trembled. Peter Kaye, interrupted in musing over his Scrabble tiles, scowled across the table at Shaw. “You were going to say something to her.”

Shaw suppressed a nervous cough. He eyed a fragile knickknack that was the only lovely thing he still had of his mother’s, a porcelain cherub, vibrating ever closer to the edge of its shelf. Shaw shot up from his chair to nudge the figurine to a more secure spot. 

When he sat back down across the board from Peter, he avoided his friend’s burning gaze. Instead, he arranged and re-arranged his letters, Z P L K O J M.

“Shying away from conflict is not the solution,” Peter said. “You’re an adult. She’s an adult. Say something to her. She’s been inconsiderate, I’m on your side.”

“I told you. I don’t feel comfortable speaking to her. You don’t know her. She’s intimidating.” In fact, Poppy scared many of the residents in the Rose Hill apartment building. Everyone was convinced she was the one stealing Rhoda Krantz’s New Yorkers---if you saw her in the lobby, the laundry room, out by the recycling bins, she would freeze you with that blank stare, looked through you, “like her crap don’t stink,” Rhoda had said.  

“She’s a spoiled brat,” Peter said succinctly, as he laid down “EXHALED” claiming the triple word bonus and the seven letter word bonus. 

“Part of the problem is these old buildings,” Shaw theorized, “the sound amplification is made worse by brick and the lack of proper insulation, noise bounces around the courtyard.” 

“Rationalizing,” Peter noted his score with a satisfied smile. “The shortcomings of early 20^th century building practices is not in question. The fact that your upstairs neighbor is behaving in a manner that directly inconveniences you in the present day, that is the topic at hand.”

Shaw knew he was in for a tortuous browbeating. Not only had his friend lulled him into Scrabble despite repeated protestations that he would never again submit to the utter humiliation of Peter Kaye’s rapacious wordplay, but now he would be treated to a life lesson as well. Peter liked nothing better than winning games that displayed his superior mind, unless it was telling you what you should do and how you should do it. 

 

The glass light pendants jangled. The cherub cowered on its shelf. Even the window panes pulsed. Upstairs, incessant tap tap tapping. 

 

Shaw’s letters swam in front of him as the vein on his temple throbbed with a coming migraine. In truth, the never ending noise upstairs nettled him. It took every fiber of will not to bang the ceiling with a broom handle, like an old person, like a finnicky killjoy, the kind of person he would have laughed at when he himself was 20. But. Since retirement a few weeks ago, he was spending more time at home. Poppy’s daily hours of practice set his teeth grinding, and he knew he would never have the nerve to confront her no matter how righteously indignant he got. Poppy did not care. She was just as rude as Rhoda had said. The privileges of money, and youth. Shaw was made prisoner in his own home by an ingrained need to be polite, to be nice, to be liked. Hoisted by his own wussiness. That word he remembered from the old days. Classic wuss. But a breaking point was coming.

 

When he slammed his hand on the table, rattling all the tiles on the board, the uncharacteristic outburst completely shut down Peter’s hectoring. Shaw said with lips compressed: “If you’re so smart, why don’t you go up there and say something? I’m passive aggressive, whatever, I’m a coward. I admit it fully. Go on up there. Put up or shut up for once.”

 

They stood on the threshold of Poppy’s apartment, Peter out of breath after the one flight up. “I tell you to quit smoking,” Shaw said. 

“Now. Is.  Not. The moment.”

“Go on, then” Shaw nudged. “Give her door a good knock.”

Peter stood his full height, all 65 inches, regaining himself.

Knock knock knock. 

Assertive. His knuckles rapped squarely in the center of the door. 

Knock knock. 

The two men stood there, listening to the constant tapping against the bare hard floor reverberating through metal and wood that remained solidly closed.

“Try again,” Shaw said, “maybe she didn’t hear you.”

Knock. Knock. 

 

From behind them, the door to the apartment across the hall cracked open, and Rhoda Krantz squinted out, her head wrapped in a filmy scarf. “What’s with the racket?” She looked the two men over, recognizing Shaw. “It’s you,” she said, disapproving of his old blue sweater and baggy pants. “What are you up to?”

Peter explained the situation. 

“You’re not going to get anywhere with that one,” Rhoda sniffed. “Hotsy-Totsy. “

 

The lobby door downstairs banged shut--the tenants had been on the management company to fix it for months—

Andy Li and his dirty mop dog ChiChi came in from their late morning walk, ChiChi’s paws clicking on the checkerboard tile as she shook off the damp. Andy was wearing his usual short shorts, flip flops, and thin tank top he donned regardless of the weather, and as he made his way up the stairs, seeing the tableau in front of Poppy’s door, he made a comment on the chilly drizzling day--

 To which Rhoda said he might consider “putting on some damned clothes.”

 ChiChi went ballistic on seeing the older lady, snarling and yapping, refusing to be soothed or cajoled or bribed with treats Andy held out to her snapping dirty face, she only seemed to get angrier and louder, shrill, yipping furiously. 

“Does that monster have rabies?” Rhoda used her door as a shield.

The dog took umbrage at being thus insulted, for a little beast she made quite a lot of noise, and the group of them were all yelling over each other, no one listening—total chaos, madness—

 

“What the literal FUCK?!” Poppy Cockburn screamed. She stood at her open door. Peter was surprised to see how tiny she was, shorter than himself, weighing barely 100 pounds. Peter gave out an involuntary laugh. This was the woman who had so intimidated Shaw, this little scrap of a thing in leg warmers and tap shoes. Her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, her hands balled up on her hips, a pugnacious toddler. “Who are you?” Poppy said, looking at Peter Kaye like he was a fat bug that must be squished. 

“Let me introduce myself-“ but Peter did not get the chance. 

“I don’t actually care,” Poppy said, dismissing him. 

Undaunted, Peter smiled. “My dear friend, your neighbor, Mr Arthur Shaw, requests that you be a little more considerate with the noise coming from your apartment, it’s quite an inconvenience—”

ChiChi started to bark again, sensing conflict brewing and wanting to comment on it. More rabid yelps. More tremulous rage shaking on four legs.

 

 Poppy, without a flick of an eyelash, kicked the dog with her tap shoe shod foot, sending ChiChi flying. 

 

Everyone else gasped. 

 

Rhoda, who was no fan of ChiChi, or Andy for that matter, opened her mouth to utter protest—

“Mind your own business” Poppy said.

Andy scrambled to scoop up his dog, who seemed uninjured except for her pride. “I’m going straight to the cops,” he said, “this is assault!”

“Call the cops. It was self-defense. Call them. She came at me with her fangs bared.”

Peter thought that if anyone had bared their fangs, it was Poppy.

 She was done with them. “All of you get away from my god damned door before I call the cops for harassment!” then she looked directly at Shaw, a hateful fire in her dark eyes, “you got any other complaints?” 

He blinked, his eyes suddenly stinging and his face too warm, his dry lips trembled with anger. 

“I didn’t think so,” her left hand held onto the door, ready to slam it in their faces, she smiled, red lips parted over dentist white teeth.  “In future, you will keep your concerns to yourself, Boomer.”

“I’m not a Boomer” Shaw said weakly to the closed door, “I’m Gen X” but his voice trailed off, unheard by anyone. 

“Told you,” Rhoda Krantz said before closing her own door. “That one’s a bad kitty.” Exit Rhoda. 

Andy and ChiChi left the scene in a huff, with repeated threats to call the police, the management company, The Boston Globe. 

Shaw was still shaking with impotence and unspent adrenaline, when Peter put his hand on his shoulder. “I suppose now would be an importune moment to remind you that we have tickets for tonight’s recital at the Langdon.”

“What?”

“Remember? I got us tickets for tonight’s performance of “Mildred Pierce the Musical”. It’s been on the calendar for weeks. I have to go, I’m on the board. And you’re coming too. You’ll never guess who the second lead performer is.”

“No. Please. No.”

“One Miss Poppy Cockburn. She’s playing the role of Veda, the spoiled daughter and murderess. Type casting if you ask me. She was nobody’s first choice,” Peter agreed with Shaw’s unspoken incredulity, “but her mother gave such a sizeable check the school just couldn’t refuse. I hear the director is furious. The girl is every bit as terrible as I’ve heard, if this is any indication. It should be quite a spectacle, and-- you and I have third row seats. Tonight at 7 pm.” 

“God no.”

“Oh come on,” Peter chaffed, “it’ll be fun. Maybe we can get the audience to throw rotten fruit at the stage.”

And with that, the two men went back downstairs. 

 

At 7:45 pm, the doors of the Langdon School of Dance flung open as patrons rushed out of the theater at intermission. Some crushed their programs, tossed them into trash receptacles. Some walked determinedly to awaiting Ubers and cabs. 

Shaw needed to find the men’s room, so Peter Kaye walked out into the cool spring evening alone. A figure in a fringed shawl flew past him, he knew her to be the director of the evening’s production and meant to express his condolences, but she was blinded by anguished tears as she stormed out.

 

Peter saw a rare and golden opportunity to sneak a cigarette. Shaw was always on him to quit. Everyone was on him to quit. He resisted, kept his vice as an act of silent rebellion.  Smoking brought him back to himself, like meditation must do for those who practice. He moved toward the back of the building, to a neat rectangle of lawn where he could escape the others. A border of newly planted pansies separated the school’s lot from Shaw’s apartment building, the backs of both abutting, he could practically see into his friend’s windows from where he stood. The spare key sat waiting in his pocket.  An impulse to step across, to run away from the second disastrous act of “Mildred Pierce the Musical” presented itself, but he would be an absolute cad if he ditched Shaw. 

“Excuse me,” a voice said from behind him. 

He turned to see the lovely woman he had seen sitting in the front row, she had been pointed out to him as the mother of Miss Poppy Cockburn. He had observed her during the play, her rapt attention, her eyes abrim with pride as she watched her daughter’s mad performance as the tap dancing Veda, seemingly unaware of the nervous coughing and stifled groans of the audience. Looking at her closely now, he could not believe this woman with the gentle expression could possibly be the mother of such a snarling cub as Poppy. The vagaries of genetics. 

She said, in a conspiratorial whisper though they were quite alone, “Can I bum a Camel from you?” She eyed the pack he was absently holding, and he handed her one, lit it with his treasured silver zippo, watching how she held her hair off her face as she turned toward the blue flame. “Oh, that’s delicious,” she sighed, exhaling smoke. “It’s a filthy habit. I know. My husband Maxim is forever bitching that I should quit. I have quit. Dozens of times,” and then she laughed, a delightful deadpan sound that made Peter half fall in love with her. “I guess we’re members of a secret tribe,” she said, “we need to stick together.”

He agreed. They walked a little, for something to do, enjoying the bond of kinship the length of a cigarette can afford, the hem of her long dress grazing the newly cut grass still damp from that morning’s rain. 

Then she asked the fatal, inevitable question: “How do you like the show?” 

Peter could see the eagerness on her face, he could read the mother’s misguided belief in her child’s gifts that knew no limit in its singular adoration, and even he could not disturb the fragile beseeching nested in her question. “It’s quite a production,” he said, pleased at his own diplomacy. “You must be very proud, Mrs Cockburn.”

“Oh I’m Mrs Monty now. Abigail Monty.  Mr Cockburn is no longer with us.”

“I am sorry.”

“He’s not dead. Burt’s in Boca Raton.”

“That’s almost worse.”

“You should see him. He’s one big melanoma in polyester pants. I’m not so smart when it comes to picking men.” She crushed the butt of her cigarette on the damp flower bed, burying it with the toe of her sandal. “I love pansies,” she said, and Peter was glad of the change in subject as he had nothing further to say in praise of Poppy. “They have such happy faces. So cheerful. You can see the face of God in every flower, don’t you think?”

“Are you a believer?” he asked. The topic of religion could be no more dangerous than children. 

Abigail touched the diamond encrusted crucifix she wore on a delicate chain, the only jewelry she wore, besides a plain platinum wedding band. “I am,” she said, “I know it’s not fashionable these days. But my faith has always been solace. It’s gotten me through some pretty rough patches,” her finger caressed the cross, and she seemed to shake herself out of a reverie. “I wonder where Maxim went off to? He’s always getting himself into mischief.”

“Perhaps we should go in,” Peter suggested, aware that the second act bell was about to chime. 

She put her arm in his. “Thank you for the smoke. And the chat. Both were much appreciated.”

“My pleasure,” he said, and meant it. 

 

Shaw fretted on the stairs of the building, looking paler than usual. “There you are” he said when he spotted Peter, “I have to tell you something—”

“Arthur Shaw,” Peter introduced Abigail. “Arthur, this is Poppy’s mother.”

Shaw’s right eyebrow twitched as he mumbled something like a greeting. 

“Honestly, I hate that name. Poppy. She was christened Penelope, by a bishop no less. But her damn father started calling her Poppy, and it stuck,” Abigail waved her hand, then rested it on Shaw’s arm, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a mint, would you? My breath. I don’t want to have to listen to my husband. He gets so pissy when I smoke.”

Shaw fumbled in his jacket pocket, a look of surprise exchanged discreetly with Peter whose nod agreed: how could this lovely woman be the mother of evil little Penelope Cockburn? 

They each helped themselves to a peppermint.

“Oh,” said Abigail, “There’s Maxim now, he must be looking for me,” she waved him over. 

Maxim Monty slouched over in Italian loafers toward his wife, she made introductions. Mr Monty nodded, eschewing the usual handshakes, he kept his hands casually lank at his sides as though the effort of moving them would be unseemly. He had the longest eyelashes on a man Shaw had ever seen. “Pleasure,” he said, his voice a smooth drawl. “Abby,” he sniffed her hair. “You’ve been smoking.”

“And you Max still have lipstick on your face,” she rubbed his cheek with her thumb. Not my shade.”

 

The bell chimed. 

 

What was left of the audience filed obediently toward the entrance like cattle to the abattoir.

 

As soon as they resettled, Shaw whispered behind his program: “I know whose lipstick that was. I saw them. That’s what I was waiting to tell you. I opened the wrong door, walked right in on them. Mortifying —”

“I bet I can guess,” Peter said, as the cast assumed their positions on the small stage. Poppy Cockburn waited under the baby spotlight, dressed in layers of frothy white tulle that trembled with every breath. She grimaced defiantly, a stare that looked through the audience to the backs of their uncomfortable seats. Peter Kaye observed her makeup, hastily slapped on in a mad panic backstage minutes before curtain, like a child who ran wild through her mother’s things. Underneath tear streaked chalky white powder her cheeks were enflamed. She paused to speak her first line, red lips parted. 

Abigail was in the front row, back straight, the faithless Max slumped next to her. 

 

The next forty-five minutes floored everyone in the small theater. Before their stunned eyes and gaping mouths, Poppy Cockburn became a star. She tapped. She hissed. She spat all of the venom she had in her cold black heart.  She was Veda, the spoiled daughter, self-loathing, rageful, the room thrust into blank silence when she shot her lover, standing over the smoking gun, remorseless, unblinking, watching him crumple and die, a smile on her face before the curtain fell. 

 

It was the performance of a lifetime. 

 

The next morning, a lovely fresh Sunday, the body of Poppy Cockburn lay in a heap of rumpled tulle on the checkerboard floor in the lobby of the Rose Hill apartments. Her pale powdered skin scorched around the neat bullet hole in her left temple.