Black Cat Weekly #45

Chapter 7

byThe Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

personally selected by one of the most acclaimedshort stories authors and editors in the mystery

short stories authors and editors in the mysteryfield, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

field, Barb Goffman, for .A sunny day

A sunny dayThe old lady was talking to him about toothpaste, and he didn’t know why.

“I always buy Colgate. Always. I’m very loyal,” she said. “And I get it in the big tubes. Economy size. It’s just me here, my Perry passed five years ago, but still—you know you’ll use it all eventually, right? A penny saved, that’s my way. But would you look at this?”

The woman held up a small, half-flattened tube of toothpaste. It looked strangely familiar.

“This was in my medicine cabinet this morning,” she said. “A dinky little Crest. Now I ask you: Have I ever bought Crest? Ever?”

She really seemed to expect an answer.

He had no idea who she was. He looked around the room, searching for clues.

They seemed to be in an apartment. It was small but tidy, with few furnishings. A TV. A bookshelf. A table. The recliner he was sitting in. The couch the lady was on. Sunlight streamed in through the windows, but all he could see outside was a green-blue blur. The pictures on the walls were hovering smudges.

“Have I?” the woman asked.

“Have you what?” he said.

She didn’t seem to hear him.

“The same thing happened with my dishwashing liquid. Joy. That’s what I’ve used for fifty years. And what do I find when I go to do the dishes last night? A teeny little Dawn. Dawn!”

Dawn“Oh,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“They come in the night and switch things. Leave small for big, cheap for expensive. Because they think we won’t notice. But I do! I’m going to talk to Barbara about it right now!”

IHe nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

The name Barbara meant nothing to him.

BarbaraThe woman started to stand. It was a long, laborious process, with much grunting and wobbling. He felt as though he should help her, but he could barely scoot to the edge of his chair himself. So he merely held a hand out uselessly.

I can’t help, the gesture said, but I haven’t forgotten that I should try.

I can’t helpbut I haven’t forgotten that I should tryWhen the woman was finally steady on her feet, she began shuffling away.

“She probably won’t believe me. I’m just another crazy old lady to her. Or maybe she’s in on it! She’s always smiling smiling smiling, but you never know. People.”

PeopleShe spat that last word out like a curse.

When she reached the door, she paused, her hand on the knob.

“You should catch them, Frank. You used to be a detective.”

And then he remembered. A little, anyway.

Frank. That was him. And yes—he’d been a policeman once. He lived here now. This was his room.

“OK,” he said. “Goodbye.”

After the woman left, he sat in his recliner for a while, doing nothing, thinking nothing. Eventually, his hand found the remote control on the armrest. He turned on the TV and immediately found himself in a world he understood perfectly.

Jim Rockford was getting beat up for the thousandth time, and when it was done, he dusted himself off and made his ten-thousandth wisecrack. Then he got in his souped-up car and drove off to catch the killer. It was silly and sloppy and predictable, and Frank was, for a time, utterly content.

Much later, when he was getting ready for bed, he found a new tube of toothpaste by the bathroom sink.

Colgate. Economy size.

A Tuesday, according to the paper

Frank was hunched over his tiny dining room table reading the Times with a magnifying glass. It was hard work, and for what? He didn’t understand half of what he read. Who were these people? What were they doing? Why should he care?

TimesThere was a knock.

“Come in.”

The door opened, and a small, smiling man leaned into the room.

“Good morning, Demetrius,” said Frank.

He knew the man was Demetrius Something and that he hadn’t been working at Buena Vista Independent Living very long and that he was nice. He knew all this because it was that kind of day. A good day. Or a better day, anyway.

“You mean afternoon, Frank,” Demetrius said. “It’s almost two. I noticed you didn’t come down for lunch again. You hungry?”

It took Frank a while to answer. It was as though he had to ask his body first, and his body took its own sweet time deciding.

“No. I’ll just make myself a hot dog in a while.”

“All right. Don’t forget your pills, now.”

Demetrius left.

Frank ate his lunch two hours later. Campbell’s chicken and rice soup and Club crackers. He warmed the soup in the microwave because the stovetop confused and scared him. Something had happened. Something had burned, hurt. That was all he remembered. But it was enough.

When he went to wash his bowl and spoon and plate, the bottle of Joy by the sink reminded him of a crumpled note he’d found in his pocket that morning.

Large Colgate—Joy—Julie’s???

Large Colgate—Joy—Julie’s???Julie lived next door. She was a fine enough neighbor but exhausting. Sometimes she’d come into his room without knocking and plop down on his couch and start talking, even if he was in the middle of a show. He had no idea why he’d leave himself a note about her and Colgate and Joy, but apparently he had.

The shaky handwriting was his own.

A Wednesday?

Frank knew it was Wednesday because he was having lunch with Andrew, and Andrew always came on Wednesdays. They were eating spaghetti in the cafeteria, too, and spaghetti was every-other-Wednesday food.

“You like it?” Frank asked.

Andrew nodded as he slurped up some noodles. “It’s good.”

They ate in silence for a while after that. There wasn’t much to talk about.

Andrew was the son of a friend long dead, a fellow cop who was little more than a name today.

Barney. Friend. Cop.

That was all Frank could remember.

He hoped he didn’t have children of his own. If he did, he’d forgotten them.

Andrew worked with computers—fixed them for a big chain store. Beyond that, Frank didn’t know much. Was Andrew a husband? A father? Did he golf? Paint? Breed llamas? Why did he even come to visit anymore? Frank had no idea. So he’d usually just tell stories. He had plenty to share. Every cop does.

Only today they weren’t coming to him, and instead of “Did I tell you about the time I…?” he heard himself say, “I think I have someone else’s toothpaste.”

Andrew stopped chewing. He stared at Frank a moment before swallowing.

“Oh?”

“I think I have her Joy, too.”

“Her joy?”

“Her dish soap.”

“Oh.” Andrew nodded slowly. “How did that happen?”

“I don’t know. I try to think about it, but…it comes and goes.”

“Well. A new mystery to solve. I’m sure you’ll c***k it.”

“I’m not crazy,” Frank snapped.

“I didn’t say you were, Frank.”

They went back to eating without speaking. Eventually, a woman approached their table. She had long dark hair and a big smile, and though she was young, Frank knew she ran the place. Her name didn’t come to him at first, but he pushed hard for the memory and found, to his relief, that he could still get at it.

“Hello, Barbara.”

“Hello, Frank. Always nice to see you, Andrew.”

“Always nice to be seen,” Andrew said.

The woman was still smiling, smiling, but it was all for Andrew now.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten your promise,” she said.

Andrew was smiling, too. “The DVD projector? I haven’t forgotten. In fact, I’ve got half an hour before I have to get back to work. I could probably set it up for you right now, if you want.”

“I don’t want to interrupt your lunch.”

“I was just finishing up.”

Barbara turned to Frank again. “You won’t mind if I steal your guest?”

Frank shrugged. “Steal away.”

Andrew stood and put a hand on Frank’s shoulder.

“See you next Thursday.”

“Thursday?”

“Of course,” Andrew said with a smile. “I’m here every Thursday, Frank. You know that.”

A rainy night?

McCloud was getting yelled at by his boss and some big shot in a tuxedo, a politician maybe, and he was just about to drop the big bombshell and name the murderer when Julie had to barge in.

“Well,” she said, “that Barbara didn’t believe me about the Colgate and the Joy, and now it’s happened again.”

Frank reluctantly turned the TV off.

“What’s happened again?”

“I eat Cheerios. I eat Special K. I eat Grape-Nuts. I do not eat Toastie Oaties or Health Flakes or Fiber Crunch.”

“Oh,” Frank said. “OK.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying? Someone came into my room and traded all my good cereal for generic crap.”

“Why would anybody do that?”

“To get better cereal, of course! And to drive me crazy.”

“Why would anyone want to drive you crazy?”

“Because I’m the only around here who’s still got all her marbles.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Are you saying I’m senile?”

“No. I meant…what if…what if...”

Frank knew he needed to tell Julie something. Something about her…toothpaste? But there was no time to dig for the memory. The woman had lost her patience and was headed for the door.

“I’m going to talk to Barbara again right now and we’re going to get to the bottom of this and then we’ll see who’s senile.”

“Hold on, Julie. Just calm down. You’re going to have to wait till Barbara comes in tomorrow morning anyway.”

Julie snorted. “It’s ten thirty in the morning, Frank.”

She stormed out—to the extent an eightysomething woman can storm. Once she was gone, Frank lifted the remote control and pointed it at the TV. But he didn’t push the power button. Instead, he hauled himself to his feet and shuffled into the kitchen.

It took him a few minutes to find the right cabinet. He couldn’t remember where anything was supposed to go anymore. He’d left his eggs in the freezer once. Another time, Demetrius noticed a horrible smell and found a pound of raw, rotting hamburger sitting in the oven. You never knew what would be where or how it got there.

Like the Cheerios and Special K and Grape-Nuts Frank found tucked away under the sink with the garbage bags and sponges and Comet.

Julie wasn’t crazy. Someone was taking her things. Frank even had a prime suspect.

wasHimself.

Later that afternoon or evening

Frank shuffled up and down the halls for what seemed like hours. More than once, another resident called out to him, tried to engage him in conversation, but he just grunted and kept on going. He couldn’t let himself get distracted. Pause to respond to one “What’s the hurry?” and he wouldn’t be able to respond because he’d forget everything.

At last, he spotted the man he’d been looking for: Demetrius. He was the one to talk to because, of all the attendants or caregivers or zookeepers or whatever they were called, he was the one Frank remembered. You can’t start questioning someone with “Who are you and why would I be talking to you?”

“Demetrius! Demetrius, I need to ask you something!”

The man was coming out of one of the other residents’ rooms, and he closed the door gently and put a finger to his lips.

“Mrs. Marquez fell asleep on her couch.”

Frank wasn’t sure if he knew Mrs. Marquez or not. Still, he lowered his voice. He assumed Mrs. Marquez was as deaf as everyone else around there, but he’d always been a polite man, and he could remember his manners when all else was gone.

“Have you noticed me wandering the halls at night lately? When everyone else is asleep?”

“I’m not here at night, Frank. You’d have to ask Janice or Ed or Felicia.”

Frank looked down and ran a hand through his wispy hair.

Janice, Ed, Felicia—more names that meant nothing. And it was always worse for him at night. It was worse for most of the residents at night. Sundowners Syndrome, did they call it? The other darkness that fell?

Sundowners SyndromeWhatever. Frank knew he couldn’t count on himself to remember anything after nightfall, let alone ask questions.

“Barbara might have heard something,” Demetrius said. “You could ask her.”

“How about during the day? You ever see me going places I shouldn’t? During mealtimes maybe?”

“Not really, Frank…though you do seem a little lost sometimes. What’s the problem? You afraid you’re sleepwalking or something?”

“Something.”

Frank started hobbling away.

“Oh,” he said, “one more thing...”

The question was gone in the time it took to turn around. It had been something about keys, maybe? Locked doors?

Details details details—that had been his specialty once. The big picture as revealed by the minute. But big picture or small, it was all hopelessly out of focus now.

He stood there looking at Demetrius a moment, mouth opened to speak words his mind had swallowed.

“Frank,” Demetrius finally said, “did you take your pills this morning?”

Frank thought it over.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The next day…or maybe the day after that

Frank couldn’t find the butter, and the bread came out of the toaster as black as charcoal briquettes. So he decided to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast.

It wasn’t something he liked to do. It made him anxious, being around so many strangers. (He’d been at Buena Vista Independent Living for years, yet he only knew half a dozen people by name these days. Eventually, he’d be living in a whole world of strangers.)

He passed Julie in the hall. She was standing near the entrance to the rec room—another place Frank usually avoided—talking to a couple propped up on matching walkers.

“Oh!” she said when she saw Frank. “They came back!”

“Who came back?”

“Them, them.” Julie seemed on the verge of tears. “That Barbara didn’t do a thing, and they came back, and now it’s my jewelry they got! They took all my best rings and pearls and earrings and left a bunch of costume trash.”

them“Nice of them to leave you something to wear, though,” the old man said.

something“Oh, yes,” the woman beside him added. “Most thoughtful burglars I ever heard of.”

They looked at each other and rolled their rheumy eyes.

Julie didn’t notice.

“Are you going to do something about it, Frank?” she asked. “Are you going to help me? Frank?”

youHe’d turned around and headed back to his room.

He searched for as long as his strength held out. In drawers and cabinets, under the bed, behind boxes and towels, under clothes. He didn’t find any jewelry.

He did come across something he’d thought long lost, though: the scrapbook. It was buried beneath a pile of old TV Guides. He collapsed back into his recliner and opened it.

TV GuidesThe dry, yellowing articles inside had been neatly clipped from the Times. His name didn’t appear in most of them, yet his wife had always known which cases were his. That’s who’d done the clipping—the missus. He’d never liked the scrapbook.

Times“I don’t want to be reminded of all that,” he’d say, and he’d tap the side of his head. “It’s all up here anyway—and most of it I wish I could forget.”

His wish had come true. Scanning the old news stories about cases solved, killers caught, Frank felt like he was reading about someone else. Had he really done all this? It was hard to believe. He didn’t feel like a detective. He felt like a thief trying to snatch away one more thing that didn’t belong to him. First toothpaste, now an identity. A life.

After a while, something came back to him, though. Not so much a memory from the old days as an instinct.

When the details weren’t all there, when the puzzle had missing pieces, that’s when you laid a trap. Sometimes you had to lure your prey into it, sometimes scare them in. And sometimes you could rely on their blind arrogance to guide them blithely in.

He could trap himself like that. Hide the snare and just wait till he forgot it was there. Then he’d know for sure what he really was. What he’d turned into.

All he needed was bait.

Is it Thursday already?

When Andrew came around again, Frank gave him the envelope. Frank didn’t know what was in it. He just knew it was sealed, it was light, and it had been sitting on his kitchen counter for days. Written across the front in his own handwriting were the words FOR ANDREW—OPEN LATER.

“What’s this?” Andrew asked.

“I don’t know. Do I owe you money?”

“Of course not.”

“Maybe you forgot.”

“And you remembered?”

youFrank shrugged.

“You hungry?” he said.

Chair Yoga Day

Frank hated chair yoga. If you’re going to sit, sit. Don’t put your hands on your head and call it exercise. And the woman who came in every week in her stupid purple tights always talked to everyone like they were four years old. “Wonderful!” she’d enthuse when somebody managed to touch his own shins without falling to the floor. “Just look at you!”

sityouBut Demetrius was good at browbeating, and he usually managed to round up at least a dozen residents—including, this day, Frank.

Julie was there, too.

“You should come by and see the new Mick my grandkids got me,” she was saying as Frank scuffled into the rec room.

“Mick?” an old man asked. Frank thought his name was Cho or Chu or Chan— something Chinese-sounding.

“Isn’t that what they call them? Micks? Or is it Macs?” Julie said. “Anyway, it’s the cutest little computer. With a camera built right in so I can actually see the kids when they’re calling me.”

“Your grandchildren actually call sometimes?” the old man grumbled.

“Aren’t you afraid they are going to come back and replace it with a calculator or something?” another resident asked. Frank had no idea what her name was—though he did get the feeling that forgetting it had been a choice.

they“Oh, no,” Julie said. “They know I’m on to them.”

She looked at Frank and winked.

Frank froze.

She knows, he thought.

She knowsAnd then he thought, Knows what?

Knows what?Why did he feel guilty all of a sudden? He hadn’t done anything.

Had he?

Not a Thursday

Frank was watching the show about the geezer detective with the funny name, and of course he’d spotted the bad guy before the first commercial, but what could he do but keep watching and wait for the old coot on screen to catch up?

There was a knock on the door just as the last act began.

Frank thought about ignoring it, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. The door opened, and Julie came in.

“Turn that off, Frank,” she said. “We’ve got something to show you.”

Barbara and Andrew came in behind her.

“Andrew?” Frank said.

“Sorry to barge in.” Andrew threw what looked like an exasperated glance at Julie, then held up something in his hand—a flat white rectangular pad. “But you really should see this.”

When Frank didn’t move quickly enough to suit her, Julie picked up the remote control and switched off the TV herself. Andrew, meanwhile, was opening the white thingamajig. It was one of those portable computers. A laptop. Andrew turned it around so Frank could see what was on the screen.

It was a picture of a man’s face.

Frank squinted at it, wondering why the chin was so weak, the nose so thin, the hair so dark. He wondered, in short, why it wasn’t him—and why he felt so much relief when he realized that.

“It looks like…like...”

“Ed,” Barbara said.

“That’s it. Ed. He works here at night, right?”

Barbara shook her head. “Not anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I loaned Julie a MacBook,” Andrew said. “It has a video camera and GPS—and anti-theft software. It took a picture of Ed as soon as he tried to use it, then uploaded the picture to a website.”

“All right.” Frank preferred nice, neutral responses when he had no idea what someone was talking about.

“Ed had stolen the computer, Frank,” Barbara explained. “He slipped it out of Julie’s room and took it home.”

“Oh. I see. Well, that was a very clever way to catch him.”

“Yes, it was.” Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. He snapped it open and handed it to Frank.

It was a newspaper article clipped from the Times. The headline: “Laptop Catches Own Thief.” Frank couldn’t read the rest without his magnifying glass, but he could make out the scribbled note down the side.

TimesCould you try this with my neighbor Julie? She needs help. Ask Barbara for details.—Frank

Could you try this with my neighbor Julie? She needs help. Ask Barbara for details.—Frank“I’ll admit it,” Barbara said. “I thought we’d just use the anti-theft stuff to convince Julie the computer hadn’t been stolen.”

hadn’t“Because you thought I’d gotten confused and lost it.” Julie sniffed. “Just like I got ‘confused’ about my toothpaste and dishwashing liquid and jewelry.” She turned to Frank and smiled. “See? I told you someone was trying to drive me crazy. I guess Ed had already stolen everyone else around here blind, sneaking around at night when most of us were either asleep or in a stupor. But when he started in on someone who’s still sharp as a tack, he had to make people think she was senile so nothing would be done about it.”

Barbara cleared her throat. “Yes, well… We had a bad apple, but not anymore. Thanks to you, Frank.”

Frank still didn’t quite grasp it all. He did know what to say, though.

“You’re welcome.”

His guests stayed to chat a little longer after that, basking in their collective victory over crime. Their presence wearied Frank, however—trying to follow the conversation was exhausting—and eventually even Julie noticed and began shooing the others toward the door.

The newspaper article was in Frank’s lap when they left. He’d have to put it in the scrapbook later…if he could find the darned thing again.

He picked up the clipping and squinted at it for a while, but it still didn’t make much sense to him. He knew how it made him feel, though.

He felt like himself.

Steve Hockensmith’s first novel, Holmes on the Range, was a finalist for the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, and Dilys awards. He’s gone on to write five sequels (so far) as well as the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls and the tarot-themed mystery The White Magic Five and Dime. A widely published writer of short stories, he appears regularly in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Learn more at stevehockensmith.com.

Holmes on the RangeNew York TimesPride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the DreadfulsThe White Magic Five and DimeEllery Queen’s Mystery MagazineAlfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine