This choice: Continue reading the "Proceedings ..." • Go Back...Chapter #31The Replacement Killers (1) by: Seuzz   "I bet she smells," Charles said, and kicked his foot angrily against the car seat in front of him. "I can smell her from here. I bet she's got old lady stink all over her."
"Don't talk about your grandmother that way," his mother said disapprovingly from the passenger-side front seat. But her own lip curled as she watched the nurse help the old lady down the front steps of the nursing home. "Remember, we love her dearly." She winced, though, when she saw the old woman swing around and bat at the nurse with her handbag. Looks like Granny has a lot of spirit and gumption still, she hazarded to herself.
"How much money has she got," Evelyn asked. The teenage girl tugged her long, strawberry-blonde hair back behind her shoulder and carefully adjusted her cheerleader's tunic. There was a hot guy in the car next to their SUV, and he was checking her out.
"Two million," her mother replied. "Our biggest score in twenty years."
"Two million, divided four ways," Charles mused aloud. "Oh, but it's all probably in money market funds," he sighed. "I liked it better when the stone-skins kept all their money in gold. It'll take forever to get the estate settled and the assets liquidated after we've bumped her off."
"We're not 'bumping' anyone off," his mother replied. "Look at her. She'll keel over on her own accord."
"Not too soon, I hope," her daughter said smugly. "This is the first role in years that I think I can enjoy." She tugged at her skirt. Her twelve-year-old brother gave her a sidelong leer, and she slapped his hand away as he reached over to touch a breast.
"Dear, how about you go help your mother out to the car," their own mother said to her husband.
"My mother?" he replied, blinking. "I thought she was your mother."
His wife surreptitiously opened her bag and peeked at the documents hidden within. She made a face. "Wishful thinking on my part. I'll be right back. Charles, get in the back." The boy clambered into the very rear of the SUV as his mother got out.
A few minutes later the occupants of the car erupted in happy squeals as the little old lady climbed in the back seat: "Grandma, it's so great to see you!" "It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without you!" "Are you going to make your special stuffing?"
But she only snapped back waspishly: "Roll down the windows. Someone's wearing buckets of perfume."
Charles sniggered, and Evelyn turned to shoot him a dirty look.
* * * * *
"Why can't we just do it tonight?" Evelyn said as she stomped into the kitchen the next morning. "Push her down the stairs and be done with it." She shuddered.
Her mother finished wrapping up the lunch for her children. "It has to look like natural causes, sweetie-pie, or we'll never get our hands on her money," she replied. "She's got a son, too, and he'll raise holy hell if she's in an accident."
"I didn't know you had a brother."
Her mother made a face. "Am I the only one who reads the research I compile for our jobs?"
"Yesterday, you couldn't remember the old lady was your mother."
"No, that was Bela who was confused. He couldn't stand to spend another minute playing 'daughter', so I volunteered to take over this role while he goes into the office as your father. We switched after going to bed." She spitefully hurled the fork into the sink. "And it'll be for today only, because I swear that vicious old bat has it in for--"
They were interrupted by a loud cry from the living room, followed by a long series of crashing thumps. Evelyn and her mother exchanged a glance and hurried into the next room.
They only got a brief look at the head of the family as he lay in a heap at the foot of the stairs, and they watched, horror-struck, as his skin turned black, then crumpled and withered as though consumed by an invisible flame. His suit puckered and collapsed into emptiness.
"Do we need to hire a traffic cop for the top of these stairs?" a shrill voice called from above. Mrs. Ketterley, her head trembling from some advanced nerve malady, put out a blind hand and felt for the balustrade. She put her cane onto the top stair and began to carefully descend the staircase. "Blake," she called to her now dead-and-gone son-in-law. "Help me out here before I trip and break my neck."
"I'll help you, mother," her daughter called. She turned to Evelyn with a hiss: "Get this mess cleared away before she sees it."
"Who's going to play Daddy?" Evelyn hissed back.
"Go find your brother. He'll have to step in for his father."
"As long as I still get to be Evelyn," the girl muttered back as her mother dashed up the stairs to help the old lady.
"Don't grab at me!" Mrs. Ketterley spoke sharply as her woman took her arm. "Blake grabbed me at the top of the stairs like a common masher. I hit him with my cane, and I'll hit you too, Margery!"
* * * * *
Three pairs of eyes silently exchanged glances over dinner that evening. Father, mother, and daughter chewed their food and watched as the old lady carefully mashed up her own portions with her fork. "How was school," the mother asked Evelyn.
"Fun," she replied. "I have a boyfriend. A football player."
"You must have been keeping it a secret," Margery said. "I didn't know you were seeing anyone."
"What a cliché," the father muttered. "Must be nice, hanging out at school instead of around a stuffy office."
"And how was the office?" his wife asked.
"I got yelled at. Turns out I didn't finish up some work before we, uh, took that family trip." He turned a baleful glance at his uncomprehending mother-in-law. "And I'm part of a team working on a secret project. It has a deadline. We need to get it done fast." He shot a meaningful look at his wife and daughter.
"Haste makes waste," Mrs. Ketterley said. She raised the fork to her mouth and sniffed at it.
"Mother is right, Blake," Margery said, and directed a meaningful glance of her own back at her husband. "If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing in a way that doesn't cause people to ask a lot of awkward questions afterward."
"Where's Charles?" Mrs. Ketterley demanded in a harsh tone.
Silence. "Uh, he's eating in his room," Evelyn said.
"Then I'm not eating either," Mrs. Ketterley said, and dropped her fork with a clatter. "Families should eat together."
More pained glances around the table. So much for the sedatives they had put in her potatoes.
The old woman struggled to her feet, then sat back down, seemingly exhausted. "I want to talk to your brother, Margery. Call him for me."
"Mother, you know Elmer and I don't get along."
"You can be civil to him for one minute," she snapped back.
"Can it wait until I'm--" She stopped cold at the fierce frown her mother directed at her. "I'll do it now." She got up.
Evelyn and her father watched each other and watched the old lady as the latter gazed at the blank wall opposite, her head tottering on her scrawny neck. Minutes passed. The woman of the house never reappeared.
"Margery!" Mrs. Ketterley called in that shrill voice that caused the other two to wince. "Margery!"
"I'll see what's keeping her," Evelyn hastily volunteered.
Her father looked after her with an agonized expression as she darted from the room. "How's your room, mother," he asked the old lady.
"Don't 'mother' me, Blake," she snapped. "And it's cold. Your whole house is cold! I'm having to knit myself a shawl because--"
Blake looked up sharply as Evelyn reappeared around the corner. She was very pale, and beckoned to him. Mrs. Ketterley was still staring at her plate and complaining bitterly about the chill, so she didn't see as he hastily rose and followed his daughter out.
Empty clothes lay draped in the chair next to the telephone; they were filled with flakes that looked like blackened leaves. Father and daughter looked at each other, and then Blake carefully pushed them aside. Wedged in the chair, between the seat cushion and its back, was a knitting needle. Its tip gleamed evilly.
"Do you have Elmer on the phone yet?" Mrs. Ketterley called from the dining room.
"Just a minute, grandma!" Evelyn called. She scooped up the clothes left by her late mother, and used the blouse to grasp the needle and pull it free. Even through the fabric, she felt the silver burning her fingertips.
To continue investigating the room: "Disposing of Lucy"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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