Deadly Housewives Read online

  Other than the mirror, the bureau was a fine old piece, and she was sure mice hadn’t been able to penetrate its drawers. She began exploring them. The top one on the right was stuck tight, and it took a few tugs to open it. Inside were a man’s possessions: handkerchiefs, a pocket watch, a scattering of miscellaneous cuff links, a ring with a large blue stone, a wallet in its original box, obviously a gift that hadn’t been used. The drawer on the left was empty.

  The second drawer protruded an inch or so from the ones above and below it. Maggie tugged it open, found a man’s clothing: T-shirts, underwear, pajamas. Something thudded at the rear, and she pulled the drawer all the way out and removed it.

  A blue cloth-bound book. Ledger of some sort.

  She flipped back the cover. Not a ledger, a diary, in a woman’s back-slanting hand. Blue ink fading but still readable.

  April 2, 1948

  Our first week here at Lost Wolf Lake! It is so beautiful. I can’t believe that John and I had the good fortune to buy the lodge. The owners, who built it in 1913, are old and ill, and made us a very good price. There is a large clientele, and all of the rooms are reserved through the coming season. We’ve left the guest rooms and the cabins as they were—they have been very well kept up—but I’ve ordered all new furniture for our suite, and delivery has been guaranteed for tomorrow. I’ve never kept a diary before now, but from here on out I will, to document our happiness.

  Car door slamming below. Cal returning, hours late, with the water and extension cords.

  Maggie hesitated only briefly before she shoved the diary back behind the drawer where she’d found it.

  “You’re limping, Professor. What’s the story this time?”

  “Bruised foot. I was bringing in some firewood and the pile collapsed on me.”

  “You been to the hospital?”

  “For a bruised foot?”

  “Well, I was thinking you ought to be documenting these things that’re happening to you. If Maggie is responsible—”

  “Look, Abel, forget what I told you.”

  “Thought you wanted me to remember, in case—”

  “I shouldn’t’ve said the things I did. Nothing’s going on out at the lake, except that I’m clumsy. I was in a bad mood and I’d had a few Leinies before I came in here. I talked out of turn.”

  “But—”

  “Speaking of Leinies, can I get one, please? And then we’ll talk about more pleasant stuff, like the streak the Twins’re on.”

  “Maggie, I think there’s something you ought to know.”

  “Sig! I thought I heard your boat. Help me with this armchair, will you? The guy’s coming to haul the junk away tomorrow.”

  “It can wait a minute. We have to talk.”

  “What’s wrong? Cal…he’s not—?”

  “So far as I know Cal’s fine—physically. But mentally…I was talking with Abel Arneson at the Walleye Tavern last night. Cal’s been spending a lot of time in there on his runs to town.”

  “I suspected as much. But a few beers, so what?”

  “Drinking beer isn’t all be’s been doing. He’s been saying some nasty things to Abel. About you.”

  “What about me?”

  “Cal told Abel…He told him you’re trying to kill him.”

  “What?”

  “He only talked about it once, over a week ago. Said all these injuries he’s sustained lately were your doing. The next time he was in, he claimed he’d had too much to drink and ‘talked out of turn.’ But Abel doesn’t believe him.”

  “My God! Cal’s injured himself a lot, yes, but that’s because he’s clumsy. He’s always been clumsy. Does Abel really believe what he said?”

  “He doesn’t know what to think.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I believe I may have been wrong before. You should watch your back, Mags. You just may be living with a crazy man.”

  “I took your advice and went to the hospital this time, Abel. The cut required stitches, and now there’s something on record.”

  “So you’ve changed your mind about talking.”

  “Yes…Last time I was in, I was feeling a misguided loyalty to Maggie. All those years, our two boys, et cetera. But this last ‘accident’—that tore it.”

  “You’ve got to look out for yourself.”

  “From now on, I will.”

  Maggie took to watching Cal, covertly, through lowered lashes as they worked side by side or sat on the porch in the evenings in the light from the mosquito-repellent candles. His gaze was remote, his expression unreadable. But every now and then she’d catch him watching her with the same guarded look she employed.

  After a few days, he began working alone on tearing down one of the uninhabitable cabins, encouraging her to complete her renovations of the owners’ suite. Grateful for the respite from his oppressive presence, she replaced floor-boards and primed walls and refinished the heavy old furnishings. Occasionally she thought of the diary she’d put back where she’d found it behind the second drawer of the bureau. She intended to read more of it, but the work was grueling and made the time go quickly. She told herself she’d save it for the winter months ahead.

  Right before the Labor Day weekend, Sigrid reported that she’d seen Cal and Abel Arneson in intense conversation in the Walleye, and that Abel had later refused to tell her what they’d been discussing.

  After that, when Cal went out to work alone on the cabins, Maggie covertly followed him. And just as covertly documented his activities.

  The roof beam was thick, and even though the wood was brittle, it was taking Cal a long time to saw through it. He couldn’t risk using power tools, though. Maggie wasn’t to know about this particular project.

  The wind blew off the lake and rustled the branches of the nearby pines. He heard the whine of an outboard motor and Howie’s excited barking—probably at the flock of mallards that frequented the water off their dock. The dog had followed him down here to this cabin by what Cal had privately christened Poison Ivy Beach, then wandered off. The mallards were in no jeopardy, though; damn dog—Maggie’s choice, not his—was a lousy swimmer.

  Cal hummed tunelessly as he worked. Tomorrow the cabin would be ready.

  Maggie crouched behind a thicket of wild raspberries watching as Cal sawed at the beam of the ramshackle cabin. Its front wall had fallen in, so she had a clear view of him. After a moment she activated the zoom lens of her digital camera and took a picture. Last week she’d photographed him deliberately inflicting an ax wound on his arm that had sent him to the emergency room for five stitches. Now it appeared he intended to fake another accident—that of a major support beam dropping on him.

  Why is he doing these things to himself? Why is he blaming them on me, telling Abel Arneson I’m trying to kill him? Sigrid said he hasn’t spoken to anyone else, or the police. What does he hope to gain from hurting himself?

  Just before he’d sawed through the entire beam, Cal used a pair of long metal wedges to brace the beam in place. Each piece had a thin piece of rope tied to it. Then he climbed down the ladder, moved it to its opposite end, climbed back up, and began sawing again.

  Maggie documented the activity.

  “You look kind of ragged around the edges, Professor.”

  “I’m not feeling too well to night. For days, actually.”

  “How so?”

  “Just tired. Haven’t been doing too much work out at the property. To tell you the truth, it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

  “Thinking of throwing in the towel?”

  “…Yes, I am. The Twin Cities are looking pretty good to me right now. I’ve just about decided to confront Maggie about what she’s been doing, move back, and divorce her.”

  “But you haven’t said anything to her yet?”

  “No. God knows what she might do if I did. She’ll find out from my lawyer. Besides, she’s hardly ever around.”

  “Oh?”

  “Every day she disappe
ars into the woods, down by the beach, where the last few cabins are. Says she needs her space. Damned if I know what she’s up to.”

  “If I were you, Professor, I’d follow her the next time. And do it quietly.”

  Maggie studied the images on the digital camera’s screen, one after the other.

  Cal sawing one end of the fallen-in cabin’s beam; Cal sawing the other; Cal constructing his elaborate system of braces and ropes like trip wires. The braces and ropes themselves, in close-up.

  God, I never knew he had such mechanical ability.

  He’s planning another accident—a big one this time. The kind that will send him to the hospital. And maybe send me to jail.

  How did it come to this? He was depressed and acting out against me when he was denied tenure, but the therapy seemed to help.

  Until we came here.

  My fault, he’d say—

  “Maggie!” His voice, coming from one of the cabins by the beach.

  She got up, went to the porch railing, and called, “What is it?”

  “I need your help down here.”

  “Be right with you.”

  She took the camera into the lodge and set it on the counter. Evidence of Cal’s mental instability.

  What am I going to do with it?

  “Maggie!”

  “Coming!”

  Take the image card to a lawyer? The police? Destroy what’s left of our marriage? Destroy Cal? I don’t love him anymore, probably haven’t for a long time, but those years together and the boys have to count for something, don’t they?

  “Maggie!” He wasn’t distressed, just insistent.

  As she descended the slope to the beach, she took deep breaths, told herself to remain calm.

  Cal stood on the ladder inside the cabin, holding the end of the beam that he’d first sawed through yesterday. He was smiling—falsely.

  “Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I need you to get up here and hold this for me.”

  “What?”

  “Just climb up and hold it for a minute. You can do that, can’t you?”

  She pictured the braces and trip wires. Pictured what would happen when everything came tumbling down.

  And realized what Cal’s plan was. What it had been all along.

  The knowledge hit her so hard that her gut wrenched. She fought to control the nausea, said, “Cal, you know I don’t like ladders.”

  “Just for a minute, I promise.”

  She made her decision and moved toward him.

  “Just for a minute?” she asked.

  “Not even that long.”

  “Okay, if you insist—oh my God, look over there!”

  She flung her arm out wildly. Cal jerked around. His foot lost purchase on the ladder, and then his hand lost purchase on the beam. He clutched instinctively at one of the ropes.

  The dilapidated structure came crashing down, taking the ladder and Cal with it.

  Maggie’s ears were filled with the roar of falling wood and Cal’s one muffled cry. Then everything went silent.

  Slowly Maggie approached the cabin. Through the rising dust she could see Cal’s prone body. His head was under the beam, and blood leaked around the splintered wood.

  Dead. As dead as he planned for me to be.

  She fell to her knees on the rocky ground. Leaned forward and retched.

  Howie’s barking penetrated the silence. After a time Maggie got up shakily, put her hand on his collar, and restrained him from charging at the rubble. She remained where she was, face pressed into the dog’s rough coat, until she had the strength to drive to town to notify the police that her husband had had a final, fatal accident.

  Five days later, Maggie returned to the lodge for the first time since Cal’s body had been taken away by the county coroner’s van. Most of the time, until today’s inquest, she’d stayed in Sigrid’s guest room, unable to sleep, eat, or even communicate her feelings to her old friend. Now it was over.

  The verdict had been one of accidental death while attempting to commit a felony. It was the only possible one, given the existence of a large life-insurance policy on Maggie’s life, taken out at the time she was a partner in an interior-design firm, as well as the photographs of Cal self-inflicting wounds and rigging the cabin. In his testimony, Abel Arneson had said he had doubts about Cal’s stories all along: “The professor was an unstable man. Anybody could see that.”

  So it was over, and she was alone. As alone as Janice Mott had been after her husband died tragically on the property. Janice had fled to town and lived the life of a recluse, but Maggie didn’t see that as an option. She didn’t even see returning to the Twin Cities as an option. In fact, she saw no options at all.

  Howie was whining at the door. She let him out, sat down on the futon couch that folded out into a bed. Stared around the large room and wondered what to do with her life.

  Don’t think so cosmically. All you have to decide now is what to do to night. A walk down to the dock? No, too close to where Cal died. Quiet contemplation on the porch? Not that. A book? Couldn’t concentrate. Wait…there’s Janice Mott’s diary.

  Maggie retrieved it from the bureau drawer where she’d left it.

  Janice Mott had kept to her resolve of documenting John’s and her happiness at Lost Wolf Lake to the very last day. But the happiness had not lasted. At first the entries had been full of delight and plans for the future. Then Janice’s tone changed subtly, with the discovery that she and John were physically incapable of having the family they’d counted on. It grew downbeat as the lodge’s clientele eroded, depressed when she realized he was having an affair with a waitress in town. Paranoid as she began to fear John wanted her out of the way so he could marry the woman. And lonely. Very lonely.

  May 8, 1970

  John is gone so much. When he’s not in White Iron with her, he works on the cabins. Getting them ready, he says, for the season. But the guest list is short and most will never be occupied again. For years I’ve been so wrapped up in him and, in the season, the guests, that I’ve made no friends. No one to spend time with, no one to confide in.

  May 10, 1970

  I heard some sawing at the cabin in the pine grove and went there, wondering what John was doing. He was working on the roof beam, and made it clear he didn’t want me there. I don’t understand. That roof has always been in fine shape. I wish he would stop this needless work and at least spend some time with me.

  May 11, 1970

  John spent the whole night in town again—with her, of course. He came back this morning and went out to work without an explanation. I think he is ready to leave me, and I don’t know what I’ll do then.

  He’s calling out to me now. He says he wants some help. He spends the night in town with her, and now he wants me to help him!

  Under this last entry, there was a space, and then the words, scrawled large, May God have mercy on his—and my—soul!

  Maggie set the journal down. Rested her head on the back of the futon sofa and closed her eyes.

  Same acts, different cabins. History repeating itself? Accidental similarity of events? Or some form of intelligence reaching out from the past? Something in the land itself?

  One thing she was sure of: if there ever was a curse, it was gone now.

  Her future was now decided.

  She was staying.

  How to Murder Your Mother-in-Law

  Suzann Ledbetter

  Annie DeArmond thumbed the button on the garage door’s remote control. Thirty, maybe forty-five seconds had elapsed since she’d peeked out a slit in her living room’s drapes. The proverbial coast had been clear. Two minutes, she thought. Please, gimme a couple more minutes.

  The opener’s chain clacked in its loop; the motor droned like mechanical hiccups. Noxious fumes swirled out, as though displaced by sunlight creeping, then blasting into the jam-packed, one-car garage.

  There’d been time—plenty of it—for an immaculate white Cadillac with a monster behin
d the wheel to materialize in the driveway. Annie didn’t trust the reflection in the rearview mirror. Was Maple Heights really as deserted as a working-class neighborhood should be at nine-thirty on a Tuesday? Or was a mirage ever the absence of something you prayed Jesus not to see?

  Daring to break the spell, if that’s all it was, she shifted to reverse and pressed the remote again. The aging Beemer’s front bumper would clear before the door rumbled shut.

  Still no Caddy. No daily 8:17 A.M. phone call, either, which Annie couldn’t ignore, lest by 8:41 her mother-in-law would bang on the front door, babbling about being afraid the unanswered phone meant something terrible had happened.

  From the street, Annie finger-waved and blew a kiss at the red-brick bungalow next door. The front windows’ homespun flax curtains hung as creased and droopy as a thrift-store linen suit. Bagworms festooned the evergreens and yellow jackets circled above them. Both thrived on the earth-friendly insecticide Barbara Amos spritzed on the boughs with a recycled glass-cleaner bottle.

  About now she was preparing a snack for her three-year-old daughter, Isla, and Annie’s son, Tyler. The towheaded epicure said Barb’s wheat-germ cookies and soy milk tasted “icky-nassy.” They probably did, but drizzle on enough honey and the kid would eat baked gravel.

  Aside from their same-age children, Annie and Barb orbited different planets. But her neighbor wouldn’t tell Buddha himself that Tyler was there, what time Annie left, where she went, or how long she’d be gone.

  “If you ever want to knock off your mother-in-law,” Barb said, when Annie had smuggled Tyler through her back door, “no jury in the world would convict you.”

  She was joking, of course, and it was an old saw, at that. The woman was such a pacifist, she couldn’t snap bagworms off her bushes and roast them in a coffee can, like the guy at the hardware store advised. Barb had just tossed off the remark, as people do to commiserate, coax a smile, or better yet, a chuckle.