Mayhem In the Golden Years

By Elizabeth Morris

Dysfunctional families are not all that unusual but in the case of the Carpenters, ignoring a son, grandson and nephew's "oddness" eventually lead to mayhem the family could not and would never have predicted. Choosing to ignore what appears to be minor degrees of strangeness leads to what can never be fixed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Morris
• Release date: Feb 16, 2013

Elizabeth Morris

Elizabeth Morris is a former newspaper columnist, feature writer and teacher. She has published short stories, essays and reviews and had many full-length and one-act plays produced and stage read, including one at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. She was the Assistant Director of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project until it was retired to the Library of Congress. She has had seven novels published and one self-published as an e-book. At least three of her novels are available on-line.

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MAYHEM* IN THE GOLDEN YEARS

By

Elizabeth J. Morris

Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth J. Morris

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

MAYHEM IN THE GOLDEN YEARS

By Elizabeth J. Morris

Dysfunctional families are not all that unusual but in the case of the Carpenters, ignoring a son, grandson and nephew’s oddness eventually leads to mayhem the family could not and would never have predicted. Choosing to ignore what appears to be minor degrees of strangeness leads to what can never be fixed.

An older local newspaper writer is asked to interview first one, then two, and finally three of the aged victims of what appears to be burglaries, all of which include relatively minor violence. Meanwhile, the perpetrator becomes increasingly disturbed leading to a fourth victim who is violently murdered.

The first three victims are all older women, as is their interviewer. They each live alone in fairly close proximity to one another which leads to growing widespread fear in what has always been a safe, upscale community.

When the perpetrator’s uncle finally begins to see that his nephew’s strangeness has gone beyond strange, it is much too late to save anyone, including the nephew himself and his woefully protective and self-centered mother.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Synopsis

Dedication

Epigraph

Begin Reading Mayhem in the Golden Years

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17

About the Author

Upcoming Project

Dedication

To all the girls we left behind

And especially the ones who refused to leave

Remember, everybody is doing something crazy…no wonder this world is such a mess.

Zen Monk/Teacher/4-20-92

*(Mayhem: needless or willful damage or violence) Webster’s Dictionary

MAYHEM IN THE GOLDEN YEARS

A novel

By Elizabeth J. Morris

I wish I’d told him to go to bloody hell," she said, the harshly angry words spewing out of her faintly pink-tinged, prim and proper lips like hot water from a cold water spigot.

 1

The lights went out and for a moment I didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t even a storm or anything…in fact, there was a half moon. So I gathered my wits about me…I was sitting in my easy chair reading at the time…and after a minute remembered Edward’s flashlight. He always kept it in the magazine rack next to his chair just for these kinds of occasions, so now I keep it next to my chair."

She paused, her eyes half closing as she thought of her dead husband, a half-smile forming on her age-thinned, lightly lip-sticked lips, her short, snow-white hair framing her heart-shaped face like a cloud, soft and fine. She had almost no lines in her face, which probably indicated she had not spent much time in the sun during her lifetime or else, as they say, she had good genes.

She was 92 years old but somewhere in her head was still the girl she had once been, the pretty Austrian fraulein who had married Edward Koch in a small chapel in Wells, Austria so many years ago, just before World War II started. He was an American diplomat and her parents did not approve, nor were they happy when she emigrated with him to the United States, but for her it was a lucky happenstance.

Even after all these years she still had a slight accent, although English had long been her preferred language. She loved it, loved to read books, histories especially, testing herself with words, a dictionary always at hand until it was no longer necessary. She also loved to play Scrabble, word games intrigued her. She was openly proud of her hard-earned command of the language and its many nuances.

Edward loved flashlights, we had…still have actually…one in every room because, you know the lights do go out from time to time. Usually in storms, of course.

She sighed now and seemed to return to the present. The early spring sunlight was pouring in through the three long narrow living room windows of the 1930’s two-story house she had lived in since 1946 when she and her then Army Major husband had moved there. His own family had been far away in Minnesota, a strange, cold, distant place that was as frigid as her native Austria, but with none of its mountainous beauty.

So I reached into the magazine rack for the big flashlight and there it was…my grandson loved to play with it, you know how children are….

She tended to go off on tangents, obviously enjoying remembering the good times, as a means perhaps of avoiding talking about the horrendous immediate past, about an experience she had finally agreed to talk about for publication only because her good friend Cecilia had prevailed upon her to do so after much cajoling, insisting it was important to get the details down before they faded from memory.

But I told the police, she cried, having gone to stay with her long-time friend for a few days after the incident. Incident indeed. That word hardly described what had happened to her.

Yes, but you need to talk to someone else. Sometimes things come back with the telling and besides, it will make others aware of what can happen if they’re not careful. You know, how they should be on their guard. I mean if such a thing can happen to you, it can happen to others like you, Cecilia had said, pausing for a moment, frowning, but then obviously deciding to be frank, added, "Especially older people, like us."

I certainly hope not, Ceil. He was a rank amateur, and besides, you just want a good story for that paper your grandson is the editor of. I know you, always looking out for your own.

Of course, and you would do the same. Your first-hand story would be a scoop for a small local paper like his. And besides, as I said, you’d do the same thing for your grandson if it came to that.

"Well, it obviously is not going to come to that, my friend. But all right. Only I have no intention of talking to one of those beginning reporters who can’t really write yet, or hear me correctly because they’re so young and inexperienced, too busy thinking ahead to their next question, not really listening to the answers."

All right, I will find someone good—or at least I’ll try, Cecilia had said, which was why Gisele was now talking to this older writer—old, but not as old as she was. Not many people were anymore.

What did you say your name was again, dear? Anne? Gisele said, frowning as if she was trying to remember, but what she was really doing was stalling, dreading talking about what had happened.

Margaret Anne, Margaret Anne said, then obviously trying to move the interview along, added, So you had a flashlight at hand when the lights went out, is that right?

"I will never, never forget that night, no matter what Ceil says," Gisele said, obviously still lost in her own train of thought. Then, pursing her lips, she seemed to shake herself, running a blue veined, birdlike hand over the arm of her flowered, slip-covered easy chair.

Yes, yes, I had Edward’s flashlight in the magazine rack next to my chair and I was just so grateful the batteries were still working when I turned it on. It wasn’t a stormy night, you know, so I knew it was the circuit breaker that had somehow shorted out…and of course it is in the basement. I knew that because it had happened before, many times over the years, and Edward was always good about showing me the practical things to do in the house. Especially when he was away during the war and we were living in an old rented house a few blocks away from here. She paused for a moment, and touched the flashlight nestled in the nearby magazine rack.

But it’s been a long time, you know, since he passed. Ten years! Still, I sometimes can’t believe he’s really gone. I do miss him…carry him around in my head like a talisman or an old photograph. You do forget the difficult times though, and there isn’t a married couple in the whole world who doesn’t go through some bad times. We are all human after all, but thanks be to heaven we didn’t have many arguments. We were really soul mates, Edward and I, and you can believe that or not, she said, somewhat defensively

Her surprisingly strong voice had taken on an almost strident quality, as if she felt she had to prove something to this stranger. But there was no reason to hurry her along, it would probably only aggravate her and since the interview was being conducted as a favor to a long-time friend, it had to be done with patience. Questions could come later, when the whole scenario had been sketched. Meanwhile, it was important to take clear notes so nothing would be lost, although Margaret Anne’s shorthand was more then a bit rusty.

• • •

Her name was Gisele Koch. She was a small, compact, bespectacled woman whose still bright blue eyes were unclouded by age or any accompanying befuddlement often associated with old women. She wore sensible, low-heeled navy blue pumps with stockings and a simple floral polyester dress, pink being the dominant color. A gold link watch with a large face circled her left wrist, small diamond earrings glistened in her rather large ears and a simple gold bracelet adorned her right wrist. She wore no rings and her short, snow white hair curled softly around her smooth-skinned face like dandelion fluff.

I wasn’t wearing the watch, earrings or bracelet…never do when I get ready for bed, but he took the rings, she said later. And thank heaven they were loose or I think he might have cut my fingers off, he was so determined to have them…gold, diamonds and rubies, of course. Edward and I picked them out together in the back of beyond now. not to mention Edward’s 18K gold handled knife letter opener I kept on top of the small desk in the hallway.

Sunlight flashed across her face as she turned her head now to glance in the direction of the long entrance hallway leading at one end to the front door and at the other to the basement door located where the hallway came to the kitchen.

Come, I’ll show you. She grimaced slightly as she stood. Arthritis, she said, but the pained look on her face could also have come from the memory of that dark night that was going to be repeated by others in other venues in the months to come, although they could not have known that then.

Gisele walked carefully into the hallway followed by her interviewer who was seventeen years younger, although she moved with less agility then Gisele did.

That’s where the letter opener was, she said, gesturing at the narrow mahogany desk in passing, but continued on to a door at the end of the hallway.

There was a little light from the outside door windows as I opened the hall door , so I could see a little as I stepped onto the landing here at the top of the basement stairs, Gisele said, but then paused as she held the door open.

Have you noticed my glass door knobs? They’re original, came with the house. Even when we had work done on the place we kept the glass knobs. I just love them, Gisele said, as she stepped down into the small entranceway landing at the top of the basement stairs, its windowed outside side door to her left.

"You’d think he would have come in this way, wouldn’t you? But no, he had to squeeze in through one of my narrow basement windows