A Loaf of Dead , A Jug of Crime , and Thou: A Collection of Short Stories

By Karen Macleish

This book contains a collection of short stories, some written to cure the need for justice in the author's life. Some were written as contests entries. All were written with love of character.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookTrail Publishing
• Release date: Jul 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781951505202

Karen Macleish

Karen MacLeish has worked as a correctional officer in both maximum and minimum security prisons in the Midwest. She began her career in the prison system when hiring women in male institutions was new. "I learned," she says, "that a woman who was self-confident and didn t hide behind the power of her badge, had an easier time in the job than many of the male officers because some of the men, both inmates and officers, seemed always to have a need confront each other and prove their masculinity over and over. The prisoners wanted to show their better side to women officers in most instances, even keeping their language clean." After relocating to the southwest, Ms. MacLeish worked as an Intensive Probation Surveillance Officer before attending law school at the University of Arizona. She has had several short stories published in Alfred Hitchcock s Mystery Magazine, recently published A Loaf of Dead, A Jug of Crime, and Thou: This is her first novel and was titled Criminal Justice before.

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Copyright © 2020 by Karen MacLeish

Paperback: 978-1-951505-19-6

eBook: 978-1-951505-20-2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction.

Ordering Information:

BookTrail Agency

8838 Sleepy Hollow Rd.

Kansas City, MO 64114

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

NO LOOSE ENDS

JOEY’S BLUES

BURNING LOVE

WIND CHILL FACTOR

THE BIG BOXING DAY MURDER

COWBOYS AND INDIANS

HAPPINESS IS THE SPICE OF DEATH

DADDY’S DEAD

THE MAGAZINE MURDER

THE BODY IN KENNEDY PARK

NO LOOSE ENDS

by

Karen R. MacLeish

I

Arthur awakened, instantly alert. His eyes opened to familiar gloom. Little daylight came in through the grime on the two panes of glass left in the upper portion of the window. Cardboard covered the other two panes and the entire bottom half. Ragged curtains hung uselessly at the sides.

Two mattresses nearly covered the bare floor of the room. The usual smells assailed him. Nearest and strongest was the smell of urine and feces from beside him on the mattress where he’d been sleeping. The odor of decay was stronger each day. Sister’s baby slept on the same mattress. Actually, she lived on it. Sister never picked her up any more, never washed her. Baby was almost two years old and never moved anymore.

Arthur knew what had awakened him. Even in his sleep he felt and recognized the slight pressure of the animal running over his body across the ragged blanket. He was aware of the furtive movements beside him. Being careful not to move, he rolled his eyes toward the thing, knowing what he’d see. It was a medium sized rat. Arthur had seen larger ones in the old buildings by the river where he sometimes played. This medium sized rat was chewing at Baby’s face again. Although it wasn’t the first time Arthur had seen this, nausea flooded his body, tightening his chest and the back of his throat. He fought to keep from throwing up. He had a system he used when sickness, pain or anger threatened to consume him. He shut his eyes tightly and counted to ten, being very careful not to miss a number. Ten was as far as Arthur could count. When he reached ten, he tried to count back down to one. Arthur had to concentrate so intently to get the numbers in the correct reverse order that the nausea subsided before he ever got as far as five.

Moving carefully so he wouldn’t startle the rat, Arthur inched toward the edge of the mattress and onto the floor. He slowly sat up, put on one ragged sneaker and tied the strings.

The tip of the rat’s tail moved rhythmically back and forth. Arthur took two swift steps and connected with the rat. It sailed up and against the wall, slid down to the floor, righted itself and limped away along the baseboard, around the doorframe and into the kitchen. Arthur followed. He didn’t want to look at Sister’s baby yet.

The sink and stove were piled high with dirty pans and dishes. There was no table. There was no room for a table anyway. The rat had gone under the cupboard. Something always smelled rotten in the kitchen, but Arthur could never find it, whatever it was. He looked around to see if there was any fresh food. Inside the tin bread box, he found a small piece of bread that was neither rock hard nor moldy. He closed the box and went back to look at Sister’s baby.

She stared up at him with dull vacant eyes. Arthur squatted and put on his other sneaker. He kept his eyes on the baby. Raw flesh gaped on her cheek close to her nose. A little watery blood ran from the wound. Pus seeped from the edges of the scab left from the other time the rat had been eating her face. Yellowish crust was forming around her eyes. She didn’t cry. She never cried anymore. She used to cry when she was hungry, and Sister would give her some milk, a cookie or a piece of banana.

But Ben, Sister’s boyfriend didn’t like it when Baby cried. And he didn’t like it when Sister left his side to care for the baby. One day when Baby was crying, Ben gave her a shot with the needle he kept on the floor beside him. Baby stopped crying and Ben went back to Sister on their mattress and tried to love her.

Eyes wide with horror, Sister had looked back and forth from the baby to Ben and then she started screaming and crying. Ben wound his fingers in her hair, pressed her back on the mattress and began kissing her while she struggled. His free hand groped for the needle. Arthur had gone outside then. After that, Ben gave the baby a shot every few days. Since then, Baby never cried. She never made any sound. She didn’t eat anymore either.

Arthur wanted to tell his sister about the rat eating the baby again, but Ben might try to give him a shot. Once before when Arthur tried to talk to his sister about the baby, Ben had come after him with the needle, but Arthur had escaped. By the time he returned, Ben had forgotten.

Arthur stood looking down on Sister and Ben where they lay tangled up together on their mattress. Sister’s face was bruised from Ben’s large hands. Ben hadn’t hit her. Arthur had never seen Ben hit his sister. Ben loved her—his hands kneading her flesh as if it were clay while he cooed love phrases in a low scratchy voice. Sister’s shoulders, too, were bruised, as well as her chest. Here and there marks of Ben’s teeth showed in vivid red, purple and blue where he bit her while he loved her. Her dirty blond hair was snarled and matted.

Arthur noticed a thin wisp of smoke rising from the mattress near Sister’s hand. A long cigarette holder lay beneath her thin fingers. Arthur stared at the smoke for a minute or two. He turned and looked down at Sister’s baby. Baby’s eyes no longer watched him. They were open, but they looked at nothing. They no longer blinked. Arthur looked at Baby for a long while, tears rolling down his cheeks. He tiptoed into the kitchen, holding his hand over his mouth to keep from sobbing aloud. He didn’t want to wake Ben.

Arthur took the good bread from the box, carefully closing the lid. He looked around for something more to eat and found an unopened can of condensed milk. He wrapped the bread and milk in his jacket and tied the sleeves around the bundle. He looked toward Sister and Ben, watching the smoke rise, the red-rimmed crater widen. He turned away and found some greasy newspaper, which had once held French fries and fish, tore it into shreds, and dropped the pieces onto the smoldering mattress. He looked towards Baby, remembering when she had been clean, happy and loved. Before Mom died and Dad left. Before Ben came. Tears threatened once more and Arthur turned away. He walked past the sleeping forms of Sister and Ben without looking at them. Carrying his jacket bundle, he went outside, closing the door quietly behind him.

Inside, the smoke column grew larger. Edges of shredded newspaper charred and curled. Tiny tongues of flame licked eagerly at the ragged cotton and straw mattress.

II

Several blocks away in the same neglected neighborhood, Letty woke to the stench of vomit. Although the odor was never absent, she had to brace her senses for each fresh deposit. Her stomach wanted to add to the slime that covered the man’s clothing.

He lay sprawled on the bed, one leg hanging over the end, an arm draped over the side. Drool mixed with the vomit on his unshaven face as it ran from his open mouth. It’s a wonder he doesn’t drown in it, Letty thought.

Late morning sun streaked through a slit at the edge of the window where the old bedspread, nailed to the frame, had been shoved aside. It shone on the slime where several flies quarreled. The room was becoming warm. Soon it would be stifling.

Letty dropped three short abusive names on the sleeping form. She shook a cigarette from a nearly empty package which lay on the chair beside the bed, struck a match, took a deep drag and then another. Sighing heavily, she closed her eyes. She finished the smoke and smudged the short butt down on the scarred seat of a wooden chair, then flipped it toward the sleeping man. It landed in the slime on his chest, startling two flies, which rose, buzzing angrily, circled and settled again.

Letty muttered one last word in the man’s direction and sat up on her side of the bed. She sat for a minute or so, hunched forward, rubbing her hands roughly over her face as if to force the adjustment from horizontal to vertical. She moved her hands up over her wiry gray hair ignoring the tangles. Then she heaved her heavy frame upright and left the room, closing the door behind her.

A whiskey bottle lay on its side on the floor in the path worn in the old Linoleum between the bedroom and the table. It held only that liquid below the level of its narrow neck. A small puddle of light brown fluid sat in the low area by the sink. A sticky trail cut through the grime following the slant of the floor. Letty kicked the bottle under the stove, then thought better of it and got on her knees to retrieve it. She wiped off the cobwebs and dust collected from under the stove, then raised the bottle to her mouth, drained it and laid it beside her where she sat on the floor.

Baby, baby! she said, shaking her head from side to side in the beginning of a shudder that racked her heavy frame. Using the stove for support, she clambered to her feet. Finding an acceptable amount of coffee in the pan on the stove, she turned on the gas. She rummaged in the box for a match, which she struck across the rough surface of the underside of a hanging cupboard. The hissing gas eagerly grabbed the flame and popped to life abruptly, savagely. Letty jerked her hand back and waved the match, extinguishing it.

Missed me again, she told the fire, now a subdued perfect blue ring under the pot. Letty tossed the match into the sink where it sizzled among the cups and pans stacked in the scummy gray water. She moved to the table, and using both arms like a plow, pushed back the litter of dishes and food scraps, clearing s spot on one end. A cup half full of cold coffee tipped, spilling its contents, which ran to the edge of the table and onto the floor. The coffee ran along the slant of the floor towards Letty’s chair. When it soaked through her worn cotton sock and touched her skin, she cursed and jerked her feet up onto the chair rung. The sudden thrust of her knees against the table caused a glass jar to topple, shattering when it hit the floor.

Letty searched among plates, cups, rumpled empty potato chip bags, butts and ashes, chicken bones, Styrofoam burger boxes and paper chop-suey boxes, paper bags, plastic bags and other debris, and came up with a deck of cards. After shuffling them several times, she laid them out carefully in Solitaire formation.

The aroma of coffee simultaneously with an angry sizzle brought Letty to the stove in two steps. The froth disappeared quickly as she removed the pan and shut off the gas. She searched the cupboard for a clean cup, and finding none, took a lone soup bowl from the shelf and filled it with the strong steaming liquid, sat again and finished her game.

Her game finished, Letty took one last swallow of coffee, made a face, and glared into the bowl at the thick dark residue. She emptied it into the water standing in the sink, and refilled the bowl with coffee. She plucked a greasy black cast-iron fry pan from the sink, wiped out the inside with a ragged gray wad of cloth that lay stiff on the drain board, and placed the pan dripping onto the stove. From a bean can at the back of the stove, she spooned a generous gob of bacon fat into the pan. This time she struck a match and held it toward the gas jet while she turned the knob. A neat blue ring sprang to life. Letty made an obscene sound between her lips. She stood watching the fat slump, shrink and disappear into the clear liquid it formed. From the refrigerator she took a pan of grits, carved four thick slices and slid them into the sizzling, spitting grease.