Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

I wandered back there ready to explain myself, Jeb’s will, how I needed to make sure there’d been nothing in the drawer when I tossed it out with the wave of an indifferent hand...

That’s when I became aware of my breathing, the muscles in my throat. Jeb’s stepback was crashed facedown on a nine foot stretch of stairs, a filigreed chandelier dangling high above like a spotlight... then I saw the hand, a human palm, slightly open, purple, brushing one of the white painted spindles.

I hadn’t spoken to the couple, a middle-aged woman holding onto the banister’s curlicue and making a feeble effort at lifting the top of the stepback and a scrawny elderly man in an untucked shortsleeved shirt tugging from the top of the stairs.

I swallowed, managed an “oh no,” and grabbed a corner, trying to help lift the thing. “Lift it straight,” I said through gritted teeth. “We don’t want to damage the body.”

“Did you hear that, Hancil? Lift it straight up.” She duplicated my words like a screeching parrot.

I felt the weight of the stepback as I tried to raise it, but the angle was awkward. The outside corners were wedged against some shattered spindles, and there was no way to lift it more than a fraction of an inch.

The woman blotted her catlike eyes with a filmy handkerchief then waved it in the victim’s direction. “It’s bound to be Nell. We live down the road, the trailer. Came in here not ten minutes ago and found her plumb smashed up under that thing. Lord.” She dabbed.

“We got an episode here,” said Hancil. His knees creaked as he stood up, his hands bony wisps on his hips. “Cain’t lift the thing, Rosalie, must weigh nine hundred pounds.”

I felt my face warm and pale at the same time. “Has anybody called the police? An ambulance?” I asked.

The woman’s hair was short bleached blonde and curly. She was dressed from head to toe in Pepto-Bismol pink, a skirt, blouse, and bubblegum colored pumps that looked brand new. She looked up at Hancil with an inquiring mind. He rubbed his day-old beard. “This is not a quiz show, folks,” I said.

“There was no time,” said Hancil. “We thought she might still be alive.” He pinched a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket.

They watched as I got a foothold several steps up, then took a pulse. There was none. A yellowed tag on the back of the stepback read Eastlake, walnut, Plantation: Stepback Secretary, early 1800’s.

Rosalie wagged a finger all over the place. “I told her not to be movin’ this junk around by herself, there was bound to be an accident sooner or later. Bound to be. She wasn’t careful enough, not near careful enough. I told her you got to watch it around here—”

“We got an episode,” said Hancil. He was fighting a cigarette.

I remembered a telephone near the cash register and tripped over an old wicker baby buggy trying to get back. They scurried after me, Rosalie casually looking under chairs, buffets, inside armoires.

The wall phone was black, archaic. I shot around the counter and picked up the receiver.

“Doesn’t work It’s just for looks,” said Rosalie, “Nell don’t have a phone.” Hancil was out on the porch blowing smoke rings. Through the screen door I heard him call out a name. Mary.

I glanced at the drawings again. The top one was of a lone, cute dragon with a cloud of thought. Inside the cloud children were holding hands with the dragon, riding on his back laughing. There was no clue as to the identity of the artist. “Was someone else here, a child?” I asked.

Hancil answered through the screen door. “Nell’s niece. She—”

“I’ll tell it, Hancil!” Rosalie was twisting the handkerchief in a tight spiral. “We were goin’ on vacation, just got packed, then she,

Nell’s little niece, rode to the trailer on her bike all out of breath. Said Nell was in trouble, said Nell was plumb smashed up under some heavy thing. When we got here, I knew there was no way Hancil and me could lift it, I watched a half dozen men carry it in here months ago. See, Nell lives in the back of the antique shop and she bought that walnut thing to put in her bedroom, but it wouldn’t fit in the back door so she had ’em take it up the stairs through the little hallway that leads to the back. Trouble was, it wouldn’t fit through that door either, so she had to just leave it there at the top of them stairs.” She took a breath and checked her nails. Pink.

“We have to call somebody, report the death,” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “And we need to find the girl.”

The handkerchief fluttered. “Hancil!” He hopped out of the way as she shoved through the door. I followed in her wake of dime-store perfume. “You stay here and wait for the girl while I run to the trailer and call somebody. Uh, thank you—” she said to me.

“Marcy Murdock. I live in town, in Deerfoot.”

“You kin to the lawyer?” Rosalie stopped digging around in her purse and made eye contact with me.

“Late husband.”