Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 100, Nos. 4 & 5. Whole Nos. 603 & 604, October 1992

Deborah said, “At my sister’s. They and the dog will be coming back tonight.”

“And your son Freddy?”

She went into her purse, pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “He’s almost of age and he’s moved out. I’ve not seen or heard from him in weeks. He ain’t my son anymore. And he won’t be welcome back.”

Victor nodded in the direction of the excavation. “I’ll have Tower Excavation come up and take care of this hole.”

“No, don’t do that,” Deborah Hanson said. “The tractor’s still in the barn. I’ll take her out this afternoon and fill it in myself. Might send you a bill for that, though.”

“Go ahead.”

Victor tapped a bit on the steering wheel and said, “Mrs. Hanson, with the grand jury decision you’re a free woman. You know, with the news accounts about what kind of man your husband was and the attitude of the people who live here in this county, well, I don’t think there’s anything that will put you back before the grand jury.”

She said, “You mean, a cousin or other relation comes forward with another crazy story ’bout how I killed Henry, nothing’s gonna happen?”

“Probably not.”

“So I could say practically anything to you right now, and it’d be my word against yours, and I’m still okay.”

“Most likely.”

She took out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply. “Let me tell you this one thing, Chief. Henry was a good man in some ways, ’cept when he drank. And the problem was, it got so he was drinking all the time. And that good part left. When he was sobered up, he liked to sit at the kitchen table and quote Bible verse at me. One thing, stuck in my mind, was ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways.’ I guess that’s one phrase that explains everything.”

“Maybe so,” he said, staring at her.

She stared right back. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a place to clean up. My daughters coming back and all.”

“Sure,” he said, and after she stepped out he backed the cruiser down the hill, remembering the look in her face, the way her eyes just fell for that moment and revealed everything, and he knew. Didn’t know how. But he just knew.

Didn’t know how. But he just knew.

After taking a long shower — the ones at the jail she never could relax in, too many bodies around — she changed her clothes and opened every window in her house. The girls would be coming back soon and she wanted to have the place look nice for them. Maybe drive down and get some ice cream. Now, that would be a treat.

Deborah Hanson went into the barn and walked past the John Deere tractor with a bucket attachment on the front. The bucket was covered with a canvas tarp. It was cool in the barn. She had depended on that. She slipped on a pair of work gloves and started up the tractor. It took four tries before the engine caught. Goddam thing needed a new battery.

As she drove the tractor out she looked over, once, at the long wooden shelf on the near wall. There were chains up there, and gardening tools and other work gloves and lengths of green hose and there, by the end and almost covered by old newspaper, a can of rat poison.

Sure, little Freddy had seen her, five years ago, dump Henry’s body in the old septic tank hole. She had told him a story, to safeguard her future, and the boy had believed her then, about the baseball bat and all.

Like the valley people believed her story now.

She halted the tractor at the edge of the hole, where last week they had tom up her front lawn looking for Henry’s body. Well, she couldn’t say she wasn’t warned. She always knew that eventually someone would find out, and the night before they did come up, with their warrants and backhoes, Freddy had come by, drunk and itching for a fight, to boast that he had gone to the cops.

Drinking, just like his father. And before he left, she fed him well, just like his father.

Switching the throttle on high, she tilted the front bucket and the canvas covering popped off, and Freddy — wrapped in rope and green trash bags — tumbled to the bottom of the hole.

She backed the tractor away and started to move the dirt in. Another Bible verse, there, valley cop. One my mother and her mother and her mother before her passed down to me.

The Lord helps those who help themselves.

More dirt trickled and fell in, covering up the green bags and rope, and as she worked she thought, Soon, soon we’ll tell the girls about that verse.

The Lemures

by Steven Saylor