#

“Do you know what’s odd? I was going to mention it to you the other day and just plain forgot.” The chief was leaning on McPhee’s desk, where the detective was trying to work on some paperwork. “Where were you this afternoon by the way?”

“Thanking Mary Niven. We had tea.”

“Smart move. Our own little Angela Fletcher.”

McPhee could tell, by the way Chief Scanlan was running his words together, that more than a few little vodka bottles had been emptied since lunch. “What was it you forgot to ask me?”

“I’ve forgotten again, goldarnit.”

“Something odd, you said.”

“Oh, right. I thought I’d check out the last time there’d been a murder in our fair hamlet. Strictly curious, of course. It was back in 1965. Just before my time here, I’m happy enough to say. A lady who was a secretary at the bank got herself killed. Guess how?”

Mcphee shrugged.

“Her throat was slit by a straight razor.”

“Huh.”

“I’m not making anything of it. Just think it’s kind of an odd-duck coincidence is all. Sally something. Her husband did it. Slit her throat from ear to ear.” The chief drew a finger across the most pendulous of his many chins. “Don’t you think it’s odd that the last two murders in this town have been committed the same way.”

“Low gun ownership.”

“You’re probably right.”

The chief lingered a little by the desk while McPhee continued to write up a booking. After two minutes he wandered away, and neither of the men thought about the coincidence again.

#

Later that night, just before midnight, Mary Niven undressed for bed in her second-floor bedroom. Before taking off her cardigan sweater she removed first her embroidered handkerchief and then the folding straight razor that she always kept hidden behind it, pressed flat between her buttoned blouse and her forearm. She placed both the handkerchief and the razor in an emerald-green porcelain bowl on top of her dresser. It wasn’t the actual straight razor she’d used to kill Jay Martin, of course; that particular weapon was buried in the damp earth under the loose stone in the far north corner of the basement. It was buried there with a few other trinkets and evidence that needed to stay hidden.

When she’d gone to visit Jay that lovely summer morning she hadn’t been entirely positive that she was going to kill him. She’d certainly decided that he deserved to die. Not just for what he’d done to Carli Clark and for the way he treated that admittedly dissolute Russian girl, but for all the future girls and future women he was bound to mistreat throughout his meaningless, hedonistic life

But when she’d gotten to his house (quite unobserved), and when he’d come to the door in all his unwashed youth and arrogance, wearing just a pair of boxers and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, she knew that the time had come again. Just like she’d done with that awful Sally McCord all those years ago, Mary invited herself into the house then told Jay he had a smudge of something on the side of his chin and offered to wipe it off with her handkerchief. Once the razor was in her hand the rest was simple. Like unzipping a handbag.

Framing the nefarious Bill Jackett had been just as easy, and just as gratifying. She’d always noticed his beautifully shaved cheeks and been sure that they had neither come from a safety razor nor one of those ghastly electric contraptions. Means, motive and opportunity had fallen into place. It didn’t hurt that she had pilfered one of Bill Jackett’s hairs off his own shoulder under the guise of removing some lint a couple of weeks ago. She’d brought it with her and planted it after carefully wiping down the scene. Now he’d go away to a place where the only real harm he could do was against himself, or other immoral men such as himself. His wife, Emily, would get a second chance at some kind of happiness. Mary Niven had always harbored a soft spot for Bill’s commonsense, virtuous wife, and hoped that she would take full advantage of her freedom from the lecher.

So it had been two deserving birds with one perfectly thrown stone. The town was rid of Jay Martin and Bill Jackett. Mary smiled to herself, thinking how she’d told that rather obtuse detective how Jay Martin’s name was two birds. Had she been trying to implicate herself? No, of course not. But maybe she had slyly been opening up to the man, wanting to show off a little, reveal some of the cleverness that she had concealed? No, that was silly, too. Psychological claptrap. Even before the thought of punishment had ever crossed her mind, Jay Martin’s name had amused her. It had just been one of the little peculiarities of life that she, and no one else, had observed.

THE END