The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 by Laura Lippman, Otto Penzler
Authors: Laura Lippman, Otto Penzler
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something they wanted back was gone forever. They just hadn’t realized it yet. From this day forward, spilled red paint would never be just spilled red paint. He figured the Lanes would move away within the year.
He began walking again. He had not told the Lanes about Princess Anne. What was the point? He could not remember her epitaph, but he remembered she had one. She was buried about 150 miles away on the back lawn of a dilapidated factory on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. Back in the day, his tracking of Collins had taken him through and around the idle manufacturing buildings. When he noticed the grave, he thought what the Lanes had thought about Princess Jenny. Final resting place of a beloved pet. In this instance, the cherished company mascot. He remembered that the company name, whatever it was, was in the epitaph. He remembered something about Princess Anne being a companion to each and every worker on each and every shift. Collins would have buried his collection that was Princess Anne long after the gates were chained and all those jobs were long gone to China. Hide in plain sight. Howard shook his head wonderingly. It was becoming almost a “normal” thing—ordinary people leading ordinary lives randomly cut down by some nut job playing Angel of Death.
His chin sank lower into his chest. He stared at the gravel just a foot or two ahead of his next step. Princess Anne had not been anyone’s happy fantasy. Her grave had not been embraced by a loving couple and a sweet little girl. This grave was what it really was: a solitary obscenity. When moonlight shone upon the grave of Princess Anne, it was moonlight devoid of dreams. The chilly wind did not rustle over a bedtime story. It rustled over remnants of murdered lives.
It will always be blood to me
, Parveen had said. It was like that for Howard. Every day. In the morning he would call the Ann Arbor police and give them directions.
JODI ANGEL
Snuff
FROM
One Story
T HERE WAS A GROUP of guys I knew from school gathered in a garage out back of Billy’s house, and Billy had hung a bed sheet up on the wall and propped the projector on a milk crate stacked on a folding chair. He told us he’d gotten the movie from somebody’s brother’s best friend’s cousin, and we all stood there and watched the film from start to finish, no credits, no title, no names, no sound. When the last jumpy frames of 8mm finally spun through the reels, everybody started talking at once, and Mike Toth said,
No fucking way
, and Lenny Richter leaned into me and whispered,
Nothing but corn syrup and food coloring
.
I was sweating even though the sun was long set, and I couldn’t seem to get my mouth around anything to say, so I checked my watch and saw that I was close enough to curfew and decided it was best to leave. Without a word, I slipped out to the main road to chance hitching home. I lasted fifteen minutes walking with my thumb out on the empty asphalt before I bent and broke and went to the pay phone at a two-pump gas station, the only lit building as far as I could see in either direction, and I called home, hoping my sister Charlotte would pick up fast. She answered on the first ring.
Charlotte was seventeen and had always been pretty, but not beautiful. That summer she had discovered Fleetwood Mac and changed. My dad started making rules, more rules than ever before, asking things like
Where have you been?
Everything was a privilege, and bedroom doors had to be left open, phone calls were monitored, and, as Charlotte liked to say,
Privacy was part of the old regime
. I sensed there was a battle brewing and it was going to get ugly fast. My dad may have had more power than Charlotte, but she was smart and quiet as a sniper, and sneaking out had become her specialty.
“Why the hell are you way out there in the country?” she said on the phone. “Can’t you get into trouble closer to home?”
I cradled the receiver between my shoulder and ear and dug my hands
He began walking again. He had not told the Lanes about Princess Anne. What was the point? He could not remember her epitaph, but he remembered she had one. She was buried about 150 miles away on the back lawn of a dilapidated factory on the outskirts of Ann Arbor. Back in the day, his tracking of Collins had taken him through and around the idle manufacturing buildings. When he noticed the grave, he thought what the Lanes had thought about Princess Jenny. Final resting place of a beloved pet. In this instance, the cherished company mascot. He remembered that the company name, whatever it was, was in the epitaph. He remembered something about Princess Anne being a companion to each and every worker on each and every shift. Collins would have buried his collection that was Princess Anne long after the gates were chained and all those jobs were long gone to China. Hide in plain sight. Howard shook his head wonderingly. It was becoming almost a “normal” thing—ordinary people leading ordinary lives randomly cut down by some nut job playing Angel of Death.
His chin sank lower into his chest. He stared at the gravel just a foot or two ahead of his next step. Princess Anne had not been anyone’s happy fantasy. Her grave had not been embraced by a loving couple and a sweet little girl. This grave was what it really was: a solitary obscenity. When moonlight shone upon the grave of Princess Anne, it was moonlight devoid of dreams. The chilly wind did not rustle over a bedtime story. It rustled over remnants of murdered lives.
It will always be blood to me
, Parveen had said. It was like that for Howard. Every day. In the morning he would call the Ann Arbor police and give them directions.
JODI ANGEL
Snuff
FROM
One Story
T HERE WAS A GROUP of guys I knew from school gathered in a garage out back of Billy’s house, and Billy had hung a bed sheet up on the wall and propped the projector on a milk crate stacked on a folding chair. He told us he’d gotten the movie from somebody’s brother’s best friend’s cousin, and we all stood there and watched the film from start to finish, no credits, no title, no names, no sound. When the last jumpy frames of 8mm finally spun through the reels, everybody started talking at once, and Mike Toth said,
No fucking way
, and Lenny Richter leaned into me and whispered,
Nothing but corn syrup and food coloring
.
I was sweating even though the sun was long set, and I couldn’t seem to get my mouth around anything to say, so I checked my watch and saw that I was close enough to curfew and decided it was best to leave. Without a word, I slipped out to the main road to chance hitching home. I lasted fifteen minutes walking with my thumb out on the empty asphalt before I bent and broke and went to the pay phone at a two-pump gas station, the only lit building as far as I could see in either direction, and I called home, hoping my sister Charlotte would pick up fast. She answered on the first ring.
Charlotte was seventeen and had always been pretty, but not beautiful. That summer she had discovered Fleetwood Mac and changed. My dad started making rules, more rules than ever before, asking things like
Where have you been?
Everything was a privilege, and bedroom doors had to be left open, phone calls were monitored, and, as Charlotte liked to say,
Privacy was part of the old regime
. I sensed there was a battle brewing and it was going to get ugly fast. My dad may have had more power than Charlotte, but she was smart and quiet as a sniper, and sneaking out had become her specialty.
“Why the hell are you way out there in the country?” she said on the phone. “Can’t you get into trouble closer to home?”
I cradled the receiver between my shoulder and ear and dug my hands
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