The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin
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was no saying what the God-cursed Hippolyte would get up to today when you couldn’t see sky from ground.
Through the lessening snow, Jacques could see the outline of the cliff at the end of English Bait Point. He slipped the gun case off his shoulder and unzipped it. When his mother had said “Go find Pépère”, he knew he might be needing his rifle. He pulled it out of the slender case and ran his fingers along the well-oiled stock. He’d killed many a deer with this. No reason why he couldn’t kill Hippolyte if he had to.
He dug into his pocket and pulled out some cartridges. He jammed them into the magazine and hammered the bolt home. He was ready.
When he reached the end of the cliffs, the snow suddenly stopped, and the sun came out. At first he was blinded by the sudden brilliance, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw what he had come to find. From one side of the bay to the other ran a familiar line of orange tip-ups; the specialized ice fishing rods his grandfather used. They reminded Jacques of a cemetery of lopsided wooden crosses, each stuck into a mound of ice at the edge of a small hole. Before the first lopsided cross sat a figure covered in snow.
Jacques was about to call out when he realized he was seeing only one fisherman. Anxiously, he searched for the other. But the bay remained as empty of other human life as the lake behind him.
Sacrifice! He was too late. It had happened.
Ignoring the cold, he removed his mitts and felt the icy steel of the trigger. It was now up to him to finish this off.
He moved cautiously towards the hunched back of the silent figure. He was halfway there when he began to wonder why the fisherman hadn’t moved since he’d first seen him.
He was about thirty feet away when he noticed a dark patch at the feet of the still figure. At first he thought it was just a shadow. But when he drew closer, he realized with dread it was frozen blood, a pink crystalline mixture looking much like the snowcones he bought at the carnival.
He pointed his gun and pushed silently forward. The fisherman still didn’t move. Jacques was beginning to wonder if he was still alive.
Suddenly the cross bar of the tip-up jerked down into the hole. The figure lunged forward. Next thing Jacques knew, a gigantic silver fish was flopping on top of the packed frozen snow.
“Arrête!” shouted Jacques, “Stop, and raise your hands high above your head.” Jacques had seen enough westerns to know these were the right words.
The figure remained rigid, then the hood slowly swivelled around and pointed the long Crow’s Beak nose towards Jacques.
“Come on, Mononcle, hands above your head!” Jacques jabbed his gun towards the silent figure.
Two icy mittens slowly rose.
“Eh ben! What have you done with Pépère?”
“Jacques! My grandson. It’s me…your Pépère.” The man struggled to raise himself from the overturned bucket.
“Stop right there. How do I know it’s you?”
“Mon Dieu. What is the world coming to that a grandson doesn’t know his own grandfather?” One mitten brushed back the hood while the other lifted the toque from the high cheek-boned Tremblay face.
Jacques relaxed with relief when he saw the familiar bald pate and the twinkling brown eyes, but stiffened when he saw a deep gash extending from his grandfather’s eye to his mouth. A frozen trickle of blood still clung to his cheek.
“Tabarnac! What did that crazy man do to you?”
His grandfather removed his mitt and ran his hand over the bloody gash. “This? It is nothing. A disagreement,” he replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
“Where is Mononcle?”
Pépère crossed himself, then pointed. “Sainte-bénite! There’s been an accident.”
Jacques followed the line of the pointing finger to a spot beyond the last tip-up, not far from where the inlet flowed into the bay. It took him a few seconds to discern what looked to be tracks spoiling the smooth surface. Then he realized they led in a direct line to a patch of black water. A frozen red toque lay at the edge of the hole.
Jacques looked back at his grandfather. “Mononcle Hippolyte?” he asked.
“Oui” Pépère crossed himself again.
Jacques was tempted to look into the hole where his uncle had fallen through, but he didn’t, knowing as did anyone who fished on this lake that the ice where the river flowed into the bay was never thick enough to support a man. Still, he was a bit confused by the presence of a large patch of what looked to be frozen blood close to the hole.
“Oui. I told him to stay put in the white-out, but Hippolyte wouldn’t listen,” continued Pépère. “He was sure the big fish were over there, eh?”
By his grandfather’s feet lay a number of equally enormous fish, each with a perfectly round staring eye, some frozen, others limp with glistening water. Next to them, on the patch of icy pink were chunks of raw bait.
As horror slowly engulfed Jacques, Pépère beamed and said, “Now I am Seigneur Poisson, that’s for sure.”
R.J. HARLICK, an escapee from the high-tech jungle, decided that solving a murder or two was more fun than chasing the elusive computer bug. When she’s not inventing the perfect murder, she’s roaming the forests near her country home in West Quebec. “Seigneur Poisson” is her first published short story.
NATURAL MEDICINE
Jones scammed the health nuts every day.
Jones sold them grass and made them pay.
He sold them herbs he said were healthy:
Bought cheap, sold high, got very wealthy.
Sucked in the wife of the town M.E.,
And every year he raised her fee.
He was an expert id motivator:
“Quit now and you’ll regret it later.”
His clients stayed, they paid—regretted.
Nature Guru spent—was wildly feted,
Until the day they found him dead
His throat chokeful of twelve-grain bread.
And the M.E. said—without any pauses—
“It’s clear this man died from natural causes.”
JOY HEWITT MANN
LOVE HANDLES
H. MEL MALTON
Peter loved my shape for nine of the ten years we were married.
“I love the way your little belly pooches out like that,” he’d say, cupping my stomach in his big hands and jiggling it in a friendly way. He’d nuzzle underneath my chin, where the skin was beginning to take on a soft roundness, and he’d take my upper arms between his fingers and gently squeeze. “Mmmmm,” he’d say, “like warm bread.” It wasn’t as if I was running to fat. Just spreading is all, the way you do past forty, if you’re not a health Nazi. I like my food, I’ll admit that. So did he.
We’d met at a gourmet dinner club. Each month a group of us would get together at someone’s house and revel in the glories of food, cream sauces and fresh, tender vegetables drenched in butter. Exquisite pork tenderloin marinaded in port and thyme, robust red wines and dazzling desserts glazed in syrup. We’d fallen in love over a coulis of raspberries and praline ice cream, and our wedding feast was to die for.
Everything changed in the spring of the last year of our marriage. Something got into him, I don’t know