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    The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity
    The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity
    The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity

    By Harvey Stanbrough

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    About this ebook

    You wake up after a long nap. You reach over to see whether your partner's awake, and discover she's dead. Of a cut throat. In your bed.

    You didn't do it. But who did? How did they do it without waking you? And when? And why?

    Stern Richards, PI, has to find out. Or go to prison.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStoneThread Publishing
    Release dateMay 15, 2018
    ISBN9780463387061
    The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity
    Author

    Harvey Stanbrough

    Harvey Stanbrough is an award-winning writer and poet. He’s fond of saying he was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. After 21 years in the US Marine Corps, he managed to sneak up on a BA degree at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales in 1996. Because he is unable to do otherwise, he splits his writing personality among four personas: Gervasio Arrancado writes magic realism; Nicolas Z “Nick” Porter writes spare, descriptive, Hemingway-style fiction; and Eric Stringer writes the fiction of an unapologetic neurotic. Harvey writes whatever they leave to him. You can see their full bios at HEStanbrough.com.

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      Book preview

      The Unfortunate Case of His Mother's Virginity - Harvey Stanbrough

      Chapter 1

      Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a frown on my forehead and What the hell? on my lips. This was one of those mornings. In spades.

      It wasn’t that anything in particular was wrong with me. Well, beyond the slight pounding in my head accompanied by an annoyed disposition. So pretty much the usual.

      It was more like what was wrong around me.

      In fact, right there beside me.

      But I’m getting ahead of myself.

      I’m not sure what woke me up, but maybe it was just the light.

      I was groggy as hell at first, like I woke up in a deep well and had to climb to the top to be awake. And I woke up thinking of pennies, stacked high and then knocked over. A mound of pennies, and knowing how all of them together or individually would taste on my tongue. And my tongue had that nasty, thick, gooey feeling about it.

      I ran my tongue over my lips. Something sweet but industrial, sort of. Like rubber cement, only with a few grains of sugar in it.

      When I opened my eyes, a glow from the street light in the parking lot had slipped past the edge of the heavy drapes in my hotel room. I focused on the clock on the night stand. The blue numbers read 8:48 p.m.

      Eight forty-eight? And p.m.?

      But we’d retired to the room a little early, that’s right. Almost three hours ago. We were gonna go back to the bar maybe, go dancing.

      I followed the thin strip of light across the ceiling with my gaze and simultaneously rolled my right hand over toward Marie. I mean, I was awake, so why not? I figured if she was awake too, maybe we could have a little carnal dessert before heading back to the bar for some dancing.

      Not that it was any kind of love or anything like that. We both agreed on that. It was more like a convenience thing. Marie often joked that what we had kept us off the streets. I joked back that it kept us from screwing up anyone else’s life.

      So it wasn’t love, but it was something the other side of a casual friendship.

      Marie and I had been getting together—you know—every week or so for a little over a year when both of us were in town. Or when both of us were out of town but in the same town.

      Anyway, when the back of my fingers touched the flesh of her left shoulder and upper arm, something didn’t feel right. Only it didn’t register right away.

      She was in the same position as usual, on her left side, facing me.

      I was in the same position as usual, on my back, my right arm and hand draped across my lower abdomen. Until I screwed up and flopped it over in her direction.

      The motion was usual, my rolling my arm over and touching her shoulder and arm. Or one of her breasts. And what I said to accompany the motion was usual. Quietly, I said, Hey, Marie.

      If she answered—about half the time she answered—we’d start the rest of the day off right. If she didn’t, maybe I’d slip out for coffee. The motion of the mattress would begin to wake her, and by the time I got back she’d want the coffee.

      Only she didn’t answer.

      At the same time, the feel of her skin against the back of my fingers finally registered.

      It was faintly cool, which was all right. But beyond that it just didn’t feel right. It felt too—solid, maybe.

      So I muttered What the hell? and rolled my head over to see what was wrong with her.

      She was lying there on her side of the bed as usual, but that’s where the usual ended. She was—well, colorful. That’s when the frown dragged itself across my forehead.

      Her normally smooth, dark Cajun skin had taken on kind of a bluish pallor, and there was a broad red gash across her throat. There was also a tacky, black-red pool from the edge of her pillow down past her shoulder. It disappeared past her elbow beneath the sheet.

      I felt my own eyelids stretch and draw back. I jerked my hand away.

      Then the sickeningly sweet aroma of fresh red meat hit me along with the realization it was coming from Marie.

      The combination fired my adrenaline. Electricity raced up and out from the base of my spine, jerking my head and torso erect and jerking my legs out straight. I kicked my legs free of the covers and rolled away toward the edge of the bed.

      Chapter 2

      As I rolled away I muttered, I’m sorry.

      Not that I was sorry for what happened to her. I mean, I was, but that was someone else’s doing, somehow. But I meant I was sorry I had to abandon her by looking away. Marie was a good gal.

      I kept the motion going, tore my feet from the covers to the floor. Overbalanced with nerves, I skittered sideways toward the dresser.

      I caught my balance with my hands on the dresser and saw my reflection in the mirror above it: a-frame t-shirt and boxers, tousled hair standing mostly straight up on my head.

      Still jerking with nerves I bent to pick up my trousers from the floor. Then I hurriedly lifted my left foot and started tugging them on, hopping about like a mad man. A moment later, somehow, I had both legs in them and my t-shirt tucked in. Then I was buttoning the top and tugging the zipper up.

      All while denying what lay behind me on the bed. All while avoiding the image that might be in the mirror. All while electricity was still shooting up through my back and into my head.

      I jerked my head around. My shirt. Where was my shirt?

      There, a flash of white past the bottom corner of the bed.

      It would be rumpled. I usually draped it over the back of a chair.

      Well, I usually draped it over the back of a chair after I draped my trousers over the back of a chair. We’d been in a hurry last night.

      And Marie’s clothes were—

      Marie’s clothes weren’t there.

      What was she wearing?

      I looked her over in my mind.

      A black skirt with a zipper down the left side. She wore a lot of black. She liked her clothing to complement her hair. A matching black waistcoat. A white button-down blouse with three-quarter sleeves. Black high heels that made men climb walls when she walked by. A small gold cross on a gold chain that was almost invisible against her smooth dark skin.

      I turned but avoided looking directly at the bed.

      Maybe her clothes were on the other side of the bed, but that wouldn’t make sense. All the preliminary action happened on this side of the bed, between the door and the bed. We were like teenagers or something last night.

      Maybe they were hidden in the space past the foot of the bed. That would make sense.

      Wondering about the clothes calmed my racing head a bit, and finally I looked back at the bed. At the body. And I had to, even aside from the fact it was sort of my job. Not that I’d been hired, but I was involved in a way.

      Besides, this was Marie. Marie Arcenaux. On a foggy runway, she’d be Ingrid Bergman to my Bogey. I guess I was hired to figure this out. Marie had hired me a hundred times over without either of us realizing it. We were friends. I had to figure out what happened. And who had done this to her. And why.

      And the involvement. I’d have to figure that out too. How was I involved? And how had I slept through that involvement?

      I wasn’t a heavy sleeper. Being a heavy sleeper doesn’t pay well. Or sometimes at all.

      Anyway, I had to look.

      I almost opened the drapes, but thought better of it. We were on the second floor, but there was a balcony and a walkway outside.

      I put my left knee on the edge of the bed and leaned forward, then remembered the room has lights.

      I slipped back off the bed, turned away again and found the light switch next to the door. I clicked them on.

      On my way back to the bed I wondered why I couldn’t feel the grungy carpet on my feet. I looked down and realized I’d put on my socks and shoes some time or other. Maybe I slept in my socks, though I don’t usually

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