The Best of Sisters in Crime (12 page)

The waiting was
making me uneasy. Couldn’t I move on to eternal bliss now? Why the delay? I had
been a good person. I had followed the Ten Commandments, as much as was
reasonable for someone living in San Francisco. I had honored my mother and
father on those Christmases and long distance after five and on Saturdays. I
had kept the Sabbath when I was a child, before they televised the football
games, which is all that could be legitimately expected. I had even gone to a
series of Krishnamurti lectures on Sundays a year or two ago.

But my parents
and the Sabbath were only two commandments. What of the other eight? What
were
the other eight? That was a question I had
considered only in connection with the Seven Dwarfs or the eight reindeer.
Commandments? Ah, taking the name of the Lord in vain. Oh, God! Whoops!
Admittedly, I’d been less than pure here, but who hadn’t? If that commandment
had been pivotal there would be no need for this room at all. The escalator
would only go down.

Regardless, I
felt distinctly uncomfortable. I looked around, searching for walls, for a
bench, for something solid, but nothing was more substantial than a suggestion,
a fuzzy conception way in the back of my mind.

Then, suddenly,
there were double doors before me. With considerable relief, I pushed them open
and walked into a large room, a banquet hall. To my right were the other
guests. I couldn’t make out individuals, but I knew they were seated at
festively decorated tables, with full plates before them and glasses of Dom
Perignon waiting to be lifted. No words were distinct, but the sounds of gaiety
and laughter were unmistakable. Maybe the welcoming of those who had gone on
before was
not
a myth. A welcoming
dinner!

To my left was a
buffet table.

It had been a
long time since that fatal chocolate bar. The whole process of dying had taken
a while, and the Hershey’s had been a preprandial chocolate. Now that I was no
longer distracted by apprehension, I realized I was famished. And I couldn’t
have been in a better place. I was delighted that this was not to be a formal
dinner with choice limited to underdone chicken breast or tasteless white fish
and a slab of Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. For me a buffet was the perfect
welcome.

The buffet table
was very long and wonderfully full. Before me were bowls of fruit. Not just
oranges or canned fruit cocktail, but slices of fresh guavas and peaches, of
mangoes and kiwi fruit, hunks of ripe pineapple without one brown spot, and
maraschino cherries that I could gorge on without fear of carcinogens. As I stood
pleasantly salivating, I knew that here at the celestial buffet I could eat
pineapple and ice cream without getting indigestion, mountains of coleslaw or
hills of beans without gas. And as much of them as I wanted. Never again the
Scarsdale Diet. No more eight glasses of water and dry meat. Never another day
of nine hundred or fewer calories. I could consume a bunch of bananas, thirty
Santa Rosa plums, enough seedless grapes to undermine the wine industry, and
remain thin enough for my neighbor’s husband to covet me.

But that was a
topic I did not want to consider in depth. Surely, in business, in the
twentieth century, in California, a bit of extramarital coveting was taken for
granted. I hadn’t, after all, coveted my neighbor’s husband (he was sixty, and
he
only coveted a weed-free lawn). I hadn’t really coveted Amory as
much as I did his ability to make me district manager. After the promotion I
hadn’t coveted him at all. And his wife never knew, and Raymond only half
suspected, so that could hardly be considered Mortal Coveting. Besides, there
wouldn’t be guavas in hell.

A plate, really
more of a platter than a mere one-serving plate, hovered beside me as if held
up on the essence of a cart. Balancing the plate and the cup and holding the
silver and napkins was always such a nuisance at buffets (and balancing, as I
had so recently been reminded, was not my best skill). So this floating platter
was a heavenly innovation. I was pleased that things were so well organized
here. I scooped up some guava, just a few pieces, not wanting to appear piggish
at my welcoming dinner. I added a few more, and then a whole guava, realizing
with sudden sureness that at this banquet greed was not an issue. I heaped on
cherries, berries, and peeled orange sections soaked in Grand Marnier. Had this
been an office brunch, I would have been ashamed. But all the fruit fit
surprisingly well on the platter and, in truth, hardly took up much of the
space at all. It must have been an excellent platter design. Each fruit
remained separate, none of the juices ran together, and I knew instinctively
that the juices would never run into any of the entrees to come.

I moved along
and found myself facing lox, a veritable school of fresh pink lox, accompanied
by a tray of tiny, bite-size bagels, crisp yet soft, and a mound of cream
cheese that was creamy enough to spread easily but thick enough to sink my
teeth into. And there was salmon mousse made with fresh dill weed, and giant
prawns in black bean sauce, and a heaping platter of lobster tails, and
Maryland soft-shell crab, and New Jersey bluefish that you can’t get on the
West Coast, and those wonderful huge Oregon clams. I could have made a meal of
any of them. But meal-sized portions of each fitted easily onto the platter.
More than I ever coveted.

Coveting again.
I may have coveted my neighbor’s goods, but I had certainly not broken into his
house and taken them. Oh, there had been the notepads and pens from the office,
a few forays into fiction on my tax returns, but no one fears eternal
condemnation for that. And there was the money from Consolidated Orbital to
alter the environmental survey, but that was a gift, not stolen, regardless of
what the environmentalists might have said. No, I could rest assured on the
issue of coveting my neighbor’s goods.

I adore quiche,
and for the last three years it has given me indigestion. But there is no need
for plop-plop fizz-fizz amongst the heavenly host. And the choice of quiche
here was outstanding. Nearest me was Italian Fontina with chanterelle mushrooms,
New Zealand spinach, and—ah!—Walla Walla onions that were in and out of season
so fast that a week’s negligence meant another year’s wait. Beside it, bacon.
Bacon throughout the quiche and crisp curls decorating the top! The smell made
me salivate. I could almost taste it. Bacon loaded with fat and sodium and
preservatives and red dyes of every number. I had forced myself to forgo it for
years. And crab quiche, and one with beluga caviar sprinkled—no, ladled—over
the top. I couldn’t decide. I didn’t have to. It was truly amazing how much fit
onto the platter. I was certainly glad I didn’t have to hold it up. Had I even
contemplated eating this much on earth, I would have gained five pounds. Ah,
heaven! On earth, I would have killed for this.

I smiled (subtly
speaking, for my spiritual face didn’t move but my essence shifted into the
outward show of happiness).
Thou shalt not kill.
Well, I wasn’t a murderer either. And that was a biggie. The
closest I had come to a dead body was my own. I moved on to the meats—rare
roast beef with the outside cuts ready for my taking, and crispy duck with no
grease at all. Admittedly, Milton Prendergast, my predecessor as district
manager, had killed himself, but that was hardly my fault. I didn’t murder him.
He was merely overly attached to his job. I added some spareribs to my platter.
I could sympathize with Prendergast’s attachment to the job. I had aimed for it
myself, and there was a lot of money to be had through it. But still, suicide
was hardly murder, even if he did tell me he would kill himself if I exposed
him. And I had to do that, or even with Amory’s help I couldn’t have gotten the
job. Well, knowing the shenanigans Prendergast had been involved in, at least I
knew I wouldn’t be running into him up here.

The roast turkey
smelled wonderful, a lifetime of Thanksgivings in one inhalation. With that
sausage stuffing my Mom used to make. And fresh cranberries. My whole body
quivered with hunger at the smell. I took a serving, then another.

There was still
room for the muffins and breads—steaming popovers, orange nut loaf, Mexican
corn bread with cheese and chiles—and for the grand assortment of desserts
beyond.

But I was too
hungry to wait. The juices in my empty stomach swirled; and I found myself
chomping on my tongue in juicy anticipation. I needed to eat
now.
And this was, after all, a buffet. I could
come back—eternally.

I reached for my
platter.

It slipped
beyond my grasp.

I grabbed.

Missed!

I heard
laughter. Those diners at the tables—they were laughing at me.

My stomach
whirled, now in fear. Surely this couldn’t mean that I was
in . . .
I lunged. But the
platter that had been right beside me was suddenly, inexplicably, three feet
away. Too far to reach, but near enough for the sweet smell of pineapple to reach
me. Despite my fear, my taste buds seemed to be jumping up and down at the back
of my tongue. The laughter from the tables was louder.

I didn’t dare
turn toward the diners. Judgment Day separated the sheep from the goats. And
even I, a city person, knew that sheep don’t laugh. And there was a definite
billy-goat quality to that cackle.

I stood still,
smelling the salty aroma of the caviar, the full flavor of that freshest of
salmon, the smell of the bacon, of the turkey dressing. The platter stayed still,
too, still out of reach. The smell of the cranberries mixed with the tangy
aroma of the oranges. I inhaled it, willing it to take substance in my
throbbing stomach. It didn’t.

If I couldn’t
capture that platter. . . but I didn’t want to think about the hellish judgment
that would signify. But there was no point making another grab. The laughter
was louder; it sounded strangely familiar.

Slowly I turned
away from the platter, careful not to glance out at the diners, afraid of what
I might see. Head down, shoulders hunched over, I took a shuffling step away
from the food. I could sense the platter following me. I took another step.
From behind me, the oranges smelled stronger, sweeter. I could almost taste
them. Almost. I lifted my foot as if to take another step, then I whirled
around and with both hands lunged for the food. The hell with the platter.

The laughter
pounded at my ears.

Let them laugh.
I’d come up with one hand full of cranberries and the other grasping a piece of
caviar quiche. I had my food. Triumphantly, and with heavenly relief, I jammed
half the quiche in my mouth. No eternal damnation for me. The laughter grew
even louder. I knew that laugh; it came from a multitude of mouths, but it was
all the same cackling sound. I swallowed quickly and poured the whole handful
of cranberries into my mouth.

That
cackle—Raymond’s laugh!

I swallowed and
pushed the rest of the quiche into my mouth. Then the oranges from the now near
platter, and the salmon, and the pineapple, the prawns in black bean sauce, the
turkey, and the Oregon clams, and the Walla Walla sweet onions.

But there was no
silencing Raymond’s knowing cackle. And there was no denying where I
was—eternally. I’d got my food all right, but it all tasted exactly the same.
It tasted of nothing but ashes—like it had been burned in the fires of hell.

Back to table of
contents

Joan Hess, nominated for
an Anthony for
Strangled Prose,
offers delighted readers three series. Claire Malloy is featured in eleven
books, including American Mystery award winner
A Diet to Die For
and the latest,
Holly Jolly Murder.
Theo Bloomer appears in two books,
including
The Deadly Ackee
(written
as Joan Hadley). The ten books in the Arly Hanks series (including
Mischief in Maggody
and
O Little Town of Maggody,
Agatha and Anthony
nominees, and
Miracles in Maggody)
recount the hijinks in a small southern town. Fans would argue that the
sprightly and slightly wicked Hess wit is really the highlight of her books.

In “Too Much to Bare,”
which won a Macavity award, motivations are stripped to essentials, giving new
meaning to the notion of girls’ night out.

“My husband is going to
kill me”,
Marjorie announced. It was not the
first time she’d suggested the possibility. Anne had lost count. “Oh, honey,”
Sylvia said soothingly, “it’s not as if we’re taking the merchandise home, or
even having a chance to do more than study it from a respectable distance. Not
that I wouldn’t object, should the opportunity arise—if you know what I mean!”