Death by Roses (eBook)

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If Mae Rose McElroy had known that by evening she would be dead à la commode after a fit of rage at her husband, she might have made different choices. Of course, if she’d done things differently, she might not have died while sitting on the toilet.

But on that frosty March morning, as she stood by the kitchen window washing breakfast dishes, Mae Rose was preoccupied with the effects of the last night’s storm. Everything glistened in sparkling crystal coats of ice that most would have found beautiful. As she anxiously surveyed the backyard trees, the barn, and the gardens and fields of their farm home, Mae Rose was far from feeling awestruck.

This was because today—of all days—her husband would be driving her meticulously restored 1974 VW Beetle to the mechanic shop where he worked. “Please be very careful, Art,” she said without looking up from the sink, “the roads could be very slippery.”

After thirty years of marriage, Art understood the meaning of Mae Rose’s words. They meant she didn’t trust him and was worrying about her precious car. Her fretting did not dissuade Art from feeling an uncharacteristic joy.

Mae Rose could tell from the noises in the background that he was indeed ecstatic. The hangers clanged merrily as he removed his coat from the closet. Even the zipper sang with an abnormal enthusiasm as he closed his jacket against the cold.

“You know I’ll be careful,” Art replied, planting a dutiful kiss on his wife’s stern cheek. Earlier, while shaving, he had practiced saying “I love you” to Mae Rose. Although her obvious unhappiness made him decide not to attempt it now, nothing—not even his irritation with her remarks—could suppress his buoyant feelings of hope.

It was rare for Art to drive Mae Rose’s car. But once his new client at the shop saw the car’s spectacular restoration, he was certain the man would confirm his intention to pay the large expense of having his own antique Beetle refurbished. And Art hoped for much more—surely his impressive sale would help to renew Mae Rose’s faith in him and their marriage.

Three decades of marriage to Mae Rose had left deep creases across his forehead. Each crease could have been labeled: the upper line for shock at Mae Rose’s intensity, the middle for his resistance to her relentless drive, and the lower for the wavering boundary where Art tried to keep his identity from being discarded as irrelevant.

As he squeezed his tall frame into her car, he put the keys into the ignition and waited patiently for the engine to turn over. It was understandably reluctant, but as if it knew how important the day was, the engine gave in to Art’s persistence. He headed down the long gravel drive, turning left on the two-lane country road with caution.

As the sun melted the icy coating on the asphalt, Art was able to relax and enjoy his drive. Everything glistened in the soft, feathery frost—so breathtaking that Art considered it the best possible omen for a successful day. He couldn’t help that his right hand caressed the leather upholstery he had so lovingly used to recover the seats of Mae Rose’s car; he felt pride, perhaps even a mild flirtation, as he touched the dashboard and turned the radio dial to his favorite oldies rock ’n roll station.

He’d have to remember to turn it back to Mae Rose’s country music station later, but just now he needed to mark his territory. Art loved nothing more than working on old VWs, the only car, he claimed, that possessed a personality all its own, and the possibility of working on another old VW Beetle gave him an unfamiliar sense of exhilaration.

“I’d hammer ‘bout justice!” Peter, Paul, and Mary sang, and Art joined in: “I’d hammer ‘bout freedom! “I’d hammer ‘bout the love between,” and Art, who loved to change words of a song to suit himself, sang, “A man and a Beetle, all over this land!”

As Art brought Mae Rose’s car to an obedient stop at the four-way before proceeding into town, he downshifted through each gear, listening for the purr of pleasure as one cog slid into the next. But today the car growled low and mean as if to remind Art to drive straight though town instead of turning right, as he often had years ago for a cup of coffee and some fornication with Maggie Whitman. Back then, he felt justified in doing this because of Mae Rose’s increasingly insufferable nagging and her proportionately deflated interest in sex.

A trip through Fairview included passing Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, a cornerstone of the McElroy’s lives. It housed times of great joy: when Art and Mae Rose had married and when they had baptized their son Art Jr., and eight years later, their son John. It radiated with the beauty of Mae Rose at the piano and organ, and more often than not, a flower arrangement she had created adorning the altar. But the church also held their deepest pain in its stone structure as the wounds of Art’s affair had been exposed in quiet confidence to Pastor Frank. The hope of a happy marriage had faded into an ever-sensitive, tender scar.

Art’s heightened emotions brought all these memories back into sharp focus as he drove past the church that morning. Each memory rose, crested, and fell into the embrace of his pending triumph against the stunning backdrop of the ice show that glistened in the sun. Surely today would be the lucky day he had been longing for.

The reflection of Mae Rose’s yellow 1974 VW Beetle—a high school graduation gift from her parents, Dr. and Mrs. Henry Carter—caught Art’s eye as he drove past display windows of the few shops in town. He smiled. It was a happy car, he decided, en route to a happy event, and yellow was a fabulous color for happiness. After all, Art had met the Carter family because of that car, and had courted both Mae Rose and her Beetle right to the altar where he had promised to love and cherish her (or them if you included the car) until death.

All Art could think about these days was restoring the pride and love Mae Rose had felt for him in those early years of their marriage—before he became unfaithful and she became nearly impossible to live with.

After his confession of infidelity, Art had learned to spend his evenings out of Mae Rose’s “range” by hiding out in the barn after dinner each night. There, surrounded by the hoard of antique VW parts he and Mae Rose had enthusiastically collected together in the early, myopic years of their marriage, he pretended he still believed in their retirement dream of restoring and selling old VWs. But most of the time he smoked and fumed at Mae Rose.

Art justified his withdrawal from his wife by claiming that even a saint would be hard-pressed to love Mae Rose. In the deepening darkness of evening, he would dispatch his wife in his imagination with an authority he could only exert in her absence. “Off with her head!” he would mutter and snicker quietly lest Mae Rose be within hearing range.

It gave him momentary relief, but of course he never, ever, considered that Mae Rose would actually die in the undignified manner that Art found her hours later.

*   *   *

The meeting with the customer went even better than Art expected. When the man saw Mae Rose’s car and the love Art had poured into restoring it, he signed the contract and left a large deposit. Art and the shop would receive the balance when he picked up the car in six months. For once, Art couldn’t wait to get home. A phone call to Mae Rose was unworthy of the occasion—he wanted to take her in his arms, share the news, and tell her he loved her.

As he prepared to leave the shop at the end of the day, his fellow mechanic Ben Strong came over with an apologetic look on his face. Ben’s distinctively bushy red hair sprouting atop his tall, lumberjack frame made it hard for him to hide himself or his tendency to spend his free time and his paycheck at the Tree Top Bar. His wife, Louise, made a career out of packing his suitcases, sending him to rehab, then unpacking them when he returned home clean and sober. Ben was a darn good mechanic and Art liked him.

“Art, you know—Louise has kicked me out of the house. Again.” Ben confided humbly. He paused repeatedly when he spoke. Art supposed it was because he was used to his wife finishing his sentences for him. “I need a favor.”

“What’s that, Ben?” Art asked, unable to hide his jovial mood. He was sorry for Ben’s problems but glad they weren’t his. Mae Rose was a handful, but Louise made Mae Rose look like an angel.

“Our barn cat had kittens recently. I gotta find a home for ’em for a little while. Since I won’t be at the house. The mother cat hasn’t been around the last few days. We—I mean I—think she might, you know, be dead. If I don’t find a place for ’em. Louise would just as soon shoot ’em. She don’t understand how beneficial they are.”

Art could easily imagine the one-sided conversation that had taken place in Ben and Louise’s run-down mobile home as Ben begged his wife to let his barn cats live. It most certainly would have been sprinkled with Louise’s favorite word that started with “f” and ended with “k.”

On the rare occasion that she came into town, anyone within earshot would hear Louise declare,...