The Mystery of the
Missing Husband
Harriet's "Reviewing Circle" Mysteries #2
Harriet Klausner had a rhythm going. She picked up the top book from the
stack of unread books on the floor next to her armchair. She flipped
through the pages at lightning speed, then deposited the book -- still unread
-- on the other side of her armchair. She grabbed the next one and did
the same. And so on and so forth until -- the horror -- she reached down,
and farther down, and still farther down, and her hand actually hit the floor.
Harriet blinked. What should she do? Her husband and son were away;
the girls' basketball team Stanley coached was playing in a tournament and Eric
had gone along to support his father.
With trepidation, she looked over the side of the armchair. Sadly, she'd
been reaching in the right place. It was just that the books were all
gone.
Harriet felt something deep in the pit of her stomach. What WAS this
feeling? Guilt about pretending to have read books she'd only flipped
through? Remorse for inflicting over 29,000 poorly-constructed plot
summaries on Amazon customers? No, nothing that complicated.
Harriet was simply hungry.
Though unfamiliar with the workings of a functioning kitchen, Harriet had a
vague idea that food was supposed to be stored there. It was where
Stanley insisted she keep the two-gallon jugs of relish he bought her at Costco
every week. But Harriet wasn't in the mood to eat relish straight from
the jar with a spoon, not tonight. No, she needed something to put the
relish on.
Harriet worked to dislodge herself from her armchair, knocked over a TV tray in
the process. She hadn't ever put them away after the debacle that had
been the first meeting of her "Reviewing Circle" mystery solving
club. With a groan and a couple of popping joints, she bent over and
righted the TV tray. Oh, the nerve of Stanley and Eric to go off and
leave her alone. She was Amazon's Number One Hall of Fame Reviewer!
She needed someone to wait on her hand and foot so she could keep the plot
summaries going out and the free boxes of books from publishers coming
in. She was just that dedicated, though even her own family members
didn't appreciate her tireless devotion.
She could see the kitchen through the doorway. The only thing now was to
get through the living room. What an obstacle course! Harriet
skirted around a copy of Norwegian police procedurals, dodged a falling stack
of erotica, and tripped over a couple of African-American health guides,
landing face-down on the kitchen floor.
"Oof," Harriet said. "What tsuris I am
experiencing." She pushed herself up with ease. After all,
she'd developed considerable upper body strength from over a decade of flipping
through books at lightning speed and hitting "control + C" in her
dictation software and, subsequently, "control + V" in the Amazon
reviewing window. And those mouse
clicks! Harriet wondered if any other
index finger on the face of the planet had the strength of hers.
Having reached the kitchen, Harriet took a look around. This room was
full of metal boxes! But which one held the food? First, she turned
her attention to the closest; it rose to about waist height and had a window in
the door. On top were four raised, circular things. Above the
mysterious circles, a forlorn digital display blinked "12:00."
A series of knobs or dials ran across the front. This didn't seem like
what Harriet wanted, though, so she turned to the next metal box.
This one also rose to waist height, but it sat under the counter. It had
some push buttons across the top of the front but no window in the door.
Harriet decided to try her luck with this appliance. Alas, all that
greeted her when she opened the door were some clean dishes.
That left two metal boxes. One was the microwave; Harriet knew all about
that. Before she could use the microwave, though, Harriet had to have
some food to put IN the microwave. When Stanley had found out that
Harriet had served the members of her "Reviewing Circle" club some
Swanson Hungry Man dinners from 1975, he'd gone out to the garage, unplugged
the deep freezer, and thrown all its contents into the trash. By the time
Harriet realized what Stanley had done, it was too late -- the garbage truck
had come and gone.
"You could go to the Kroger and pick yourself up some new frozen
dinners," Stanley had said.
"They don't make them the same way anymore," Harriet had said.
"Well, it wouldn't kill you to get out of the house every now and
then."
Harriet hadn't talked to him for a week after that. She'd slept on the
sofa, using her trusty "Over the Top of ___" Atlas for a pillow.
The last metal box loomed in front of Harriet. This one was taller than
she was, and it had TWO doors but no dials or buttons. She opened the top
one first -- full of cold bags printed with pictures and words and containing
hard chunks of something. She pulled out the first bag. She had no
idea what the words said -- who could be bothered with actually READING?
The picture showed carrot coins. Who would keep carrot coins
around? Maybe it was a trick and Stanley was hiding some large desserts
inside. She ripped open the bag, dumped the contents on the table.
And darn it, if it really wasn't carrot coins!
Carrots forgotten, Harriet chose another bag at random. Whatever was in
here had thawed and refrozen in a solid hunk. She ripped it open, peered
inside. Frozen PEAS? Seriously, who ATE this stuff? Harriet
tossed it aside.
Five minutes later, three bags of chopped spinach, four additional bags of
peas, two pounds of frozen corn, and one bag each of sliced bell peppers, kale,
broccoli, and Lima beans had met their fates on the kitchen floor.
Harriet paused to consider the second, lower door, but decided against opening
it. Surely she'd only find more vegetables. She'd rather avoid
further disappointment.
Almost desperate enough at this point to eat the relish directly from the jar
with a spoon, Harriet scanned the room one last time. Her eyes lit up
when she spotted something wrapped in plastic out on the counter. She
approached, poked at it with a finger. It didn't bite back, so she
unwrapped the plastic and found most of a loaf of rye bread.
Perfect. THIS would go great with relish. Harriet cradled the loaf
of bread under one arm, kicked some thawing vegetables aside, and retrieved her
relish jar from the pantry. She paused next to the silverware
drawer. Should she get a spoon? Well, that WAS more
civilized. She got the spoon.
Harriet went back out to the living room. Ha! Getting her own
meals. That'd show Stanley how unnecessary he was.
Unconsciously, Harriet reached for a book. Then, she realized what she
was doing and pulled her hand back. She couldn't eat and handle books at
the same time! First off, she needed both hands to flip through the
books. Secondly, she didn't want to get food on the books. That
would greatly decrease their resale value. Harriet reached down between
the armchair cushion and the side of the chair, fished around for a bit, and
eventually extracted the remote control. She turned on the
television. Good, Deep Throat was already in the DVD player.
Harriet ripped off a hunk of rye bread and spooned relish on top. So much
relish, in fact, that she didn't even notice that the bread looked a little
off. She settled in to watch her favorite actor, Harry Reems. She
really liked the part with the bandages.
Harriet spent the next couple of hours mesmerized. By the time the
credits started playing, she had eaten the entire remainder of the loaf of rye
bread and finished off the relish, as well. She hoped Stanley had thought
to buy a backup.
She set the empty relish jar down, stretched. The spoon had fallen out of
her hand at some point and lay forgotten on the floor. Harriet felt a
little strange. She knew she ought to be doing something.
Harriet
shifted positions, heard the sound of paper inside her chair. She stood
up, removed the cushion. There -- a book! Harriet was supposed to
be ‘reviewing.’ She removed the book from the chair, replaced the
cushion. She sat down and opened the book to the first page. There
wasn't much text here. And the paragraphs were numbered. Where were
the proper nouns? Where were the geographical locations, the character
names? Where was the dust jacket summary? Harriet flipped further
through the book. What was this curious tome? Would she -- gasp --
actually have to READ any pages inside before writing a review?
Maybe she'd just read item #1. That was basically the same as reading the
back cover.
"1. A box of candy can be divided equally (without cutting pieces) among
2, 3, or 7 people. What is the least number of pieces of candy the box
could contain?"
Harriet threw the book down. What was this devilry? Were these MATH
PROBLEMS?
She shook her head as if to clear it, blinked a few times. When she
looked up, she was surprised to find a man sitting on the sofa across from her.
"Hello, Harriet," the man said.
Harriet shrank back. "How did you get in here? Who ARE
you?"
"I'm John Sebastian, of course," the man said.
Harriet clasped her hands over her heart. "I'm one of your biggest
fans!"
John Sebastian said nothing, just bobbed his head up and down. The
silence was interrupted by a scratching sound at the front door. "I'd
better go get that," Harriet said.
Harriet deftly maneuvered the obstacle course that was her front hallway --
twin piles of relationship guides on the left, a precarious tower of paranormal
romances on the right, a yellowing escarpment of mass market Harlequin
Superromances dead ahead. She looked through the peephole. No one
was there. She had almost made up her mind to turn around and go back to
John Sebastian in the living room when she realized that perhaps the new UPS
man had dropped off her daily allotment of advance review copies without
knocking. She opened the door, looked down.
"Hello, Harriet," a voice said from near the ground.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Don't you remember me, Harriet?" the voice asked.
Harriet furrowed her brow.
"I'm Diogenes of Sinope, your favorite philosopher."
Harriet's eyes lit up. "Diogenes! Did you ever find the honest
man you were looking for?"
"Sadly, no. But I'm here to help YOU find something."
"Me? But I haven't lost anything."
"Don't be so sure." After a moment, Diogenes continued.
"Aren't you going to let me in?"
"Of course. What was I thinking?" Something wasn't right
with Diogenes. He was awfully short, awfully low to the ground. But
right now, Harriet really wanted to know what he had to say.
Diogenes came in. He was quick and agile and had made it to the living
room in no time, despite the many obstacles in his way. It took Harriet a
bit longer, and she was winded when she got back to her favorite armchair.
Diogenes had taken a seat next to John Sebastian on the sofa. Harriet
slid around in her seat until her rear end locked into the permanent
indentations in the foam cushion of her armchair. Stanley tried to get
her to buy a new one from time to time, but Harriet wouldn't hear of it.
Not when she'd spent so long conditioning this one. It molded to her body
perfectly.
Harriet folded her hands in her lap. "So, Diogenes, welcome to my
home. You said I was missing something?"
"I did."
"Well? What is it?"
"You tell me."
Harriet scowled. She scanned the floor, hoping to pick up some
clue. What on earth was Diogenes talking about? Her eyes stopped
when she reached the book she'd thrown down in frustration earlier. She
looked at it, then looked back up at Diogenes. He nodded.
She picked the book back up off the floor.
"You've got to open it," Diogenes said.
Harriet opened the book back to the first page. She gasped and did a
double-take. Someone had penciled in the number 42 below the silly
question about the candy box. "Who did this?" she asked.
"Who defaced this book?"
"Did you ever have to make up your mind?" John Sebastian sang.
"You pick up on one and leave the other one behind. It's not often
easy and not often kind. Did you ever have to make up your mind?"
Harriet looked from the book to John Sebastian, then back to the book
again. Her eyes went wide. "My spouse!"
"Yes?" Diogenes asked. He nodded.
"I can't find my spouse. He knows linear algebra. He can do
these puzzles."
"Exactly," Diogenes said.
"Where is he? Where is my Mikey?" Harriet asked. "If
I turn on my charm, I'll bet I can get him to write the 'review' for this
puzzle book."
"Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart? How the music can
free her, whenever it starts..." John Sebastian crooned.
Harriet watched him, mesmerized. To be treated to a personal Lovin'
Spoonful concert in her own living room. The only thing better would be
if Mikey could be here to see it with her.
She did not hear the front door slam, did not hear two pairs of feet
maneuvering down the hallway, did not hear anything, in fact, until someone
grabbed her shoulder and shook it. "Harriet!" Stanley said.
"Not now, Stanley," Harriet said. "I'm listening to John
Sebastian sing. Then we're going to go find my spouse Mikey. We're
going to solve a mystery!"
"Harriet, I don't hear the radio."
"He's not ON the radio. He's right here on the sofa. Don't you
see him?"
"Harriet, that's not John Sebastian, that's my Chipper Jones bobblehead."
"Diogenes, tell Stanley. Tell him we're going to solve the mystery
of my missing spouse Mikey."
Stanley furrowed his brow. "Diogenes?" He looked to the
figure seated to the left of the bobblehead on the couch. Then,
"Aiiiiiiiii!" He grabbed Harriet by the arm, pulled her out of
the living room. "Eric, go outside and call animal control on your
cell phone."
"All right, Dad." Eric left.
Stanley mustered all his strength and dragged Harriet out of the house, knocked
over stacks of books right and left, slammed the front door behind them.
Harriet frowned. "What did you do that for?" she asked.
"You're the one who made Mikey disappear, aren't you? You always
were a jealous one."
"Harriet, I have no idea what you're talking about. How in the world
did that THING get into the house?"
"Thing? What thing?"
The animal control truck pulled up to the house. The driver emerged and
removed an empty cage and a long pole ending with a loop from the back of his
truck. Eric approached him; after exchanging words with Eric, the man went
back to the cab of his truck and pulled on a pair of long, thick, leather
gloves.
Stanley had his hands full keeping Harriet from rushing back into the
house. But it looked like Eric had things under control. Once the
animal control employee had gone inside, Stanley called to Eric. "I
think your mother's hallucinating. Maybe you should also call an
ambulance."
Eric nodded, dialed some more numbers on his phone.
A few moments later, the animal control man emerged from the house, carrying a
creature inside the cage. "A long-tailed weasel. Rabid, from
the looks of it. How did that EVER get into your house?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," Stanley said.
"Did anyone come into contact with it?" the man asked.
"As far as I know, only my wife."
"Well, you'd better get her vaccinated, just in case. It hasn't been
too long, so she should be all right."
"The ambulance is already on the way." Sure enough, the
flashing lights and sirens of an ambulance could soon be seen and heard at the
end of the street. The animal control man put the caged weasel in the
back of his truck and drove away. The ambulance pulled into the driveway
and a pair of EMTs emerged.
Harriet shrieked. "No! He took Diogenes away! How am I
ever going to find my spouse Mikey now?"
"Do you have any restraints in there?" Stanley asked the EMTs.
"I'm having trouble holding her."
--The Next Morning--
Stanley and Eric sat in the hospital waiting room. They'd been here all
night. Stanley had a crick in his neck from sleeping in one of the
waiting room chairs. He cradled a cup of cold, terrible coffee in his
hands. Eric had his ear buds in and played a game on his cell phone and
was, like all young people in similar circumstances, oblivious to his
surroundings. A doctor in a white coat entered the waiting room.
"Mr. Klausner?" he asked.
"That's me," Stanley said. He shook Eric's arm. Eric
removed his ear buds.
"Would you like to see her?" the doctor asked.
"Yes, please."
"Follow me." The doctor led them out of the room and down a
hallway. "We're still trying to piece together what happened.
Is there anything you can add that might help?"
Stanley shrugged. "Eric and I went out yesterday evening. I
coach a girls' basketball team and there was a tournament. When we got
home, Harriet was blabbering some nonsense about Diogenes and John Sebastian
and someone named Mikey I've never heard of, and she was staring intently at a
bobblehead. She said the bobblehead was singing to her. And there
was a weasel on the couch across from her. A rabid WEASEL!"
"Well, don't worry about that. We've started her on the antiviral
shots. It's much easier these days than it used to be. Were either of you
exposed?"
"Not I," Stanley said.
"Me neither," Eric said.
"She was hallucinating, you say? The toxicology lab did find a high
level of ergot alkaloids in her system. I'm sorry to have to bring this
up, but is your wife a drug user?"
"No, never," Stanley said.
Eric slapped his forehead with his palm. "The rye," he said.
"What?" Stanley and the doctor asked, simultaneously.
"Remember that rye loaf you wanted me to throw out because it looked
funny? I hadn't gotten around to it yet. It was still in plastic on
the counter when we left the house. When I went to clean up the kitchen
floor -- you know she threw out every single bag of vegetables from the
freezer, by the way -- the rye was gone. She must've eaten it," Eric
said.
"Ergot poisoning would explain the symptoms you describe," the doctor
said. He stopped walking. "Well, we're here. She's
tired, so it's best if you only stay a few minutes."
"Thank you, doctor," Stanley said.
"All in a day's work. I've got rounds, so be sure to let the nurse know if
you need anything." The doctor walked off.
"Stanley!" Harriet said from inside the hospital room.
"How soon can I get out of here? I didn't get to 'review’ any books
yesterday. I need to post some 'reviews!'"
Eric and Stanley looked at one another. "She's going to be fine,
isn't she?" Eric asked.
"Indeed son, she is. Indeed she is."
The End
References
