Ambush
In the small town where I grew up, someone murdered an attorney who did divorce work and dallied with the wives he represented, a firebrand half the county hated. Howard was ambushed in the dark as he got out of his Cadillac, gunned down at point-blank range. His wife, hearing the blast and a jeering laugh, ran outside to find him lying on the driveway in a river of blood.
Police combed the neighborhood and court records to question people with a grudge against Howard. They knocked on the door of a doctor who lost custody of his kids after a yearlong court battle. They suspected the owner of the Melody Lane Restaurant, where wealthy citizens gathered for steak and martinis. He had just lost his house and big money in an alimony settlement, and they thought he might have hired a killer. Many people said the lawyer got what he deserved.
No one was arrested.
The widow rarely left home after that, and she drank, but the daughter, a cheerleader, went on rooting for the team. Bitter about her father’s infidelities, Priscilla barely made a pretense of grieving. She was at the gym on the night of the killing, so no one could accuse her, although there were those who would not have blamed her if she was involved. She worked at JC Penney, where customers stared at her name, stitched into the blue and gold sweater of the uniform she wore on game days.
Priscilla studied theater in college and became a stage actress, often playing the femme fatale. She would pause in the limelight after the show and face photographers with a defiant look, as if to say I confess, I did it. Shoot me.
© David L. Garrison
The poetry of David Lee Garrison, a retired professor of Spanish and Portuguese, has been published widely, read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac, and featured by Ted Kooser in his blog, American Life in Poetry. He won the Paul Laurence Dunbar Prize in 2009 and was named Ohio Poet of the Year in 2014. His most recent book is Light in the River (Dos Madres Press 2020).
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