The Best Laid Plans Read online

  The Best Laid Plans

  21 Stories of Mystery & Suspense

  Edited by

  Judy Penz Sheluk

  Praise for The Best Laid Plans

  “The crimes featured in The Best Laid Plans range from poisonings to bank robberies to contract killings, and the settings are both varied and fascinating: ski resorts, nursing homes, subway stations, the mountains of West Virginia, the plains of Oklahoma. I loved this book!” — John M. Floyd, Edgar nominee and three-time Derringer Award winner

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  “An entertaining collection of tales that deliver in all aspects. Much like buying a lottery ticket, these characters are dreaming up ways to permanently solve problems.”—Kevin Tipple, Kevin’s Corner

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  “Sometimes the best laid plans just don’t go quite as expected. And sometimes, they go exactly as hoped for. A dazzling collection of twenty-one short tales of mayhem, leaving both the reader and the corpses breathless. A five-star read that you will never forget.”—Kate Thornton, Derringer-nominated short story author

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  “Even the best laid plans can go awry, and with these well-thought out mysteries and ‘I didn’t see that coming!’ short stories, you get to enjoy it twenty-one times. Different styles, different settings, different murderous intentions, but all are entertaining, intriguing, and just plain fun.”—Kathleen Costa, Kings River Life Magazine

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  “Delicious! That word best describes the yummy bites of well written, crafty crime stories. Murder for hire, money, sibling rivalry, envy, infidelity. Murder of the wrong person. Killer acting and get-rich schemes…the clever twists are endless. A feast of delicious short bites that adds up to a very satisfying literary meal.”—Catherine Astolfo, bestselling author and two-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Short Story

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and events described herein are products of the authors’ imaginations, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  The Best Laid Plans: 21 Stories of Mystery & Suspense

  Compilation Copyright © 2019 Judy Penz Sheluk

  Story Copyrights © 2019 by Individual Authors:

  *Tom Barlow: Heirloom

  Susan Daly: Spirit River Dam

  Lisa de Nikolits: Fire Drill

  P.A. De Voe: Gambling Against Fate: From Judge Lu’s Ming Dynasty Case Files

  Peter DiChellis: Callingdon Mountain

  *Lesley A. Diehl: Lunch Break

  Mary Dutta: Festival Finale

  C.C. Guthrie: A Sure Thing

  William Kamowski: Last Thoughts

  V.S. Kemanis: Sucker Punch

  Lisa Lieberman: Better Dead Than Redhead

  *Edward Lodi: Oubliette

  *Rosemary McCracken: The Sweetheart Scamster

  *LD Masterson: Deadly Dinner

  *Edith Maxwell: The Stonecutter

  *Judy Penz Sheluk: Plan D

  KM Rockwood: Frozen Daiquiris

  Peggy Rothschild: The Cookie Crumbles

  Johanna Beate Stumpf: Thank You For Your Cooperation

  Victoria Weisfeld: Who They Are Now

  Chris Wheatley: The True Cost of Liberty

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  *Heirloom by Tom Barlow was original published in the hardcopy Floyd County Moonshine Journal (2014). It has been revised for this collection.

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  *Lunch Break by Lesley A. Diehl was originally published as Lunch Break: A Mystery Story (Kings River Life Magazine, February 2016). It has been revised for this collection.

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  *Oubliette by Edward Lodi was originally published in Hardboiled No.19 (November 1994) and reprinted in Murder on the Bogs and Other Tales of Mystery and Suspense (Rock Village Publishing, 2001).

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  *Deadly Dinner by LD Masterson was originally published in Noir at the Salad Bar: Culinary Tales With A Bite (Level Best Books, 2017).

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  *The Sweetheart Scamster by Rosemary McCracken was originally published in Thirteen (Carrick Publishing, 2013).

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  *The Stonecutter by Edith Maxwell was originally published in Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology (Wildside Press, 2013).

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  *Plan D by Judy Penz Sheluk was originally published in The Whole She-Bang 2 (Sisters in Crime Toronto, 2014).

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Compiled and Edited by Judy Penz Sheluk, www.judypenzsheluk.com

  Cover Design by Hunter Martin

  Cover Illustration by S.A. Hadi hasan

  Published by Superior Shores Press

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  ISBN Trade Paperback: 978-1-989495-00-1

  ISBN Kindle: 978-1-989495-01-8

  ISBN ePub: 978-1-989495-3-02

  ISBN Kobo: 978-1-989495-02-5

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  First Edition: June 2019

  Second Edition: July 2019

  In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm...in the real world all rests on perseverance.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Contents

  Introduction

  KM Rockwood

  Frozen Daiquiris

  Susan Daly

  Spirit River Dam

  Edward Lodi

  Oubliette

  P.A. De Voe

  Gambling Against Fate [From Judge Lu’s Ming Dynasty Case Files]

  Chris Wheatley

  The True Cost of Liberty

  LD Masterson

  Deadly Dinner

  Lisa de Nikolits

  Fire Drill

  Tom Barlow

  Heirloom

  Peggy Rothschild

  The Cookie Crumbles

  Edith Maxwell

  The Stonecutter

  Peter DiChellis

  Callingdon Mountain

  Mary Dutta

  Festival Finale

  Lesley A. Diehl

  Lunch Break

  Vicki Weisfeld

  Who They Are Now

  Johanna Beate Stumpf

  Thank You For Your Cooperation

  William Kamowski

  Last Thoughts

  C.C. Guthrie

  A Sure Thing

  Rosemary McCracken

  The Sweetheart Scamster

  Lisa Lieberman

  Better Dead Than Redhead

  V.S. Kemanis

  Sucker Punch

  Judy Penz Sheluk

  Plan D

  The Lineup

  Introduction

  The year was 2003. My position at a high-end office furniture manufacturer had been eliminated during a massive company downsizing and restructuring. I faced a future of looking for another job in the corporate world or finally following my dream of becoming a writer.

  Common sense dictated the former. I had twenty-plus years of business experience, primarily in management roles, and always in finance. My writing credits, on the other hand, included a few unsold short stories crafted in creative writing workshops, and exactly one acceptance: a column in Antiques & Collectibles Showcase about my husband’s collection of antique clocks, for which I was paid $75 and three copies of the magazine.

  Payment for that article arrived on the very day I’d been given my pink slip. Some might have found it ironic, laughable, even. I viewed it as an omen. I informed my husband, Mike, that I was going to become a full-time writer. And then I set about forming a plan to succeed. Beca
use while I knew that, as a writer, rejection was assuredly going to be part of my future, failure wasn’t an option.

  Fast forward to 2012. I’d managed to carve out a successful second career as a freelance journalist and magazine editor. And yet, something was missing.

  I found the answer at Bloody Words, a now defunct mystery conference held in Toronto in June 2012. I went as a reader and a fan, and left knowing that I wanted to write a novel. I already had a world created for it, based on a short story written in yet another creative writing class. How hard could it be?

  Plenty hard, as it turned out. But I persevered and in 2013, after a dozen drafts and several hundred hours, I was ready to start the submission process for The Hanged Man’s Noose. I thought a decade of publication credits would smooth the way.

  They didn’t.

  I took comfort from an article about Kathryn Stockett, bestselling author of The Help (if you haven’t read it, you must). Stockett, you see, had faced sixty rejections over three and a half years. And still she didn’t give up. Turned out sixty-one was her magic number.

  It turned out 2014 was my magic year. In July, I signed a contract with Barking Rain Press for Noose. By November, I’d had two short stories published in two different anthologies, World Enough & Crime and The Whole She-Bang 2.

  My writing journey hasn’t always been easy, but even in my darkest hours it’s never felt like work. And I never could have or would have done any of it if I hadn’t taken a chance back in 2003.

  And so now I’m taking another leap of faith. First, by setting up my own imprint, Superior Shores Press, in February 2018, and then by deciding to publish a multi-author collection of short mystery stories.

  I’ll admit that I was nervous. What if no one responded to my call for submissions?

  I need not have worried. In all, seventy-one submissions were received. Countries represented included the U.S., Canada, England, Norway, Italy, Australia, and Argentina.

  Reading seventy-one stories with a view to accepting twenty (I planned to include one story penned by me) was far more difficult than I’d anticipated, but after two weeks and multiple reads I came up with a long list of about thirty-five. Culling those down to the final twenty took another two weeks, and many more reads.

  The stories within this collection are faithful to the underlying theme of the best-laid plans, albeit in very different ways as interpreted by twenty-one very different authors. There’s crime and criminals, history, humor, and humility, scheming and skullduggery, danger, detectives, and deception. In short, everything you might expect to find in an anthology of mystery and suspense, and, hopefully, more than a few twists and turns you weren’t.

  And now, welcome to what I hope will be the first of several anthologies published under the Superior Shores Press umbrella.

  The best laid plans and all of that.

  * * *

  Judy Penz Sheluk

  KM Rockwood

  KM Rockwood draws on a diverse background for her stories, including working as a laborer in a steel fabrication factory and supervising an inmate work crew in a large state prison. Since she retired from working as a special education teacher in correctional facilities, inner city schools, and alternative schools, she has devoted her time to writing and caring for her family and pets. Her published works include the Jesse Damon Crime Novel series (Wildside Press) and numerous short stories. KM is a member of Sisters in Crime National, Chesapeake, and Guppy Chapters. Find her at kmrockwood.com.

  Frozen Daiquiris

  KM Rockwood

  Penelope Regenwold paused to take a deep breath before she pushed open the swinging door to the expansive kitchen in her recently purchased McMansion. If the builder offered an upgrade, her kitchen had it.

  To her dismay, the new address didn’t come with an automatic entrée to the social elite of the community. In fact, she’d overheard Mrs. Van der Horne label both her and her house nouveau riche.

  She immediately volunteered to host the annual gala for the Ladies’ Society in her new house. She would create a memorable occasion, and they, in turn, would accept her into their fold.

  When people looked doubtful, she added that the Regenwolds would absorb all expenses. Matthew, her husband, was not pleased, but faced with her tears, he acquiesced. She, in turn, promised to be as frugal as possible with the affair.

  In an attempt to hold down the costs of hiring help, she acquired Suzie. Suzie was a very convincing humanoid robot, a Support Unit-Zed series, purchased secondhand from the bankruptcy liquidation sale of a failed food processing plant.

  At the time, Suzie seemed like perfect household help. The only costs were the purchase price and an occasional new battery pack. The robot never complained or asked for time off. Penelope figured she could be used for both food preparation and as a server. But Suzie quickly revealed herself to be very literal and lacking in social graces. In fact, she could be quite rude. Penelope had found that while programing updates were available from the manufacturer, they would not be available for installation in time for the gala. She contacted a temporary agency to supply several waitresses.

  Suzie should have had preparations well underway, but somehow, despite her efficiency, Suzie often managed to get things wrong. What would Penelope find in the kitchen?

  She took another deep breath and pushed the door open. And sneezed.

  Boxes. Boxes cluttering the counters. Boxes stacked on the floor. She felt her throat closing and addressed her robot. “What is all this?”

  Suzie turned a bland face to her.

  Before she hosted another affair, Penelope would definitely purchase the hospitality and advanced communication apps and have them installed.

  Suzie surveyed the cluttered kitchen. “Boxes.”

  Penelope closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I see that they are boxes. Boxes of what?”

  “Feathers.”

  Feathers? Sure enough, the boxes all bore a logo with the name, “Feathers Galore!” The exclamation point was in the shape of an ostrich plume.

  Penelope sneezed again. She was allergic to feathers. “And why do we have boxes of feathers?”

  Suzie swiveled her head from the boxes to Penelope. She had a very disconcerting way of looking right through Penelope with those expressionless acrylic eyes. Although Penelope knew quite well she was dealing with a piece of machinery, and not a person, sometimes she found it hard to keep that in mind.

  “Well?” she prompted.

  Suzie hummed softly. She was scanning her files for the correct response. “For the cock tails,” she finally said.

  “Cocktails?”

  Penelope was startled to hear her own voice emanate from the robot. “We’ll need cocktails for the party.” It took her a few seconds to realize that she was listening to some of the instructions she’d given Suzie. “Figure a minimum of five cocktails per guest, and two hundred guests.”

  She hadn’t realized that Suzie had the capacity to record and play back messages. The thought was disconcerting. “I thought we decided on frozen daiquiris.”

  “Yes,” Suzie said. “Frozen daiquiris. Lime, strawberry, melon. To be made just before 8:00 p.m, when the guests arrive.”

  “So what’s with the feathers?”

  “For the cock tails.”

  “Feathers for the daiquiris?”

  Suzie hummed. “I can find no recipes in my archives for daiquiris that include feathers. I will connect to the internet…”

  “Don’t bother.” All this made Penelope’s head spin. “Please explain. Why feathers?”

  “I ordered enough peacock feathers to make two thousand tails for the party. I anticipate having them assembled in approximately seventy-two minutes.”

  Penelope sighed. Suzie was thinking—if thinking was the right word—of tails made from peacock feathers. Cock tails. An entirely separate project from the daiquiris.

  Suzie had been listed as an “all-purpose” assistant, handling assembly tasks as well as off
ice duties, plus maintenance. She was really quite good at ordering and receiving. Not to mention housecleaning. Those additional apps for hospitality and communication would really have to be installed as soon as possible. “Cancel the peacock tails.”

  Suzie made the humming noise, checking and adjusting internal files. “Cock tail assembly cancelled.”

  “We have to return all these feathers to wherever you got them.”

  Another humming noise. “Arrange return of feathers to supplier.”

  “But not now.” Penelope glanced at her diamond watch. “The party is in a few hours. We need to move these boxes out of the kitchen so we have room to work.”