by Tom Andes

That summer there’d been a rash of convenience store holdups, a pair of masked bandits hitting every Cumberland Farms along the Spaulding Turnpike from Rochester to Wakefield.

They wore ski masks, brandished a 45, and put the money they took from the terrified clerks in an Adidas duffel. As far as anyone could tell from the grainy security footage, one was a full-grown man, the other most likely a teenaged boy, and people were speculating they were father and son.

One day Artie Randall came in my office and asked me to find out if his wife had been stepping out on him. I was drinking an extra-large coffee from the Dunkin’ Donuts store up to Center Ossipee, polishing off an apple cruller, getting my day started.

“What makes you think she’s cheating?” I brushed crumbs off my desk, my empty day planner. Often as not—if you asked me—a man was better off not knowing.

Artie looked embarrassed, his forehead getting red, a sheen of sweat. He was big, 300 pounds, with a lumberjack’s beard and forearms the size of Christmas hams from Boston Market. He was in work boots, a grubby pair of Levi’s, and his tee said Randall Construction. He’d built that business from the ground up, and now he owned a couple dump trucks, a front loader. I’d gone to Nute High with his wife, who was a few years younger than he was, a whip of a thing, and the only goth in our graduating class.

Even then, she’d had a strong reputation, the kind of girl who was always down for a frolic in the back of someone’s Trans Am by the football field, an easy lay. But what could you do? Artie was blinded by love. And whatever her past, if she’d put her wild ways behind her, didn’t Tina deserve security and the sacred bond of matrimony as much as anyone?

Artie was looking at the floor, the wall of the trailer, where my license hung next to that criminal justice degree from UNH, the University of New Hampshire down to Durham—anywhere but me. “A guy can tell, Sally. She’s just been hot to trot lately, you know?”

He wiped his cheeks. It broke my heart seeing a man cry, especially a big ole lunkhead like Artie. I didn’t have it in me to tell him his wife, Tina, had always been hot to trot.

Hell, he could’ve asked the football team, or half the guys in the Class of ’88.

Didn’t have it in me, either, to ask what he’d meant by that, but I guessed I knew, all the little signals a woman gave off when she was hung up on a new fella, or when she was on the prowl, out looking for something she wasn’t getting at home.

“Artie,” I said, “if she is running around on you, are you sure you want to know?”

This was the moment of truth. Jealousy could poison the mind, the heart, the soul, I said. I’d minored in English, read Othello for my senior thesis, so I knew all about the green-eyed monster. Once you knew for sure, I told him, there was no going back.

“Certain doors, Artie,” I said, “once you open them, they’re hard to close.”

Shoulders slumping, sagging in that chair, as sad as a bear after you steal its pot of honey, he nodded.

“I just can’t live with myself,” he said, “wondering.”

I wasn’t crazy about taking the case. Well, that day planner was still empty, and I needed something to do. And my car was in the shop, Kinville’s Garage up to Union. And I’d have to pay for that.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Hopefully, I didn’t sound as dubious as I felt. I ate the last bite of that cruller, washed it down with coffee. “But I’ll look into it, if it’ll set your mind at ease.”

###

Small as Milton, New Hampshire was, it was hard to tail somebody you knew, especially a person you’d gone to high school with, so I laid back for a few days, biding my time. I borrowed my uncle’s car, a Buick LeSabre, so I could drive by Artie and Tina’s place, which was a little blue ranch-style house on a hill on Route 153 up to Middleton.

Artie had built the place himself. Toy trucks were scattered all around the overgrown lawn, one of those little red wagons run into the mailbox, a pair of sun-bleached plastic Fisher Price tricycles falling apart by what once might have been a water feature. Tina spent her days wrangling those four kids, three boys and a girl, all of them towheaded, with chubby cheeks, shirts spotted with food and formula, each of them the spitting image of Artie.

Then, on Friday night, she came out dressed up like she had someplace to go, in a tight pair of stonewashed jeans and a tank top, Artie in the doorway looking heartbroken, bereft.

“Baby,” he shouted at her, “I went to the video store and rented us Caddyshack, and I ordered us a pizza from the Poor People’s Pub, with sausage and onions, just like you like. Where do you think you’re going?”

I’d parked in the turnout across the street, and I’d walked as far up the line of trees along the driveway as I dared, so I could hear.

“What do you care?” She was carrying a leather purse, wearing a pair of knee-high boots, too. Yeah, it wasn’t looking good for Artie, not if she was going out dressed like that. “I’m just going to see friends.”

I couldn’t hear the rest of what she said, not with one of those big trucks from DiPrizio’s Lumber passing, but the way Artie’s shoulders slumped, the way he sagged in that doorway, like he’d been shot, it couldn’t have been any too good.

He shook his fist at her, angry. But more than that, he looked sullen, gutted.

She climbed in that Dodge Dart he’d given her last year for her birthday and tore off down the gravel drive, leaving a cloud of dust hanging over the house.

I hid behind one of those pine trees as she passed.

Not that she was paying attention, anyway.

No, she was thinking about her date, whatever stud was waiting for her. Poor Artie.

I walked back to the car, but I wasn’t in any hurry.

Yeah, I didn’t even have to follow her.

I knew where she was going.

###

The North Country Pub was a dive, a biker bar with a decent jukebox where people went to hook up and get in all kinds of trouble.

Sure enough, when I came a little while later, Tina was nursing a drink at the bar.

“Hey, Sally.” She cringed, looking like she wanted to cover her face. She was about as happy to see me as she would’ve been running into the reverend from the Union Congregational Church behind the beaded curtain in the adult section of the video store at the Union Mall.

Hot to trot was right. She was dressed up in those tight-fitting jeans and a sleeveless top. Her hair was cut short, like a boy’s, feathered, like she was on her way to a Mötley Crüe or maybe a Sex Pistols concert. She still wore that black eyeliner like when were at Nute.

She’d been the class floozy, but she was nice enough, if you got to know her. And she’d had it rough, like a lot of those girls had, the ones who went bad. Her dad had been in a biker gang up to Laconia, and Tina had been practically left alone to raise herself, craving the worst kind of male attention, always dating the tough guys, the kids who skipped school and hung out smoking weed by the tracks, those dudes who grew mustaches in the ninth grade.

That was what the talk shows, the pop psychologists said about girls like Tina, anyway. They would’ve said she had daddy issues.

But maybe she just wanted to feel wanted, like someone liked her for who she was—and maybe instead of stepping out on Artie, she just wanted to get out of the house and feel like a woman, instead of that shapeless creature who spent all day in sweatpants chasing four kids.
Maybe that’s all this was.

“Just picking up dinner.” I’d called ahead and ordered food. The girl behind the bar brought me my burger and fries. I squired a little katsup into the Styrofoam container and closed it. “What’re you up to?”

She shrank a little more on that stool. “Just waiting on a friend.”

In front of her was a pint glass with something fizzy and a couple cherries, what looked like a kid’s drink. Not that she was any big lush, but that was odd. Down the rest of the bar, the guys were drinking shots of Jack Daniels with Budweiser longnecks, and most of the women were drinking the same thing.

Hell, half the women in that joint were dipping tobacco, spitting streams of Skoal into empty Budweiser cans.

Like I said, it was a rough place.

And I hadn’t ever known Tina to be a teetotaler.

Skynyrd was on the jukebox, “Gimme Three Steps,” which turned into Garth Books, “Friends in Low Places.”

Guys were arguing under the green light by the pool table, a cloud of cigarette smoke from the Winstons so thick, you could’ve sworn they had a dry ice machine in the back.

“What are you drinking?” I should get out of there before someone got stabbed, shot, or worse. But it was still early.

The color in her cheeks deepened. “Just a Shirley Temple.”

“Well,” I said, “next one’s on me.”

I gave the bartender a couple extra bills, and now the flush in Tina’s cheeks had moved down to her neck, which was deepening a few shades of scarlet, too.

Like I said, she was a nice girl, but she was susceptible to the worst kind of men.

But was she stepping out on Artie?

Well, all signs seemed to be pointing in that direction.

Poor Artie.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I hope your friend shows. Goodnight.”

“Nice to run into you.” Tina waved with her fingers.

###

It was a warm summer night, a golden light still painting the sky over the Milton Three Ponds. I decided to hang around, see who she left with.

This was looking easy, an open and shut case.

A few hours later, once the sun had gone down, she came out of the bar, and sure enough, she was with that friend. Uh oh. I’d finished that burger, and I was sitting at the back of the lot in my uncle’s Buick Le Sabre.

Dark as it was, when they walked under the halogen light at the corner of the lot, and I saw who she was with, my heart fell. Artie’s cousin Sonny had gotten out of the state pen down to Merrimack, where he’d done three years on an armed robbery beef. He was in a tank top, Red Sox hat cocked sideways, cargo shorts worn low on his hips like kids did nowadays, with a wallet chain swinging from his back pocket. Tattoos snaked up his neck, and his arms were sleeved, covered to the knuckles with India ink.

Tina kept glancing around, and I slid down in my seat. But I was parked at the back of the lot, under a line of trees. Since I wasn’t under the light, it was too dark for them to see me.

Poor Artie.

They climbed in his Chevy Caprice. I followed, giving Sonny lots of space, so he wouldn’t get wise to the tail. After that stint in Merrimack, no doubt he’d be paranoid.

Especially if he hadn’t gone as straight as his parole officer probably thought he had.

Especially if he had something to be paranoid about.

They pulled into the RV park a couple miles down the street and parked in front of what must have been his trailer, holding hands as they climbed the cinderblock steps. It might’ve been cute, if I hadn’t felt so bad for Artie.

I parked down at the end of that row of trailers and walked back up to Sonny’s place.

Figuring they were distracted, I checked out Sonny’s Chevy, shining a flashlight through the window. A jug of antifreeze was on the floor, the ashtray overflowing, empty soft packs of Winstons scatted across the dash.

On the back seat was a ski mask.

Funny. Sonny wasn’t any big skier.

And it was August.

I crept around the trailer, peered in a lighted window. They were going at it hot and heavy, making out like teenagers on that couch, like Bonnie and Clyde, his hand halfway up her top.

On the table was a pistol, a 45.

On the floor next to the couch was an Adidas duffel.

Someone—Sonny—had been counting piles of cash.

Well, I’ll be.

Must be Sonny was up to his old tricks.

I snapped a few photos, making sure to get the pistol, the duffel, and the cash in the frame. Then I went back to the North Country Pub, where I used the payphone and called my uncle, who besides giving me the loan of his car worked for the Stafford County Sheriff’s Department.

###

When the cops raided Sonny’s trailer the next morning, they found everything they needed to hang that string of convenience store holdups on Artie’s deadbeat cousin, including the gun used in the robberies and half the missing money.

But they were still looking for the accomplice, that teenaged boy.

And Sonny didn’t have a kid, at least not one anybody knew about—and he wasn’t talking, sitting stone-faced in that interrogation room, talking about love, true love.

“Love,” my uncle said, laughing. “Is that what he thinks this is?”

My uncle’s cheeks were red, and he was standing at his desk, shaking his head. He wanted to go right at Tina, peppering her with questions about Sonny’s accomplice, but I told him there was a better way.

Love.

Who knew that a small-time hoodlum like Sonny had that in him?

###

That afternoon, Artie and Tina were sitting in my office, Artie leaning forward in his chair, Tina with her arms crossed, scowling. Those photographs of Sonny and Tina were on my desk.

Never mind sleuthing. I was moonlighting as a marriage counselor.

“You’re gone all the time,” she told Artie. “You haven’t taken a day off in years.”

“I’m trying to provide.” He showed his palms, grit ground into the loops and whorls. “Don’t you understand? I do it—all of it—for you.”

Tina was crying.

“I feel like I’m going to spend my whole life,” she said, “changing nappies and heating formula. Just once, I’d like to feel like a woman, like someone wants me. Just once, I’d like to feel like more than a babymaker.” She wiped her cheeks. “Just once, Artie, maybe we could leave the kids at home and go someplace nicer than Mickey D’s for dinner—maybe Bonanza or Friendly’s or something. When’s the last time you took me someplace besides Shop ’N Save?”

Artie’s face bunched up when she said that, looking like he was about to cry again, but I held up my hand before he could speak.

“Give us a minute.” I took Tina’s arm as her husband walked out of the trailer. “If you don’t love Artie, you could just leave. Why keep hurting him?”

“I do love him.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I guess I just wanted a little excitement, for someone to see me for who I am.”

Well, she’d gotten that excitement, at least. “Are you going to tell him about the baby?”

She looked shocked. “How—?”

That Shirley Temple, I told her, of course. “Is it Artie’s?”

Biting her lip, she nodded.

“Yeah, I took the test, and I found out before Sonny came into the picture. I think that’s what made me so crazy, the idea of having one more, a fifth.”

“What about the money?” I said, and she blinked at me.

“What are you talking about?”

But her face was flushed, and her eyes kept darting all over the room.

Yeah, she wasn’t any good liar.

“Come on, now,” I said. “Your boyfriend’s sitting in a cell down to the county jail, talking about true love, and he won’t give up his accomplice, who everyone thinks is a teenaged boy.”

I reached out, touched her feathered hair.

It was cut short, boyish.

She flinched but I could see in her face she knew what I was talking about.

Yeah, after four kids, with a fifth on the way, she was curvy, all right, but with duct tape, something to bind her chest, and with the right kind of baggy clothing, well, she’d fooled those cameras.

Most people figured a stickup artist’s accomplice had to be male, anyway.

And most people see what they want to see.

“He made me do it.” Her voice was shaking, and she leaned close to me, showing her teeth. “It was his idea, all along, Sally.”

So much for love, true love.

She told me she had her half of the money in a Maxwell House can under their kitchen sink.

She wiped her nose, crying again. “I was thinking about running away.”

“You return the rest of that money, testify against Sonny, and I’ll fix things with my uncle, get him to lean on the County Attorney and drop the charges against you. But it’s up to you to fix your marriage.”

Tears dripping off her chin, she nodded.

“Thanks, Sally.” She started down the steps, where Artie was waiting in his truck.

###

When I went back inside, I called my uncle and gave him the news.

“Good for you,” he said. “I guess you were right. I certainly didn’t have the wife pegged for the accomplice.”

“Men,” I told him. “You’ve been underestimating us since time immemorial.”

He was laughing, that deep, throaty chuckle I loved. “I guess we have.”

Artie had already cut me a check, drawn on his business account, which was waiting for me on my desk.

It should be just about enough to pay for the carburetor and the new tires they’d told me I’d need up at the garage, then take my uncle and myself out to dinner at the Poor People’s Pub.

“I’ll pick you up on the way,” I said, “so you can have your car back, too.”

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify.

Shamus Award-winning writer and musician Tom Andes is the author of the detective novel Wait There Till You Hear from Me (Crescent City Books 2025) and Guess This is Kaput: Stories (forthcoming, Cowboy Jamboree Press). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2025 and The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025. He lives in Albuquerque, where he is a working musician. His latest musical release is The Ones That Brought You Home (Southern Crescent Recording Co. 2025). His first full-length record, Wonderful Days, will be released in 2026. He can be found at tomandes.com.

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