Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle using
Brenda’s prompt words shown below:
dead, pines, penance, mourns, folk, glimmer,
graveyard, remorse, ghostly, fragments, lover, shadowy
The rain slammed my window like I owed it money. I was nursing a glass of cheap gin in my office when she walked in, legs up to Tuesday, eyes the color of trouble. Charlotte Crane.
“My husband’s dead, Mr. Malone,” she said. “Folks say he jumped off Dutchman’s Bridge. I say somebody pushed.”
I tipped my fedora back. “Listen sister, half this town would push their own mother for a fin. But I’m listening.”
She slid a photograph across the desk. It had been torn to fragments and taped back together. It showed her husband with his arm around a pretty brunette, Italian if I had to guess. “His lover,” she said. “Rita Mancini. She runs a flower shop out by the pines.”
I found Rita at midnight in Saint Agnes’ graveyard, kneeling at a fresh grave, ghostly pale under the shadowy moon. A glimmer of gold caught my eye: a man’s wedding ring, half-buried in the mud.
“Doing penance, Rita?”
She didn’t flinch. “Somebody has to. His wife won’t. She mourns in mink and diamonds.”
“You saying the widow did it?”
“I’m saying she paid me to keep him on that bridge till her friend arrived. I didn’t know, Malone. I swear it.”
The remorse looked real on her. Then again, so does a good wig.
Back at the office, Charlotte was waiting, lipstick fresh, smile sharper than a switchblade.
“Well, detective?”
I tossed my raincoat and dialed the precinct. “Dead men don’t talk, sweetheart, but the dames who love them sure do.”
Somewhere out past the pines, a police siren started wailing.
NAR©2026
This is “Long Black Veil” by Lefty Frizzell
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated, and may not be used without permission. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
Dirk Malone does it again! 👏
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