Assassination in Autumn

It didn’t help matters that The Mayor was crawling with ticks.

Justine blew her bangs out of her eyes and leaned in close to The Mayor’s supine body. Always the beta, The Mayor showed his belly to anyone who got within his three-feet of designated personal space—a doggy quirk that came in handy in the autumn, when tick-infested piles of leaves beckoned to terriers everywhere, begging to be romped through.

She tweezed off seven total, a small price to pay for what was the last fall frolic The Mayor would ever have.

“Sir, I’d like to congratulate you on being such a good boy today,” Justine said as she deposited the last tick into the jelly jar she kept for this purpose. Northern California was ticky no matter what time of year, but this especially warm, dry autumn—earthquake weather they call it here—had resulted in a boom season for the nasty little suckers. Deer ticks, with their greedy pincers and mouths like ratchets, were as unavoidable as the belligerent debt collectors that rang Justine’s phone day after day.

“That’s the last time I’ll have to do that for a while, right Mr. Mayor?” She dumped the cargo into the toilet and flushed. “I’m happy to be your loyal servant, but I must admit that I am pleased that the tick eradication department is shutting down.”

The Mayor stayed put, thumping his tail lightly on the floor.

The phone rang with a number she didn’t recognize. She didn’t have time for this now, so much was at stake. Unfortunately, the likelihood that Mr. Morelli’s relatives would randomly ring her today was very high, and she didn’t have any spare time to dedicate to the inevitable, endless back-and-forth that happens when people start leaving voice mail messages. She also couldn’t risk any of them thinking she was tough to reach or hard to work with.

“Justine here,” she answered.

“May I speak to Justine Paine?”

Gut punch. She glanced at The Mayor, who was gnawing on his rubber toy gavel, the one he brought with him when he arrived on her doorstep on election day three years ago. She simply did not have the emotional bandwith for this right now.

“I just said I was Justine.”

“Ma’am, this is Maurace calling on behalf of Citywide Bank. Are you aware that you are currently six months in arrears on your credit card debt and that you owe six-thousand, two hundred and sixty-two dollars?”

“I paid it yesterday,” she lied, a stall tactic she learned on a Reddit thread.

“Ma’am, my records show that you have not paid your bill. Citywide sent your file to us for collection. You owe Citywide this money and since they sent it to us for collections, you will need to pay that bill directly to us.”

“I know you want your commission, Maurice, but I paid them yesterday,” she insisted. “If you need to get paid for calling me you can use your collection techniques on them.”

“It’s Maurace, ma’am.”

“I know.”

“Ma’am, I am showing that you will still need to pay this full amount as soon as possible. We have also obtained your mother’s contact information and will be calling her as well to see if she will pay your debt."

“Excellent idea. When you call her can you please remind her why I am not coming to Thanksgiving this year? I am sure she would prefer to hear it from you, Maurice.”

“Ma’am, I am going to need you to verify your mother’s contact information.”

“And I am going to need you to fuck off, Maurice.”

Justine normally didn’t respond this way, with sarcasm and swear words. Every article about handling debt collectors insisted that you remain polite, firm and unavailable.

“Not today, Satan,” she whispered under her breath as she hung up the phone.

“It’s time for today’s recap to The Mayor,” Justine shifted gears to the tone she adopted when addressing her dog as if he were an actual elected official. “Meeting called to order. Do we have a quorum?”

The Mayor pawed at the air, sign language that he wanted petting. Justine obliged, scratching that spot behind his ear.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she continued. “It’s the citizens’ favorite time of year. The town’s leaf piles more than lived up to expectation, but did you see the sky today? Like a mirror pond. It was exactly the same on the day you found me, I’ll never forget.”

“And how about that warm breeze? I’ll draft a memo to the autumn wind committee to thank them for getting it just right today.”

“You had a run-in with your nemesis Dodger at the dog park. BUT, he didn't bite you today. That’s a good thing—your diplomacy efforts have clearly paid off.”

She planted a smooch on his snout.

“You had ground beef for lunch didn’t you, your honor? We won’t mention that splurge to the taxpayers. Then you got to destroy one of those tiny pumpkins I get from the decor section at the store. The ethics watchdogs might consider this a bribe, but I will leave that information out of our official report, wink, wink.”

She knew she was rambling in an effort to calm her frazzled nerves, but she feared that if she stopped for a single second her courage would unscrew itself from its sticking place. If she didn’t do the terrible deed, bury the body and deliver Mr. Morelli to their flight by 5:30 she would absolutely be fired. She was a breath away from being homeless, her debt a trap door that threatened to split open underneath her, swallowing her whole.

She could not lose this job. She was going to take Mr. Morelli to his daughter’s wedding, collect her additional $1500 travel fee and deal with her emotional devastation later.

“Nobody wants this,” she whispered to herself. “But it’s the right thing to do, you’re doing the right thing.”

She pulled the purloined pills from her knapsack. Twenty Vicodin, stolen from Mr. Morelli who was prescribed them for his degenerating discs. “This will be enough, right? This will do it.” She grabbed a half-empty jar of peanut butter.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Mayor, but this is going to be our final report,” she said, kneeling beside him, stroking his head. “I told you when you showed up on my doorstep that I didn’t have any money. That you were hitching your wagon to an insolvent party.”

Justine was grateful that The Mayor never learned any English outside of “walk,” “gavel,” “snack” and “no.” His intelligence was inversely proportional to his cuteness, and his cuteness could stop people in their tracks. Golden and fluffy with brown eyes the size of quarters, The Mayor received at least four cash offers from people who fell in love with him over the last year. Tempting as it was to accept $500 cash from a stranger, Justine couldn’t part with The Mayor. She’d rather gouge out her own eyes.

“And that’s why we can’t get you chemotherapy,” she continued to her oblivious companion. “Your chondrosarcoma is not going to improve and you are going to be in unbearable pain sooner, not later. I hope you understand that I am doing this because I love you. It’s really hard to explain, but this is how humans show animals love, by refusing to let them suffer. I absolutely refuse to let you suffer.”

She left out the part where the vet bill for the diagnosis cost $325. She’d been eating Top Ramen from the Dollar Store for the past five days. She also left out the part where she had to do this today because she couldn’t afford to board him during the three days she would be out of town. His cancer was fast-moving, she was told. He would be in unimaginable pain, they said. She could come home to a dog who needed an amputation to survive, and she simply couldn’t face it. Or afford it.

“I think I speak on behalf of all of your constituents that that you have been an excellent Mayor,” she said. “Didn’t get the budget on track like you promised, but morale was very high when you were around.” The tears came on fast, and Justine knew that if she let it continue she’d lose everything today.

The Mayor, exhausted from his day of all-time favorite adventures, released a sigh and dropped his head to the floor.

“Buck up, buttercup. It’s time. Be a big girl.” She slapped herself in the face and tried to think about anything else other than the act. Her $20,000 student loan bill, the $6200 she owed on her Citywide Bank credit card, the hospital bill from last year’s appendix removal that topped $17,000 and resulted in losing her job at the nursing home. She loved The Mayor, and she would do anything to have this process be handled humanely by a professional, but her financial realities were the trifecta that determined her actions for nearly everything in her life.

She smeared peanut butter on the first pill. “Twenty will be plenty, right? Twenty. That should do it.”

The Mayor—innocent, unsuspecting, trusting—lapped up the first tablet without even raising his head. She slid peanut butter-enrobed opiates into his mouth, one at a time, like a gambler dropping coins in a slot machine.

“Twenty,” she confirmed. She thought the amount might be literal overkill, but she also literally could not afford to mess this up. The Mayor had to die today, and there could be no mistakes, nothing left undone that would leave him in pain or brain dead or paralyzed.

“The cancer decided this, not you,” she said to herself, fighting back tears—and losing the battle. She put his gavel next to him and he sniffed it.

“I love you, sir. So much. I honestly don’t know how the town will survive without you.”

Justine was only aware of time passing because of the way the autumn light changed, casting a shimmering glow in her living room. The day was heading into evening, and Justine had to get going.

“C’mon, sir,” she encouraged, tickling him a bit under his button chin. “Let go. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

The Mayor’s eyes fluttered and closed. He let out a sigh. Justine put her head on his body and listened for the heartbeat. As a hospice nurse, she carried a stethoscope in her knapsack, but she wanted to be close to The Mayor, to hear the life leave his body through her own ears, not magnified, tinny, medical. She needed this spiritual experience to bolster her through the next several days of poorly-maintained wheelchairs, delayed flights, family drama and revolting bathroom visits where she would no doubt emerge covered in the diarrhea of an 85-year-old man with Crohn’s Disease, among other things.

Finally, she felt The Mayor’s term expire. A wisp of air, a release like a sigh into nothingness, and his body was at peace.

She felt monstrous. Deranged. Cornered into making life and death decisions, possibly cruel ones, that she would never have to face if she wasn’t poor.

“You made the hard choice and did the terrible thing because it was the right thing to do,” she said to herself as she took her last moments with her companion. “You faced your responsibilities with adult resolve. Citywide Bank can suck it.”

She would allow herself to be shattered later. When she safely delivered Mr. Morelli—who was also dying, she reminded herself—to his oldest daughter’s wedding in Denver and back again, earning $1500 much-needed dollars in the process. Then she could come unglued. Then she could properly mourn the best friend she ever had.

But now, she was all business.

You wouldn’t think that someone with Justine’s money problems would be able to properly plan the home euthanasia and subsequent burial of the very best dog in the world so perfectly. You’d think that someone like her must be a complete screw-up. You’ll be surprised to find that, even though she stole the pills from her employer, they were expired and tucked into a couch cushion in a rarely-used room. She did not and would not leave her patient to suffer without his medication.

If you also thought that someone in Justine’s predicament would not own the proper tools to bury her dog properly, you would also be correct. But Justine cleverly checked out a shovel and a rake from the local free tool library. In the early morning light, before they left on their last-day adventure, Justine dug the hole in a patch of thirsty brown grass, where the earth was brittle from the precipitation-free season, and the dirt came up easy as the soft lint from a vacuum cleaner bag.

She wrapped The Mayor in a shroud of a frayed beach towel and conveyed his spiritless body to his grave. He was heavier like this, with no life force, so she stumbled a bit as she laid him to rest, nearly dropping him into the gaping maw that seemed too eager to accept him.

She released his rubber gavel into the hole. It landed on top of him with a barely perceptible squeak.

“I object to this, your honor,” she said, shoveling soft, dusty clumps of soil into the hole until it was filled. “I don’t like this at all.”

She raked a pile of leaves to cover the exposed dirt, not only to provide The Mayor with his own personal leaf pile in the afterlife, but also to hide what was clearly a dog grave in case her landlord came by when she was gone. She was not allowed to have pets, and if he found out he would raise her rent whether the dog was still living or not. She could not afford to make a mistake.

Deed done, Justine had 45 minutes to get shower, change, cram a few essentials into a duffel bag and race across town to retrieve Mr. Morelli.

“Dammit!” Her phone was nearly dead. She had no choice but to plug it in to get as much charge as she could for obvious reasons like staying in contact with Morelli family members, emergency numbers and Candy Crush on the plane.

Phone managed, she hit the shower to realized that she was out of shampoo and would have to make due with washing her hair with Irish Spring.

“I don’t have time to worry about this bullshit,” she insisted to no one as she pulled her comb through her hair, which could best be described as a wet rat nest. “I’m not even going to try to dry this,” she said, knowing that at the Westin Denver they would probably have decent shampoo and conditioner and she could fix the problem then. She pulled her hair into a top not. Her bangs leeched to her forehead.

“Am I passably clean? I am passably clean. Good.”

Wallet, ID, duffel bag with PJs, library book, sweater, button down, jeans, slacks, boots, dress for wedding, flip flops, small toiletry bag.

“You got this. Let’s go.” Twenty minutes to Mr. Morelli’s gated neighborhood across town, and she’d be right on schedule. Her ability to compartmentalize while in the throes of a massive personal crisis was impressive even to her.

Miracle of miracles, her car keys were waiting for her in the first spot she looked. She grabbed them, shouldered her duffel and dashed to her Ford Fiesta.

In the tomb-like silence of the car, she took a moment to acknowledge the beauty of the day. The late afternoon sky greeted her with the rich amber glow that promised to usher in a glorious pink autumn sunset, and leaves skittered across her path like rose petals laid out for a visiting queen. It truly was the most stunning backdrop to say goodbye to her beloved companion, and she took a beat to feel grateful for The Mayor’s love and companionship.

She reached into her purse to check her phone for messages, a bad habit, she knew, but she needed a quick distraction or she feared the knot in her throat would bully its way into becoming a full-on ugly cry.

Her phone.

“Oh, crap.”

The first U-turn available was a few blocks away and she leaned into it like she was in the Monaco Grand Prix.

She left the car running in the street and bolted into her front door. She needed her keys to get in.

She darted back, climbed into the driver’s seat, switched off the Fiesta and ran with the keys in her hand, to her front door.

She turned the key in the deadbolt and burst in.

Her phone.

It was right where she left it, plugged into its charger.

As she grabbed the phone, Justine was overcome by a massive jolt from below that knocked her forward. It felt as though a one-armed monster had reached up through her floor boards and pulled her to her knees.

Her floor shook, and the walls undulated. She was on all fours, feeling suddenly queasy. Her favorite owl mug danced across the countertop and dropped to the floor, smashing to pieces.

And just like that, it was over.

“Earthquake weather.” Justine took a deep breath. “Felt like a four-point-two.”

She checked her knees—very minor damage, maybe a bruise later. Her pants were intact.

She surveyed the wreckage, a picture slanted here, a small table fallen over there. Nothing terrible. Except the mug.

She stayed low, unsure if there would be aftershocks, and crawled to where her owl mug lay in ruins.

“Alas, poor Hootie,” she said. “I knew you well. You were a fellow of infinite tea.”

Justine didn’t think she could take many more losses today, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that now. She scooped the pieces of mug into her hand and took them to the garbage.

The front door had swung wide open, probably because Justine had failed to close it in her manic race to get her phone. But why was there so much dirt on the floor? She looked up at the ceiling to see if somehow the earthquake had shaken dust loose from up there.

She walked closer to inspect and stepped on a rubber gavel that let out a shriek, as if it were offended that she hadn’t seen it sitting there.

Her heart plunged into her socks.

“Mr. Mayor?”

And like an apparition, he was just...there. His puppet face beamed up at her. Justine watched, stunned, as a tick scrambled across The Mayor’s nose.

“That wasn’t what it looked like, your majesty” she stuttered. “It was not an assassination attempt, at least not how you’re thinking...”

The Mayor, ever magnanimous, seemed eager to forgive, and he shook his hiney in the happiest wag Justine had ever seen from an elected official.