The Old Bitch

by Jeff Markowitz

Roz Butterworth, Scott Chuss, Tori Lewsader and Jazmin Xanders

“Uggghhh.”

When Rachel opened her eyes, the room was spinning. She didn't remember going to bed last night, couldn't remember how she had managed to get home. She didn't remember much about the party. Vaguely, she recalled some unpleasantness with her supervisor, Mrs. O'Bannion ( OB she had called her; she did remember that, “Old Bitch”).

Rachel knew better than to drink rum at an office party, but it had been a bad week and then the “Old Bitch” had started in on her and, well, there was nothing else to do but pour a double shot of Pusser's.

She could handle her liquor, Rachel told herself. She shouldn't be feeling so... Rachel searched for the word... for the feeling... so... adrift.

She ran her fingers through the tangle that was her hair. It was matted and dirty, sticky to the touch. Rachel's fingers found a gash on the back of her head. What the...

Rachel struggled to her feet and to the bathroom. She was unprepared for the woman reflected in the mirror. Rachel was a pretty woman, in her mid-forties, with brown hair and laughing eyes. In the mirror, her eyes were not laughing. And her hair was the color of blood clot. She wished she could remember more about the office party.

Standing at the mirror, the quiet in Rachel's apartment was shattered by her telephone. She staggered back to her bedroom and picked up the receiver.

“Hunnnh?” Rachel greeted her caller.

“Rachel... it's me... Edwin.”

“What is it Edwin? Is everything okay?”

“Have the police been to see you yet Rachel?”

“The police?” Rachel was confused. “Why would the police be coming to see me?”

“You don't know? Really?” Edwin paused. “The ‘Old Bitch'... On the way home from the party last night... I don't know how to say this, but, from the questions the police were asking, I think you may be their prime suspect.”

The phone went silent as Rachel considered Edwin's information.

“Rachel... are you still there? Rachel...”

Rachel tried to remember.

Rachel retreated to the bathroom, turning the old fashioned knobs on the tub. She wanted desperately to slip into a hot tub.

BAM BAM BAM BAM.."Police. Open up!"

When she opened the door, Rachel found two local police officers and a detective standing on her steps.

"Mind if we come in?" the detective said, his foot already in the door.

He said little, but saw everything, she realized, especially the traces of blood on the couch.

"Am I in some kind of trouble?" Rachel asked.

“Your boss was murdered last night.” He watched for her reaction. “But you knew that already, didn't you?”

Rachel did her best to feign surprise. “Mrs. O'Bannion dead? I don't believe it.”

The detective watched closely now. "I understand you didn't like Mrs. O'Bannion.”

"Well,” Rachel stammered, “to be honest, none of us liked her.” Rachel paused, "She wasn't exactly the best boss in the world."

The detective asked her about the office party and Rachel could honestly say that she had too much to drink and really didn't remember. The detective tried again, asking the same questions in different words before taking his leave. “We'll be in touch.”

Rachel gingerly felt the back of her head, wondering if the damage required stitches.

As soon as Edwin hung up the phone, he began planning for Monday. With the death of Mrs. O'Bannion, someone would be appointed Bureau Chief. It might seem cold, but this was the chance of a lifetime. He would get out of the cubicle and into a real office. Edwin had long coveted the walls in the Bureau Chief's office.

Edwin booted up his computer and called up his resume.

...Bureau Chief Edwin Mulrooney. It had a nice ring to it. Edwin pictured it on the door to his office. Life was looking up.

His life anyway. Edwin felt bad for Rachel. He even felt bad for the Old Bitch.

The evening had started innocently enough, everyone meeting at Cap'n Al's for drinks.

Cap'n Al took pride in knowing how to mix any drink you might order and quite a few you wouldn't. Patrons would drink for free if they could stump Cap'n Al.

To the best of Edwin's knowledge, no one ever had. But Rachel sure as hell had tried. The drink orders had started out simply. Rum and coke. But Rachel was convinced she could stump the Cap'n. Cuban Presidentes. Blue Parrots. Banana Beef Brownies. Turd Floaters.

Cap'n Al laughed at Rachel's efforts, taunting her, “Is that all you've got?”

And it was sometime between the Banana Beef Brownies and the Turd Floaters that the Old Bitch had started in on Rachel.

“You know Rachel,” she began, “you've really got to do something about your bad attitude. You're dragging the whole team down.”

It was hard for Edwin to believe that the argument had culminated in murder. Still, it was the opportunity he had been waiting for. Bureau Chief Mulrooney.

Edwin hoped that Rachel wasn't the killer. She was a hard worker, the kind that would make a new Bureau Chief look good, and as if that wasn't enough, she had the best rack in the department.

Fantasizing about the perks of his promotion, Edwin didn't hear as the door was pushed open. He didn't hear the visitor entering his home. The first sound that Edwin did hear was the unmistakable click of a Smith & Wesson being cocked at close range.

Edwin whirled to face his uninvited guest. “You!”

After drinks at Cap'n Al's, Edwin had invited everyone back to his place. A parade of taxis carried them all to Edwin's Victorian cottage.

Mrs. O'Bannion, of course, refused to travel by taxi, instead calling her driver. When she didn't show up right away, Edwin began to worry. If the boss failed to come to his home, well, it would hurt his status at work. Edwin breathed a sigh of relief when Mrs. O'Bannion's Mercedes pulled up in front of his cottage. Edwin waited to greet his boss, but no one emerged. Finally, the driver opened the rear passenger door.

“Omigod?” someone shrieked. “She's dead!” Hanging from the now open car door inches from the pavement, Mrs. O'Bannion's head hung lifeless, violence emanating in waves from the back of the Mercedes.

Even at a distance they could see the gash on the back of her head, the blood smeared in the Old Bitch's otherwise perfect blonde extensions.

Everyone sobered up quickly at the sight of the dead body, everyone that is, except Rachel. Rachel had passed out on the lawn.

He could never use the example in a management seminar, but it was at that moment that Edwin discovered the team building possibilities afforded by a dead supervisor.

Edwin and the others quickly agreed on a story. Rachel snored quietly among the hydrangeas.

So Edwin had been prepared when the police had knocked on his door. But he was unprepared for this latest visitor. He had seen the corpse. They all had. What was the Old Bitch doing, standing in his foyer, pointing a Smith & Wesson in his general direction?

“Well,” said Mrs. O'Bannion, the gun trained on her anxious employee, “I wonder what the Employee Handbook says about this, eh Edwin?”

Edwin gulped. Even contemplating homicide, Mrs. O'Bannion remembered the company rules.

“Mrs. O'Bannion,” he spluttered, his bladder twitching, “Is this really necessary? What about shared values? What about team dynamics?”

“What about the power vested in my position?” snarled Mrs O'Bannion. She pushed her way past Edwin, and plonked herself on his couch, pointing the gun at his chest. “Take off your trousers.”

“Mrs. O'Bannion please...” he begged, and then, changing tone and tactics, “...or may I call you Mary Jane?”

“You may call me Mistress,” said O'Bannion. She pointed with the gun. “Trousers. Off.”

“Oh God,” croaked Edwin. The humiliation. The danger. The thrill….

“Mary Jane,” he said with dry mouth and trembling tongue, “You can put that away,” he said, pointing to the gun. “You know I've always fancied you. You're magnificent. I never felt that I was worthy of you.”

He saw the dreadful woman hesitate. Edwin lunged for the Smith & Wesson.

Mrs. O'Bannion stepped to the side and in one smooth motion, cracked Edwin smartly on the head with the butt of her pistol.

"Shit. That hurt." Edwin rubbed the back of his head.

Mrs. O'Bannion had hit him with a practiced hand. The pistol smacked his head with just enough force to get his attention, not nearly hard enough to cause any real damage. She looked at Edwin.

“That'll teach you to mess with the old bitch." And then Mrs. O'Bannion did something Edwin had never seen her do before. She smiled.

"What? You don't think I know what everyone calls me?" She giggled. "Truth is, I am an old bitch. But today Edwin, today you're gonna be my young bitch."

She raised the gun. "Now, here's what we're going to do..."

For the next hour, Edwin made an effort to put his mind in another time and place, a place far away from his apartment, his bed, his germ-phobic, sado-masochistic sex-starved supervisor.

There were latex gloves and lab coats, plastic wrap and baby wipes, cotton swabs and sterilized probes. It was so antiseptic, so impersonal, so distant and ultimately, Edwin admitted, so utterly depraved that he almost regretted when she stood up and announced they were done, carefully collecting the mess.

Edwin lay in bed watching as the old bitch fixed her hair.

"I don't understand. Last night... I saw you... you were dead. How...?"

Mrs. O'Bannion turned to face Edwin, saddened by what she still had to do. "Yes, I was... you did... so you can't... you understand... I am sorry Edwin." And with that, the old bitch raised the Smith & Wesson and calmly put a bullet just above his right eye.

"Goodbye Edwin. I am sorry."

A phone call from Detective MacMurray summoned Rachel to the station house for more questioning. It was an invitation she could not refuse.

“We know that Edwin called you.” Detective MacMurray stood in the interrogation room with both his hands on the table, towering over Rachel cowering in her chair. “Who are you protecting?”

Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing.

The detective continued. “We found pictures on his computer. It seems your little friend Edwin had a kinky side.”

Rachel cringed. That was not the Edwin she knew.

The detective leaned in close. “What lead you to put a bullet in his head?”

“I didn't shoot him!” Rachel yelled, angered by the officer's assertion. “I loved Edwin!”

“Don't lie to me Rachel. You killed Mrs. O'Bannion and then you killed Edwin.”

Rachel faltered under the heat of the detective's gaze. “Am I under arrest?”

“Under arrest? No... not yet.”

“Then I'm free to go?”

“You're free to go.” The detective scowled. “But don't leave town.”

Rachel hurried home, closing the door behind her, stepping into the dark apartment, grateful to be home. Why were her co-workers being killed? And how did she become the prime suspect? One thing was clear. No more drinking at office parties.

From the shadows on the far side of the apartment, a familiar voice ordered Rachel to sit down.

“My plan was perfect until you stumbled in, in your drunken stupor. And then, that idiot Edwin got in the way. A couple of effing morons.”

The click of a pistol cock echoed in the silence of the darkened room. “Don't move.”

Rachel shivered; it sounded just like O'Bannion, but O'Bannion was dead.

Rachel had only a split second to react. Ducking, the first bullet whizzed past her head like a whisper, the second tore through the recliner.

Mrs. O'Bannion stepped out from the shadows. Before she could fire off another shot, Rachel smashed a porcelain vase into the woman's chin and dove for the door.

Rachel made it to her car. With pistol in hand, Mrs. O'Bannion charged out the front door, firing at the car as it disappeared down the road and into the night.

When she was safely away, Rachel slowed her speed considerably. The last thing she needed was a speeding ticket.

Edwin was dead. And Mrs. O'Bannion, apparently, was alive. Leave it to the Old Bitch, Rachel thought, to cheat death. Was she dead or was she alive? And did that make Rachel the suspect in one murder or two?

Rachel struggled to control her breathing, taking deep breathes, desperately trying to think. It made no sense. The Old Bitch was dead. Rachel had even seen the funeral announcement.

The funeral itself was a dismal affair, especially for Mrs. O'Bannion, who knew better than to attend her own funeral. She was annoyed at the small turnout. Despite the fact she had killed a number of her staff and was despised by those still living, she had hoped more people would attend. At least no one had found out about the millions she had stolen over the years... the double entries... the wire transfers... the offshore accounts. And now with a hundred thousand in traveling money hiding in the false bottom of her casket, there was good reason for the Old Bitch to attend her own funeral. Even if it meant hiding in a closet.

And from her hiding place, Mrs. O'Bannion was startled by the appearance of Detective MacMurray. Somehow, she had not expected Mac.

As Mac listened to the gossip in the funeral home, he realized that he knew a different Mary Jane O'Bannion. He remembered how he first met Mary Jane Kelly....

It was at Patrick's Pub. She was a regular. Always sat at the end of the bar with a martini and a cigarette. A Gibson Martini with an olive and an onion. Straight up. There was something about her, something dark and dangerous.

It had very nearly crushed Mac the night that Mary Jane Kelly announced her impending nuptials to John Matthew O'Bannion.

Mac touched the kerchief to his eyes to wipe away the tears. He had agreed to attend the wedding of Kelly to that gruff lumberjack of a man, Mr. John Matthew O'Bannion. And then John O'Bannion suffered a most sudden, gruesome death. Mac was the lead detective on that case as well. And now Mary Jane O'Bannion was dead.

When the funeral home emptied, Mac slipped back in and approached the casket. Mac was troubled by the closed casket. “How can I say my goodbyes?' he mumbled. He just had to see her one more time. Just had to touch her cheek the way he had so many years before. Slowly, he lifted the lid to the beautiful deep mahogany coffer. The interior was plush white velvet. It smelled of her favorite perfume, Chanel. He breathed in the beautiful scent and opened his eyes to his beloved. "What the hell!!??" Mac shrieked and fell to his knees.

When she saw Mac sidling up to the casket, the Old Bitch knew it had been a mistake to attend her own funeral. Right from the start, it had been about the money. But each step of the way, someone had gotten in her way. And now, that old fool, Mac.

The Old Bitch leapt from the closet, blinking against the stained-glass sunshine. She grabbed a heavy brass cross. For a moment she hesitated, remembering other times. Then she whacked him over the head with the cross. He made no effort to resist her assault. Mac fell at her feet, bleeding from a terrible wound in his skull.

She lifted Mac's body into the casket, grabbed her cash and slammed the lid shut. O'Bannion pushed the gurney towards the conveyor belt and pressed a button. Slowly the coffin began its graceful journey to the crematorium.

Half an hour later, Mrs. O'Bannion, pulled her car into the long-term parking at the airport. There was a bit of unpleasantness with the funeral director when he realized there was more at stake than the hundred thousand he had agreed to hide in the casket. With more at stake, he had pressured the Old Bitch for a larger cut. En route to the airport, the Old Bitch found that she had no choice but to dump his body in the landfill.

Mrs. O'Bannion pondered the unfortunate string of killings. It had only ever been her intention to kill one person, just one death would be needed, she thought, before she could safely join her money offshore.

She thought about the day she had met the perfect murder victim...

Mrs. O'Bannion was relaxing at home, watching the business news, when someone knocked at the front door. Answering the door, Mrs. O'Bannion was greeted by her mirror image.

“Excuse me, Mrs. O'Bannion?” the woman asked. “My name is Debbie X. Machina.”

Ms. Machina went on to tell the most extraordinary story. Mrs. O'Bannion had heard some of it before, about how her birth mother had been just a girl herself, a teenager, an unwed mother, at a time and place when unwed teenagers didn't keep a love child, how her mother had surrendered custody at birth and how Mrs. O'Bannion had grown up shuffled from one foster home to another. The part of the story that she had never heard before, never even suspected, was that her mother had in fact given birth to twins, beautiful identical twin girls, separated at birth, separated by a foster system that didn't value family, separated for more than four decades, separated until that remarkable moment when Mrs. O'Bannion saw her reflection standing in her doorway.

For years, Mrs. O'Bannion had been transferring bureau funds into the offshore account, confident that one day she would have an opportunity to draw down the funds undetected. Standing in her doorway, looking at her reflection, Mrs. O'Bannion recognized the missing piece to her plan. It was at that moment that Mrs. O'Bannion hatched the plan to stage her own murder. Once “she” was dead, Mrs. O'Bannion was confident that no one would even notice when she moved to the island and began making withdrawals.

It was simple. It was elegant. It was... and then her employee, that pain in her rear, that Rachel, had stumbled upon the confrontation. Wobbly and drunk, Rachel had seen Mrs. O'Bannion and Ms. Machina struggling in the ladies' room.

Rachel was soused. The Old Bitch had no idea how much Rachel had seen, how much she might remember, but she really had no choice. And then Edwin had gotten himself in the middle of things. One by one, they all got in her way. And one by one, the string of killings had multiplied.

But she had a first class ticket to Los Roques. And she had the account numbers to access millions in bureau funds. The murders were a small price to pay, a small price indeed.

Mrs. O'Bannion smiled. The police had targeted Rachel as their prime suspect. The Old Bitch wanted Rachel dead, but how much sweeter it would be if the police arrested Rachel for the murders.

Six months later, Rachel's case went to trial. The prosecutor tried to keep the case simple, but it was difficult for him to explain the murders of Detective MacMurray and Funeral Director Sackbutt. The jury was extremely confused, but when the defense attorney produced birth certificates for the twins, Rachel was found not guilty on all counts.

For months, after the trial, Rachel sat in her apartment, alone. Her friends were dead. At times, she wished that Mrs. O'Bannion had killed her too. The only thing that lifted her spirits was a recurring fantasy. She imagined the Old Bitch on her knees pleading for mercy, Rachel calmly preparing to slit her throat.

Rachel sat on the couch indulging in a bowl of chocolate fudge ice cream sprinkled with revenge. She imagined tracking the Old Bitch to the ends of the Earth, confronting her. She imagined the Old Bitch breaking down, begging for mercy, offering up millions if Rachel would only spare her life. Rachel felt a pleasurable tingle course up her spine.

But it was only a fantasy. The official investigation had failed to uncover any credible leads to O'Bannion's whereabouts. But something was stirring in the back of Rachel's mind. She went to bed, dreading yet another depressing day at the bureau. Knowing how hard it had been to recruit candidates in the wake of a salacious murder case, the new hires were certainly not the brightest stars in the firmament.

Stars... something about stars tugged at Rachel's thoughts as she lay in bed, unable to sleep. Suddenly she jumped out of bed. Stars... a crescent of stars on a backing of stripes... On a coffee cup that Mrs. O'Bannion had kept on her desk. A flag. Rachel logged onto her computer. Venezuela .

Then it all came back. How Mrs. O'Bannion had boasted years ago of a villa on Los Roques.

Rachel spent the next few hours downloading maps and making plans. By morning she was heading for the airport.

Two flights and a donkey ride later, Rachel knew she was getting close when she spotted a nondescript cabin in the woods. She knocked at the cabin door.

A voice responded immediately. “Come in, it's open.”

Rachel opened the door into a small room, piled high with books. In the corner, a man was sitting, his back to the door, facing a computer screen. As she entered, he turned to greet his guest. “I've been expecting you.”

Rachel looked at the balding middle-aged man with the well-trimmed beard and the shit-eating grin. She did not understand his greeting. “Expecting me?”

The man's smile grew impossibly large. “Yes. You see I wrote it that way.”

Rachel was thoroughly confused. “Hunnh?”

The man stood up from his computer desk, stretched his aching back and took a step toward his guest. “I'm sorry. You've had a long flight. Two flights I believe...and a donkey ride. Would you like a cold drink? Can I get you something to eat?”

Rachel was not hungry. She was not thirsty. She was confused. “I don't understand.”

The man reached out and put a hand on Rachel's shoulder. “Here... please sit down.” He seemed suddenly shy. “I'll try to explain.”

Rachel sat down on the settee and waited for the explanation. The man seemed to be silently rehearsing, choosing his words with care. After an uncomfortable pause, he continued.

“I'm a writer. You're a character.”

Somehow, Rachel did not find his explanation helpful. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

The man grinned. “I wrote you.”

Rachel didn't know what to say. “You what?”

“I wrote you.”

Rachel struggled to make sense of her circumstances. “You mean, you're responsible for putting me through all of this?”

The man sighed. “Sort of. I started the story, but to be honest, I kind of lost control somewhere along the way.”

Rachel began to understand. “You mean, all this, all this, the killings, the trial, the... all this... none of it had to happen?”

The man could not look Rachel in the eyes. “No, I guess not.”

Even as Rachel had tracked the Old Bitch, she had doubts she could take a life. Staring at the man, standing in the cabin, surrounded by his books and papers, Rachel's doubts dissolved. She pulled the Smith & Wesson from her bag. She pointed the pistol at the man's suddenly sweaty brow and calmly pulled the trigger. The man dropped, his life slipping away in a spreading pool of blood and ink.

achel looked at the dead writer. “Asshole.” She turned and walked out of the small cabin.