The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 Read Online Free PDF Page A

head mirror, or a car careering toward her on the highway, always lights in her face.
    One night she caught the lights moving, her eyes landing on the far wall, the baseboards.
    For several moments she’d see the light spots, fuzzed and floating, as if strung together by the thinnest of threads.
    The spots began to look like the darting mice that sometimes snuck inside her childhood home. She never knew mice could be that fast. So fast that if she blinked, she’d miss them, until more came. Was that what it was?
    If she squinted hard, they even looked like little men. Could it be mice on their hind feet?
    The next morning she set traps.
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    â€œI’m sorry, he’s unavailable,” the receptionist said. Even over the phone, Penny knew which one. The beauty marks and giraffe neck.
    â€œBut listen,” Penny said, “it’s not like he thinks. I’m just calling about the check he gave me. The bank stopped payment on it.”
    So much for Mr. D.’s parting gift for their time together. She was going to use it to make rent, to buy a new girdle, maybe even a television set.
    â€œI’ve passed along your messages, Miss Smith. That’s really all I can do.”
    â€œWell, that’s not all I can do,” Penny said, her voice trembling. “You tell him that.”
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    Keeping busy was the only balm. At work it was easy, the crush of people, the noise and personality of the crew.
    Nights were when the bad thoughts came, and she knew she shouldn’t let them.
    In the past she’d had those greasy-skinned roommates to drown out thinking. They all had rashes from cheap studio makeup and the clap from cheap studio men and beautiful figures like Penny’s own. And they never stopped talking, twirling their hair in curlers and licking their fingers to turn the magazine pages. But their chatter-chatter-chatter muffled all Penny’s thoughts. And the whole atmosphere—the thick muzz of Woolworth’s face powder and nylon nighties when they even shared a bed—made everything seem cheap and lively and dumb and easy and light.
    Here, in the bungalow, after leaving Mr. Flant and Benny to drift off into their applejack dreams, Penny had only herself. And the books.
    Late into the night, waiting for the light spots to come, she found her eyes wouldn’t shut. They started twitching all the time, and maybe it was the night jasmine, or the beach burr.
    But she had the books. All those books, these beautiful, brittling books, books that made her feel things, made her long to go places and see things—the River Liffey and Paris, France.
    And then there were those in the wrappers, the brown paper soft at the creases, the white baker string slightly fraying.
    Her favorite was about a detective recovering stolen jewels from an unlikely hiding spot.
    But there was one that frightened her. About a farmer’s daughter who fell asleep each night on a bed of hay. And in the night the hay came alive, poking and stabbing at her.
    It was supposed to be funny, but it gave Penny bad dreams.
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    â€œWell, she was in love with Larry,” Mr. Flant said. “But she was not Larry’s kind.”
    Penny had been telling them how Mrs. Stahl had shown up at her door the night before, in worn satin pajamas and cold cream, to scold her for moving furniture around.
    â€œI don’t even know how she saw,” Penny said. “I just pushed the bed away from the wall.”
    She had lied, telling Mrs. Stahl she could hear the oven damper popping at night. She was afraid to tell her about the shadows and lights and other things that made no sense in daytime. Like the mice moving behind the wall on hind feet, so agile she’d come to think of them as pixies, dwarves. Little men.
    â€œIt’s not your place to move things,” Mrs. Stahl had said, quite loudly, and for a moment Penny thought the woman might cry.
    â€œThat’s all his furniture, you