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

“Once I saw pink elephants,” he offered. “You think that might be it?”
    Penny shook her head. “It’s making it hard to sleep.”
    â€œDear,” Mr. Flant said, “would you like a little helper?”
    He held out his palm, pale and moist. In the center, a white pill shone.
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    That night she slept impossibly deeply. So deeply she could barely move, her neck twisted and locked, her body hunched inside itself.
    Upon waking, she threw up in the wastebasket.
    That evening, after work, she waited in the courtyard for Mrs. Stahl.
    Smoking cigarette after cigarette, Penny noticed things she hadn’t before. Some of the tiles in the courtyard were cracked, some missing. She hadn’t noticed that before. Or the chips and gouges on the sculpted lions on the center fountain, their mouths spouting only a trickle of acid green. The drain at the bottom of the fountain, clogged with crushed cigarette packs, a used contraceptive.
    Finally she saw Mrs. Stahl saunter into view, a large picture hat wilting across her tiny head.
    â€œMrs. Stahl,” she said, “have you ever had an exterminator come?”
    The woman stopped, her entire body still for a moment, her left hand finally rising to her face, brushing her hair back under her mustard-colored scarf.
    â€œI run a clean residence,” she said, voice low in the empty, sunlit courtyard. That courtyard, oleander and wisteria everywhere, bright and poisonous, like everything in this town.
    â€œI can hear something behind the wainscoting,” Penny replied. “Maybe mice, or maybe it’s baby possums caught in the wall between the bedroom and kitchen.”
    Mrs. Stahl looked at her. “Is it after you bake? It might be the dampers popping again.”
    â€œI’m not much of a cook. I haven’t even turned on the oven yet.”
    â€œThat’s not true,” Mrs. Stahl said, lifting her chin triumphantly. “You had it on the other night.”
    â€œWhat?” Then Penny remembered. It had rained sheets and she’d used it to dry her dress. But it had been very late and she didn’t see how Mrs. Stahl could know. “Are you peeking in my windows?” she asked, voice tightening.
    â€œI saw the light. The oven door was open. You shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Stahl said, shaking her head. “It’s very dangerous.”
    â€œYou’re not the first landlord I caught peeping. I guess I need to close my curtains,” Penny said coolly. “But it’s not the oven damper I’m hearing each and every night. I’m telling you, there’s something inside my walls. Something in the kitchen.”
    Mrs. Stahl’s mouth seemed to quiver slightly, which emboldened Penny.
    â€œDo I need to get out the ball peen I found under the sink and tear a hole in the kitchen wall, Mrs. Stahl?”
    â€œDon’t you dare!” she said, clutching Penny’s wrist, her costume rings digging in. “Don’t you dare!”
    Penny felt the panic on her, the woman’s breath coming in sputters. She insisted they both sit on the fountain edge.
    For a moment they both just breathed, the apricot-perfumed air thick in Penny’s lungs.
    â€œMrs. Stahl, I’m sorry. It’s just—I need to sleep.”
    Mrs. Stahl took a long breath, then her eyes narrowed again. “It’s those chinwags next door, isn’t it? They’ve been filling your ear with bile.”
    â€œWhat? Not about this, I—”
    â€œI had the kitchen cleaned thoroughly after it happened. I had it cleaned, the linoleum stripped out. I put up fresh wallpaper over every square inch after it happened. I covered everything with wallpaper.”
    â€œIs that where it happened?” Penny asked. “That poor man who died in Number Four? Larry?”
    But Mrs. Stahl couldn’t speak, or wouldn’t, breathing into her handkerchief, lilac silk, the small square over her