Killer Fiction - "Observation Deck" -- 1

ugene’s wife Margaret lifted the lid of her husband’s medium Samsonite. Inside, the blue satin retaining straps were neatly buckled, one to the other, and pulled taut. She slid her hands into the long puckered pockets. In the right-hand pocket she discovered a hotel-sized bar of Camay soap and a sewing kit folded into the shape of a large matchbook. There was nothing in the left-hand pocket.

She sucked deeply, vacuuming the last of the wrinkling air from the bag, then placed it onto the pile of shorts.

Margaret slippered across the hallway into the bathroom. From the linen closet she removed a milky-white Tupperware container. Opening it, she smelled the combined perfumes of the other small, paper-bound bars of soap; Ivory, and Dial, and Camay; the one-ounce portions of Bayberry Spice Shampoo, Violet Creme Conditioner, and several cylinders of Silky Touch Hand ’n’ Body Lotion. Filing the new bar of Camay next to its cousins, she snapped the lid back on, and returned the box to its place on the third shelf, beside the guest towels.

She turned to the sink and noticed a smudge of toothpaste on the chrome spout. This she polished away with a blue tissue from the dispenser that sat on the tank of the toilet. The box of tissues were protected by a blue plastic cover; on it were the embossed impressions of several varieties of shells. She gave the faucets a precautionary turn to the left. Lately they had been leaking; she had heard the distinct ping of water against porcelain during the night.

Back in the bedroom, Margaret opened the beige curtains and noticed the October afternoon sunlight illuminating the elastic hem of the uppermost pair in a stack of Eugene’s boxer shorts.

From the brass rack screwed into the side wall of his closet she selected four neckties in various muted colors. She folded the ties and slid them into a quart-sized plastic bag, which she zipped nearly shut before putting her lips to the remaining gap between the two sides. She sucked deeply, vacuuming the last of the wrinkling air from the bag, then placed it onto the pile of shorts.

Eugene was in the den. On the eastern wall, he had installed, several years earlier, a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. There he stored back issues of the magazines to which he and Margaret subscribed: National Geographic, Smithsonian, Architecture, Hardware Jobbers Weekly, for him; for her there were dusted stacks of Sunset, Western Living, and Ladies Home Journal.