𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚜 𝙾𝚝𝚒𝚜 𝚁𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚜 | ONC 2024

𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚞𝚎

“Need a light?” Mack D'Knife offered his client.

“Thanks.”

She leaned forward in her chair and Mack lit the end of her cigarette with a flick of his lighter.

“So,” he said, settling back in his chair. They were facing each other across his cluttered desk. “You did it. You played them all like fiddles.”

A plume of smoke blossomed in the air, then dispersed, revealing the face of Karen Dwindle. She gave Mack a coy smile. “I did, yes. People who build their lives on a foundation of dirty secrets are easy to knock down. They did most of the work for me. I just flicked the first domino.”

Mack laced his fingers across his torso and grinned at her. “Walk me through it.”

“You know what happened.”

“I do,” he conceded. “From my end. All the information I collected on those various book club dames. And their husbands. Not to mention Antonio Castellano, his family, and associates. But I'm curious about the missing pieces. C'mon, K. We've been working together for months. Won't you indulge me?”

Karen exhaled smoke and chuckled in amusement. “Is our discretion clause still in place?”

“You're still a client, right? Of course.”

“Well, then. Why not?” She tilted her head and smiled at the ceiling. Funny how some repetitive ill treatment and a drunken confession could change everything. “You know how it began. I told you the day I hired you. All I wanted was to belong. But the members of the Gilded Grove Ladies' Book Club were horrible to me every time we crossed paths. Horrible, or forgetful. I was invisible. No matter how many times I introduced myself to them, they never remembered me. They were cruel and dismissive. Especially Marcella Montgomery and Camilla Otis.”

“Not hard to believe,” Mack granted, lighting a cigarette for himself. “So, you saw Marcella at The Ritz with Mario Castellano, smelled a potential scandal, and decided to hire me.”

“Good memory,” Karen said. “Yes. At the same time, I sent an anonymous letter to Antonio Castellano, recommending he hire you to keep an eye on his youngest son's activities.”

“Which he did,” Mack said with a grin. “Thanks for the referral, by the way. Made a mint off that guy.”

“My pleasure,” Karen said, dipping her head in a mock bow. “Well, one night, I saw Marcella sitting alone at the hotel bar. Her eyes were haunted and unfocused, and there were enough empty glasses beside her to fill half a bottle of vodka at least. So, I took a chance and approached her. Lo and behold, she didn't recognize me. Nor did she seem hesitant to talk to a hotel maid. It took almost no coaxing to get her to spill what was weighing so heavily on her mind: the old, sickly current president of her book club had decided Camilla Otis should become the next president, so Marcella had ‘helped’ her die, by injecting her with an entire vial of morphine.”

Mack exhaled smoke through his nostrils and snorted a sound of disbelief. “Rich dames and their priorities.”

“Right?” Karen scoffed. “If Marcella was willing to kill so that Camilla couldn't best her in a goddamn book club, I knew their rivalry ran bone-deep. So, once you discovered Camilla's plans to run off with Mario, I left that note, written in Marcella's penmanship, in Camilla's postbox. It produced exactly the strong reaction I thought it would. Though, I never guessed she'd actually shoot Mario. That was just a bonus.”

Mack nodded along with her words. “So, Camilla gets arrested, and suddenly the other ladies in the club are under the microscope.”

“Precisely,” Karen confirmed. “And as you and I know from our reconnaissance, most of them are so grimy under the shiny surface that their reputations can't stand up to scrutiny any stronger than a stiff breeze. Especially Marcella's.”

“How'd you get Camilla Otis to tell Marlowe and Spade the truth about Karen Sterling's death?” Mack asked, a wolfish smile on his face. “Given that was information she didn't know, and all.”

“The afternoon I met Gloria and Karl Davenport at the police station, I accidentally wandered back by the holding cells,” Karen reminisced. “Whoops. And I may have dropped a note with some information about Karen Sterling's death into one of the cells.”

“Whoops,” Mack echoed.

“Clumsy me,” Karen said. “But Camilla read the note. And as I knew it would, her rivalry with Marcella did the rest.”

“She was already in jail. Figured she had nothing to lose,” Mack supplied. “And she probably got some massive satisfaction from the idea of Marcella ending up in the jail cell next to her.”

“I’m sure,” Karen agreed. With a final drag, she reached over and snubbed her cigarette butt out in the ashtray. “That same afternoon I overheard the deputy telling Marlowe and Spade that Weston Otis was not going to pay Camilla's bail. I thought Paola Castellano might find that information…useful. So, I sent her a note. The rest was just good timing.”

“Marlowe and Spade left with a warrant for Mrs. Montgomery's place, and Mrs. Castellano went to the police station to pay Camilla's bail,” Mack said. “Yeah, I was there. Saw you go in a few minutes after her. But you weren’t seen, I take it?”

Karen smiled. A tight, chilly smile that appeared both pleased and resentful. “That's the beauty of being mousy little Karen Dwindle, Mack. The beautiful and wealthy always ignore the plain and shabby. I'm as good as invisible, remember? And while invisible people see and hear everything, no one sees or hears us.”

Mack nodded. “Won't be able to say that anymore, what with those pretty dresses, your styled hair, and your polished nails,” he observed.

“Maybe not,” Karen said. “But an old brown dress was all it took for me to successfully sneak into the police station and leave my copy of The Pursuit of Love in Camilla's empty holding cell. Complete with notes on the various damning information you dug up regarding her friends and their husbands, of course. Happy early Christmas, NYPD.” Her face contorted in smug satisfaction.

“I never did find any dirt on Gloria or Karl Davenport,” Mack noted. “A couple of odd doctor's appointments, but nothing worth mentioning.”

“That's fine,” Karen said with a dismissive gesture. “As it turns out, I quite like Gloria. And Darla isn't without her charms. I expect I'll be spending quite a bit of time with them, now that I'm a member of the Gilded Grove Ladies' Book Club. Once they find out what Penelope Fitzgerald had been up to with Camilla's husband, I doubt it will take more than a word from me to get rid of her.”

Mack extinguished his cigarette and began to applaud, loud and slow. “Well, I believe congratulations are in order. You did it, Miss Dwindle. You got everything you wanted. Plus, you took everything away from Camilla Otis and Marcella Montgomery. Hell, I guess you are a Marcella now.”

The smile fell from Karen's lips and her eyes darkened. “No, Mack,” she stated, her tone terse and assertive. “No, I'm not a Marcella. I never will be. I'm a Karen. And that means something. I will be remembered. Decades from now, long after the turn of the new century, and long after I'm buried in the ground, the name ‘Karen’ will be synonymous with women who get what they want.”

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