= Too Stupid to Live
  by Kate Thornton


Dawn's body was found face down in an alley about a block from the office. From the looks of it, she had been bludgeoned to death with something small and heavy, like a hammer. Her pathetic plastic purse and its cheap contents were spilled out next to her and splattered with blood.

I looked at her battered body and sighed. Maybe it's just my middle-aged attitudes, but I tell you, most of the kids we hire in the Finance Department of Western Enterprises have the brains of a soda cracker. They're just too stupid to live.

But Dawn stood out, even among the unpromising younger generation. If anyone ever deserved to be a victim, it was Dawn.

Dawn's murder was the buzz of the office water cooler, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the police would come to interview everyone who worked with her. As head of the Finance Department, I was prepared to tell them how she could screw up the simplest assignment and how her reading skills ranked far below those of a domestic house cat. I was prepared to tell them that her idea of math involved ten fingers. I was prepared to discuss her terrible work habits, bizarre clothing, numerous tongue-and-body piercings and evident lack of common sense. I was even prepared to mention her low and frequent taste in men and her nasty mouth, which had put her on my list of prime candidates for the unemployment line.

But I was not prepared to tell them we were related.

Dawn had been startling in a cheap and painful way, something like a loud and brightly colored tropical bird let loose in a quiet room. I am like the rest of my family--invisible.

When I turned fortyish and put on a few pounds, I became part of the vast army of middle-aged women who blend into the woodwork. We no longer catch men's eyes, and younger women dismiss us as easily as they do their own mothers; we're insignificant and sexually noncompetitive. But don't feel sorry for me--I have learned to use this ability to my advantage.

My brother Billy is also invisible. He is a homeless, mentally disturbed Viet Nam vet. You have passed him a dozen times in the street, turning your face away, not making eye contact as he shuffles by in stinking rags. There's a vacant look on his weathered face, and his wild, dirty white hair is a scary reminder of things you'd rather forget.

I have tried a hundred, no, a thousand, times to get him to come and live with me. But he doesn't want to. He goes to his group meetings, gets his medication at the VA and does a lot of other life-sustaining things. But he won't give up the streets for me and that's that. And I have to respect him for hanging onto whatever shred of independence he can. It spares me the sight of his demons, but it does not spare me the guilt. Billy is my only living relative.

Billy wasn't always the invisible guy on the streets, though. He tried very hard to live a normal life for a long time. He married--several times, in fact--and fathered a daughter. But things were not destined to work out well, and the daughter grew up in a turmoil of parental indecision and neglect. Her mother had custody and committed suicide when Dawn was twelve. Billy was in the VA hospital at the time, and she was sent to live with her mother's relatives. What went on there, I don't know. But when she turned sixteen and came looking for her father, it was not for a reunion but to abuse and castigate him for abandoning her. I had to haul him out of jail, and she disappeared right after that.

I have an assistant who interviews job applicants in the Finance Department, but I do see everyone when they start and they get introduced around. Imagine my shock the morning they brought Dawn by my office on her first day. There was no mistaking it--I could see my brother's face in hers, and she had the family name, too, but our name, Smith, is so common it makes Jones seem exotic. She didn't recognize me, so I let the relationship go unnoticed, and it wasn't long before I began to wish Dawn into invisibility.

She caused a stir without being able to get much work done, and I was about to recommend my assistant put her on performance notice, the prelude to what we like to call "downsizing" these days, but which I still refer to as "firing."

But I decided to have a little talk with her first--it was the least I could do, what with her being family and all. As crazy as my tiny family is, I am almost obsessive about it.

I called her into my office and motioned for her to have a seat while I finished date-stamping the papers Bennie from Accounts Payable had brought. She sat down in the visitor's chair and I winced at her get-up. Western Enterprises is a fairly conservative company, but we don't have an actual written dress code anymore. Too bad. Dawn was wearing a pair of jeans slung so low that her black thong panties showed over the tops. Her midriff sweater stretched over a pushup bra and bared a foot of flesh, including a silver ring through her belly button. She teetered on high heels and carried a plastic handbag with her name spelled out in sequins. Her hair, an unbelievable shade of red--real red, not copper--hung to her shoulders. She chewed gum with her mouth open, had a dozen little earrings in one ear and a stud in her nose and looked out of black-rimmed eyes an ancient Egyptian would have been proud of.

"Yeah?" she greeted me.

I explained carefully and gently that she needed to actually finish her work tasks before talking on the phone, doing her makeup, hanging around the water cooler and leaving work early. I also explained that we at Western Enterprises--particularly in the Finance Department--dressed a little more conservatively in the business environment. I'm sure I sounded prim and stuffy, and probably looked it too, in one of my many black suits. Whenever I go clothes shopping, I still hear my mother's voice telling me what a bargain a black suit is. "It always looks correct, dear, and doesn't show the dirt."

But Dawn wouldn't have listened to my mother, and she wasn't listening to me. She rolled her eyes and cracked her gum. "If I wanted to look like some old bitch, I'd dress like you. So, like, can I go now?"

I nodded, speechless, and she left with a smirk on her face. I fumed as I documented our discussion and got on to other business, but I was interrupted again.

"Miss B." It was Bennie from Accounts Payable. Bennie was another new hire, big and blond and not too bright, but friendly and helpful. "I got another set of printouts for you." He handed them to me with a smile and then hung around, shifting from one foot to the other and fiddling with my nameplate. Even Bennie should know it by heart now--"Miss Beatrice Smith"--so I assumed my name wasn't what he was after.

"Thanks, Bennie," I said. "Was there something else?" I'm telling you, sometimes working there is like running a day care center or something. Where do we find these kids?

He reddened and looked down at his tennis shoes. We used to call them tennis shoes when they were smaller and came in two colors. I guess they're athletic shoes now that they look like club feet and have blinking lights on them. "I, uh, I was wondering..."

"Yes?"

"Uh, is there, you know, any company policy about, uh, you know, uh, dating?" He looked like he was suffering even more than I was.

I kept myself from laughing. "Not that I know of," I said with a straight face. "But you know it's never a good idea to fish off the company pier."

He looked confused, then brightened. "Uh, yeah, uh thanks, Miss B."

After he left I shook my head. I hoped he wasn't interested in Dawn. And I certainly wasn't going to include advice to the lovelorn in my job description.

Bennie at least had the excuse of being young. But Corbett Stuyvestant, a Vice President over in Marketing, was certainly old enough to know better. Nonetheless, he took to spending a lot of time in the Finance Department after Dawn came to work with us. He was an average-looking pedigreed pup with a Harvard degree, a silver Volvo and a high-powered wife at a downtown law firm. It didn't take Albert Einstein to figure out that he was headed for trouble with Dawn.

I watched them make a few dates--Dawn was remarkably indiscreet and Corbett was remarkably smitten--and decided to put a bug in Corbett's ear before his wife stuck something more annoying into it, like a divorce or a screwdriver. Of course, they didn't notice me watching them, not even when I followed them at lunch one day to the small city park a few blocks away. They smooched not more than ten feet from me.

But they weren't invisible, and soon word of their amorous lunch dates in the park got around the office grapevine. Reluctantly I asked Corbett to meet me in my office under some financial pretext and had it out with him. He was, after all, the more intelligent of the two. Or, at least, he would have been if he'd been thinking with his brain.

"Corbett, I need to speak to you about something rather delicate," I said when he showed up that afternoon. He paced around my office like a nervous lapdog, sniffing and pawing at everything.

"It's about Dawn," I launched right into my prepared speech. "The whole office is aware of your park trysts, so how about putting the brakes on before your wife gets wind of it?" Hey, I was only trying to help.

Corbett didn't want help. "This is none of your business!" he exploded. "What I do on my own time is no business of yours! Why don't you find something constructive to do, instead of following other people around and spying on them. What are you, some kind of sickie? Yeah, that's it," he said smugly, "you just want the thrills. Well, get a thrill out of this!"

He lunged at me, and I'll admit I was so surprised I didn't step out of his way. He grabbed at my throat with both hands, and if it hadn't been for Bennie from Accounts Payable barging right in for my signature, Corbett might have actually hurt me.

"Hey, Miss B.," Bennie said. "I need you to sign right...Jeeze, Stuyvesant, what the hell are you doing?" He dropped the papers and gently removed Corbett's meaty paws from my neck, then twisted them up behind his back with an audible crack. Corbett yelped. "Are you, like, nuts, man?" Bennie asked incredulously. "Fuckin' nutcase, Miss B.," he said to me. "What should I do with him? Do you want me to call Security?"

Corbett was pale and gasping as Bennie exerted enough pressure to keep him quiet and listening to reason.

The last thing I wanted was Security and investigations and people finding out that Dawn was my niece. "Uh, no, thanks, Bennie. Just leave him here. He won't try anything."

Bennie did not look convinced, but he picked up his papers and left. "Call me for anything, Miss B., I'm here for you."

Corbett collapsed in my chrome and black plastic visitors' chair, still gasping and red in the face.

"Not smart, Corbett," I said. "Manhandling department personnel in front of witnesses is a no-no. Do you really want to lose your job over this?"

Corbett shook his head.

"Well, do you really want to lose your job over Dawn?"

His face got even redder and he shook his head again. He opened his mouth to say something but I didn't give him the chance.

"Look, she's trouble, you seeing her is trouble, and if I catch you at it again, I'll go straight to Personnel and get Bennie in as a witness that you assaulted me." I folded my arms across my chest and smiled. "Corbett, I am doing this for your own good."

I wasn't. I didn't give a flying rat's ass about Corbett Stuyvesant's own good. And I certainly didn't care that much about Dawn, either. In fact, I made a note in my day timer to fire her before I had any more unwanted intrusions into my workday. As it was, I was so far behind I would have to take work home.

Corbett slunk out of my office and disappeared. I sat down hard in my chair and reached for a bottle of aspirin before loading my date stamper and a file into my large purse.

After work I took a detour past the park. I had a feeling I would spot Dawn out there and I did. A small crowd of young guys in oversized pants and with their caps on backwards appeared to be doing some sort of mating dance in her direction. Even the hookers stared at her.

I sighed. No one noticed me as I sat down on a bench and watched her. She paced back and forth in a small area and seemed to be waiting for someone. I wondered if Corbett would show up. I spotted Bennie at the edge of the park, evidently headed for home.

I waited for about twenty minutes and then went home. Dawn was still waiting.

The next morning I saw Dawn in the alley, her sequined plastic bag splattered. I didn't have to call the cops, though--someone had already done that. I stared for a while until the sirens wailed out, then went on to the office. I was shaking as I grabbed for that aspirin bottle on my desk.

Corbett Stuyvesant burst into my office and kicked the door shut.

"You bitch!" he raged. "I thought we had a deal! I shoulda strangled you yesterday!" He lunged over the desk at me. "I could do it now, you stupid bitch, I don't have anything to lose!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked as I dodged his inept attack.

"I'm fired, bitch! Fired!"

"For what?" I asked. "I didn't say anything to anyone." Maybe Bennie had, though. I had forgotten about Bennie.

Corbett didn't get a chance to answer me though because two burly cops and a guy from our security department opened my door and calmly restrained him in a choke hold. "Sorry, Miss B.," the security guy said. They hauled him out and I sat down again.

Bennie poked his head around the corner with a grin. "Hey, Miss B., they just arrested Corbett Stuyvesant for killing What'shername, that girl. Fuckin' nutcase," he said cheerfully.

Fuckin' nutcase was right, and if anyone deserved the inconvenience of arrest and possible conviction, it was Corbett.

The police came to interview me about an hour after they took Corbett away. They asked me where I had been between the hours of one and seven in the morning, and I told them I had been home and then at my desk. Everyone knew I always got in early, and our building guard thought he remembered seeing me come in. They asked me when I had last seen Dawn, and I told them about seeing her in the park. Then they asked me when I had last seen my brother.

"I don't understand," I said. "What's my brother got to do with this?"

"Well, he's her father, isn't he? At least, she was listed as next of kin on an arrest record of his. We found him when we ran your name--you bailed him out on that one. And that makes her your niece, doesn't it?" the nice detective with the red tie said. "I know she lived with an uncle on her mother's side, but we'd like to get in touch with her father, too. "

I told them about Billy's street habits. I also told them where to find his VA doctors. "But I know he had nothing to do with this," I said. "And she didn't even know we were related. I don't think she's seen her father in a couple of years, and I haven't seen her since she was a toddler, until she got hired on here. I certainly didn't have anything to do with that."

They wrote down everything I said and told me not to leave town until it was all cleared up. I was relieved to hear that Dawn's uncle was taking care of the funeral arrangements. I figured I'd better try to find Billy before the cops did and let him know the bad news.

The streets of a city can be scary at night, but I am too drab a target for most of the riff and raff. I set out after dinner to find my brother, and after about half an hour searching by car, I located him on a corner down near the Seventh Street Bridge in a pretty bad part of town.

He recognized me right away, although I was a little wary because sometimes he sees me as just one more piece to a bad puzzle. That night he was fine, though. I'd brought a picnic dinner and slipped him a few bucks, and we sat on a bus bench and talked about old times. I brought the conversation around to his daughter and his eyes clouded. He had never been the same after her visit.

"Dawn," he said. "She was a sweet baby, you know. Never cried or fussed. Delivered her myself, remember? I was takin' that midwife course back then. I miss her sometimes. Wish they could stay babies..."

I broke the news as gently as I could, despising Dawn for making this conversation necessary. Even in death, she could annoy.

My brother just looked down into his lap, studying his gnarled hands. Finally he heaved a sigh. "I guess it's for the best. She wasn't no smart kid, you know. Had a lot of problems..." His voice trailed off and his face just sort of shut down.

I didn't ask him where he had been at the critical times. I couldn't. Instead, I asked around and found out that he might have spent the night in a locked shelter.

I hoped it was true.

The next morning at work the place was a hive of gossip. I got summoned to Personnel and had to explain why I hadn't informed anyone of my relationship to "the deceased."

"No one asked," I retorted. "I didn't know anything about her hiring until they brought her around to meet me. She didn't recognize me, so I didn't see any reason to shout it from the rooftops. She wasn't the sort of person I would want to be related to."

"We have another matter here, too," the Personnel Director, a sharp-nosed man of about thirty-five said. "Corbett Stuyvesant's attack on you. Why didn't you report it immediately?" He peered at me over heavy glasses.

I didn't want to tell him that I had blackmailed Corbett Stuyvesant into shutting up about Dawn. Instead, I told him that I had spoken to Mr. Stuyvesant and we had amicably worked out our differences. Personnel Directors love to hear that sort of bullshit. He smiled.

"Please accept my condolences," he added as I left.

For a second, I thought he was still talking about Corbett Stuyvesant.

Sometime after lunch I got a phone call from someone I didn't know, and a bunch of spring flowers in a fancy vase were delivered to my desk. The card wasn't filled in. As I was trying to figure it out, the unknown caller called back.

"I'm Delwin Streeter," he announced. No bells rang. "I am representing your brother."

"Representing him for what?" I asked. Sometimes people tried to take advantage of the guy.

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind coming over to the Police Station. Your brother has been picked up in a murder investigation. I am a public defender."

"You, uh, didn't send me flowers today, uh, did you?"

There was a short silence on the line. "No."

I hung up, got my purse and went to the police station. My brother was sitting in a holding cell, rocking back and forth in a world of his own. Delwin Streeter looked about fourteen years old and stuck out a sweaty hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said.

I have to admit, I don't like young public defenders as a rule. Most of them are too young to remember the war that had left my brother a shell of a person, and they don't have the experience that would get him any kind of a good--or even acceptable--deal from the bench.

"So, what's he doing here?" I asked.

"His niece was found murdered and he's a suspect." Delwin was lying to me, the poor kid. Billy wasn't a suspect, he was THE suspect if they had bothered to drag him in. That's how it works, I muttered to myself--the most likely suspect, regardless of hard evidence, gets dragged in and the investigation stops. They must have released Corbett, I thought. I wondered about that.

This was going to make things difficult. I knew Billy couldn't have done it, but he was the sort juries like to convict.

At least Billy was doing okay for now. He had withdrawn into his shell where nothing much could get to him. But he would die in prison.

I sighed. If I wanted anything done, I would have to do it myself. I wanted Billy off the hook, so I was going to have to find an even more likely suspect for the cops. I had so counted on him being in a shelter, or being observed all night by his homeless crony friends. But as there wasn't an alibi, I would have to dig up someone who wanted Dawn dead and also had no alibi.

Corbett Stuyvesant was my first choice, of course. The peevish little man had been indiscreet--no, downright stupid--with Dawn. And he was hot-headed enough to do something that crazy on the spur of the moment. A crime of passion, perhaps. After all, he had tried to kill me.

I phoned him. "Hey, Corbett," I said before he could hang up, "meet me for lunch if you wanna know something interesting. Or meet me in court for assault--your choice." There was a silence broken only by sputtering, which might have just been a bad connection.

Corbett showed up at a seedy lunch counter over on Seventh. He walked in and cased the place like a health inspector looking for flies. Coulda found them there, too, I reflected as he gingerly sat down at a dirty table across from me. My feet were stuck to the filthy floor and the greasy menus promised food poisoning. I grinned. I had chosen the place myself.

"I hate you," he said without preamble. His hands shook with the poorly controlled impulse to grab and choke me.

"I know. Now what's so hot about your alibi that the cops let you go for killing that girl?" I smiled sweetly. Corbett really did hate me. And he was a violent man. It was just a matter of time before he tried to assault me again.

"I didn't kill her! I was home then, my wife can vouch for me!"

"I thought the cops didn't put much stock in that sort of thing," I said calmly. "You know, husbands and wives lie for each other all the time. Although I can't see why your wife would want to protect you when you were messing around with such a sterling rival..."

Corbett looked as if he might explode. "Leave her out of this!" he shouted.

The other diners in the place--both of them homeless and hollow-eyed--ignored Corbett and would probably never remember me. I got up and left Corbett still fuming. I knew what I needed to know.

Marietta Stuyvesant worked in a fancy law office over on Canby Street. She was dark haired and sharp faced, and the determined set of her skinny jaw meant that life at home was no picnic. She scowled at everyone on the sidewalk, but didn't notice me. She was just returning from somewhere, and I gave her several minutes to get up to her office and answer the phone. The anonymous message I hissed just asked about Corbett's relationship to the girl.

It wasn't much, but for a determined terrier like Marietta, it would be enough.

In two days Corbett was back in custody and Billy had been released.

I heaved a major sigh of relief. Now Corbett was THE suspect and even if there wasn't enough evidence to convict him, it would still be a rough ride through a trial.

"C'mon home with me, Billy," I said after shaking hands with Delwin Streeter, who was off to deal with about a hundred other cases.

But he just shook his head. I looked into his kind, dead eyes and wondered for a moment if there was anything I could to do make him come back. But I knew I could only try to make things better for him in little ways.

I put my arm around his shoulder. I really did love him, and he really was better off in a world minus his daughter. But there was no way I could tell him that.

There was really no way I could tell him that I had arranged to meet Dawn before work, that I had tried to get through to her, make her see that family was important, her father was important, more important than anything.

But there was no way I could get through that sneer, no way I could get through that contempt, that anger.

Well, there was one way.

My date stamper was an old fashioned contraption of steel, with a great big handle. It was heavy in my purse.

When Dawn spat, "Fuck off," and turned her back on me that morning, I brought it crashing into her skull with all the rage I had, rage at rats like Corbett Stuyvesant and his annoying wife, and at kids who are too stupid to live.

And rage for Billy, the sweet and gentle, locked in a world of nightmares.

There was a lot of blood, but I just slipped the date stamper back into my purse and walked to my office. I rinsed the date stamper in the ladies room and dabbed a bit at my skirt with a paper towel, but no one noticed anything. My mother was right about black suits--it didn't show the blood at all. I burned it later just in case, but the date stamper is still on my desk.

No one ever found out what happened. Corbett got off by the skin of his teeth, although his wife divorced him and took him to the cleaners.

But I did find out who was sending me the flowers. Bennie in Accounts Payable, bless his adolescent heart, had a crush on me. I had a little talk with him, but I don't think it did much good.

He asked shyly if I wanted to go fishing with him, and when I looked confused, he said, "You know, Miss B, off the Company Pier."

Kids. Some of them are just too stupid to live. But Bennie's a sweet kid, so I guess I'll keep him around.


KATE THORNTON lives in Southern California and has been writing mystery and science fiction short stories for several years. Her mysteries have appeared in Woman's World, Blue Murder, MysteryNet, Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine and Cozy Detective. Her stories have also appeared in anthologies, including, "A Deadly Dozen" and "Best of Blue Murder, Vol. I." When not writing, she can be found puttering in her rose gardens and spying on her neighbors. She would be delighted to hear from you. Visit her website at http://www.sff.net/people/katethornton

Copyright (c) 2001 Kate Thornton