The Most Unlikely Place To Be Murdered: A Short Short Crime Story
Drive-By Stories #26
I'm not fond of coffee shops. I spend too much time in them. It's expected of writers today. Part of the job. Go to a coffee shop, preferably one that has some genuine character and ambience, and you'll see people hunched over their laptops with their chi latte mocha twist. And you can't always avoid Starbucks. They infest cities so much that you can't hardly turn a corner without coming face-to-face with one. People decide to meet there without thinking because it's easy and bland. As much as I try to get my writer's group to meet somewhere better—there's a bikini coffee shop with fantastic service and the best smoothies a block away—but they always choose the Starbucks.
Six of us gathered around the long, narrow table at the center of the Starbucks. Six middle-aged and older writers clinging to the label "writer" despite all of the evidence to the contrary. Five of us are overweight (including me) and one uses a walker. The place smells like sugar and burnt coffee grounds layered over a faint scent of sour milk. Inoffensive and forgettable light jazz plays in the background. Most of the tables pushed against the windows seat two. A couple stuffed chairs covered in fake distressed leather squat in the corner, one holding the extra wide buttocks of a man with stained, torn, and stretched sweatpants. His large backpack leans against the other chair. He sips his drink and stares at the floor, through the floor, as if seeing someplace else.
I'm right there with him. I'd rather be someplace else. If I wasn't so desperate for validation from other "writers," I would be. That and Fiona Robey. She's the one person at the table that wasn't overweight. Thin, fit, with curly red hair, she dressed fashionably and looked at least a decade younger than me, even though I knew that we were the same age. Born exactly a month a part. Technically, I'm the youngest at the table, but you couldn't tell it by looking at us. Fiona sat at the center of my side of the table and drew the attention of the rest of the group. We all focused on her. She'd won several awards for her short stories and even sold several to some very reputable journals. If anyone at the table was going to hit the headlines, it was Fiona.
Fiona held an iPad Pro with the Apple pencil at the ready. She wrote longhand and let the software convert her handwriting to text. Said it helped her process and let her doodle in the edges.
"I need your advice," she said, making eye contact with each person at the table. Letting us each know that our opinions mattered. She lingered when she made eye contact with me. I even saw her shiny red lips twitch in a bit of a smile.
She'd included everyone, but I knew that it was my advice that she really wanted. After all, of those of us at the table, after her I was the only professionally published writer. I'd sold two stories to a couple of the biggest science fiction markets. Maybe not in the same league as Fiona, it was commercial fiction after all, but it still gave me more status in the group.
Jan sat on her walker's seat at the end of the table sucking on a straw in her giant Frappuccino. She stopped, a drop running over her bottom lip, and said, "With what?"
Fiona leaned forward. "What's the most unlikely place to be murdered?"
Doug sat straight across the table, next to Aimee, leaning back in his chair and still his gut looked like it was gumming the edge of the table through his stained yellow polo shirt. "Like in the world? What city?"
Fiona shook her head. "More specific than that. Like how likely is it to be murdered in a coffee shop?"
I understood. Setting is everything. The more interesting, the better. "Pretty likely," I said. "Especially the way that one worker over there is holding his mop handle. He looks like he'd like to choke someone to death."
Fiona smiled and patted my arm. "Could be. Seriously, though, I'd like to know what you think. I looked up some stats online. It was all things like you're more likely to be murdered in a Republican-governed state than one governed by a Democrat."
"That's not true," Jan said.
Mikal, on Fiona's other side had been quiet until now. He spoke with a soft voice, confident, but it came out soft. "It is. Verify it yourself, if you want. Eight out of ten of the states with the highest murder rates are governed by Republicans."
"I'm not surprised," Doug said.
"Especially with their gun laws," Aimee said. Their outfit said either biker or dominatrix, falling somewhere in between. They wore lots of leather and chains with tattoos of blue flame climbing up their neck.
"That's not the point," Fiona said. "I'm interested in the specific settings. Not the state or city, but where it happens? Outside on the street? Or inside your home?"
"Home," Jan said, nodding. "Isn't it true that most murders are committed by family members? I could've strangled my brothers in the crib if I'd been given the chance."
Everyone looked at the end of the table.
Jan shrugged. "I didn't, that's what matters, right?"
"You're probably right," Fiona said. "At home, at school—"
"—at work," Doug said. "Why do you think they call it going postal?"
"No one says that any more," I said.
"Thank you, Doug," Fiona said, "but 'work' isn't specific enough. What kind of work? And I'm curious what is the most unlikely place. So it can't just be an ordinary house even if the HOA manager makes half of the people in the neighbor want to kill her."
"Think about horror movies," Mikal suggested. "You've got camp, sure, but all sorts of options. A tent, showers, a canoe—"
"—barns," Doug said.
"—old cabins," Mikal continued, "deep in the woods."
"Good," Fiona said. "All things we've seen. I want someplace really unlikely?"
Aimee said, "One of those build-a-bear sort of stores? I could see someone lose their shit in that sort of place."
"Better," Fiona said, "what else? I want the most unlikely place."
An idea popped into my head. "What about one of those circus clown cars? Where all the clowns cram in and then tumble out? It could be like thunder dome in a clown car."
Fiona gripped my forearm and laughed. "Great one! I like it." Eyes flashing, hand still on my arm, she made a rolling motion with her other hand. "What else? Who can top that one?"
I'd unlocked the ideas now.
"One of those colored ball pits," Aimee said.
"An inflatable castle at a birthday part," Doug said.
Jan grinned. "Drowned in the machine that mixes the Oreo cookie filling."
"Limited-edition murder cookies," Mikal said, "I like it."
I said, "In one of those capsules going to the Moon."
"No," Mikal said. "Astronauts murdering one another has been done a bunch of times."
"It's good," Fiona said, "only I am looking for an unlikely place here on Earth. A place where you'd never imagine you could be murdered."
I wracked my brain. I wanted to impress Fiona with the most original, creative, most unlikely place to be murdered. Shower? No, obviously. Same with the toilet or pretty much any bathroom-related location. Kitchens, basements, living rooms, dining rooms—shit, any place you'd think of at home had been done before.
Mikal brought up a gynecologist's examination. Doug shot that one down. I stayed quiet, trying to think.
It was hard, coming up with the most unlikely place. Easier to think of all of the places you'd expect to be the site of a gruesome murder. I'd watched Dexter. The Saw movies. Freezers were obviously out. Churches. Damn, it was harder than a Wordle! Everyone around the table was getting quiet as they thought about it too. I couldn't let them come up with the answer first. I had to figure it out first.
Then I had it. "I've got it," I said. "In—"
Fiona squeezed my arm and leaned close. "Whisper it in my ear."
I could have died. I didn't. She brushed back soft red curls to reveal her perfect dainty ear. A sparkling earring with a black widow spider in resin hung from her ear. That was so Fiona.
My lips almost brushed her skin as I whispered the answer.
Fiona beamed at me and softly kissed my cheek. It was as light as a butterfly's touch but it dazed me like a sledgehammer to the head.
"Perfect," she said.
💀
I knew better. I just got so excited in the moment. I shouldn't have suggested your own serial killer hidden basement lair. It sounded so perfect. The one place where you're in control of everything, including life and death. No safer place on Earth—as long as you're not the one waking up strapped to the table covered in plastic.
At least Fiona let me dictate one last story.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!
I’m continuing this challenge. I’m writing short short stories, under 2,000 words, many under 1,000 words. READINARY subscribers can read stories here first. When I have 100 stories, I’ll publish a collection of them all. For my premium subscribers, I appreciate you all, you’re my heroes. You’re the unlikely setting that keeps the words flowing.
Best wishes, always — Ryan
THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACE TO BE MURDERED
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