S.O.L. by April Kelly

Doesn’t matter if it costs fifty cents or fifty bucks, Gordie realized.  One cigar can foul the air for a hundred feet in all directions.  That’s how he knew Purcell lay in wait around the corner up ahead.  Gordie’s grace period had expired. And the pisser was, he’d had Purcell’s money that very morning.  All […]

Flying Shrapnel, Flying Squirrels by April Kelly

The Polatouche boys were twisted, evil scumbags, especially youngest brother Rocco.  I know because we were best friends till seventh grade, after which he stopped participating in Newark’s scam to educate its youth. When a truant officer phoned Mr. Polatouche requesting a home conference, Tony bounced Rocco’s head off the fridge, strongly suggesting he handle […]

Wave Good-bye by April Kelly

My unease came not from the funeral itself, but from the fact that the service was clothing optional.  Sweltering under the noonday sun in my suit and tie among naked or might-as-well-be-naked mourners on the private Malibu beach, I resisted the urge to chug the one-liter bottle of chilled water I held unobtrusively at my […]

Thoroughly Murdered Millie by April Kelly

The girl had been shot, stabbed, poisoned and garroted, so the M.E. was not so much searching for cause of death as placing the wealth of possibilities in chronological order.

My initial canvassing at the exclusive women’s college where Millicent LeVoisant’s body had been found in the bed of her private dorm room turned up persons of interest by the dozen, a preponderance of them falling somewhere along the Kayleigh/Kylie/Kelsey/Chelsea spectrum, and I needed to note some differentiating feature of each to keep them straight in my mind.