A Recycled Body by Patricia Crandall

The Tamany Art Show was in progress. The lighting was dim except for the spotlights over each painting. Various people milled about the gallery, sporting programs in their hands, studying the work of the new artists.

Estelle Lohnes gripped her program tightly as she admired the surreal mask of a man’s face visible beneath the glass of a chrome structure situated in the middle of the high-ceilinged room.

The man’s pale eyes peered out at her. His wavy, golden hair feathered around his features. His thin lips curved upwards in a frozen smile, so unlike the patronizing, apologetic man she had been with two weeks earlier. One evening after dinner and the theater, he had revealed to her he was in love with her best friend, Viola.

It had been easy to murder Michael: a knife in his back, near the heart; a blow torch; some recycled scrap metal … and a little hate and preservative.

2012 Patricia Crandall

Patricia Crandal has published numerous articles and short stories in various magazines and newspapers. She has four books in print: Melrose, Then And Now, a historical volume; I Passed This Way, a poetry collection; The Dog Men, a thriller; and Tales of an Upstate New York Bottle Miner, non-fiction. She lives with her husband, Art, at Babcock Lake in the Grafton Mountains near Petersburgh, New York. Visit her at patriciacrandallauthor.homestead.com

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