A little tale about a servants’ summoning bell—Pavlov’s tingle for working-class dogs.

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Suzanna Medevitch lived at a big house in the snow-slammed city of Fairbanks, Alaska. She was a filthy rich, mean old bag,  age, 103. Maurice, her second husband who died right on time according to life insurance actuary tables, made a killing in the North Slope oil fields. She did pretty well for an orphan from the village of Alakanuk.  

The ice-cube she carried on her shoulder after both parents were killed in a plane crash when she was eight, froze into an iceberg after being shuffled from strangers’ shack to strangers’ shack until she was 18; it grew into a glacier when first husband, Clarence, was killed by a snowplow after only eight days of wedded bliss.  She never loved again–just Maurice’s money and the gooey, messy fossil fuel that made him rich.

Suzanna had to wall herself in, had to learn to loathe people—it was the only way to stop loved ones from dying on her: it was emotionally safer if she pawned her broken heart for one stone-cold.  It was emotionally safer if she had no children (who would only die on her, anyway), as Clarence only had a week to get her pregnant and that didn't happen, and she certainly didn't let Maurice get that close, that often, to even worry about it happening with him. It was emotionally safer to live in the big house all alone, except for her beehive of servants who catered to her every beck-and-call.

Now the desiccated old mummy who was never a mommy was perpetually bed-ridden in her third-story suite, shriveling away to nothing; yet, with all the breath she could muster, still commanded disrespect.  

“My pillow needs to be fluffed. IMMEDIATELY!” she demanded.  “Can’t you see those cobwebs hanging in the corner of the ceiling?  Don’t I pay you to clean?” she chided.  “For god’s sake, close the goddamn curtains!” she ordered.  

Out of earshot, easy because their ancient boss was mostly deaf by now, they called her Methsuzalah (among other choice maledictions), wondering how much longer she was gonna live, and steaming about how they had all been suckered, in a way.  

You see, when they were hired on, and to keep them hired on through “potentially trying circumstances,” their employment contract stated: “Should you remain in my good graces upon my death, my estate will reward your humble servitude with $250,000.  Signed, Suzanna Rose Medevitch*.”   Most had eagerly signed on the dotted line decades ago, presuming that their benefactor would die in her 70s, so easy money . . . ; okie dokie then, surely Suckzanna Metabitch will bite it in her 80s. . . . have patience! She’s sure to drop in her 90s.  At the century mark, they began to give up hope for their employer’s natural death and began to plot her unnatural one.

The chefs in the basement kitchen suggested that Pillow-Fluffer “fluff” ’Ol Skull-with-Skin with a foam one because it wouldn't leave a face-print, but Pillow-Fluffer countered that Old Rag Swami Susy required the use of goose down pillows because she was the synthetic ones “smelled funny.”  Pillow-Fluffer suggested that the chefs “put a secret sauce” in one of her meals, but that was shot down, as well.  Too easy to find traces of, even with a simple blood test.

The answer to the perfect crime finally dawned on them like the waking-up-from-a-six-month-nap Arctic sun. The perfect weapon was hanging from the frozen eaves–they would stab Aurora Bitchealis with an icicle!  

Think of it!  It melts away, so there’s not gonna be a murder weapon.  We get our stories straight, the cops do a quick investigation, because, hell, she was gonna die soon, anyway . . . maybe; and, besides, Fairbanks PD didn’t much care for her either because of her many filed complaints for perceived injustices made for too much paperwork. With no perp, the case becomes cold like everything else around here, we get our hard-earned quarter mil and blow for warmer climes. Now it was just left to decide who got to play Brutus. 

The deed was done, the plan worked to perfection, Palm Springs was calling their names–until the victim’s estate attorney gathered them all together and broke the news. He seemed smug when he told them that, apparently, none of them had ever noticed the little star at the end of his client’s name on their service contracts which footnoted to very, very fine print below that read: “*Offer void, should I live past the century mark.”  The old bitchaholic’s meanness seeped from beyond the grave!

The staff, furious, poor, and with nowhere else to go, made a desperate plea to the attorney to, please, at least let them stay at the big house until they can make permanent arrangements, or until it was sold.  The consolation prize was granted.

Things were great the first four weeks.  The chefs’ menus substituted green bean casseroles from spinach quiche, pancakes from souffles, for a labor-saving change.  Pillow-Fluffer enjoyed soaking Suzanneezer Scrooge's goose-down head-cushions with gasoline and lighting them ablaze.  The maids and housekeepers finally got to be slobs, leaving messes everywhere.  

The squatters lived as if they were rich folk, just not as hifalutin’. They skated across the hardwoods in stocking-feet; left food crumbs on Ima Frickenmiser’s expensive furniture; never made another stinking bed. They would tidy things up for prospective buyers they hoped would never show;  until then, they felt avenged that they had the big house to themselves, and relieved they seemed to have gotten away with murder.

Things went ass-over-tea-kettles on the one month anniversary of Cleobatra’s assassination, though, when the summoning bell from her bedroom suddenly  rang to attention.  They were enjoying lunch in the formal dining room, eating beans and weenies off paper plates, when it suddenly began to tinkle, as if they were still in the mangy old she-hound’s scent. It ting-ting-tinged for thirty seconds or so, then stopped. 

After making the not-so-dearly-departed’s personal attendant (the cryptkeeper, she called herself) go up and check Susie Sardonicus’ third floor practice grave, but finding nothing unusual, they went back to enjoying their lunch, joking that, even in death, old Queen Midol still had to screw with ‘em. 

That afternoon, they were perusing the classifieds seeking permanent arrangements while watching the live press conference being given by the Chief of Police. He said they had no leads regarding the Medevitch stabbing, but admitted that after interviewing those who knew her, it could have been half of Fairbanks. It was very quickly becoming a cold case, having no suspects, weapons, or motive. 

The shafted washers and dryers and sweepers and dusters and maids and chefs all were supremely happy—until the bedroom summoning bell pealed again, this time in sharp jangles, as if the sour, shriveled-up, never-gonna-be-a-granny-apple were yanking on its cord, all pissed off, as per her usual alive state of agitation.   Again, after a check of the ol’ bitty’s preultimate deathbed and finding nothing, they went about their lounging. 

That morning, at 3 a.m., the bedroom summoning bell rang again–this time, not with a gentle tinkling, or in sharp jangling, but with the nerve-shattering dissonance of a Chinese gong.  Its brain-penetrating metal vibrations slammed through the big house rhythmically, continually, for the next five minutes. Ten minutes. Hour.  Six hours. Until noon the next day. They tried to flee the big house, but like every smart, revengeful spirit in stories like these, the poltergeist formerly known as Suzanna Medevitch made their escape impossible.

The steady mind-rupturing bedroom summoning gong continued for three and a half more days until it drove the handy man mad enough to call the FPD and confess to stabbing Mrs. Medevitch with a shard of frozen water.   Soon, the entire conspiracy unraveled, and all involved were convicted and dispensed to various Alaskan correctional institutions.  Their permanent arrangements had been made courtesy of their nasty, still-not-quite-all-the-way-dead former employer, Lady Hagatha Crabass McBitch the First, from her custom-fit, gold-plated casket.

By CraigE

From: United States

Website: https://www.penana.com/user/182129/craige/portfolio

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