Why would I? I hated my parents, who wouldn’t? They were parlor trick magicians with a talent for separating their customers from their money for the mob’s casino in Vegas. I didn’t believe in magic then, but I knew way too much about the mob.” I snorted.
“Leaving was a mistake, I knew that when I packed my bags, but I had to leave. There was no way I’d be able to live around my parents, not after what they’d done. I’d hoped the mob wouldn’t care what happened to the weakest daughter. My parents assumed I was an idiot and told the mobsters as much every chance they got.
Well, turns out the mob did care. Enough to send me flowers. The flowers were coated in arsenic. Very mobster-ish and I had expected it. I threw the flowers in the tub and burned them. Then burned the house down.” I smiled dreamily and took a long drag on my cigarette.
“The firemen had acted as I’d expected. My house wasn’t near anything that would be catastrophic if it burned, and I had made sure they would want to hurry over to the grocery store fire instead. Saving the only grocery store in town took precedence over a nearly abandoned house.
Once the firemen left, I crawled back in the smoldering house and found a place for my twin’s body. My parents killed her before I left getting pregnant by the wrong... ah... client.” I pursed my lips in annoyance, but continued.
“I’d exhumed the body from her cheap grave and brought her there to take my place. It was a trick none of them would expect. As I left the house, I built the fire back up. The smell of burning flesh accompanied me when I left. It took days to get the smell out of my clothes.” I shuddered. The smoke, I think that’s what changed me.
“What does a girl do when they’re free and presumed dead?” I asked. Their blank stares made it clear to me these cops were morons.
I continued before they could say anything asinine. “Get a facelift, wear contacts, and become a can-can dancer at Vegas, of course!” I said brightly. They gave each other a confused look. I know I looked too weak to be a can-can dancer. So I just crossed my legs and fluffed my hair.
“And then?” asked the cops.
“Then kill the mob boss. And your parents, who caused the mess in the first place.” I smiled darkly. “Did you know even the big man, the Godfather Bigs himself, squealed like a pig when I dragged that fire poker into his stomach? Smelled terrible, but that, gentleman, was worth the smell.”
The cops looked from one another, raising their eyebrows. I knew what they were thinking. There’s no way a sickly lady like myself could have done such terrible things. The mob case, it had long since closed. To the law, it had been a mob war gone horribly wrong. The great Cooper Mancinnicho had swooped in after Bigs had died. He set up his enemies to take the fall for Bigs’ death and never let on that it had all been done by one small woman who looked too weak to hold a glass of champagne, much less gut Bigs like the pig he was.
“Why’re you telling us all this, Miss Bluestone?” the first cop asked. The second looked at the two way mirror at the other end of the interrogation room.
I gave him a sweet smile. “To clear my conscious.”
“Of the deaths?” the cop asked, leaning closer to me.
I nodded and took another pull of the cigarette. “So you would know why the Bluestone Magic Duo was killed along with Bigs. I wanted you to know. Before...” I paused, exhaling a puff of pure white smoke into the face of the cop.
He blinked furiously at the pungent smell.
“Before what?” the second cop asked, looking back at me.
I grinned wider and pulled on the magic that kept me frail and weak looking, but gave me powers beyond anything these cops could understand. “... before I disappear...” I murmured. I was not above a little drama. I was gone in a puff of smoke.
Loved it. And the ending is great.
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