Free All Due Respect Issue 2 by David Siddall, Scott Adlerberg, Joseph Rubas, Eric Beetner, Mike Monson Page B

each other’s company merely due to proximity. They tried to get along, but exhausted any conversation within the first two minutes. They were left to discuss what pictures they’d seen lately, or the last bastion of awkward small talk—the weather.
    Dottie waited for Loraine to break down and spill that Anthony hadn’t come home last night, but she took her headache face and began entering numbers into a ledger.
    Roger handed off Mrs. Eastway’s order and the shop fell into silence.
    “Well,” Dottie said, “I’ll leave your sandwich here, Roger.” She set it on the counter and left. If Loraine had a headache, Roger had stomach pains. The place looked like Ward D at county hospital.
    4.
    T HE NEXT WEEK WENT by with Roger drinking himself to sleep, Dottie going about her routine, and Loraine pretending that Anthony wasn’t gone.
    It could all work out, thought Dottie. Loraine can’t run the business by herself. She’ll have to sell. And she’ll sell it to Roger. Then all the meat she can cook won’t come at a discount, it’ll come for free.
    Damned if she was going to do all that numbers work though. They could hire a college boy for that.
    On Saturday, with Roger sleeping it off in the bedroom, Dottie answered a knock at the door.
    Loraine stood there with thin red veins visible in her eyes. Her hair was down and ran stringy lines across her face, pasted in place by tears and sweat and maybe a little bourbon.
    “Where is he?” she said.
    “He’s sleeping,” Dottie said. She cocked her head at the haggard woman before her. “Is everything all right?”
    “You’d best wake him up,” Loraine said, and she raised a gun she’d been holding by her side.
    Dottie remained calm. “What are you doing with that, Loraine?”
    “I found him.”
    “Found who?” As if she didn’t know.
    “Are you gonna get him out here or do I need to go and get him?” The anger brought out her southern roots, a little twang creeping into her voice.
    Dottie put her hands up, calming. So it had finally come home to roost. She knew when she put the pieces of Anthony in the freezer that he’d be found eventually. She honestly thought Roger would have blown it by then. She also thought Loraine would be grieving for her missing husband and spend a few days out of the shop so Dottie could get in there and dispose of the parts properly. But Loraine spent even more time at the store. The accounting had never been so organized, the floors never been so clean.
    “What are you going to do?” Dottie asked. Loraine stared at her. The gun trembled in her hand, her eyes poised to begin leaking tears again. “If you kill him, then what?”
    Loraine had no answer, but Dottie had a plan. A perfect plan that crystalized in her mind in an instant.
    “Let me help you.”
    Loraine blinked twice, the tears retreated in the confusion swirling on her face. “What?”
    “You want to kill Roger, right? For what he did to your husband.”
    “You knew about it?”
    “But if you come in here blasting away the whole block will hear.” Dottie leaned her head out into the hallway. “I’m surprised Mrs. Eastway isn’t out here already.”
    Loraine glanced down the hall, suddenly aware of the gun in her hand.
    “You want to do this the right way, you need my help.”
    Dottie held out a hand, inviting the gun into her palm. Loraine blinked a few more times, replayed the offer in her mind, then handed over the gun.
    “Good,” Dottie said. “Now come inside and let’s figure this thing out.”
    5.
    D OTTIE AND LORAINE MADE perfect bookends. Loraine brought the white hot rage and willingness to kill, Dottie brought the plan and the ice cold heart—chilly enough to send her husband to the gallows.
    Her plan was this: Loraine needed an alibi. Dottie would be it. If it ever came to it, she would testify the girls had been good friends ever since Roger started working at the meat market. They went shopping all the time on the weekends.
    She also