The Mystery Megapack

the fold.
    As she sorted the laundry, Gina partially registered the magazine titles: Bass Assassin and Extreme Boating . She was brought up short when she noticed the magazine cover under the lightweight wool slacks she had in her hand. Cosmopolitan ? She squinted at the address label, and the laundry room seemed to sway.
    “Tricia Peller? Red-Mazda-sports-car-driving-husband-stealing Tricia Peller?”
    She slammed the dryer door, knocked hangers off the rod, and cussed.
    “I’m not putting up with this.” The nasty names she called Axel were drowned out by the squeal of the high-pressure nozzle outside the window as he hosed off the boat and trailer, a ritual he did every Sunday afternoon. But she did not cry. The last time he swore off that bimbo, three years before, she had vowed not to waste another tear if he ever went back to his cheating ways.
    Gina went to the window and glared at her husband. “How dare you do this to me again?”
    She yelled and bawled him out through the glass until he disappeared around back. How naïve she’d been. All this time, she had foolishly believed the rumors about Tricia and the pastor of the Brethren of the Desert church, thinking that the tramp had moved on to her next conquest. She took a deep breath and looked over his boat. His precious boat, which he treated better than their home. Better than her. The slob made one mess after another, and Gina dutifully cleaned them up, sneaking his old magazines, newspapers, and mail out to the trash one piece at a time, so he wouldn’t notice and make her life even more miserable. Well, not anymore.
    “You better watch your back, Mr. Boyette.”
    * * * *
    Gina waited patiently till Wednesday, when Axel left on his weekly business trip. She took a late afternoon nap, even though falling asleep had been difficult at first. When the only light outside was the soft luster at the horizon and a few stars, she went on a reconnaissance mission, starting in the storage shed leaning against the side of the house. She removed the lock that always hung from the hasp in a simulated locked position, since Axel could never remember the combination, slipped into the shed, and closed the door. Feeling for the flashlight hanging from a hook to her left, she lit the cramped space.
    “Come to me, my darlings,” she said to her worn and familiar gardening tools. She set down the upended flashlight and gathered a shovel, spade, and the bucket in which she carted plant detritus from her garden to the compost pile. She turned off the light and eased the door open. Quietly she laid the tools on the stony ground. Their lot was large, and heavy tree cover hid the house from nosy neighbors, but she wanted to be on the safe side. She reached in again and felt for the protective netting she used to keep the squirrels from getting at her bulbs around front, remembered the rake, and placed these items outside with the other implements. Quickly she slipped back into the house to wait for deeper darkness to fall.
    After an hour or so she returned to the boat in the faint moonlight and climbed up on one of the fenders of its trailer. She loosened the cover’s drawstring and pushed the canvas over to the other side of the boat. Inside she could just make out oars, a gas can, and two anchors made from gallon milk jugs filled with something, maybe sand. Otherwise the boat was clear of clutter (his fishing poles stood lined up in the corner of the den; the cooler, bleached clean, waited on the back porch). Axel was way more particular about his floating obsession than the other areas of his life.
    Gina carried the anchors one at a time, hoisting them by twisted nylon ropes over to a spot close to the shed. She lined the bottom of the boat’s hull with an old tarp. Soon the boat’s contents were tucked inside the shed. All the garden tools were hidden in the boat. She tidied up, pulled the cover closed, and went inside to wait some more.
    There was a certain time of the night when Gina thought she could best carry out her plan and not be detected. Once, when she was a girl, she had gone with her father and uncle into the woods to hunt, well after midnight. The world outside their truck on the way to the blind had been so still. No breezes blew. No cars passed. Every self-respecting dog lay dreaming, legs jerking, behind the dark windows of the houses they passed.
    She wasn’t sure what the actual time had been that night on the way to the hunt, but it felt late