The Mystery Megapack

the earsplitting sounds of a car chase on the television in the den. Axel would stay glued to his recliner unless there was another fire.
    * * * *
    A couple hours later, Gina was strung tight as a drum as she finished preparing Axel’s favorites for dinner, hoping to lure him to the table. She stopped to make sure the colorful array of sliced red tomatoes, rice, black-eyed peas, pink ham, and yellow cornbread would do the trick before setting down his plate.
    “Supper’s ready,” she called as she dipped up her own meal at the stove.
    “I thought I’d eat on a tray in here,” came the answer from the den.
    Gina knew there would be hell to pay if she insisted he join her. But if she just didn’t answer, or take him his plate, the smell of the special dinner might entice him into the kitchen. She wanted his full attention when she confronted him. And sure enough, after a few minutes, he dropped his bulky body into his chair at the table.
    Gina picked at her food while Axel downed most of his first helping. His vigorous chewing was the only conversation, but it still seemed as if he was taking forever to finish. She fidgeted as she held the magazine and its inflammatory address label in her lap.
    “Where were you Thursday night?” The words popped out before she could stop them.
    “Same place I always am.” His fork never broke stride.
    “I called the hotel in Eversville, and they said you already checked out.”
    “After I saw my last customer, I run up to see my brother,” he answered and brought another forkful of peas to his mouth.
    “Nobody in your family talks to you, Axel. You’re lucky they let you go to your own momma’s funeral.” Gina slammed the Cosmo down and slid it across the table. The peas on her husband’s fork bobbled off.
    He crisscrossed his knife and fork at the top edge of his plate and blotted his lips with his napkin. “What the hell do you want from me, woman?”
    “I want an explanation for this.” She shoved the magazine closer to him, jabbed the label with her fork, and leaned in to get a good look at his lying face.
    He shoved it back. “It’s a woman’s magazine.”
    “Would you mind telling me what the address label says?”
    Instead of answering, he laced his fingers and perched his elbows on the table. He didn’t say anything. Gina didn’t say anything. The Jeopardy contestant on the television in the next room said, “Viscous Liquids for a thousand, Alex.”
    A bundle of nerves, Gina got up and went to the fridge to put away the iced tea pitcher, waiting for the battle to commence.
    Axel stood. “I’m gonna finish my dinner in the other room and watch Jeopardy . Best Gol’ Durn Videos comes on next,” he said over his shoulder.
    Disappointed that he hadn’t defended himself so she could shoot down his lies one by one, she inwardly raged as she wiped the stove and counters and chased down peas under the table. “He doesn’t even have the gumption to challenge me, to deny it,” she muttered.
    For the rest of the evening, every annoying sound he made—the swooshing of water in the bathroom, the bang, bang, banging to dry his toothbrush on the side of the sink—strengthened her resolve.
    Later Axel stuck his head into the den where she sat stiffly on the couch. “If you think I’m going to get into another argument on this subject,” he said, “think again. You sleep in the guest room.”
    Gina got up and squeezed past him.
    He shrank back against the frame of the door, contorting into a question mark as though he couldn’t stand for her to even brush against him. “Now what?” he asked.
    She returned quickly with a crocheted coverlet. “Might get chilly in the guest room. There’s only a sheet on the bed.”
    “Yeah, whatever.”
    She watched him walk down the hall and clenched her fists. She knew he thought this was like all the times before when she had watched him drive away in the little red sports car with the Jezebel. Pitch a fit for a few days, pout a few more, and then forgive him everything. She whispered, “Just keep thinking that way.”
    * * * *
    Fully clothed, Gina sat in the den until that perfect-shield time of night. She had put the gas can full of water just outside the kitchen door. She carried the long, slender, fireplace Bic in her hand. Before she called out to her husband, she paused by his bed and listened to him snore. She had to yell his name four times before he sat up, sputtering. “Is there another