The Winner is...

by Wilfred Bereswill

In case you weren't watching, the USA Hockey team just tied the gold medal game against Canada with 30 seconds left in the game.  We're going into overtime.

But it's time to announce the winner of The Working Stiffs Flash Fiction February Contest.

It was very difficult to choose.  I did consider input from the rest of the Working Stiffs who commented privately to me.

AND THE WINNER IS....


DRUMROLL PLEASE.

EVELYN DAVID

Congratulations, Evelyn.  Please email your information to me at wbereswill@wbereswill,com,  If you'd like your copy of A REASON FOR DYING personalized let me know.  I will take a week or so for me to get it mailed since I'm getting ready to leave for Portland, OR for the week.

And here is Evelyn's story.

"If you have to die, February is the best month for it."

Mac Sullivan, private detective, and best friend of the man cleaning the trocar, raised a skeptical brow. "O'Herlihy's running a big casket sale?"

Jeff O'Herlihy tossed his rubber gloves in a hazard receptacle. "I was thinking more about death being an acceptable excuse for failing to buy a Valentine's gift for one's wife."

"You forgot–"

"Not me." Jeff pointed towards the body he'd just prepped. "Cops say his wife didn't fully appreciate the lukewarm six-pack and package of beef jerky."

"Jerky isn't cheap. No excuse for the warm beer though." Mac stopped holding up the doorway and took a few steps into the room. "She supposed to have carved the heart?"

He looked again at the crude design scraped into the dead man's chest. Definitely a heart design, even if the point skewed to the right.

"That's their working theory. Her prints were on the murder weapon. She hasn't admitted anything."

"The woman I saw upstairs, filling out the forms?"

"Yep. She's out on bail, but the cops say it's an open and shut case."

Mac shook his head. "More open I'd say. The wife's a lefty."