"Murder By Request" From Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine

“Murder By Request” – Beth R. Kiteley from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine 1993

Female Narration A Sensual Narration by a Mature Female Voice Narrated by a calm female voice.

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“Murder By Request” – Beth R. Kiteley from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine 1993

Here is a reading from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine from 1993. It’s entitled “Murder by Request” by Beth R. Kiely.

“Give me a good, wholesome murder, any time,” she said.

She’d said it many times, over and over. She said it till I could hardly stand it.

She was a real conservative, one of those who doesn’t think anything new could possibly be worthwhile. That meant no new scientific discoveries were authentic, no new caves such as Lechuguilla really existed. Those small African countries that insisted on carving themselves out of former colonies were segments of their residents imaginations.

The list was endless. She didn’t believe in computers, she didn’t even seriously believe in jet planes and men on the moon, don’t be ridiculous, that was filmed in some movie studio, but the crowning insult was her attitude toward literature.

I teach literature at a small college.

I may not be the best teacher in the world, and certainly will never be famous or have students from all over the world flock to take my classes, but I am competent and I try hard to instill in my students respect for and understanding of literature as a living, changing entity.

Changing. That’s the key word. She didn’t want anything to change. As long as current literature included young women fluttering their eyes and young men running a finger around their callers as the epitome of sexual encounter my mother was happy.

When writing became more realistic, that’s when she hauled out the murder theme.

Thinking I was doing her a favor, I had enrolled her in The-Read-Of-The-Week club.

“In the first place,” she said, “read is a verb not a noun.”

“Customs change,” I replied, “Language is alive or it should be. If it wasn’t, we’d still be talking as Chaucer did,”

“and better for it,” she said, “In the second place,” she hurried on, “these people don’t offer a single book that isn’t dripping with sex scenes or someone trying to analyze themselves psychologically…”

“Not so,” I protested, but she ignored me.

“…or making millions through fraud or some other ugly thing I don’t want to read about.”

“You don’t call murder ugly?”

“Of course, in real life. But not in books.” she said.

“How about In Cold Blood?” I asked.

“That proves my point!” she exclaimed in triumph, “That’s about something that really happened. No, I want to read wholesome stuff, so give me a murder any time.”

“You mean mystery?” I grumbled.

Whatever, she closed the conversation by opening her latest purchase from the drug store and forgetting I was alive.

I stood for a moment looking at this woman who had, increasingly over the years, become a stranger to me. Had she clasped my father in passion? Nursed me at her breast? Washed off blood and scrapes from my skin knees?

Not her. It had to have been someone else. I didn’t know this woman.

That’s why I did it, you see. She was a stranger. I didn’t really know her.

I planned it all out first. There wasn’t any hurry after all, and in order to succeed it had to be absolutely perfect.

So I took my time and potted each step on paper.

My headings were;

The Action,
The Consequences,
The Cover Up,
The Alibi, and several others, not so vital.

My mother was completely oblivious to all this. She didn’t clean my room. She hadn’t even been in it since I was a teenager – and demanded she give me privacy – but to be safe I kept all my papers with me in the big briefcase, I lugged back and forth to school.

There was nothing, nothing incriminating in that room. Nevertheless, I watched her carefully when I was home, she seemed just as usual, buried up to the eyebrows in another Agatha Christie, Margory Allingham or P.D. James.

Sometimes she forgot to get meals, and after a tough day trying to open stubborn minds, I would have to open just as stubborn cans and make my own dinner. And all the time I was shooting daggers at her head and aching to get to planning my big exploit.

I needed to target a date. It would have to be during the summer.

I would be taking the month of July off and had planned to be gone anyway. So that should work out best.

As spring advanced, I got down to details in my plan. I discarded several methods – to bloody or too hard to conceal. Finally, I was down to two alternatives, poison or faked suicide – and my mother helped me decide,

She did it by putting out some chicken to thaw and forgetting it. I came home rather late to find her frantically bustling around the kitchen trying to appear as though she had dinner ready and was just waiting for me. Instead, she had just put the chicken on the cook, and it was close to an hour before we sat down to eat it.

It didn’t taste just right, but I am used to my mother’s cooking. So, I didn’t think anything of it till in the night I awoke with a terrible pain in my stomach and hurrying to the bathroom, met Mother doing the same.

“Go ahead!” I gasped, and with a hand over my mouth, ran for the little laboratory underneath the stairs.

Neither of us slept much that night, but by morning I managed to struggle to the kitchen and make some hot tea, I took a cup to my mother’s room and found her awake with her lights on and reading a book. She accepted the tea with thanks and hopes that I was better.

“What are you reading?” I asked, though I was sure of the answer.

“Well, she smiled after such a horrendous night, I wanted something wholesome.”

“Why not a cookbook,” I suggested.

“Oh, I wouldn’t like that,” she said, “Give me a good murder anytime.”

I stood and watched her absorb herself in the pages again. Okay, I said to myself, you asked for it.

And now I know how…

July came, and by that time, the stack of notes took up one whole suitcase. They could be disposed of soon. I packed, but my mother didn’t seem to notice the extra bag. She’d just received a stack of books in the mail and was so excited about them, she could hardly say good-bye to me.

Our neighbor, Martha, was there when I was leaving.

“I made some special TV dinners. They’re in the freezer,” I explained once again, “All you have to do is stick one in the microwave.”

“I don’t like that thing,” she said.

“Fine, then put it in the oven. But Mom, don’t set them out to thaw first, cook them frozen. Do you hear?”

She nodded but her eyes had slid away to her waiting books.

Martha said, “She heard, she heard, your Ma can take care of herself. You run along now. And have a good vacation.”

So I did. My hotel room looked out onto the beach where I spent most of my time. First though, I unpacked and with a long cool drink from room service, read through my notes carefully,

I cannot see a single flaw. The plot was perfect. Now, all I had to do was wait. I changed into beach clothes and on the way to start relaxing, sent off the mail I’d brought with me.

The first night there was a bonfire on the beach, I lugged all my notes out and fed them one by one to the flames. Some of the young people, already high on something, found an extra thrill in helping me.

They didn’t try to read anything. I had known they wouldn’t. I teach college students, remember?

The rest of my vacation was spent in peace. No having to devise meals or hurrying home or back to work. No lesson plans and no arguments.

Nothing but waiting. Waiting to hear. Sitting and waiting for the phone or a message from someone in authority.

Waiting, waiting. I’ve never spent a more miserable vacation. Why had I done it? I wondered what an insane idea it had been.

July 29th, I packed up my things. I had not heard a word. All there was left to do was go home and start lesson plans for my August class.

My mother did not meet me at the door. She was out in the yard, her nose in a book. When I called to her, she looked with glazed eyes in my direction.

“You home already?” she said, “How was that vacation?”

But her eyes had already returned to the pages.

“Fine,” I said drearily. “Just fine.”

I looked in the freezer and found one TV dinner left, I shuttered and went to the supermarket. September 12th was the day it finally happened. I found a letter in the mail when I got home from school.

My hands trembled so I could hardly open the envelope, and when the check fell out, I whooped with delight. My mother looked up from her book.

“Mom! I sold a story to a Mystery Magazine!”

“You what?”

The book dropped from her lap, but she stood up.

“I didn’t know you were writing anything.”

“I didn’t want you to know,” I laughed, “I wanted to surprise you. Here, look at it.”

I handed her the check and the letter. She read them over as I stood grinning, then hugged me.

“This calls for a celebration,” she exclaimed. I had put out that last TV dinner to thaw and -”

“Oh Mom,” I said, “you mustn’t thaw them first you’ll get food poisoning again.” I dumped them in the trash.

“Come on. I’ll take you out for a real dinner.”

“What made you think of writing a mystery?” Mom asked while we ate.

“Well, you were always saying, ‘Give me a good murder’, so I decided I would.

THE END

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“Murder By Request” – Beth R. Kiteley – Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine 1993 – Narrated by Mature Female Voice