In real life, many crimes are opportunistic, unpremeditated, even unintentional. But in fiction, some of the most interesting crime stories feature characters wrestling with the long-term consequences of actions and decisions deep in their past. Just as our understanding of past events changes over time, many of the characters in this issue come to view their personal histories and choices, or those of others, through new, perhaps world-weary, eyes.

In James A. Hearn’s “When the Dam Breaks,” a popular politician, working with a ghostwriter on his memoir, reflects on his early life as an up-and-comer. In Michael Nethercott’s “Polk, Pitts, and Cadaver,” a dying confession leads a young vaudeville performer to suss out the truth of a tragic misadventure. 

Becoming Ian Fleming
by Kevin Egan

Late in the summer my uncle ran for mayor, three convicts in transit between two prisons escaped into the woods on the outskirts of town. My cousin and I were campaigning on that hot, sleepy afternoon, a chore that entailed asking neighbors if we could plant signs bearing my uncle’s name in their yards. We were in front of Billy Nardozzi’s house when we heard the sirens in the distance, but we paid them little mind because we were dickering over whether we should knock on the door. Mr. Nardozzi’s truck was not in the driveway, which meant he was out working somewhere in town. A second-floor window was open, and behind the screen a typewriter pattered fitfully. We had only one sign left, one sign that separated us from the rest of a summer day and the hope that we could catch a ride to the beach. My cousin, however, hesitated.

“Let’s come back when Mr. Nardozzi is here,” he said. “He fixed our roof in the spring.” READ MORE

Scars
by Iain Rowan

“Say that again,” Alice said. She must have misheard. She was used to Emma calling at all hours, sharing triumphs and disasters. She had been woken at three a.m. to dissect the attractions of a new colleague, summoned pink and dripping from the bath to hear Emma sobbing over his leaving, comforted her through plumbing disasters and dying goldfish, and sometimes her attention wandered.

“I’ve killed him,” Emma said.

“Em, be serious.”

“I’ve hit him with my car, and I meant to do it, Alice, I’ve hit him and I’ve killed him.”

Alice knew it was important to take control now. “Take a deep breath. Tell me, step by step, what has happened.” READ MORE