Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 6, June, 1994

In the Balance by Judith L. Post

Winslow Morton stood before me, a Sorry Soul.

“Don’t be coy,” I instructed. “I can’t prepare any decent defense unless I know what we’re up against. And believe me, nothing gets by this Judge. Nothing. So you might as well level with me.”

He took a deep breath. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it down the Tunnel of Light. I didn’t think I’d make it here at all.”

“Yeah, a lot of people surprise themselves.” I’d heard all this before. Actually, I’d lived — or should I say died? — it.

“I haven’t exactly been a saint,” Winslow confessed.

He could have fooled me. You’ve never seen a more innocent face, a brow more furrowed with guileless concern. “So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty,” I said. “What are you up against?”

“It’ll start with a murder rap,” he told me.

“Start? You mean, there’s more?”

“Isn’t there a commandment about honoring your father and mother?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s one of the Top Ten.”

“Well, I murdered my mom,” he explained. “So technically is that two sins in one? You know, Thou shalt not kill and...”

“I get your drift. It’s not a great combination. Is there anything else?”

“It’s possible I hid my talents, too, unless being a dutiful son cancels that out.”

“Wait a minute.” There was a glimmer of hope. “You were a dutiful son, and you killed your mom. Was it a mercy killing? Because if it was, I can get you off with...”

“No such luck. I just snapped one day and throttled her to death.”

I took a deep breath. After a few decades of serving as Free Counsellor for the Not-so-Pure Souls (the only guy who demands a fee is You Know Who, and if you have to get him, you pay with your soul anyway, so you’re screwed), I’d learned that looks could be deceiving. Actually, I’d used that to my own advantage when I was still alive. That’s why I’m stuck doing Community Service here. If you’re a crooked lawyer down there, you don’t go far up here... unless you can convince Someone you’ve changed your ways.

“Let’s cut to the quick,” I told Winslow. “Why did you choke the old bat?”

Tears misted his pale eyes. “You don’t understand. She wasn’t an old bat. She was a saint.”

“You killed a saint? And you got here? Something’s wrong. Why don’t you start at the beginning, fill me in?”

“Well, you see, my dad left us when I was only a little boy.”

“Happens all the time these days,” I said and made a quick note.

“He was an artist, a painter, but he drank too much and died before he was thirty.”

“Is he up here?” I asked. Maybe I could get him as a character witness, poke a few holes in the saintly image of the old lady, and try for a cop-out or two; you know, the old “the poor guy never had a chance” routine.

“He might have made it,” Winslow said, “but when he couldn’t sell his paintings and he ran out of money—”

“He sold his soul for fame and glory,” I finished. That happens all the time, too.

“He made a huge amount of money, but he drank it all away.”

“And his own fame did him in.” What a cliché. You’d think people could be more original.

“He was a nice person when he was sober,” his son defended him.

“A lot of nice people go to hell,” I said. “It’s a matter of choice. Some people always sell themselves short.”

“What?”

I’d confused him. Hardly anybody catches on right away. “You’re here, right?” I explained. “Anybody can come who wants to. The only people who don’t make it are the ones who’d rather hang out with Old Red, or the dupes who strike a deal with him and are stuck with his company. But it doesn’t matter in the long run, because Heaven and Hell are both a matter of degrees. The bottom rung of Heaven and the penthouse of Hell aren’t all that different.”

He scratched his head. I’d lost him. “Look,” I said, “we’re sidestepping the issue.” It was my job to defend my clients. I didn’t have to be their nursemaid. “You were gonna tell me about your mom, the saint. Your dad left you when you were little. Then...”

“Mom went to work at a hotel during the day, cleaning rooms, and she worked as a cashier in the evenings at a corner grocery.”

“Who took care of you?”

“She took me with her.”

Boy, were we in trouble. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. I’d be lucky if I could get this guy out of the basement. If he ever wanted to hear harps, he’d be pulling Community Service for most of Eternity. I know. I’ve been on probation long enough, and I wasn’t even that bad down there. Of course, I’d only been moderately good, and the Boss considers both what you do and what you don’t do. What a bummer. Anyway, I was stuck right dab in the middle, only made level five. Could just stay there and be content, but it really rankles that the guys up on eight and nine have it so much better. That’s why I’m slogging away at this gig. I figure in another decade at the longest I should be bumped to six, and then it’s onward and upward. I mean, I’ve got all the time in the world, right?

Someday I’m gonna make it to the top. But this case sure wasn’t gonna be a feather in my cap. If I could come up with anything to help this schmuck, it would be by sheer luck.

“So, did you feel neglected? Alone?” I prompted.

“Oh no. Mom always stopped by to check on me, and she gave up smoking to buy me colored paper and crayons and other art supplies so I wouldn’t get bored.”

“Are you ever gonna quit polishing her halo,” I snapped, “and give me a clue to why you offed her?”

His eyes round, he grew silent for a moment. “I didn’t mean to,” he whispered at last. “I just knew I had to. I had to.”

Nodding, I scribbled a note. “Temporary insanity.” Hey, it’s not the best defense, but it’s something.

“Okay, so you left off with your mom buying you crayons and stuff. What happened next? Teenage rebellion? Drugs? A hot little girlfriend?” I asked.

He looked shocked. “After all Mom did for me? Do you have any idea how hard she had to work to keep food on our table? Do you realize how much she loved me? How often she encouraged me?”

“To do what?”

“To make good grades at school so I’d have a future, and to make something of myself.”

I eyeballed the guy. He must have been in his mid-fifties. “So what did you make of yourself?”

He shrugged. “I became an artist, just like my dad.”

How did I know that had been coming? “Successful?”

“I made a decent living at it for me and Mom.”

“Really?” That didn’t happen every day. “Then what’s the deal? What happened? You turned to booze or drugs, like your old man?”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said, “but at least you should learn from them. Since I’d seen what happened to Dad, why would I follow in his footsteps?”

I sighed and counted to ten. A guy’s supposed to be patient up here. It’s hell on the nerves, but that’s the breaks. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Your mom’s a saint, and you’re a success. We don’t seem to be getting to the meat of the matter.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” he apologized. “We moved to a nice bungalow in the city. I got contracts to do magazine and book covers, then I got started on kids’ books.”

I raised my eyebrows. I had to admit I was impressed. “You must be good.”

“I like to think I have a fair amount of talent,” he said modestly. “A few colleges asked me to teach some classes, and I was really interested in that.” He paused. “I probably should have, too, to share some of the blessings that came my way.”

“But?”

“I’d have had to leave Mother.”

I stared. “What are we talking about here, an hour or two a few times a week?”

“Four hours every Tuesday and Thursday for the college near our house.”

“So?”

“Once I started making money, Mom finally retired early. Her ankles were starting to swell when she stood too long, and she had arthritis, but she was always sort of at loose ends around the house. Every time I left to go somewhere, she’d start some big project that she really shouldn’t be doing.”

“Hold on a second here. If your mom was that old, you couldn’t be any spring chicken. Had you ever met anyone of the female persuasion in all this time? You know, a girl?”

“There was this one girl in my oils class. Pretty in a soft way. Quiet. A sculptress.”

“And?” I could almost guess the rest.

“Mother was so excited, she could hardly stand it. She talked about marriage and grandchildren. She loved Dulcy, thought she’d make me a wonderful wife.”

Hell and damnation. That blew that theory. I’d begun to peg the old bat as one of those clinging-vine types who wouldn’t want to share her little boy with anyone else, including a wife.

“So what happened?” I was past trying to make sense of this sorry tale. I’d listen to the whole spiel and pray for a miracle. Not that I put much faith in them, even up here.

“It fell through. Dulcy was nice and all, but nobody could really compare to my mother. Nobody.”

“Was your mom disappointed? Did she nag at you, make you feel like a worm?” Every man can relate to that, right?

“She was disappointed, sure, but she tried to hide it as well as she could. She always tried to let me live my own life, make my own decisions.”

I was getting pretty sick of how wonderful this old broad was. I didn’t think I could stomach too much more of it.

“All right, already, I’ve heard your whole life story, and you still haven’t told me why you snapped and killed the old saint. Just tell me what happened the day you wrapped your fingers around her throat and did her in.”

He took a deep breath. “It all started when she slipped in the bathtub and broke her hip.”

“Yeah?”

“After that, she couldn’t get around without a walker. I tried to do everything I could to make things easier for her. I’d get up and make her breakfast and carry it into her room for her, but I never made it quite the way she did. And every single time she’d tell me that if I’d just cook the eggs a little longer, they wouldn’t be so runny, or if I’d only butter the toast right away, the butter would melt better. I tried doing the housework, but I never got all the dirt out of the corners like she did, or else I’d use the wrong product to mop the floors. When I did the laundry, the clothes were never as soft as when she did them, and the whites were never as bright.”

We were finally getting somewhere. As he talked, his voice grew tighter and tighter. I started to scribble in my notepad. We were reaching the climax of my client’s story. Soon I’d know the truth. “Until?” I prompted.

“I was working in my studio, and I heard this crash. I ran downstairs, and there was my mom, lying on the kitchen floor, her walker tipped over beside her.”

“And?”

“She’d been trying to clean the top of the stove.”

I raised a brow and waited.

The words came out as an angry hiss. “I’d already cleaned it after lunch. I knew how Mother couldn’t tolerate any clutter or mess, but I’d left streaks, she said. Streaks. So she’d hobbled over to do it herself. To do it right, she told me. And she’d fallen. And it was all my fault because if I’d done it right in the first place, she wouldn’t have had to do it — but it wasn’t really my fault, she explained, because after all, I’d done the best I could. How could I be blamed if I didn’t know any better?”

I nodded my head. I could hear his frustration.

“I was a grown man, fifty-four years old, and I still couldn’t do anything that pleased my mother. And believe me, I’d tried.”

I’d always suspected that it was almost impossible to please a broad. Listening to Winslow only confirmed what I’d already guessed, that when my wife left me after a couple of years of marriage down on Earth she’d been as much to blame as me. All that whining about how I never thought of anyone but myself was just that — whining.

“Anyway,” he said, “all of a sudden I was so angry I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t believe my mother had risked her neck trying to clean a damn stovetop just so she could show me that she did it better. And I knew. If I was ever going to be truly happy, I had to get away from her, but I couldn’t leave her. She’d be brokenhearted. She’d never understand. So I did the only other thing I could think of at the moment. I wrapped my hands around her neck and wrung the life out of her.”

I grinned. “I understand, and I think we have a case.”

“How could we? I killed my mother.”

“Trust me,” I said. “It’s worth a shot.” And I led him toward the Scales.

We approached the bench with deference. The high cloudbank and brilliant lighting are guaranteed to knock the socks off every newcomer, and even after all these decades, the jury box filled with angels still sort of makes my knees shake.

“Winslow Morton is a good man,” I explained as he stepped before the Judge. “You already know that, or he wouldn’t be here. And his mother was a good woman. I’m not trying to belittle her in any way. As a matter of fact, that was part of the problem. She was too good, almost perfect. And that’s why Winslow had to kill her. He felt he could never measure up. She was driving him crazy, so in a way it was actually self-defense. She was killing him with kindness, and if he was ever going to feel good about himself and live a happy life, he had to get rid of her.”

The Judge leaned forward, resting His elbows on the bench. “No quick deals this time, Harry? Or trick pleas?”

“My client loved his mother, Sir. He’d have never done anything to hurt her. He was only trying to save himself.”

“For the first time, Harry, you truly listened to your client and understood him. You’re beginning to learn.”

Learn? What was He talking about? Didn’t I do the best I could for each client I brought before Him?

“Yes, you do,” He told me, reading my mind.

I hate it when He does that.

“But your methods leave something to be desired,” He said. “And let’s be honest, Harry. Your heart hasn’t really been in it. You were trying to better yourself, not your clients.”

Winslow looked at me, frowning. What did he know about anything? He was just a fresh-faced rube straight from the morgue.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Morton,” the Judge assured him. “Harry might not be the best person, but he’s a competent lawyer, and in your case, he’s absolutely right on the mark. For that, he’ll be aptly rewarded, say... to level six?”

Level six? For defending a guy who actually had a case instead of the losers He usually sent me? What was the deal?

Again He read my thoughts. “Growth is never easy, Harry, but you’re getting there, and you have lots of time.”

Easy for Him to say, He was at the top. And what was with this growth thing, anyway?

“As for you, Mr. Morton, Harry’s right. You are, on the whole, a good man, but unfortunately, you committed a rather serious crime. So you have a choice. Due to Harry’s eloquent plea, I will allow you to advance to level seven here...”

I bit my tongue. This guy murdered his mother and got in two rungs ahead of me, but you never argue with the Boss.

“...or,” He continued, “you can return to Earth and learn a little more.”

“What if I do worse this time?” Winslow asked.

“You can never go backwards, only forward,” the Judge explained. “Souls always retain the lessons they’ve learned in previous lives, even though they might not remember them, and each life is progressively better as a result.”

Right, but how much better? I ask you. Starting over still didn’t tempt me. My life was none too easy when I was down there. Even if I were twice as good next time, things could still be touch and go.

“What would I learn next time?” Winslow asked.

“In this life,” the Judge told him, “you had too much attention. The next time you’d find more balance. I’d send you down in a family of six kids. You’d be number four.”

Winslow smiled. The idea clearly appealed to him. “I’d have sisters and brothers?”

“And a father. No divorce,” the Judge guaranteed.

“Probably no money,” I prompted. “Six kids would be expensive.”

The Judge nodded. “Harry’s right. The family would be comfortable, but not rich.”

“I don’t care about money,” Winslow said. “Send me down.”

From the look on the Judge’s face, I knew Winslow had picked the right thing, the brown-noser. And in a blink, my client was gone.

“Mrs. Lawton is having a baby boy right now,” the Judge told me, then shook His head. “Relax, Harry. Take some time off and visit level six. You did a good job on this case. Think about what you learned. Count your blessings. And if you want to learn more, give me a buzz. We always have clients who need a good lawyer.”

Yeah, right. And it might be a millennium before I made level ten. But what the hell? One step at a time, right?

Maybe I’d talk to some of the other guys who’d made it. Maybe there was a shortcut I didn’t know about yet...