Something Like Happiness

by Joslyn Chase

About the Author: Joslyn Chase is an award-winning author of mysteries and thrillers. Joslyn’s story, “Cold Hands, Warm Heart,” was chosen by Amor Towles as one of the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Fiction River Magazine, Mystery, Crime, and Mayhem, and Mystery Magazine.

Excerpt

The smell depressed him the most.

Rein Werner swiped a yellow-stained cloth across the grimy counter of his dead brother’s bar and tried to block out the dispiriting stench. Wooden casks, far past their prime, rose in an unwieldy stack in the alcove behind him, stinking of decay. The sagging boards beneath his feet, sodden day after day with spilled beer, tobacco spittle, and worse, emitted a sour cloud of odor, no matter how hard he scrubbed at them after closing.

During daylight hours, he liked to throw open the windows and let the golden springtime light flood in, painting stripes across the loathsome floorboards like healing swaths of antiseptic. The breeze fluttered the coarse muslin curtains and tinkled the windchimes so treasured by his bereaved sister-in-law, temporarily lifting and carrying away the dismal smell.

At such times, Rein could almost forget the crumbling state of his world. The simple pleasures in life were still within his grasp—a pleasing book, a glass of wine, Brötchen spread with jam, though butter was now out of the question. While the sun shone through the open windows, this could almost be enough.

But now it was night.

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