. . . FINELY GROUND
HONORABLE MENTION, Spring 2026
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
BY GERARD J WAGGETT
“If you still want your husband dead, I know the perfect way you can do it.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of Margo’s offer. I had only known the woman a few weeks. We’d met at her mother’s wake. When Margo introduced herself, I was more than a little surprised. I’d been living across the street from Mrs. Dwyer since 1965, and not once in these past ten years had the woman ever mentioned a daughter.
Margo Dwyer was two years younger than me, 35, but she looked older. Her features had been hardened by years of heavy drinking and something else. A few days after the funeral, she showed up on my doorstep with a bottle of tequila—“a reverse welcome wagon” she called it. In truth, she was looking for a place to hang out while her mother’s house was being fumigated.
“The place is crawling with rats.”
I myself would never have admitted such a thing—and definitely not to someone I just met. That said, I could sympathize. Rats were one of my worst nightmares.
I couldn’t imagine dealing with the ones in Mrs. Dwyer’s house. They weren’t just resilient. They were immortal. Margo had to bring the exterminator back three times, each time coming to my house while the work was done.
During those visits, I got Margo hooked on the soap opera Another World, and she got me hooked on the pleasures of day drinking.
One afternoon, during a commercial break, I caught my new best friend staring at my wedding photo. I had not yet taken it down from the mantle. Before she asked, I told her, “My husband moved out last June.”
“He’s very pretty,” Margo said, “but obviously not too bright.”
I had to agree. “It took him fifteen years of marriage to figure out he prefers men.”
Margo was not shocked. “That seems to be happening more and more these days.”
“Not in this parish,” I replied.
“Did he leave you?” Margo asked. “Or did he leave you for someone?”
“He’s already living with this guy. And you should see him,” I added. “He could pass for Richard’s younger brother.”
“Your husband has a type.” Margo tapped the wedding picture, first my face and then Richard’s. “The two of you look like brother and sister.”
“For the last two years, we’ve been living like brother and sister.”
Margo’s attention shifted to a family photo, the four of us at Disney World. “Do your children know?”
“Thanks to your mother,” I said, “Everybody knows.”
“The only secrets she was good at keeping were her own.”
“I wouldn’t have told her anything, but she was watching the day Richard moved out.” I would have used the word spying, but the woman was dead. “I told her everything. In confidence, I thought. Well, not everything. I didn’t tell her that I seriously considered pushing Richard down the stairs.”
Margo asked, “What stopped you?”
“I didn’t feel like spending the rest of my life in prison.”
“If you still want your husband dead, I know the perfect way you can do it.”
“I’m not sure what good killing him would do at this point.” But I was curious. “What’s this plan of yours?”
“If you’re not going to do it, you’re better off not knowing. And I need to get ready.” Margo worked nights as a cocktail waitress.
I checked the grandfather clock in the corner: Quarter past three. The kids were due home any minute now. I popped one of Margo’s cherry-flavored Certs into my mouth.
Ten minutes later Dickie came barging through the front door. The pocket of his shirt was hanging on by threads.
“Have you been in another fight?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” That was his answer to everything these days.
Before he could storm up the stairs, I grabbed him by the arm. “That shirt cost $7.99, so you are going to talk about it.”
“I wish Dad was dead.”
I felt like a hypocrite telling the boy, “Don’t say that. He’s still your father.”
As usual, I got the full story from Jackie. “Paul Concannon asked Dickie if Dad still kissed him good night. And you know Dickie. He can’t just laugh that off. He called Paul’s mother an h-o-r-e.”
Dickie wasn’t wrong. Audrey Concannon could be a bit of a whore. I was just surprised that Dickie knew the word.
“He’s twelve years old, Mom. And thanks to Dad, he’s learning all sorts of new words.”
I didn’t want to hear these new words he was being subjected to. I just had one more question for Jackie. “Your brother said he wished your father was dead. How do you feel?”
Jackie had to think about her answer. “I don’t wish him dead. And I really don’t think Dickie does either. But I don’t want to see him. And I don’t ever want to spend weekends with him and his boyfriend. Dickie won’t tell you, but he is terrified of having to go there.”
“That’s never going to happen.” I could promise Jackie that much. And later on, I’d promise Dickie the same.
I caught Margo just as she was getting into her car. She was running late as usual, so I kept it short. “I changed my mind. I want him dead.”
* * *
Margo reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a baby food jar. The label had been scraped off but not completely. Rattling around inside were itty bitty teeth. When she emptied them onto my kitchen table, I counted sixteen.
“Tell me those aren’t baby teeth,” I said.
Margo assured me, “They’re not. They’re rat teeth.”
Because the woman was doing me a favor, I did not ask what possessed her to dump rat teeth onto a table my children and I ate off. Instead, I asked, “Are they from the rats in your mother’s house?”
Margo reminded me, “It’s my house.”
I recounted the sixteen rat teeth littered across my kitchen table. “What do I do with them?”
“You crush them into powder. If you don’t own a pestle, you can use a hammer. That’s what I did. Then you sprinkle the powder into your husband’s drink.” Margo demonstrated her technique. As she did so, I noticed her fingers. The tips were pocked with bite marks, small but fresh.
“Are you sure this poison is undetectable?” That sounded too good to be true.
“It’s not a poison per se. The rituals performed on these rats, there’s something . . .” Margo struggled to find the right word. “Otherworldly. I don’t know if you believe in that sort of thing.”
“As a Catholic, I’m not supposed to.” As a Catholic, I also was not supposed to covet my husband’s murder.
“Before I forget,” Margo said, “you owe me four hundred dollars.”
I had not been expecting to spend that much money. “That’s three mortgage payments.”
Margo did not need the four hundred right away. “I can wait until the insurance check comes through.”
“What if this doesn’t kill him?” I asked.
Margo assured me it would. “My mother’s death certificate is a lie. She did not die from bleeding ulcers. The doctors couldn’t explain the damage they saw inside her.”
Just to be clear, I asked Margo, “Are you telling me you killed your mother?”
She reminded me, “You are in no position to judge.”
I knew that, but I’d been waiting weeks for the opportunity to ask why Mrs. Dwyer had never so much as mentioned Margo’s name.
“When I was fourteen years old,” Margo said, “my mother threw me out. She caught her husband coming out of my bedroom, and she refused to believe that I was not a willing participant.”
“This wasn’t your father,” I hoped.
“No.” Margo said, “My father died when I was twelve. This was her second husband.”
Mrs. Dwyer had never mentioned a second husband.
Margo was not surprised. “She threw him out as well.”
“How did you survive?” I asked.
“I found men like my stepfather.” That was all she was willing to say on that subject. She was, however, more than willing to talk about killing her mother. “I ground up a spoonful of rat teeth and sprinkled them into her afternoon tea. She takes it with extra milk, which was perfect because the milk made the powder even more invisible.”
“How often did you and your mother have tea?” I was under the impression that the two of them had not seen each other in decades.
“Every couple of years, she invited me home. I always went thinking that she was finally going to apologize. Instead, she would remind me that I ruined her life and I am no good. Usually I stormed off mid-tirade, but not this last time. This last time,” Margo said, “I sat there listening to every single insult while watching her drink the tea I prepared.”
I remembered the night the ambulance came for Mrs. Dwyer. I was watching from my bedroom window. Because she told everyone about Richard, I refused to say a single prayer on her behalf. The next day, when I heard she died, I felt so guilty I recited the entire rosary.
I asked Margo, “Did you feel any guilt?”
“A twinge—which was more than she ever felt.”
“Maybe leaving you the house was her way of apologizing.”
Margo shook her head. “The house was mine. I found that out after she died. My father left the house to me, not her. That bitch threw me out of my own house. She deserved to suffer for years, not hours.”
As much as I wanted Richard dead, “I’m not so sure I want him to suffer.”
Margo said, “You have to want that. You need to think about all the horrible things he’s done to you and your children. The man lied to you for years and then dumped you at an age when nobody else will want you. You need to let that anger well up inside your mouth and then you spit it all right into his drink.”
“I don’t think I can do that.” I was raised in a home where women did not spit.
“You need to get over that.” Margo said, “These teeth are useless without your anger.”
* * *
Richard’s mustache had grown in nicely, but he did not appreciate my compliment: “Very manly.” He’d also lost weight, which I took to mean that his boyfriend wasn’t much of a cook.
Richard looked at the glass I handed him. “What is this?”
“It’s called a White Russian. It’s vodka, Kahlua, and heavy cream.” Margo had shown me how to make it.
Richard took note of my glass. “What are you drinking?”
“This is a Black Russian,” I said, “just vodka and Kahlua. I can’t drink milk anymore. Dr. Ferrante says I’m lactose intolerant.”
“What’s that mean?”
It felt good to lecture him for a change. “My body can’t digest dairy. I lack a certain enzyme that breaks down the lactose sugar.”
“When’d that happen?” he asked.
“Turns out, I’ve been this way my whole life. That’s why ice cream goes right through me.”
“I can’t say I miss that smell.”
I couldn’t think of any better response than “Cheers.”
“So where’s Dickie?” Richard asked.
“My parents took him and Jackie for the weekend.” In truth, I’d sent them there.
Richard was confused. “I thought you wanted me to talk to him about some fight he got into.”
“Dickie doesn’t want to talk to you.” I have to admit, I enjoyed telling him that.
I also enjoyed hearing the irritation in Richard’s voice. “He’s going to have to talk to me soon. I’m still his father.”
“You’re also the reason he’s getting picked on at school.”
“We should think about getting Dickie into therapy.” Richard himself had begun therapy right after he moved out. At first, I saw it as a good step. I thought he was looking for a cure. Instead, he found some quack who convinced him that it was perfectly healthy to be a homosexual even if it destroyed your family.
“Dickie doesn’t need therapy,” I said. “He needs boxing lessons or that kung fu kids are getting into.”
As much as Richard loved a good argument, he hated physical fighting. He suggested, “Have you tried reaching out to the Concannons?”
I told him, “They won’t talk to me. Thanks to you, nobody in this neighborhood will.”
“Maybe you should think about moving. You and the kids would be better off somewhere less Catholic.”
First Richard destroyed our marriage and then our family. Now he was trying to take away our religion.
As I got up to refill my glass, Richard asked, “Do you drink in front of the kids?”
“Never.” Since neither Jackie nor Dickie would talk to him, he would have to take my word on that.
“I’m only asking because you finished that drink pretty quick.”
I sat myself back down on the couch. “Be honest, not just nasty. Do you think I have a problem?”
For the next forty-five minutes, Richard lectured me about the dangers of drinking—all while sipping his White Russian. I could have dismissed him as a hypocrite, but tonight I was more than willing to sit there and listen to every last thing he had to say.
* * *
The phone rang just after midnight. I was fully dressed and waiting for the call. A nurse from Presley-Morgan informed me that Richard had been admitted with severe abdominal pains.
“How bad is he?” I asked.
The nurse could only tell me that he’d been wheeled into surgery.
Richard’s boyfriend was standing outside the hospital smoking a cigarette. Like Richard, he too had also grown a mustache.
“Joanne.”
I don’t know why I was taken aback to hear him use my first name. The man who stole my husband wasn’t about to call me Mrs. Casey.
“Excuse me,” I said, “I need to check on Richard.”
But the man was not about to be brushed off. “They won’t tell me anything. They say I’m not family.”
I reminded him, “You are not family. You are the opposite of family. You are someone who destroys families.”
The anger in his response frightened me. “You are the one destroying your family. You need to tell the doctors what you gave Ricky.”
“We had cocktails,” I said, “White Russians.”
“What did you put in Ricky’s drink?” he asked.
“Vodka, Kahlua, and milk.” I meant heavy cream but same difference.
“What else?” he demanded. “Ricky didn’t start puking up blood for no reason.”
The image of Richard hunched over a toilet throwing up blood turned my own stomach. In the chapel, I found myself praying that he would pull through. Despite everything the man had done, I no longer wanted him to die. And I certainly didn’t want to be the cause.
Unfortunately, I had begun my prayers too late. According to the surgeon, he had lost far too much blood.
“What caused the bleeding?” I asked. “Could you tell?”
“Something chewed a hole in his liver.”
“Did you say ‘chewed’?” I wanted to make sure I heard right.
Yes, Richard’s doctor used the word chewed. “There were teeth marks. Multiple teeth marks.”
* * *
Richard’s death restored my standing in the parish. I was no longer the pathetic housewife whose husband left her for another man. I was the stoic widow who had not cried at the wake or funeral. Neighbors dropped off food, mostly casseroles and bundt cakes. Paul Concannon even told Dickie, “Sorry about your dad.”
If Richard’s boyfriend showed up at the funeral, I didn’t see him. But I saw all our neighbors including husbands who had taken the morning off work. Father Jessup plugged Richard’s name into a beautiful eulogy about a loving father and devoted husband. After the cemetery, everyone came back to the house for lunch. Richard’s company paid for the catering, an amazing spread that stretched from one end of my dining room table to the other.
Dickie and Jackie loved their father again. They would be spending the weekend with their grandparents, planting flowers in his memory. My mother believed that getting away for a few days would do them a world of good. “You too,” she suggested, but I wanted to stay home and get drunk with Margo.
After I thanked the last guest for coming, I headed into the dining room to wrap up the leftovers.
I screamed when I saw the rats. Six I counted, then a seventh. Four of them were gnawing away at the remaining dinner rolls. Two others had gone for the cupcakes I’d been saving for tonight. The last one was lapping its tongue on a half-melted ice cube.
While I gagged, willing myself not to throw up, Margo stood there, drink in hand, completely unfazed by what she was watching.
As soon as the nausea passed, I asked her, “Do you think we can get your exterminator here tonight?”
“He can’t help you.”
“Then I’ll find someone who can.” I was friends with the neighbors again. One of them could recommend a good exterminator. I just hated anyone knowing I had rats.
Margo told me not to waste my money. “There is no getting rid of these rats.”
The biggest of the seven lifted her head in my direction. She was an oily shade of black with the longest tail I’d ever seen. She opened her mouth in what looked like a sneer, a toothless sneer.
“Is that the rat whose teeth . . .?” But I knew the answer.
“She was pregnant,” Margo said. “These are the babies that survived.”
“What possessed you to bring them here?” I asked.
Margo shook her head. “I didn’t.”
“Then how did they get here?” I wanted to know.
“The same way mine found me.”
Margo’s words took a moment to sink in. The exterminator had not solved her rat problem. She had simply given up.
I counted the rats again: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Soon there would be too many to count. Margo called them “incestuous little monsters.”
“If you knew this was going to happen,” I asked her, “why didn’t you warn me?”
“You wanted your husband dead, but you didn’t want to go to prison.”
“I’d rather be on death row than in a house infested with rats.”
“As someone who’s been to prison,” Margo said, “you don’t mean that.”
“I . . . can’t . . . live . . . with . . . rats.”
Margo assured me, “You’ll learn to.”
“What about Jackie and Dickie?” I asked. “What are they supposed to do?”
Margo said, “They should stay at your parents.”
“I should go there too,” I decided.
I would have started packing a suitcase if Margo had not warned me, “They’ll follow you.”
“People were talking to me again. They were coming to the house.” I looked at the rats, so happily at home on my dining room table. “I can’t let anyone see this.”
I didn’t realize that I’d started crying until Margo offered me her handkerchief along with her reassurance: “I’ll keep coming by. And you know I’m in no position to judge.”
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In addition to 11 books of soap opera trivia, Gerard J Waggett has published several crime stories in Mystery Magazine (formerly Mystery Weekly Magazine). The latest was a Sherlock Holmes adventure. In late 2022, his one-act play “Elizabeth” was published in the premiere issue of Dracula Beyond Stoker. Last spring, Archer’s anthology Dark Mirrors included his horror/science fiction hybrid “Operation Rat Poison.”