by: TRVMB

Previously on "Stranger..."
Pretty Wife, as she was in the process of sneaking out of the house to retrieve Baby Uber Heir Junior from the at-the-time seemingly seedy Rebecca the Sassy, overheard Consolation Husband on the phone, exclaiming in a business-like tone: "Baby Heir wasn't supposed to be part of this!  I want to know what you're going to do about it!"
And now, as Pretty Wife, Junior, Detective the Dry, Detective the Sassy, Detective Stranger, and D.A.D. attempt to assemble the puzzle of their combined pasts, we rejoin Consolation Husband at the house, as he continues his telephone conversation, blissfully unaware that his Pretty Wife has left the building--

"Don't you tell me to calm down.  I will NOT calm down until my son is returned to me.  McCoy, let me tell you something, here.  Whoever has my son is onto me.  Onto us."

On the other end of the line, Sergeant McCoy of the Town Falls Police Department cleared his throat and adjusted his tie.  "C.H., I don't think it's a great idea for us to discuss this matter over the phone."

"And why is that, McCoy?  Are you afraid?  Afraid that whomever has my son also knows that you are involved?  That you have been assisting me in funneling funds from Big Business Competitor in Big City directly into a secret fund for The Cause?  For the Society For the Advancement of Biogenetically Engineered Perfection?"

"C.H., I think you should..."

"Should what, McCoy?  Shut up?  And why is that?  Do you fear that your cover will be blown?  Do you really think people are buying your Barney Fife act, McCoy?"

"They are buying it about as much as they're buying your banker act, C.H. All those innocent people coming to you at Town Falls Bank and Trust for investment advice on their IRAs and mutual funds, never even noticing when you skim a little off the top for your Cause.  And for yourself."

"AND for you, McCoy.  Let us not forget THAT little piece of the pie."

"I'm also sure you'd hate for anyone to find out that your 'son' is really SABEP's lame attempt at creating genetic perfection--and is no biological relation to either you OR to Pretty Wife."

"I'm not going to forget that comment, McCoy.  I disclosed that information to you in confidence.  Don't you dare bring it up again.  That child may have been manufactured in a laboratory and surgically placed in my wife's womb after I secretly anesthetized her with ether that I strategically placed on her pillowcase, but he is still my son, he is still the closest thing on planet earth to human perfection, and he is still missing."

"Listen, C.H., I'm sorry.  Now is not the time for us to self-destruct and begin attacking each other.  What we need to do is tie up our loose ends and discuss our disappearance.  We've already said too much--let's make some plans to meet up and iron out the details."

As Consolation Husband and Sergeant McCoy made their plans to convene, Detective Stranger listened in, recording it all.  C.H. and Sergeant McCoy wouldn't be the only ones in attendance at the upcoming gathering--he was sure that D.A.D. would see to that.


by: JMG

Previously, on A Stranger in Town...
The mysterious D.A.D. reveals that he abandoned Pretty Wife and her mother to go raise another family, and that Deadboy Stranger was also his son - he washed out the bridge to keep them from unknowingly violating the laws of God and Nature by consummating their marriage.  PW gasps that she wasn't with her husband that night - she was with Deadboy!

Pretty Wife's mind reeled, trying to put the pieces together.  DAD had made his own son into a Stranger, just to keep the half-siblings from getting to third base!  She had lost the greatest love of her life to a simple misunderstanding!  Didn't DAD realize that she had already been married to Consolation Husband at the time?  And even if she had taken off with Deadboy on her wedding night in a rare fit of defiant passion, she was still a married woman!  Why, what could DAD be thinking of her, assuming that she would let her fiery loins lead her into Sin, even with the most wonderful man she had ever known but unfortunately hadn't met until it was too late?

[We see flashbacks from the beginning of the movie and realize that we never actually saw the groom's face - we were cleverly led astray by interspersed scenes of Girl stealing away with Deadboy!]

"How could you have done such a heartless thing, D - A - D ?" exclaimed Pretty Wife, refusing even to use an acronym that sounded familial. "How could you think such things of your own son and...me...when you had to know we weren't even married!?!?!"

DAD looked askance, obviously having never considered marriage as a factor that mattered one way or the other in any decision. When the lord made DAD, he made a rambling man. "Errr... Ummm..." Relief broke out on his face as his cell phone chimed and he excused himself to the next room.

Pretty Wife sat, lost in her own thoughts.  Was she overreacting? How much of her anger was due to her own guilty thoughts?  Goodness knows there had been times - she blushed even now, remembering - when she had imagined seeing Deadboy in just his underpants.  What would have happened if they had had that one magic night together in the storm?  When she had woken up in the hospital with Consolation Husband at her side, he had been so kind and forgiving - he understood how new brides sometimes got "cold feet" and could become hysterical.  They were only women, after all, and they were supposed to behave irrationally from time to time.  Nobody but Mother had ever known there had been someone else in the car that night, and PW had never found the courage to confess her near-sin aloud.

***

Dan the Dry watched the exchange between PW and DAD, keeping Junior quiet in the corner.  He couldn't help but admire PW's shining moral character, and the way that the very tips of her perfect ears turned pink with righteous indignation. Det. Deadboy had almost been a very lucky man.  But instead both he and PW had been betrayed by the one man who should have been there to protect them - their father.  In his own life, Mr. the Dry had been a great father to Dan, teaching him about football and surfing and how to be polite to the ladies so that they would let him have sex.  Dan realized that he had been very lucky, and that he had always taken his happy childhood for granted.  For an instant, he felt a pang of worry and regret, remembering an incident not so long ago from his own life...

Young Detective the Dry had spent almost his whole career thus far assigned to one case - the long quest to bring down CH and his band of Evil Geneticist Bankers.  As a young officer, he had drawn his first assignment in the case because nobody else would take it.  The FBI had been investigating a certain genetics lab for some time, but they'd been unable to even gain admittance to the secure building.  Finally, they learned that the lab was looking for new donors of genetic material - handsome young men in perfect health and full of vigor.  Dan the Dry, with his natural fresh scent and perfect hairless chest, had been a shoe-in for acceptance.  He hadn't had any qualms at the time, feeling that any assignment where he could score a free copy of Playboy was a-ok with him, but now that he was older and wiser, he started to wonder about the consequences of his actions.

Looking at Junior playing happily in his lap, he considered for the first time the fact that he could have children out there that would be completely unknown to him.  Surely any children to come out of such an expensive lab would be placed in good homes, raised by a loving mother and father. Or a father and father, or mother and mother, or two fathers and a mother, or whatever. Dan the Dry was an open-minded fellow.  Exhausted from the most lengthy and intensive thought process he had attempted in months, Dan leaned back, content that things would sort themselves out in the end. They always did for Dan the Dry.

***

"Hank?" queried the voice on the phone.

"I told you NEVER to call me that!" snapped D.A.D.

"Uh, sorry. Mr. Summers?" the voice responded.

"NO NAMES. Especially over the phone!" seethed D.A.D. "What is it that is important enough to interrupt me?"


by: TRVMB

Pretty Wife sat at Headquarters, her mind racing, attempting to put together the pieces of what had transpired within the last few days.  Her "secret" hadn't really been a secret at all--now everyone knew that she had run off with Stranger on the night she wed Consolation Husband.  And "the accident" hadn't really been an accident--D.A.D. had orchestrated the entire thing.  All these years of wondering what had happened to Stranger on that night, questioning whether he had truly perished in the cold, murky waters underneath that washed-out bridge, pining for the True Love that was never to be, whilst pretending to be happily married to Consolation Husband...

Deep down she had always known that C.H. was not the man to whom she should devote the rest of her life.  She knew that theirs was not an Everlasting Love, that he was not her Soulmate.  She knew, in her heart of hearts, that Consolation Husband was not the man he professed to be.  Why had she not listened to her heart before she pledged her life to this man?  And now there was Junior to think about.  Pretty Wife knew that the future held no rainbows nor sunny days for her crumbling family.

"I've got to pull myself together," Pretty Wife whispered to herself, reaching into her purse for her compact and concealer.   Her mascara might have smudged, but her hair was still curly and her eyes were still blue; she was, after all, still Pretty Wife, and this was neither the time nor the place for wistful thinking and what-might-have-beens.  She patted on her concealer, re-applied her lipstick, and snapped her compact shut.  She was involved now, and she wanted, no, *needed* to do whatever she could to expose the truth about her Sinister Spouse.

"Are you OK, P.W?" Detective the Dry entered the room, with Junior crawling directly behind.  Detective the Sassy, D.A.D., and Detective Stranger followed.

"I'm fine, Detective the Dry," Pretty Wife responded.  "What's going on?"

"I've brought you all here to give you a brief update on the status of our operation," D.A.D. explained.  "Detective Stranger just intercepted an interesting conversation between Consolation Husband and Sergeant McCoy with the Town Halls Police Department.  It would appear that McCoy is involved in C.H.'s covert activities."

Pretty Wife gasped audibly.  How could this happen?  It was bad enough that her own husband was evil, but if one couldn't trust the members of one's own local police department, who could one trust?

"McCoy and C.H. are planning to meet tomorrow evening to tie up their loose ends, and from what we've gathered, they are planning to vanish.  They revealed the time and place of the meeting, and we are working now to get the place wired and ready to record the goings-on.  But between now and then, we are going to need your help, Pretty Wife."

"What makes you think I would want to help you, D-A-D?  Don't you think you have some explaining to do?  Where the H-E-Double Hockeysticks have you been all my life?  How dare you USE me like this?  Did you also plan my marriage to Consolation Husband, simply to further your investigation into his wicked ways?  Didn't plan for me to unknowingly fall in love with my own half-brother, though, did you, D-A-D?  Do you realize that I could have ended up on The Jerry Springer Show?  Had to take care of THAT one, eh?  A washed-out bridge certainly did the trick, didn't it?"  Pretty Wife continued to rage at D.A.D. until Detective the Dry swaggered over to her and wrapped her in his ample, muscled embrace.

"This is hard, Pretty Wife," the Dry whispered softly into her ear. 

For a moment, Pretty Wife wondered if he was referring to her situation, or something ELSE.

"You are confused, upset, and angry.  No one here faults you for that, P.W. But right now, we have to focus on our investigation.  You owe it to yourself and to your son to expose Consolation Husband for what he is--a lying, cheating, stealing, conniving, embezzling son-of-a-witch," Detective the Sassy spewed.  She had just been clued in by Detective Stranger regarding Consolation Husband's genetic engineering of Baby Heir, and she was having a hard time concealing her fury.  But now was not the time to reveal to Pretty Wife that Junior was an Uberbaby; they needed her cooperation.

"You're right, Detective the Sassy," Pretty Wife relented.  "Tell me what to do."

[Hank Williams lyric from "Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used to Do"]


by: AAB

"Well," Rebecca the Sassy pulled out a pie chart, coupled with a few VENN diagrams that she had hastily sketched onto 3x5 cards while she was waiting in line on her recent coffee run. "We've done some research."

DAD and Det. Dry looked away, sheepishly.

"That is, _I've_ done some research, and given the jealous nature of the venal man that you've unwittingly married, we figured you two've got a license to fight, so why not exploit that?"

"Okay," said P.W., her mind elsewhere, examining the sturdy Berber at her feet. Whatever happened to the simple elegance of hardwood floors?

"We women know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, don't we, Honey?" Det. Sassy, knowing P.W. too well, tried to re-capture her interest. "Here's the ticket, the lynch-pin--"

"Or key--" Dan the Dry interjected.

"Or key," the Sassy begrudgingly agreed. "You, P.W., and Stranger, caught in a compromising position--as compromising as possible." Rebecca whipped out a filmy lace number that made P.W. blush (becomingly, thought the Dry). "It's all set up and ready to go, back at your house. After C.H. returns from his meeting with McCoy, we'll spring it on him."

"It should be the push over the edge that we need--a domestic incidence of chaos that will finally send him over the edge, tempt him to become sloppy--possibly attempting murder--and expose him for what he is."

"Mostly because we think it could take years to understand all the rigmarole about Big Corporation and the Banking Industry well enough to be able to level any charges against him on those accounts," explained DAD.

"It's really not that diffi--"began Rebecca the Sassy, but was thrown a stern look from DAD that cut her off. "Years," she agreed, though hollowly.

[Hank Williams lyric from "Mind Your Own Business"]

***

Less than half and hour later, P.W. was ensconced in her own boudoir that she had shared so often with C.H., the man the government had sent her to betray today. Stranger was just in the bathroom beyond, getting himself ready. She wished someone had told her how far she was to let this go before--she did not like to think before what, so she thought about Junior. "Just lie still," she thought to herself, "and think of C.H.'s ire."

Stranger was coming out now; he had only a black towel slung around his middle. "Let's do it," he said, and P.W. thought she noticed something different about him around the eyes, a softness in them now absent.

P.W. sat up on the bed to get a better look at him, and her rising was met with an open-handed strike to the face so hard it sent her back down to the mattress. She gasped, and her hand went up to her cheekbone. Lightly complected, she felt a bruise brewing already. Her mind was so shocked she could process no other thought.

Stranger climbed closer to her on the bed, grabbed her wrists and jerked her up. Through gritted teeth he spoke. "What do you think you're doing, you little tramp--agreeing to betray him like this?"


by: KLS

Dan the Dry sat in the surveillance van a block away from Pretty Wife's house; nicely situated in a quiet, suburban neighborhood.  He didn't like this.  Oh, he liked the well, manicured lawns and meticulously maintained gardens of the affluent subdivision.  He didn't like sending Pretty Wife back into that house with Stranger.  Something just wasn't right.

"What do you think of all this?" Dan the Dry asked Rebecca the Sassy, as she crawled inside the van carrying two cups of coffee from the local beanery. 

"I think the blond tips work for you, although you could probably use a touch-up," Rebecca the Sassy answered, handing Dan the Dry a coffee cup.

Dan the Dry tugged at his hair.  "No--this," Dan said, maintaining his use of ambiguous pronouns and refusing to use specific nouns, pointing to the Sophisticated Surveillance Equipment pointing towards Pretty Wife's house.

"D.A.D always did have a flair for the dramatic.  But it seems solid. Anything going on?"  Rebecca the Sassy tapped the speakers with her sensibly trimmed fingernail.

"Nope.  Not a peep."  Maybe that's what was bothering him.

After Pretty Wife's revelation about that night, so long ago--about mistaken identities and washed out bridges--Dan the Dry had wanted to talk to Pretty Wife privately.  He had always wanted to talk with her privately, about more than just dry-cleaning and this mixed-up, crazy investigation.  But now there was something he needed to tell her.  But how could he tell her about something that he'd forgotten, something hazy, just out of his memory's reach.

The only way to help her would be to remember.  He thought about how his life had changed irrevocably six years ago.  He had awoken in a hospital bed, his entire head bandaged.  There had been an accident.  He had been thrown through a windshield and drifted downstream for many miles before catching on some brush.  He had eventually been pulled in by a couple of drunken flyfishers. Every bone in his face had been broken, and he had needed emergency plastic surgery.  They had done the best they could, but the doctors warned, he wouldn't look like himself.  It didn't bother him because he couldn't remember what he looked like before.  He couldn't remember who he'd been, except that there had been this feeling that he had left someone behind, someone who had been frightened.  Was it just a coincidence that he had been compelled to take this case in Town Falls? 

Dan the Dry thought of Pretty Wife.  He thought about her dry cleaning.  And in a flash of revelation, he could remember a younger Pretty Wife, before the miracle of Baby Heir, her cheeks flushed much like they had been this afternoon.  They were in a car together and it was raining, the windshield wipers dramatically, ominously, picturesquely, clapping time.  Could it be?

"It's a trap," he said to Rebecca the Sassy, grabbing his gun with one hand and opening the van door with the other.  He, Dan the Dry was Dear Departed Dead Boy!  Pretty Wife was the lost love of his life!  But then, who was Stranger?  Dan the Dry kicked down the front door in a manly display of violence and possessiveness.  She was his Pretty Wife!    He heard a crash from an authentic Chinese vase, and the sound of a struggle, and thundered up the stairs to the rescue.  But as he reached the landing, he was thrown against the wall.  He looked around dumbfounded, trying to determine the unseen force that had stopped his gallant rescue.  Then he saw a blood soak through his newly drycleaned and pressed shirt.  He slid dramatically down the wall, his long, muscular legs, toned from the many miles that he ran every day to keep fit, sprawled in front of him.

D.A.D emerged from the spare bedroom--that at one time Pretty Wife had envisioned turning into another bedroom for Baby Spare Heir, before her life fell apart in the course of a few days--and stepped over Dan the Dry's legs.

"I'm sorry the Dry," D.A.D said, all evil-like.  "But you can't pick up your drycleaning without a ticket."


by: AAB

Previously on A STRANGER IN TOWN: Part 25, we are relying entirely on our own excellent recall, and the recall of the other Supalazy subscribers as we have deleted PART 25 from our in-box.
What is important to know is listed, as follows:
1 - D.A.D may be eeeevil.
2 - Dan the Dry may be the true Stranger in Town
3 - Rebecca the Sassy may be lying about doing her own nails at home.
4 - Dan the Dry is bleeding and on the verge of becoming Dan the Damp, or Dan the Drenched, or even--should things with he and P.W. not work out, Dan the Dumped--or (don't say it!) Dan the Dead.
5 - Consolation Husband is on his way home to a scene of staged domestic chaos, designed by Det. Sassy in order to throw him over the edge and cause him to commit attempted murder.
6 - Stranger is revealed to feel an unnatural sense of loyalty to C.H., and lack of decency where hitting another man's wife is concerned.

A Stranger in Town: Part 26: Prognosis Negative

Dan the Dry was dead.

He had seen the darkness, like his own blood spreading across his only recently damaged chest cavity, and then he had seen the light, and the light seemed a lot like the outline of Detective Stranger, who had thrown himself at DAD, and with the help of Det. Rebecca the Sassy they had both subdued and then hog-tied the older man there in the hallway of C.H.'s second floor, outside the bedroom of Pretty Wife.

Because he was dead, Dan the Dry couldn't talk, or ask the other two what would happen next, or what the best course of action should be for them with C.H. due home from his meeting w/ McCoy any minute.

Instead, like a dead man should, he was still. The Sassy ran to his motionless side and told Stranger to help her carry him into the bedroom.

Neither seemed to think about the pre-planned scene of domestic chaos and how having a corpse in the boudoir staging area could put a rather different spin on things. They deposited Dan the Dry on the mattress of satin sheets, all prepped for that evening's betrayal, next to an unconscious Pretty Wife.

Dan the Dry thought about how sorry he was to be dead. He would like to have confessed everything he had remembered to P.W.--but then, that wasn't her real name, was it? No, that was her married name, not the name he had known her as--save for that final, fatal car ride. He had known her as--Nice Girl. His own Nice Girl. He wished he weren't dead so that he could practice saying the beloved name aloud. Nice Girl

"What happened to her," Sassy asked Stranger. "Who roughed her up?"

"DAD, I think," Stranger told her. "When I got here there was already a pretty bad bruise," he reached down to tenderly touch P.W.'s face.

The Sassy grabbed at his hand. "Then why do you have skin under the emblem of your fraternity ring--mixed with some of her hair?" Sassy reached for her gun.

"That would be a mistake," Stranger told her, and pulled out a lead pipe he had taken from the bathroom when he was dismantling the gas lines to add the final touch to his suicidal tryst gone wrong that he was preparing to frame a known-to-be-jealous C.H. for. "Oh, well" he quipped as he conked the Sassy out with the pipe. "It'll just have to be an 'a trois'." He chuckled. "Never let it be said Stranger can't be flexible."

Then Stranger began to cry, quietly and into his hands, as he stepped out of the room, shut the door and dragged the bound and gagged DAD out of the house.

Dan the Dry was concerned. A gas leak was nothing to fool around with. He didn't want to see the unconscious Rebecca the Sassy and Pretty W--Nice Girl die. And he wanted to figure out what was going on.

It began to occur to him as gas invisibly filled the room that he was pretty sure the dead did not figure things out. That was odd. Why would he want to do something a dead person was incapable of doing? He flexed his strong, muscular leg and watched, surprised, as it responded. He tried a hand.


by: TRVMB

Aluisa sighed as she pulled into Pretty Wife's and Consolation Husband's driveway.  As she admired the beautifully manicured lawn and newly planted impatiens, she wistfully thought of the lovely two days she had just spent with her "good friend," Raul.  How nice it had been of her boss, Consolation Husband, to unexpectedly give her some time off from her duties as their maid!  And how much enjoyment she and Raul had shared...  Aluisa's cheeks flushed.  She cleared her throat, checked her gray hair in the rearview mirror, and turned off the ignition.  Well, back to reality.  She wondered if Junior would even remember her, seeing as how she hadn't appeared in the storyline since at least Part Five or Six, and then she had been called Eluisa.

As she approached the house, Aluisa stopped in her tracks.  Something was clearly amiss here.  The front door was unlocked, and the smell of natural gas permeated the air.  Instead of going to a neighbor's house to call the gas company, as she had always been instructed to do in situations like this, Aluisa boldly entered the house, covering her mouth and nose with her starched uniform apron.  She ran to the basement and closed the gas shutoff valve, then returned to the living quarters to investigate.

Muffled noise came from upstairs.  As she ascended the stairwell, Aluisa noticed blood on one wall.  Her knees began to tremble within her white support stockings, but still she continued.  She had to make sure Junior was okay.  As she reached the doorway to the nursery, she heard a faint cry coming from the master suite.

Slowly, Aluisa opened the door to Pretty Wife's and Consolation Husband's bedroom.  She gasped as she saw Pretty Wife on the bed, clearly injured, with a strange woman and man.  She quietly began to exit the room, unsure if this woman and man with Pretty Wife had caused her injuries.  She needed to call 911.

"Aluisa..." Pretty Wife muttered, her once flawless face swollen and bruised.  "Help me.  Help us." 

Aluisa returned to the bedroom.

"Mrs. Wife, what in the name of all that is holy has happened here?"

"There's no time.  Aluisa, help me.  We've got to..."  PW was fading in and out of consciousness.

"Mrs. Wife!  Mrs. Wife!!  Please, stay with me!"

"Aluisa, we've got to get out of here.  Help me get these people into my sensible vehicle."

"Mrs. Wife, who has done this to you?"

"Enough, Aluisa!  I'll explain it all to you later.  If we don't get them out now, none of us will survive to see the end of this day."  Pretty Wife pulled herself up off of the bed and stood up on the elegant hardwood flooring of the bedroom that she and Consolation Husband shared.  The room began to spin, and her head was throbbing.  "Keep it together, Pretty Wife," she said to herself.  She looked over at Rebecca the Sassy and at Dan the Dry.  It appeared that the Dry had been shot!  Blood was oozing from his previously perfect, hairless chest onto her satin bedding.  Pretty Wife's heart sank.  Those stains would NEVER come out.

"Help me wake up Detective the Sassy, Aluisa," Pretty Wife instructed. Aluisa and Pretty Wife gently shook the Sassy's legs and arms, willing her to consciousness.

"Wha...  Where....  Oh, my friggin' head," the Sassy murmured.

"I know, Detective, I know.  We've got to get out of here.  C.H. and McCoy will be here any minute.  We'll figure everything out later.  Right now, Aluisa and I have to get you and Detective the Dry out of here.  He's been shot."

The Dry began to moan.

"It's OK, Detective the Dry.  We're going to get you out of here," Pretty Wife said, reassuringly.

"I'm all alone..."  The Dry was clearly delirious from his loss of blood.

"We're here, the Dry.  Try to stay calm--we need to get you down the stairs," Detective the Sassy explained.  She lifted under his shoulders, Pretty Wife supported his trunk, and Aluisa took his legs.  They carefully maneuvered him down the stairs and out the front door.  This was no small feat, as Dan the Dry was a tall, muscular, hairless manly man.  Somehow the three ladies managed to lie the Dry in the backseat of Pretty Wife's sensible vehicle; Pretty Wife crawled into the back with him.  Aluisa took shotgun, and Rebecca the Sassy took the wheel.

As the Sassy quickly put the car into gear, Pretty Wife lovingly stroked the blond-tipped hair on Detective the Dry's beautiful head.  This poor man had been through so much in the last few days.  First, he was mowed down right here in front of her home, that was neatly positioned within a lovely development, by a late-model American-made blue Buick belonging to, yet not driven by, Detective Rebecca the Sassy.  After a speedy and miraculous recovery from THAT near-death experience, here he was, yet again, knocking on death's door as the result of a gunshot wound.  All this pain, all this needless suffering.......  and all for HER.  Pangs of guilt heavied her heart, as she looked at his perfect face.  If it weren't for her, Detective the Dry would probably be drycleaning right now.  Or surfing.  Or coloring his hair.  Or working out.  Or....

"Mmm......  Errr....," Dan the Dry moaned.

"Don't you worry, Detective the Dry.  We're going to get you some help. You're going to be fine," Pretty Wife whispered, hoping against hope that her words were true.

"Nice Girl?"  Pretty Wife started at Detective the Dry's use of her maiden name.  How did HE know....

"May you never be alone like me."  And with that, his exquisite eyes closed, as the whole of his body slumped against Pretty Wife.

"We need to hurry, Detective the Sassy.  I think we're losing him!" Pretty Wife screamed.

"Get down, P.W.  Lie down in the floorboard.  Aluisa, you crouch down, too. Guess who's driving right towards us?  Things are about to get interesting. Hold on!"

As Detective the Sassy sped Pretty Wife's sensible vehicle down the road, the outline of a black Sports Utility Vehicle appeared on the horizon. Behind the wheel?  Consolation Husband.


by: KLS

When we last left our burgeoning cast, they were on the run with Rebecca the Sassy behind the wheel.  Dan the Dry was bleeding his life away.  Pretty Wife was nursing Dan the Dry while ignoring her own head injury.  Aluisa, the absentee maid, was thinking she should've stayed with Raul.

Pretty Wife crouched down in the backseat of the sensible car just as the back windshield shattered.  Glass sprayed everywhere.  She covered Dan the Dry with her body to protect him from the shards--even though she remembered from the driver's manual of the sensible car that the windshield was designed with space-age glass-like material so that the glass didn't hurt you when it broke.  She didn't think of that.  She only thought of keeping Dan the Dry safe. 

And, to be honest, Dan the Dry was enjoying it--even as he drifted in and out of consciousness, and even though his long legs were draped awkwardly over the carseat that was in the backseat--because Pretty Wife's breasts were in his face.  Perhaps not the best time to cop a feel, but at the rate he was going, he might never get another chance.

Rebecca the Sassy said, "Hold on" and what follows is a car chase, through the winding back roads of Town Falls.  The sensible car is airborne over a couple of the hills and we see that shot of underneath the car in slow motion.  And then we turn the channel to see what else is on until the car chase is over.  Law and Order, perhaps?  A rerun of Saturday Night Live?

***

Rebecca the Sassy looked around.  "I think we lost him."  She looked in the backseat.  "We better get Dan the Dry inside." 

During the over-long car chase they had crossed the town limits into Small Town, and Rebecca the Sassy had driven to Pretty Wife's mom's house, deep in the woods. 

Mom came out of the house, wiping her hands on a tea-towel with chickens and cows dancing joyfully together on it.  "Why, Pretty Wife, I wasn't expecting you.  And what are you wearing? Is that a negligee?  Goodness!"  But then Mom saw Pretty Wife's too pale face and the shiner that was emerging across her face.

"We need your help, Mom."

"Of course, dear.  I would do anything for you.  Come in, come in."

The three women hoisted Dan the Dry into the house, which wasn't easy, and laid him out on the dining room table, though not before removing the antique lace runner. 

"The Dry's been shot, Mom.  We can't go to the police because they're in on it and that means we can't go to the hospital.  He's lost a lot of blood," Pretty Wife began before blubbering incoherently.  She covered her face with her hands and cried and cried.

Mom patted Pretty Wife on the shoulder. "Now, now, dear.  Leave it all to Mother."  Mom gave Rebecca the Sassy and Aluisa some orders and they disappeared into the kitchen.  Mom opened the hall closet, pushed around a few boardgames on the top shelf, Sorry and Risk, Headache and Aggravation, before producing a black leather bag.  Mom pulled on some latex gloves with a snap.

Pretty Wife was amazed.  Her mouth dropped open as Mom handed a pair of gloves to her.

"A gaping mouth isn't an attractive feature on a young woman, Pretty Wife," Mom reminded her.  "Don't look so squeamish, dear, it's just a little blood. He'll be right as rain as soon as I dig the bullet out."

***

Pretty Wife sat in one of her mother's Queen Anne chairs with a piece of round steak pressed to her face.  She was beyond trying to understand anything.  She just wanted to stay in the chair forever.  And then she remembered: Junior! She stood straight up.  What kind of mother would forget about her child? "Mom, I have to find Junior!"

"Well, do you remember where you put him last?" she asked as she polished the dining room table, trying to prevent the blood from staining the fine-grain wood. 

"He's not a set of keys, Mom.  I have to go back to Town Falls."

"Not looking like that you aren't.  A proper lady doesn't wear intimate apparel outside of the boudoir."

Pretty Wife ignored her mother.  She had to find her precious bundle of joy, Junior, the fulfillment of her biological and social destiny.  But at that moment, the front door swung open--no need to lock the front door in sleepy Small Town--and Consolation Husband walked in, Junior on his hip and a gun pointing right at the round steak pressed to Pretty Wife's face. 

Pretty Wife's shoulders sagged.  She gave up.  She didn't want to run anymore.  She didn't want to have to figure it out.  She knew that no matter how simple Rebecca the Sassy tried to make her visual aids, she would never understand. 

Pretty Wife held her hands up.  The steak dropped to the floor.  And Stranger crashed through the bay window in the front room.


by: AAB

Previously on A STRANGER IN TOWN...
Pretty Wife's shoulders sagged, gave up, didn't want to run anymore. 
Pretty Wife held her hands up.  The steak dropped to the floor.  And
Stranger crashed through the bay window in the front room.

***

"Who is this? What? What?" Mom asked, entering the front room, its picture window now little more than pebbles on the floor.

"I am Nexus," declared Stranger, brandishing a gun, "from Mexituxis Secundus. I am here to take my wounded brother home to our planet. He will not survive long in this Argon and various other noble gases-based atmosphere."

"What?" asked Pretty Wife, looking up from the steak, now spoiling on the floor. "I thought you were my dear departed DeadBoy--Mom, surely *you* can see the resemblance?"

"Well, yes, he does look like him. Yes, yes he does. I've got the necessary instruments here to do a DNA blood test, if you'd like, P.W."

Stranger's eyes clouded for a moment and he seemed for an instant to lose track of where he was. "Mom?" he asked, his voice like a child's. "Is that you? It's been so long--and to find you now, like this--" he bent to the floor, scraped the glass pebbles off the fallen steak and lifted it tenderly in his hands, muttering to himself.

"Oh, dear," said Dan the Dry, who had made his way toward the commotion and was now leaning in the doorway. "This is all much worse than I had expected. We've got to find DAD."

"I suppose that sounds just about as sensible as anything else I've heard today," Mom responded, kneeling by the for-the-moment steak-consumed Stranger and efficiently (and unobtrusively) drawing the blood necessary to perform the DNA test.

"Fine by me," threw in Pretty Wife, happy for once to let the others decide. It was almost like old times. "I just hope this doesn't all end in an unexplainable blood bath."


by: TRVMB

Consolation Husband and Junior exit Pretty Wife's mother's restroom and re-enter the scene in the front room.  "Whew, that's better," exclaimed Consolation Husband.  "Had to drain the old lizard.  Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, of course, terrorizing the lot of you."  And with that, he replaced Junior onto his hip and raised his gun, pointing it directly at Pretty Wife.  "And how are you, my love?  Judging from that shiner on your eye, not too well.  That's what happens when Pretty Wives seduce innocent, mentally ill Strangers, though, isn't it?"

Stranger looked up, the neat-o glass shards and spoiling meat on the floor forgotten.  "My leader!  All hail Lexus, Grand Pooba of Mexituxis Secundus!"

Even Consolation Husband looked a little annoyed with Stranger's sci-fi manic hallucination, as Pretty Wife demanded, "Give me my son.  He's been through enough.   Why have you involved us in your eeeeeeeeeeeevil?"  She boldly approached C.H.

"I'd advise you, Pretty, to keep your distance," Consolation Husband chided as he raised the gun higher.  Wisely, Pretty Wife ceased her advance.

"C.H., what has become of you?" Doctor Mom questioned.

"Shut your piehole.  If there's one thing I don't need right now, besides a psychotic cohort, it's my mother-in-law sticking her nose into this.  This matter is between my wife, my son, and myself.  AND, apparently, my maid."

Aluisa stared sheepishly at her ergonomically correct, supportive shoes.

"So, you've been doing a little investigative work, eh, my darling?  You're no Nancy Drew.  You've been a part of my Master Plan since the day we met, and you are JUST NOW catching on.  Didn't notice that the flyer that you received all those years ago regarding the low, low interest rates at Town Falls Bank and Trust wasn't a bulk mailing, did you?  No, no, that was a special flyer, devised just for you.  Lured you right into my office, though, didn't it?  You were so naive, such a sucker, always looking for ways to save a buck.  As if you NEED to scrimp and save.  I planned the whole thing."

Pretty Wife's bruised head began to spin.  What was he saying?  He had TRICKED her into stopping into the bank that day, all those long years ago? Her heart had still been broken then, after the loss of Deadboy, and she hadn't really even been interested in Consolation Husband, not like THAT. But he seemed so nice, so friendly, and she was lonely.  One thing had led to another, and before she knew it, she had married C.H.  Now she was beginning to understand why he'd been so suave, so charming, so debonair.

"No one will ever know what became of you, Pretty Wife.  You and Junior and I are about to disappear for good."

Pretty Wife knew she should be waxing fearful (after all, that's what a lady does in these types of situations), but she could feel the anger boiling within her heaving bosom.  This man was in for a fight. "Consolation Husband, how do you think you earned your name?  Do you really think you are breaking my heart?  You are CONSOLATION Husband.  You are the husband I accepted only after I lost the one I truly loved.  You see, another love, before your time, left my heart sad and blue.  You will not frighten me into submission.  If you only want to hurt me, there'll be no teardrops tonight."

Before Consolation Husband could react to Pretty Wife's sudden and unprecedented exhibition of strength, Rebecca the Sassy and Dan the Dry (who has, yet again, shown remarkable resolve and stamina and appears to have fully recovered from the earlier gunshot wound to his muscled, hairless chest) stormed into the front room.  The Dry tackled him from behind, as the Sassy caught Junior.  As the Dry began to wrestle C.H. to the ground, the gun flew up into the air, and fired.

A voice sounded in the room:  "I'm hit!"


by: AAB

[brief flashback]
Det. Rebecca the Sassy sat on the edge of the tub in Dr. Mom's master bath and pulled several highlighters and mechanical pencils from her pocket. She took out some 3x5 cards from her other pocket and set to work. Under the header of "DNA tests needed," she wrote the following:
1.      Who are the biological parents of Baby Heir.

2.     Is Det. Stranger Pretty Wife's lost love?        
Lost half-brother?        
Lost first-husband?

3.      Who are Det. Stranger's biological parents?

Under the header of "Possible Betrayal/Psychosis" she added:
4.      What has become of Det. Agent Dragnet?        
Where is he physically?        
Has he betrayed the Metro PD?

5.      What is up with the wacky (and of late violent) hijinks of Det. Stranger?        
Is he really amnesiac?        
Or even sane?

Lastly, she added a final column, "Legally binding relationships:"
6.      Who, if anyone, is married to Pretty Wife?

"Oops!" She realized almost too late she needed an entirely separate 3x5 just for Consolation Husband.

7.      What is his crime?

8.      What should be his punishment?

9.      Has he truly engineered all that has gone before?     
    What even is "all that has gone before?"

10.     Did he, as he told her only last week, truly love both her, Rebecca the Sassy, _and_ her little boy Leroy? And would he, as promised, take them both away from Town Falls once all of this was over?

She thought a moment longer, penned in the need to create a handy, color-coded timeline of events, and burst from the master suite's bathroom and into the living room, just in time (as we already know, gentle readers) to tackle C.H. with the help of Dan the Dry.

In the melee, there was a struggle, and in trying to wrestle the deadly weapon out of C.H.'s grip, the gun went off. Pleased with herself and her smooth disarming of a possible felon (if they could ever figure out the necessary charges), Det. the Sassy, in true Sassy-fashion declared with pride, "I'm [the] [s]h*t!"

...to be continued...


DISCLAIMER: This is entirely a work of parody and satirical fiction, and claims no affiliation with the Lifetime Network and remains the exclusive intellectual property of its respective authors at MBTV4Supalazy; AAB, TRVMB, JMG, and KLS. Posted by Neftzer (c) 2003